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It was constructed from a hollowed out gourd, two rubberized gaskets salvaged from an ancient piece of Guardian casing that still smelled like malice, and a cracked glass tube Wild had liberated from a chemist in Castle Town. It hung from a low hanging branch of a scrub oak via a length of coarse twine. It was full of sugar water. And it was the best joke Wild had come up with in several weeks.
"What is that," Legend says. He does not say it like a question. He says it like an accusation. He is currently picking dirt out from under his thumbnails with the tip of a small, aggressively sharp dagger. "Wild. Why is there a tiny, dripping... Thing? Hanging over the bedrolls."
"It’s an interactive behavioral enrichment apparatus," Wild explains in the practiced sort of manner that means he’s paraphrasing straight from Flora. He doesn't look up. He’s still busy trying to figure out how to keep the twine from slipping loose. "For the local fauna."
"It's a hummingbird feeder," Twilight comes up from behind them with three buckets of water that aren't splashing even a little bit because his forearms have their own gravitational pull. He sets them down with a heavy, metallic thud that vibrates through the grass. "Except small. Like, stupidly small. Why did you make it that small, cub?"
"Because hummingbirds are small," Wild says, suspiciously reasonable.
"That's not for birds," Sky leans over from his log where he’s been painstakingly de-pilling his sailcloth for the fourth time this week. He has a very intrigued, very calculating, and very sure expression on his face. The kind of expression that says ‘I took an elective about this subject in high school, and I am going to make you remember exactly what I learned’. "It’s got a perch- a flat landing pad. It’s for..."
He looks across the fire.
Hyrule is sitting on his bedroll, his knees pulled up to his chest, his chin resting on his kneecaps. His hair is, as always, a magnificent birds nest of twigs, dried moss, and structural static electricity. He is watching the tiny glass tube with an intensity usually reserved for spotting hinox ambushes in the dark. A tiny drop of pinkish fluid drops down into the dirt, and Hyrule tries not to act like he wants to jump on the spot where it landed.
"It’s for the fairy boy," Legend snickers. "You made a hamster bottle for the traveler."
"I didn't ask for that," Hyrule says a little too eager sounding. His voice is very quiet, very light, the kind of voice that sounds like it’s being carried away by a gentle breeze even when there isn't one. He doesn't look at Legend. He just keeps his eyes fixed on the dripping tube. "But it looks... functional. The vacuum seal is holding. Mostly."
"He practically did," Wild’s face remains entirely straight, but just barely. "He’s always complaining about the texture of the traveling rations. He says the dried meat tastes like old boots. So I gave him an alternative."
"I don't complain," Hyrule murmurs, his fingers twitching against his shins. "I just said it was... fibrous."
"Eat the sugar, Rulie," Wind yells from twenty feet up in a pine tree where he has absolutely no business being. "Do a trick! Flip for it!"
"Wind, get down from there before you break an ankle and I have to drag you through three miles of swamp," Time doesn’t even look up from his sharpening stone. His voice is the absolute bottom register of the world, old and heavy and completely used to the fact that half his companions are teenage boys and are going to act like it. "Wild. Don't tease.”
"I'm not teasing," Wild defends himself finally getting the thing to stay upright, "It's full. He can have it."
Hyrule doesn't move for three minutes. The camp settles back into its rhythm, the scrape of Time’s whetstone, the gentle rustle of Sky’s cloth, the rhythmic thunk of Four’s small hammer against a loose rivet on his greaves. Then, with a total lack of sound that makes him terrifying to travel with in dense brush, Hyrule isn't on his bedroll anymore.
He’s standing under the scrub oak.
He looks around once- quick, furtive, like a dog about to eat a dropped sausage off the kitchen floor- and then there’s a small pop of light.
Where the tall, lanky, scuffed up teenager was standing, there is now a ball of bright, luminous pink energy about the size of a fist, buzzing with the distinct, slightly high pitched hum of wild magic. The ball of light hovers for a second, drops two inches in an uncoordinated lurch, and then zips up to the gourd.
Two tiny, translucent wings, moving so fast they’re just a sparkly blur, appear suddenly before the monstrosity. A pair of microscopic hands grab the edge of the glass tube.
Slurp.
It is an incredibly distinct, tiny, wet sound.
"Oh my Hylia," Legend says it loud enough for everyone to hear and then some, "He’s actually doing it. He’s drinking from the tube."
"It’s got good mineral content," the tiny, buzzing voice of Hyrule echoes from the center of the light, sounding like it’s being filtered through a tin can and a comb. "Wild, did you use the blue berries or the red?"
"Red," Wild answers, a tiny, terrible smirk finally breaking through his stoic facade. "More fructose."
"Good," the light chimes, and then there is another sequence of rapid, aggressive slurping noises.
For a week, this is the routine. Every evening the chain sets up camp, Wild hangs the stupid sugary contraption from whatever structural vegetation is available- a birch branch in the high hills, a rusty iron sconce in some ruins, an old clothesline pole behind a stable- and Hyrule, after three minutes of pretending he is a serious, dignified young man, pops into a glowing pink sphere and eats his dinner like a very loud bee.
It is, honestly, the most peaceful the traveler has been in months. Usually, he’s twitching at every shadow, checking his boots for centipedes, or trying to patch his trousers with thread made from dried grass because he refuses to ask Four for real twine because once he did and accidentally took the last of Four’s twine- and Four didn’t have to give it to him but he did because he’s nice, and he just feels so bad about it-
Now, he just feels... full of sugar. He hovers around the fire after dark, occasionally landing on Sky’s shoulder to sleep like a fat, luminous moth until his hair starts to singe from the smoke.
And then, on the eighth day, they hit the rain.
It isn't normal rain. It’s the kind of thick, horizontal, gray filth that lives in the gaps between mountains, the kind of thing that collects every pollutant on the way down; the kind of weather that turns wool socks into heavy, cold bags of wet sand within twenty minutes of walking. They are currently stuck in a town- Something or Whatever’s Crossing- a miserable collection of slate roofed stone hovels built into the side of a wet ravine, notable entirely for its lack of charm and its high density of goat dung.
The inn they are staying at is called The Bed and Chain. It smells like wet dogs and boiled cabbage.
They’d been there for four days because the river was running four feet over the wooden bridge and Time had looked at the brown, churning water, looked at Wind’s small stature and general propensity to ignore all reason when it came to anything involving him and water, and said, "No," with enough finality to settle the matter until the coming Tuesday.
Dinner on the fourth night is a gray, gelatinous stew that Wild had absolutely no hand in making, which is why everyone is eating it with the enthusiasm of men executing a court ordered sentence.
Hyrule looks down at his bowl. He hasn't touched the gray meat. He hasn't touched the bread, which has the consistency of a well baked brick.
He looks over at Wild.
Wild is staring out the window at the rain, his jaw set. The gourd feeder hasn't been out in three days. There were no branches in the common room of The Bed and Chain, and the innkeeper had already threatened to charge them extra rupees if they kept bringing the outside, inside. They might even be out of sugar anyways.
"You okay Hyrule?" Four asks from across the table, his fingers busy twisting a piece of wire into a small, perfect loop. He’s the only one who doesn't look totally miserable in the damp; he’s just small enough to fit comfortably into the low ceilinged booth.
"Fine," Hyrule says, voice flat. "Just... the room is very small."
"It's like a tomb in here," Legend grumbles, poking a baked potato with his spoon. It’s been cooked so that the skin is leathery and somehow still rock solid. "And the floorboards are wet. Why are they wet? We're on the second floor. How are the floorboards wet from below?"
Hyrule slides out of the booth. He does it so smoothly his chair doesn't even scrape the warped boards. He has his travel cloak, the one with the six different patches on the left hem from when he fell through a bramble bush in his own era (Four gave him SO much twine dear lord,) already slung over his shoulders.
"Where are you going?" Time asks, his one good eye tracking the movement instantly.
"Just out," Hyrule says, his fingers pulling the hood up until his nose is invisible. "The air in here is... it’s very heavy. I’m just going to walk down to the livery. See if Epona needs her blankets shifted."
"Don't get lost," Twilight says without looking up. "The alleys behind this place are all mud. You’ll slide right into a ditch."
"I won't," Hyrule says, and then he’s gone through the heavy oak door before the latch can even click.
He does not go to the livery.
Epona is fine. Twilight had already checked her three times before her usual three checks. Not a hair should be out of place in her mane. Hyrule turns left instead of right, his boots squelching into the thick, black muck of the alley. The rain is slowing down to a fine, greasy mist that coats his eyelashes and makes the oil lamps hanging from the eaves look like yellow smears in the dark.
He walks past the tanners. He walks past the empty market stalls where three miserable looking cabbages are rotting in a wicker crate. He goes toward the edge of the town, where the stone hovels give way to small, walled gardens planted by the locals who are trying, desperately and against all geological evidence, to grow something that isn't a turnip.
In the third garden, behind a low wall of stacked shale, there is an elderberry bush.
It’s an old bush, gnarled and wide, its branches drooping under the weight of wet, dark leaves. And hanging from the center fork of the main trunk, suspended by a rusted iron chain that looks like it used to belong to a dog leash, is a glass jar.
It’s a real feeder. A proper one. Someone in this awful town has taken an old apothecary vial, filled it with clear water, and inverted it into a small pewter saucer with four red rags tied around the base to look like flowers. It’s crude, but it’s full. The water inside has that heavy, viscous look of real syrup.
Hyrule stands in the alley, his hands tucked deep into his sleeves, his face tilted up toward the bush.
The air around the elderberry is... different. It has that faint, electric prickle that always happens when the veil between things gets thin. He can see them from here- three little spots of green and yellow light, hiding under the broad leaves to keep their wings dry. Local fairies. Not the great, terrifying ladies who live in the deep fountains, but the small ones. The field ones. The ones who live on yeast and flower slime and spend most of their time complaining about the weather to cows.
A yellow light flickers from under a leaf, its wings making a dry, clicking sound like a grasshopper.
"I sweah, its gets woise every day" the yellow light buzzes. You can practically see her gesticulating: "With the buzzin an the divin an all’at. An the houardin! I tell ya, no respect."
"Hey! Listen!" A green light replies from deeper in the bush. "I told ya, hey! Rain's comin'! We should move down the block for a bit, maybe get outta its way! And what'd ya say back? What'd ya say back ta me? I wanna hear this again-"
The argument fades into the background white noise of soft rainfall. Hyrule looks around the alley. It is entirely empty. A single goat is tied to a post fifty yards away, staring into a puddle with profound, existential despair.
He pulls his hood back.
Pop.
The pink light is much brighter than the local fairies. It’s that deep, aggressive old magic, bold and sharpened by years of practice and power. He hovers over the shale wall, his wings making a deep thrumming that is significantly louder than the grasshopper clicks of the locals.
"Oh," the yellow light says, drifting back an inch. "Well, ain't you a well fed fella."
"What." Hyrule says, and then when his brain actually processes what’s being said to him: "I am... structurally dense. Is that the sugar?"
"It's the sugah," the green one says, coming out from under a berry cluster. "But watch ya’self. The red hole belongs ta the spear face. If ya touch the red hole, he stabs."
"Who stabs?" Hyrule asks, his small light tilting as he hovers three inches from the pewter saucer.
"The spear face!" the yellow one says. "The green backed one, with all the thrummin and the zippin. He's got the long beak. Comes from the big tree by the rivah. Chokes it all down, then guards the damn thing aftahwards. Like an asshole."
Hyrule has to think about it for a second. "A hummingbird?"
"An asshole," the fairy repeats firmly.
Hyrule hovers closer. The pewter saucer is wet, coated in a sticky film of overflow syrup that has mixed with the rain. He lands on the rim. His tiny, translucent feet feel the cold metal. He leans his head down toward the small hole at the base of the vial.
The sugar water is thick, flavored with something like clover. It doesn't have the sharp, citric kick of Wild’s berry infusions, but it’s warm and it hits his internal system like a matchstick on gunpowder. His wings flutter with a sudden, renewed energy.
"See?" the yellow light says, landing on a leaf above him. "It’s good. But you gots ta watch the corner. He comes from the chimney side."
"I can handle a bird," Hyrule says, his tin voice sure as a slayer of Ganon.
The next day, the river is still four feet high.
"It’s rising," Twilight says at breakfast, his boots covered in a fresh layer of brown slime. "The bridge down at the mill lost two planks. We're here until Saturday at least."
"Great," Legend says. He’s currently trying to dry his left boot over a single tallow candle because the innkeeper told them that using the main fireplace for leather goods was a ‘sin against the hearth.’ "Fantastic. I love this place. I love the smell of wet goat in the morning. It smells like... victory."
"You shouldn't complain," Sky says, his face bright as he spreads a very small amount of oily butter onto his bread brick. "The locals are very friendly. A woman down by the well gave me three dried apples yesterday."
"They're sour," Wild says from the corner where he’s doing... something incomprehensible to the sheikah slate with a small, specialized tool he made out of an old spoon. "I checked them. They’re cider apples. But if you want to try eating them raw, give me a minute to clear out my camera storage first."
"Where’s the traveler?" Time asks, his fork hovering over his plate.
Everyone looks around the room. Hyrule’s space is empty. His bedroll is laid out as if he had just left for a simple bathroom break, but his cloak and boots are gone.
"He went out early," Four says. "Said he wanted to look at the masonry on the old well or something."
"He doesn't know anything about masonry," Legend says, squinting through the candle smoke. And then, not unkindly: "I don’t even know if he has any education at all actually."
"He’s just exploring," Sky defends. "It’s good for him. He gets... restless when we're inside too long."
In the garden behind the stone wall, Hyrule was currently suspended four inches above the elderberry bush, eyes locked on his target.
"He's coming!" the yellow fairy screams from the safety of the leaves. "He’s by the rain barrel! He’s got ‘at look in his eye!"
Hyrule doesn't move. He tracks the movement by the ripple in the mist.
It is a ruby throated hummingbird, except it is roughly the size of a fat pear and its beak is so long and sharp it looks like someone has attached an iron needle to a piece of moss. It enters the garden with nary a sound, its throat flashing a deep, blood red.
It sees the pink light. It stops. It drops three inches, its tail feathers fanning out like a tiny, leather fan.
"This is our garden," Hyrule says, his tin voice dropping into what he hopes is a commanding, heroic register. "Move along."
The hummingbird does not move along. It emits a sharp, metallic CHREEEEE- that sounds exactly like a rusty scissor being snapped together, and then it launches itself forward at approximately mach fuck.
Hyrule zips left.
The needle of its beak misses his left wing by two millimeters, striking the glass vial with a sharp CLINK that makes the pewter saucer rattle. Hyrule wheels around, his pink light flaring into a small, aggressive star, and hits the bird from behind with a full body tackle.
It’s like hitting a very small, very stiff feather pillow full of gravel. The bird doesn't even drop. It turns on its axis- no turning radius, just an immediate pivot—and boxes him with its wings.
Slap-slap-slap-slap.
"Ow," Hyrule says, his tin voice cracking. "What the-"
The bird stabs him in the side of the head with its forehead. It doesn't use its beak, it just uses its hard, green feathered skull like a sock full of coins.
Hyrule lurches sideways, his pink light flickering down to a dull magenta, and falls into a cluster of wet elderberries.
"He's got the reach!" the green fairy yells. "Ya gotta get inside his guard! Get in close!"
"He doesn't have a guard!" Hyrule shouts back, his wings full of sticky berry juice. "He’s a bird! He doesn't have a sword arm!"
The hummingbird hovers above the bush, its throat flashing red, its wings making a whiiiirrrrrrrrr that sounds like a tiny sawmill. It looks down at him with two small, black, soulless eyes that contain absolutely no mercy. It takes a single, long sip from the red hole of the saucer, chirps once more- a sound of pure, unadulterated triumph- and zips over the shale wall toward the river.
Hyrule sits in the mud under the bush for five minutes. His pink light is gone; he’s back in his regular body, his long legs tangled up in the briars, his trousers soaked through at the knees. There is a small, red lump forming just above his left eyebrow where the bird had headbutted him.
"Ya did bad," the yellow fairy says, landing on his nose. "Ya too big ta fly good. Ya wings are like blankets."
"I was surprised," Hyrule scowls, his fingers reaching up to touch the lump. "It’s faster than it looks."
"I told ya it was an asshole." the fairy reminds him.
By Friday, the situation had deteriorated.
"Why are you limping?" Twilight asks as Hyrule slides into the booth for dinner.
"I tripped," Hyrule says. He’s holding his left arm slightly stiff against his ribs. "On a... a goat cart."
"A stationary goat cart?" Legend asks, his eyes narrowing until they’re just two blue slits under his fringe. "Because there aren't any moving ones. The mud is up to the hubs. I saw a pig get stuck in the main street today and three guys had to pull it out with a rope."
"It was an old cart," Hyrule says, his face perfectly serene, his voice soft and polite as an altar boy. "The shaft was broken. I didn't see it in the mist."
"And your ear?" Time asks. He’s leaning back, his large hands flat on the table, his single eye fixed on the small, neat scratch running down the side of Hyrule’s jaw. It looks exactly like it was made by something small, sharp, and very fast. "Did the cart have thorns?"
"The bush next to the cart did," Hyrule says convincingly.
Wild looks at him from across the table. Wild has been cooking his own food in the inn’s kitchen somehow, and he smells faintly of fried rosemary and real butter. He reaches into his pouch, pulls out a small, dried pastry- a neat, triangular thing full of sweet potato paste- and slides it across the grease stained wood.
"Eat that."
"Uh, thank you," Hyrule takes it with his right hand, his left still tucked firmly under his cloak. He takes a bite. It’s perfect- crisp, sweet, exactly enough salt to make the tongue water. He looks down at his plate. "Is there... did you save any of the red berry juice?"
"The juice?" Wild waves his hand dismissively. "No, no point in making more. The feeder broke two days ago. The string rotted through."
"Oh," Hyrule says. He looks at the pastry. "That's... that’s fine."
"Why do you want juice from a birdfeeder?" Legend asks. "You’re sixteen years old. Stop drinking sugar water through a stamen like a frantic hornet."
"It’s good for my digestion," Hyrule doesn’t meet anyone’s eye.
Saturday morning is the final showdown.
The rain has finally stopped, leaving the sky the color of an old kettle and the town covered in a layer of drying, sticky mud that smells like a swamp. The chain is scheduled to leave at noon, assuming Twilight can get Epona through the main gate without losing a shoe.
At nine o'clock, the old elderberry garden is dead quiet.
The pink light is already in position. He’s not hovering this time; he’s sitting on the shale wall, his tiny hands wrapped around a short piece of pine twig he’s shaved down with a stone into the worlds’ saddest spear.
"He's comin' from the chimney," the yellow fairy whispers from the elderberry bush. "He's got his brothah with him."
"His brother?" Hyrule’s tin voice cracks. "There’s two of them?"
"Two," the green one says, buzzing with terror. "The big one and the one with the crooked tail. We told ya this!"
"YOU DID NOT!"
The buzzing sound is louder today, like an army of wasps appearing over the slate roofs. The ruby throat arrives first, dropping into the garden with its usual metallic screech. A second later, another bird- slightly smaller so it’s more concentrated with hate- joins it. They hover side by side, two fat pears of green and red malice, their beaks pointing directly at the saucer.
"This pool belongs to the fairies-" Hyrule tries to recall their names, realizes he's actually never asked, and improvises badly- "Eh, uh, The Fairies!" Hyrule stands up on the shale wall, his splinter raised over his head. "Clear the area."
The crooked tailed bird doesn't even chirp. It just goes.
It hits Hyrule’s pink light like a small, green stone, the spear flying into the elderberry bush on impact. Hyrule lurches backward, his wings beating the air into a frantic froth, his tiny fists flailing. He manages to get a hand around the bird’s meaty neck, but the ruby throat is already behind him, and he’s twisting, lurching-
Thwack.
The needle beak hits him right between the shoulder blades. It doesn't pierce, but the impact waterboards him face first into the pewter saucer, which Hyrule thinks is arguably worse for his ego than getting stabbed by a hummingbird. The clear clover syrup splashes up, coating his eyes, his nose, and his wings in a thick, sticky sheet of pure sugar.
"My eyes!" Hyrule screams, his tin voice reaching a pitch that could shatter glass. "I can't see the field! I’m blind in the north quadrant!"
"Roll!" the yellow fairy shrieks. "Roll in the dirt!"
"Five feet above the ground?! ow!"
The crooked tailed bird stabs him in the thigh. Hyrule was wrong about his ego.
Inside the common room of The Bed and Chain, Time sets his tea down. He looks at the ceiling. He looks at the open window facing the back alley.
"Did you hear that?" he asks.
"Hear what?" Legend groans, currently trying to grease his shield with a piece of bacon rind because he’s out of real oil. "The goats are still screaming. They’ve been screaming since dawn."
"Not the goats," Time dismisses. He stands up. He’s fully armored, his heavy silver plate clanking, and his footfalls sure. "It sounded like... a very small kettle boiling over."
"Wild’s in the yard," Twilight phrases it more like a question, his ears twitching. "He could be… boiling something?"
"Wild can’t boil things," Time says, horror dawning. "Come on."
The scouting party consists of Time and Twilight, with Legend and Wind trailing behind mostly because Wind was bored and therefore had to bully Legend into touching grass. They move down the mud alley with the slow, deliberate caution of men who know the type of damage Wild can do with a cooking pot.
They turn the corner and spot a shale wall.
"Look," Wind whispers, pointing his small telescope towards the commotion. "In the bush. There’s a... there’s a whole situation going on."
Time leans over the wall. His single eye widens.
In the center of the mud puddle beneath the elderberry bush, a ball of bright pink light is currently rolling around on its back, kicking its tiny legs in the air like an upturned beetle. It is covered from head to toe in thick, brown muck and yellow elderberry pollen, giving it the appearance of a luminous, hairy potato.
Hovering three inches above it are two hummingbirds. They are moving in a synchronized, orbital pattern, dropping down alternately to peck the pink light on its tiny, glowing stomach. Every time a bird drops, a tiny, tinny scream echoes from the mud.
"AUGH!" Hyrule’s voice is muffled by the silt. "I can do this! I can do this, I’ve fought worse! You are a pollinator! You weigh four ounces!"
Chirp.
The ruby throated bird drops and boxes his ear with its wing joint.
"Oh my god," Legend is slack jawed. He doesn't laugh. The situation is too beautiful for laughter. It transcends humor. He looks like a man who has just seen the face of creation. "He’s losing. He’s losing to a sparrow."
"It's a hummingbird," Wind says, his face pressed against the shale. " A red feather. Outset has a whole bunch back of them. They're mean! They have high metabolic needs and no mercy!"
Twilight can’t even say anything in return, his own hand is currently over his mouth and his shoulders are shaking with the silent, violent tremors of a man trying not to die of asphyxiation.
Time stands there for ten long seconds. He looks at the birds. He looks at the mud covered ball of light. He looks at the pewter saucer hanging from the chain, which is currently being visited by three very small, very smug looking green and yellow fairies who are drinking the remaining syrup while the battle rages below.
Time reaches down into his belt pouch. He pulls out a small brass coin.
He flips it.
The coin sails over the wall, spinning through the gray mist, and hits the pewter saucer with a loud, metallic CLANG.
A cloud of fairy dust billows up immediately- one of the drinkers must have gotten hit- and the air is clear of glowing light before you can even see through the sparkly smog. The hummingbirds vanish instantly. They don't fly away; they simply cease to be in that space as well, leaving behind two small puffs of displaced air and a single green feather that drifts down into the mud.
The pink light stops rolling. It stays flat on its back for a second, then there’s a sharp pop, and Hyrule is sitting in the mud in his regular body.
He is entirely brown from the waist down. He has elderberry slime in his hair, a massive lump on his forehead, and his left sleeve is torn from the cuff to the elbow.
He looks up at the four men leaning over the shale wall.
Nobody speaks. The silence lasts for forty five seconds. A goat in the distance lets out a long, wet burp.
"The masonry," Hyrule says, his voice very soft, very polite, his eyes clear despite the mud on his eyelashes. "It’s... it was very, uh-"
"Get up, Hyrule," Twilight’s face is perfectly straight, but his voice is strangled.
"The fairies were hungry," Hyrule adds, his hands tucked into his sleeves to hide the syrup on his fingers. "It’s not like they could fight it off themselves."
"Neither can you apparently." Someone mutters.
"We're leaving," Time spins on his heel so that no one can catch that the corner of his mouth is twitching toward his ear. "The rain has stopped, so we’re gathering everyone to pack. Someone help him out of the ditch."
Hyrule scrambles on his feet, desperate to save at least some face in front of his companions, stumbles, slips, catches his forehead on a low branch, and faceplants back into the mud.
The ride out of town is quiet. Hyrule shuffles with the embarrassed walk of the lightly injured, his head down and his cloak completely covering his still mud streaked nose. He has a wet rag pressed against his forehead to keep the swelling down.
Wild walks up beside him, then reaches into his saddlebag. He doesn't look at Hyrule. He just pulls out a large, heavy canteen made of solid, double walled iron, the kind used by Goron miners to keep their rock liquor from boiling in volcanic mines. He sets it into Hyrule’s hand with a heavy thud.
"What's this?" Hyrule twirls it around his fingers, his voice barely audible over the normal clatter of the group.
"It's three quarts of honey water," Wild says, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. "Boiled down with wild ginger and red berries from the high ridge. It’s got enough sugar in it to kill a yearling goat."
Hyrule looks at the canteen. It has a full sized, standard leather strap. It has a brass nozzle that is approximately the width of a man’s thumb.
"I don't need to be small for this?" Hyrule asks.
"No," Wild giggles, a tiny, sharp edge to his jaw. "You can drink it like a person. With a cup. Like a hylian being who doesn't get his ass beat by a small green leaf with a beak- because a little birdy told me that a little birdy told you to eat mud." He finally breaks, holding in the laugh that was coming through that whole sentence. Everyone else close enough to hear joins in, and its only moderately embarrassing this time.
Hyrule is silent for a mile. Then, with the slow, deliberate care of a boy who has found something valuable in the dirt, he unscrews the cap.
The smell of real honey and sharp, clean ginger rises into the cold mist.
"Thank you, Wild," he says softly.
"Don't tell Legend," Wild smiles. "He’ll want some for his tea, and I didn't make it for tea. I made it for... the local wildlife."
"I won't tell," Hyrule promises, and takes a long, deep drink from the iron flask, his eyes fixed on the gray mountains ahead.