Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tired.

Tired was how Link felt nowadays. Hell, it was what he felt at all now all together currently, due to his refusal to grant his body the rest it required. But it didn’t matter how much his body ached. Even with every step he took his feet panged with soreness, his leg muscles sometimes spasming in misery, and his lungs throbbed on any occasion of too much physical work being done in a specific amount of time. Utter misery was how he was feeling. 

Nonetheless, whatever or however he was feeling, it wasn’t significant enough for him to stop his journey. Besides, it was only rightful that he suffered. Every single ache, strain, pang of agony, he deserved it all. It was his punishment, after all. 

Why? Because Link was something he swore to never be again: A complete and utter failure. That’s who he truly was now, a true disappointment. Link, the Hero of Hyrule, chosen by the Goddess Hylia herself, Knight of Princess Zelda, who had knighted him herself in front of the four champions, was a failure. 

And this was not the first time he had completely fallen short on his duty, because some years prior, the same exact thing had happened, albeit the details slightly differing. An ancient evil with powers incomprehensible to mortals had awoken, lashing out and spreading its corruption and poison throughout the entirety of Hyrule. A corpse had summoned some sort of black reddish sludge, and commanded it to attack the Hylians. It had lashed out at both him and Zelda when they had first encountered it, making a beeline towards Zelda, and almost killing her, were it not for Link to swipe the darkness away with a mighty swing from the Master Sword.

Well, it was less of a mighty swing, and more of a panicked swipe, as Link did not foresee the speed of the dark sludge. To make matters worse, using the Master Sword on the blackened gunk had worked for roughly five consecutive seconds. Afterwards, the sludge had instead decided that Link was its new target, swirling around and proceeding to consume the entire blade itself, as if the power that held it back moments before did not even exist. 

Yet it did not cease its attack there, as the sword was swallowed in reddish darkness, the goop continued onwards, creeping up the hilt and onto Link’s own hand, then enclosed his entire arm.

Fire. As soon as it made contact with his skin… It felt like his entire arm was on FIRE. Soaking into his skin through every single pore, the darkness began to drain Link’s very essence. He tried to not scream, but failed almost instantaneously as he could feel his own life force, energy, even his own soul felt like they were being drained straight out of his person. 

And when it had finally released him from its wretched grasp, there was no relief, no loss of pain, no dampening of the stabbing sensation. A single glance at the affected limb showed the damage that had been done. Where was the damage? In reality, the more appropriate question would be where hadn’t the damage been? His entire right arm seemed to be permanently stained dark from the evil power, drained of all life that was once there.

But the pain ceased abruptly. Because of the pain suddenly stopping for a few moments, Link had foolishly hoped that his body was finally beginning to fight back, resisting this corruption! But he soon realized that the cause for the lack of pain was because the dark sludge had decomposed too much of his entire arm, to the point of the pain receptors rotting and dying almost immediately when in contact with the darkness, unable to scream warnings of harm or danger to his brain. Every feeling or sensation in his arm just… stopped. 

The shock and horror had to be put on an abrupt halt, due to the sludge rearing itself upwards, no doubt about to attack them both again. But even with his decaying limb, Link managed to summon enough sheer willpower to force his arm to rear back, and had given one last valiant swing at the sludge, desperate to defend his Princess. 

And the sword broke. 

The Master Sword, imbued with a godlike power in its blade, shattered into a hundred pieces, as if it was made of simple glass. And this time, the sludge didn’t rear back in pain, no, it was completely unharmed. 

Although, one shard, the tip, had flown past, slicing into the strange mummy that commanded the sludge, and cut into its cheek. A shard from the Master Sword had only been able to cause the equivalent of a paper cut. 

“You… who carries that fragile sword… are Link.”

It knew his name. 

It KNEW his NAME. 

Instead of immediately attacking again, the mummy proceeded to taunt them. Taunt them. Mocking him for his failure to defeat evil again, and failing to protect Zelda. 

“And that was all you could do?”

Even worse, it was not even amused at his failure. Admittedly, it almost sounded like the living corpse was more insulted at Link’s weakness, and the jeer was more out of pure disgust at the lack of strength. Even as Link considered that it couldn’t get worse than this, it had simply unleashed its dark power on the chamber, the castle, Hyrule itself had been very rapidly infected by this unknown force. 

Link and Zelda were given no time to recover, or react to the current situation, for when the great beam of the sludge was shot into the ceiling, the entire room had shook, and the floor itself gave way beneath all three of them, sending the trio into the darkness. 

Zelda had barely any time to let out a scream of terror, reaching out to Link, who dived after her, hell bent on not failing again by grabbing her hand.

He missed. He’d failed. 

Again.

The last he saw of Zelda was her plummeting into blackness, then suddenly disappearing into… light? He didn’t understand, but she didn’t hit the floor as a limp corpse, so it was probably the best outcome in this particular scenario of falling to their doom.

But it was when he had woken up that his sanity was tested. He had woken up, dazed, exhausted, and confused about where he was, or what was happening. The only thing he was able to hold onto was some sort of mysterious voice telling him that he had been defeated, and his arm had rapidly decomposed so much that it actually needed to be replaced, the replacement being the voice’s arm from the tomb before. So the “gloom” had literally rotted his arm off, the only plus to Link was that he was unconscious when his arm had presumably sloughed off. He’d gagged at the thought. 

But when he had stared at his blade, he’d almost let out a cry of horror. Could it have even been called a sword anymore? It had also decomposed due to the gloom, to the point that after it had shattered, black stains remained on the shards of the blade that were still somehow attached to the hilt, it wasn’t even the master sword at this point. A club would be a more useful weapon than… than this. 

When the supposed “First King of Hyrule” had introduced himself and helped guide him to the outside of the cavern, he had found himself in a new land completely unfamiliar to him, yet somehow this premise had seemed familiar. It hadn’t been until he had been instructed by Rauru to enter four “trials”, which had trials which would help him regain his stre-

And then it hit him. It was the same thing. All of what was happening, this scenario, it was all too familiar to the Hylian.

It was another Calamity. It was just another damn Calamity, wasn’t it? An ancient evil rising from the castle, Princess Zelda waiting for Link at the castle, calling to him, waking up in a mysterious place he’d never seen before, his sword being damaged as he fell to life threatening injuries due to his failure to protect his princess. And Hyrule itself had been affected too, each of the four major parts of Hyrule with the Zora, Rito, Gerudo, and the Gorons were all under threat of some sort of plague as an effect of The Demon King’s influence.
Even the shrines were back. The damned Sheikah- Sorry, “Zonai” Shrines were scattered all throughout Hyrule, as post calamity, the shrines and towers had sunk back into the ground as they had served their purpose. These “new” shrines had similar challenges and fights just like the sheikah ones, and even had orbs that Link had to collect to regain his strength. 

The realization of him being back at square one gave him an inexplicable urge to vomit on the spot, for it was just all too much for his mind to take. Every struggle in the past, every Divine Beast saved, every freed Champion assisting his attack on Calamity, every guardian struck down…

All for absolutely nothing. He had to just do it all over. Why? Why did he have to do this again? He already completed this journey, Hylia damn it! Could this evil even be defeated? His Master Sword was gone! People were losing hope again…

Maybe once upon a time, he would have considered defeat, or given up hope, but not now. Not when Zelda was needing him. 

Zelda was… everything to him. He had friends, yes, but in this new world, she was the only thing he could hold onto, to keep him sane. Her smile, her comforting calming presence, even when he had lost his memory, she never judged him, or looked down on him. So he’d push forward, hope or no hope. 

And when he finally began to believe that he was getting the hang of things…

Then the hands appeared.

They first appeared when Link had been instructed by Purah to pay a visit to The Rito Village, something about the weather being strange, Link hadn't been listening, excluding the part where Zelda had allegedly been spotted. The very mention of his princess spurned the knight into action.

His method of transportation had been a makeshift auto moving wagon, made from zonai devices slapped onto a few planks. He hadn’t wanted to risk taking Blueberry into uncharted terRitories, not after the so-called "upheaval" turning Hyrule inside out, the sweet horse had been through enough during the Calamity. So, he opted to use a zonai machine. 

For once it seemed things were actually going somewhat smoothly when he was traveling, and little to no monster activity or Yiga clan members.
Then the entire area he was in went dead silent. Every sound was completely gone, the chirping of birds, chittering of insects, croaking of frogs, everything was quiet. His gut screamed warnings that something was wrong, but what? Why had everything vanished from sight?

At that moment, a pile of the abominable gloom material had emerged from the green field, and at first, Link had no idea what it was. Was it how the openings in the ground were created? Was he about to witness one appear right in front of him? No doubt some of the Sheikah Scientists would have been interested, if that had been the situation. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been what Link had theorized. 

He’d made a mistake by disembarking his vehicle to inspect it closer. While it had been a writhing pile of dark mass, it hadn’t moved towards him or done anything, so he assumed it had been safe to cautiously approach. 

Suddenly, a bizarre stem-like object not unlike a plant stalk had sprouted out from the sludge. 

Then two. 

Then three.

Four. 

Five.

Hastily abandoning the original idea of inspecting it up close and personal, Link withdrew back to his vehicle, hopping onto the wooden body, fully prepared to punch it into maximum speed if the weird gloom plants made any undesirable moves.

Upon first glance, the bizarre heads of the plants suggested that they were perhaps flowers? All of the “flowers” rotating to face him gave him pause, his curiosity overriding his caution. What were they?

Curled fingers opening up caused Link to recognize that the “plants” were not plants at all, but arms, with the “flower” being the hand. A yellowish reptilian eye was settled on the palm of each individual hand.
That definitely was not normal.

When the hands had spotted Link, they screeched.

Everything went to hell then. 

Blue peaceful skies suddenly turned blood crimson, clouds had shifted from idly moving to suddenly shifting and twisting in unnatural ways. Link had frozen from terror on the spot, struggling to comprehend everything at once, the hands, the clouds, it was almost overloading his brain.

He managed to snap himself from his fear induced stupor due to spotting the gloom hands as they had lunged towards him, the gloom pile somehow SLIDING on the ground. Fight or flight had returned, but Link was no coward. He was Link! He had faced Calamity Ganon! He’d freed the Divine Beasts! He’d saved Hyrule!

Link ran. Terrifying flashbacks of the sludge tentacles when he was with Zelda under the castle. memories  of the gloom sinking into his flesh had returned in full force, causing his survival instinct to kick in. To let these things even near him… no, he had to get away as far as physically possible. 

Terror swelled in his chest, completely dominating any guilt or shame for fleeing as he climbed onto the vehicle, his hands shaking as he grabbed the steering stick and urged it to go forwards along the road, hopefully far, far away from these… gloom hands. 

Tires kicking up dirt as his vehicle accelerated away, Link risked a glance behind him to see if the hands were still pursuing him. But to his surprise, they had vanished. Eyes desperately scanning the field, Link found himself unable to pinpoint the location of the hands. 

Something clamping around shoe caused him to dip his head down to investigate, only to view the horrifying visage of the gloom hands underneath his vehicle. Arms had shot out, jamming the tires to prevent any further locomotion whilst the free arms greedily lunged towards Link. 

He'd thrown himself off in a last ditch effort to escape, and when he moved to sprint away to a nearby boulder, one of the closer limbs stretched itself, snagging a bare ankle. 

The burning was not unlike the sludge in the castle. Now engulfed in hysterical panic, Link let out a cry of terror and agony as the ever so familiar sensation of gloom eating away at his very body made itself known. 

He'd barely escaped via throttling his entire body around in panicked thrashing, ripping himself from the hand’s grasp and hauling himself towards the rock and immediately vaulted up to the top with a speed that had surprised even himself. 

Thankfully the hands appeared to struggle with vertical surfaces, as they seemed unable to reach the top of the rock, despite them stretching and twisting themselves as much as physically possible. Even if they were unable to reach Link, they saw fit to not leave immediately, and instead hovering around the boulder, screeching and hissing angrily at the terrified Hylian, who had been perched on top. 

Blessedly, after what seemed like an eternity of waiting, the hands retreated back into the ground, letting out a final defiant screech as they sunk into the soil. Red skies returned to their normal baby blue, and the clouds had slowed to a snail’s pace as if nothing had happened. 

Everything had changed after that event. Link found himself unable to sleep normally now, his mind constantly alert at the possibility of the gloom hands sprouting out of the ground to tear him limb from limb whilst he slept. It also didn’t help that night terrors started in full force every time he tried to sleep.

Nightmares of the gloom hands lunging towards his immobile body, claws digging into his skin, eyes, mouth, and skull as they spread their curse through his body. He was unable to scream as his arms, legs, torso, then head slowly rotted to the bone, flesh sloughing off and his bones collapsing into a pathetic pile. 

Now he was completely powerless from nightmares dominating his mind, which had induced violent screaming and thrashing in his sleep. It had gotten so bad that Inn or horse stable employees had asked him to leave because of all the noise he had made when seizing in his sleep. 

Link knew the only cure to these terrible dreams was just to avoid all sleep outright. Was it a healthy decision? Probably not. But he could go a few nights without sleep. Time spent sleeping could be time used helping Hyrule and finding Zelda. This situation, although similar to Calamity Ganon, contrasted in its own ways. One being the fact that Zelda hadn’t willingly gone to The Demon King this time to hold him off for days upon end, buying him as much time as physically possible. Another was the fact that there was a lack of giant mechanical beasts patiently waiting to unleash a mighty blast on Hyrule Castle on command. And most of all, everyone in Hyrule knew Link, they knew who he was, meaning that people were relying on him for help. He couldn’t just let them down when they all were suffering by themselves. He was the damned Hero of Hyrule, for Hylia’s sake!

Heroes didn’t laze about in comfy inn beds while innocents suffered at the hands of Demon Kings and monsters! Sleep was a secondary need, meaning it could be put aside until further notice. 

Besides, he was still moving adequately, also his fighting skills held strong so far. It had only been… How many days had it been since he last slept? When he tried to recall recent memories, nothing really came up. In actuality, the past week had been sort of a blur to him.
Although it wasn't like he hadn't taken breaks, he'd made sure to take a few minutes off his legs when they began to ache terribly. Healthy meals cooked by his own hand gave him the fuel to gather his strength back and keep pushing onward.

So far, no one had told him that he looked tired or weak, so it meant that he actually did not need all those nights of sleep.

Even if he started to look tired, it wasn't like anyone would notice it or anything.

Right?

Someone had noticed.

Rito Village was  where someone had seemingly noticed Link’s condition for the first time. But that was perhaps due to the fact that the journey there in the first place was actually quite miserable. First, there was a massive blizzard swallowing the entire region of Hebra, making travel in that area of Hyrule extremely difficult. Link hated the cold, so pushing himself through the snow and blistering winds had been an awfully miserable ordeal. 

His luck seemed to sour even more when he arrived at Rito Village. Well, not exactly at Rito Village, more like as close as he could physically be, as the bridge had completely collapsed, without a doubt courtesy of the abominable weather. 

Now that the bridge had been out, Link had been forced to backtrack all the way and activate a nearby tower that he had neglected to switch on earlier, as it had been rather off the beaten pathway, isolated from any nearby roads or stables. Monsters mounting horses combined with the dreadful climate had made the experience rather obnoxious. 

The temperature somehow dipped down even more as he launched himself out of the tower, causing him to shiver tremendously as he used his Purah Pad to scan the nearby area. After he finished, he had to paraglide all the way to one of the isolated islands near Rito Village. The thick wall of snow blinding him had made gliding a very unpleasant experience. It was a miracle in itself that he’d actually gotten to where he wanted, and not fallen into the freezing waters hundreds of feet below him.

But the worst had yet to come, apparently. When he’d arrived in the village, he hesitated to even call it a “village” anymore. Not to say it was destroyed, but it was a far cry from being a full village. Link had been shocked to see that most of the shops or inns there had been being maintained by hatchlings. Shocked, Link had inquired what in the name of Hylia was going on. According to the multiple hatchlings he consulted with, a good chunk of the adults had temporarily departed from the village to scout around the Hebra region for food. Thanks to the weather, food, water, and other supplies were scarce, which is why the adult Rito had to leave. Link couldn’t believe it. If the Rito Village had gotten this bad during his absence, did he even dare to imagine what the other peoples of Hyrule were faring? The Zora? Gerudo? The Gorons?

He’d greeted some of the hatchlings in the village, some which remembered him, some didn’t. But he didn’t chat for long, instead going towards the top of the village to where the Elder had hopefully still resided. 

When Link reached the top, he’d been stunned to see that the Elder was missing and in his place were three individual Rito in some sort of heavy discussion. One had white, the second had pink, and the third in the back had a combination of both grey and white. 

As he approached them, something about the taller white one looked oddly familiar to Link. It wasn’t until his exhausted brain put two and two together did he realize that he actually knew these people. 

Wait, was that… Teba? Where’s the village elder? And the one standing next to him… Saki, right? But who’s that smaller one in the back…

The small bundle of grey feathers that had been somewhat obscured became more and more clear that the third Rito was…

He tilted his head to one side. Wait a second… I know who that is… is that… Tulin?

Upon second glance Link could confirm that it was indeed Tulin, the offspring of Teba and Suki. It had been years since Link had really interacted with him, due to Zelda having to run all over Hyrule for political affairs with Link himself in tow. 

To say that Tulin had grown would certainly be a large understatement. Previously, back when Link’s business in Rito Village was Vah Medoh, Tulin had just been a flapping squirt that barely passed Link’s knees in height. But now he was almost as tall as Link himself. The Hylian found himself somewhat bewildered at how much the kid had sprouted since they last saw each other in person. 

Wow… Tulin’s innocent visage from back then is basically nonexistent now. He actually looks a little hardened… wait, is that a bow on his back? Is he a Rito Warrior now? Has he seen battle? Fought monsters?

But as he strided up to them to speak,  he noticed that their conversation actually appeared to be some sort of… familial spat? Tulin squawked some indecipherable words, which was followed up with what were without a doubt stern words from his father, which only served to anger the younger Rito even more. 

Link grimaced, hesitating to begin conversation with them due to the argument that was still taking place. Family spats had never been something he wanted to take part of, considering even with his memory loss, he was perfectly able to recall some disagreements of his family before the Calamity. And those, they weren’t fun. Should he wait? Or should he interrupt, since one of them had to have information on Zelda's whereabouts?

Zelda takes priority. Link reminded himself. Impatience won the internal conflict, egging him to step forward and finally greet them. 

As he slowly approached, Link noticed Tulin was the first to spot him, and when the boy’s eyes landed on him, they first narrowed in suspicion, and immediately widened in what was most likely recognition. Surprisingly, Tulin did not hesitate to ditch the argument with his parents in favor of flying over both of them, and landing right in front of Link. Link had a gut feeling that might be seen as a bit disrespectful by Teba and Saki, but he made no comment on it. 

Tulin hopped over to Link, eyes wide and head tilted in an inquisitive manner as he tried to get a closer look. His head kept tilting from one side to another curiously, as the Hylian in front of him shifted awkwardly, slightly uncomfortable under Tulin’s incredibly intense gaze. 

After what seemed like long minutes, Tulin’s beak curved upwards, eyes shining in recognition. “Oh! Hey! It IS you!!! Link!” 

Link blinked, caught off guard by the surprising amount of genuine joy in the squealing Rito’s voice, that he had to take a moment to absorb the fact that Tulin had actually remembered him, and that he was very happy to see him. 

Not to say he disliked the reception to his arrival, in fact, Link was very glad that Tulin was happy to see him once more. It was just that he wasn't really adjusted to such a friendly gesture. He’d seen joyful greetings before, such as Sidon with his grand arm swooping movements and shining smile, or the Gorons with their stomping and fist clenching, but Tulin’s greeting was more akin to greeting someone in their family. 

Well, he certainly hasn’t forgotten me.

As Tulin’s beaming grin managed to grow even bigger than before, he threw open his arms (wings?) in a grandiose gesture that Link did not immediately recognize. 

Only after studying it for a few moments in silence did Link start to put the pieces together of what Tulin was doing. Open arms… slightly tilted head…Big smile… “Oh…” he said, stumbling over his words and feeling completely foolish. “Uh, is that… is that supposed to be a hug?” He assumed it was a hug, but when he started thinking about it, he considered the chance that maybe it might not be a hug. Perhaps his exhaustion was adding to his anxiety, but he considered that if it wasn’t a hug, and he hugged Tulin anyways, it might make the current situation a hundred times more awkward. And if something that unbelievably embarrassing happened, it would probably end with Link just tossing himself into the water below out of pure embarrassment. 

Judging from the way Tulin’s large grin dwindled somewhat slightly, it seemed that Link’s innocent intentions to not worsen the situation backfired to an almost comical amount. He wanted to smack himself. Good job, you idiot.

Tulin’s wings slowly lowered down back to his sides. "W-Well, I guess it was, yeah." He rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry if I, uh, sorry if hugs aren't like your thing mister Link. I was just a bit caught up in the moment, I was just really really happy to see you again!” He glanced sheepishly to the side for a brief moment. “I guess a hug would be kind of a childish thing, wouldn’t it?”

Great job Link, totally made the situation better now, huh? Idiot. Link clenched his fists in frustration. “I uh, I see. W-Well perhaps we could take a rain check on the hug?”

Although Tulin’s expression brightened for a fleeting moment, it quickly contorted into a new expression that Link immediately  remembered as worry. What was there to worry about though?

“Are… are you okay Link?”

Out of everything Tulin could have possibly said at that moment, Link had not been expecting that reply. Not wanting to ignore Tulin’s sudden concern, he simply shrugged. “I guess so. I’m feeling fine. Why do you ask? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I don’t know… you just seem a little bit… what’s the word… Haggard?”

Link blinked. “Haggard?”

“Y-Yeah!” Tulin chirped nervously, “You just kinda look exhausted, and rather pale. That’s not normal for Hylians right? Is everything alright?”

Do I? Link frowned, suddenly wishing for a mirror. I thought I looked fine, no one has really commented on my appearance, not until now, that is. “Well, I am just a little bit tired Tulin, nothing to really worry about. That, and the freezing weather is also kind of contributing to my pale look.” He threw a thumb in the direction of the snow still plummeting down from above. “Speaking of, I know snow here is common and all for you guys, but this… I’ve never seen blizzards like this before near Rito Village. This isn’t normal, right?”

“Indeed,” said a deeper voice behind Tulin. Teba, Tulin’s father, stepped forward with a somber look on his face to join the conversation. “This is not normal weather for Rito Village, or even the Hebra Region in general.” He threw a glance in the direction of the broken bridge, “A while back, when we assumed the worst of the Upheaval had passed, a great storm came and swallowed the entire region. Now it’s trapped in this never ending blizzard. We’ve had blizzards in the past, but never one such as long or as fierce as this one. No one’s ever seen a storm like this before, and it’s suffocating our people.”

“Suffocating?”

Teba nodded grimly, brows furrowed in a frustrated manner. “Our resources held out at the beginning, but now we’ve gone through so much of our resources, we’ve resorted to sending out the adults to hunt or search for any food and supplies we can get our hands on. Anything at all to prevent our people from starving to death.”

Even with the pressingly grim topic, Link thanked his lucky stars that Teba had come to break the extremely awkward mood that had settled in. He reminded himself that he needed to practice on reading people better. “I’m sorry to hear… but I do have a theory that this storm isn’t natural.”

All present Rito raised their eyebrows curiously. 

“The other four regions have been apparently affected by their own blights. I don’t know the specifics, but it seems the upheaval caused other issues in the villages or towns of Hyrule. I can ask Purah more about it next time I see her.” He glanced up at the biggest cloud vortex that was letting off the most snow. “I think the cause of the snow might have to do something with the vortex, but I can’t be sure until we-”

“THAT’S WHAT I’M SAYING!” Tulin squawked, causing the other three to jolt in surprise. 

“What do you mean?” Link hummed, curious of whatever Tulin was talking about. 

“Tulin…” Teba began, the exhaustion in his voice very audible. 

Tulin was not having any of it. “Dad, come on! Even Link agrees with me that the cloud is weird! Just let me go take a look!”

“We can’t be-”

“It’s better than just sitting here and waiting for all of our resources to dry out!” Tulin continued, thoroughly hyped up from Link’s unintentional support to his argument. 

Realizing he’d just dug his own grave by unintentionally adding fuel to the fire, he shook his head and waved his hands side to side with a nervous smile. “W-Well, I didn’t exactly-”

“Don’t try dragging Link into this Tulin,” Teba said in a firm voice that held no room for argument. “He just got here and has no idea what we were even discussing.” He turned to Link. “Forgive him Link, Tulin has had problems in the past with getting in over his head. Warrior or not, he’s still got a lot of growing up to do.”

“Well maybe I could grow up a lot quicker if everyone stopped treating me like a hatchling!”

Teba smiled. “As long as you think you can take on the world by yourself, Tulin, you’ll always be my little chick.”

Tulin’s feathers rose in irritation. “What, you think I can’t? Well, I’m already fully fledged! I bet you’ll change your tune when I ace today’s scouting trip all by myself!” He stomped towards the edge of the platform they stood on. “You guys can treat the stupid Song of The Stormwind Ark like it’s real, but not me!”

Before anyone could argue, he took off, riding the bitterly cold currents and rapidly disappeared from sight. 

Watching Tulin’s shape vanish from sight, Link let out a sigh. He’d seen his share of family arguments on his adventures in Hyrule, both in the past, and in the present. Even a hundred years later, they were still uncomfortable as ever. He wasn’t too thrilled about Tulin flying off, but he was somewhat relieved that the tension was gone. 

“Unbelievable.” Muttered Teba, still staring in the direction of where Tulin had departed. 

“Sorry,” Link said. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

The elder Rito simply waved off Link’s apology. “It’s fine, you can’t be blamed for Tulin’s… brash way of thinking. I apologize that you had to witness that dispute of ours. It’s just, things have been rather… strained ever since the blizzard hit the region.”

“It’s… fine, don’t worry about it. But may I ask, Tulin mentioned something about a song of storms or something?”

"You mean the Song of the Stormwind Ark?" Saki piped up, finally breaking her silence to join the conversation. "It's an ancient song that has been passed down from generation to generation of Rito about some sort of ship in the sky. Nowadays both adults and hatchlings believe it is fiction, a mere bedtime story." Teba spared a glance to the angry vortex in the sky. "But… every once in a while one of our Rito scouts will return with a report about have allegedly seen some sort of a ship in the sky. I know it's not much, but I thought it worth mentioning. And it doesn't matter if the ship is real or not, because I believe whatever is in that vortex is probably the cause for this snow."

"Why haven't you sent anyone to investigate it?

"It's worse up there than down here. Even as bad as it is down here, the winds up there are so intense, that none of our warriors can really handle being up there for long."

Link frowned. "So what are you doing in the meantime?"

"Surviving. Biding our time, I guess. We're all just kind of hoping that eventually whatever is causing this will maybe go away over time. It’s all I can really do, we’re basically focusing on survival. Anyways, I doubt you traveled all the way from Hyrule Castle to listen to my woes as village leader, or to take part in our family disputes. I assume you have a reason for your visit that you’d like to discuss?”

Although Link obviously empathized with their situation with the winter storm on their village, he did have a reason to be here. Zelda took priority. “Yes… back when the upheaval began, me and Zelda had been separated. After that, she’s been missing ever since.”

Teba’s eyes went huge. “The Princess herself is missing?!”

Saki let out a gasp herself. “This truly is a dark time…”

The shocked reactions from the two was a painful reminder to Link of his failure to safeguard Zelda once more. He attempted to swallow the guilt as his stomach burned with shame. Yes, the princess is gone. Because of my failure. My incompetence. My inability to protect a single person. Even after a hundred years, I still fail. Grimacing, he started to shake the negative thoughts from his mind, knowing he needed to focus on Zelda. “Yes and we- I mean, I heard that she had been spotted around here in the Hebra region, according to some eyewitnesses.”

Humming thoughtfully, Teba put a hand to his beak. “Well, I sadly have my hands full with maintaining the village, but I DO know someone who might be able to help, I think. Harth deals with information, since he interacts with many travelers around this region. Perhaps he might have something that could help your search.”

Tulin was feeling a large amount of different emotions swirling inside the pit of his stomach. Anger, humiliation, frustration, unease, and just a dash of shame to top it all off. All of the ingredients made a fine dish of what he’d call a “misery sandwich”.

He stomped a flawed foot into the snow, his anger slowly climbing as he clenched a feathered fist. I can't frigging believe this. 

Not too long ago, he had been patrolling around the area, looking for possible food sources or travelers trapped in the blizzard when his bow was stolen. The culprit being one of the flying monsters, who had swooped down from the sky when his back had been turned. He knew what monster had attacked, but its name was escaping his memory.

  It was the weird yellow flying lizard ones. What were those dudes called? Keese? No. Those are the one eyed ones that always traveled in huge swarms at night. It's “arrow” something, isn't it? Barrow Luda? OH, RIGHT! Aerocuda!

The aforementioned "Aerocuda" was the culprit for his missing bow. When he'd been distracted at something that looked like Princess Zelda (what had she been doing away from Link?) when the monster had swooped down and struck. But instead of taking advantage of Tulins distracted attention to bite or claw his neck out, it surprisingly had decided that his prized bow  was a more tantalizing target. Tulin had no time to react when he had felt a sudden pull at his bow, and when he started turning and grabbing from behind, the sensation was gone, leaving him to stare at the fleeing monster that had snatched his bow. 

Tulin had not wasted any time gawking, immediately launching himself into flight, only to be fended off by nearby bokoblins that defended the flying monster with a ton of arrows, which forced the Rito to retreat. 

So now he was here, stomping as he glared at the Aerocuda as it flew around the other monsters, barking in amusement as it dangled his bow from a clawed foot. Sometimes it’d fly a bit closer to him in order to taunt him, just because. 

Tulin growled, stomping the snow again as he curled his fingers into fists. Without a doubt, this was possibly one of the worst outcomes of any mission he’d ever been on since he was allowed to join the Rito Warriors. To make it even more worse, it was the mission that he had bragged right to his father’s face that this mission would be “aced”. 

There’s not a chance I’m going back to the village completely empty handed. Literally. And I can’t ask for help either… if everyone found out, all the hatchlings would make fun of me for probably years… Stupid monster getting the jump on me… I swear, that’ll be the last time anyone gets the drop on me. From this point on, I will never be caught off guar-

“Tulin?”

Tulin let out a shrill squawk not unlike a Hylian girl spotting a gross looking bug. Almost jumping out of his skin before recovering from the shock, he whirled around in an infuriated manner, ready to give whoever thought it was funny to sneak up on him a piece of his mind. 

Said lecture was halted immediately when he observed the familiar visage of golden hair.

His beak hung open briefly. “Wha- Link?!”

Indeed, Link again had managed to bump into him somehow once more after earlier. The Hylian wore a slightly sheepish look on his face, no doubt knowing he unintentionally gave Tulin quite a fright. “H-Hey, Tulin, funny bumping into you here. Small world, huh?”

Quickly regaining his composure, Tulin blinked in surprise. “W-Why did you sneak up on me like that?! I almost had a heart attack!”

Link rubbed the back of his snow covered head in a bashful manner. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I thought the sound of me stomping in the snow would have given me away, but I suppose the wind is quite loud today?”

“Oh, that probably explains it, I guess. Looks like I’ve gotten a case of selective hearing, am I right? Seems that I’ve just been so adjusted to the blaring winds that I’ve kind of tuned them out.” Tulin blinked, realizing what he’d just said. I’ve become so adjusted to the sound of the howling winds to the point of tuning them out because of how long they’ve been here. That’s… kind of a depressing thought, now that I actually think about it. 

“Anyways,” Link continued,  “I saw you were stomping in the snow as I approached. Is something going on? Or… are you still upset at your father?”

“A-Ah, you saw me stomping?” Tulin had a sudden yearning to curl into a small ball and just vanish from this plane of existence. “No,I’m not mad at my dad, I uh…” Please don’t notice my missing bow please don’t notice my missing bow pleasedontnoticemymissingbow-

  Frowning, Link leaned to the side, peeking behind Tulin. He spoke the words that the Rito had desperately dreaded. “Tulin, where’s your bow?”

DANG IT! Agh, I knew he’d notice! I’m gonna be the laughing stock for sure now… “Ha… you noticed? I may have, um, lost it?”

“Lost it?!” Link blurted out in alarm, “What happened? Did you drop it? Break it? Do you need a spare? I think I have one somewhere…”

“No no,” Tulin squawked as he waved his hands, somewhat offended at the idea that he’d ever be that much of a klutz to just drop his prized weapon. But his anger swiftly  dissipated when he realized that he had just unintentionally yelled at Link, right in his face too. “S-Sorry! I shouldn’t be squawking at you like that Link. I’m not usually that quick to anger. It’s just, ugh. A monster grabbed it!”

“A monster?” Link echoed. 

Tulin’s only response was to jab an accusatory feathered thumb behind him in the direction of the thieving Aerocuda, who was still soaring around the surrounding area, cawing in amusement. “That flying monster managed to get the sneak on me when I wasn’t looking, and it flew up and snatched my bow, and then it took off! I would have gotten it right back, but his monster friends started shooting at me with their stupid arrows!” 

The burning in his cheeks increased as he felt Link’s penetrating gaze.  “L-Look, I’m usually more on guard, I promise! This is something I swear that will never ever happen again!” He yearned to beg for assistance, but both shame and pride kept him from doing so. Shame from throwing a huge tantrum in front of Link twice, and pride because of him not wanting to ask for assistance from someone else. 

He’s got his own issues too, I shouldn’t be bothering him about my issues…

“I’ll get it back for you, Tulin.”

“I underst- wait, what?” Whoa! Really? Just like that he’s willing to throw everything he’s doing down to help me?! Wow… “R-Really? Thanks, Link!”

Without hesitating, Link walked beside Tulin, and raised his own bow, pulling back the string and attaching an arrow to it. Tracking the Aerocuda with his bow, he exhaled, and released the string. Soaring through the air, the arrow struck true, causing the now dead monster to release its grasp on the bow. 

Wasting no time, Tulin flew right in to snatch it back, feeling the satisfying sensation of his talons curling around the bow's grip. Just in time as well, as the bokoblins below had started to notice their deceased comrade plummeting into the snow below. Screeching in protest, they readied their weapons, charging at them.

But this time, Tulin wasn’t alone. This time, a Knight of Hyrule was by his side. Link readied his sword, charging at them silently as the monsters roared in a failed intimidation attempt.

Combat was no way anything new for Tulin. After all, he was the top scout of the Rito for a reason. But, it didn’t mean any anxiety from combat was completely gone. Not to say he was afraid, but there was the knowledge that this was no sparring fight, this was a legitimate battle, and these creatures wanted to kill him (and probably eat his corpse) in cold blood. 

Anxiety or not though, he couldn’t allow any feelings of fear or hesitation halt his objective. Letting out three arrows in rapid succession, striking a bokoblin in the stomach, shoulder, and finally its cranium. Choking out a gurgle, it stumbled backwards and collapsed into a pile as it died. 

Although he had been hyped to fight the other monsters, when his eyes had landed on Link, he couldn’t help but just stop and… watch. 

Rito warriors had swords, yes, but they lived for the warrior lifestyle of bows and arrows, flying through the air and raining down arrows on their enemies from above. He’d never really gotten to see a proper swords man in action. Sure, he’d seen Rito warriors swinging their swords in a clumsy manner, and some Hylian travelers as well. 

But Link… he was no ordinary warrior. He was a true knight, and his reputation was well deserved. As the Hylian engaged the monsters, his fighting style was less of swinging his sword and dodging, and more like a sort of morbidly elegant dance. A bokoblin would swing a club in fury.

Link would twist his entire body to sidestep the oncoming attack, and would shove his strange bokoblin horn sword into the exposed arm. The monster would let out an agonizing shriek, only to get a shield bashed in its face, stumbling it backwards. One last cut sliced the head clean off. 

A second bokoblin had desperately tried to ambush from behind, only for Link to parry, and stab the monster in the chest. The final straggler had tried running away, only for it to be completely incinerated in an explosion, courtesy of a bomb tipped arrow. 

To say that Tulin was in awe would be a massive understatement, completely bewildered at Link’s grace and fury in his style. Sure, his father had said in the past that Link’s fighting skills were unparalleled, but to see it up close in person was amazing. Unable to contain his excitement, he fluttered over to Link as the Hylian calmly sheathed his weird bokoblin horn sword. “Link!” He squawked, “That was like, one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen! I know my dad said you were a great fighter, but like, wow!”

His praises were waved off bashfully. “It’s nothing Tulin, just helping out a friend.”

Although he took a few breaths to calm himself, Tulin couldn’t help but wear a huge grin as he twirled his bow. But his grin diminished somewhat when he got closer to Link, and unlike earlier, now he could definitely tell that something was… wrong with him. 

Put plainly, Link now looked outright and completely miserable. His eyes looked extremely empty, and now had noticeably large bags under them. Upon closer inspection his normally neat golden hair was disheveled, unkempt, and looked like it needed a desperate brushing. And his skin as well, when Tulin had first seen Link’s pale skin he’d just assumed it was the cause of the cold weather. But now he had a bad feeling in his gut that it wasn’t the blizzard that was the culprit. 

“Link…” Tulin spoke before he could stop himself, “Thanks for getting my bow back and helping with the monsters, but do you think that maybe you should take a quick breather?”

“A break?” Link raised an eyebrow. “Why? Are you okay? Are you tired? Because if you are, you could just as-”

“No, no, no!” Tulin interrupted. “I’m fine! But, are YOU okay? To be honest, Link, you’re… not looking too great right now.” 

A flash of surprise showed on Link’s face for a fleeting moment, before quickly being masked by a reassuring smile that Tulin suspected wasn’t real in the slightest, and only for show. “I… I’m fine Tulin, don’t worry. I’m just… a little bit… tired. That’s all.”

Unable to respond, Tulin could only settle for a half hearted nod, unable to say that he wasn’t that convinced. The gut feeling from earlier was back in full force, telling him that something was DEFINITELY wrong with Link. 

But… what?

Tulin hadn’t been able to believe his eyes.

It was real.

The Stormwind Ark was real.

Like, actually, really properly really real. It wasn’t a child’s tale after all! Here he stood, on the very Stormwind Ark itself staring at nearby floating boats that circled around the main ship. The Stormwind Ark in the flesh. Or wood, so to speak. 

So… the legends and songs from the ancient Rito of old were true. Now I feel like an idiot for childishly disregarding all those tales and tunes I heard so long ago when I was a hatchling. He swallowed guilt, now realizing how stupid it had been for lashing out at his parents who had advised him to not blindly ignore the song. Trying to ignore his shame, he decided that he’d give his parents a huge apology.

Blinking, Tulin took a deep breath to balance his mind. So many things had happened today that he wouldn’t even have dreamed of. Their journey here had started not long after they had gotten his bow back. When he’d started to chat with Link, Harth and another Rito had flapped their way down, and had informed them that they’d been tasked to investigate the giant swirling cloud above. As much as he wanted to go, he’d attempted to argue against it because of his father denying all access to it. 

Shockingly, Harth proceeded to say that it had been Teba HIMSELF who had authorized the journey, which Tulin hadn’t been expecting at all. Even more surprising was Harth instructing Link to accompany Tulin to the cloud to search for Zelda, which actually worked out, because Tulin had actually seen Zelda earlier! 

But as he gave his story, both Link and Harth had seemed equally befuddled at the very suggestion of the Princess being able to fly. So had he! The idea of her being able to do that… It was weird. After receiving the “okay” to do so, Tulin and Link had begun their journey towards the cloud. The trip up to the cloud was nothing to scoff at, as they had plenty of monsters to deal with as they reached the floating islands, which was cool! He hadn’t seen them up close and personal, and it was actually quite neat to be able to walk on them. Being high up in the sky was nothing new for him, but to stand on the edge of a platform and look down to see just how high up he was, it was actually quite interesting. 

And then the boats came. Boats in the sky was something completely unheard of to… well, just about anyone! Just small village sailboats, so they weren’t HUGE, but still, flying boats! That was like the coolest thing ever!

Well, it HAD been the coolest thing Tulin had ever seen, up until Link decided to casually reveal that he had SUPER POWERS at his disposal. Freaking, SUPER POWERS. It started as an innocent ascension upwards, when they had reached a rather tall platform. For a Rito, it was no biggie, just a few flaps of their wing, and they’d be at the top. 

Which Tulin did, reaching the top without breaking a sweat. But a few moments had passed when he'd suddenly realized that Link had no way to reach the top as well. Before he could begin to brainstorm ideas on how to get the flightless guy to the top, Link had literally POPPED out of the ground right in front of him. 

Tulin definitely hadn’t let out an embarrassedly loud squawk when he’d seen Link’s head seemingly phase into existence, and he definitely hadn’t fallen over on his back like a clumsy oaf. 

He had rapidly assaulted Link with a plethora of questions after he’d gotten back on his feet. What was that? How did he do that? Why did he do that? How long has he had those powers?

Link had answered to the best of his abilities. Apparently when all this "Upheaval" business began, Link somehow managed to lose an entire arm? But somehow he got a new one? The details were extremely muddled and fuzzy, which Tulin assumed was done on purpose. Apparently the arm had strange abilities, borderline magical, even. 

The first power Link had demonstrated was a weird power he dubbed "Ultrahand". This ability allowed Link to literally shoot out a bizarre tendril made of what Tulin presumed was pure energy. The beam when it grabbed something light enough, would lift it off the ground as if it weighed absolutely nothing. Even more amazing was that he was able to manipulate it at will, flipping, twisting, or twirling them to be in whatever position he wanted them to be.

The second one was “fuse”. That power was used by Link to attach whatever item he wanted to any weapon he pleased. And by anything, it literally meant ANYTHING. Tulin would watch as Link would slap on even the dumbest thing on his travelers sword. Mushrooms, flowers, sticks, fruits, even other weapons!

And the other power from earlier where Link had popped up out of the floor? That was aptly named “ascension”.  

Each time Link demonstrated one of the magic powers, Tulin couldn’t help but flap his wings in both awe and excitement at just how COOL it was. How could he not? This was literally the coolest thing in the entirety of Hyrule! It had been probably the most amazing thing he’d seen in his entire life! He didn't hesitate to beg Link to return after their journey to play with him using those powers sometime in the future, he could only imagine the mischief they could get into using all those abilities to do all sorts of wacky things!

Eventually Link’s will was broken due to Tulin’s incredible persuasion technique called: Saying “please” over and over and over and over again. He’d lost count of how many times he’d said “please”. But Link had told him that ONLY after the blizzard was gone and the village was saved would he come back in the future to mess around with his powers. He’d reminded Tulin of the importance of their current objective to both find Princess Zelda and stop the storm to save Rito Village. 

When they’d reached the ship after diving into the eye of the storm itself, they’d finally arrived on the great vessel. Immediately upon poking around for some time, they’d found that a giant hatch in the middle was the source of the blistering cold winds, and had shortly begun looking around for a way to open the hatch. 

The solution was swiftly found, which were turbines! Said turbines needed a great gust of wind in order to kick them back into working order after thousands of years of inactivity. Lucky for them, Tulin had a skill just for creating mighty gusts of wind. He was somewhat impressed that even after thousands of years, they still managed to function almost perfectly. 

Although he was full of pride of being one of the first people to set foot on this legendary ship after hundreds of years, Tulin was starting to feel the effects of the journey. He wasn’t going to tap out or anything like that, not at all! But man, after a few hours of flying against harsh winds, constant engaging of monsters or the zonai machines, and having no time for breaks, he was really starting to ache. His neck, arms, legs, and wings were proof that hero work was an extremely exhausting job. 

But the toll was definitely worse on Link. Tulin knew for a fact now something was very very wrong with Link. No need for gut feelings anymore, because combined with the symptoms from earlier growing worse, new symptoms had made themselves known. 

At first, Tulin had noticed how Link’s movements were much slower now than before. It was just minor stuff at the beginning, such as Link being a bit slow to swing at a charging enemy, or a somewhat delayed parry reaction to oncoming attacks. 

After the small skirmishes, when they would halt just for a fleeting moment to catch their breaths, Link would begin to pant. His panting was not normal, as his breaths sounded absolutely agonizing, as if every breath was shredding his lungs and his throat. Every hoarse breath he took made Tulin wince every time.

During their search for the turbines, Tulin would catch Link blankly staring off far into the distance with glassy unfocused eyes. Several seconds of Link staring would pass before blinking rapidly as if snapping himself out of a daze. Other times during their mini breaks, Link’s head would slowly dip forward, as if he was nodding off to take a nap, only for him to let out a quiet gasp, snapping his head back up to its normal position. 

Besides his physical condition deteriorating at an extreme rate, it had seemed that Link’s mental condition had also begun to worsen somewhat as well. The major indication was when they had been deep inside the ship, looking for the last few turbines to activate. They’d managed to find one, but this specific turbine had been locked behind some sort of door. It was some kind of… puzzle? 

Five minutes ago

Two gears were attached to the wall, most likely the machinery that opened said door. One that had been closer to the door, which was likely the gear that would open the door once activated. However, it was completely still. The one nearer to Tulin and Link was turning with no issues, functioning as intended. 

Tulin squinted as he inspected the gears. So, all they had to do was connect them together, right? Connect the moving one to the immobile one somehow, and the door should slide right open for us to waltz in. It was the clear solution, one that Tulin had been certain that Link knew as well, so now all he had to do was just wait for Link to use his weird grip power to grab something to hook the gears up to each other. 

Although Link was… taking a bit longer than expected. Turning to Link, Tulin was surprised to see that he hadn’t moved an inch from his original position. He actually appeared to be somewhat… confused? Link stared at the turning contraption for several moments, turned to the unmoving gear, then at the door. This process repeated a few times until he simply reached a hand out, and used ultrahand to grip the deactivated gear to attempt to manually crank it.
He’s trying to brute force it manually? Tulin watched on in complete befuddlement at Link’s attempt at “problem solving”. Has he really not noticed what to do yet? Maybe I should advise him on what I think would work? He opened his mouth to voice his opinion, then slowly closed it. Link… he wouldn’t get mad at me, right? Would he be offended if I tried giving him my own advice? I haven’t really seen him angry before. And we also have handled the other turbines so far… should I just wait until he puts two and two together? 

As Link continued his “technique” to open the door, Tulin shook his anxiety off. There wasn’t time for that kind of thing, not when Rito Village’s fate itself was at stake. That means it took top priority, and they didn’t have time to be waiting around while the villagers starved. If it meant that Link would get irritated with him for the rest of the journey, then so be it. Tulin would take that chance. 

Well, it’s now or never. “Hey… Link?”

A second or two passed by painfully slowly, until Link finally halted and turned to face Tulin. 

Tulin almost took an incredulous step backwards as he observed Link’s face. Sweet Hylia, he somehow looked even worse than earlier. Sweat drops constantly slid down the Hylians face, even as the weather was freezing cold. His eyes looked droopy, and looked a fourth of the way shut at all times, as if he was straining to hold his eyes open. 

“Y-Yes, Tulin?”

Tulin tried to ignore just how completely exhausted and rough Link’s voice sounded. It had the same tone as sandpaper against metal. Swallowing his concern, he gestured a wing towards the gears. “I uh, I think I may have an idea on how to open the door.”

Link blinked. “Oh… you do? Really? How?” He looked at the gears. “It’s… not really cooperating with me right now…”

He pointed to the working gear. “From what I can see, one of the gears obviously isn’t working, but I think that originally the two pieces were connected with a part somehow. But, judging from how long it’s been, I think it probably has broken off.”

“So… are you saying we should look for the missing bit?”

“Well, I’m guessing after thousands of years, the piece probably isn't around anymore. So I’m suggesting we improvise.”
“Improvise?”
“Yeah improvise, with a piece of our own! We can just get a stick shaped thing and stick it on the working one so it turns the inactive piece and opens the door right up for us.”

“Hmm…” Link absentmindedly scanned the room, until he stopped and pointed at the ceiling. “Will a big icicle do?”

Tulin’s eyes followed the direction Link was indicating to see that there was indeed a rather large icicle stuck to the ceiling. He nodded. “Yeah, I think that could work! As long as it doesn’t shatter.” 

Link lifted his bow and let out two shots to knock the icicle down. The first one had miss, likely due to the fact his hand was shaking. The second one struck true, knocking it down to the floor. Miraculously, it didn’t completely shatter on impact, allowing Link to snatch it up and stick it to the moving gear, in turn the part that stuck out connected with the inactive gear, and finally opened the door. 

Tulin gave Link a friendly high five, and skittered over to the turbine, blowing a mighty gust of wind into the machine. It chuffed to life, and began spinning. While Link grabbed a device called a “Purah Pad” to search for the final turbine, Tulin risked a glance to see that he was leaning against a wall, panting. “Link…?”

“Hm?” Link  hummed, still fiddling with his pad.

“I know I’ve asked this a few times before, but are you really sure that you’re okay? You seem somewhat, I don’t know…” Tulin strained to find a defining phrase that didn’t sound condescending or offensive. “Out of it?” He braced himself for the possibility of Link snapping at him. 

Thankfully, Link showed no negative reaction, however his reaction was still rather worrying. A very forced smile appeared on his face, one Tulin knew was fake. His next words were of no reassurance either. 

“I’m okay. I’m just… tired.”

Curling his fingers into a fist, Tulin bit down the growl that threatened to escape his throat. Tired. That stupid word again. How many times has Link said that? Something about it is really starting to ruffle my feathers.

As they headed for the last turbine, Tulin made a mental note to himself for when they had fixed this blizzard issue, he’d get one of the Rito doctors to get a look at Link, he looked like he needed a proper check up. 

Of course the cold hadn’t been coming from the Stormwind Ark itself. Why would I ever have considered that? Tulin thought. A Rito Vessel with a horrible weapon such as that? It didn’t make any sense. The cloud itself wasn’t the culprit for the snow either. They’d found out the hard way upon opening the hatch that the thing responsible for this was some sort of… monster.

No, “monster” was not an accurate description of this… this… SIN against nature itself. Even monsters down back on the surface had some sort of sense to their biology or appearance. (Well, except the giant rock ones or the tree ones, but he just assumed dark magic had been responsible for those) Most had SOME sort of rhyme or reason to how their bodies were. But this thing… It went against all the rules of biology. “Abomination” would be a more accurate phrase for it. 

But this thing… its body just screamed the word “unnatural”. Nothing about it made even the slightest bit of sense on an evolutionary standpoint. It looked like a crossbreed between a dragon, an ice talus, and a centipede. It had a stone like body with razor sharp ice spikes that were so sharp that even a slight scrape would probably cause extreme damage to one's body. 

Obviously upon seeing this giant abomination, Tulin at first had been wary at the very suggestion of getting near it, let alone engaging it in combat. But very swiftly he’d realize that he had to fight, as this thing had been the cause of all the suffering in Rito Village. As morbid as it sounded, he and Link needed to kill this thing as soon as physically possible. This thing was a danger to the village, the entire Hebra Region itself as well!

Of course, it had been easier said than done, for when the monster had originally erupted from the ship, it’d hit them with such a mighty gust of freezing wind that it had knocked them off their feet and several hundred feet into the air, making it an airborne. Now it was on. 

For Tulin, he felt like he was at a definite advantage since he had flight and wind basically mastered. Link however, was not born for flight. Hylians never did take the air well, and most times when Rito had taken a Hylian high up in the sky, it usually ended with their passenger clamping onto the Rito with a vice-like grip. 

Although Link did seem to be handling himself quite well in the air, even with a clumsy paraglider. 

Tulin and Link had dodged oncoming ice projectiles and had retaliated with arrows, which surprisingly worked, due to the ice spikes being launched unintentionally exposing a weak spot. 

They'd fire a few arrows at the vulnerable area, exposing its actual organs which were snowflake shaped crystals. Crystal guts? That was so weird!

The arrows seemed to do the job just fine. 

But as soon as Tulin thought things were going smoothly, the monster suddenly decided to get clever.  When they'd seemed to have finally cornered the thing, it suddenly ducked out into some strange magical portal, vanishing from sight. 

Tulin scanned the area with his eyes, knowing that a Rito’s eyesight was much more superior to a Hylians, meaning Link was basically flying blind by himself. "Where did it go?!" Tulin cried. "I can't see it!"

There was no way for them to listen for it either, as they couldn't hear anything but the screeching roars, courtesy of the howling winds in their ears. Still searching desperately, Tulin caught what looked.like a soft glow below Link. He saw what looked to be the tips of mandibles before he'd managed to cry out a desperate warning of "LINK BELOW YOU!" to Link, giving his friend a great shove by generating a gust of wind in his direction. Link was pushed to safety, the monsters mandibles barely missing him as it soared upwards into the clouds. 

In return for almost getting the drop on him, Link retaliated to the sneak attack by launching several stray arrows, and just as before, the internal organs were penetrated and shattered into pieces. 

Wow… I sometimes forget how good his archery was. He had a flashback to his father telling him about the story of Link taking down Vah Medoh, and managing to tame it to the point of it resting on their village perch. 

All those memories of Teba exclaiming how Link was the "greatest Hylian archer of all time" were making more and more sense now. 

The monster however, did not take kindly to more of its internals being shattered, screaming in rage and retreating into another portal. 

Surprisingly, it quickly reappeared with no sneak attack, which confused Tulin until he'd noticed  that all of the crystal organs had been completely regenerated, as if they were never destroyed in the first place. 

But before Tulin was able to let out any curses under his breath, the creature twisted and shook its entire body, summoning massive tornadoes and throwing them towards him and Link.

"Link!" Tulin squawked, ignoring the very audible crack in his voice. "We have to stay clear of those tornados!" Be careful!"

Summoning tornados… just how powerful was this thing?!

Even through the screaming of the monster, the howling winds from the vortex, and the roaring tornados, Link had blessedly managed to hear Tulin’s warning. Tulin let out a sigh of relief as the Hylian steered himself away from the oncoming swirling twisters to safety. The technique from earlier with shooting the weak spots seemed to work again, so they dodged, twisted, and leaned away from oncoming attacks and continued to unleash arrows on the angry beast.

Tulin grinned as he effortlessly ducked to the side mid air to elude another barrel of ice spikes. They were winning! They were actually winning! They were going to actually beat this thing! “Link!” He squeaked, “I think we’re getting close to defeating it!”

Link was unable to give a response, and the reason for that became obvious very quickly. Link was barely holding on, figuratively, and literally. His arms were shaking, and his breath was ragged as he panted. 

But before he could voice any concern, it all went to hell.

A single lone tornado had somehow snuck up on the Hylian, veering Link far away from Tulin as the Hylian struggled to prevent his grip from slipping off his paraglider. “Link!” Tulin yelled, before he hurriedly began looking around to spot the monster. He couldn’t afford to lose it. And… where… Where was it?

His eyes scanned the entire area around in a vain attempt to spot the monster again, to no avail. It was gone, like it had teleport-

A chill ran down Tulin’s spine, realizing what had happened the previous time the monster had mysteriously vanished. Time seemed to slow to a halt as he turned to scream a desperate warning to Link, who hesitated for a brief moment out of exhaustion before trying to angle himself away from the monster flying out of the portal beneath them. 

While it hadn’t gobbled Link up as intended, the monster’s mandible had managed to nick him in the back as it soared upwards, vanishing into another portal. 

Now when it came to injuries, nicks were usually nothing to really worry about, as it usually came from falling over on a sharp rock, or getting , or from an average sword or weapon. But this monster was the size of roughly ten wagons, with mandibles the size of horses. So even as it only barely hit Link, it’s damage was much more significant 

Tulin’s eyes went huge as he watched in pure horror as he watched the razor sharp mandible slice into Link’s back, starting at the bottom and continuing to cut all the way to the top of his spice, barely missing Link’s nape and head.

Link let out a strangled, soft, pathetic cry of agony as his back was torn into. His eyes widened as he reflexively reached behind him to grab at his injury, releasing his grip on the paraglider that had been keeping him aloft the whole time. 

He fell. 

“Link, NO!” Letting out a cry of shock, Tulin did not waste any time diving towards Link, ignoring the shrieking monster that was still flying around above him, furious at the fact one was still moving. He knew turning his back to the enemy was exposing him to possible further attacks, but he had no choice. He had to get to Link, he couldn’t just let him die. If Link died-

No, don’t panic, he’s still alive, you can save him.

Unfortunately, the monster seemed to quickly catch on to Tulin’s abandonment of the fight, as it let out an infuriated howl, ducking back into a portal. Tulin had only a moment to register that it had now come out of a portal below him to the side, and he realized that it was going to try and physically block him from reaching Link by using its own body as a barrier. 

No, no, no! You won’t stop me! He dove faster, aiming towards the last remaining crystal organ that had still been exposed somewhat. No time to shoot any arrows, I’ll have to use my own body as a living projectile. He straightened his body as best he could, positioning himself to achieve the least amount of wind resistance and drag. 

The monster's body seemed to get closer and closer with every passing moment. Was he going fast enough? He didn’t know. The only thing he could do now was hope. 

When his head slammed into the glass, he felt bits of shattered ice fly and nick his face as he smashed through every single layer of the innards of the monster. It honestly didn’t hurt as much as he assumed it would. Sure, he felt like he’d been socked by a Goron and bitten by a bunch of angry bugs on his face, but he was still conscious, and had broken through as planned. 

As he passed the monster, he managed to hear a bellow of pain as the monster writhed in agony, flying away to duck into another portal to retreat and recover again. That had meant he had only minutes before it had healed itself, giving Tulin only precious time to get to Link. 

Continuing his dive, Tulin started to notice the horrendous sensation of the freezing cold winds against his eyes. It had been bad earlier, but now thanks to him diving and gaining more and more speed, it felt like his eyes would freeze any moment, but he ignored it. Link’s life was on the line. He had to save him.

His heart thudded against his chest. I’m so close! He’s within arms reach! I just… I just need to get just a bit closer! He cried out for Link, but received no response or acknowledgement, and the reason for that was because of Link’s eyes not being completely open, only halfway. Which meant he was either completely unconscious, or de-

No, no, he’s not dead! Closer… closer… I just need to… THERE!

Link was finally within grabbing distance, but Tulin knew he couldn’t grab him with his talons, because with how fast they were falling combined with Link’s weight, Tulin would probably immediately lose his grip, or dislocate his legs. Both would end up in Link falling.

His only solution? To fly below Link and manipulate his body so Link could grab onto his back. He’d carried passengers before, but those were just small hatchlings that were only a few pounds. Link was a fully grown adult Hylian, which usually weighed a tad bit more than hatchlings.  

“LINK!” Tulin screamed, praying that the boy was conscious enough to hear his commands. “IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, HOLD ON AS TIGHT AS YOU CAN! I’M GOING TO FLY UP TO THE BOAT!”

No response.

Several seconds passed by painfully slowly, and slowly panic began to envelop Tulin once more. He breathed in to yell again, but halted when he felt a new sensation he’d never really felt: Arms wrapping around his chest. The sensation wasn’t exactly new, he’d felt the sensation of hatchlings wrapping themselves around his body before, but this was a Hylian. The odd feeling of bony arms and small fingers digging into his chest. It was a bizarre sensation, almost

like little claws burrowing into his torso. 

Although Link’s grip wasn’t as strong as Tulin hoped, he knew he had to make it work. Producing a gust vertically… I’ve never done something like this before. It’s almost impossible… can… can I really do this?

Well, he was about to find out the hard way.

Angling himself upward, he flapped his wings as hard as he physically could, blowing the air around them. At first, the starting flaps didn’t seem to produce any results, but eventually a huge gust that went UPWARD formed, pushing both heroes skyward. Letting out a grunt of surprise at the power of the wind, Tulin adjusted his body to accommodate for the weight of an adult Hylian pressing against his back, almost wobbling to one side several times. Thankfully he managed to balance himself and keep his body upright before Link could start to slide off. 

The flapping was starting to hurt his wings, his body protesting the sudden addition of several extra pounds. Steering them towards the Ark, Tulin wished there was somewhere else to drop Link on, but he was out of options. His “landing” was less of a landing and more of a crash landing as his wings gave out at the last second, causing him to fall flat on his face on top of the ship's floor. 

While it was an unceremonious landing, it was still a successful landing, which Tulin would take with no complaint. 

Before he could say anything, his adrenaline from earlier rapidly began to dissipate, and the panic that he’d forgotten was now back in full force.
Oh no, Link!

Gently prying Link off of his back, Tulin rose on his knees and leaned over to inspect the damage on Link’s back. “Link, no, no, no…”

Hylia, where WASN’T the damage? The slash from the creature’s mandibles looked even worse up close. He flinched, subconsciously averting his eyes because he wasn’t sure if his eyes were playing tricks, or he really had just seen a bit of an exposed spine. He prayed to Hylia that it wasn’t the spine. 

Tulin gently shook Link’s still form. “L-Link! Link, c-can you hear me?” he began to hyperventilate. He’d seen other Rito soldiers get injured in combat, from mild to requiring emergency medical care, but nothing to this level. To see Link, his friend and idol, savior of Rito Village to just be bleeding out all the way up here. He’d never felt this level of panic or terror in his life.

Link didn’t respond.

Tears began to form in his eyes, threatening to spill out onto his cheeks as he gasped in and out desperately. No! Nononono! This can’t be happening! THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING! “Hylia please, please don’t don’t let him d-die,” He cried, “Link, please, I don’t… I… can’t…”

Desperation spurred him to grab Link’s satchel with shaking hands, and began to dig around inside. There… there had to be something here, right? Link had to have some sort of medical supplies with him… right? His fingers blindly felt around in a seemingly futile effort to find anything that could help. 

His search halted when his digits brushed up against something that had felt like glass, and he did not hesitate to grab it. Yanking his arm out as quickly as he could, Tulin made a quiet sound of disbelief at the bottle in his still shaking hands. A half drunk fairy elixir. 

Healing elixirs weren’t exactly uncommon, but these were a different story. Fairy elixirs were a high rarity in Hyrule, as they were only made accessible  if someone managed to convince a fairy to add their magic to their cooking, producing a magical potion that was famous for being able to heal even the most gruesome injuries. 

But… will this be enough to heal Link’s back? It has to, right?

Not hesitating to turn Link back on his side, Tulin tried in vain to ignore the soft whine of agony escaping from Link’s mouth. “L-Link,” Tulin babbled, still trying to stop himself from crying. “Y-You’re gonna have to drink this to get better. I-It’s medicine, okay? Please j-just drink this, it’ll help you, I promise, you’re gonna be okay, stay with me Link…” 

He held up the bottle to Link’s mouth, trying his damndest not to spill it with his hands that were still very much shaking from terror. Emptying the bottle, Tulin saw the slightest bit of movement from Link’s throat confirming that the Hylian was indeed swallowing the medicine. “Please work…”

When the bottle had been emptied, he spared another glance at Link’s injury. While it still was occasionally letting out spurts of blood, it was better than before, which was something. And even if it was healed somewhat, there was still the fact Link could die from the blood loss he’d already suffered, or from shock. 

He watched blankly, waiting for Link to make the slightest movement or indication he was alive.
Nothing.

Tulin glared at the bottle. “Come on, that was a fairy one! Work!”

Several seconds passed.

“ISAIDWORKYOUSTUPIDFUCKINGBOTTLE!” 

He flinched at his language, but he couldn’t help it! It was a stressful time!

After what felt like an eternity, blessedly Link gasped, eyes fluttering slightly, and his eyes gently settled on Tulin.
“Link! Oh, thank Hylia-” He began blubbering on, tears freely falling from his eyes, not sure whether or not he wanted to hug Link because of the risk of hurting him further. “Link, are you o-okay?”

Link let out a soft exhale. “M’fine.”

The injuries being disregarded so casually did not bode well with Tulin. “You’re not fine Link…”
But before he was able to voice any more of his concern, a screech accompanied by a ginormous shadow above.

Link started to get on his feet. “Fine enough to fight.”

“B-But Link-”

“We need to finish this Tulin… the village needs our help.” Link began slowly trudging to his paraglider, which had coincidentally had landed on the ship as well after he’d dropped it earlier. “I’ll be fine, I promise…”

“Pinkie promise?”

“Pinkie promise.”

Tulin didn’t believe him.

When Tulin had agreed to go on this journey with Link to the Sky Islands to save the village from its imminent doom, he knew from the start that there would be a handful of possible outcomes. Out of all the outcomes however, one he'd never imagined was him becoming a freaking WIND SAGE.

After he and Link had managed to finish off the monster, the snow had melted, and the two started to bask in their victory, Tulin expected that they'd just immediately return to the village with no other setbacks. 

But before he could start to tell Link that they were to head back, a ginormous glowing stone had suddenly materialized in front of them both. Curiosity won Tulin over, and after receiving the okay from Link, he'd cautiously approached it, and gently touched it. 

Both of them had been engulfed in a bright light, and teleported to some strange desert of some sort, and confronted by what looked to be a Rito warrior wearing a very ancient looking tribal mask. Upon inquiring just what the heck was going on, the warrior casually informed Tulin that he had been chosen for the great honor of becoming the "Wind Sage", and calmly had requested for him and the people of Rito Village to assist Link in defeating someone named "The Demon King". 

Any questions that were on his tongue about the had been answered via a vision of the past. It showed them the Demon King himself, a very large man who glowed red with horns sticking out from his head, all accompanied by an undoubtedly manic grin plastered on the King's face. It hadn't taken a genius to realize that guy was definitely trouble for sure.

When the vision had ended, they'd been returned to the normal world, the stone still floating as if nothing had happened.

Tulin had not hesitated for even a moment, immediately accepting the Secret Stone as his burden. The stone settled in quite nicely, attaching itself around his ankle. To make things even more cool, he'd used it to give Link an avatar that looked exactly like him! And now in the present, he glanced down at the seemingly harmless stone. Wind Sage… I still can't believe it! This is probably the greatest honor any Rito could imagine! Hee hee! So cool! Wind Sage!!!

But before he could celebrate anymore at his new status, the familiar sound of coughing snapped him out of his haze. Remembering the situation at hand, Tulin spun around to see Link, who was panting and bent over, hands on knees to support himself. 

Tulin mentally facepalmed. How did he forget about Link's constant exhausted panting? Did he just stop panting in order to keep silent out of respect for the little speech from the warrior? While it was a noble thing, Tulin preferred if Link didn't hide this stuff from him.

But it seemed that his wish had come true, as Link was completely unable to hide any symptoms anymore. His facial expression was no longer covered by a false mask of indifference or a fake smile, now it was just one of extreme pain. Eyebrows scrunched up with mouth slightly open in a grimace that screamed only one thing: Agony. 

Tulin looked at the wound to see while the potion had helped stave off death, it still eas bleeding. No longer spurting like earlier after he'd checked it before, but it was still letting out blood. 

Before Tulin was able to do anything about the situation, Link tried to move, only to wobble slightly, and collapsing to one knee whilst letting out a whine of agony as his back arched with his hands hovering over the wound as if he feared touching it would hurt.

Tulin had to restrain himself from sprinting over as he jogged over to his friend. "Link!" He crouched down to where Link would be able to see him. "A-Are you okay?" He blinked. "Okay that was a dumb question, you're obviously not okay! We need to get back to Rito Village, there should be a doctor there that can help you!"

Link began another attempt to get back on his feet by pushing himself off the ground, only his legs to completely give out, ending with him collapsing back on his knees.

LINK! No, no, no! Not again! Tulin felt panic envelop his chest as he scrambled over. He was standing just a moment ago! Do those fairy potions do nothing?!

"N-no…." slurred Link, "m'okay…."

"What?! Link, don't try to pull this now! Come on, we need to hurry!"

Their only chance to get back to the village in time before Link bled out was if Link had the strength to paraglide down while Tulin himself would supply him with wind gusts.

But that would require Link to be able to stand on his two feet without collapsing. "Link, do you think you can make-"

The boy in question muttered something indecipherable, wobbled to one side, then the other, then promptly slumped down to the wooden floor, completely motionless. 

Tulims heart learly leapt into his throat. DID HE JUST? IS HE-?! "LINK!?"

Don't panic, don't panic… Calmly assess, don't freak out… We need to get back to Rito Village, but if I tried carrying Link like before, he'd slip off. The only other way is if I grabbed his shoulders… no, I'd still lose my grip! The only way I'd be able to carry him that way is with another Tulin!

Tulin stopped his thoughts for a brief moment, as an idea slipped into his mind. Could it work? Another Tulin! That's it! I can summon my avatar from the stone!

Reaching inside his soul, he called out for the avatar to return to him temporarily, and sure enough, after a flash of powerful magic Tulin stood face to face with an exact replica of his own visage.

Without saying a word, Tulin’s replica positioned itself on the other side of Link, preparing to assist in the task of carrying their injured ally.

Gently, Tulin flapped to propel himself into the air as he cautiously gripped Link's shoulders with his talons. "C’mon Link…" he whispered, disregarding the shake in his voice. "I'll get you home, I promise. You're going to be okay, you're gonna go to the doctors and they'll take care of you."

Link was completely silent, showing no signs of acknowledgement.

At first, it appeared that flying home was merely a simple task, just two Tulin’s carrying what was probably the most important cargo in history, But as time passed, Tulin began to realize that he'd underestimated the time it would take them to reach Rito village. Exhaustion from the journey before, the fight with the monster, it was starting to take its toll on his body. 

He'd been flying for hours before, and even with the extra help from his evil twin, it felt like it was taking way too long. Seconds seemed to stretch into long moments.

Tulin would sometimes feel his grasp on Link loosen slightly, and he'd panic and dig his talons into Link's shoulder with such strength he feared he might have broken skin.

But nothing compared to the pain his wings were in. After hours of use, every single flap had gone from mildly aching, to outright jolts of agony with every flap. 

Eventually the pain had spread to his legs, which strained and ached as they struggled to hold up both himself and Link's combined weight. His entire body was hurting now, screaming for Tulin to rest, but he wouldn't give into the temptation. Link's life was in his hands, and he would not fail him. Not in a million years. 

But just when Tulin felt like he was going to pass out from exhaustion, the clouds had finally dissipated and gave him a clear view of the blue sky. Blessedly, Rito Village was very close, and he could see what appeared to be other Rito. Amazingly, they were all adults, meaning that they'd all returned to the village!

One big one had swooped in, grabbing Link and relieving Tulin of the extra weight, allowing him to clumsily land on the nearest platform.

A flash of brown, white, and pink told him that his parents had arrived at the scene. He felt no shame throwing himself into their embrace, sobbing into their chests. "Mom, Dad… we did it…"

"I know, I know…" Teba and Saki whispered.

Tulin passed out.

Tulin swore to himself that he'd never take sleep for granted ever again. In the past, he was infamous for wanting to stay up past his usual bedtime, wanting to go on scouting missions or do not boring things. 

Now after he'd woken up in his own bed and falling back asleep almost immediately, he knew he'd never whine about bedtimes. Sleep had never felt so good before. He told himself that there would be no more staying up, as long as he could help it. 

All it took was a few days of rest to put Tulin’s pep back into his step, as he now felt completely rejuvenated. Although there was slight aching remaining, it was barely noticeable to him. In fact, most of the injuries from fighting and such from his adventure to the Stormwind Ark, bruises and cuts had completely vanished already, which was bizarre.

Even the doctor of Rito Village had been somewhat befuddled at how quickly his injuries had healed. His heal rate was much faster than that of an average Rito. It didn't take long for Tulin to figure out who the culprit was for his rapid recovery.

He spared a glance down at the stone hanging innocently off his leg.

He knew it held power, and could enhance one's powers exponentially, but boosting even the healing of injuries? 

It was completely crazy, but he wasn't about to start questioning it. It would be best to call it a blessing, and move on.

The Village seemed to be recovering quite quickly as well, as he walked around the village, Tulin could spot all of the reunited families embracing one another. The adults would cuddle their hatchlings close, and the younger Rito would return said hug. It was a sweet thing to watch. 

It wasn't uncommon to see a family enjoying a proper meal now either, which was a great improvement from.the scraps distributed around just a few days before as "rations". Since the blizzard was no more, proper food supplies could be easily delivered now. Another bonus is that they weren’t literally burning through their wood supply to keep warm. 

“Sleep well Tulin?”

In his defense, Tulin jumped a lot less than previous times when he had been spooked, this time he only let out a chirp. He turned to see Teba standing there, with a rather serene expression. “Oh, hey dad.”

“Looks like things are finally looking up,” Teba hummed as he looked at the villagers. 

“Better late than never, right?”
“I suppose,” Teba chuckled. “You should be proud, it’s thanks to you for saving the village, because of that, we’re finally getting a sense of normalcy after so long.”

Tulin looked up, raising an eyebrow. “Just me?”

“R-Right, Link as well.”

“How is he holding up?”

“He… hasn’t changed. He’s still asleep.”

“Still?” Tulin clenched his fist. Damn it. He’s still unconscious… “It’s been three days…”
“I know.” Teba glanced at the wooden floor, slightly disheartened. “Our doctors are still keeping an eye on him. If any condition changes, I’ll be the first to know.”

“Right…”
“Would you like to see him again?”

Tulin perked up at the idea. “Yes please!" He wouldn’t admit it, but he’d been severely anxious about Link’s condition. According to the doctors, when they had brought him in, he had been completely unresponsive, and was limp like a corpse. Thankfully he was still breathing, and had been bandaged properly. Scouts were still looking for a merchant that had access to a fairy potion. 

Thankfully, it was not a long walk to Link, as he was still residing in the village, at the very top where the Village Elder would be in, but Teba had ordered specifically to allow Link stay there, and received the luxury treatment. His room had been given his very own fireplace, complete with an iron pot for cooking. Everyone in Rito Village knew of Link’s love for cooking and food, so Tulin had requested for one to be in Link’s room. And if he was right when Link woke up, he’d have complete access to be able to cook to his heart's content. 

A small table with a single stool had been placed by Link’s bed as well for the doctors to sit on while they carefully bandaged him, now it sat unused. Link himself was in the bed at the back of the room, originally the bed was placed in the middle, but the crowding doctors forced them to move it back to allow more space for the experts to do their work. 

Link himself, well he could have been worse off, in Tulin’s opinion. His snowquill coat had been hastily taken off and placed on the table, since the doctors had to wrap his entire torso up with bandaging, looking not unlike a mummy. On top of him were heavy winter blankets, designed to keep as much heat in as physically possible.

The snowquill coat that Link had worn still had the bloodstained slash on the back, which Tulin vowed to fix, as he had been looking into doing sewing as a hobby. The snow from before had completely melted almost immediately according to his father, which confused Tulin, did that mean it was magic snow connected to the monster? It was a weird thought. 

But while Link slept, nothing too exciting had happened, just the village recovering, supplies being brought back in, and some Rito occasionally coming in to visit Link and inquire about his condition. It was comforting to Tulin that some of the villagers still remembered Link's deeds from the past. 

"Come to check on our patient?"

For once, Tulin did not flinch or let any vocal sound escape his throat from an unexpected person suddenly appearing. He calmly looked up to see a blue feathered Rito, which he recognized as Layak, one of the doctors who were currently treating Link. In his hands were clean bandages. 

He blinked. "Oh, changing the bandaging already?"

"Correct, young Tulin." The doctor said

"It's the best way to keep his wound clean."

Wordlessly the doctor shuffled by, gently turning Link over to one side and unwrapping the old bandages from yesterday. Tulin could see the back wound, which still seemed slightly open, with yellow coloring around it with disgusting yellowish pus leaking out from-

He turned his head away, not wanting to lose his lunch. That was all he needed to see. 

He waited until the sounds of shuffling movement had ceased to turn back to see Link back to his original position, but clean vibrant white bandaging wrapped around him. 

"I realize that this may be a sudden inquiry," the doctor said as he stood back up, "but I'd like to ask a few questions about Link."

Tulin nodded without hesitation. "I'll do my best to answer." If it helped Link, he'd tell the doctor whatever he wanted. 

"So, when people fall unconscious from injuries, it usually takes them some time to awaken, especially if it's a grievous injury. Much energy is spent healing the wound, resulting in the person feeling somewhat weaker than before."

"Wait, so that's normal? Link will be fine, right?"

The doctor glanced at Link for a split second before looking back to Tulin. "But it's been some time since I've seen someone who was still unconscious after several days have passed by. By now, most people would have woken up to eat or drink a little before going back to sleep. But Link hasn't, as if all of his energy has been spent already. So, I must ask… has your friend shown any, and I mean any symptoms or odd behavior that would seem out of the ordinary? And I mean before the injury occured."

Tulin searched his memory for something that would match up with what the doctor was asking, and his eyes went wide when he suddenly remembered Link's bizarre behavior and look. Ever since he first arrived at the village during the upheaval, Tulin knew something wasn't right. 

Link's pale face, the bags under his eyes, the cold sweat running down his face, and the exhausted panting that turned into awful wheezing later on. 

"I'm just a little bit tired, Tulin."

"I'm fine Tulin, I'm just… a little bit tired, that's all."

“I’m okay. I’m just… tired.”

Tired. I'm really starting to hate that word. 

"Y-Yes actually…"”

Perking up noticeably, the doctor raised an eyebrow. “Would you mind telling me about them?”

“I think… I think he’s not getting enough sleep, at least not as much as he should be.”

“How so?”

Tulin proceeded to explain the events before in great detail, not leaving any factor out of the picture, from Link’s disheveled look,  odd behavior, mental capacity struggles, and how a delayed reaction time had almost cost the Hylian his life. 

“So…” The doctor frowned. “He’s been skipping sleep? Staying up nights? It’s not unheard of, but not to the extent you are describing. This isn’t a normal case of insomnia…”
“So you think he’s just not sleeping at all? Like he hasn’t gotten any rest until he conked out?”

“It’s a reasonable assumption, yes.”

“How… how many nights do you think he stayed up?”

The doctor sighed. “From what you’ve told me of his behavior, I’d say he’s had multiple nights with absolutely no sleep. When we miss a night of sleep, usually people are able to keep going for only a few more hours before giving into the exhaustion and passing out. That usually throws off their sleep schedule, most times it’s usually fixed, but with Link… this is not good, especially considering his mental state.”

Tulin didn’t like the doctor’s voice when he mentioned the last part. “Mental state? What do you mean?”

“Sleep isn’t just to regain energy, it also recharges the brain and purges any waste byproduct that would be toxic overtime in order for someone to function normally, causing harm to a person's psyche. If Link were to stay up multiple nights with zero sleep, his mental state must have been extremely unstable. It would explain why he was… slow in regards to problem solving. His brain would have been clogged full of toxins. Combine that with how much he's pushed himself physically fighting monsters and saving people, it's a miracle he didn't collapse on the second day of staying up."

"But…" Tulin began, "since he's asleep now, does that mean he should be cured?"

The doctor threw an apologetic look towards him. "Insomnia isn't something that can be magically cured, only treated." He stood to his feet. "Since Rito Village isn't exactly back to full capacity in regards to supplies, I'm going to have to source some of the nearby stables in the Hebra region for some sleeping herbs."

"R-Right. As long as it helps him."

"I'm a doctor, helping is kind of my job. If you'll excuse me." 

The doctor suddenly stood, turned around and exited the room, leaving Tulin alone with Link to absorb the new information he had just been told.
He’d been fighting? For days with absolutely no rest, not even a lick of sleep? No wonder he looked and acted completely miserable… But why? Why would he do that to himself? Was he just so focused on rescuing the princess he lost time? Was he busy escaping the castle?

There was no end to the questions boiling in his head, he had so many inquiries he had for Link, yet there was no way to get answers. 

Link… He looked over to the Hylian, who was still completely unmoving aside from breathing. Tulin wondered if the guy was dreaming or not, or maybe not, if Link was deeper than just being asleep. 

He quickly shook that thought away. No, Link is not in a coma. He’s gonna be fine. But… if he’s not dreaming, is he lonely? Would he be able to hear me if I tried talking to him? “Hey Link…” He silently prayed to Hylia this wouldn't become too common of a thing he'd be doing. Not that he didn't want to visit or talk to Link, but it was familiar to a situation he'd seen in his life before. Family visiting a sick relative or member, and with each visit of soft talks the person would get sicker or sicker, or sleep and sleep until finally they-

No. No, that won't happen. Link will be fine. He has to be. 

"It's uh, it's Tulin. Um, things have gotten better since the monster got defeated, I think I can even say that the village is finally going back to normal, heh, heh… We um, we're getting more fish and grains back into our food supply instead of hunting cave fish and relying on dried rations, so that's a plus, right?”
No response.

“So I guess my point is, uh, I think you’d like to see everyone in the village bouncing back, and I think the villagers would love to see you again. So… if you could wake up soon, I think a lot of people would be very happy! Especially me!”

No response.

Tulin sighed to himself. He hadn't expected it to magically work and awaken Link from his deep slumber, but still… he wished there was some sort of respo-

Suddenly, a voice came from the bed. "Mmm.. nooo…"

Tulin was immediately at attention, eyes widening as he snapped in Link's direction. "Link? Did you just say something?"

The Hylians eyes were still glued shut, but Tulin was able to spot some movement, although it was just the smallest bit. The head adjusted ever so slightly, and Link's once calm expression had gone, courtesy of furrowed brows, and eyes somehow squeezing even more tightly shut. 

"Please…"

What is it? Is he trying to tell me something? "Link, what's wrong?"

"No… please…"

It didn't take long for the young Rito to deduce that the causes for the sour expression and the quiet begging was the result of a night terror. Link was having a nightmare.

Tulin’s heart ached as he watched Link continue to whine and shift his body every ten seconds or so, and his arms were twitching as well, moving slightly every once in a while. Perhaps reaching for something in his dream?

Or pushing something away in his nightmare.

His left arm continued to shift under the covers, until finally it flopped out and hung over from the side of the bed outside the blankets.

The whining from Link's mouth increased in volume, causing Tulins anxiety to skyrocket. What could he do for Link? All the attempts so far hadn't really done any good… they'd basically failed entirely. What else can I do besides trying to wake him up? I doubt whatever nightmare he's having would be made any better if I tried shaking and yelling at him… Maybe… maybe I could try comforting him?

It was the only thing he could really think to do, but how was he supposed to do this? The only experience with comfort during night terrors, it was usually him on the receiving end, back when he had scary dreams as a hatchling. He'd never comforted anyone having a bad dream before. 

Well… here goes nothing…

Slowly, Tulin lifted his left hand, reaching towards Link's left hand. Making contact, he grasped the cold hand in his own, not too tightly, but strong enough to keep the hand from slipping out of his grip. 

Using his remaining free hand, he lifted it to the top of Link's head, and started applying gentle pressure. Slowly but surely, he moved his right hand back and forth in an attempt to calm Link. "Don't be scared Link, I know it's probably really scary, I know, but I promise you that you're okay. It's okay. You're okay…"

He considered for a brief moment that maybe this wasn't the right move. It had sounded like a good idea in his head at the time, he remembered when he had night terrors, his mom or dad would come in during or after the nightmare, embrace him in a soft hug, and rub the top of his head while whispering calming words to him. 

But he was Rito, and Link was Hylian. Did Hylians comfort each other differently? Would headpats be considered disrespectful or insulting by Link because it was like petting a dog? 

The man in the bed still showed no response. 

Maybe… Maybe I'm not doing this right.

Right when Tulin was considering stopping, a pressure around his hand made him look downwards. To his relief, he could see Link's fingers slowly curled around Tulin’s, returning the gesture. 

Other changes began to make themselves noticeable as well, Link's panicked gasps slowed down into more evened breaths, his scrunched up expression of discomfort relaxed into a neutral one. Even his whining had changed into more of a strange humming.

Is he still dreaming? Maybe he's trying to talk in his dream.

Just in case he was, Tulin decided to simply say a few more comforting words as a precaution, to prevent Link's dream from warping into another nightmare. "It's alright now, you're safe."

The vocal noises from before eventually quieted down a little as well, and after stopping completely, Tulin knew Link was fast asleep again. 

Hylia knows he deserves it.

After confirming that Link was peacefully sleeping, Tulin pulled his hand off of Link’s head, and moved his other hand to do the same.

Only for Link’s hand to tighten as soon as Tulin began moving his hand away, gripping the Rito’s hand firmly. It didn’t hurt, but it was definitely a tight grasp. Surprised, Tulin looked up in hope to perhaps see Link’s eyes open, but sadly they had been still shut. 

He stared blankly at his hand, not knowing how to feel. He’d held hands before, it was nothing new to him. As a kid when he had been hurt or scared, and his parents had finished calming him down, he remembered sticking to their side like glue, constantly holding either his mother or father’s hands for long minutes until he felt safe enough to release their poor hands from his iron grip. 

But now… it was like the same situation from back then, only reversed, now Tulin himself was taking the role of the parent comforting the scared child.

It felt weird. Not bad weird, but just… weird. Good weird maybe? It did feel nice to be able to provide some sort of comfort, instead of just helplessly sitting on the sidelines watching him suffer without being able to do anything.

He straightened up, smiling to himself. Yeah, because of me, Link’s doing better! And he’ll get better too! Now that he can finally get some peaceful sleep without anyone to bother hi-

“How’s Link doing?”

The unexpected voice of an intruder blasted through the peace of the silence in Link’s room. For once, Tulin was not surprised or spooked by someone appearing behind him, but now he was more upset. Irritation flowed through his veins as he angrily whirled his body around the best he could without letting go of Link’s hand, completely prepared to give the intruder a long lecture. Could they not see that the poor kid was trying to sleep in peace? Could they not read the room? What was their probl-

But whatever angry words he had ready never reached fruition, as Tulin saw a very familiar looking plume of white feathers. Oh crap. “D-Dad, sorry if I glared, I didn’t know it was-”

Teba simply chuckled at Tulin’s shocked expression, simply waving off his apologies. “No need to explain, Tulin. I probably should have announced my presence in a less abrupt way. I suppose randomly blurting out greetings isn’t exactly subtle.” The elder Rito quietly walked over by Link’s bed. Tulin noticed Teba’s eyes glance over the hand grasped with Link, but didn’t comment on it in any way.  His father looked up to him. “Has he improved at all?”

Tulin hesitated to answer, unsure of which option to choose. “Um… yes… and no?”

Teba raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“He was quiet earlier, which means that he still didn’t wake up. But a bit earlier, I tried talking to him a bit, but then it seemed like he was having a nightmare. I saw him thrashing around a little, and… I think crying? It wasn’t good.”

“Night terrors…” Teba hummed as he put a feathered hand to his chin. “That doesn’t sound good, but it could be a symptom.”

Tilting his head, Tulin simply frowned at the suggestion. “How can night terrors be a symptom?”

“Doctor said his lack of sleep was the cause of the… issues days prior, right? Perhaps night terrors could be the cause for him to force himself to stay awake night after night.”

Tulin swallowed as he considered the new information. Nightmares so bad that Link was unable to sleep? Sure, Tulin himself had nightmares in the past, some tame, some bad to the point of waking up and gasping, because the talon of the monster just felt so real until the very last second of realization that it was just a dream. But nightmares so bad that suffering from sleep deprivation and other horrible things were the more appealing alternative? Just what kind of nightmares did Link have? He didn’t want to think about it. “Well… I managed to calm him down a little, and he’s been sleeping like a baby ever since. Think this is good for him?”

“Well it’s certainly better than the alternative of ‘thrashing’ and such.” Teba’s expression softened, looking over to Tulin. “But you’ve been watching over him the past few days, do you perhaps want a break? Maybe stretch your wings now that the weather’s clear?”

The response was immediate, almost automatic. “No!” Tulin said a bit too quickly. “I mean, no thank you. I think I’m good. I should be the one to be doing this, it is my job. Literally, since I did swear an oath as a Sage to protect him.”

The way Teba quickly glanced down at the Secret Stone was not unnoticed by Tulin. 

“I see,” continued Tulin’s father. “Well, if you ever change your mind…”

“I probably won’t.” Tulin said flatly, leaving no room for argument. He knew he was being a stubborn brat, but he didn’t want to leave Link. 

“Hmm… Very well then, at least check up with your mother to get some actual food for you, the last thing we need is both you and Link overexerting or not taking care of yourselves.”

“Mmm hmm, gotcha.” 

As Teba left the room, Tulin idly listened to the sound of talons against wood grow fainter and fainter. Left alone with his thoughts, he considered what he told his father, watching Link’s chest slowly rise and fall. 

I can’t believe I said that. “I took an oath”. That’s rich. Yes, an oath to fight by Link’s side, but also to protect him from harm. I had already failed as a sage before I even became one… talk about irony.

Never in a hundred years would he ever consider the possibility of seeing Link like this, in this… condition. Injured, on a bed, whining in pain and fear, fighting to stay alive. Tulin stared at his hand that still had Link’s gripping it. The more he looked, the more he realized that compared to his hand, Link’s hand was actually so… small. In fact, it felt like the Hylian was smaller in general now, compared to when Tulin himself was a hatchling. 

Of course, he was very young and was growing fast, but it felt like Link hadn’t gotten any bigger at all, it was weird. But now that Link was struggling to sleep in the bed as his body tried to heal the wounds, he somehow looked… smaller. Fragile, as if anything could break him. 

Despite the obvious differences of being covered in feathers, having beaks, and just being more bird-like in general, Rito were actually different from Hylians. Compared to the Rito, Hylians were actually very fragile. The Rito had strong muscled bodies that helped them soar the skies, and their bigger size meant that they could take more punishment than the average Hylian. The Rito were actually superior from an evolutionary aspect compared to the smaller, featherless species. But even with their flaws and disadvantages, it was the Hylians who rose to power, one of them even becoming King of Hyrule itself, and another was still a Princess to this day. 

Yet they were easily broken. They were soft, fragile beings, and as strong as they could be, if they weren’t careful, they’d end up at the mercy of the monsters that lived in Hyrule. And monsters… they weren’t gentle with fragile things, preferring to shred and kill the weak for their own gain. Fragile things in Hyrule were broken, and Link was not excluded from that.

The thought of monsters harming Link again caused Tulin to subconsciously puff up his feathers in anger. No, he wouldn’t let that happen ever again. He wouldn’t fail his oath to protect Link, never again. 

He gripped Link's hand a bit firmer now, confident in his new objective. The oath he took was sacred, one that he'd never break again, even if it killed him. He'd protect Link from everything, even the Hylian’s own bad habits. Whenever he woke up, the first thing Tulin would do would be to give a stern talking to his friend. He understood the pain and wariness of living with constant nightmares, but that didn't mean Link could just let his own mind waste away. 

Medicine too, Tulin remembered. He would make sure to visit the doctor in order to get some sleeping medicine, which Link obviously desperately needed. Tulin would even order the strong stuff, if it meant that Link could sleep without nightmares. 

He also made a mental note to give Link a lecture about throwing himself into danger, while noble, it was rather foolish to throw himself into the line of harm's way. It was noble of course, but to have no sense of self preservation, someone needed to talk some sense into Link fast. 

Wait… this sounds… familiar? 

Suddenly Tulin was assaulted with flashbacks of his father giving him lectures, when Tulin was wanting to prove himself a warrior to his father, and ended up overexerting himself and ended up hurt in a bed. After said injuries after failed attempts to be a hero were followed by his dad chewing him out for pushing himself too far. Realizing how everything circled around, and that he was basically acting like his father, Tulin could only blink in shock. Oh no… am I turning into a dad?