#soh70

[katedoesfics]

Shadows of Hyrule | Chapter 70

It was late in the morning when Link finally trudged out of his room, dragging his feet across the floor as he made his way downstairs. He had hardly slept - for obvious reasons - and only managed to catch a few hours after Mipha made her sneaky escape. On the plus side, he was officially on summer vacation, and he had the entire summer to sleep.

With the exception of Ganondorf’s ominous return.

His sister sat at the table, her legs swinging under the chair as she colored in a coloring book. Link sat himself with a sigh beside her. His stomach was growling, but he wasn’t ready to put in any effort into making food. He looked around, noticing then his father’s absence.

“Where’s Dad?”

“He had to run to work for a little bit,” Aryll said without looking up from her coloring.

“Oh.”

“I wanted Mipha to make me breakfast,” she continued as she scribbled away.

“Why would she do that?”

“Because you were having a sleepover and I wasn’t invited.”

Link practically jumped up in his seat. His gaze narrowed on his sister. “How do you know that?”

“Because I saw her. Duh.”

“Don’t tell Dad,” Link snapped.

Aryll paused her coloring, meeting Link’s gaze with a frown. “Why?”

“Because he can’t know, okay?” he said, flustered.

Aryll looked at him curiously. “Why?”

“Because - Just - Because I said so, alright? Just keep your mouth shut.”

Aryll crossed her arms. “That’s not very nice.”

Link rolled his eyes. “Promise, please, Ary?”

Aryll’s gaze narrowed on him for a moment, then she shrugged and returned to her coloring. “Fine,” she said. “But only if you let me paint your nails.”

Link groaned, but agreed to her terms. He found the energy to make himself a bowl of cereal, and once his stomach was silenced, he moved to his room to dress, returning to the living room to await his fate. Aryll already had the nail polish out, organizing them on the coffee table in rainbow order. Link slouched on the couch and clicked on the tv as his sister set to work painting his toes.

She had finished one foot when their father entered, but Aryll took no notice, too busy painting her brother's toenails in lively colors.

His father took one look at his son, snorted, and grinned. “Ah, how the tables have turned, Sucker.”

Link rolled his eyes.

“Link said I could paint all his toes if I kept my mouth shut about Mipha sleeping over in his room.”

Link yanked his foot back from her angrily. Her jaw dropped at the realization that she had spilled the beans. She jumped up suddenly, spilling the contents of the open nail polish bottle, and jumped forward towards Link, narrowly missing his groin as she pulled at his shirt.

“I'm so sorry, Link!”

Link grunted, his hands moving to protect himself. “Get off!”

But she continued to pull and shake him. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!” After a moment of this, she flung herself on top of the couch, her arms dangling as she regarded her father with an apologetic look on her face. “I fibbed, Daddy,” she said. “Don't ban Mipha from coming over ever again!”

Their father looked between them for a moment, still standing in the kitchen as the spectacle took place before his eyes. After a moment, he grinned, laughed, and moved across the room. When he passed his son, he hit him upside his head. “At least he won't die a virgin,” he said to seemingly no one as he rounded the corner to make his way upstairs.

Aryll turned to her brother questioningly. “What's a virgin?”

“Nothing,” Link muttered.

“It can’t be nothing,” Aryll said stubbornly.

“Are you done with my damn feet?”

Aryll moved to pick up the nail polish bottle that was on the floor. She hurried into the kitchen to grab some towels, then returned to attempt to clean up the spill she had caused. Most of the polish simply smeared and would require additional efforts, but Link couldn’t have cared less at that moment. When Aryll finally gave up, she looked up at her brother with big, sweet, innocent eyes, and stated “I still have some more toes to do or they will look funny.”

“They already look funny,” Link said with a sigh as he settled back into the couch. “Hurry up.”

Aryll sprang up gleefully and sat herself on the couch, taking her brother’s foot once more and set back to work. “Are you gonna show Mipha later?”

“Yeah,” Link said with a roll of his eyes. “Sure. She’ll love ‘em.”

Aryll nodded, still concentrating on painting her brother’s toes. “Almost as much as she loves you.”

Aryll spent another half an hour perfecting Link’s toes and blowing them dry before finally releasing her brother from the torture. He wiggled his toes in faux admiration, then got up to retrieve his phone, dialing Mipha’s number.

“You know,” she said, answering the call. “You’re supposed to wait three days so I won’t think you’re needy or something.”

Link grinned. “I’m needy.”

“Clearly.”

“I just had my toe nails painted by Ary,” he whined. He chose to leave out the bit about her spilling the beans to their father. “I need an excuse to get out of here before she starts braiding my hair.”

“So, now I’m just an excuse?” Mipha feigned being hurt. “And here I thought we had something special.”

“Okay, goodbye,” Link said.

“Wait,” Mipha said quickly. “I promised Urbosa we could hang out today.”

Link’s gaze narrowed as he spoke. He was sure that could only mean gossip. “So you can give her all the juicy details?” If a blush could have been heard, Link heard it.

“What?” she started, then laughed nervously. “No. What? Goddess, Link. No. What. No. No!”

“You’re a good liar. But if you could at least work in somewhere that I’m a proficient and passionate lover, that would be great.”

“Proficient?” Mipha repeated. “That’s a big word for you. Who you trying to impress?”

“Just trying to give myself an edge in the dating world for when you find something better.”

“I thought you were a catch?”

“Well, I sure like to think so.”

“Alright, Fabio,” Mipha said with a sigh. “I guess you can tag along.”

“Great,” Link said. “Let me just put on my heels. Ary did an excellent job painting my toes.”

*****

Mipha made sure to warn Urbosa in advance that Link would be with her, and thus blowing their plans of gossiping all together, but as it worked out, Riju had insisted on tagging along as well, quickly and easily convincing Revali that they needed a rematch against Link. By the afternoon, Hyrule’s six Champions, including Riju, Teba - and now that school was out - Suki, had found themselves between the park and the soccer field, Riju bouncing a soccer ball from knee to knee. She looked up just as Mipha and Link approached, making the group complete.

“Finally!” Riju shouted, drawing the attention of the group to Mipha and Link. They were hand in hand and either in the midst of conversation, or simply staring lovingly into each other's eyes, which the group assumed to be the more plausible explanation. Riju's outburst brought them out of their gaze, however, and they turned their attention curiously onto their friends.

Riju bounded up and down, clapping her hands together. She pointed to Mipha and Link, then to herself, then back to the new couple excitedly. “I called that, you guys, you heard it, I called it. I knew it! I told ya! I did that!”

Urbosa put a hand on her hip and shook her head, grinning. “Yeah, sure, Riju, you called it.”

“So, this is finally a thing, now?” Zelda said. “Officially? The ship is sailing?”

Mipha's brows knit together, her cheeks turning a soft shade of pink. “The ship?”

“Apparently everyone knew it but the two of you,” Teba said with a tone of disinterest.

“I was starting to wonder if Link would be single for the rest of his life,” Revali said with a smirk.

“That doesn't say much for me,” Mipha muttered. Link elbowed her playfully in the ribs.

“Ignore them,” Urbosa said, waving her hand at them.

“I’m not here for gossip,” Revali said, clapping his hands together. “I’m here to kick Link’s ass.” He grabbed the ball from Riju and grinned devilishly at Link.

“Shirts!” Riju yelled. “Me and Revali, you and Daruk.”

Link turned a helpless gaze to his friend. “Can’t you just punch him?”

“I’m not losing to Revali,” Daruk said. “And definitely not Riju.”

Link sighed, pulling his shirt over his head as he jogged after the four of them onto the field. Once the game started, Teba and Suki had wandered off, leaving Urbosa, Mipha, and Zelda alone to watch the game.

Urbosa put a hand on her hip and grinned at Mipha. “You hit that.”

Mipha yelped lightly and buried her face in her hands.

Zelda turned to her in surprise. “You hit that?”

Urbosa nodded. “She hit that.”

“Can we stop saying that?” Mipha muttered.

Urbosa shrugged. “You fucked? Screwed? Made love?” She bent over and grinned. “He put his dick in your -”

“Urbosa!”

“You promised me details!”

“I hate you,” Mipha muttered.

“Remember last time?” Urbosa said, reminiscing happily. “We were right here when I told ya you needed to get laid. And you finally took my advice.” She patted Mipha’s head. “My little girl is all grown up.”

Mipha groaned loudly. She turned her attention on the game, which had apparently stopped for a moment while Urbosa was teasing her. A group of young children had swarmed the field, jumping up and down around the players. One made a muscle with his arms, and Daruk was clearly pretending to be impressed with the little guy’s biceps. Another made shooting motions with his arms, as if shooting a bow, and Revali was in all of his glory as he signed an autograph for the child. A couple more were fighting with imaginary swords, while the other was telling an apparently very thrilling and animated story to Link, judging by the way his hands circled around him and made what appeared to be explosion gestures. Riju shared in this child’s excitement, engaging just as excitedly in the conversation.

“You’re totally gonna have his babies,” Urbosa said.

Mipha met her gaze. She hadn’t realized she was smiling while watching Link.