#but uhhh that'll be until next time sksksk

[kyoupann]

In the spirit of the holidays... How about Four celebrating Yuletide in Minish Village? I'm sure the Minish would have a lot of fun and unique traditions! And you could come up with fun traditional foods for them too. Roasted acorns! Mulled berry wine! Grilled seeds! There's lots of room for creative worldbuilding and warm, cozy wholesomeness. ☺️🥰 (What would Minish Village even look like, all covered in deep snow? Maybe they tunnel through it and build burrows in snowdrifts? :DD)

Technically speaking this was already written before requests were open, so it should’ve been one of first fics to come out. But sadly, this was one of the files that got lost during my pc reset so I had to rewrite it.

It’s not exactly what you asked for, but it’s still a Minish holiday I started planning at the beginning of December c: It’s technically pre-LU, so basically it’s just baby Four one year after the events of the Minish Cap! (:

With the first snowfall of the year just around the corner, Minish Village is bustling with energy. Little paws leave imprints in the faint layer of snowflakes covering the road. Link is surprised to see the little creatures running in and out of mushrooms and pots, carrying a variety of items: dry leaves, twigs, chipped metal, about anything that could be considered rubbish at first glance. Everything is being piled outside each house.

“What’s all this?” Link asks and points at a pile of pure metal scraps. Random bits of jewellery sticking from it

Chikari, the Minish sorting through the pile, perks his ears at the voice, immediately recognising it, “Oh, Hero! Hello, hello!” he greets, jumping to his feet as if his excitement couldn’t be contained in such tiny body.

“It’s for the Bells for Joy!” he shouts, extending his arms to the skies, a big grin adorning his face. “The best of my collection!”

The look on Link’s face must have given away that he had no idea what the Minish was talking about, earning a gasp from the little creature.

“Mr. Hero! You don’t say you don’t know what Bells for Joy is!”

That alone was enough to gain the attention of all the Minish in proximity. Now surrounded by excited and curious chirpings, Link feels his cheeks warm up in what he thinks is embarrassment but would rather like to blame on the cold.

“I’m afraid I don’t,” he admits, a nervous laugh escaping him.

What he thought would cause the Minish to feel bad actually puts an even bigger smile on their faces. Some of them even bumping shoulders and linking arms in signs of victory. Link is more confused than before.

“The snow makes it difficult for us to move around and hide goodies,” Chikari explains.

“That’s right! It’s so hard!” A Minish in the multitude shouts.

The other Minish shush him and Chikari continues, “we won’t be able to see you humans for two months. We have to store energy to last us that long!”

The crowd explodes, chanting gibberish in excitement.

“So we do a bunch of good stuff before the snow comes!”

The name still doesn’t make much sense to Link, but he still nods.

“so, what are the bells for?” he asks, pointing to the pair of bells attached to Chikari’s belt.

For the first time, he sees the little creatures go silent in contemplation. They look one another, asking silent questions and giving nods as answers.

“I guess, since you are already one of us, we can tell you!”

“Yeah, he should do it too!”

“Oh, I’m ready to head out to Hyrule Town,” Chikari says and turns to Link. “You could come with me and experience it yourself!”

The crowd cheers and all eyes turn to him, expectant and more excited than before.

Still confused, but with more information than when he arrived, Link agrees. The little creatures look ecstatic that he will be joining them, some of them even shoving most of the items from their own piles into their little sacks to head out as well.

--

The first house they visit they notice it has a hole in the ceiling, so they fix it as quietly as possible, which is not saying much with every Minish squeaking in excitement. In less than an hour, the hole is no more; it’s not perfect, but it’ll hold well until the owner can afford to repair it.

“Now comes the fun part,” Chikari says, the smile on his face barely allowing him to talk.

They are standing on the rafters, looking down at the main floor where the family is having lunch. Chikari unclips the bell from his belt and rings it vigorously. He  immediately hides behind the rafter, and when Link doesn’t do the same, he tugs him down with him. Chikari brings his index finger to his lips and cocks his head to the floor below.

“Mama, what was that?”

“Looks like we had a visitor while we weren’t home,” say the young woman at the head of the table.

The pair of children look up to where their mother points; where there used to be a hole, now was a sort of bird nest covering it.

“Haven’t I told you about the bell?” the woman slumps back on her seat and brings a hand to her chin as if trying to remember something, “you see that big bell in town? They say that something big will happen when Hyrule's bell rings."

The kids look at each other in surprise. They jump out of their seats and run to their mother’s side. Back on the rafters, Link finds himself mouthing the old legend along with the lady. Of course, the Minish would be behind this as well.

“Tell us more!”

She lets out a laugh and nods, “if you hear bells ring, look around and chances are that something good has happened,” she takes a moment to let the kids process the information, “it might be small, but it’ll be good. Now, if we get these small good things from small bells, imagine what would happen if that big bell rang.”

The children gasp, their minds starting to spiral into their own fantasies.

“It would rain Rupees!”

“We’d meet a Picori!”

“We’d get a dog!”

The mother laughs wholeheartedly, “that’s enough, go finish your food,” she lightly pushes them towards their seats.

Back on the rafters, Link’s mind is going through every memory of hearing the chime of bells at random times during the winter, and while he remembers many instances, he never made the connection between the sound and the favour. He can’t imagine himself being that oblivious anymore.

They spend the day going from house to house, fixing what needs fixing, and if there is nothing to fix, they leave one of the goodies from their sacks: rupees, kinstones, rings, pendants, screws, nuts; it all depends on what they think the owner would like, and then, they ring their bells and run to hide and watch their reactions.

Link notes how the Minish visibly vibrate with more excitement after each person they help; by the end of the day, they are hardly able to efficiently hide from the humans, clumsily tripping on their own tails while running away. It reminds him of kids who had just had too much sugar before bed.

As soon as they get back to Minish Village, they are met with trails illuminated by the faint glow coming from mushroom heads hanging from above. These replace the glowing flowers that would be otherwise up the rest of the year, but the increasing cold strips them from their life; they aren’t useless by any means, the Minish find use for them at the bottom of a little barrel, where they let them ferment with other leaves and berries until the first colours of spring paint the land.

It seems every Minish that had left that day is returning, and as they enter the village, they all line up to tie their bells to a string. Once the string is full with fifteen or so bells, they are tied to one of the many arches throughout the village, creating beautiful curtains of gold that dance and sing with the winter breeze.

And Link, with all the wonder and curiosity of a 9-years-old, can’t help but marvel at something so simple, yet so astoundingly pretty. The air is beginning to eat at his bones; still, he feels strangely warm inside. A pang of nostalgia echoes in his heart as he observes Minish dancing and skipping hand in hand to their homes; how he wishes Ezlo were there with him...

Chikari jumps on him, squeezing him into a crushing hug and bringing him out of his thoughts.

“I hope you can join us for the Ball of Bells!”

*****

Quotes from the Minish Cap that inspired this 2-part-holiday thingy:

"There's an old legend that something big will happen when Hyrule's bell rings." (I ignored the second part of this because I can)

“You see, we thrive on making humans happy. It gives us energy. But we only do it in secret!”

Also, my journal entry if anyone’s curious:

My conclusion: the Minish get fucking high on anonymity, pass it on.