I actually wrote a thing! For @revalinkweek day 6, have a ficlet!
Word count: 1261
Notes: on-screen panic attack, mentioned discrimination against people with disabilities.
I have many headcanons about the way Link uses sign language and one day I’ll get around to sharing them.
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The party is too loud.
Revali is used to noise. Rito Village has little use for walls, and so the chirping of fledglings and the chattering of their parents is a constant background melody to his daily going-ons, but this party is loud in a way that only a formal event can be loud: music that takes up too much space and shouted whispers that echo between the confining walls. Revali hates every second of it. Were it not for the status bestowed upon him, he never would have deigned to be present at an event organised by the Hylian King. As it stands, he had only planned to put in a courtesy appearance before absconding towards the open air, but in the hour since he arrived, he has been accosted by noble after noble, all eager to congratulate him on rising so high from such humble beginnings.
He bears it with ill grace and doesn’t bother to conceal his annoyance; as if he doesn’t soar higher than any of them. He isn’t Mipha or Urbosa, raised from birth to navigate these situations with ease. He isn’t even Daruk, whose good-natured words are enough to disarm even the sharpest of barbs. And he certainly isn’t anything like the little knight, who must be thriving on the attention even while remaining aloof as ever—
Revali pauses, thought process brought to a screeching halt. Where is their chosen knight? He’d been there when the party had started, following the Princess’ footsteps like the loyal little knight he is. He’d seemed content to stand in Daruk’s shadow for a while, and Mipha had of course tried to involve him in the conversation, but Revali hasn’t seen him since the main formalities have ended.
He’s not with the Princess. There’s something there to be said about dereliction of duty, but Urbosa is standing at her shoulder, so she’s probably safer than she could ever be in the knight’s presence. He’s not with Mipha or Daruk either. It only takes Revali a minute to ascertain that, no, he’s not even in the room anymore.
How peculiar.
Some of the more oblivious Hylian nobles make an attempt at conversation when he leaves the room, but Revali doesn’t even grace them with a reply. Certainly they will be offended. He’ll be long back in Rito Village by the time they manage to complain about it.
The halls of the castle are no better than the dining room was. Too tall and wide by any sensible Hylian measure, yet far too small for a Rito. He abandons them quickly, choosing instead to scour the outside walkways of the castle.
In truth, he hadn’t expected to find Hyrule’s chosen knight. He should have been at the party, or perhaps at one of the more private gatherings of Hyrule’s elite. So spotting him tucked away next to one the castle’s many waterfalls comes as something of a surprise. He’s clearly trying not to draw attention and failing miserably. However small he tries to make himself, Revali would still be able to pick him out of any crowd.
For a moment, Revali hovers, but curiosity gets the better of him. He lands a little ways away, making no attempt to conceal his presence. From the way Link keeps himself — entirely still, not a single move — he’d already noticed Revali’s presence as well.
“Shouldn’t you be among your admirers?” he asks. This does get a flinch. The knight draws further in on himself, eyes squarely fixed on a point in the distance. Several seconds tick by without a response and Revali scoffs. Of course he wouldn’t warrant a reaction.
“—too loud.”
Revali almost doesn’t hear him over the sound of the waterfall. It’s a rarity to even hear him speak, let alone to have his thoughts so closely mirror Revali’s own. That gives him pause. Why is he here, hidden away from the crowds that came out specifically to celebrate them?
“… Are you okay?” he asks. The question almost pains him, but the way Link curls in on himself shows he made the right call. He may not be an expert on Hylian body language, but some things are universal.
Link lifts a hand, fingers spread, then abruptly clenches it into a fist and drops it to his side. He finally looks at Revali, eyes haunted, as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have.
And Revali, with sickening clarity, understands.
However aborted the sign may have been, he recognises it. He’s seen Mipha use it whenever he saw her talk to her fellow Zora about the imminent Calamity. Trouble.
Mipha’s used the underwater sign of the Zora with Link before; Revali’d assumed it was some sort of in-joke coming from their shared childhood. The last time he’d seen them do it, Link had been chastised for it later and Revali had taken some pleasure in seeing him be treated like an ordinary mortal.
Seeing Link now, terrified at being seen making a single sign, makes his stomach burn uncomfortably at the memory of his own glee.
The Hylian army has always valued conformity above anything else. How do they treat a soldier unable to speak?
He’s waited too long to respond: Link’s breath comes out faster and faster, eyes still fixed on Revali but entirely unseeing.
“It’s fine,” Revali says quickly. He tries to follow it up with one of the other signs he’s seen Mipha make: thumb and index finger held together to form a circle — it’s okay, it’s okay. But his pinions don’t lend themselves to the Zora’s language; he can only muster a clumsy curling of his wings that Link clearly doesn’t recognise for what he wants it to be.
“Why should I care about your Hylian rules?” he tries again, but Link no longer even hears him.
… There’s one other. One that he saw Mipha make when the Princess stumbled under the burdens placed upon her. One that even he might be able to make.
“Breathe,” he snaps, spreading his wings and moving them from his beak and back. The first time, Link’s eyes remain unseeing, but when Revali repeats the motion, they abruptly snap back into focus.
“Breathe,” he mouths, hands shakily coming up to mimic the sign. Revali drops his wings after another few iterations, when he’s sure Link can continue the gesture on his own.
It feels like several minutes before he finally drops his hands, uncurling in the same motion. His breathing has normalised again and when he meets Revali’s eyes, it finally looks like he’s seeing him.
“Thank you,” he says, shifting to make room on the little outcropping. Revali takes him up on the invitation after only a moment’s pause.
“Don’t mention it,” he says. He still wants to ask why Link is here, but he doesn’t want to send the knight into another spiral.
Surprisingly, Link speaks of his own accord: “I don’t like them. Too many people.”
“With the pompous twits that pass for nobles in your court, who would?” Revali scoffs. Link, instead of being offended, actually lets out a small huff of laughter.
“Only them,” he says. Revali guffaws, and Link actually grins in return. It barely even resembles a proper grin, but it’s the most expression Revali’s ever seen on him. A rush of pride runs through him. He did that.
“Clearly you require better company.”
Link’s grin turns into a smile, small and only barely aimed at Revali, but it turns his pride into something heated, settling deep in his chest.
The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.
Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.
So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.
Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.
As the OP of this post, I’m going to threaten that if this gets to one million notes by the 10 year anniversary on 1 June 2026, one year from today, I will get a lower back tattoo of the loch ness bear monster.
Seeing a lot of people in the tags looking at my account and thinking this was meant for wangxian but it's important to me that everyone understands the nuances of lan wangji my favorite boy so I must correct the narrative: lwj fully believed his love was unrequited and was fine with it, and had moved on post-wwx death keeping his memory alive. He would not have planned a wedding for when wwx came back, nor would he have specifically revived wwx to marry him, because he would always respect wwx's decision to be free and would never try to chain him to a world that hates him only to fulfill his own desires; it's important that he's eternally accepting of wwx and overjoyed at his return, but that he was not the decision maker in this case.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Summary:
At Revali's eleventh hour, it seemed not all hope was yet lost.
Written for Revalink Week 2026 — Day 6: Stand Firm
Long time no revalink! 💙💚 Long story short: @ghirahimbo and @ginneke are too powerful and their works inspired me to write this in a 48-hour frenzy. Hope you enjoy it! ^^
Written in ~40min for a combination of @flashfictionfridayofficial's prompt #FFF355 - A Curious Connection and Revalink Week Day 6: Rupees.
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Back when @heleentje and I were working on Moonlight, we (& @coconi) had a running joke about Robbie (somehow) spotting Revali's 'ghost' during the Loop 5 Roadtrip, and trying to get him to pay back an old debt.
On the maths: if two apples used to cost 1 green rupee, as Revali claims, and now you're looking at one apple costing 12 green rupees... Hyrule has an inflation problem.
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"Tell me," says Revali, "how much an apple costs these days."
Link looks up from the Sheikah Slate. "Buying or selling?" he asks. It's a pretty important distinction. "Depends on the season. I can sell them for three rupees when they're in season. Five rupees in winter." By early summer, when the stocks from last year's harvest have run empty, somebody might even pay seven. "I usually cook them first. Then people pay better."
Though not everyone's as deep-pocketed as that honeymoon couple that were staying in Rito Village before.
"And if you happened to run out of apples"—Revali throws a dubious look at the Sheikah Slate, as if realising how unlikely that situation is to come to pass—"or lost that thing, I suppose... How much would somebody charge you to buy an apple from them?"
Link has to think about that a little harder. "Twelve," he says after a moment
"Twelve?!" Revali all but yelps; then, when Link glances at him, he coughs to cover the crack in his voice. "That is simply extortionate. 'Two reds for a green' - that's what they used to sell them for in Castle Town Market..."
Link must be misunderstanding him somehow. "Forty rupees for a green apple?"
"Two red apples," Revali snipes back, "for one green rupee."
That still doesn't sound right to Link, but he doesn't remember the minutiae of the market place from a hundred years ago, so he'll have to defer to Revali's memory.
"It's daylight robbery," Revali continues to grouse, frowning at the slip of paper he'd had Link pin against Vah Medoh's foot with a rock. The winds up here are so strong, Link's surprised it hasn't yet been snatched away. He had tried reading it himself, but the penmanship is too small for him to make out. "And so is this. Tell that ancient buffoon that I don't care what mathematical contortions he's put these numbers through. He won't get anything out of me."
--
"He's still on this plane of existence, isn't he?" Robbie retorts, when Link relays Revali's answer back to him. "Then he's extant enough to pay off his debts. Research doesn't happen in a vacuum, and progress isn't cheap!"
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"You only have his word to go on that I owe him anything at all!"
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"He's had the summary. I've got the receipts to prove it. Plus a century's interest on top-"
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"Interest? What is he on about, interest?"
Link doesn't know either. "Purah said it's something banks charge."
"Since when is Robbie a bank--"
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"Well I can't go charging his debts back to the treasury!" Robbie eyes Link speculatively. "Unless you're willing to settle it for him..."
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"And end up owing you? No. I refuse."
--
[six time loops later --
Robbie: so, you were alive after all! pay up. | Revali: I was kept alive against my knowledge. Take it up with Medoh. | Link, thinking: can Divine Beasts pay in rupees when I already looted them of all their contents?]
