Chapter Text
Väinämöinen and Joukahainen had a fight.
Väinämöinen decided to banish Joukahainen from Kalevala, so he did just that. Why, you might ask? In order to grant himself justice and to get slightly more peace in his life.
boom
kabow
Without being able to process what just happened, in the blink of an eye Joukahainen wakes up in a new land and finds himself surrounded in a new land.
Around him stand ruined pillars and a strange, large tower. Beneath him is a rocky land, though grass surrounds the ground all around him.
Suddenly he starts hearing rushing piano sounds that almost sound panicked, and he too, begins to slightly panic.
A strange line of intimidating red glow starts pointing to his forehead.
In front of him stands a mechanical beast, an almost-pyramid shaped monster with a glowing red eye; the source of the deadly lazer on him.
Moments later a semi-short figure drops from the sky between Joukahainen and the fierce beast.
“Hyah!”
A clean shot, as the lazer bounces from the Hylian’s shield back to the roaming beast. In an instant the monster is defeated, leaving Joukahainen wide-eyed and completely baffled.
After that whole shit the two males look at each other, before the shorter one turns from looking over his shoulder to being forward facing.
“Are you okay?” Standing frozen in place, Joukahainen could suddenly hear words coming out of the slightly shorter one’s mouth, yet he couldn’t understand shit of what the other person was saying.
“Mitävi oikein lausut?” (What are you saying?) Joukahainen asks curiously, as he had never before heard such language.
Link, being the other person here, looks at Joukahainen like he had grown two heads and curses him.
“Älä poika porise. Mie en tajjuu sanaakaan.” (Don’t speak to me, boy. I don’t understand a word.)
‘’What are you saying, strange one?’’
Anyways after like 30 minutes of back and forth of them not understanding shit of what the other one’s saying, they figure out each other's names and Link manages to convince Joukahainen to accompany him to Kakariko Village, since he figured that this round eared person most definitely wasn’t a Yiga Clan member.
Joukahainen can only watch as Link takes his time to tame a wild horse on the field. Maybe he gets thrown off their backs a few times, but catches one eventually. It was a damn fine horse, a pink one to be honest. Yet, Joukahainen is still convinced he could’ve done better (no he couldn’t.), completely sparing their asses from getting kicked.
After Link saddles up the pink horse, he lends a helping hand to his new accomplice, pulling him on top of the horse. After Joukahainen got on the horse, Link got the horse moving and they left from their current spot fastly, into the direction of the path to Kakariko Village.
“Hold on tight!” Link exclaims, but the language barrier definitely doesn’t ease Joukahainen’s surprise when the horse buckles and starts galloping at a full-speed. He has no choice but to wrap his arms around Link’s waist, not even realizing the closeness they share momentarily upon the action. Link doesn’t seem to mind - he’s too cool for that.
The village, a medium size, is surrounded by large rocks and cliffs. Rivers course through the land as waterfalls emerge from the cliffs above. The village is full of life; of Hylians living their day-to-day lives, putting up shops and taking care of farmland and children running around without a care in the world. When the three of them reach the village, Link motions for Joukahainen to get off the horse. After that has been done, he gets off the horse himself swiftly, picking up the horse’s lead and starting to guide it forward while they walk further into the village.
As the two reached Impa’s houses location, link found a spot near the tall tree that was next to the fence, right around the path to the cliffside rocks where he could leave Pinkie - The pink horse to be for now, since Kakariko has yet to get a proper spot for people to leave their horses at.
After Link had tied Pinkie’s leash to the fence he said ‘’Come on’’ to Joukahainen and signaled for the man to follow him, as he started walking a bit back from the horse's spot towards Cado’s cucco coop.
‘’My precious cuccos…’’ sounds of whining. That was what Joukahainen could make clear of the much older looking man that they were approaching. Joukahainen stayed back a couple of steps as he observed Link going towards the old man to speak with him, and after a few exchanges of words the shorter one turned back to Joukahainen once again, before drawing a rather shitty summary of what they were gonna do; Hunt for cuccos.
“Cluck cluck!”
When Joukahainen turns around, he hears a familiar sound from above. One of the cuccos has somehow ended up on the roof of this… clothing shop?
“Link. Autakko miuuta ottaavi tuon kalkattajan alas?” (Will you help me get that cucco down?)
The only word Link recognises is his own name. He looks up, following Joukahainen’s gaze, and notices the lost-looking cucco on the roof. The bird is colourful and resembles a rooster in Joukahainen’s world. It seems confused with no intention of coming down on its own.
“I don’t see a ladder around,” Link notes as he looks around a bit. Then he gives Joukahainen a funny look, knowing exactly what to do next. The man might be skinny, but his shoulders should be broad enough to use as a stool of some sort for the shorter man to climb on.
Joukahainen feels just as confused - if not more - as the cucco. When looking around and processing, he suddenly feels the shorter man jump on his shoulders. A few confused hussles and groans escape from the taller one’s mouth, but once again, Link doesn’t give a fuck. He grasps the edge of the roof and pulls himself up.
When Link locks eyes with the bird, a few silent seconds pass. Down on the ground level, Joukahainen is looking up, trying to understand what’s going on, when suddenly he hears a birdy scream and the sounds of a starting chase.
Whenever Link’s close enough to grab the running chicken, he nearly slips. The two run around in circles for a good while, until Link starts to run out of stamina. He’s breathless, and he knows he needs to find his opportunity soon.
When the cucco nears the edge of the roof, Link takes a final dive at it, reaching his arms with confidence (and a little bit of fear) towards it. He manages to wrap his arms around the bird, but his balance betrays him at the last second. Both him and the bird slide off the roof, catching Joukahainen off guard when they land on top of him.
With a little bit of dusting his own clothes, Joukahainen places the rogue chicken inside its original enclosure. Link, deciding that it would possibly be faster if the two separated to look for the cuccos, just points to a direction and motions for Joukahainen to go that way, while he starts going towards the path up the mountain side. Joukahainen, thankfully having the brain capacity to think, understands what he had to do and starts walking towards the house areas, to see if any of the cuccos were there.
Bringing the focus into Joukahainen, during his walk around the housing area he manages to spot a couple cuccos. One by a garden, one by a shed - Of whom he decided to focus on the one in the garden first - but one problem stands with getting the cucco from the garden area, which is not the fence; but rather the lady, whom he assumes owns the garden.
‘’Young man, please. Do not look at my garden with that look. It’s as if you’re about to just jump in there for Hylia knows for what reason.’’ The lady; who’s known by the name of Mellie (Information which is unknown to Joukahainen currently.), said to Joukahainen - looking at him with suspicion.
Joukahainen, giving the lady a funny-but-friendly look just waves at Mellie; and afterwards just climbing over the garden’s fence anyways and going to pick up the cucco, which he obviously got some angry yells for, but hey. Who cares? Certainly not Joukahainen considering how he doesn’t understand shit of what the woman’s saying.
He still could comprehend that Mellie was mad at him, which he just responded by yelling a brief ‘’Anteeksi, akka!’’ (Sorry, hag!) and promptly skedaddling away to put the cucco back into its coop.
Link is oblivious of the feedback his new homeboy is receiving. He walks up the path, leading him along the cliffside where his senses are leading him. One of the cuccos must be here, that’s exactly what his secret cucco sense says.
His senses never betray him, of course. When he notices the bird in the distance, he decides to come up with a new approach - one that doesn’t include a terrible chase scene.
“Here, cucco cucco cucco…!” the Hylian mumbles, swinging a freshly picked pair of cherries in front of his face, attracting the bird’s attention. The cucco tilts its head to the side curiously.
When Joukahainen looks up, his jaw falls open. The figure of Link shadows above him, gliding down to the coop with only a single chicken in his grasp. The cucco flaps its wings frantically, not efficiently enough to fly, but to bring Link down to the ground safely.
Why was that weirdly attractive.
After a long time of the two running around Kakariko Village all day and gathering Cado’s cuccos, the new pair have finally found and caught them all! And brought them back to Cado, the duo gets rewarded by a measly 50 purple rupees! Link, seemingly happy with the reward and Joukahainen - who seemingly managed to understand the weird shaped rocks?.. Crystals were this world’s form of currency.
Joukahainen yawns, which makes Link turn to look at his homeboy, making him realize to look around him and observe that some of the night lamps are getting turned on.
In the distance, Link notes a place called Shuteye Inn. His mouth nearly waters at the thought. A good night’s sleep sounds perfect right now. Grabbing Joukahainen undershirt’s sleeve, Link begins to lead his homie towards the Inn.
Link pushes the door open, only to see that the tavern seems completely full. Travelers and merchants have taken up most of the bed spaces, and only one singular bed stands empty in the corner. Joukahainen and Link exchange silent looks.
‘’Hello young lads, I’m afraid that we only have one bed left for the night, but seeing as you two seem to be great homies, that shouldn’t be a problem for you two.’’ The Inn’s receptionist remarks to the duo.
Link, realizing that this is the best that they’re gonna get for the night, sighs and goes to pay for the bed, while Joukahainen stares at all the full beds in disbelief.
The pair starts walking towards the bed, seemingly accepting their not so gay fate. Both of them strip down from most of their layers, so they could sleep without getting too hot in the night and putting down any possible weapons or bags with them, before they climb onto the bed.
The two, attempting to get comfortable in the bed, ended up spooning each other, with Link behind, having one of his arms under Joukahainen and the other on top of him and Joukahainen trying to feel comfortable, with this new predicament he’s in, but one things for certain, this is kinda nice, but lowkey gay.
‘’Goodnight, homie.’’ Link whispers, before giving Joukahainen a sweet, not so gay, goodnight kiss at the back of his head.
Perhaps Joukahainen was meant to be banished, because in Hyrule, it isn’t gay to kiss your homies goodnight.