I figured the LU Linktober prompt ‘Ghost’ would be a perfect opportunity to post the next of this AU (+ an extra sad autumn themed section at the end)
part 1 | part 2
“—and so I was trying to tell her, ‘Hey, Zelda, my loftwing’s missing,’ but when she’s in that kind of mood, there’s no stopping her, and she pushed me right off the edge! So, there I was, falling to my death, and…”
The Links have just woken up and the camp is filled with the sounds of light, early-morning chatter interspersed with the occasional sleepy grumble. The sky is already a cloudless blue, but a chilly wind signals that the last of summer has been and gone, the occasional orange leaf fluttering delicately to the ground. The fire crackles merrily as Wild finishes cooking breakfast and the others clatter around as they clear up camp for the day’s travel.
Sky sits with his back against a tree, whittling a block of wood that has not yet been formed enough to distinguish a shape. He blatantly ignores the early morning chaos and is the picture of calm, his voice a low rumble as he tells his story. Wind is listening with rapt attention, sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite with his elbow on his knees.
“Agh, it’s too early for your pining, Sky,” grumbles Legend from nearby, interrupting Sky’s flow. His hair is still sleep-mussed, and he is tiredly trying to stuff his blanket into his already bulging bag.
If there’s one thing to know about Legend, it’s that he’s not a morning person.
“I’m talking to Wind,” Sky replies defensively.
“He doesn’t want to hear about your infatuation for your Zelda.”
“Do too,” Wind counters.
“How do you know?” Sky asks. He looks put out and self-conscious, and Wind lets out a huff of annoyance. For someone generally so in tune with people’s feelings, Legend can be needlessly brash at times.
“Funny you say that, actually,” Legend replies with a sly smile, “Wind and I have been working on something.”
Wind perks up as Legend rummages through his bag before bringing out a large piece of rolled up paper. Sky approaches him curiously whilst Legend kneels down and unrolls it on the ground, smoothing it until it lies flat.
“What is it?” he asks, studying the numbers and letters spaced evenly throughout the paper in no discernible language. Wind notes that even if they had spelled something, Sky wouldn’t be able to read it anyway as his language uses a different script to the majority of the others, including Wind’s own.
“Ouija board,” Legend replies.
“Eh?”
“Ravio tried to sell me one once; it’s meant to help you contact spirits. It was a complete scam, of course, because the last thing you want to be doing when you come across the majority of ghosts in my world is inviting them to engage in small talk. But anyway, I remembered about it the other day and, give Rav credit where it’s due, I thought it would be a good way to speak to Wind.”
“So how does it work?”
“Watch,” Legend replies. He picks up a piece of dried leaf from the ground, courtesy of the steadily turning season, and drops it onto the middle of the page.
“Wind,” he begins, a dramatic flare to his voice that makes Wind want to roll his eyes, but clearly has Sky enthralled, “Do you enjoy listening to Sky drone on about his sickening love stories?”
Sky makes a faint wounded sound and Wind reaches out with a hand, putting all his focus onto the leaf. He still finds it difficult to move objects, even ones as small as this, though it usually gets easier once he’s started.
If he had to describe the feeling of moving solid objects as a ghost, Wind would liken it to trying to focus his vision on something while wearing his grandmother’s glasses, except with his hand rather than his eyes. It takes a lot of focus and leaves him with a headache more often than not, but once he gets the hang of it, it becomes a little easier.
It only takes him a couple of tries before the crisp, flaky texture of the leaf becomes apparent under his forefinger, and he smiles in triumph.
He slides the leaf across the paper to where Legend has written ‘YES’ in neat, bold ink. He pauses for a second before sliding it again towards the ‘D’ and then the ‘I’ and then gradually to ‘C, K, H, E, A, D’ before sliding it back to the middle and taking his finger away with a smirk.
Legend continues to stare at the page with a frown, even after the leaf stills.
“What did he say?” Sky asks curiously. Legend says nothing.
Sky smirks.
“He said yes, didn’t he?”
“Whatever,” mutters Legend, pushing himself to his feet. He brushes the leaf off the page and rolls it up again, stuffing it roughly back into his overflowing bag before stalking over to where Hyrule is conversing with Wild next to the fire.
Sky chuckles.
“Thanks, Wind.”
Wind smiles contentedly as Sky delves back into his story, the happy, rhythmic sounds of his knife against the block of wood lulling him to serenity.
________
Wind pings a branch as they pass, the single leaf still clinging to its twig loosening and tumbling gracefully to the ground. The nine of them are silent as they walk through the mild woodland, though it is a comfortable, cosy silence of those who are content with the mere presence of one another. Wolfie walks beside him and Wind smiles at him every so often, just because he can.
Wind can’t smell much anymore, but he can imagine the distinct, spicy scent of rotting leaves and autumn air. He can almost feel the dry chill that bites noses and fingers and reddens the cheeks of the other Links.
Where spring is the beginning of life, autumn is the ending of things, and despite Wind’s lack of senses, he feels that same melancholy sweetness that comes with the ending of summer and winter looming menacingly on the horizon every year.
He’s never had any truly bitter feelings towards it, though.
“My Grandmother’s favourite season was autumn,” he tells the wolf who looks up at him for a moment to show he’s listening. His voice is the only sound among the crunching of leaves underfoot, yet the others have no way of listening.
“She always made me and Aryll pumpkin soup on the day we lit the hearth for the first time when the weather got cold. I would always have been out sailing for the day and I’d come home chilled to the bone, but that always warmed me up…”
He trails off as he thinks of those days and the true contentment that came with them. He had felt safe in that house with his family in a way he hadn’t since.
“I don’t really feel the cold anymore,” he muses aloud, “or warmth,” he adds.
Yes, autumn is a bittersweet season. More so these days, but it always has been, even when he was alive. Those many autumns alone had been tinged with more sadness and longing than most, but he supposes this one will be better.
Wolfie walks a little closer to him and Wind loses himself to his thoughts and the crunch, crunch of the others’ footsteps.
I tried to pull an All Might and draw Wild in a different style than Wind but I ended up completely forgetting how I usually draw during that process so we're just going to ignore that Wind doesn't look like Wind, alright?
