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[catreginae]

Maybe one day, Warriors will accept the fact that his brothers love him and still want to be around him despite all the risks.

[catreginae]

Extra fact about The Munchies chapter: I had most of this finished before I finished the chapter where Four makes him the necklace, so I had to throw in extra line about the necklace in The Munchies.

[catreginae]

The title for the 'The Munchies' is a hit, according to one AO3 comment and that's all I need!

[catreginae]

Thou Shalt Not Fall: The Munchies

Warriors has cravings. Intense cravings. I know that technically, munchies aren't just cravings, they are cravings that come with the consumption of a certain product, but this is the name of this chapter for so long and I don't have the heart to change it.

Warriors didn't often leave to go hunting in the middle of the day when the sun was still up. He wasn't sure if that was one of his vampire instincts to hunt and feed when the sun could no longer harm you or a byproduct of all the secret keeping he had do in his era. While he could theoretically hunt in front of the others now, he was still wary of doing so. One day, their adventure would end and the amount of people he trusted with his secret would dwindle back down to a handful. He couldn't afford to get rusty.

He had a lot of time at least, since they weren't moving camp.

He told the ones who were wake – Hyrule, Legend, and Time – that he was just going to do a patrol. It wasn't a lie. If they were attacked now, it would be devastating with so many of their group exhausted or injured. However, patrolling wasn't all that Warriors planned on doing, of course.

Within fifteen minutes, he could smell something. A bokoblin, or maybe a moblin? Warriors should have been worried that there was something so close but instead, his mouth was watering again. He didn't even feel his fangs extend but he could feel them when he licked his lips.

Following the scent through the more densely packed region of the woods, where the brush would have been a lot more difficult to navigate if he was unable to jump over them, he soon came across the moblin. It was Wild's, the ones with the strangely lanky body and slim necks. A deliciously slim neck. He licked his lips then pounced, tackling the moblin to the ground and biting into its neck with all the strength he could muster.

It didn't die immediately. It threw its arms about, trying to throw Warriors off, but the captain was used to this kind of struggle from monsters. They all struggled, they all wanted to survive. It almost made him feel bad for not giving the monsters the mercy of a quick death before drinking their blood, but the vampiric side of him enjoyed the slower death than he cared to admit to the others.

Within a minute, it was dead, but he was far from done.

He shouldn't have been so hungry, not when his last feed wasn't even a week ago, but the cravings were so intense that it felt like he was starving to death. The taste of blood, its warmth in his mouth, and the feeling of his fangs buried in flesh was all he could he think about for the past day and a half. It made his mouth water, once to the point of outright drooling that thankfully nobody noticed, and he was acutely aware of the fact that he had to force himself to keep his eyes off the others' necks. He tried sucking on the necklace for made for him and it certainly helped, but it only tasted like blood. Chewing or sucking on the necklace was nothing like drinking blood from the source.

"Oh, this is what you were doing."

Warriors nearly spat the blood out in surprise but he forced it down his throat instead as he tore his fangs out of the moblin's neck. He was all too aware of the blood dripping down his chin as Hyrule's eyes landed on the moblin's corpse.

"Time and Legend were a bit anxious about you being gone but I figured you were just grabbing a meal. I'm totally rubbing it in their faces."

Warriors looked down at the definitely larger than necessary holes in the moblin's neck and then back up at Hyrule. He could feel his cheeks burn. He wasn’t used to feeding from monsters in front of the others quite yet, especially when they were actually watching him. He wasn't nearly as kind to the monsters and his methods were far from controlled. It was when he was feeding from monsters that he indulged in his vampiric instincts and it wasn't exactly pretty.

It was one thing for him to come back to camp covered in blood. It was another thing to be caught with his fangs in a moblin's neck.

"What?" Hyrule asked. "Do you need a moment to finish up?"

He wanted to say he was all done and walk back to camp like he just went for a walk, but he was far from it. The dead moblin still had plenty of blood for him to drink and his cravings were still pretty strong. The idea of wasting all that blood didn't sit well when Warriors still really wanted all of it. Maybe even a bit more.

"I'll go back to camp on my own. I, uhhh... I'm not done yet."

"You don't have to be embarrassed about it. You have to eat."

"This isn't for sustenance." He wished it was just a regular feeding. Regular hunts didn't have the added benefits of the guilt he was feeling for his craving. Usually, he could keep himself composed when somebody was injured and he could ignore the smell of Hylian blood in the air for the most part. This time, he was struggling with the intensity of it all.

Hyrule titled his head slightly. "Something on your mind?"

He wanted to say no but he was starting to learn that the more he shut the rest of them out, the more they tended to worry. He would be under a lot more scrutiny if he lied about it. It was easier in the long run to just come clean.

"This craving is just intense. I haven't been able to get my mind off of it and I know it's because there was so much blood from that battle. I don't usually crave blood when you guys get injured but... this time, it's kind of bad."

To make it worse, he was out here, drinking blood like he was on the brink of death from starvation, instead of being there with them. Granted, he did kill a moblin that was too close... and it was probably safer for him to be out there instead of with them for as long as the cravings persisted. None of them could afford to lose any blood.

"What do you need?"

Warriors merely blinked at first, his mouth inching closer to the moblin's neck again as he struggled to collect his thoughts.

"Some time alone, I think. If I find enough monsters and drink enough blood, I should be able to get it under control. I'll come back to camp in two hours, promise."

Hyrule nodded, smiling softly as he did. "Okay, I'll come looking if you take too long." With that, he practically jumped back into the bushes, heading back to the direction of the camp. When Warriors heard nothing else, his teeth sank back into the moblin's neck, letting still warm-blood fill his mouth once more.

× × × × × × × × × × × × × ×

Warriors returned to camp with plenty of time to spare if the nod he got from Time was anything to go by. He wished he skipped the last bokoblin and came back sooner though. He was now uncomfortably fully, drinking twice as much blood than he usually did just to kill the craving, but at least it was finally under control. If anything was coming to camp though, they were going to regret it with how much energy he was going to have to burn later. Maybe another patrol was in order just so he could get a chance to run around.

Some of the others woke up while he was gone. There was Twilight, who raised an eyebrow when their eyes met, Sky who still had a blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders, and Wind was sitting down, unravelling the bandages around his leg. That left Wild and Four who were still resting. They did lose the most blood though, so Warriors wasn't exactly surprised that the two of them didn't really have the energy to do much else but sleep. At most, they were up for only a couple of hours the day before, which was at least long enough to get them some water and some soup, one of the few meals that could be cooked well enough with what they had on hand and was easy for everybody eat. Luckily, they had more than one soup recipe between all of them.

"How much blood did you drink today?" Twilight asked with what sounded like a nervous chuckle.

"Entirely too much," Warriors mumbled as he stripped off his scarf, tunic, and mail and ungraciously plopped himself on the ground with his limbs spread out. "Whoever is making the soup today doesn't have to worry about me."

"Why did you drink so much anyway?" Wind asked. "I mean, this is far from the first time you came back covered in blood, but this is a little excessive."

"It was to get rid of a craving. It was... bad."

The camp went silent for a moment. Apparently, Hyrule only told them that he would be back, not why he was out. Warriors swallowed hard. He sat up quickly enough to make his stomach lurch.

"It's not something that you have to worry about, I swear-"

"We're not scared, Wars. It sounds like you had it handled," Twilight chimed in as Hyrule jumped to his feet, making Warriors forget where he was headed with his hasty apology. "Was it from the battle?"

"Between our injuries and the dead monsters, there was a lot of blood. I can usually handle it, I usually don't start craving blood outside of just being hungry, I swear."

"Wars, relax. We aren't scared of you," Wind said plainly. "Twilight's right. You had it handled by the sounds of it. You don't have to keep explaining yourself."

Warriors sighed. He wanted to come back with some sort of quip or reminder that the chances of him seriously hurting one of them one day was not zero, but he knew they wouldn't care about that. They shrugged off the risk before and he wasn't even sure how to make them be more cautious around him. He was up against people who were as stubborn as he was, if not more stubborn.

Time cleared his throat, dragging Warriors out of his own head. "The only problem is that you're going to have to find a way to burn off all the energy this is going to give you later without waking up Wild and Four."

"I can do the night watches if you guys let me sleep in the morning. I don't think I will sleep tonight anyway."

At first, Time didn't say anything. He simply studied Warriors. Then he nodded, which was the opposite of what Warriors was expecting.

"If you don't go on watch tomorrow night and you go to sleep as soon as one of us wakes up in the morning, I'll allow it."

"Sounds like a deal."

"At least you have plenty of room for your pacing this time," Legend said as he stretched himself out to lounge on his side.

"You said you weren't mad about the rug."

"I'm not. I'm just making a simple observation."

Warriors rolled his eyes and lowered himself to lay on his back again. He was so going to pace circles around Legend's bedroll during watch.

[catreginae]

*kidnapping Vwars to protect him from future danger*

D: !!!

[catreginae]

If you're Canadian and you're absolutely done with our Grocery Store overloads making record profits quarter after quarter and treating us like criminals while the rest of us struggle with a cost of living crisis, then join us in boycotting Loblaws for the month of May.

Loblaws operators under chains such as Zehrs, No Frills, Real Canadian Superstore, Atlantic Superstore, Loblaw, Your Independent Grocer, Fortinos, and Shoppers Drug Mart just to name a few. Some of their most popular brands are President's Choive, Joe Fresh, and No Name.

And why just Loblaws in particular? Because they're the most egregious with their messaging. "We're doing our best to keep prices low, the suppliers are mean 🥺🥺🥺" while they install plexiglass barriers, locks on carts, and scanners to leave the self-checkout areas unless you want to pull an alarm. They treat us like criminals just for stopping inside. They have member exclusive pricing that are sometimes 50% lower than non-member pricing. Also, they attempted to fixing the price of bread a few years back and apologized with a $25 gift card.

This is all while still being more expensive than Walmart and brands under Metro and Sobeys.

Shop local if you can! If you're stuck with Loblaws, focus on buying loss leaders. Use altgrocery.ca to find local retailers in your area or recommend one. Don't listen to Sylvain Charlebois, he took research money from Loblaws before and he still goes to bat for them while downplaying our very real struggle.

If you're not Canadian, feel free to reblog anyway!

[catreginae]

I'm seeing an uptick in "Wars has long term damage from poisoned food" headcanons.

I think it's just fun to contrast with my Vampire Warriors, who will eat the poisoned food and stick around to let the people who "poisoned" him that they have to try harder to kill him. Or just take a fat nap because it made him sleepy. He's silly like that.

[catreginae]

Next chapter is called The Munchies, first as a temporary title but I'm going to keep it. I work in the cannabis industry, it's just the first thing that came to mind.

[catreginae]

Anyway!

[catreginae]

I have a minor in Classics. I took so many Greek and Roman classes that I was put behind my major an entire year. I took an entire semester in university on Greek Mythology and my professor didn't use translated names. She used transliterated names. Achilles? Who's he? We only talk about Achilleus in this room.

So we talked about Artemis and Athena (aka Athene). Artemis is interesting in that's both a force of destruction and a force of life. She's implicated in death during childbirth and in plagues, but she can also heal and assist in childbirth. Young brides-to-be would worship Artemis in the years leading up to being wed in the hopes that she wouldn't smite them when they went on to be childbearing adults.

Like, Artemis has a lot of cool qualities... none of which fit HW Zelda.

I'm okay if I'm known for Vampire Warriors and for being weird about using Athena for HW Zelda.

[catreginae]

Even if we ignore the war and wisdom part, Athena as a city girl. She defends state-cities and helps maintains law and order. This is the goddess accredited with establishing the Athenian court system.

Artemis on the other hand is a teen (she's the goddess of youth, so she is not an adult) who is happiest having a girl's night out hunting animals in a forest. The way she is often depicted is wearing a pelt or standing with an animal. Actually, the whole hunting thing is interesting because gods don't eat animals, so she's doing it for fun.

I think people are just afraid of going against the grain, or don't think they're allowed to just... use a different name. I remember when I started talking about it more, I've seen other people ask "didn't we decide on a name for her? why are we talking about this again?"

I've started seeing people say Artemis/Athena now, so I think we're making some progress.

I'm okay if I'm known for Vampire Warriors and for being weird about using Athena for HW Zelda.

[catreginae]

I'm okay if I'm known for Vampire Warriors and for being weird about using Athena for HW Zelda.

[catreginae]

Work vibes at the moment:

[catreginae]

Horrible thing I do that makes me a lazy piece of shit and an awful person according to my brother: taking a bus to work and getting rides home.

How dare I not walk 45 minutes twice a day just to get to and from work.

He said that as my mom was picking him up from the doctor's office, which is like maybe a 15 minute walk. Also he enjoys rides to his own job, which again, is like a 20 minute walk. He was just mad that picking me up was a slight delay in what he wanted to do (which he couldn't even do anyway because he lost his debt card).

Anyway, he wonders why me and my other two siblings don't like him. Maybe it's because he's selfish that's putting it very mildly.

[catreginae]

I finally wrote a scene where Warriors is hanging upside down.

[catreginae]

👀

Yiga clan you say? The angst potential is through the roof! Makes me want to write something involving them now...

-❄ anon

The Yiga have so much potential but I still don't actually know what to do with them!

They have the traitor angle, so Warriors is a lot more likely to just absolutely lose his shit and go feral.

But they're also in the desert, where they may notice that Warriors is particularly sensitive to the sun and they have a pretty sunny backyard.

And let's say Warriors does do something and they they see his vampire eyes. His vampire eyes actually looks a lot like those malice eyeballs (there red is on the inside instead of just the outside, but they are still mostly yellow with red) and I think they would notice. They would be super interested.

And I think if Warriors killed a person again, it would definitely be a Yiga. Would he kill a Yiga member because he lost control or does he stay in control the whole time and kills willingly?

There's too many options so don't get your hopes up on me figuring it out any time soon.

[catreginae]

I do have a few more questions!

What type of bat does Wars turn into? Is it the standard vampire bat or a different type? perhaps a fuzzy and cute bat 😳

If you hadn't chosen Wars as the vampire for this au, who would've you went with instead and why?

Can he see his reflection in mirrors?

Does he get disoriented and overwhelmed thanks to his keener senses?

Did Wars feed from anybody during the war? (Like Impa, Midna, Marin, Ravio, etc.)

Can he use the Master Sword due to it being a holy object?

Do vampires in your au have evil factions/covens that work with Ganon or all of them morally grey?

Sorry it took so long! Thanks for all the questions!

What type of bat does Wars turn into? Is it the standard vampire bat or a different type? perhaps a fuzzy and cute bat 😳

Vampire bat but not just because their diet is blood! I love that they're pretty good at walking and getting around on the ground. I love the idea of Warriors both being able to fly and and being a tiny menace on the ground.

If you hadn't chosen Wars as the vampire for this au, who would've you went with instead and why?

Hard to say because it's hard imagining anyone else as the only vampire in a group of relatively normal people. I do like what ❄️ anon does with Twilight though and I like the vampire vibes on Twilight (you can search my ❄️ anon tag to see their writing). I can also see Four as a vampire because his history with dark magic and artifacts gives a pretty good mechanism of becoming a vampire.

Can he see his reflection in mirrors?

He can! I don't think the reasons I've seen (dead people having no souls so nothing to reflect, or the silver in the mirrors) really fit him. Warriors isn't truly undead and I didn't give him a weakness to silver. It's not my favourite vampire trope.

Does he get disoriented and overwhelmed thanks to his keener senses?

He's more used to it now than he was as a fresh vampire in a war zone but yes, he can be overwhelmed by senses. I think he's particularly sensitive to loud noises and bright lights.

Also, if he catches a whiff of garlic or Wild decides to break out a durian, Warriors is just gone. Good luck finding him.

Did Wars feed from anybody during the war? (Like Impa, Midna, Marin, Ravio, etc.)

It would have just been Impa and monsters sustaining him throughout the war. I think all the heroes from other timelines would know something about him changed but only a few people actually knew what that was so, he didn't drink from them.

It was too bad he wasn't drinking from Ravio at that time, he could have enjoyed his blood some more. Ravio has the best blood.

Can he use the Master Sword due to it being a holy object?

He can, but not for a long time. He can use it in emergencies or for a small battle here and there. I like to think Fi can restrain herself to some degree so he can use the Master Sword when needed but she can't do it forever. At some point, he will get burned.

Do vampires in your au have evil factions/covens that work with Ganon or all of them morally grey?

Most of them don't live in Hyrule, so they wouldn't work with him. Even if there were more vampires in Hyrule (there's just five plus Warriors), covens seek to stay on humanity's good side for their own survival. If any vampire joined Ganon, it would just be a handful of individuals.

If the Yiga ever discovered vampirism though... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯