Work Text:
It didn’t look right.
He couldn’t quite say why, or how, until he stepped back, stood on a certain rock at just such an angle, and squinted at it again. The entrance, from this angle, was ever so slightly asymmetrical.
Only a little bit, but all the same, it had a decided lean that rankled as he studied it. He circled the structure, trying to determine where, and when, the wobble had entered into the woven fronds that formed the start of a doorway. Depending on where it was, he could either focus on perfecting the frame of the doorway, or else be forced to start it anew.
“Everybody’s first attempt is clumsy,” people in the village would say. Perhaps for most people it would be true.
But not for Revali.
He couldn’t settle for anything short of perfection.
…Though he’d reworked it enough times, by this point, that it could not truly be counted as a first attempt.
The fault lay about halfway up on the left hand side, which was far enough down that he could feasibly attempt to repair it without dismantling the rest. He studied it, wondering whether it would be acceptable to only attempt to fix it from the point where the flaw he’d identified began. After all, there was every chance that he would start correcting it, only to find that he’d inadvertently misidentified the flaw, and the true fault had some deeper cause. And yet…
Yet the prickling feeling of urgency was upon him again. He had to fix it, and soon. Overhead, shadows wheeled and swooped. Some of them were small enough to only be the silhouettes of gulls against the wide expanse of sky. Some were larger.
He tensed, staring at the circling form of a challenger high overhead, brown and cream wings standing out stark against the sky. The wingspan was too broad to belong to anyone but another Rito. Revali watched with caution. There was every likelihood that the figure overhead would spot him, recognise him, and choose to find some other place, recognising this one as being beyond their ability to claim. That would be the sensible thing to do.
But instead, they continued to circle, and then they started to dip into a slow, careful dive.
A mistake. Normally, the skies gave the upper hand: to many a challenger, the benefits of height and wind combined to ensure that they could, if they chose, command a significant advantage. But Revali was not most Rito. Revali reached for his Gale and lauched himself skyward, a shriek of rage tumbling from his throat. This was his spot, and he was not going to concede it to an upstart whose strategy for bower-building consisted of trying to spook someone else out of a prime location.
If that was the route they planned to take, they could try it on somebody far less skilled or alert than him.
For a challenger, they proved quite the coward. Once Revali demonstrated, most ably, that he had a superior command of the sky, he swiftly harried them out of his territory the way that common sense dictated a sky-holding interloper usually would. It only went to show that he’d claimed this spot fairly, and defended it well. It was a good spot, and one that he in no way intended to concede.
Even if the soil was discomfortingly loose and sandy beneath one’s feet. He’d had to spend more time than he cared to on weaving strips of palm leaves into mats to line the floor of the bower, though they’d been a definite improvement.
Still, he circled his island until satisfied that the disappearing figure was indeed in full retreat. Sometimes, after all, people would feign the loss, only to double back as soon as the defending territory-holder’s guard had dropped. But Revali had soundly defeated their confidence, and sent them packing. They wouldn’t be bothering him again.
…….It was just as well, he realised, when he landed back on that same rock. The bower hadn’t withstood the swirling column of his Gale, and the lean of the doorway had become so pronounced as to now sag. Half of the left wall was completely blown away, as well.
That solved his quandary, at least. Fixing the entire thing was indeed the better course of action. It was preposterous that he’d even considered otherwise.
Hours later, the entrance was looking considerably improved and Revali was circling the bower again, scrutinising it for any sign of a flaw. This time, there was none. It was, indeed, perfect.
Which was to say, it was adequate enough. It would suffice, at least. He stepped inside and looked at the roof, the thick waxy leaves which he’d successfully corralled into some form of order, and was satisfied that they would keep any rains at bay.
Somewhere close by, a twig snapped under somebody’s foot. Revali stepped to the entrance and looked outside.
A pair of blue eyes, framed by the colour of golden sands, stared back at him.
Revali tilted his head, regarding the approaching figure. This wasn’t, necessarily, an intruder, or at least he didn’t think so. Though it remained to be seen if…
He took a step outside the bower, shaking his wings out. He knew just what effect the rays of the setting sun would have on them, the way the light would catch and shift across the surface of his feathers in brilliant iridescence. His plumage was to be envied. Few could boast such a depth of hue and lustre, though the figure approaching him mustered an attempt at an answer.
The sun caught on gold and turned it to fire, most appealingly.
The approaching figure stopped short of him. His eyes, blue as midday sky, looked at Revali like they were trying to decipher him. Which just meant that Revali surely had to do something to prove himself as a prospect, right?
Except he wasn’t sure how to do that.
He settled for circling the man, head canted to one side. The bower had to count for something, right? He’d built it well; there were no irregularities to be found. Someone would have to be very picky indeed to overlook the painstaking effort that had gone into it.
But as Revali circled him, he didn’t seem like he intended to give any form of answer.
Agitated, Revali moved a step away. He tipped his head further to the side–though the man hadn’t answered him, neither had he left, so there was still every chance that he might…
Might what?
As if this person had acknowledged any effort of Revali’s in the past.
And yet Link’s head tilted in an unmistakeable answer. Enough that Revali felt a fresh stirring of confidence, aided by the way Link leaned towards him…
When morning spilled its light across the surface of the sea, the rising dawn pulling Revali with it and gradually illuminating the bare-shouldered (and bare…. most everywhere) Hylian tangled up in his wings, Revali looked at the situation anew, and thought:
….Ah.