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“Aw, hey,” Twilight's voice says. Big, strong arms fold him into a warm hug, but Sky's own stay wrapped around himself forlornly. “It's okay. Shh.”
“Get him outta here, Rancher,” Warriors’s voice says. “It'll only cause him pain.”
“No,” Sky says, voice cracking. His face feels wet. His cheeks, illuminated orange, burn from their proximity to the flame. “I have to - I have to stay. I can't just leave.”
He can feel Warriors's concerned gaze drifting to him. In front of them, a glorious fire rages across what was once their camp. The distinct smell of fuel rubs in their loss.
“I'll go in and see if I can salvage anything,” Wild says.
“Do you really think you can?” Warriors asks. Sky shifts to see him. He's holding a hand across Wild's torso, preventing him from moving. “You'll die of smoke inhalation before you get anything.”
“I can't lose you too,” Sky croaks. Twilight's grip tightens.
“We didn't leave anything important,” Warriors says, voice even. “It's fine. We can get it back.”
“You didn't leave anything important.” Sky's voice is suddenly venomous. “I left - I left-!”
“Shh,” the Rancher soothes, as Sky chokes on a sob. “It's okay.”
“My homework!” Sky wails. “It's gone! It's all gone!”
“I'm sorry, Sky,” Warriors says, solemn. “I'm truly sorry.”
“I was five pages into that essay,” Sky says. The grief is morphing into rage. “It survived three separate stab wounds. Legend had to get so much blood out of it. And a fire - a fire is what kills it?”
(Hyrule skids to a stop near them. “I heard yelling,” he says to Wild. Then he looks up. “Oh, that's a fire.”
“Sky's homework is gone.”
“Oh. Cool. Does anyone need healing?”
“Can you fix emotional damage?”
“Not really!”
“Then no.”
“Okay. Bye.” Hyrule shoots Sky a terrified look as he sprints away. Wild snorts. It's a fair reaction.)
“-I will find who did this. And I will kill them.” Warriors is shooting him a mildly unsettled look. “I will destroy them. I will eviscerate them.”
“You can be more graphic,” Twilight encourages. “I believe in you.”
“I'll - I'll - I'll sic an essay on them. Ten pages minimum. References to text. Then I'll make them do peer review.”
He giggles hysterically. Twilight and Warriors are making expressions at each other over his head. “And the peer review will include leaving annotations on each other's essays. It'll be so awful. They'll wish I'd eviscerated them.”
“Sky?” Warriors says. “Are you okay?”
“I haven't been okay in,” he pauses. Counts on his hands. He'd started at five… “fifteen years.”
“Huh. Okay.” Twilight lets go of him. His expression can accurately be described as Sky looking at a Remlit at nighttime. Sky wonders, absently, if that makes him the Remit at nighttime. “Wild, please back away from the fire.”
“I'm cooking,” Wild says. He waves a skewer of meat, dripping with marinade, at them. It'd previously been held right above the fire. “Homework funeral kebabs.”
“I appreciate that,” Sky says, and moves to squat with Wild next to the fire. He can feel his eyebrows getting singed. “Um. I'd like to say a few words.”
“Let me change into something darker for the occasion,” Wild says, and passes Sky the skewer. He taps at his slate. A flash of blue, and his friend is covered in full rubber and a fish mask. Sky stares at him. The skewer is pried from his hands. “Continue.”
“What the fuck are you wearing?”
“It's black, Wars.”
“Y'all are interrupting the eulogy.”
“Thank you, Twilight.” Sky instinctively reaches up to grab his hat. It's not there. He hasn't worn it in three years. He settles for putting his hand on his chest. “Um. My homework. He lived a long, long life of, uh…”
“A few weeks,” Warriors provides helpfully.
“A few weeks,” Sky echoes. “Despite also being due a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, we're all very busy heroes and don't stumble across mailboxes very often. So I couldn't submit it on time. A shame.”
“Clearly,” Twilight says, and everyone solemnly echoes the sentiment.
“And even if-” Sky's breath hitches - “Even if I wrote ten words a day and used incredibly flowery language to fill up the pages…” He stares into the fire. “I loved you so much. I'll miss you. Stab wounds and all.”
“Beautiful,” Warriors murmurs. “You have a way with words, Sky.”
“I know,” Sky says, wiping at his eyes. Wild stacks another skewer onto the impromptu barbeque he'd managed to build during the funeral. “Only when it matters most.”
“It certainly matters now.” There's a beat. “Rancher, are you actually praying?”
“…it was really well worded, okay.”
“Hey,” Legend's voice says. “I saw smoke. Did someone set our camp on fire?”
Sky doesn't turn around, eyes trained on Wild's cooking efforts. He's procured a small metal dish and sugar. Sky's ninety percent sure he's making caramel. “You say that as though it's a regular thing,” Warriors says.
“Happens to the best of us,” Legend responds, casual. He wanders over to stand next to Sky. “Ooh. Kebab. Is that the soft kind, Wild?”
“Yup,” Wild says.
“Sky lost his homework,” Twilight says. “The essay he's been working on for the last while.”
Legend pauses from where he'd been reaching over to steal a bit of the kebab. The blue ring on his thumb glows as he sticks it straight into the flame. “Lost it?”
“You're going to burn your hand,” Wild warns.
“It's probably ashes right now,” Warriors says. “Yes, lost it.”
Legend turns, slowly, incredulously. Sky can feel the horror in his movements. “Do you not fireproof your stuff?”
Sky looks up. “Do you??” Warriors asks.
“Yes???” Legend stares at them like they're crazy. Sky shrinks a bit. “What do you do when a Zora catches your stuff on fire as you're walking by?”
“Mine don't do that,” Wild volunteers.
“That's not normal,” Twilight says.
“Oh my god.” Legend finishes ripping off a chunk of meat. He stuffs it in his mouth, then brushes his hands off on his skirt. “Stay put.”
Sky stays put. Then he un-stays put as Legend walks directly into the fire. Twilight makes a choking noise. Wild grabs him by the back of the tunic as Sky almost lurches straight into the flame.
“Holy shit,” Warriors says, and raises his voice. “Legend, get back here this instant.”
“Shut up!” Legend's voice calls, distorted by the fire. Warriors buries his face in his palms.
“So you let him go into the fire half naked,” Wild muses. “But when I want to go in the fire, not naked at all, it's bad.”
“Oh, no, trust me,” Warriors says, muffled. “I'm having multiple aneurysms right now. You just can't see them.”
Wild shrugs. He flips the kebab. They sit in silence for a moment, punctuated by the ambient hissing and crackling and roaring of the flame. Then Legend walks back out, and Sky is slapped directly in the face with a wad of paper.
“There,” Legend says. Sky pulls it off his face, and Twilight and Warriors peer over his shoulder. His essay stares back at him, in its ink-blotted, slightly red glory. God, his handwriting is atrocious. He could cry. “Stop moping. Is the kebab done?”
“Yup,” Wild says.
“You…” Sky's voice is tremulous. “You fireproofed it for me?”
“Don't you dare fucking read into it,” Legend says, as everyone around him reads into it. “This means nothing.”
“I love you,” Sky says delightedly, and then throws his arms around Legend's shoulders. “Legend!”
“You do have a heart!” Warriors proclaims, victorious.
“I'm not going to see that essay again for another week, am I,” Twilight says. Wild shrugs and passes him a skewer. “And then he'll write ten words and procrastinate it until he physically can't anymore.”
“Two times is a coincidence, three times is a pattern,” Warriors says, cheerfully. “At least the funeral food is good.”
“Amen,” Sky says brightly, and stuffs the essay into his adventure pocket without much care. “Wild, pass me one, please.”
“I'll go call the others,” Twilight says.
Warriors snorts, and then sits down next to Sky, who passed him a skewer. It's a nice spot to have a funeral.