Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Honey,” Malon called, “What are they doing?”

Time stopped drying the final dish from dinner and walked over to the window, looking around his wife’s shoulder. He then blinked, hard, and rubbed his eyes. Nope, they were still doing that.

“I think,” he began slowly, “they’re doing one of their ‘memes.’”

“Now is that a newfangled city word, or did I just sleep through a change in the language?” Malon asked, hands on her hips.

“No, no, no, I hadn’t heard of these before I met these kids.”

“Then what are memes?”

Time paused. “I don’t exactly know. They don’t follow a theme, really. There’s no pattern or timing to them. I was hoping you’d know what they were, you’re much better at this stuff than me.”

“Well then,” Malon decided, “give me some examples and I’ll see if I can parse ‘em.”

“Ok,” Time agreed. “Well, once Four and I were walking at the back of the group, and I handed Four one of my waterskins to fill up, because I know he’s responsible. But he just looked at me and said, ‘This bitch empty. Yeet!’ and then just chucked it as hard as he could forward.”

“Ooh, did he hit anyone?” Malon asked a bit too eagerly.

“Yeah, Wild. Lucky he did too, Wild deserved a good waterskin to the face after he scared us by purposely getting struck with lighting. If Four had hit Sky, he’d’ve been apologizing for weeks.”

“Did you say Wild got hit by lightning?”

“He was wearing rubber, he was fine. Twilight almost had a heart attack, but Wild was fine.”

“Few!” Malon wiped her forehead. “If I’d have lost my only cooking partner I’d’ve been distraught!”

“I can cook.”

“You can cook burnt eggs.”

“Touché. Anyways, another meme. Whenever any prank is done on Warriors, he blames Legend first, and Legend always responds with “I didn’t… hahahaha…. Unless.’ Warriors gets extremely angry when he does that.”

“Sounds like the captain needs better prank-proofing.”

“He does, especially since it’s never Legend who does the prank. It’s always Wind. Every time. It’s astonishing that he hasn’t caught onto this.”

“How is a guy so smart so fucking stupid?”

“I wish I knew.”

Time and Malon stood in silence for a bit before remembering what this conversation was about. “Oh, “ Time continued, “even Hyrule does memes. Once he and Twilight were scouting forwards and some enemies came from the other direction and attacked us.” At Malon’s worried look, Time quickly added, “it was like two bokoblins, it was fine.”

“Mmm…” Malon gave Time one of her looks . “Fine, but you boys are on thin ice.”

“So nothing changes.” Time deadpanned. Malon snorted. “Anyways, the two of them came back to see that we’d defeated them. And, just from nowhere, Hyrule just said, ‘well rip to them but I’m different,” and broke the whole camp.”

 “Did he? Him?”

“Yeah,” Time laughed at the memory, “that’s why it broke the camp, no one expected him to say that. Wild started crying, it was great.”

“Oh, bless him,” Malon beamed, “bless them all. You’ve found some good boys.”

“I don’t know if I should get the credit,” Time rubbed the back of his neck, “They kinda found me.”

“Yeah. Though I still have absolutely no clue what they’re doing outside.”

“Oh, yeah, memes. Well, so those are some of the memes the boys do,” Time finished. “Any ideas?”

“Hmmm…” Malon hummed. Suddenly a light appeared in Malon’s eyes. “Oh! So it's like when we were little and I would make fun of your shoes?”

“I… hold on. Yes. Yes, that’s exactly it,” Time said, slowly. “Gosh, Malon, this all makes so much more sense now.”

“Yeah, that really clarifies it for me too,” Malon smiles, returning to her kneading. Time returned to the dishes.

“...I still think my crocs were great.”

“Oh don’t you get me started on your lame ass crocs.”

Chapter Text

Marin was waiting outside of Ravio’s tent when he exited for the morning.

“Let’s go exploring,” she beamed, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Ravio frowned. “I haven’t eaten break-”

“I packed it!” She held up a basket.

“I- oh crap, what is that?”

“Quiche and fresh bread.”

It smelled phenomenal. “That is very tempting,” Ravio admitted, “but we’re kinda in the army. I don’t think we’re allowed to just leave.”

“Well, no one ever told me the army rules,” Marin shrugged. “It’s a real oversight on their part.”

Ravio gritted his teeth. Marin looked at him. “You won’t have to pay for the food.”

“I don’t have to pay for food here,” Ravio scoffed, starting to walk forwards. Marin grinned and grabbed his arm, directing him to the left.

“I wanna go see that Skyloft place,” she declared.

“Oh, that place does sound interesting,” Ravio nodded, “they said something about it being above the clouds.”

“Yes, and it never rains!”

“I like the rain though.”

“You and no one else,” Marin pouted. “Where I’m from, it never rains.”

Ravio blinked. “Never?”

“Never!”

“Well that can’t be good for the plants!”

Marin paused for a second as she scanned the area around the magic time portals or whatever Ms. General Impa had called them. “We’re clear. And I don’t know what you mean, the plants on Koholint are perfectly fine.”

Ravio stepped through the portal, grabbing his hood as the wind picked up tenfold. “Well, the plants need water, right? Where are they getting the water?”

They had arrived near a large lake at the edge of one of the floating islands. “I don’t know,” Marin shrugged, looking around, “nothing ever wilted or died, so.”

“Let's sit here,” Ravio decided. They sat down and Marin started to unpack their lunch. “None of the grass even died in the winter?”

“What’s winter?” Marin asked, taking a bite of bread.

“What’s winter- you know what, you’re from an island. You probably don't have winter. Give me some of that quiche.”

The two ate in silence for a short while. The bread and quiche was really good. Much better than their normal food from the army. Hang on.

“Marin, where did you get this?”

“Oh, Mask taught me how to sneak into the kitchens.”

“And he didn’t teach me ?”

Before Marin could respond, Sheerow made a small keening sound from where Ravio had thought he was asleep. “Oh, good morning, little bud-”

Sheerow’s keening was matched by a much larger chirping. Ravio whipped around to see the world’s largest bird landing right in front of him.

Marin’s eyes were wide with awe. “Oh…”

“Oh, oh, I don’t like this,” Ravio leaned away from the large bird. Sheerow, ever the traitor, flew straight up to the yellow thing and started fluttering around. The large bird extended its beaks slowly, trilling gleefully.

“It’s… a friend!” Marin beamed.

“Is it?”

“When have birds ever harmed you?”

“There’s a crow outside Link’s house who likes to peck me.”

“Oh.” Marin blinked. “That sucks.”

“Yeah. Those two seem to be getting along though,” Ravio admitted, watching sheerow and his new friend frolcik in small circles.

“Oh, there you two are!” Ravio turned to see the Captain, aka Link but if he had Ravio’s fashion sense, walking up to them. “Did you guys just come here for lunch.”

“Yeah,” Ravio nodded.

“You can’t do that,” the Captain sighed.

“No one told me that,” Marin popped up. “Quiche?”

“YES!” Mask popped out from- Ravio wasn’t sure where Mask came from, actually, but he snatched the quiche and devoured it in a second.

“Why are you here ?” The captain asked. “I told you not to come!”

“And that’s why I’m here!” Mask beamed.

The Captain sighed. “Let’s just go back.”

Ravio nodded and started helping Marin pack up. “Hey, Cap’n? Why didn’t you mention the giant birds in your report?”

“The Loftwings?” The Captain looked at Sheerow and the yellow Loftwing. “Did I not?”

“Nope.”

“You didn’t.”

“You sure fu-”

“You are not allowed to swear!” the Captain interjected before Mask could finish his sentence. Mask just grinned.

“Oh! That reminds me. Mask, can you teach me how to get food like this?” Ravio asked.

“Wait, how'd you get this food?”

“Of course!” Mask grinned evilly. Marin giggled.

“I hate you all,” the Captain groaned.

Chapter Text

Sky waited patiently as Wild talked to the man at the counter of the stable. Wind pet Wolfie, a feat that, from the look on Wolfie’s face, was only possible because Wolfie had decided this was a patient day.

“Thank you so much!” Wild smiled, starting to walk over to where the stable kept the horses.

“You ready to ride a horse?” Wind asked Sky.

Sky pondered the question. “I suppose? It’s weird that you can just ride any horse. If I tried to ride Zelda’s loftwing, well, he’d be nice to me, but he’d still fling me into the lake.”

“There’s like a bond?”

“Yeah. It’s weird to just be able to ride animals, with, like, no training.”

“Wild says it’s hard, but I get what you mean!” Wind nodded. “I’m a bit worried but more so because I’ve never really been close to one before.”

“Oh that’s very fair.”

“Alright guys!” Wild walked up with four horses. “Time to teach you guys how to ride!”

Sky blinked. “Um, Wild?”

“Yes?”

“Why are there four horses?”

“Why, the fourth one’s for Wolfie of course!”

The look Wolfie gave Wild was one of pure malice.

Wild scoffed. “Oh come on Wolfie, I pulled out His Lord of Darkness, Demon of Evil, Esq. for this!” Wild pointed at a giant creature, pitch black, towering over the other horses. It whinnied.

Wind’s mouth had not closed since Wild walked up with the horses. “Are all the horses going to get that big?”

“Oh no, Darky here is just special. She’s the sweetest too!” Wild grabbed his slate and started scrolling through it. “You can give her apples if I can find them…. Yes!”

Wild handed apples to each Sky and Wind. He tried to give one to Wolfie but that didn’t work.

“Just copy me,” Wild said, directing Wind to one of the normal sized horses. “You just hold the apple up…”

His Lord of Darkness, Demon of Evil, Esq. took the apple in one bite. As Wind tried to convince his horse to eat the apple, Sky decided to go back to the concerning first topic. “Wild?”

“Mm?”

“What did you mean when you said that horse is for Wolfie?”

“Oh, I taught Wolfie to ride horses back when I was saving the world.”

“Why?”

“Oh, well, I already had Princess of Light, Glorious Sky Rider, Inc. to ride around, she’s this pretty white one with the temper, so when I got Darky, I didn’t want to just leave him, and it wasn’t safe to just let him follow with no rope or anything. So I taught Wolfie to ride so both could come with me!”

Sky nodded sagely. “And wolves riding horses is normal?”

“Um, yes, for sure, obviously,” Wild said, you know, like a lier.

Sky met Wild’s eyes. They were very nervous. He looked at Wolfie, who seemed to be pleading with Sky to not accept Wild’s statement. But Sky did kinda wanna see Wolfie ride a horse. How did that even work?

“Sounds legit. Get on Darky, Wolfie.” All the hope in Wolfie’s body deflated.

“Do it, Wolfie!” Wind piped up, apple gone. “Do it, you won’t.”

Wild knit his hands together in a makeshift step next to Darky. “Get on the horse Wolfie.”

Wolfie looked at the three of them and sighed.

“WILD!” Warriors exclaimed, running over to the group from the camp. “Why is WOLFIE on a HORSE?”

“Because it’s cool as hell,” Wild explained.

“It’s so fucking cool,” Wind agreed.

“You have to admit it’s pretty neat,” Sky said bashfully.

“B-but, but you can’t!” Warriors fretted, hands waving. “Wolfie is a wolf!”

“So?” Wild cocked his head.

“I- I- augh! Time!” Warriors called, “come tell them to get Wolfie off this horse!”

Time walked slowly over to the group, taking it in. After a good ten seconds, he said, “This is pretty dope.”

“YES!”

“Noooooooo…”

Edit: Here's the art this is based off of by Wolf! Thank you Wolf for letting me include this!

Chapter Text

When Twilight woke up, he was oddly cold. 

“ Must be getting close to fall ,” he thought. It was hard to think around the cold and the constant whistling. A moment later, he realized, “ Wait, wasn’t I in the desert? ”

A couple more things clicked then. They’d been in a desert in Legend’s time. A portal had opened next to camp, Cub had pushed him into the portal like an asshole , and this whistling and chill was from a wind like the ones he’d felt when he was up in the sky. 

“If the Ooca are here I am going to perish,” he announced, eyes scrunched closed, to either the Ooca or no one at all. He pushed himself up and opened his eyes.

Twilight squeezed them back shut, turning his back to the wind. Shielding his eyes, he opened them again to see the bright green of grass being buffeted flat by the wind. Twilight sighed in relief. Not the Ooca. 

This definitely was a sky island though. If the winds didn’t prove it, the vast emptiness of the landscape beyond did. The sky was a glorious blue, slightly lighter than Wild and Wind’s tunics, not as cloudy as he remembers the City being. Twilight takes one step towards the edge, then stops and puts on his iron boots. Just in case. At the edge of the isle, if he squinted, he could see other rocks floating a long ways away which didn’t seem to have any propellers on them. Twi looked over the edge, but couldn’t see propellers here either. It must be magic then.

This wasn’t his world, he was sure. It was probably Sky’s, unless someone else had been holding out on the existence of natural sky islands. Which, he figured, was pretty likely, considering he’d never talked about his sky city and its denizens. 

Well, he was stuck here for the time being. Twilight spun around with a clomp from his boots. The island he was on was clear of trees, and seemed to slope downwards to his left. A short walk forwards revealed a short clifftop, dropping suddenly down.

The wind suddenly picked up, snatching Twilight’s wolf pelt and flinging it over the cliff. He snatched at it, but it fell quickly over the side.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Twi muttered as he ran as fast as he could down the slope next to the cliff. It took about 6 clomps before he realized that his boots were probably slowing him down. Ditching them, he actually ran down the rest of the hill before stopping short.

The base of the cliff curled in on itself, creating a small alcove sheltered from the wind. In the alcove was a bird, a huge bird, white and mahogany feathers interlaced with green and lavender ones. She moved with a delicate grace on large legs as she gently placed Twilight’s pelt into the large nest constructed of grass, vines, and leaves.

“Oh, wow,” Twilight breathes out loud. The bird’s head jolts in his direction, revealing a large curved beak. She makes a keening noise.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Twilight rushed, putting his hands up, “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He held a hand out. The bird cocked her head. “You must be a loftwing, right? Sky talks about you guys all the time. He says his is all red, though, so you must be someone else’s, huh.”

The bird met Twilight’s gaze. She was thinking something. He half wanted to turn into a wolf to talk to her, but figured that would absolutely terrify her, and that wasn’t really his goal here-

The bird pressed her beak into Twilight’s hand. He started. She rubbed her head against his hand like a cat. 

Twilight laughed. “I get it, I get it…” He started petting her head. “I rode something like you once. Up a river. It was… stressful.” The bird made a chortling sound. “And plus, it wasn’t really my idea, it just kinda happened- wait. Are you laughing at me?”

The bird pulled away, her wings shaking as she made a gurgling noise. “You are laughing at me!” Twilight scoffed. The bird just kept shaking.

All of the sudden a small squeak sounded from behind her, stopping her laughter. Twilight peeked around to see a small mound of feathers in the nest.

“By Ordona, is that…” The little ball of feathers squeaked again, a small beak popping up. Twilight’s mouth dropped open. “By Eldin, look at you!”

He gently walked over, sitting softly next to the delacate nest. The little chick blinked. It was mahogany, like its mother, but was just, so, so puffy. Twilight started to reach for it but before he could, the little fellow walked over and plopped himself in Twilight’s lap. It took all of his willpower not to squeal.

The larger bird just settled herself in the nest, keeping an eye on the two. Twilight started to pet the little baby in his lap. This was turning into one of the best days of his life, actually. He was completely stuck on this island but he wasn’t even that concerned. It wasn’t like he could move now, the little baby was asleep.

“Oh, there you are!” Twilight and the bird looked up from the baby to see that Sky and his loftwing had just landed on the island. “We were worried.”

“Be quiet, he’s sleeping,” Twilight shushed.

“Oh, sorry,” Sky shifted into a whisper. “Wild got really chewed out, by the way.”

“Good, he deserves it.”

Sky nodded. “Are you ready to head back?”

“I can’t, the baby’s asleep.”

“Oh yeah, moving the baby would be a crime,” Sky said seriously, dismounting his loftwing and walking to sit next to Twilight. “Guess we’re staying here.”

“Guess we are.”

Chapter Text

Legend sighed, rolling his shoulders as he rested against the wall of the campus center. As always, he was there on time, and his friends were late. This happened every time they ever made any plans. Mountain hike? Woops, Wild accidentally cooked a five course breakfast. Shopping? Wars took an hour putting on makeup. Coffee? Twi’s dog ate a plate of brownies and he had to call animal control. Sometimes Legend wondered how his friends were succeeding in college.

Today, he, Sky, and Hyrule were supposed to go get lunch. They had made this plan 3 full days ago. It was now 12:14, and neither of them had shown up. He was betting Sky overslept, but he had no idea where Hyrule was. He was the only one who managed to be on time more than 80% of the time (which, with Hyrule’s tendency to get lost, really spoke of his other friend’s habits).

“Legend!” Legend looked over to see Sky, bundled up in a new knit scarf that must’ve been from his girlfriend, rushing over. “Sorry I’m late; I got us some coffee but the line was really long.”

“Sky, we are going to lunch.”

“Oh.” Sky looked at his armful of drinks. “Right. I got you chai.”

“Did you? Oh I love chai hand it over.” Legend snatched the cup Sky held out towards him and took a sip. Sky shifted the other two cups around before taking a sip of one.

“Do you know where Hyrule is?”

Sky blinked, looking around. “Is he not here yet?”

“Nope.”

“I thought he’d have beaten both of us here to be honest.”

“Yeah, I’m really confused.”

“Maybe he got lost in the arts building again?”

“Gosh, I bet you’re right. Why would he even be in the arts building?”

“Well, it wouldn’t have been on purpose.”

Legend and Sky continued to chat for a while. As the minutes went by, Legend continued to check his watch. He was just starting to get concerned when it hit 12:30.

“He hasn’t responded to my texts,” Sky was saying when all the sudden, Hyrule appeared from around the corner wearing what Warriors would describe as the world’s worst outfit.

“Sorry guys,” he panted, “I didn’t think that would take as long as it did.”

“Hyrule,” Legend asked, looking his friend’s white outfit up and down, “what are you wearing?”

“Um, well-”

“Oh!” Sky realized, a lightbulb practically appearing above his head, “is that a fencing uniform?”

“Yup!” Hyrule beamed. “Remember how I joined the fencing club at the beginning of this semester?”

“Yeah,” Legend and Sky nodded.

“Well, the tourney was today, and I kinda thought that I wouldn’t do great so I told you guys I could do twelve, right?”

“So you did good?” Sky asked.

“Yeah, um, I won, technically. Last match was at twelve and I didn’t get the chance to text you guys-”

“You won ?” Sky gasped. “You just started!”

“Yeah, coach said I was pretty good but no one really expected me to win,” Hyrule said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Glad to know that with this, too, you’re a natural,” Legend laughed, clapping Hyrule on the back. “Now let’s get you into a real outfit, huh?”

Chapter Text

“I want to cast Conjure Woodland Beings.”

Dot pointedly annoyed the reactions of the other three boys sitting around her and looked Green straight in the eyes. “Well, ok. What do you want to summon?”

“...I hadn't thought that far,” Green admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Take your time!” Red smiled. Vio sighed, not looking up from his book.

“You had a full round to decide this!” Blue exclaimed.

“I’m sorry,” Green responded, flipping through the monster manual, “I only decided this after the boss called in all the little gremlin guys-”

“Kobolds,” Dot interjected.

“After the kobold reinforcements arrived, I figured we needed some backup!”

“I think we’re doing perfectly fine,” Blue scoffed.

“Red is on ten health,” Vio said flatly.

“I don’t need hp!” Red quickly says, “I still have my spell slots so it’s ok!”

“That is not how-”

“Guys we are not arguing over this right now,” Dot almost yelled. The boys shut up, except for Green, who was flipping through pages.

“Found it! I’ll summon 8 of these little plant monsters.”

“Ooh what’s it look like?” Red asks, clearly more excited than anyone else in the room.

With a grin, Green exclaims, “I raise my sword into the sky-”

“Green you don’t have a sword you’re a druid.”

Green blinks. “I raise my shillelagh to the sky, and it crackles with magical energy as the ground around my bursts with life and 8 Deku Babas sprout up around me!”

“Cool,” Dot nods, looking at her own monster manual, “Green summons 8 Deku Babas to help defeat the kobolds, they’ll go on the kobold’s turn so they can just duke it out. Blue, what do you do.”

“Well I gotta one up Green-”

“I’m trying to help!”

“Yeah and looking cool’s a bonus. I also want to look cool, so I’m gonna pull one of my racial abilities.”
“Oh, you’re digging deep,” Vio commented flatly.

“I am. Since I’m playing a water genasi, I’m going to cast Create Water at 2nd level, summoning 20 whole gallons of water in a large wave around me.”

“I don’t think that’s enough water to do that.”

“I’ve spread it really thin for the aesthetic.”

“I’ll allow it,” Dot nods. “So Blue, what do you do with the water?”

“Look cool as hell.”
“...do you attack?”

“No.”

Dot took a large breath in. “Alrighty then. Vio, it’s your turn. What are you going to do?”

Calmly, Vio inserted his bookmark into his book, closed it, and placed it gently next to his character sheet. He sat up straight, stretching his arms in front of him. He looked Dot dead in the eyes. “Dot, you’ve known me for most of my life now.”

“This is true.”

“What do you think I’m going to do?”

Dot smiled. “You’re going to heal Red.”

“I am going to heal Red, because the other 3/4s of myself decided to make their characters fucking twigs , and because I did not want to see us fail when none of us had more than 100 health, I decided to play the cleric.”

Blue scoffed. “Well I can punch things like, super well so who’s the real winner here?”

“WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE A TEAM -”

“And you yelled so loud all the monsters died,” Dot exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air. “That’s the end of today’s session, I need to go figure out why I decided to do this, I should have known it would go like this.”

“I thought we were doing good?” Red asked.

“You’re doing pretty well,” Vio admitted, but we, as a whole, are doing extremely bad.”

“Exactly,” Dot nodded, “So I’m going to bed. Goodbye and I’m taking all the cookies.”

Ignoring the cries of dismay from the boys, Dot grabbed the plate of cookies and bolted.

Chapter Text

“I do love the snow,” Twilight beamed, slowly working his way through the fallen snow on the shallow mountainside.

“You know what I love?” Wind drawled from slightly ahead of Twilight, “A nice warm meal to get the bitter frost of this horrible place out of my veins before they freeze.”

“We’ll get stew once we find Flora. Wild said she was doing something important for the Rito on this mountain. Until then, why don’t you just enjoy the outdoors?”

As if summoned, a brisk wind rolled down the mountainside, causing Wind to hunker over, scowling. “I enjoy the outdoors. This isn’t the outdoors, it’s a badly disguised torture device.”

“Speaking of,” Sky piped up, pulling his borrowed overcoat closer to his body, “traveling with you all has really allowed me to discover a bunch of things I never would have seen if I’d have stayed in my time. Like all this snow.”

“You’ve never seen snow? Wind asked, carefully walking backwards above the snow with his borrowed snow shoes. “I’m from the tropics and even I've seen snow.”

“None of the places on the surface are cold enough for snow, and Skyloft, though cold at night, is above the cloud layer so we never see precipitation. We have to go get water from the storms in the Thunderhead.”

“Thunderhead?” Twilight asked.

“It’s a large thunderstorm in the sky. If you know how to fly through it safely it’s extremely pretty.”

“You’ll have to show me when we make it back to your world.”

“I’ll pass,” Wind called, “these snowshoes are much cooler than any storm anyways.”

“But yeah, this is the first snow I’ve ever seen,” Sky said sincerely, “and it’s just amazing to think that I could have lived my whole life without even knowing snow existed.”

“So?”

“Hm?”

“You like it?”

“Oh I fucking hate it.”

“What?” Twilight startled.

Sky scowled. “It’s a pain to walk in, it sticks to all of my clothes, it’s heavy, and it got into my boots about five steps into this search and now my feet are ice cubes. It’s a demon in disguise I am certain.”

“Finally, someone with sense!” Wind declared, throwing his hands in the air. “Snow is horrible, Twi, you’re outvoted. Now where is Flora?”

“I think the path splits here,” Sky mused, “we could go left or right.”

Twilight closed his eyes. Yeah, she’d gone right, he could tell with his wolf powers. Unfortunately, he couldn’t use that as a reason since both Sky and Wind didn’t know he was Wolfie. Luckily, he had a backup plan.

“We should go right.”

“Why?”

“You know how the easiest way to solve a maze is to stick to the right wall? That.”

“Oh great idea!” Sky nodded, “That’s how I always solve mazes.“

“I’ve never heard of that,” Wind frowned.

“Well, we just taught you a new trick,” Twilight declared, heading right.

“If you stick to the right wall in the ocean, it doesn’t work,” Wind complained, following.

Twilight rolled his eyes. “Someone’s in a bad mood.”

“Are you not?” Sky asked. “I feel horrible, I’m just good at keeping the pain inside.”

“I’m not, so you’re going to have to deal with me complaining about this shit ass weather condition.”

Twilight stopped and threw his hands in the air. “If you two both hate the snow so much, why did you come?”

Wind and Sky paused to think. Sky tilted his head. “Comic relief?”

“This is real life!”

“I think I see her!” Wind exclaimed, freeing them from the bad conversation ~~the writer~~ they’d gotten into. They hustled over to the pile of color sitting on the ground. Flora was adorned in a thick pink winter tunic and was surrounded by piles of shields in all shapes and sizes. The top half of her mittens were buttoned back to reveal fingerless gloves as she typed away on her Sheikah Slate.

“Hello Miss Flora,” Sky smiled. Flora started, looking around frantically before her gaze settled on the trio.

“Oh hey,” she smiled, “long time no see. Where’s Link? Well, my Link. You know what I mean.”

“He’s making stew and letting us freeze up here,” Wind complained.

“Oh yes, I adore stew! Luckily,” she declared, getting up and starting to put the shield piles away, “I was up here researching shield durability in relation to shieldsurfing, so we can just surf our ways down.”

“I think we should just walk it,” Twilight objected.

Wind snorted. “I think you’re a stick in the mud.”

“Listen, there’s a large pit at the bottom of this hill and two of you haven't shieldsurfed before. It’s too risky for first timers.”

“There’s so much room to stop before the pit, they’ll be fine, I think,” Flora posited, having finished putting away the shields. “And it’ll cut travel time by 90%.”

“It’s not that long a walk anyways.” Twilight shook his head, turning around. “We are walking back to Rito Village and that is final.”

“Oh, so you’re a coward?”

Twilight froze, turning slowly to face Flora. “I’m sorry?”

Flora smirked. “You heard me.”

“Oh shit ,” Wind whispered.

“I’ll have you know,” Twilight started, “that I have, in fact, snowsurfed before.”

“Have you.”

“I have. I have also jumped pits deeper than the one right next to use.”

Flora spared a glance at the cliffside before scoffing. “You’ve jumped pits deeper than the Hebra Plunge and yet you’re too chicken to surf down now.”

“I’m not too chicken,” Twilight scoffed, “I’m just sparing you the disgrace of watching me smoke you all on the way down.”

Flora snorted. “You think you could beat me in a race ?”

“I’ve beaten Yeti’s in snowsurfing races and they invented the sport.”

“Yeti, smeti.” Flora whipped out her Sheikah Slate, twirling it around in her hand before displaying the screen to Twilight. “Straight down from here, bear left through Rospro Pass, first one into the Lodge wins.”

“Sounds easy. It’s on.”

“Bring it wolf boy.”

Flora swiped through her slate before pulling out a gorgeous bejeweled shield and throwing it to the ground. Twilight unslung his shield from his back and placed it in the snow. He pointed at Sky. “Count us down.”

Sky blinked. “I- um, ok. Starting on go, three, two, one, GO!”

Twilight and Flora took off, spraying Sky and Wind with a nice fine layer of snow. Sky slowly wiped the snow off his face, blinking heavily. “What did she mean by wolf boy?”

“I don’t really care,” Wind exclaimed, “because how the fuck are we supposed to get down?”

  --------------

Flora, Twilight had to admit, was really good at snowsurfing. Sheildsurfing. Whatever.

She’d gotten slightly ahead of him with a skillful start, and though he’d quickly reconciled the differences between controlling a slab of ice and his shield, he hadn’t been able to catch up. It didn’t help that Flora was skillfully using her Slate to stop any obstacles he would've had to move around. She’d never said that was against the rules so he could only be a little salty.

They rounded the turn into Rospro path, and Twilight spotted his way into the lead in the form of a small snowbank off to his left about 20 seconds in front of him. He quickly veered to the side of the trail, crouching down to reduce drag. He adjusted his angle just so and jumped.

Twilight had long ago mastered the art of the jump. Yeto and Yeta’s house lay surrounded by large canyons so deep you couldn’t see the bottom. He’d been so dedicated to beating both of them in a snowsurfing race that he’d spent ages practicing perfect aerial control in order to cut across the large canyon halfway through the race. His reward for beating them was a heart piece and a lot of pride. Also when he did kickflips for the kids they said he was swag.

Flora looked over her shoulder just in time to see Twilight coming in for a landing. She shrieked, taking a hard left to avoid the collision, allowing him to pull ahead. He grinned, looking at the path in front of him. There! He saw the small hut over to the left side of the path and angled directly towards the door.

He glanced back to find Flora. She’d recovered very well and was right on his tail. She was also holding the Shiekah Slate up towards his shield. Now luckily for Twilight, Twilight had traveled with Wild for a very long time, and therefore knew many of his clever tricks because they’d been used on him. Constantly. He hated it. Unluckily for Twilight, he knew Flora was going to stasis his shield and he couldn’t do anything to stop her.

Right before reaching the door of the hut, Twilight heard the ding of stasis activating, and made the split second decision to push off his shield to try and at least reach the hut before he hit the ground. Flora, unbeknownst to him, had decided to cut around Twilight to get into the hut without breaking through the walls.

As she cut in front of him, Twilight full on tackled Flora through the doorway of the Hebra Trailhead Lodge. They rolled across the floor before coming to a stop in the middle of the room. A second later, with a small ding, Twilight’s shield flew into the room, bouncing off the back wall and landing on the floor next to the duo.

Flora and Twilight sat up. He readjusted his wolfskin while Flora slowly picked up the shield.

She turned to him. “Draw?”

“Draw.”

EPILOUGE

“Wild, this stew is delicious,” Flora said. Twilight, mouth full of stew, nodded in agreement.

“Thanks!” Wild smiled bashfully, scratching the back of his neck. “Um, actually, I was wondering, where are Sky and Wind?”

“Here.”

Twilight and Flora looked over and gulped. Sky and Wind looked like they were freezing. They also looked like they were pissed. Wind slowly popped off his snowshoes and handed one to Sky, who shifted his grip on it so that he was holding the handle like it was a club.

“Did you know,” Sky’s voice was sickly sweet, “that it started storming after you two left? It’s really snowing out there now. But you wouldn’t know that. Because you ran off and left us behind.”

“And that’s our cue to run.” Twilight jumped up, grabbing for Flora’s hand to find she had already gotten up and started sprinting away. “Wait for me!”

As the four of them ran off to cause some chaos, Wild just sat there with his stew staring after them. He shook his head. “They’ll be fine.”