Chapter Text
“Where’s Hyrule?”
Wind stuck his head underneath the tarp that hung over their campsite. It was fairly empty, only occupied by Wild, chopping potatoes on a stump nearby the campfire. Just outside the tarp, Warriors and Sky sat playing a game of chess.
No one moved. There were several moments in which nothing could be heard but the shhick-chop, shhick-chop of Wild’s knife on the cutting board.
“Guys.”
Warriors lifted his head and swiveled it around a few times. “I don’t see him.”
Wind rolled his eyes. “Wow, enlightening.”
“I think he said he was going to get more firewood?” Sky looked over. “Do you need him for something?”
“He promised to show me how he does that thing where he shoots light from his sword.”
Wild scooped up the evenly cut chunks of potatoes and plopped them into the cooking pot. Then he paused. “Wait. I thought Four went to get firewood.” He scratched behind his scalp and squinted. “I don’t think they went together.”
Warriors blinked. “You’re right,” he said, focusing his attention more fully. “If I recall correctly, Four left before Hyrule did.” His gaze drifted out to the woods. “It’s about time for him to be back…”
There was a moment of silence. Wind tried to remember when each of the two had left and where they said they were going. At the time, he hadn’t really been paying attention.
“Maybe someone should go look for them?” Wild said with uncertainty.
Everyone looked at each other with varying levels of unease.
The sound of boots crunching over dirt approached the campsite, and Legend appeared under the tarp. “Nobody went to get firewood except me,” he said, dumping a bundle of split logs on the ground and dusting his hands off.
“Then where did Hyrule and Four go?” Wind said.
“Probably into the woods somewhere to get some fucking peace and quiet.”
Warriors sighed hugely.
Legend crossed his arms at him. “Can it. I’m just saying they can take care of themselves. It’s not like Time and Twilight are back yet.” Then, glancing outside, he turned to lift the edge of the tarp and looked up. “…I think it’s starting to rain.”
Sky startled, then looked back at his chess board, which was becoming dotted with little droplets of water. “Ah!” He carefully began collecting chess pieces, cherry wood painstakingly carved into the shapes of tiny loftwings. “Shoot. Captain, help me put this back under the tarp.”
The discussion around their missing comrades was forgotten for several minutes while everybody scrambled to move their various packs, satchels, weapons, temporarily discarded pieces of armor, and other belongings out of the rain. As the clamor began to die down, Wind went and stood in the open clearing, exposed to the elements, and stared up at the clouds. They were rapidly turning from merely gloomy to a roiling, angry gray. He shivered. The temperature was dropping, too. An unexpected storm front had rolled in, and from the looks of it, it was only going to get worse.
Behind him, the distant sounds of conversation starting back up again drifted into his ears. Wild was complaining about nobody having believed him when he predicted the rain hours earlier. Legend wasn’t having any of it, while Sky thanked him for making them all set up the tarp. Everyone was thoroughly distracted.
He hoped Four and Hyrule would be okay. Surely they’d be back soon, right? Nobody likes being in an unfamiliar place, cold and wet and alone.
Four didn’t have any problems with rain, so long as he was roughly the size of a hylian (albeit one that was smaller than average.)
He was not roughly the size of a hylian at the moment.
Instead, he’d been wandering the understory of the woods, looking for any signs of a nearby minish settlement. If there’s a portal here, surely there should be a town somewhere, he thought. But he must have been looking in the wrong places, because an hour passed and he found nothing. He was on his way back to the portal, regretting how much he’d lost track of time, when with no warning a raindrop the size of his fist landed right on top of his head and thoroughly drenched his hat. He only had a moment to get over the shock of the impromptu shower before more raindrops fell, and then he was scrambling to find the nearest bit of cover.
Now he woefully ruminated on the difficulty he would have trying to get back to camp. Technically, he was only a hundred feet away; but at the size of a small mouse, a hundred feet was quite a lot of distance. He lifted the edge of his leaf that had been serving as a temporary shelter to look at the sky. It was getting darker by the minute. Not good.
All he had to do was get back to the portal. His best chance would probably be to make a break for it now. The rain was still light. If it got any heavier, and it looked like it was about to, his odds of making it there dropped significantly.
With this thought in mind, he prepared himself for a sprint to the nearest bush. He waited for the rain to let up just a little bit….
There. He threw aside his leaf and ran. His foot slipped in the wet dirt, but he caught himself and kept going. When he reached the cover of the dense foliage, thankfully only a little wet, he paused to catch his breath. After a brief moment, he continued walking the rest of the way to the portal.
For a minish portal, it was rather unusual. Most were low to the ground. Many had a little opening in the side that made it easy for him to walk right in and reappear out the top. This one had neither of those things. It was a cracked ceramic dish sitting on top of a large boulder, covered in bright green moss that draped over the rock on one side, almost appearing as one with the earth itself. Four assumed some traveler must have lost it there years before.
But this was merely his recollection of what it looked like, since he couldn’t see any of that now. From his current perspective - less than an inch above the ground - it was a vast mountain of rock that towered over him.
Getting down hadn’t been a problem. He had his roc’s cape. It was so simple he didn’t even think about it. But getting back up…
If one were to squint, they’d see a narrow series of notches carved into the rock face, going from bottom to top. A human would never notice it. But they were perfectly spaced to accommodate any creature roughly the size of a minish who might use them as a ladder.
As he stared up this thing that must have been fifty times his height, a part of his brain questioned whether this was a good idea.
The rock was wet. The rain was picking up again. Four still had to cross two or three feet of ground before he even reached it. There were pools of water forming beneath already-
He squashed that part of his brain and scolded himself. It’s just rain. Getting back to human size might be a little more difficult than he’d anticipated, but he could bear it. It wouldn’t take him more than a minute or two. He just had to make it to the top.
He took a deep breath and ran.
Dodging raindrops and skirting his way around several puddles, which were increasing in size at a surprisingly fast rate, he reached the ladder quickly. He took hold of the first notch; then, stepping up, making sure he had a good grip, he started to climb.
For a minute it wasn’t bad.
The granite was not as slippery as he’d thought, and the notches in it were deep. All he had to do was keep a tight grip and he wouldn’t fall.
See, this is fine. I’m just climbing a ladder.
Then the wind picked up.
Four hugged his body close to the rock and braced himself against the rain. He was trying his best to ignore it, but he kept getting smacked in the face or pelted from the side by large water droplets, and it was making it hard to climb. He focused on each step. Right hand, left foot. Left hand, right foot.
His fingers, wrists, and forearms ached. I should really work on my right hand grip strength, he lamented. He looked up, hoping to see the top. He wasn’t even halfway there yet. It had definitely been more than one or two minutes.
Then, it started to pour.
With a bright flash and a clap of thunder, buckets of water came cascading over his head. Four spluttered and coughed. A strong gust of wind threatened to blow him away, and he clung to the rock desperately, his progress halted, his head bent down so he could breathe.
He couldn’t continue climbing like this. He couldn’t even look up to see the next notch without being blinded by the deluge.
There was nothing to do but hang on.
A torrent of droplets pounded over him. It hurt. His hand slipped. He frantically reached for the notch again-
-and then he was falling, tumbling blindly through open space. He fell back to the earth surrounded by so much water it felt like he was swimming.