#baked-hylian

[awkwardpossum0]

What are three things Spirit considers himself to be very good at, and three things he considers himself to be very bad at.

Not a LU Spirit

[rawliverandgoronspice]

because I just... draw ganondorf's OoT outfit a lot right now, and it's Quite Something as we all know, I was cursed by the thought that I find absolutely hilarious that, while he wears dignified long robes and ornate armor every time he's actively at war with hyrule, his most risqué picks, combined with body types that demand a ton of effort to maintain, both happen in games where part of his plans involve trying to convince a hylian king that he is very uwu and not a threat at all whatsoever :3333

and he was right, because it works. both times.

[hylianengineer]

Bizarre things to come across on the internet: an article hailing a dessert recipe your great-grandmother passed down to you as 'in danger of going extinct.' Um, hello, I've been making this since I was a kid. Still here, thanks. It's not exactly the same recipe, but it's close enough. This IS the first time I've heard of anyone else making anything like it, though, so maybe they're right about how rare it is.

Southern Butter Rolls.

The other weird thing: my great-grandmother was not from the South. I wonder where she got this recipe.

[pocketramblr]

Maybe I should add a sheet to the excel looking over what gods which boys mention when

[hyliannecessary]

Made gingerbread dough; decided to recreate the magic beans from Ocarina of Time. Then I eated them. This counts as eating vegetables, right? 😬

[sleepy-the-loz-enthusiast]

Lu boys headcanons !!

- Almost everybody has fallen asleep on Twilight before, either as a wolf or Hylian.

- Legend and Sky like to braid Wild's hair

- Wind, despite hating being treated like a child, rides on Time or Warriors' shoulders a lot

- Four is a mum friend

- Sky has broken at least one person's nose when they approached him from behind without warning

- Hyrule is the most likely person to end up sitting on someone

- Wild sleeptalks and has held whole conversations with people before in his sleep (Wind and Legend take advantage of this)

- Warriors had a large family, but lost them somehow and it led to him enlisting in the army

- Time often has horrific nightmares but refuses to acknowledge or talk about it with anyone but Malon

- Four is good at baking and when they stop at a town, he'll most likely find a way to bake cookies

- Wild has nightmares about losing the others (mostly Twi)

- Sky and Legend are both deathly afraid of storms and silently seek comfort in eachother

- They also both have chronic pain and rope Wild in to their cuddle pile when it gets bad (there's no way his scars and overall trauma leave him unscathed)

- Warriors went to therapy before the whole time travelling adventure thing, he's a good therapist friend for the others

- He's also afraid of losing the others and sees them as his new family

- Sky has a lower bone density than the others due to living in the sky and riding on giant birds, this also leads to him breaking bones a lot easier

- Twilight hates large amounts of fire and panics whenever it gets too hot in an enclosed space

- Claustrophobic Wild

- Legend has a magpie brain and hoards anything shiny he can get ahold of, but most of the time it's useful

I do not own Linked Universe ! These are just silly headcanons partially inspired by others

[ofcowardiceandkings]

companion piece of young Zelda

AAHH i finally finished something :'D

it actually took more thought to trawl through my feelings about Link as a child than Zelda but we got there idk man i just knew he exudes gremlin energy as a 17 to 20-something year old so he must have been a little demon as a kid gfkdjfkd

we're sort of looking at roughly 4, 7 and 10 years old here feeding sum pigeons, playing soldiers, and doing some baking !!!

more detailed Thoughts under the cut 💙

iiitssss customary ranting about my BotW/TotK opinions tiiiimeeee welcome my darlingsss jfkdjfkd 💙

like i said, this took more thought than Zelda, but we also dont know as much about Link's upbringing so thats fair

having said that, we know his father was a knight - a prominent one - and its hinted at that his family may have owned the Hateno house you can buy from Bolson. im not sure if i land on it being the family / childhood home or belonging to like a grandparent but i like to think Link spent time in Hateno as a kid (im a great fan of bumpkin Link with a country accent aight im a simple man). no mention of any OTHER family members, but imo i think his mother was still around and he probably had younger siblings !! he DID probably spend a fair amount of time in Castle Town just due to his father's job though, to be fair he probably travelled a little as a youngster a-la army posting yknow ... moving on tldr that explains why i've got a bunch of Hateno-esque clothing here aside from us sort of not knowing what the average joe Castle Town citizen from back in the day would have worn idk man its cute also

SO, pigeons !!! i'll definitely expand on this later when i go over more livestock now ive finished TotK but listen i wouldnt be in the least bit surprised if pre-Calamity Hylians had domestic pigeons for sending messages or just for hobby, so here's a first look at the Castle Town Carrier, the Hylian army's best flying friends. Link's just out here feeding his fathers' cohort's messenger birbs :3

stimky boy plays soldiers with a stick and a pot lid and a tub, classic and good, he was probably like ... actually tactically aware at this age though lets be real lol i bet it was annoyingly impressive

C A R R O T C A K E its a bit wonky, but i bet it tastes great :') id imagine Link probably spent a fair amount of time helping around the house and boy loves his food !! some people develop those skills early !!! i bet he was one of those people !!! any chance to get involved and learn how to make his faves and make them for other people yknow, food as a love language everyone HEYO (bowl there is chickaloo tree nuts, hazelnut analog eyo)

ghfjkdjfkd i said i didnt have much to say about this but oops

[toon-link-plush-daily]

It is I, the Wizard!

Toon like.made a gelatin pie with a friend!

Today's Toon Link is winning The Great Hylian Bake-off

[bloobluebloo]

Wait I'm not done yet, returning to the matter of LoZ here. I have never liked the fact that the Gerudo are all women. This is not because I don't think that a tribe of powerful women that are merchants and warriors and can steamroll the majority of Hyrule isn't impressive and awe-inspiring. It's because of the implications. By design, the Gerudo, unlike the other races, have to rely on Hylians. The inevitability of subservience to Hyrule is baked right into the very fabric of their society. To top it off, their king, their hero, is born to become the root of all evil in the eyes of Hyrule. Their place in Hyrule is to repent and bow their heads and accept whatever it is that Hyrule wishes to inflict on them, whether it be to extend an olive branch and form an alliance or to suffer annexation and annihilation. The marriage classes in BotW/TotK always sickened me because the implications are built right in there: you must approach Hylian voe with grace and cuteness and defang yourself so that we may maintain the image of peaceful desert women, no longer associated with the man that calls himself the Demon King. This is so that we may continue to persist as a people, so that we may continue to survive in this world. The fact that, after Ganondorf, we do not hear of another Gerudo man ever being born to them just cements to me how the Gerudo are punished over and over for something completely out of their control, further cementing their reliance on Hyrule and being unable to back out of keeping the peace.

[hirazuki]

Thanks for the tag, @ruiniel! This is such a cute format! (Can't reblog the post due to og reblog controls, but here's mine):

LMAO called tf out, I'll take it.

Tagging (with no pressure): @melkors-defense-attorney @mirkwood-hr-department @baked-hylian @nomadicism @dear-kumari

edit: a;ldkfjldk including the links may help. I fail X_X picrew is here; personality quiz is here.

[giriduck]

Just want to put out there the interpretation of the Golden Goddesses as neutral entities.

Hylia and Demise—as subset of all creation—are implicitly both products of the Goddesses. The dynamic of opposing cosmic forces could arguably start with them. While “good and evil” are often attributed to these two, it might be more accurate to say that they represent “enthalpy and entropy.”

Of course, another creation of the Goddesses is wish-granting Sacred MacGuffin that would reflect the heart of the mortal who found it. Seems like a wild choice to make such a thing available at all… unless it was part of a larger design.

While it’s stated that the Goddesses gave Hylia the Triforce for safekeeping, perhaps it was less because Hylia was fundamentally “good” and it needed to be kept away from “evil,” so much as she was a protector of (her) people. She did what she had to do to build a succession plan after she died, but it could easily be assumed that it was the Hylians who decided to lean into it and transform Zelda's lineage into a full-on theocratic monarchy.

One interpretation of a cosmic design is that everything moves in a cycle: day/night, the moon and tides, the seasons, and—in a system where people are canonically reincarnated—life and death. Perhaps a larger cycle of creation, destruction, rebuilding, and collapse was baked in from the very beginning. After all, some classifications of forest fires can ultimately help the long term health of forests. Sometimes overgrowth can disrupt the balance of a larger ecosystem. Is the ivy that covers a tree “good” or “evil,” as it endangers the life of the tree, but benefits local pollinators, and reduces additional C02? Moral judgement is a human construct, and the narratives around morality at such an abstractly high level are going to be inaccurate (and intrinsically biased) when anchored to a perspective that cannot see the full picture; which is something that is inaccessible to people.

But fast forward several epochs. How interesting that the first person to find the Triforce (after all the Skyward Sword shenanigans) was Ganondorf. Was it because of tireless research? Luck? Total coincidence? Ocarina of Time made it difficult to tell, though the histories written from the Hylian perspective claim that he “stole” it from the dominant theocratic monarchy (which is one way to defensively interpret the event, given how much his acquisition of the Triforce could have completely undermined the authority of the Royal Family as a divinely-ordained institution).

But then in Twilight Princess, the Triforce of Power was mysteriously—likely divinely—granted to Ganondorf in his moment of need. This was no coincidence, and it speaks of his role in a greater cosmic design. He was given this power because he was meant to have it. Why? Maybe we’ll canonically learn more in TotK.

[hylianengineer]

Feeling nostalgic because I'm cooking my great-grandma's caramel roll recipe and might have figured out a better way to make it gluten free. This dough can actually be rolled out! And it's not pizza dough this time!

[breannasfluff]

Flock Day Prep

AO3 Link

There was one consistent holiday among all the timelines: Flock Day. Hylians in every era celebrated in one way or another. Hyrule’s is the quietest with small gifts of food, pretty berries, or shiny rocks. Warriors was the most extravagant with parties, a street market, and lavish gifts.

Half festival, half intimate setting; no matter the era, the sentiment stayed the same—showing your flockmates you appreciated them.

Wild didn’t have a flock for the last Flock Day. It was simply another day missed while traveling through the wilds. Now that he has a flock, he wants to go all out.

The flock has each other, but those with flockmates at home, like Sky, Legend, and Time chatter to each other about what era they’d end up with. How can they make it up to their mates if they are gone? Sure, they’ll understand, but it’s not the same.

Warriors pulls Wild onto a shopping trip with him to pick out chocolates.

“Are these for your Zelda?”

The hawk shakes his head. “Time. The last time I was at the ranch she made me promise to pick up some chocolates from her just in case.”

Wild coos and ruffles his wings; Malon sounds amazing. “Why am I here?”

Now Warriors looks away, feathers ruffling. “I don’t know much about chocolates.”

The champion doesn’t point out that he doesn’t, either. He’s got a discerning palate, even if the others watched him eat garbage—leftovers! If he can get some samples he can make an informed decision based on Time’s tastes.

A portal takes them to Sky’s era a few days ahead of Flock Day. The frigatebird ditches the group to fly with Zelda in case they are separated for the actual day. Wild commandeers the kitchen. Four is roped into helping him bake, not the bee-eater is complaining.

The smith keeps up a steady chatter about the ingredients, the sky island, the baked goods—whatever crosses his mind. Wild chirps periodic questions; the food differences between eras are fascinating.

By the time he’s done, there’s a huge array of sweets in different forms. There are some savory treats for the raptors, as well. Bacon’s likely never gone into a baked good, but they won’t care. He’s never tried to combine crab and baked goods, but crab and cheese is a thing…probably?

Thank Hylia the slate preserves food in the state it goes in. Wild slides the crab dip in piping hot, ready to be enjoyed when it's time. The magpie has to chase Four out of the kitchen before he finishes the candies, carefully placing beetles in sugar syrup to harden on dowels.

Even if the taste of some of the items is a little off, the point is to show he cares. Wild isn’t going to let any of the flock doubt he loves them.

Legend is moping. It’s the day before Flock Day and his wings drag through the dirt. Periodically he gives sad coos with an undertone of want you, miss you. Wild and Hyrule’s answering calls don’t fill the hole he’s feeling. The vet sprawls across his lap desk, doodling frowny faces on paper.

Wild settles next to Hyrule. “He missing Ravio?”

“Yeah. Why won’t he tell the bowerbird he loves him?”

The champion can’t help but roll his eyes. “Legend? Be upfront with his feelings?”

Hyrule snickers because it’s true. “At least Time is doing better without Malon.”

They both glance at the kite. He’s disappointed but takes it in stride better. “They have had more Flock Days together.”

“True.”

They turn their attention back to watch their bowerbird trill sadly at his paper. “We’ll just have to make him feel extra loved tomorrow.”

The portal the next morning has the flock moaning—they were hoping for the day off. Time gives a call for them; too chipper for the early morning. “Legend, you might want to come look at this.”

The bowerbird grumbles wings fluffed against the cold as he drags himself over. “Why do you need me? It’s just another stupid portal—” He stops and stares. Then, with a shriek, the bowerbird dives through the portal.

Wild and Hyrule crowd closer to see what’s going on. Through the wavering portal, they can see—ah, Legend’s bedroom. Odd spot for the portal to open up, but it does mean the bowerbird can jump directly onto Ravio in the nest.

Sound doesn’t come through the portal, but there’s a flurry of feathers. Ravio might be excited…or he might be attempting to defend himself from a sudden home invasion. Hyrule goes to pack their stuff while Wild turns away from the portal. The bowerbirds can have a few moments to themselves.

“Sorry it’s not to Malon,” he tells Time.

“Thank you, Wild. I’m happy I get to spend it with you boys. I’ll have plenty of time with Malon.”

Wild nods, then edges closer and leans against Time’s side. The kite puffs and chirps, careful to keep his hands to himself. Wild doesn’t reach out physically to the other birds as often, but today is Flock Day. There’s nothing but contentment as he chirps and nuzzles at Time’s chest.

Carefully, the kite brings a wing around him, loose enough he can push free as needed. “Love you,” he says and gives a soft flock call.

Wild returns it, relaxing into soft feathers and the overtones of protection. “Love you, Time. Happy Flock Day!”

“Happy Flock Day.”

[legendofmorons]

Bruised knuckles and whole hearts (Four)

Pairing: Four x reader

Rating: T for blood and creepy men

Summary: You are a BAMF and Four had heart eyes

Warnings: a little blood, a little harassment, you knock a man out because he insulted four

-------

Four tries to have a good day - or at least an okay day as often as he can. This is often ruined, but he tries.

Today, his plan to have an okay day is ruined by rude and creepy people in the market. Courtesy of alcohol if the way they smell is any indication.

The crowd is just this side of thick as ypu and the boys walk through the market square.

Four is holding your hand happily as you all browse the stalls, the people all background.

You seem right at home- though to be fair this is your hyrule.

"Huh, guess we lost the others," You say, looking around curiously.

"Yeah, I guess so."

You turn to look at him, smiling warmly.

He knows it's sentimental and sappy, Vio is always quick to call them on it... but he likes when you smile at him like that- the smile you only ever seem to have for him.

You smile at others like that sometimes- but it's not quite the same. You smile like mean the world to you.

You smile at him like he is your world.

Which isn't to say you don't have a life outside of him, that would be unhealthy. But you jist- you smile brighter at him.

Or maybe he's just biased.

Also totally possible.

"(Y/n)!" A voice calls from the right, earning a groan from you.

Four looks to you in concern.

You fix a polite smile on your face, "Hello Jim."

"It's been a while." Jim says, looking like the type of man who finds himself very charming.

The way you smile a little sharper betrays your unspoken 'not long enough '.

"It has been. " You say, already sounding uninterested. "Did you need something from me?"

"Just your time. You really are beautiful -"

"I've told you before, Jim. I really am not interested in anything like that."

Four decides in this moment that he might actually resort to violence against a fellow Hylian. This man has obviously done this before.

And you're obviously told him no before. Which means he's being rude and pushing boundaries.

"Aw, come on, (Y/n)." Jim says, leaning forwards so he can set a hand on your cheek.

Oh violence. Violenve for a million reasons. All the colors are raging.

You just grab Jim's wrist with your free hand and push his hand away before dropping the offending limb.

"If you touch me again, I will knock your lights out." You say evenly.

Four has to agree with you on this. He'd punch the man himself- except he knows that'd make a scene.

He squeezes your hand- the one still in his. He wants you to know he's here and supports you.

Jim laughs, reaching for you again.

"Come on, babe, we all know you are just playing hard to get."

He touches your shoulder gently- intimately.

Oh. Okay. He has chosen death.

You growl, letting go of Four's hand so you can ball it up and slam your fist into Jim's nose.

The resounding crack is more than satisfying as he doubles over with a groan.

"You fucking asshole!" Jim snarls out, holding his nose as blood seeps towards his chin. He's looking up from his vent over position and looks enraged.

"They warned you." Four says, not bothering to fight of his smug grin.

You are amazing and Four thinks he has every right to fall more in love with you for this.

You wipe your hands off on your pants as if Jim is little more than an unpleasant tea bag to be thrown away.

Turning away you take Four's hand again.

"C'mon, love." You say gently, always so much calmer with Four than any other.

"You kicked his ass. I doubt he'll bother you again." Four says, smiling up at you with the softest eyes and half-baked plans of your future together

"Shut the fuck up kid, if you weren’t so young I'd kick your ass." Jim says through his bloody nose and pig headed pride.

Four turns to say something back, but is stopped short as you drop his hand and walk back to Jim.

You grab the man by his dark hair, snarling viciously as you sock him in the nose again.

"You will not insult my boyfriend like that."

Jim groans, eyes rolling back. And something in Four swells at how quickly you defend him.

You drop him, and the man falls like a sack of potatoes.

"Holy shit." Four says, unsure if he should be concerned that you were so enraged you knocked a man out after breaking his nose. Or if he should feel the warm emotion in his heart that he does.

"You okay?" You ask, moving back to four.

"Yeah. Just- suprised... I knew you could fight- but that was something new."

"Oh.. yeah. Sorry."

"It's okay. I was probably gonna kick his ass too."

You just smile, wiping the blood off your hand and onto your pants. "Let's go find some lunch, I'm starving. "

"Sounds perfect. "

[skyloftian-nutcase]

The Great Bakeoff (pt 1)

I'm waiting for my dough to rise so let's have some fun and see how several of the blorbos handle making bread :D

Healthcare AU

Malon smiled, hands on her hips as she surveyed all the ingredients and cookware in front of her. She had organized her tools on her counter like a scrub tech would lay out tools for a surgery, which she had noted halfway through with a touch of amusement, but it was routine to her, so she let it carry over into her kitchen.

Today was the day she and Time finally had more than one day off together, and she was choosing to celebrate. Being domestic and making some bread seemed appropriate, and she'd gone to the bakery with Four enough times to want that amazing smell of freshly baked bread wafting through her own home.

Time to get to work. Reading the cookbook, she yelped when she felt hands slide around her waist.

"Oh, you!" she harrumphed, bopping her husband on the face with a roll of paper towels. "I'm trying to bake!"

"I see that," Time noted. "Need some help?"

"The last time you tried to help you set the bread on fire."

"That was only one time, dear."

Malon shooed him. "Go outside and spend some time with the horses like you've been wanting to. I'll meet you out there."

Time smiled and obliged, though not before stealing her dish rag and making her chase him and pay a toll of a kiss for its safe return. Eventually she set to work, focusing and enjoying the task at hand. As she combined flour, yeast, sugar, and salt, she couldn't help but wonder how all of this would make a good loaf.

Well, it doesn't have to be perfect, she supposed. Just edible. I can do edible. I'm a mighty fine cook, after all... or at least I used to be before my nursing career destroyed my free time.

But she'd never baked, and she knew how precise of an art that was.

Malon poured the hot water into the mixture, hesitantly stirring it with a spoon before getting her hands dirty. The first mistake was that she definitely should have put flour on her hands to avoid the dough sticking to her, but it seemed to form together well enough under her hands.

Smiling at her work, Malon covered the dough and set a timer on her phone before washing her hands and strolling out to see Link riding Epona around the field.

Ordon Fam

Uli stress baked and she would be the first one to admit it.

Most of her cooking was meals - hearty stews, egg and milk based recipes, vegetables and the occasional fruit or meat that Rusl would bring. But when her worries clenched her heart and made it to her hands, she would end up buying ingredients off Sera and setting to work.

Today she had to distract Colin while her husband and Link were away in Kakariko, an all-too-quiet rainy morning after such a horrific night. Link had been so dreadfully injured, and Rusl--

Uli bit her cheek, blinking tears away. Colin giggled from her bedroom where he was babysitting Hana.

She let her hands do the work automatically, easing her mind and heart, settling into a familiar, comforting routine. The dough was smooth and bouncy under her hands, a satisfying texture that distracted her enough. She could get her worries out through liberally kneading it, hands and mind so in sync that she hadn't even noticed she'd been abusing the dough for so long the shadows in the house had shifted positions.

Shaking her head, she covered the loaf to let the dough rise, making her way to her children.

The Wildlings

Tilieth stared bemusedly at the ingredients. Her finger bounced from item to item, listing it out loud in an attempt to ensure she had everything. After repeating the word salt four times and staring into the void, she discovered why her brain was short circuiting.

"I forgot flour!" she groaned.

Wait! No, she hadn't forgotten flour, that was literally the most basic ingredient to making bread. She had it somewhere.

One search later, Tilieth had discovered that not only did she have flour, but also shriveled Hylian tomatoes that probably would have benefitted from being eaten a week ago.

Okay. Now she had what she needed.

Excited, she began to mix ingredients, having never made bread before. She wanted to see if she would be any good at baking different kinds of loaves, hoping to try new food and perhaps even share it with her parents and Abel. Her newlywed husband was actually sleeping in for the first time since they'd been married, and she was going to take advantage of it by surprising him.

Rummaging through their kitchen, she paused as she found that she wasn't entirely sure where the measuring cup was. She was certain she had put it in this one cabinet, but...

Ah, wait, her mother had moved it when Til had gotten overwhelmed organizing the new home.

With a triumphant, quiet ha! Tilieth pulled the item in question out and held it up to inspect it happily. She finally had everything she needed.

It wasn't until she was halfway through kneading that she remembered she didn't have a bread knife to cut the loaf that she was halfway through making.

The Princess

Zelda took a steadying breath as she stared at the bowl. Link had been cooking with her and teaching her basic recipes for a while now, and she finally wanted to try something for herself. Her friend and loyal companion was out of town, having gone to Zora's Domain to visit, leaving Zelda to sort out organizing her new home.

This was the first meal she'd ever made alone.

For a moment, she felt heartache at the thought of it. But it only lasted a moment, and instead, she felt eager, excited anticipation bubbling in her chest. No, she no longer was fed by royal chefs, no longer provided provisions by any settlement or outpost they visited. But she was building a new life for herself, and she finally felt like she was regaining her footing in a world that had seemed so empty and foreign a few months ago.

This was more than just baking bread. This was the start of a new chapter, this was her proving to herself that she could do this.

And so she set to work, having researched the recipe meticulously, eager to get every aspect of it right, ready to show herself that she was capable, that nothing was wrong with her, and that if she could piece herself back together, then she could rebuild Hyrule just as well.

[theoldaeroplane]

I'm over 10k into this rivals-to-??? Revalink thing with no end in sight so I'm posting some bits without context in hopes of scoring a dopamine boost to push through it haha. if you like what you see, comments do a lot for me in terms of motivation!

---

His demands turn into an outraged squawk when Link pauses near a dark alcove, judges it appropriate, and grabs Revali by his scarf; he goes silent when Link slams his back to the wall, pinning him by his skinny shoulders with one arm. Not because of any startle or fear, but because Link has grabbed his beak to hold it shut.

Link's Hylian sounds at least as strange to listen to as Revali's. He much prefers to sign. Speech is painful and his words come out with their own harsh, uncanny cadence. His voice grinds and sticks, and he's been told it makes him sound like he's on the brink of death. But while it's good for very little, it does have some uses. Intimidation is one of them. "You will be ci---ivil to Mipha," Link says, heavy and final, like a portcullis falling shut. The Master Sword still hangs on his back, and he's well aware that Revali can see the hilt of it over his shoulder. "Or we'll see how well you fl---y without feathers."

---

[...] it's not the same as he remembers how he once had such feelings. There is nothing sweet to it, nothing innocent. He wants to pin Revali to the wall again and feel his heart pounding. He wants Revali to knock him to the ground and dig those claws into the flesh of his thigh, he wants to drag Revali down after him and bite down hard on his neck. He wants to devour him and be devoured in turn.

More than once Link wonders if this is some kind of twisted response to the years of cold shoulders. If this new strain is the only kind of affection he can crave now. More than once he decides it doesn't really matter. It's not like he's going to do anything.

---

"If I come back and find you two at each other's throats again, I'm plucking Revali and using the feathers to tar Link," Urbosa says, which pulls giggles from the other women. "Find ways to occupy yourselves. We'll be back."

It's a testament to Link's distraction that he doesn't realize he is once more alone with Revali until the very moment the box seat's door slides shut behind. If he were not already drenched in sweat from the lava-baked air, he would have begun to become so at once.

"Occupy ourselves, hm?" Revali says, pushing himself up from the edge of the balcony, and the willow sound is once more in his voice. He saunters purposefully toward Link, and stops in front of him, stretching out one wing---

"Let me see the sword."

Link blinks, twice, and squints at him. "No," he signs.

"I'm not going to try to steal it from you," Revali says, rolling his eyes. "I just want to see it."

[...]

"A magic sword," Revali says with disdain. "I suppose that should have been obvious. Tell me how a magic sword chooses its wielder, then."

Link does not want to tell that story. "I found it on an altar in the woods," he signs after settling the sword to lean against his arm. It's his usual explanation. It's not untrue.

"What woods?"

"The woods by my house?"

Revali glares at him. "Oh, naturally," he snips. "I suppose it made you a master swordsman as well?"

"Yes," Link signs, face devoid of expression. "In that finding it ensured the rest of my life would be nothing but training for that."

"Oh, come now. A few years in the royal guard can't be that bad."

"I was eleven when I found it."

It's not quiet even up here in the private seating, with the muffled rumble from the festival below filling the air. This is all that saves them from a true uncomfortable silence.

---

this thing is going to need a pretty thorough redrafting when it's done but I think it's got legs!