#anyone else thinks backflip is kind of a weird prompt??

[boiled-bronze]

Day 27. The (I think) universal experience

[maddiethebull]

Part Two of Lucifer - “Please, don’t be scared.”

You can find part one here : Lucifer (ObeyMe!) - Prompt 14 - “Please, don’t be scared.”

You woke up from being nudged by the door, excited that it might be Lucifer coming out of his room, you jolted up. That’s when you saw the note you slipped under the door and seeing the box that read “okay” being checked made your heart do backflips. The door slowly opened just a crack, Lucifer had poked his head out. He was still very unsure of how to approach the situation. He didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, he only wanted to make you happy. He wanted a way to take away everything that had happened so that things could go back to the way they were before, but he knew he couldn't. He only had the option of breaking the silence. 

“Hello,” said Lucifer. 

“Hey,” you said, trying not to sound weird. Turns out, you didn’t know what to say either, you didn’t imagine it would be this awkward talking to him again. The heart that was doing backflips earlier was now sitting calmly and reading “how to talk to a demon, for dummies” handbook. 

You ran a hand through your hair, and looked at the ground. 

“So, uh breakfast is being set out,” you said. 

He replied, “oh, that’s nice, I’m rather hungry.” He wasn’t making an effort to make eye contact either. 

“Yeah, haha. well, let’s go then.” 

You slapped an awkward smile on and Lucifer emerged from his room. He looked very disheveled; for The Avatar of Pride, you doubted that anyone would have pride in that appearance. Still, he had the same dark red eyes that looked into yours a million times and the same black hair that you remembered brushing away from his face when he fell asleep at his desk. The awkward smile you wore turned into a genuine one, looking upon him. All in all, he was still the same Lucifer that you fell in love with. 

At breakfast, everyone was a little tense, Beel even stopped chewing and looked over at Lucifer entering. For a moment, you would’ve thought that Lucifer was a stranger waltzing into their dining room. Eventually Mammon spoke up, 

“So are ya finally done mopin’?”

“You look like shit Luci,” said Asmo with a laugh. The rest of the brothers joined in the laughter and the tension had gone away as quickly as it came. 

‘What a good way for the author to give comedic relief’ you thought. You made your way to the seat you usually say in, the one next to Satan. Lucifer mulled that over, he was wondering just how much closer to Satan you had gotten in the time that he was locked in his room. Under the table, Satan held his hand out, offering you to hold it if you still felt uncomfortable. You looked at him and said quietly as not to let Lucifer hear,

“I’m okay.” 

You said it with a smile to show Satan that you really were. He frowned and put his hand back at his side, continuing to eat without saying anything more. He felt sort of unneeded when you declined his offer. It was conflicting, on one hand he was happy that you felt better, but on another, he wished you would still go to him. 

After breakfast, you all got up, getting ready to go to R.A.D. As Lucifer made his way back to his room so he could get dressed, you stopped him by putting your hand on his shoulder. Lucifer was shocked at the contact, shocked, but happy that you felt comfortable to get close to him again. He turned to you with a smile and you asked if you guys could talk for a little bit. Satan saw this, he grimaced and went to go get ready, not wanting to see more of you being affectionate towards someone who wasn’t him. Meanwhile you and Lucifer went to his study to discuss everything. You both sat down, fidgeting in your chairs and not knowing what to say. The air in the room was pure strange. It felt like so long since you two had had a conversation, it was like you were re-meeting each other. You both spoke at the same time saying, 

“Listen-“

“I’m-“

You stopped and said,

“Sorry, what did you wanna say?”

He cleared his throat, he opened his mouth slightly, trying to get out the words he was thinking but then ultimately failed and shut his mouth. He looked down at his hands, remembering what he’d done and with an anxious look at you,

“You can speak first,” was all he said. 

“I just wanted to ask how you were doing?”

He smiled, “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“Maybe, but I still wanna know how you are?” 

He looked at you and then down again, 

“How I feel doesn’t matter as much as how you’ve been. I- I’m sorry, MC, for everything.”

You could see that tears began forming in his eyes. You got up and walked over to him, you put your hand on his shoulder and said, 

“I’m okay, Lucifer. I wasn’t at first, but now, I’m better and now what I need is to know how you are.”

He looked up to you with those red eyes so solemn. He put his hand on yours. 

“I’m okay if you’re okay.”

At first, it was hard to accept. it was hard to even digest what you had seen, it made your stomach churn to think of. After a while with the help of the brothers, it sunk in. you stopped seeing Lucifer as the demon who terminated another demon and you saw him as Lucifer again. When you came to the Devildom, you were told how powerful demons can be, but you didn’t really grasp it, all you saw was how Mammon fooled around, how Levi was a weeb, how Lucifer just seemed like a strict father. It never really registered until that fateful day that you saw Lucifer punishing a demon for treason. It fully hit you how fragile you were around the seven brothers, but when they each stepped in to help take care of you? That showed you the true extent of their love. They may have been strong enough to obliterate you and Beel has maybe once or twice thought about eating you, but they loved you. Each one of them loved you and you loved them back, including Lucifer. 

Satan passed by and saw you two. It crushed him. It crushed him every time he’d seen something like this before. The memory you had of Lucifer playing piano for you? He’d seen that too. He was in the background, his eternal character in the background of your romance. He thought about how he was the one who helped you through this and how he deserved you. But did he? He thought about it constantly. He thought about you all the time, but he knew deep down, that whatever he did, you wouldn’t feel the same way. He decided to take some time for himself. He skipped school just to read, he would whisk himself away into a novel just so he didn’t have to think about you. He could instead imagine himself as a brave samurai or a great adventurer or even as an angel again. After finishing one book, it was straight onto another, he mulled over which to read and closed his eyes, picking a random one from his shelf. It was titled “Love of All Kinds.” ‘of course it would be that one,’ he thought. He might as well read it, maybe he could imagine someone else in your place, a fictional character to help him cope. 

As he opened the book to read it, Belphie knocked on his door saying, 

“Hey it's dinner time! Hurry up Beel’s already staring at your food!”

At dinner, you sat next to Lucifer, furthering the growth of a seed called jealousy inside of Satan. It was near blooming. Satan's face was burning with jealousy, why wasn't it him, the one who helped you through this, that you would be so close to? He was angry at Lucifer, he was angry at the universe that you had fallen for Lucifer, and he was angry at himself for having these feelings that he just couldn’t express to you. He jolted up out of his seat and began making his way to his room, he couldn’t stand watching you two together anymore. Lucifer got up as well. He rushed after Satan, grabbing him by the sleeve. It reminded Satan of the day this all began, but this time, there wasn’t anyone at fault. 

“What’s the issue?” he asked. 

Satan scoffed, “Fuck off Lucifer.”

Taken aback by this, Lucifer said, “What’s wrong with you? can’t you just calm down and-”

“Calm down? You want me to calm down? Fine then, I’ll be calm. let me just calmly remind you that you’re the reason MC was so scared, you’re the reason she was sent in to a fucking breakdown, you, not. me. But you wanna know who she still clings to?” 

Satan, burning with anger and jealousy, was digging his nails into the palm of his hand as he strained his muscles with how hard he clenched his fists. He looked almost amused with how horrible he felt. Lucifer has a shocked expression, where was this coming from? All of this talk about you and who you love? He didn’t know that you felt that way, you’d never said it before.

“Satan,-“

“No! I’m talking and you’re gonna fucking listen!”

He growled, 

“Why did it have to be you? I love MC, I care for her and I make her comfortable, but why did she have to pick you out of all the people?”

“Listen, if you’re just going to mope about MC not being into you, why would you take it out on me?”

“God you’re SO FUCKING CLUELESS!!” he was glowing with rage, he was seeing in red, he was so angry. 

Gripping his one hand with the other, Lucifer admitted defeat by saying, 

“I’m sorry, Satan…”

He stopped. Lucifer looked like he was in pain, he may not say it, but he cared for Satan as much as he did the other brothers. Satan saw that expression of hurt, he looked to the door of your room. The anger was nowhere to be seen as he turned to Lucifer with tears, heavy as boulders resting on the brim of his eyes, begging to fall, 

“Just… just take care of her,” he said through a grimace of agony.  With that, Satan left to go to his room. He wanted to again escape inside of a book. 

They went their separate ways and in his room, Lucifer was deep in thought. He thought about you, how he loved you so much, and he thought about how Satan loved you so much. He loved you so much that he set aside his anger. The two of them were truly the closest in nature. Lucifer had laid his pride aside to apologize because he loved you and Satan laid his anger down to make sure that you could stay happy. 

He looked at the book on his table, a love story between an angel and a human. He glowered and flopped onto his bed, facing his table. He clenched his fists and turned around. With tears streaming down his face he whispered, 

“I love you.” 

He knew you couldn’t hear him, but he hoped, in some mystical or magical way, that you knew. That someday, it could be him that you loved back. He fell asleep with tears dried on his cheeks. 

The day had ended, but the love was still there, harbored in three hearts. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope you enjoyed! My prompt requests are closed for the time being, as I have a ton of requests to get through. I have plenty of fics to read though, so don’t fret! Thank’s for reading <3

[hermannsthumb]

Nsfw prompt: The boys go for a swimming hall (Hermann finds swimming best form excercise for his leg) and Newton gets a bit handsy beneath the water.

im really in the mood for a prompt like this, i just got a nice ole (unused lol) pool off eb*y and i can’t wait to swim.....

18+/not SFW under cut

———————–

The thing about Hermann is that–no matter how often he and Newt argue, or how often he snaps at Newt, or criticizes Newt, or tells Newt to bugger off, or acts like a generally cold, unfeeling jackass–he’s still Newt’s best friend, which means Newt has a vested interest in getting into his business whenever at all possible. It’s what best friends are for, you know–having someone to always know your business. Newt always makes sure Hermann knows his business.

Anyway. Every Friday, without fail, Hermann will take a small, early dinner, clock out of the lab at 7:30 p.m. sharp, and speedwalk off down the hallway in the opposite direction of where his quarters are, a small tote bag in hand. Every Friday, without fail, Newt will ask where he’s going. Every Friday, without fail, Hermann will tell him to bugger off. It’s enough to drive anyone nuts with curiosity, let alone Newt in his official best friend status.

“What I’m trying to say,” Newt says, “is that you drove me to this.”

He doesn’t know why Hermann’s acting so weird about it all and, like, trying to cover himself up. It was only natural for Newt–after weeks of being told to bugger off–to finally just followed Hermann out one Friday and got his answers for himself. And boy, is he glad he did.

“I didn’t even know we had a swimming pool!” he exclaims happily. “Does anyone else come here?”

Hermann continues to shield his body with his towel. Again, weird–he’s in a bathing suit, it’s not like he’s naked. And it’s not like it’d be weird even if he was naked. Newt’s seen him naked more times than he can count, and Hermann’s seen him naked just as much in turn. Lot of lab accidents, you know. (Most of which are Newt’s fault.) “N-not that I know of,” he coughs out. He breathed in a decent amount of water when Newt flung open the door and starting shouting, so Newt guesses he’s still recovering. “I imagine it was once part of the rangers’ gymnasium, but–it’s not as if there are enough of them left to warrant it being, er, exclusive. Newton–”

Newt begins to take off his shirt. “You have access to the rangers’ gym?”

“Not strictly speaking, no,” Hermann says, “but no one in LOCCENT ever uses decent passcodes on their computers, and– Newton, what are you doing?”

“Undressing,” Newt says.

“I can see that,” Hermann says. “Why?”

“What, you thought I wasn’t going to swim in the super awesome private pool you hacked yourself credentials for?” Newt says. He kicks off his boots, and his socks and jeans and glasses follow. Boxers stay on–he doesn’t want to give Hermann a heart attack. “Okay, look out!”

“Technically, hacking isn’t--wait, no,” Hermann says, eyes widening in alarm, “no, no–!”

Newt does a cannonball into the deep end: the resulting wave drenches Hermann and his towel, which he finally throws aside and to scowl at Newt. “I think that was a ten out of ten,” Newt says happily. He splashes over to Hermann and settles in against the wall next to him. The water is warmer than he thought, which is nice. “So this is where you go every Friday night? You swim?

“Yes,” Hermann says through gritted teeth. “I find the exercise is good for my leg, and I like the quiet. Will you leave me alone now?”

“Nah,” Newt says. “It’s kinda dangerous to swim without a buddy, dude. I’ll be doing you a favor if I stay.” He stretches out his limbs and tosses his arm around Hermann’s shoulders. “You know, I haven’t been swimming in years. My dad used to take us to the beach a bunch when I was a kid, but we stopped when I started college, and it wasn’t like we could have a pool at the apartment, and...”

Hermann shakes him off. There’s a faint pink blush across his cheeks. “Yes, that’s all very fascinating. At least keep to the other bloody side, won’t you?”

Newt grins. “Why?”

“I said I come here for quiet,” Herman says.

Newt mimes zipping his lips shut and throwing away the key. “You won’t even know I’m here.”

They don’t exactly keep to separate sides of the pool, but they do their own things to the extent that they may as well be: Hermann does a series of calm, even laps around the edge, while Newt entertains himself with attempting underwater handstands (he fails) and perfecting his backflip off the edge (he fails those, too, though his cannonball remains tried and true). He’s paddling over to the ladder for yet another try at a backflip when Hermann suddenly grunts, loudly, in discomfort.

Newt turns quickly, snatching his glasses up and cramming them back on. “Hermann?”

Hermann–face screwed up, eyes shut tight–has one white-knuckled grip on the side of the pool, the other on his left thigh. “Cramp,” he hisses through his teeth. “Bugger. No, it’s fine, don’t bother–”

But he goes easily when Newt guides him to the steps of the pool, and he doesn’t let go of Newt’s shoulder until he’s seated down comfortably. Newt hovers, anxiously, over him. “Are you good?” he says. “Do you need me to get your pain meds?” This sort of thing isn’t new for Hermann, and they’re both well-practiced in how to deal with it at this point (pain meds, sometimes a heating pad) but Newt can’t help but worry every time. Especially when they’re this far off from the lab and their bunks. 

Hermann shakes his head. “It’ll pass,” he says. He stretches out his leg and begins to work his fingers up and down his muscles, letting out the occasional grunt of pain. “I just need–”

“Let me,” Newt says.

Hermann stares at him skeptically. Then he drops his hands. “If you’re sure,” he says, and leans back.

It’s awkward at first, with Hermann breathing and glaring over him, but–after five minutes of squeezing, and testing different levels of pressure–Newt finally settles into a rhythm, and Hermann’s hisses of pain give way to small, pleased groans. “That’s–yes,” Hermann sighs. His head tips back, giving Newt a perfect view of his long, elegant throat. “Perfect.”

Newt grins weakly. He’d make some smart-ass comment, too, but he seems to be forgetting more and more of his vocabulary with each little sound that slips out of Hermann’s mouth, and he doesn’t trust himself to not just start squeaking. It’s not even just those little sounds that are making Newt feel funny, actually–it’s Hermann’s half-mast eyelids, the dig of his teeth into his wide lower lip, the tensing and relaxed sagging of his body every time Newt finds a new spot to work in his leg. It’s–well–you know. Newt’s only human. The pool water is too warm to help stop things from getting weird, but at least Newt’s crouched down low enough to conceal anything unseemly. “Good?” he croaks out.

Hermann nods. His throat bobs as he swallows. “Mm. Little higher.”

Newt obliges. Twice, by accident, his fingers dip beneath the hem of Hermann’s swim trunks and skim over the soft skin of his inner thigh; when he does it a third time, he reels back, blushing to the tips of his ears. “S-sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean–”

He stops short when he notices the tenting in Hermann’s trunks, eye level with him now. He’s not sure how he missed it before. He’s not sure how Hermann–with his heavy eyelids and parted mouth–is missing it. “Hey, dude,” Newt squeaks.

It’s a natural biological response to physical stimuli. Nudity–hands on that nudity, massaging out tension and getting just a little too close to certain parts of the human anatomy–shit, Newt’s having the same problem himself! Hermann doesn’t mean anything by it. Nothing personal. “Hm?” Hermann groans.

You have a boner, Newt thinks. I’m turning you on, Newt thinks. But he doesn’t say either of those things: instead, with a show of courage he’s not sure he actually feels, he moves his hand overtop Hermann’s dick.

Hermann’s emits a strange, low keen; his eyes shoot open. “Newton?” he says. He sounds a little dazed. More important, though, he also sounds excited, and when Newt gently cups him through the thin layer of polyester, he splays his legs wider and keens again. “What are you doing?” he breathes.

Newt moves his hand up and down twice, slowly, getting a feel for him. Hermann grabs onto the edge of the pool. “Newton,” he says again, but it’s a moan this time.

This is all the encouragement Newt needs. He shuffles forward on his knees, lifting himself just enough from the water to pull himself from his own boxers, and--tentatively--touches Hermann’s hand. “Hey,” he says, “will--will you--?”

Hermann’s fingers are cold and kind of clammy, and definitely unpracticed, and he doesn’t do anything but grasp at Newt for a minute while Newt continues to rub the heel of his palm up and down Hermann’s dick. “What do you want me to do?” Hermann says. His voice is maddeningly husky--nothing Newt’s ever heard before. God. Since when has Hermann been sexy? Always, if Newt’s being honest, but he guesses there’s a thin line between thinking someone’s sexy and knowing, definitively, that they’re really fucking sexy.

“Whatever you want?” Newt says.

Hermann blinks at him. Then--leaning in and draping the bulk of his weight on Newt--he kisses Newt. Their chins bump together, and their teeth clack, and Newt was not expecting it, but it’s awesome, so he kisses back happily and rubs Hermann a little faster. He likes how Hermann’s dick feels. It’s not scary intimidating or anything, but it’s good and firm, and the sort of thing he could (eventually) see himself enjoying getting his mouth on. “Oh,” Hermann moans into his mouth, “oh, that's--Newton--”

His own hand begins to move on Newt. Fucking finally. “Yeah, that’s perfect,” Newt says, and then winces. “Okay, don’t squeeze so tight, that’s--that actually kind of hurts. Hermann.”

“Sorry,” Hermann pants. Is that how he usually jerks himself off? No wonder he’s so tense all the time. “Oh, oh, you’re very good at this.”

Newt grins against his mouth. “I know. Hey, you want me to--?”

He was planning on offering to use his mouth, because he’s getting more and more curious about how much he’d enjoy it (and he’s really good at using his mouth, and he knows Hermann would enjoy it) but--hips jerking erratically, kissing Newt hard enough to draw blood--Hermann suddenly cries out and goes still. “Holy shit,” Newt says. “Did you--?”

“Yes,” Hermann says, through deep, heavy breaths. His hand slips off of Newt; he slumps backwards. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Newt says. “That’s hot. Okay, I can finish myself, no sweat, just sit there and look pretty--”

He jerks himself off quickly, eyes roving all over Hermann and committing every goddamn inch of him like this to memory: his heaving, blush-pink chest, his blown pupils, his wide-open mouth, the obscene splay of his legs. The top of his dick, spent, but still a little pink, poking out over the waistband of his swim trunks. How his mouth felt on Newt’s. How the soft skin of his thigh felt under Newt’s fingertips. “Yeah,” Newt grunts, and he comes over himself.

He slinks back under the water, panting. The pool filter will take care of the mess. Probably. Anyway, it’s not like anyone but Hermann knows this place exists in the first place. “Newton,” Herman begins.

The gymnasium door swings open. Newt stuffs his dick back into his boxers in a flash. “Hey,” a ranger Newt recognizes only in passing says, as two of his equally tall and equally built friends loom in the doorway behind him, “what are you guys doing here?”

“Leaving?” Newt says.

He and Hermann hustle out as fast as they can, Newt not even bothering to put his pants back on first, Hermann’s towel flapping like a striped bird behind them. They stop three hallways away just long enough to catch their breath; then, grinning shyly at each other, they dissolve into laughter.

[fiercyy]

Till Death Chapter 1/?

Co-authored by @holyfuckabear

This fic began as a bitchfest between me and B. It morphed into an actual story, with plot, characters and world building. Go figure. With only mild disrespect to Kubo’s vision, we present a reimagining of Bleach.

@ichirukimonth for the prompt Agent of the Shinigami + Soul Society Arc: Chapter/Episode Tag

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Ichigo Kurosaki has become a superhero overnight. This entails a lot more oversight than he was lead to believe there would be. Is this his life now? Being stalked by some tiny woman, hellbent on bossing him around?

(For the record: yes.)

 A canon rewrite fic.

AO3

Spring is supposed to be a time for new beginnings. Plants peak out of the earth, cherry blossoms fall, a new school year begins and it rains every other goddamn day.

Seventeen-year-old Ichigo Kurosaki hates the rain. It makes his skin itch and his hands clammy. The worst days of his life are tied to drenched shoulders and tears mixing with rainwater. When it rains, more than one kind of ghost comes out to roam. And ghosts have a way of finding Ichigo.

Ichigo is about to learn a little more about the world. From here on out, everything changes. But for today, he feels...

Amazing. It’s the only word to describe it. There is a rhythm to fighting that Rukia cannot replicate in melody. She hums as she attacks. Her legs step to an unheard beat as she flies to and fro, perplexing the dumb creature. It roars and her heart does an internal aria.

Rukia has always been meant to do this. Most days she thinks it’s the only thing she does well. Hollow, merely a whisper in the wind now, she turns to the frightened spirit crouching by the mailbox and thinks, well, maybe not the only thing.

She is not a nurturing woman by nature, but she does what she can to soothe him. Rukia likes the feeling of heavy hands on her head, fingers ruffling her hair, memories of a bygone age. So, she does this for the child-spirit. He seems to take comfort before she releases him to the next life. She hopes that he will not be hungry. She wishes him weakness. Rukia looks up and around her when it’s done. The humans mill around, none the wiser for having narrowly escaped a soul-sucking death. For a moment, she thinks she makes eye-contact with a bearded man in a white coat and quickly realizes that she imagined it. His eyes skip over her and he continues his stroll down the street She has been in Karakura for a week. It isn’t loneliness per se but she feels distinctly invisible. Her voice has started to hoarse from disuse. That’s why she started singing to herself as she fights. No one can hear her anyway, who would mind?

“Ichigo.”

Ichigo squints as he stares into the sun. “What are you looking at?” asks Tatsuki, around a mouthful of kebab. He blinks to adjust his eyes and shakes his head, trying to shake off the strange feeling of being watched. “Nothing.” There was no black butterfly on the horizon. There was no one atop the telephone pole. He’s just tired. That’s what he tells himself.

Ichigo tells himself a lot of things. Especially these days.

That is to say, it looks like he’s talking to himself. Like. All the time.

What he’s really doing is chatting with the weird old cat lady spirit who refuses to leave until the last of her cats are adopted from the pound. Despite the fact that they ate her corpse. He knows this detail because she tells him every time he passes the shelter.

Sometimes it’s not Mrs. Hojou, but Mina, who is creepily keeping her eye on her ex, who moved on too quickly for her tastes.

More often than not it’s Mr. Agano. Ichigo doesn’t know what his deal is but he seems lonely and spends every Tuesday following him around. He learns very quickly to schedule things that require concentration on any other day.

Ichigo works his life around the drifting strangers who can’t seem to leave him alone.

This is how he notices that something is amiss.

He spends next Tuesday alone.

Raito, the teenaged boy who lives beside the river is gone too.

The ghosts of Karakura Town have slowly begun to disappear.

It takes him weeks to realize why.

Someone is singing. It’s a song that’s been playing on every radio lately and god is he sick of it. Whoever it is, she’s basically screaming it between grunts.

Ichigo rounds the corner and sees her. And it.

Holy shit.

A fucking monster the size of a city block is snapping its jaws at the ghost who he brings flowers to. The white of its mask is stark against the clear blue sky. Its black leathery body moves with speed that belies its size.

Between Ichigo and the beast is a girl.

She leaps out of the way just in time to avoid the monster’s fist come down and leave a crater in the ground. She does a backflip over it, draws her sword and HOLY SHIT DID SHE JUST FUCKING FLY?

Wait. Stop. Rewind.

This is the moment that Ichigo Kurosaki’s life changes forever.

Rukia Kuchiki is 4”10, pale as seafoam and as deadly as anything he’s ever seen. And she is singing about love and bunnies at the top of her freaking lungs.

This is fate, but he doesn’t know that yet.

With a slice of her katana (?!?!?) the thing is neutralized. She is still singing.

Ichigo is mildly aware that he is gaping. He looks around to see if anyone’s around, if anyone else is staring. There are, but none of them have so much as fliched. Well, he supposes that he’s used to seeing things at this point.

It is in this moment that Rukia looks up and the tune ends. Her brows furrow as if squinting into the distance. Their eyes meet and Ichigo remains frozen in place. She opens her mouth as if to say something but a roar cuts through the air.

And then she’s gone, as if blurring out of existence.

Huh.

That. was. weird.

Ichigo arrives home to a kick in the face. Literally.

“Where the hell have you been?!” His father demands, putting him in a headlock.

“I ran into some ghosts okay? What the hell was I supposed to do?!”

“Oh, so it’s the ghosts’ faults huh? I bet it’s a ghost’s fault that your room is a mess, huh?”

While they shout each other down, the two girls at the table sigh simultaneously. Karin, the younger one, spoons more rice into her bowl and pretends she can’t hear them. Karin pretends that she can’t hear a lot of things.

“You’ve got another one Ichigo,” she mutters.

“Huh?” an older gentleman appears over Ichigo’s shoulder. “When the hell did you get here?” He tries to wave him away. He’s done with spirits for the day, thank you very much.

“I wish I could see spirits,” sighs Yuzu, “I mean, I can feel them sometimes but-”

Karin is kind of glad she cant. “I’m not even sure they exist.”

“How can that be? Can’t you see them too?”

“I’m in permanent denial. Just because I can see them, doesn’t mean I believe in them.”

Here’s the thing about breaking and entering. It doesn’t count unless someone sees you.

And no one in Karakura Town can see her.

Rukia has developed a kind of selective hearing. She moves through the world of the living while ignoring the living. In the beginning, she’d look up if it sounded like someone was talking to her, but no one ever was. Slowly it got easier to tune it all out.

It’s been peaceful. The 13th division is so loud. And it’s a different kind of quiet than the Kuchiki mansion.

So when she walks through the wall and lands in the middle of a bedroom that smells like dirty socks and cologne, the last thing she expects is to literally have her ass kicked.

“How strange. You look normal, but you must be defective in some way,” she remarks while examining him like a specimen on a slab in Squad 12.

“I’ll show you defective!”

Rukia tries, she really does. Humans are very strange and this one is not very receptive to simple explanations. Are they all slow, or is it just this one?

And then he touches her hair and ohhhhh was that a mistake.

“Bakudo #1, SAI!”

“What the hell did you do to me?!”

“Don’t struggle, it’ll make it worse. I might appear young to you but I have lived nearly 10 of your lifetimes. I would kill you on the spot if it weren’t against my orders,” a lie, but on some level she thought it might be fun to rattle this one. “Now shut up, you little brat.”

It’s only after she brings the hilt of her sword down on the wayward spirit that she realizes she’d scared the human. She feels bad for a moment but presses on.

“Now, for why I’m here. I’ll explain using small words.”

And maybe some informative drawings.

So you know those days, that change your whole life?

Ichigo Kurosaki is having one of those days; a terrible one.

His hands are free from the kidou but he’s still helpless. Yuzu is unconscious in the house somewhere, Karin is unmoving in his arms and this tiny woman who sings bad pop songs while she fights is dodging around the grappling fists of what she calls a hollow.

The hollow had said that it wanted his soul. It was looking for him, all this time. He brought flowers to a ghost and that made her a target. This thing has been following him all this time, but why?

The same reason it took Karin but not Yuzu; they can see it. Something deep inside them calls out to these creatures. Like a dinner bell.

The hollow grazes the shinigami’s side just as she gets what looks like a critical hit. She skids across the street as she falls.

Intellectually, Ichigo has seen what she can do. She might as well leap tall buildings in a single bound. But she’s so small, and every instinct he has tells him that makes her someone he should be protecting.

Ichigo glances around for a weapon. To his right there’s a folding chair from the clinic. He picks it up and darts over to the beast. Maybe he can distract it, maybe he can help.

He knows he can’t, but maybe if it takes him it’ll leave his sisters alone. “HEY!” he shouts, “You want me? Come and get me!”

The hollow obliges.

So does Rukia, although, less happily.

She disappears from behind the creature and reappears in front of him, just in time for the monster’s jaws to clamp around her and her sword, instead of him.

“You idiot!” she shouts in pain.

He feels blood on his face. He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about this, but it’s surprisingly warm. He didn’t think a goddess would bleed.

With a surge of strength, the girl shoves the hollow back. It has a large crack down the center of its bone white face. She clutches at her wound and crawls to lean against the crumbling wall of the clinic.

“Oh I am going to kill you when this is over,” she promises with a wet laugh.

“Go ahead and try,” he jokes. He’s trying to stop the bleeding but his hands aren’t big enough.

The hollow looms.

Her sword clatters to the floor beside her. Ichigo dives to pick it up. His right-hand wraps around the grip. It’s surprisingly cold. It chills him to his bones. He tries to lift it up to defend them from the advancing monster but it’s too heavy. He physically cannot budge it and the more he tries, the colder the sword becomes; until it burns.

“Ichigo, do you want to save your family?”

As she says his name, he realizes that he doesn’t know hers.

“Shinigami-”

“Rukia, my name is Rukia,” she sighs and looks at the hollow, still trying to recover. “Will you do whatever it takes?”

“I’d do anything.”

“Then you’re going to have to trust me. I’m sorry.”

And then.

And then.

The pain radiates out from his chest, into every nerve ending. But it’s the sweet kind of pain that builds to a crescendo and releases with a breath.

Black robes swirl around him. In his hands is a sword.

Somehow he knows exactly what to do.

In the morning he wonders if he dreamed the whole thing.

But then she appears in homeroom.

His classmates’ chatter turns into a faint buzzing in his ears as he looks down at her. Her voice is saccharine, she bats impossibly thick eyelashes. With her slight form and girlish voice, she looks harmless, introducing herself to the boys using outdated and formal Japanese.

The illusion is shattered by a glance at the palm she’s held out to him. Smeared already, black ink spells out:

‘Make a scene and you’re dead :)’

Charming.

His lips form around the word, “You.”

Her smile is sinister.

Notes:

Here is a list of some changes you can expect from this reboot:

Rewriting the rules of the universe so they’re consistent and make sense.

Ichiruki

Ichigo’s family backstory is different

Aging up the characters a little, they’re now 17 at the beginning of the series.

The gang’s dynamics are going to change and include Tatsuki

Speaking of Tatsuki, the characters who really should have had some spotlight are going to get some.

We’re culling the cast of thousands so it’s manageable.

Stakes

By this we mean rising action, realistic powerups, and escalation that does not get out of control.

Rukia gets the goddamn arc she deserves.

Reducing the length of and amount of fight sequences.

Soul Society is basically completely different, don’t worry Ichigo will be the layman and Rukia, your exposition fairy. JUST LIKE CANON!

REAL SORRY IF YOU LIKE KON SUCKERS

[evilkitten3]

I'll be greedy and say rivalshipping, devotionshipping (I think I haven't seen you write/post about the last... so leave that out if you don't ship them :-) for all of the OTP questions.

Fair enough. XD I’m not a huge Devotionshipping fan, but it’s still cute.

Rivalshipping (Mutou Yuugi x Kaiba Seto) & Devotionshipping (Jounouchi Katsuya x Mazaki Anzu)

1: Who spends almost all their money on the other?

Nobody. Yuugi and Anzu are smarter than that, Kaiba’s a businessman, and Jounouchi doesn’t have any money.

2: Who sleeps in the other’s lap?

Yuugi falls asleep on Kaiba and Jounouchi takes naps on Anzu.

3: Who walks around the house half-naked and who yells at them to put on some clothes?

Yuugi and Kaiba just wear what they always wear, so it’s mostly Anzu yelling at Jounouchi (he never does the same because oh my god musCLES)

4: Which one tells the other not to stay up all night and which one stays up all night anyway?

Yuugi teams up with Mokuba to get Kaiba to go the fuck to sleep. Sometimes they even pull it off. Both Jounouchi and Anzu are pretty good about it, though.

5: Which one tries to make food for the other but burns it all by accident and which one tells them that it’s okay and makes them both cookies?

Actually, Yuugi is the only one that can’t really cook. Kaiba learned how because of trust issues after he was adopted, Jounouchi usually has to make dinner since his dad… isn’t good about that, and Anzu worked in a restaurant so she knows her way around a kitchen. Ironically, Yuugi is the only one with any idea how to bake.

6: Which one reads OTP prompts and says “Oh that’s us!” and which one goes “Eh, not really”?

Jounouchi. For everyone, not just him and Anzu. Including people who aren’t dating. “Hey, Honda, this one reminds me of you and Anzu!” “…She’s dating you, you idiot.”

7: Which one constantly wears the other’s clothes?

Kaiba and Yuugi can’t fit in each other’s clothes, and Jounouchi is too tall for Anzu’s, so mostly Anzu wears Jounouchi’s clothes (mostly she’ll just borrow a t-shirt after a work out or something).

8: Which one spends all day running errands and which one says “You remembered [thing], right?”

Jounouchi runs the errands, Anzu asks if he forgot anything. Kaiba has people to do that for him.

9: Which one drives the car and which one gives them directions?

The only vehicle Kaiba drives is the Blue-Eyes White Dragon jet, which Yuugi insists is the silliest thing he’s ever seen. Mostly, they get chauffeured. Jounouchi usually takes public transit, so Anzu drives and he gives directions.

10: Which one does the posing while the other one draws?

I honestly doubt any of them can draw. XD

11: If they were about to rob a museum, which one does backflips through lasers and which one is strolling behind with a bag of chips?

Anzu backflips because she can. Yuugi and Jounouchi walk in with the chips. Kaiba just hires someone else to do it for him. Actually, he probably hires Anzu.

12: Which one of your OTP overdoes it on the alcohol and which one makes the other stop drinking?

Nobody, really. Kaiba sometimes worries that Yuugi’s had too much, since he’s… vertically challenged, but neither of them drink too much. Anzu only sometimes drinks, and Jounouchi avoids alcohol like the plague because… well, y’know.

13: Which one likes to surprise the other with a lot of small random gifts?

Yuugi likes to surprise Kaiba, who always points out that he doesn’t have to buy Kaiba freaking Seto anything, but he does it anyway. Jounouchi and Anzu’s “surprises” are mostly just take out. XD

14: Which one keeps accidentally using the other’s last name instead of their own?

Neither Yuugi nor Kaiba make this mistake, and Anzu doesn’t either. But Jounouchi once writes down “Mazaki Katsuya” as a joke and realizes he really likes the sound of it.

15: Which one screams about the spider and which one brings the spider outside?

Jounouchi screams and Anzu rescues. Yuugi doesn’t mind spiders and Kaiba has “better things to do than acknowledge the presence of inferior beings”.

16: Which one gives the other their jacket?

Yuugi still gives Anzu his jacket, even though they’re not a couple, because he’s polite like that. Kaiba sometimes gives his jacket to Yuugi, but mostly as a blanket. Jounouchi doesn’t share his jacket because he’s embarrassed of how old and worn out it is (Anzu doesn’t mind, though).

17: Who keeps getting threatened by the other’s overprotective older sibling?

Nobody. Actually, Shizuka and Mokuba generally threatened their brothers, since Mokuba looks up to Yuugi and Shizuka sees Anzu as a sister.

18: Who’s the first one to admit they have feelings for the other?

Yuugi, but only once he realizes that Kaiba’s just going to keep challenging him to a Duel while screaming internally. As for Anzu and Jounouchi… neither one really confesses; it just sorta happens.

19: How good would your OTP be at parenting?

Honestly, Kaiba’s too busy to be any kind of parent, and Yuugi doesn’t really want kids. He’s not at all against it, but it’s not like a life goal or something. Jounouchi and Anzu would be great parents, but Jounouchi is really worried that his dad’s parenting would affect his own parenting. They’ve agreed that they’ll probably adopt a kid once Jounouchi’s comfortable with it.

20: Which one types with perfect grammar and which one types using numbers as letters?

Kaiba types like he’s someone’s granddad, Anzu just makes sure to use proper punctuation, Jounouchi does whatever the hell he wants, and Yuugi is the King of Emojis. XD

21: Who gets attacked by a bully and who protects them?

Yuugi and Kaiba are both famous, so they’ve got bodyguards. Jounouchi’s ex-gang knows better than to start shit with him. Anyone who goes after Anzu regrets it because that girl can kick your ass seven ways to Sunday.

22: Who makes the bad puns and who makes a pained smile every time the other makes a pun?

Yuugi and Jounouchi love puns. Kaiba just sighs and Anzu rolls her eyes, but both of them smile sometimes.

23: Who comes home from work to see that the other one bought a puppy?

Kaiba. Because Yuugi’s the only one with the time, energy, and money to spend on a puppy.

24: Which one gives the other a piggyback ride when they’re tired?

Both Anzu and Jounouchi have given Yuugi piggyback rides. Kaiba gives him jet rides. Neither Anzu nor Jounouchi pick each other up all that often.

25: Which one competes in some sort of activity and which one does the overzealous cheering?

Anzu is the GOD of cheering. Kaiba’s version of encouragement is less “cheering” and more “weird mix of compliments and insults”. Jounouchi nd Yuugi both cheer too, though.

26: Who takes a selfie when the other one falls asleep on their shoulder?

Yuugi takes one of Kaiba because it’s adorable (and because he’s finally asleep thank fuck) and Anzu and Jounouchi take pictures of each other.

27: Which one would give the other a makeover if they asked?

I… honestly can’t see any of them doing this.

28: Which one owns a pet that the other is absolutely terrified of?

Jounouchi, Anzu, and Yuugi have no pets. And Kaiba has no fears aside from something happening to Mokuba, losing at Duel Monsters to anyone but Yuugi, losing at Duel Monsters to Yuugi, and a pissed-off Mazaki Anzu (Yuugi came to her house crying after Kaiba said something insensitive without realizing it, and oh boy did she blow a fuse).

29: Which one holds the umbrella over both of them when it rains?

Kaiba, although it’s hard to find a way to get both him and Yuugi under the same umbrella. Anzu and Jounouchi usually just hold their bags over their heads and book it.

30: If your OTP went on vacation, where would they go and what would they do? Who would take the pictures?

They’d go to Egypt. You know why, you know where. It would be sad for everyone, but also happy, in a strange way. Mokuba takes pictures of Yuugi and Kaiba (not that Kaiba is aware of this), and Anzu and Jounouchi take their own pictures.

[ecotone99]

[SF][HM] Rex and Relaxation

Original Prompt: Farmers Market in Space

The suns were shining high in the sky over the town of Brill and the slightly-cool-but-not too-cool air was crisp and refreshing. Birds were chirping and the town was bustling with the sounds of commerce as people bartered back and forth for goods in the Farmers Market. Brill’s Farmers Market was famous throughout the region and all throughout the month of Moonuary people flocked from far and wide to see what kind of neat shit they could obtain.

Far away from the town of Brill, a man sat in a captain’s chair on the bridge of a spaceship. His name was Rex Flexington. He could flex the space-pants off any space-woman in the room whenever he wanted to. At least that’s what his traveling companion and on again-off again best friend, Leo, told him. The pair had been traveling through the quadrant for some time, seeking out a substance known as space rubies. Space rubies were mythical gems that were rumored to exist and were named quickly and not very cleverly. After searching without luck for sometime, the pair decided they could use some R&R.

“I could use some R&R!” shouted Rex, as he stood up from the captain's chair, stretched a little, and started walking over to the ship’s molecular synthesizer.

“Boy, could you!,” said Leo, who was sitting next to him in another chair, “no one works as hard as you do, boss!”

“That’s goddamn right,” replied Rex as he reached the synthesizer’s main panel.

“Beer me!” he said, as he pushed a button on the device.

“Like, what kind of beer do you want, babe?” asked a gruff voice that definitely belonged to some kind of yoked AF biker.

“Gimme uh- wait, what the shit?” said Rex, taken aback.

“Leo, did you switch the computer voice to Harold again?”

Rex looked over at Leo, but Leo had pulled on some headphones and had the volume cranked way past 11. “Well whatever. Surprise me,” said Rex as he pushed the button again.

“Ooh mama like,” said Harold, then within the cavity of the molecular synthesizer an Omicronian black hole stout materialized. Rex twisted the bottle cap off and took a long swig. He belched, walked over to the command chair and said “What’s nearby?”

Leo fiddled with a tablet and said, “Looks like the only thing within 100 light years is settlement called Brill. Hmm... I found an old spwebsite for Brill’s Famous Farmers Market. Ooh it looks rather quaint, I think we could find some really neat shit there!”

Rex squinted and looked at Leo. He burped again. Then he scratched his scruff. Did I mention he had some scruff? Like just a little bit of stubble? The kind that a hot actor or maybe a professional athlete would have? Anyway...

“Whatever, yeah sure, let’s do it,” Rex said. Soon they were en route to Brill and before long, their ship had entered Brill’s atmosphere. Brill was a terraformed asteroid and the only thing on that asteroid was the town of Brill. According to the spwebsite that Leo had found, the asteroid had been terraformed for the sole purpose of setting up a farmer’s market and “definitely not for any nefarious reasons”.

Before long, Leo landed the ship in a parking lot and the pair were ready to

explore the market.

“Rex, hold up a second, I’m getting some weird readings on the ship’s scanner, I think it must be malfunctioning. I’m going to stay on board for a few minutes,” Leo said. “Go ahead, I’ll catch up. Oh and don’t go getting all the honeys without me.”

Rex cocked an eyebrow at his friend and then disembarked from the ship and made his way to the center of town. He stood at the edge of the market, surveying the different stands where various knicks and knacks were being sold. Among the knicks and knacks, he saw fruits, vegetables, high quality dining room furniture, low quality spaceship furniture, droids, coffee mugs, pocketwatches, laser rifles, jetpacks, toothbrushes, and decorative shadow boxes. He also saw a variety of very interesting looking folks on Brill, such as Gweelok, who was a Pthumerian, Thibb, who hailed from Draconis, Porthos from the moons of Livona, Q’nai the insectoid from the Groban Marshes and Louis from Earth Prime. They had all come from their home planets to peddle their wares and wow they must have come a long way because they all just looked so exotic. You really should have seen it.

Rex wandered around the market listening to various merchants shouting at him to buy their goods.

“Beets for sale!” cried an old man, at what looked like a vegetable stand.

“Beats by Dre for sale,” he continued, “Ancient Earth audio technology-Beats by Dre for sale!” he shouted as he held up a dusty old pair of headphones.

A woman who was standing by a different booth shouted to anyone who would listen, “Candles here!” Arcane technology that was probably responsible for burning down a lot of houses, candles, here!”

“Sex bots! All the stankiest rankiest sex havin droids you ever could want!” called out one obese robot who was wearing a purple robe and an extravagant gold necklace. Behind him were indeed some very sexy robots wearing various forms of robo-lingerie. This caught Rex’s attention more than the other stands and he almost walked over but decided not to. He was still struggling with coming to terms with his robosexuality.

After meandering about for a while, Rex came across a single stand that was unoccupied and completely empty of wares. Every other stand was manned by traders and merchants and peddlers and craftsmen. There were even some craftswomen too. But not at this one. Rex found that to be a bit odd… and probably sexist.

Rex walked behind the stand and found nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn’t until he looked back out towards the market that he thought something strange was going on. He wasn’t able to see any of the vendors. From behind the empty stand everything else was shrouded in what appeared to be some sort of a thick mist. His intuition compelled him to reach out, so he traced his hand over the surface of the stand. When he did, the surface emitted a series of glowing lights from where his fingers had been. He pressed a button that had emerged and a trapdoor opened up behind him.

Rex descended the ladder within the trapdoor and found himself in a huge underground cavern. Inside he saw creatures of all different races being whipped and beaten but he wasn’t sure to what end. Long conveyors and carts were being moved throughout the cavern but he couldn’t make out any of the contents. Guards with blasters and non copyright protected laser swords stood by, ready to lay a whoopin on any slave that got uppity. Rex barely had time to collect himself and look at all the crazy shit before a pair of guards ran towards him, yelling in an unknown language.

“Uhh.. this isn’t the men’s room!” said Rex, as he began climbing back up the trapdoor’s ladder. He dodged laser blasts and took his his own blaster out of his holster and got a few quick pop shots off. During his climb two guards fell dead but more and more came to see what the commotion was. Rex felt a good solid blast to his butt as he was just exiting through the trapdoor. Thankfully he kept his honey-buns real tight and though the laser burn was deep, his glutes were used to a deep tish burn cause you know Rex didn’t skip leg day.

Rex slammed the trapdoor shut behind him and walked out through the shroud that was wrapped around the stand. He wanted to play it cool as he walked through the farmer’s market and back to the ship as to not call any attention to himself. He called Leo on his communicator, “Leo, are you still at the ship?”

“Yeah, I’m still trying to figure out what’s up with the computer, it’s saying that it’s detecting-,” Rex cut him off.

“I don’t care what it says, get the ship ready to go right when I get there!”

“Aye aye cap’n!” said Leo.

Rex closed the communication and came to the center of the farmer’s market. A laser blast whizzed by his head and the crowd began to part. Remember those named characters from before? Didn’t you think it was weird that they were named but then didn’t take any part in the story? Well guess what, they’re back baby!

On Rex’s left and right stood Gweelok and Thibb. In front of him was Porthos and Q’nai. Behind him stood Louis and yeah, shit was about to go down.

The suns shone high in the sky as the 6 stood in the center of the market. Gweelok, Louis and Thibb had blasters pulled and were ready to fire. Porthos and Q’nai stood in front with laser swords drawn.

After a tense standoff but before anyone had a chance to react, the candle stand suddenly burst into fuckin flames. Everyone looked over to see what the hell had just happened. Everyone except Rex. He jumped in the air and did a wicked awesome backflip 360 McTwist and as he did he fired three shots, taking out the three baddies with the blasters, leaving only the two blade boys.

The pair with the definitely not lightsabers charged Rex, deflecting his shots as he fired at them. He sidestepped their thrusts and backed away from them, making his way over to the extravagantly dressed robot from earlier.

“You tryin to love up on some bot-donk-adonk?” asked the obese robot as Rex came up to him.

“Bill me!” gasped Rex as he dodged slashes and thrusts from the two assailants.

With that, Rex grabbed the hand of one of the fine-ass fembots and started to dance with her. He twirled this way and that, using her robo-body and more specifically her robo-booty, strategically blocking blow after blow from the attackers. They attacked in a flurry but couldn’t land any meaningful strikes. Rex’s dancing was just too good.

“This is some real dogshit,” growled Porthos, who as I said, was from the moons of Livona, and was therefore a wolfman, as I’m sure you already know.

“BZZZZZZZZ”, buzzed Q’nai.

Rex continued to spin and the prosti-bot continued to take the impact until sparks filled the air. But it wasn’t love… No! It was her electronic flesh being cleaved! You should really feel sorry for her. This is a very REAL thing that is happening! Anyway, the dancing continued. The sparks flew. Oil spewed out. Oil spewed out until suddenly the flames from the candle stand caught the slick that had pooled on the ground! Rex flexed a powerful flex and shoved the bot into the assaulters and towards the flames. The pair were engulfed and Rex flipped away while a great fireball exploded behind him.

With that, he made his way back to the parking lot as the Farmers Market burned behind him. When he finally made it back to the ship, Leo immediately blasted up and away. Rex lay on the command deck panting, thankfully he had only suffered some laser sword lacerations, some blaster wounds, and some emotional scarring from having to face his robosexuality head-on in such a powerful way.

“Rex, you’ll never believe it!” said Leo.

Rex was too exhausted to reply.

“I checked the scanner over and over. There’s no way it was wrong. You know what it said? It said that the core of Brill is made up of..”

“Of what?” Rex sighed.

“Space rubies!”

submitted by /u/YouKeepDaMoney [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2NIAkHT

[thelastpitchbender]

Memory | Chapter 2

Summary: Link must relearn how to be a Champion before he defeats Calamity Ganon – but first, he needs to stop setting fires and backflipping off of cliffs. It’s too bad that his attempts to be a responsible hero keep getting interrupted by dumb things like owing people money, remembering hardly anything about who he is, and Yiga Clan assassins trying to kill him.

Rating: T for language, violence, dark stuff, and dumb, bad humor.

Read on: FanFiction | AO3

Chapter index here.

Chapter 2

In Which Link Tries to Pay His Debts

Link and Princess finally reached Woodland Stable just before dawn. He hadn’t trusted himself to stay on the horse at a gallop when he was so hungry and exhausted, so he had left the pace up to Princess and hoped that the horse would make some kind of noise to let him know if there were any monsters around.

Link was startled out of his half-asleep state when Princess came to a halt. Panic shot through his mind. He fumbled behind him for the handle of the claymore.

But the Goddess had been with him. He blinked blearily, recognizing through a haze of exhaustion that they were at the stable. Smart horse. That was why he hadn’t simply traveled to the nearest shrine with the Sheikah Slate. Princess was too valuable to leave out in the wild. He would have to be returned to Princess Zelda when Link finally destroyed Calamity Ganon.

About to fall asleep on his horse, Link lost his train of thought. A good thing, too. Else he would have started dwelling on the Calamity and on Princess Zelda. He was just being stupid, he thought scornfully. The blood moon always put him on edge and made him overly emotional. He needed to sleep.

Somehow, he managed to stumble inside the stable, where the owner Kish was reclining on a chair, yawning. “Oh, hey, Link,” he murmured, glancing at the other sleeping patrons. “Your usual?”

Link just yawned and nodded. Kish gestured to the bed behind him. He would doubtlessly force the twenty rupees out of Link when he woke up.

His sleep was pleasantly deep and dreamless, but when he was dragged out of unconsciousness by some sort of commotion outside, his eyes were crusted shut and there was a foul taste in his mouth. “Fi’ more minuss,” he mumbled into his pillow.

A loud shriek startled him fully awake, setting his heart racing. Link bolted upright and snatched up his guardian sword, looking wildly around the inside of the stable.

Nothing. There was no one to be impressed by the sword, either. Link huffed and peered out through the open doors of the stable at the shadows cast by some nearby trees. It was around noon.

The shriek sounded again, and Link wanted to laugh. Oh. It was just an obnoxious bird in one of the surrounding trees. His paranoia born of being a warrior wasn’t always helpful, it seemed.

Just as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, his muscles screamed in pain and seized up, and his stomach let out the largest grumble he’d ever heard from it. Link took in a sharp breath and wondered if he shouldn’t just go back to sleep and let the world carry on without him. No moblins, no starvation, no Calamity Ganon. Sounded perfectly agreeable to him.

Then his stomach grumbled again, and he decided that there was to be no more sleep anyway until he ate. He may have been blessed by the Goddess Hylia, but he was still a mortal Hylian. A poor, sore Hylian, endlessly abused by his destiny.

Someone owes me for all this,he thought decisively as he sheathed the guardian sword and strapped the claymore to his back. I want a royal chef at my command. Perhaps at a small estate somewhere around here. He thought for another second. And a dog. I want a dog.

Link hobbled out of the stable and glanced around. It was a beautiful day outside. Shifting patterns of shadows dappled the ground as leaves rustled in the breeze. But the stable grounds were curiously empty, he noted with an uneasy frown. The paths around the front of the stable were undisturbed, the covered crates to his right were unbroken and unmoved, but there was no one around, not even on the wooden deck to his left. Even Kish was absent from his typical place behind the counter.

It was just his paranoia, he reassured himself. There was no reason to believe that everyone was in danger all the time. Well, besides the tinyproblem of the Calamity. But that was different. Still, Link found himself unable to fully relax.

Link’s gaze was eventually drawn to several crisp, bright red apples just sitting out on a stack of crates, ready for the taking. Who did that? Everyone at the stable knew Link would eat them all. He made a beeline for the apples, stomach clenching painfully, trying in vain not to seem tooweird about it.

He’d snatched up an apple and taken a massive bite, luxuriating in the delicious, juicy sweetness of its flesh, when someone shrieked his name from behind him.

Link whirled around. “Whuh?” he yelled through a mouthful of apple, a bit flying out onto the ground, right hand going for his sword.

He had to look down before he saw Shamae, a girl of about five or six who shared the same braided dark hair and wide eyes as her older sister Breen. “Did you bring more balloons?” Shamae asked. Her voice had only one volume: loud.

Link had to pause for a second to choke his mouthful of apple down, then he grinned broadly. “You bet I did. Killed a bunch of octoroks just for you.”

Shamae squealed in delight. “Let’s play with them!” she shouted. With much more enthusiasm than Link felt.

But he only shrugged, unable to stop himself from feeling at least a little bit pleased that Shamae liked him. He liked most kids. They were fun. “Sure, let’s do it,” he said.

Link patiently herded the little girl back the way he had originally come, pausing for a second to glance at two figures on the road headed towards the stable. One of them was clearly Beedle; the traveling salesman’s silhouette looked just as round and bulky as ever. The other was less distinct. Probably some average traveler.

“Hey, let’s prank that guy,” Link said, pointing the traveler out to Shamae. “We’ll spook him with flying barrels when he gets here.”

Shamae hopped a bit and clapped her hands. “Let’s make the barrels fly way up high!” she shouted.

Link grinned. “Okay, but we gotta be quieter. And we should hide behind that tree.” He pointed at a tree that stood on the opposite side of the wood deck, alongside the shore of Pico Pond. Shamae nodded her head vigorously in agreement. Link picked up one of the barrels clustered around a table and carried it over to the fence. He was about to toss the barrel over the fence when he heard Kish calling out to him.

“Link, did you pay me yet?” The stable master was making his way over to him from the direction of the pond.

Shit.He owed Kish more than just the 20 rupees from the night before. He’d racked up a tab from the several nights he had spent here. Especiallyfrom that night he had splurged on the extra nice bed.

Dammit, he knew that had been a poor use of his money.

Link surreptitiously slipped his hand into his wallet. He had only the purple rupee he’d gotten the night before and another red rupee. He owed Kish a hundred rupees. And he knew that Kish knew he was coming up with excuses not to pay it.

Kish was close enough for Link to see his raised eyebrow, and he panicked. “One second, I gotta talk to Breen first,” he blurted. He pressed the octo balloons into Shamae’s hand and barreled past the stable owner without bothering to look at how angry he probably was.

The best place he could think to go was the shrine across the pond, and soon enough, he spotted Breen sitting in front of it. Link strolled over to the shrine at the other side of Pico Pond, trying his best to seem casual. The shade cast by the reddish, craggy cliffs ensconcing the pond and the pleasantly cool breeze whispering through the trees were a welcome relief from the midday sun. He’d started to sweat under his tunic and greaves. Sky blue was not a good color to get sweat stains on.

Breen’s eyes flicked to him when he was about twenty feet away from the shrine, and she gave him a halfhearted wave.

Before he could stop himself, Link blurted out, “Dinraal’s fire, who died?” Wait, what if someone had died? Goddess, his big, stupid mouth–

Breen’s eyes widened, and Link hastily backpedaled. “Oh, Goddess, I didn’t mean that, I’m so sorry – “

Breen cut him off, a slight glimmer of humor in her eyes. “No one died. You’re fine.” Her good mood was gone as quickly as it came, and she turned her gaze out to the pond again.

Link hesitated for a moment, then sat down next to her, leaving a healthy few feet of distance. He watched the blue glow of the shrine reflected and rippling in the clear waters.

“It’s my dad,” said Breen, voice barely above a whisper.

Link started slightly. “What?”

“I told him that I want to travel around Hyrule. Or take a trip to Lanayru, at least,” Breen said. “He said it was too dangerous.”

Link had to agree. If Breen knew how to fight, if she was willing to accept the risks, then he wouldn’t mind, but he was much better equipped to fight monsters than she was and he still had trouble. He then glanced over at Breen, who seemed on the verge of tears. Link instantly sobered. “I’m sorry,” he said uncertainly.

“My dad said I’ll be taking over for him one day,” Breen sniffled.

He couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to be that trapped. If her father told her that her role in life was to own a stable, was there no other way for her? Her destiny wasn’t to – Oh. Maybe he understood better than he thought. Maybe he did understand what it was like to feel trapped by a destiny he felt ill-equipped for.

He made a decision. He would help Breen get to Lanayru.

Link jumped to his feet, prompting a panicked look from Breen. “You’re not going to fight anyone, are you?” she cried.

Link gave her a lopsided grin. “Only monsters.” He then jogged off back toward the stable, quickly throwing together a plot in his head that may or may not have been insane. Spotting a soldier’s spear leaning up against a rock, he surreptitiously grabbed it. It was cheaply made, meant more for frightening off a bokoblin than for actual heavy combat, but it would still be useful. He liked spears.

The traveler was almost to the stable. Link realized it was Molo, the guy who always wanted to loot Hyrule Castle but couldn’t find the courage to do it. He was wearing his usual expression of casual disinterest. Beedle was in the process of setting his massive pack down on the ground, and watched them with some interest. Kish was nowhere to be seen yet, thank the Goddess.

“Hey, Molo,” Link called out. “I have an idea.”

Molo looked at him with a frown, pushing his blond hair back from his face. “I can’t really right now – “

Kish was heading around from the back of the stable, and it was obvious when he’d seen Link from the dark expression on his face. Link briefly prayed that Mipha wouldn’t have to see him getting beaten to death by a stable owner.

“You keep saying that you want to go to Hyrule Castle, right?” Link asked, loudly for Kish’s benefit. He roughly grabbed Molo’s arm and dragged him away from the stable, into the sparse forest across from it. “You still need that cash and cachet, right? Well, I can help you take care of the cash part. As long as you help me.”

Molo pulled himself free, rubbing his arm and giving Link an aggrieved look.

“Look,” Link said quietly. “I don’t know how much you know about Breen’s traveling ambitions, but I’ve seen enough of Hyrule to know that she should see it too. Safely, of course,” he amended. No need to mention that he wanted to avoid Kish’s wrath.

Molo sighed, internally warring with himself. “Fine.”

Link clapped his hands. “Good. There’s a camp of bokoblins a little bit down the south road. We strip their camp of anything useful, including bokoblin fangs or guts, and then we sell everything to Beedle. Easy enough.”

Molo looked at him aghast. “That’show you make your money?”

Link just shrugged. “Cash and cachet.”

Molo let out a sharp breath. “Right as always, bud. Let’s do this.”

“How do I look?” Link asked Molo, his voice muffled by stiff fabric.

Molo hesitated. “And just where did you get that? Don’t get me wrong, it’s super cool and all, but…”

Link adjusted the bokoblin mask on his head so he could actually see out of the eyeholes. “It’s a bit of a long story,” he said in between adjustments. “I got it from this guy named Kilton. Looks funny. Has a flying monster-themed shop that’s only open at night. He uses his own currency called mon. I also bought a moblin mask from him.”

Molo peered at him. “I think you’re making that up, bud.”

“No! I – “ Link sighed. “Never mind.”

“Do you think that’ll fool them?” asked Molo as he strapped on his broadsword and shield.

Link nodded solemnly, the mask’s snout flapping as he did so. “Bokoblins are very, very stupid monsters.”

Molo looked unconvinced, but didn’t press any further. “So let me get this straight – the plan is that you infiltrate the camp and steal all their weapons. And I’m hiding behind that tree over there.” He pointed at the tree.

“Right,” Link said.

“And…you pass all of the weapons to me.”

“Also right.”

“And thenwe attack them.”

“You nailed it.” Link adjusted the mask again. It kept slipping down his face. He imagined it looked much like he was melting, and that was not conducive to being sneaky.

“Isn’t there…a better way to do this? Like, can’t we just jump out and kill them like normal people?”

Link frowned. “You could.Or you could do it the fun way.”

Molo thought for a second, and then nodded. “You’re right, bud. If I can’t learn about different combat strategies now, how will I ever survive Hyrule Castle?”

“That’s the spirit,” Link said. He pulled out the Sheikah Slate and studied the bokoblin camp from their position among the trees. The camp was right out in the open, next to the road. They had a couple of lookout platforms, but only one was manned. (Monstered? Link filed that one away for further contemplation.) The rest of the bokoblins looked like they were having some sort of feast celebration around the main campfire. Link’s stomach grumbled loudly upon catching sight of the heaps of grilled meat the bokoblins were tearing into. “Ugh,” he muttered.

Molo glanced at him. “What is it?”

“I’m hungry,” Link groaned, aware he sounded like a whiny kid but unable to stop himself.

“Well, then why don’t you – stay with me here – kill the monsters now, before all the meat gets cold?” Molo’s tone of voice dripped pure sarcasm.

Link very much wanted to argue with that, but he opened his mouth, then shut it again. “Fair point,” he conceded.

Molo abruptly shoved him out of the woods, hissing, “Good luck,” at him. Link staggered a few paces, then caught his balance, unsure of what to do next. Should he try to imitate a bokoblin’s bow-legged gait? But then Molo would mock him forever. This was a true conundrum.

Link settled for a slow normal walk towards the fire, but doubts started to cloud his mind with every step. What if Molo, the wannabe Hyrule Castle looter, was actually right? What if this actually was a really, really stupid plan? What if –

A blue bokoblin’s gaze settled on Link, whose every instinct screamed attackas a sudden burst of fear hit him. He forced himself to keep walking, and the bokoblin turned around, uninterested. He let out a breath he wasn’t fully aware he had been holding. He had no reason to be scared, he told himself. He could easily take on this camp by himself.

He sat down by the campfire, leaning against a log, and eyed the bokoblins warily. They weren’t…screeching, necessarily, but the noises they were making were still shrill, if at a lower volume than normal. Was this how they communicated? Link found himself overcome by morbid curiosity as the bokoblins all chittered at each other while making hand gestures.

After a little while, it seemed to be one bokoblin speaking and gesturing at a time, with the others sometimes interjecting with loud screeches and a bizarre hopping dance that Link could only interpret as the monster equivalent of knee-slapping laughter. He began paying more attention to the hand gestures, given that he had a slightly better chance of interpreting them.

The bokoblin across the circle from him was…bludgeoning something to death? That seemed about right. Now it was stabbing something with a spear. The bokoblin dropped to its knees and actually did a pretty good imitation of a terrified Hylian, which got the other bokoblins all excited and making too much noise. And then – oh. Oh, Goddess. He really hoped that wasn’t what he thought it was. That was disgusting.

It was like watching a fully-functional Guardian patrol its territory, spider legs moving about. Link couldn’t look away.

The monster storytime continued around the circle for quite a while, and when Link was certain he wouldn’t get murdered at some point, he finally had the presence of mind to inch his way over to the weapons. They were propped up against another log perpendicular to his, about ten feet away. The bokoblins were engrossed in another elaborate account of pillage and murder and didn’t notice when Link slowly got to his feet and picked up a boko club, which had been “enhanced” by way of strapping fangs and stones to a hunk of wood with fraying bits of rope.

Link hesitantly walked backwards, then glanced back at the tree line, where Molo was waving him forward with an impatient gesture. Link looked back at the group of monsters, heart pounding in his ears. He was admittedly much more nervous than he should have been, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Was it the audience? Link shook his head, dislodging his doubts like spider webs, and gently tossed the club to Molo, who fumbled at it for a brief moment. Link cringed, seeing in his mind’s eye the reactions of the bokoblins when the club thudded to the ground. But Molo managed to snatch it back to his chest, and Link let out a breath.

He crept back to the fire, feeling somewhat more confident by now. He was about to reach for a broadsword leaning against the log when he realized that the eyes of the bokoblins were on him.

Link froze. The bokoblins were not moving, apart from some twitching ears.

For one brief, terrifying second, Link was absolutely sure the monsters were about to rip him apart with their bare hands.

Then the striped one, the leader of the group, flapped its arms impatiently.

Link blinked. Did it…want him to tell a story?

Some of the blue bokoblins started shifting around, and Link made a decision.

“Um…” he muttered under his breath as he cast around in his mind for a suitable story to tell. He had always been terrible at charades every time the children of Kakariko or Hateno asked him to play.

He gestured around at the camp and then mimicked the monster imitations of Hylians, hoping it would convey the point. The bokoblins nodded sagely.

He pretended to stab at a Hylian with a spear, which got the bokoblins chattering in approval. Link grinned under his mask, and stumbled backwards while fake sobbing, falling on his ass after a few steps. He rolled his arms to mimic the action of falling off a cliff, bouncing repeatedly on the way down. The monsters all screeched in laughter, dancing around the fire in their clumsy way.

Link let out a relieved breath. Goddess, he could not believe this. No one else would, either.

Then he noticed one bokoblin who was not joining in on the party. It was watching him closely, head tilted. Link could almost see the question mark above its head as suspicion dawned on its face. Link’s blood ran cold.

The bokoblin suddenly screamed, pointing at Link. The other monsters stopped, heads snapping to face him.

“By Hylia, this better not be the way I go,” Link muttered.

The bokoblins charged, and like that, Link was surrounded.

He panicked. Mipha had healed him just yesterday, and he didn’t have the energy to summon her spirit again. He was still running on fumes, half an apple the only thing in his belly, and as monsters around him pointed spears, leveled clubs, and threw rocks at his head, Link did the only thing he could think to do in the heat of the moment.

He dropped into a crouch, hearing a shriek as a stone aimed between his eyes flew and hit another bokoblin instead. He planted his palm on the ground and screwed his eyes shut. His breath came out in gasps. He felt the earth below him and the sky above, felt out the movement of the air around him, and repeated his usual mantra. Please, Revali, don’t be a jerk this time.

The very air exploded into motion around him, tearing his bokoblin mask off, and he snapped his paraglider out and let the wind yank him into the sky. Link spotted Revali’s pale green outline flying circles around him as the angry and confused monsters dwindled below them.

“Whatwas that monstrosity you were wearing just now?” Revali asked, pretty damn casually for such a near death experience.

Link leveled a glare at him. “It was working,” he hollered past the gale that was carrying him up.

Revali gave him the perfect amount of side-eye and tilted his head up just so, conveying casual arrogance, and he opened his stupid mouth –

And then he was gone. The wind halted, and Link was suspended above the camp.

Link sighed, feeling oddly bereft. Time to get back to business.

The physical distance had brought mental clarity as well, and Link realized that with Molo hanging around, it was best to play it safe for now. He folded the paraglider and went into freefall, pulling out his royal bow and nocking a bomb arrow with practiced movements. There was little need to aim when the monsters were all in a clump, waiting for him to come back down; the bomb arrow found its mark.

Link pulled the paraglider out again, letting the force of the blast and the ensuing updraft from burning grass buoy him. Most of the monsters were staggering about, dropping burning weapons from scorched hands. It looked pretty ugly down there, and Link readied round two to put them out of their misery.

But as he drew the bowstring back, he spotted a Hylian running around the camp and hacking at monsters. He did a double take.

Just what in the name of the Goddess did Molo think he was doing?

A furious hiss escaped through his teeth. Link hastily stowed the bow and pulled out his soldier’s spear, angling his fall for a blue bokoblin before he could hit the ground and break all his bones.

He jammed the spear through the bokoblin’s neck but held on, letting the momentum carry him forward in an arc until he hit the ground rolling as the bokoblin crumpled.

Link tried in vain to pull the spear back through the corpse’s neck, but the spearhead had gotten snagged on the spine or something and he couldn’t pull it free. There was a blur of movement in the corner of his eye and –

Molo was standing there, gasping out ragged breaths with his bloodied broadsword in hand. A red bokoblin was bleeding out at his feet.

Link stared mutely for a second, and then whirled around to eviscerate a blue bokoblin that had been trying to sneak up from behind.

Link let pure instinct carry him through the rest of the fight, cutting down weak and burned monsters with clumsy swipes of the claymore. Exhaustion dragged at his limbs and narrowed his vision to a tunnel, and he half feared that he would not make it out this time.

He tripped over a discarded boko club and fell to his knees in the dirt. He couldn’t get back up again. Link closed his eyes, letting the din of the battle fade away. He felt curiously empty.

Zelda, forgive me.

Something hit his shoulder, and he nearly sprawled forward onto the ground. He couldn’t help thinking that it had been a good run. If the literal incarnation of all evil was too much for him, well, was that really his fault?

“Bud!” Molo was yelling, Link eventually realized. “Please don’t pass out on me. I’m not carrying you back to the stable.”

Link made a vague gesture with the little energy he had left.

“Help me out here,” Molo said irritably.

“Meat,” Link groaned.

“Ah,” said Molo. “You do look pretty wiped.”

Link wanted to scoff at “pretty wiped,” but he settled for snatching the meat out of Molo’s hands when he retrieved it. As he scarfed the burnt meat down, he started to feel a little bit better. “Blessed by the Goddess Hylia with an infinite stomach,” he vaguely remembered being called before. One hundred years before. The memory was as distant to him as Princess Zelda was now.

“Naydra’s scale, you seem really out of it.” Molo was also tearing into a hunk of meat, casting the occasional concerned glance his way. “What happened?”

The Calamity happened,Link wanted to reply sourly. But that was a whole new chest of rupoors to open, and Molo would never believe him.

That wasn’t a chest he wanted to open, frankly. It was better that he buried the memories. Better that he forgot the burning and the death and the utter hopelessness that still crept up on him once in a while.

Link scowled. He’d spent the whole afternoon trying to forget about the blood moon and the fears and anxieties that came with it, and now this stupid fight had to go ruin things again.

“I was supposed to eat yesterday, and I never did,” Link said instead of what he was thinking. Well, it wasn’t a lie.

Molo raised an eyebrow at him, clearly wondering just how stupid he was. Better stupid than about to give up and leave Hyrule to ruin, Link thought, kicking at a pebble.

“Hand me another piece, would you?” Link asked Molo, gesturing at the dwindling pile of roasted steak. The meat was unseasoned, but surprisingly well-cooked and flavorful for such a primitive campfire. Although that might have been his hunger talking. He could eat the most disgusting of dubious foods if it meant it would bring him back from the brink of passing out.

Molo complied, staring at him with wide eyes. “Wait, when wasthe last time you ate?”

Link just shrugged, his mouth full. His energy was coming back in leaps and bounds, and now Molo was the one who looked exhausted. When Link had finished, he jumped to his feet, declaring, “We’ll be rich men by the time we get back to the stable.”

Molo gave a dubious look at the scattered fangs and horns that had been left behind when the bokoblin corpses had vanished in a burst of sickly purple smoke. “You think?”

Link hesitated. Maybe this hadn’t been as good of an idea as he thought it was. His “send Breen to Lanayru while also paying Link’s debts” fund was not getting off to a good start.

Molo huffed, clearly understanding Link’s dilemma. “Don’t forget I saved your life, bud.”

Link forced a smile. “Oh, well, I was going to give some of the money to Breen anyway. I don’t know if she told you about her traveling plans…”

Molo propped his head up on his hand. “She did. I guess I can consider this a noble effort at fundraising. What else are friends for?”

Link’s smile faltered. Friends.He had friends. Didn’t he? Breen was a friend. The ever-enthusiastic Prince Sidon was a friend. But he couldn’t hear the word without seeing blurry images of Daruk clapping him on the back, Mipha cradling his arm gently as she healed it, or Princess Zelda’s sunny smile. Those memories were lost to time immemorial now, alive only in his mind. He couldn’t think about his friends without thinking of all the bloodshed and death that surrounded them, or of how he barely remembered them at all. Link weighed potential responses on the spectrum between sincerity and sarcasm. None seemed like a good fit for what was really going through his mind. He chose to remain silent.

Molo apparently hadn’t noticed Link’s angst. He was shooting him annoyed looks as he gathered up dusty fangs and claws. Link groaned and rose to join him, muscles still screaming in pain.

Link and Molo made short work of the camp, clearing it of all potential valuables and dumping them into a burlap sack Molo had brought along.

When the sack was full, Molo tied it off and thrust it at Link. “Apparently, you’re all better now, so you get to carry it,” he said, deadpan but with a slight bit of envy in his voice.

Link made a face as he held it at arm’s length in a delicate grip. It smelled much the same as he imagined man-pig Ganon from the legends to smell: not good. It was unfortunate that bokoblin guts sold for a fair bit more than their claws. He would have to take a long, long bath in Pico Pond when he got back to the stable.

The pair followed the dirt road back to the stable in companionable silence. But that silence wasn’t going to last very long, Link realized as Molo cleared his throat.

“Uh…So that wind thing? What was that? And, uh, how did you do that?” Molo asked.

Uh oh. How in the world was he supposed to explain this in a way that didn’t make him sound crazy?

Seconds ticked by. Molo raised his eyebrows, expecting an answer.

“Well, you see…” Link rambled. “Uh, I saved this spirit, and he let me use his power. The wind thing you just mentioned.” Close enough.

“Couldn’t what’s-his-face the Rito Champion do that?” Molo asked thoughtfully, as if trying to recall a childhood bedtime story. Actually, Link was sure that was exactly what he was doing.

Ooh, Revali would lovebeing called what’s-his-face. Link would have to remember to tell him that the next time he called up a gale.

“What’s so funny?” Molo muttered.

Too late, Link realized he was chuckling. “Revali would be so angry with you right now,” he said before he could stop himself.

Molo frowned. “Revali who?”

Link snorted. “The, uh, spirit. Who gave me the wind thing. I know it sounds ridiculous.”

“Not as ridiculous as you pretending to be a bokoblin,” Molo shot back.

“Hey, it worked! They really liked my story!”

Molo shook his head. “It waspretty funny,” he admitted.

Link grinned, good mood restored. He found himself admiring the surroundings, marveling at how even with the kingdom of Hyrule in ruins, the wilds could be so pristine and beautiful. He supposed that the relative lack of Hylian interference was part of that, but he could see Hyrule Castle through the trees, see the dark corruption wreathing it, and he wondered if any of the wildlife noticed it at all. Life went on, he thought, as he spotted a deer watching them from the trees and songbirds flying above them.

But the influence of the Calamity was very real. Link felt the same uneasiness he always felt around enemies sweep over him, and he threw a hand up. Molo and Link both froze. They were just around the corner from the stable. The birds were silent, unnervingly so.

And then he heard a scream, and the crash of breaking pottery.

Link broke into a sprint, hearing thudding footsteps offset from his own as Molo followed behind. By the time he rounded the corner, he had an arrow nocked and at the ready, pointing toward the first enemy he saw.

Figures clad in red jumpsuits were prodding Kish toward the stable’s entrance with a vicious-looking sickle. Breen and the old man Ashe were already tied to the posts that supported the stable’s walls. A couple of the assailants turned to look at Link, sunlight glancing off the ivory masks that covered their entire faces. The blood-red upside down Sheikah eye glared at him in place of an actual face.

The Yiga Clan.

“Ha, I knew it!” Link yelled.