howdy! we’re back with day THREE of shuake week! this piece is a companion to my day one fic, so i do recommend reading that first, but you do not have to :)
day three: social media | cosplay | rescue mission
ao3 summary:
Akechi Goro has a Twitter. This isn’t old news. The fact that he has a second, older Twitter would be news.
Kurusu Akira also has a Twitter, and luckily for Goro, he has a second one he can secretly follow it on.
or
goro’s point of view for akira’s time in tokyo, told through a series of tweets
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
surprise! i write fanfiction still! i've had this idea rattling around in my brain since last tuesday and wrote it like a man possessed yesterday. please enjoy these crumbs of a persona one shot :)
summary from ao3:
On November 4th, 20XX, Akira Kurusu gets a text from one Goro Akechi. Of course he's going to answer it and immediately go see him. He does not, however, expect the events that follow whatsoever.
or
rank 8 goes just a tad differently than expected. just a tad.
sorry, could you repeat that for me? - nerdiests - Persona 5 [Archive of Our Own]
the world, reversing (gnisrever, dlrow eht) (chapter 1)
rhi persona 5 fic makes a return with this idea i've been tossing around in my brain for about a month! i'm very excited to see this grow into its own as i write, but for now here's chapter 1! please enjoy :)
summary from ao3:
Upon the destruction of Maruki's Palace and Metaverse as a whole on February 3rd, Kurusu Akira finds himself waking up on the train to Tokyo for reasons unbeknownst to him. Despite his impromptu and unexpected venture, Akira will bring about change, one way or another.
(or, new game plus, but more than a little weird)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
heroes always get remembered (but you know legends never die)
okay FIRST OFF i’d like to wish a HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the wonderful @sillus !! loaf, i adore you so much and i know i’ve said this waaaaaay too much over the past ten-ish hours, but you deserve it!!
second off, another @linkeduniverse fic!! woo!! longest one i’ve written, too!! yeehaw lads!! check it out on ao3 under the same name!!
warning for: violence, character death
Legend hadn’t seen what others would call a “gift from the goddesses” as one. If it was any type of gift, it’d be an accursed one, because that’s all Legend saw it as. A curse. He’d never been a devout follower of any of the goddesses, despite being the chosen hero of the era. Was this his punishment? Maybe. But not for not believing, that he was sure of. What he was being punished for, though. That was the mystery.
He never wanted to tell the others about it. He had his secrets that he held close to his chest, as did everyone else. Legend kept a few things - no, a lot of things - a secret. The entirety of his venture on Koholint, for one. His ability to become a painting. And his curse. If Legend had it his way, none of them would ever find out about it. He could count on one hand how many people knew about it. Zelda, Ravio (for some ungodly reason), and... Marin.
She was the one he’d told of his own will. He’d decided, months into his stay on Koholint, that he would tell her. She had listened, and she had believed him and that was the crucial thing. But now she was gone. And all Legend had left were his double, his sister, and himself.
Legend was a secretive man. But this secret was one he would keep until the demise of everyone, except his own. Because that was the secret. Legend couldn’t die.
He didn’t know why this was, he just knew that it was true. He’d discovered that fact on his first adventure, when he’d been in the wilderness and got into a scuffle he shouldn’t have walked away from. He should’ve died in those woods, when he was thirteen and young and bright eyed and foolish. He remembers falling to the forest floor. He remembers feeling fainter and fainter as the edges of his vision blurred and the ground felt damp beneath him with something other than the dew on the grass. And he remembers waking up in that exact same spot, a hole torn in his tunic and a faint scar over where he’d been stabbed - oh god he’d been stabbed. But he’d walked away from that. Legend didn’t know how or why, but he had.
The rest of his adventures passed and he grew better at avoiding fatal blows, as any experienced adventurer would. He went through six adventures - one that seemed like a fever dream but he still had the dress and everything else to prove it - and his secret had stayed locked up in the depths of his mind, only ever being told to one person and being revealed to two others. And Legend wouldn’t reveal this secret of his. It wouldn’t be something ever coming to light, not if he had his way.
With the start of his seventh adventure with the rest of him (and that was a weird sentence to say, wasn’t it?) but also not him, Legend knew none of them could ever find out. He would never let it slip. Besides, as Four had put it, they were all sitting on secrets. Some of them just had more than others did.
Legend knew that he had the most. He talked of six adventures, but he hid the contents of his fourth from them all. He didn’t talk about his Zelda, about how she was his younger sister. His twin, who he hadn’t known existed until the end of his first adventure. He refused to talk about the time he’d fought what looked like four different copies of Four on his first adventure within the Pyramid in the Dark World. He didn’t talk about the Moon Pearl and what it did. He didn’t talk about when he’d been cursed to turn into a painting, and why he wasn’t stuck as one. And he kept his most important secret so close to his chest that it was barely obvious it existed.
Legend was a secretive man. They all knew that. Unlike Sky or Wind or Hyrule, Legend gave the bare minimum on everything he’d done. It wasn’t their business. Yes, he was a Link and he’d saved not only his Hyrule multiple times, but four other countries as well (they didn’t need to know about Koholint, no one did). They didn’t need to know much else. Hell, he didn’t even intend for them to find out about Ravio, but it happened. But he wouldn’t be letting any more secrets slip through the cracks. Not if he could help it. But they all made it ridiculously hard to keep anything a secret. He’d caught Wind trying to snoop through his journal when he’d left it unattended not just one time, but multiple times. Thank the goddesses that he wrote it in a language that no one else could ever read. The perks of being the only person to know a language, he supposed.
What Legend hated about being a secretive man, though, was the unending questions he would get from everyone. Most of them from their youngest, but there was a healthy amount of questions from everyone in their motley gathering of Links. He tended to dodge his way around them most of the time, and the times he couldn’t he would work his way to a subject change. Legend knew that some of them - namely Time, Twilight, Four, and Warriors - had noticed him dodging answers to questions anyone asked, but none of them called him out on it. For that, at least, Legend was grateful. Sometimes… You get asked questions you don’t want answers to.
One of these days, Legend knew his secrets would spill. Maybe all at once, maybe one at a time, but they would come out. For now, though, Legend would keep all of them locked away until such a time that he deemed fit to let them come out. And that time would be never, if he had his way. He knew that wouldn’t be the case, but he could hope. Hoping could only get him so far, but he’d do it nonetheless.
Though. There were certain times that would test his patience. Like what the rest of the group was doing now. Wind was eagerly talking about some of the events of his first adventure - the final fight with Ganondorf, if Legend was hearing correctly - and a solid half of the group was listening in eagerly. Hyrule, Four, Sky, and Wild were all enraptured by the story, and Warriors and Twilight were both listening with interest. Time wasn’t facing the group, but Legend could tell he was listening in as well. They’d been trading stories about their adventures for the past hour now, starting with Wild talking about the time he’d been flung off a cliff by a giant rock monster he’d called a Talus, then Sky had talked about the time he’d ventured through a flooded forest in search of things he said were called “Tadtones”, then Warriors had offhandedly brought up the time he’d singlehandedly taken down a “King Dodongo.” From how Warriors talked about it, it seemed like it was a big deal and all, but Legend had taken on a Dodongo by himself when he was fourteen. If it was as easy as that battle had been, Legend didn’t think it’d be all that hard to take on a “King Dodongo.”
But now Wind was wrapping up his story - him and his Zelda (he’d said Tetra was her name) had ended up getting saved by Tetra’s pirate crew as they floated in the ocean above the flooded ruins of the Hyrule of old - and everyone would be expecting another one. He expected Hyrule or Four to pick up the slack, but as Wind finished talking his eyes fell on Legend, and there was a spark of interest there. Oh no.
“Hey, Legend! Why don’t you tell a story?” Wind asked. The rest of the group all turned towards him, and Legend blanked for a couple seconds. This was. Not good. No sir, not at all. How could he put this…
“No,” Legend replied simply. Wind’s face fell, and there were a few confused looks from the others.
“Why not?” Hyrule asked simply, equal parts disappointment and curiosity. Goodness, some of them could just act like children sometimes. Legend sighed. He wouldn’t get any writing in his journal done tonight. He was going to go to bed soon anyways. Snapping his journal shut and securing it in his bag, Legend locked eyes with Hyrule.
“I don’t want to,” he said, shrugging and attempting to put on a nonchalant air. It succeeded pretty well, based on the pout Wind was giving him. He looked back down at his bag, but he knew that everyone was still looking at him.
“C’mon, Legend. You never tell any stories and you’re always vague about everything!” Wind said. Were Legend and Time the only real adults here? Twilight and Warriors might be older than he was, but neither of them really acted their ages all the time. ...Actually, scratch his assumption. He was the only adult here, Time could be such a little shit sometimes.
“Maybe I don’t want to talk about it, hm?” Legend replied, looking up for a second to raise an eyebrow before looking back down at his pack. He was going to idly reorganize everything in his pack until they stopped looking at him.
“You’re such a downer,” Wild said, groaning loudly. There was a hum of agreement from Wind, and Legend just shrugged. Did he look like he cared about that? He cared about not telling anyone his damn secrets!
“But why do you not want to talk about it?” Wind asked. Legend scoffed.
“I don’t. Is that not a good enough reason for you? Or do you not want to-” Legend was cut off by another voice, one that he wasn’t necessarily expecting but was welcome nonetheless.
“No need to badger him, Wild, Wind,” Twilight cut in, and Legend glanced up at that. Twilight wasn’t who he was expecting to come to his defense, but he wasn’t expecting anyone so Twilight was better than no one, he supposed. He locked eyes with Twilight for a few seconds, who gave him an understanding look, before turning back to Wind and Wild and started talking to them about why they shouldn’t push people into doing things they don’t want to do and how they wouldn’t like anyone to do that to them, would they?
While Twilight was doing that, Legend turned to Time. Time raised an eyebrow, and Legend gestured towards the edge of the campsite they’d claimed as their own. Time shrugged. Legend knew that Time was set to be on first watch that night, but at this point he wanted to get away from the rest of the camp. And with Time’s approval to take his watch shift, Legend shifted a bit, before getting up and heading out a bit further from the camp. The only people that actually noticed him walking away were Hyrule, Warriors, and Sky. But none of them said a word, and for that Legend was grateful.
-
For a while, Legend’s reluctance to talk about anything in detail from any of his adventures was put out of the group’s collective consciousness. They didn’t talk about their adventures or anything like that, just about nothing in particular. Stuff they missed, things they were going to do after their adventure. Warriors in particular spent what Legend thought was way too much time waxing poetic about his boyfriend, but it kept spirits high.
Eventually, though. The tension that was created during Legend’s refusal to talk about his adventures - and he didn’t need to talk about his adventures, they should respect his privacy as much as they wanted their own privacy respected - would build up and up and up and it would snap. Legend didn’t know when it would happen, but he knew it would. He really didn’t want it to, he didn’t. But it would. So Legend tried to avoid it. He didn’t want to have an argument pop up and end with him snapping at someone.
But what Legend hadn’t noticed was Hyrule keeping an eye on him. Watching him, trying to make his own guesses at things. Legend, who was too preoccupied trying to ignore tension building up in one source completely missed the other source of it.
It all came to a head about a month after Legend’s quasi-argument with Wind and Wild, when they’d just switched over from Four’s Hyrule to Wild’s. Legend had semi-relaxed, thinking that the tension that had built up had died down to some extent, but because he’d only been looking in one place for tension in their group that would be his ruin.
The evening it happened, Legend could recall the most minute of details. There was a slight chill in the air, and dew on the grass just outside the cave they took refuge in from the rain that had just ended. Wild was having a fair amount of trouble starting a fire with the damp wood he found, even with the magical help that the flameblade he had provided him. Twilight had been swearing under his breath with his tongue poking from between his teeth as a piece of charcoal glided over the page. Warriors was writing a letter, tapping his pencil against his cheek as he thought. Wind and Four were chatting about how odd the weather was in Wild’s Hyrule, and they managed to drag Time and Sky into their discussion. And Legend himself? He’d been sorting a few things in his pack, because he needed something to do with his hands and he wasn’t risking pulling his journal out. But Hyrule hadn’t been doing anything. At the time, Legend hadn’t thought about it much. But in hindsight, he should have.
“Hey Legend? I have a question for you,” Hyrule said, catching Legend off guard. He nearly dropped his boomerang onto his foot from where he held it. He didn’t bother with putting up the boomerang, instead opting to put it in his lap, and ignored all the eyes on him and Hyrule.
“Yeah? What is it?” Legend asked, trying to seem nonchalant. This wasn’t a situation he wanted to be in. He had no clue what kind of question Hyrule would be asking.
“You always talk about your second and third adventures, and your sixth, but you don’t go into a lot of detail about your first, or your fourth, or your fifth. Why?” Hyrule asked. Dammit. Legend knew Hyrule was perceptive. Of course he was, Hyrule came after him in the timeline and living in a world like theirs you had to be.
“Because it’s my business. Is it not enough to know that I saved Hyrule twice, and multiple other places?” Legend replied. If he could just… Evade this line of questioning, it’d be better. But considering that the seven other members of their travelling party had all stopped what they were doing to listen to this play out, that wasn’t likely at all. So he’d have to try and meet this line of questioning head on.
“But you always evade every single question we ask about it! You don’t need to be deliberately cagey, we’ve all dealt with weird stuff on our adventures!” Hyrule said, his voice growing louder as he spoke.
“Maybe I just don’t want to talk about it! Did you think about that, Hyrule?” Legend fired back, reaching to move his sword a bit closer to him. His fight or flight instinct was ready to kick in and if he needed to run, he would. He didn’t care how running from his problems would make him look - and it’s not like he was running from his problems, just some questions he didn’t want to answer! That was all!
“Sometimes you need to share more than the bare minimum, Legend! That’s all you’ve given us about half of your quests, that you saved Hyrule or Hytopia or Holodrum or Labrynna or wherever you were with that fourth adventure of yours, but you’ve said next to nothing else about them!” This time, Hyrule was shouting. His face had gone a bit red, and Legend knew that his was likely in a similar state.
“Well… What about Time and Wind? They’re deliberately obtuse about facts surrounding their adventures! Wind doesn’t talk about how his second adventure doesn’t even make sense, and Time’s just full of secrets!” Legend replied, a bit flustered.
“This isn’t about them, it’s about you, Legend!” Hyrule shouted.
“I don’t give a fuck if it’s just about me, it’s bullshit that you’re focusing on me and ignoring other people that’re doing the exact same damned thing!” Legend shouted back, grabbing his sword sitting next to him with one hand and his boomerang with the other. He stood up, and so did Hyrule. They stared for a moment, and Legend opened his mouth to speak. Twilight beat him to it though.
“...Hey, no need to get so heated, we can jus-” Twilight’s words were interrupted by Legend whirling around with his sword and pointing it at him. Now that caught everyone off guard. Wild made to move, but Time gave him a minute shake of his head.
“Shut the fuck up, you don’t get to speak. You’re keeping secrets too, and no one fucking calls you out on it either! You’re so fucking obvious about it too, and that’s the worst part! This is bullshit! All of it! Bullshit!” Legend yelled. His arm holding the sword was shaking because Legend was shaking with rage, and it was extremely lucky for Twilight that Legend was far enough away that the sword was nowhere near him. Legend’s arm holding the sword slowly fell back to his side, and he turned back towards Hyrule.
“Right now, I know two things. You’re calling me out for not sharing, when every single one of us has secrets we don’t want to share, but you’re asking me to share what I’d rather not? That’s hypocrisy right there!” Legend barked out a harsh laugh, his eyes narrowing.
“The other thing that I know? I don’t want to fucking be here.” With those words, Legend stalked off, heading out of the cave, out of the small clearing immediately outside the cave, and into the woods surrounding them. He didn’t care where he went, as long as it was away from the rest of them. Fucking hypocrites, Four had said they all had secrets and everyone had been respecting everyone’s privacy, but they try and invade his personal life? Fuck that.
Hyrule, meanwhile, was staring at the empty space Legend had been standing a few seconds prior, breathing heavily. So was everyone else, as a matter of fact.
“Well. That escalated quickly,” Four said, breaking the silence that had been put in place by Legend’s angry leave.
“I was… Not expecting to have a sword pointed at my face today,” Twilight mumbled, almost to himself. Warriors, from where he was seated nearby Twilight, reached over to give Twilight a pat on the shoulder.
“You’ll get used to expecting the unexpected sword pointing at your face. Don’t worry,” Warriors said simply, and Twilight blustered at that.
“What do you mean, get used to it? Have you had people unexpectedly pointing swords at you?” Twilight asked, voice full of concern. Warriors just shrugged, and Twilight watched him incredulously. Hyrule, meanwhile, had finally calmed himself down sufficiently and had turned towards the group at large.
“Are… Are none of you worried about Legend?” Hyrule asked. No one really paid much attention to that, but Twilight turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow.
“You’re worrying about the guy that you just got into a yelling match with?” Twilight asked, skeptical. Hyrule nodded a few times.
“He’s… He’s like family, Twilight. Might get into arguments but you’ll worry about them regardless,” Hyrule said. Twilight gave a glance at… Warriors, strangely, before looking back at Hyrule and nodding.
“I get that. But he needs to cool off a bit. You go and find him now and you’ll both work yourselves into another argument. He’ll either come back here, or you’ll go out and find him in an hour or two,” Twilight said. Hyrule knew Twilight was right on some level, but he was still going to fret about it. About Legend. He’d gone out into the forest and Legend wasn’t familiar with Wild’s Hyrule! He knew he’d just got into an argument with him and he’d been the reason Legend had stalked off like that, but he didn’t want Legend to get hurt! Hyrule wouldn’t wish harm on anyone.
Unbeknownst to Hyrule, he’d started pacing around the cave they were in. He just walked back and forth, from the cave entrance back to where Twilight sat. Back and forth and back and forth and back. Warriors, Four, Wind, and Twilight watched him as he paced, seemingly unaware that he was.
“I’m going to go after him,” Hyrule said after a substantial amount of time had passed. Twilight laughed.
“Good thing, too. You’ve been pacing for the past twenty minutes. Wild thinks he’ll get a fire lit soon, so you’ve got two hours,” Twilight said. Hyrule balked.
“I’ve been pacing?” he asked, incredulous. At that, Four and Wind started laughing.
“You really didn’t notice?” Four asked. Hyrule shook his head, and that only got Four and Wind to laugh louder. Hyrule pouted at the two of them and turned back to Twilight.
“Do you think that Wild would have any idea where Legend went?” Hyrule asked. Before Twilight could speak, Wild piped up from where he was holding his flameblade next to the wood to dry it out.
“No clue. I didn’t get a good look at where he was running when he went into the woods, so I can’t give any guesses,” Wild said, tilting the angle of the sword a bit to get it closer to the actual wood without touching it. Hyrule frowned, looking out at the forest for a moment, before grabbing his sword and shield. He hesitated for a moment, before grabbing the rest of his pack as well. Legend might go and get himself hurt.
“I’ll be back. With Legend,” Hyrule said, before walking out of the cave and off into the forest where he’d seen Legend run. With any luck, he’d be able to find Legend in time for dinner, and be able to apologize for putting him on the spot like that. He didn’t mean for everything to get that loud. Or that confrontational. Maybe… Maybe he should’ve asked that question when it was just the two of them. It might’ve gone better that way.
-
“Goddessdamned bullshit,” Legend grumbled to himself, marching angrily through the forest. His knuckles were white around the hilt of his sword, and every tree he passed by he’d smack with his boomerang. It was a bit nicer than punching each tree he came across, because it wasn’t ever nice to have your fist in a bloody mess. Legend knew from experience.
“Calling me out in front of the whole fucking group, invading my privacy and ignoring the fact that I said I didn’t want to fucking talk about it, goddesses be damned,” Legend growled, smacking another tree repeatedly. His boomerang cut a deep gash into the bark as it slammed into the tree over and over. Eventually, Legend stopped, if only because he’d knocked his knuckles against the tree instead of his boomerang.
“Can’t they respect what I want to do? No? Bullshit,” Legend said, shaking the hand he’d accidentally smacked the tree with and leaving the boomerang stuck inside the tree for a few seconds, before grabbing it and continuing to stomp his way through the forest, ignoring all the sticks that snapped underfoot. Legend wasn’t exactly of the mind that there could be enemies in the woods, he was just being angry for the sake of being angry. In the back of his mind he knew that whoever would come to find him could find him pretty easily with his trail of trees with scratches all over them.
With a huff, Legend smacked the next tree, letting the boomerang get lodged deep in the wood. When he went to go pull the boomerang from the wood, though, he found that he couldn’t.
“You’re shitting me, no!” Legend said angrily, yanking on the boomerang again. It refused to budge. He didn’t even bother with trying to yank on it again, instead moving to grab his sword. With a yell, Legend slammed the blade into the tree, right at the join where the boomerang met the wood. With an angry cracking noise, the tree started to teeter away from him, before falling over. His boomerang fell the opposite way, finally freed from the confines of its wooden prison. He took a moment to let his anger dissipate and smirked at the tree that had dared to try and take his boomerang.
Now that his problem was solved and his head had cooled slightly, Legend surveyed the area around him. He was in the middle of nowhere. Brilliant. He could probably find his way back to camp at this point, but he didn’t particularly feel like heading back there. To him, it felt like he’d be crawling back to ask for forgiveness, and that wasn’t what he was doing. So Legend marched on.
As he walked, the sun started to sink lower on the horizon. Legend really didn’t want to be stuck outside when it was dark out, but if that was what would happen, then so be it. He’d seen a few apple trees along his route, and he could eat some of those and sleep up in one of the trees. He’d slept up in trees on his previous adventures when he was down on rupees, he could manage it for the night. They’d just switched Hyrules that day, so there wasn’t any reason to worry about them switching over with Legend so far off. If anything, he’d probably end up coming back the next morning.
Sighing to himself, Legend sat down next to the tree he’d felled in his boomerang rage - boomerage, if you would. If he really was going to spend his night out here, he might as well try and start getting those apples he saw on the trees he’d walked by a while back. So Legend started retracing his steps, following the gashes on the trees back towards camp. He’d noticed a small grove with some apple trees near it in his haze of rage. That’d be the perfect place to pick up a few apples to munch on, and if he could find somewhere with fresh water he’d be even better off.
Legend started humming quietly as he walked, trying to fill the relative silence around him. The woods were too quiet for his tastes - no birdsong, even this late in the evening, and the crickets hadn’t started up yet, so he found it odd - so Legend filled the woods with songs he’d learned over his years of travelling. Some folksongs from Labrynna or Holodrum, a haunting melody best accompanied with a piano and drums he’d picked up in Subrosia, a few jaunty barsongs he’d learned from Lorule, and even the tune from the clothing shop in Hytopia. The silence lessened, with Legend filling the trees around him with the song that the birds seemed to not pick up.
What really threw Legend off was the lack of wildlife around him. He’d at least expected to come across a deer or two, maybe some wild boar, but he didn’t see anything of the sort. It really threw him off, but he didn’t let that show on his face. It plagued his thoughts, but he wasn’t going to let his emotions win over his face too.
In the middle of his not-so-swift hike back to the grove, something Legend saw made him pause. A few platforms made of flimsy wood and bones, some overturned logs, a big campfire, some wooden crates and metallic boxes, and a few weapons tossed around on the ground. Legend glanced back at the trees he was walking by. Yeah, he’d passed by this camp on his angry march out to wherever he’d ended up.
“How the hell did I not get spotted?” Legend asked, moving to duck behind one of the larger trees. He hadn’t gotten the best glimpse at the camp itself, but he didn’t want to get caught in a battle he wasn’t prepared for. All he had was his sword and his boomerang, he didn’t have any of his other items. Hell, he didn’t have any of his medallions or rings or anything, because he’d taken them all off to sort through them! He wasn’t even wearing his tunic, he was just in the green undershirt! Getting into a fight now would be the worst case scenario, even if he did have the advantage of coming back from literally anything they could throw at him. Well, there were a few things he was pretty sure even he couldn’t survive, but he didn’t want to test that.
Peering around from behind the tree again, Legend noticed something. The camp was… Extremely empty. Nothing was even close to it that was alive that wasn’t him, and Legend wasn’t necessarily sure he wanted to find out why that was. But if nothing was in the camp… Legend could just go on past and not worry about anything. So he moved out from behind the tree and started walking, when a truly delectable smell caught his attention. His head whipped around, and Legend’s eyes focused in on the source of the smell - a huge cut of meat roasting above the campfire. How had he not noticed it before?
“Maybe I could…” Legend murmured to himself, taking stock of the situation. The camp was empty. Theoretically, all the enemies that had called this camp home could’ve all been killed ages ago, but that cut of meat looked fairly fresh. So the monsters all had to be around here somewhere, though Legend was guessing they weren’t that nearby. If they were, he would’ve noticed them in his rage-blinded march through the woods. Or, at least he hoped he would’ve noticed.
After a few seconds of thinking, Legend decided that the benefits of grabbing that prize cut of meat outweighed the disadvantages and he quickly made his way into the camp, stepping over the weapons he saw. The enemies in this camp wouldn’t be back before he made off with his prize, anyways.
As Legend reached out to take the cut of meat, he grinned to himself. He was getting some wonderful meat without having to do any work to get it. And even though he didn’t have anything to eat with that wasn’t his hands, Legend was happy that he at least had this. Although, his good mood wasn’t going to last. Because right as his fingers brushed against the cut - a bit dry, but he’d had worse - there was a loud roar from across the clearing. Legend’s head snapped up, and he saw a small army of bokoblins and moblins - all native to Wild’s Hyrule, and all of them in silver or gold colors.
“Mother fucker,” Legend swore loudly, giving up on his half-baked plan of pretending he didn’t exist and jumping away from the fire. He took stock of his situation. The group numbered ten - eight bokoblins, two moblins, half of the bokoblins gold and the other half silver and both moblins silver-colored as well - and although half of them didn’t carry weaponry, both of the moblins held a weapon of some sort. One carried a sword, and the other held a claymore, both of what Wild had called the “royal” variety.
“I am so screwed. Fuck you, Hylia,” Legend muttered to himself, his grasp on his sword tightening as he lifted it up in front of him. Guess he would be getting into a fight today. Brilliant. As the bokoblins started running at him - admittedly a bit stiltedly - Legend lifted up his sword and tucked his boomerang into his belt.
“Bring it, you little shits,” Legend said, more to hype himself up than to intimidate bokoblins. The only thing you really needed to intimidate bokoblins was having a weapon twice the size of yourself (according to Wild, at any rate). Unfortunately, all Legend had was his tempered sword, so that would have to do.
Everything was a whirlwind around him as the fighting started. Most of the bokoblins had clubs or spears of some sort - stay out of range of the spears even if they look like they’re made of wood and bone, those splinter, don’t want to get stuck on one of those - but there were two bokos carrying bows, one carrying a sword, and one of the moblins held a claymore. Bad news for Legend, who had to keep up a constant fervor of ducking and trying to get hits in when he could. If he had his shield he’d allow himself to get more daring with his attacks, but as it was he was already on the defensive. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted another attempt to bludgeon him with a gigantic spiked bat, and Legend snapped himself from his thoughts. No time to think.
He spun out of the way of the bat, started whirling his sword around, and sprung away the moment he felt his sword hit something. One of the silvers fell to the ground, its head detached from its body. Legend didn’t even pause, keeping up with his assault on the rest of the monsters.
One sword swing to counter the stab of a spear here, one duck away from a sword there, and a counterattack swiftly to follow that. Legend was developing a rhythm. Swing, duck, spin, slash, skid. It was a mark to Legend’s fighting ability that he managed to get a few cuts from the sword carried by one of the gold bokos and a couple nicks from close calls from arrows. There was a long gash on the left side of his tunic, and Legend thought that absentmindedly he’d have to repair that before going back to camp. He didn’t want to worry anyone.
Although that worry was all for naught, when he heard an extremely familiar cry of worry.
“Legend!” Snapped from his rhythm of movement, Legend looked over to see Hyrule running straight at him. Because of this, he missed the club swinging around towards his already-injured side. As he opened his mouth to yell at Hyrule to leave, he saw Hyrule’s eyebrows raise almost comically, before he was thrown across the clearing. His side felt like it was on fire. He still had his sword in his hand surprisingly, and thankfully his boomerang had been tucked into his belt on his other side. Reaching over to touch where the club had barrelled into him, his fingers came away damp and red. Almost as an afterthought to the pain he felt in his side, Legend had a thought. Well, now his shirt would definitely need to be repaired.
“Legend!” The worried cry of his name snapped him out of his somewhat addled thoughts. Oh, right. Hyrule was here. Hovering over him as the bokoblins and moblins started to process that neither of their quarries were present. They’d notice where the two of them were soon enough, Legend knew. Despite this, Legend shoved at Hyrule without an ounce of urgency as he started wringing his hands.
“Oh goddesses, I threw my pack off to the side and that’s where all the potions were, this isn’t good,” Hyrule muttered worriedly, and Legend shoved at him again.
“I can still fight, stop your worrying,” Legend replied, grabbing his sword and using it as extra support to get himself off the ground. Hyrule gave him a worried look, and Legend rolled his eyes.
“If you’re so worried, we can always fight close to one another,” Legend said. This didn’t appear to assuage Hyrule’s fears, but he nodded.
“That way, at least, I can cover your bad side with my shield,” Hyrule said, more to assure himself than to assure Legend of anything. Legend cracked a grin, hoping to help Hyrule feel a little bit better.
“Yeah. Let’s get rid of these little shits,” Legend said, taking his sword out of the ground and standing on slightly unsteady legs. He didn’t need them to be steady as long as they worked. Taking a deep breath, he stood next to Hyrule hefted up his sword, and that is when the monsters noticed where the two were.
“Get ready, Hyrule,” Legend murmured. Hyrule only nodded, lifting up his own sword and shield with a grim expression. They would have to put their all into this, Legend thought. And with nary a second to spare afterwards, the monsters were on them.
Legend and Hyrule worked cohesively, fighting back to back as the bokoblins surrounded them. Legend ended up having to catch the strikes from some of the clubs the bokoblins held with the blade of his sword to make sure those attacks wouldn’t hit Hyrule. And Hyrule made sure to catch all the arrows from the archer Legend hadn’t managed to take out on his shield. They all fell to the ground, with some of the arrows snapping. Legend took care to avoid the arrowheads, because even if the bows were poorly crafted, the arrows themselves were not. He didn’t want to have one get stuck in his boot, because that’d be a pain in the ass to remove.
As the duo whittled at the bokoblins circling around them, Legend kept an eye on the moblins behind them. They hadn’t charged in yet, which Legend thought was odd. He knew that the moblins knew that they weren’t friendly, but they weren’t attacking. Yet.
“Those moblins are acting odd!” Legend called out, blocking another swipe from a club with the flat of his blade before stabbing forward with his sword. Hyrule caught another arrow on his shield, swinging out his own blade shortly after.
“What do you mean odd?” Hyrule shouted back. They might be close to one another, but the noises of monsters around them mid-battle didn’t make for easy conversation.
“They’re not attacking even though all these bokos are! And that has suspicious written all over it!” Legend replied in kind as he managed to stab one of the golds in the stomach. It fell to the ground as it squealed and succumbed to the various cuts Legend had inflicted. There was an angry yell from the bokoblin next to it, and Legend quickly swiped his sword out at the source of the noise. The yell was cut off as Legend’s sword swiftly cut through the silver’s throat, causing it to collapse to the ground.
“They might be biding their time!” Hyrule called back as a gurgling noise came from behind him. Legend knew he’d taken out two before Hyrule arrived, and with the most recent additions that meant their chances were closer to 2 to 1 than 4 to 1. Legend liked those odds, he thought. But of course, right as Legend had his thought, the odds turned to most definitely not be in their favor. Thanks, Hylia.
“Shit,” Hyrule swore as the moblins lumbered over to them, their swords at the ready. Legend’s eyebrows rose. Hyrule, swearing? Damn. Didn’t know he could do that.
“Shit’s right, Hyrule!” Legend replied, locking his eyes on the moblins as they rushed - well, about as much as a moblin could rush - over to their battle. One ambled over to Legend’s side, the other to Hyrule’s. There was a sickening crunch as the moblin stepped on one of the heads of its fallen comrades, and Legend had to take a breath to prevent himself from gagging. Disgusting. Shaking his head the smallest amount, Legend hefted his sword up to block a swing from the moblin - this one had the sword, so the other had to have the claymore - and barely managed to prevent himself from falling over. Why did he think he could block a moblin’s sword with his own when he was already standing on unsteady legs? He didn’t know.
“Watch out for that claymore, Hyrule!” Legend called, moving a bit closer to the moblin. He didn’t hear Hyrule’s affirmative, but he assumed that Hyrule had heard. The moblin swung its sword again, and this time Legend ducked under the swing, stabbing forward with his sword after the moblin’s sword passed over his head. There was a mighty roar in response, and Legend yanked his sword from the moblin’s stomach as it swung its sword again, and Legend barely managed to duck.
Chancing a glance behind him, Legend’s eyes widened. He ducked as the moblin in front of him swung its sword again, but his eyes were locked on the moblin holding the claymore. Hyrule was moving left and right and left and right again, trying desperately to avoid the heavy handed swings the monster was capable of. Not only that, Hyrule was trying to avoid the arrows from that damned archer. Legend reluctantly tore his eyes away, managing to get into the moblin’s space and getting a second stab into its gut. The moblin let out a mighty roar, and Legend angrily stabbed it again, putting more force behind it. As he yanked his sword out and the moblin roared even louder, he heard a cry.
Whipping around, Legend saw Hyrule with an arrow sticking out of his leg. Hyrule faltered right as the moblin lifted its claymore, and Legend knew exactly what he needed to do. Ignoring the other enemies around them, Legend sprinted to Hyrule and shoved him out of the way. Just in time, too. The moblin’s claymore swung down, and Legend was in agony. He heard seams ripping in his shirt, and chanced a look down. Oh. Now that was deep. There was a diagonal gash along his chest, and he was losing blood at a very rapid rate.
“Legend!” He heard an agonized scream as his knees gave out and he fell onto his back. His vision was fading out rapidly, as the grass below him started to grow damp and warm. He knew it was his own blood. Almost absentmindedly, he heard the crackling of thunder out of nowhere, and what he could see went teal. Oh. Hyrule must’ve cast a spell. Which one was that again…? He blinked, and he could see a blurry face in front of him.
“Legend, Legend c’mon… No!” A familiar voice cried, and Legend let himself smile. Of course Hyrule would worry. But he didn’t need to. He tried to lift up his arm, but it wouldn’t move.
“I’ll… Be fine, ‘rule,” Legend said, coughing. There was something warm on his face. The darkness was encroaching on all sides, and the last thing he saw before it all faded out was the pink and orange and yellow of the slowly darkening sky.
-
When Legend’s eyes fluttered back open, his vision was blurry. There was a lot of green around him, and he could feel something damp underneath him. And he could hear sobbing. For a moment, he was caught off-guard, because there wasn’t anyone around that would be sobbing? Who was sobbing then? It was baffling, until Legend remembered. Oh. Yeah. He’d gone and died on Hyrule, who didn’t know. Well.
“Hyrule..?” Legend croaked, and wow his voice sounded horrible. He’d need to either drink something or wash his mouth out. Not at all to his surprise, there was a high pitched scream and Legend’s vision had a sword point front and center.
“What the fuck,” Hyrule said, voice cracking in the middle of his sentence. Legend opened his mouth to speak again, when the sword’s point fell and as Legend’s vision cleared up a bit more, he could see Hyrule on his knees with his sword next to him. His face was red and his eyes were puffy and his voice was a bit hoarse. Legend opened his mouth to speak, but Hyrule beat him to it.
“What the fuck was that Legend? You died!” Hyrule shouted. His voice cracked again, and Legend winced slightly. That was louder than he was expecting. This time, when Legend made to speak, he wasn’t interrupted.
“I… It’s a long story,” Legend said, coughing after he spoke. He really needed water if he was going to talk. Hyrule reached over and passed him something. Water flask. Legend took a few sips, spitting out the first sip with a bit of blood and swallowing the rest. The water went down tasting of copper. He coughed a few more times, before sitting up.
“We’ve got time,” Hyrule replied as Legend passed him back his flask and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He could still taste copper in his mouth, but he’d make do for now. He glanced over at Hyrule and noted the absence of an arrow sticking out of his leg. He must’ve healed himself then. Looking away from Hyrule and taking a look down at his undershirt, Legend blanched. The seam at his left sleeve had been decimated, the green tinted a dark brown color along where the moblin had cut him. The ends of the fabric curled up a bit, and when Legend touched it, the fabric was still a bit damp.
“If we’re going back to camp, I doubt I can wear this,” he muttered to himself. Before he could say anything, something soft smacked him in the face, before falling into his lap. Legend looked down to his lap to see one of Hyrule’s spare tunics. Legend looked back up to Hyrule looking away from him pointedly.
“You can borrow that until we get back to camp,” Hyrule said, keeping his eyes on the trees around them. Legend hummed in reply, weaseling his way out of his ruined undershirt. Goddesses, this would be a nightmare to fix. At least he hadn’t been wearing his tunic at the same time, because then it would truly be a nightmare. Legend chanced a look down after he took off his shirt and whistled lowly at the sight. There was a wide scar across his chest, from his left shoulder down to his right hip. The edges were faint, but the center was a darker color than the rest. Hm.
Without looking back down at the new scar he’d acquired, Legend wriggled his way into Hyrule’s borrowed undershirt. The shoulders were a bit too tight, but Legend would manage. Folding the ruined undershirt up and tucking it into his belt, Legend moved to stand back up. Before he could, though, there was a hand preventing him from doing so.
“Are you sure you should be moving around, Legend?” Hyrule asked, his eyebrows furrowed worriedly. Legend shrugged.
“Well, I feel about as fine as someone who was recently dead could feel, I guess. But this isn’t my first go-around, so I should be alright,” Legend said. He moved to stand up again, and this time Hyrule didn’t stop him. Although that might’ve been due to him being frozen in place.
“What do you mean this has happened before?” Hyrule asked, voice quiet and shaking. Legend took a moment to think on what he’d just said. That might’ve not been the best choice of words. He sighed, looking around for his sword and his boomerang. Luckily, those were at least nearby. As he reached over to pick them up, Legend pondered. He’d need to tell Hyrule what exactly had happened, but. How to phrase it?
“Well. It’s a bit hard to explain, but I can try to,” Legend said, standing back up and dusting his boomerang off before tucking it into his belt - thankfully his own belt hadn’t been ruined, so he wore it with Hyrule’s undershirt. Hyrule also got up, grabbing his sword, shield and pack from the ground next to him.
“We should probably head back to camp. It’s been an hour since I left to find you, I think,” Hyrule said, hefting his pack up onto one shoulder. Legend grimaced. He’d been gone for over an hour? And how long had he been out for?
“I guess we’ll walk and talk then,” Legend said, chancing a glance up at the sky. The sun had been growing closer to the horizon line when he’d “died,” but now there was barely any light left. They’d need to get back to camp before the light completely died. Or at least, they’d need to carry a torch.
“I guess,” Hyrule replied, adjusting his pack a bit. Legend looked away from the horizon he could see, and glanced around the camp. The fire was still lit… There! He could carry a torch with his free hand. Making his way over to the campfire under Hyrule’s curious gaze, Legend grabbed a torch and lit it.
“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Hyrule commented as Legend hefted the torch above his head.
“We don’t want to get caught in the dark without a light. ‘Least we can follow the pockmarks I made in the trees with my boomerang,” Legend said, starting to head towards the edge of the clearing towards the forest proper. Hyrule fell into step beside him, and as they started their walk through the forest, it was quiet for a few moments. Eventually, though, the silence was broken.
“So. About what happened back there,” Legend said. Hyrule glanced over at him, a spark of some sort in his eyes. Legend couldn’t identify it, and he couldn’t say for sure whether it was a good kind of spark or a bad one. Hyrule didn’t say a word, though, only nodding for Legend to continue. Legend took a deep breath, before stopping and adjusting his grip on his sword. Hyrule came to a stop next to him and gave him a curious look.
“I… In all my adventures, that’s happened at least once. I don’t know how it works, and I don’t know why it happens, it just does. I “die” and then I come back, all my wounds healed and only faint scars to speak of the memory,” Legend said, lifting up the bottom of his borrowed undershirt and tugged his shorts up a bit. Stark against his leg was an old scar, one that looked a bit similar to a star with how it spiked out.
“Got this one in my Hyrule. Arrow went straight threw and hit something vital, I ended up bleeding out,” Legend continued. That wasn’t a pleasant memory. He had just left a dungeon in Lorule and had gone back to Hyrule when he was ambushed by a group of soldiers. One of them had managed to get him in the leg, and he’d run off with the pegasus boots and barely made it to his house that Ravio had been taking residence in. That’s how Ravio had found out about this curse of his. Hyrule hissed as Legend let his shorts and borrowed tunic fall back to their original places.
“That must’ve been painful,” Hyrule says, shaking his head slightly and looking back at Legend’s face. Legend nodded, before readjusting his grip on his sword and starting to walk again. Hyrule started trotting after him, seeming to be pondering something. Legend let the silence marinate for a bit, before letting out a deep breath.
“You’ve got something on your mind. Spit it out,” Legend said, catching Hyrule off-guard. He started spluttering and put one of his hands up defensively.
“W-what? No! I-I-I don’t have any questions or-or anything!” Hyrule replied, waving his extended hand wildly. Legend smirked a bit, and Hyrule’s face fell defeatedly.
“Ask away,” Legend replied, hoping that Hyrule wouldn’t ask a question that he didn’t want to answer. That wouldn’t end well for either of them.
“Do… Do you know why?” Hyrule asked. Legend paused, puzzling over that for a moment. Why… Why he couldn’t die?
“I don’t really know, Hyrule. Found out during my first adventure when I got stabbed and got back up after bleeding out on the forest floor, but I never figured out why,” Legend replied, a lot more nonchalantly than he probably should’ve. Hyrule balked at Legend’s answer, and he could imagine why.
“Didn’t… Didn’t you say you were thirteen on your first adventure?” Hyrule asked, voice extremely small. Legend nodded once as he kept walking, but he stopped after a few feet when he realized that Hyrule wasn’t standing next to him. Legend turned around, raising an eyebrow at Hyrule, who stood stock-still as he stared at the ground.
“You alright over there?” Legend asked, giving Hyrule a once-over. Was he… Was he trembling?
“You were younger than I was, Legend. It might’ve been by a year, but you died when you were thirteen!” Hyrule said, his voice low but full of passion. Legend paused for a moment, before nodding once.
“Yeah. But I’m still standing now, aren’t I?” Legend asked. Hyrule blinked a few times, before shaking his head a bit.
“I mean… Yeah, but-!” Hyrule was cut off by Legend continuing to bulldoze through his point.
“I’m standing now, and that’s what matters. The past is in the past, and we can’t change it. All we can really focus on is the future, Hyrule,” Legend said, turning away from Hyrule to look up at the sky. The stars were starting to come out, and Legend spotted one familiar constellation among the stars above his head as more and more pinpricks of light came into view.
“You’re… You’re right,” Hyrule said from behind him. Legend didn’t glance behind him, but he did look over when he felt someone stand next to him. Hyrule stood there, a determined look on his face. Legend didn’t question it verbally, only raising an eyebrow. Hyrule locked eyes with him.
“In the future, you’re not going to have to do anything like that. You shouldn’t have to do anything like that to make sure anyone’s safe, because you should stay safe too,” Hyrule continued. He clenched a fist, and broke eye contact to look down at it.
“I’ll make sure of it,” Hyrule finished. The two were quiet for a few moments, the only sound around them being the sound of crickets and cicadas around them. They both stood there for a couple minutes, letting the stars fully come out and the sun to fall below the horizon. The moon had started to rise before either of them spoke up again.
“We really should get back to camp. Wild had finally figured out how to dry out some wood when I left, and Twilight told me he’d probably be two hours. I think it’s half an hour’s walk from here to camp?” Hyrule said, shaking them both from the almost-trance they were in. Legend nodded. The two started walking again, and there was a comfortable silence between the two of them as they walked. Eventually, though, it broke again.
“So, um. Are you going to talk to anyone else about this?” Hyrule asked, trying his best to phrase his question carefully. Legend flinched, and Hyrule flinched in response.
“Of course not. You wouldn’t know if you hadn’t seen it. It’s like what I said earlier - I don’t want to talk about my secrets and if no one else has to reveal theirs then I don’t need to talk about mine,” Legend replied, trying his best to not sound icy. He knew he failed when Hyrule flinched again.
“But… Wouldn’t it be a good idea to just… I don’t know, just talk about it? It’d be… therapeutic in a sense?” Hyrule said, his statement sounding more like a question than Legend thought he probably wanted it to.
“None of my secrets will come out unless it’s under circumstances like these, or if I absolutely need to. Suffice it to say the latter likely won’t happen, and I’m hoping to prevent the former from happening again,” Legend said.
“I… If you’re sure,” Hyrule replied quietly, and Legend saw him looking down at the ground. With a few deft movements, Legend reached over and gave Hyrule a pat on the shoulder.
“Think about it this way. You’re part of an exclusive club that only has four people - me, you, my Zelda, and Ravio,” Legend said with a grin. Hyrule looked up and gave a small smile in response.
“But I do have to ask. I don’t want to talk about this with the others, so unless I give you the okay to - which likely won’t happen - please don’t mention anything about what happened to the rest of them. As to why I’m borrowing one of your undershirts, mine got caught on a jagged tree branch and a giant hole got ripped in it,” Legend continued, adjusting the wrinkled undershirt he had tucked into his belt. There was still the matter of bloodstains on it… Oh.
Hyrule’s eyebrows rose as Legend walked over to a mud puddle and pulled his bloodied undershirt from his belt. He opened his mouth to ask what Legend was doing, when Legend threw the shirt into the mud and stepped on it, moving his foot around for good measure.
“What are you doing?” Hyrule asked incredulously as Legend picked up the muddied undershirt from the puddle. Legend grinned.
“When my shirt got caught on the branch, I fell into a mud puddle. I cleaned myself off and you let me borrow this undershirt. I’ll probably need to slip into one of my own when we get back to camp, though, this is tight around my shoulders,” Legend said. Hyrule only nodded dumbly.
“I… Alright,” he said, not really understanding what Legend was doing but going along with it. Legend took one look at Hyrule’s dumbfounded expression before bursting out laughing.
“Your face! It’s hilarious!” Legend said as he laughed, though Hyrule didn’t join him. He was still baffled. As Legend’s quick bout of laughter died down, he gave Hyrule another serious look.
“But in all seriousness, I can trust you won’t tell the rest of them, right?” Legend asked. It was quiet for a moment, before Hyrule nodded once.
“Yeah. And… I wanted to apologize. I put you on the spot in front of everyone earlier, and I shouldn’t’ve done that,” Hyrule said. Legend waved a hand.
“Just don’t do it again,” Legend said. Hyrule nodded again, and the two kept on walking, keeping up light conversation as they did.
-
Legend could hear a slightly panicked voice as he walked to the edge of the tree line around the small clearing their cave campsite let out into.
“What if they got lost, or one of them got hurt, Time? You should let me go after them,” Twilight said. Legend could see Twilight pacing back and forth at the mouth of the cave, and Time wasn’t visible. Warriors, however, was. He was fiddling with his sword almost absentmindedly.
“Legend’s the most experienced adventurer in the group, pup. Have some confidence in him. And Hyrule’s no slouch either. They’ll be fine,” Time replied, and Legend raised an eyebrow as he locked eyes with Hyrule. Time was that confident in the two of them, huh?
“Twilight’s not the only one who’s worried, Time,” Warriors said, gesturing in the cave to someone that Legend couldn’t see.
“And Hyrule said he’d be back before Wild finished up making food and he’s almost done with that,” Warriors added, gesturing towards Wild, presumably. Twilight spun around to face towards where Legend presumed Time was and threw his hands up.
“Why’re you acting so nonchalant about this! Just because Legend’s experienced doesn’t mean he’s immune to injuries!” Twilight said, sounding a bit frustrated. Legend chose that moment to step out from the trees with Hyrule only a step behind him.
“I’d like to think that I am, thanks,” Legend called as he started walking towards the cave. Twilight whirled back around and blinked a few times, before running up and giving Legend a hug without warning.
“Oof!” Legend said. Twilight held on tight for a few seconds, before letting go and stepping back, still keeping a light hold on Legend’s shoulders.
“You’re wearing one of Hyrule’s undershirts, what happened?” Twilight asked as Warriors walked - it seemed more like he power walked, but Legend couldn’t tell - up to the three of them.
“Well, when Hyrule showed up when I was walking a bit off the path, I tripped and my shirt got caught on this jaggedy tree branch and got torn. Ended up falling face-first into a mud puddle. Luckily there was a lake that I could clean up in nearby, and Hyrule let me borrow one of his undershirts so I wouldn’t be walking around with a muddy torn open undershirt. It would’ve been bad for both of us if we’d gotten attacked when I was wearing that,” Legend explained. Twilight narrowed his eyes a bit, before nodding.
“That would’ve been real bad, yeah,” Warriors said as Twilight started leading him back into the cave. Legend could smell something a bit gamey, and his stomach grumbled its protest. Twilight started laughing at that, and quickly all four of them were all laughing at Legend’s minor misfortune.
“Dinner’s almost ready, you four!” Wild called out, and a chorus of gasps rang out from the cave. Four, Wind and Sky, Legend guessed. As the four of them walked into the cave to the delightful smell of roasting meat and vegetables, Legend and Hyrule locked eyes. Hyrule gave Legend the smallest of nods, and Legend cracked a small smile in response.
What happened that day, Legend thought as dinner was served, was an utter disaster. He hadn’t been expecting a fight with a mob of monsters, or for Hyrule to find out one of the secrets he held closest to his heart. But he couldn’t change that now, so he supposed he’d just go with it. He wouldn’t purposefully be revealing that secret to anyone else, anyways.
At least none of his other secrets had surfaced. Legend was definitely not ready to explain any of them to their motley crew of Links. Especially his fourth adventure. That wouldn’t ever be coming out.
When everyone settled down for that night, Legend moved outside to go and look at the stars again, trying to spot familiar patterns in the dark sky. No one moved to join him, since he was on first watch for the night. It was calming, he thought, as he glanced up occasionally to map out the stars above him. He didn’t find many familiar constellations, but there were a few he noted. At least there was that one constant.
Legend knew that he was a secretive man. This was an established fact that anyone that knew him longer than five minutes could agree with. He might not have intended to share one of those secrets that day, but it happened. He couldn’t’ve stopped it, even if he’d really wanted to. And Legend wasn’t sure he would’ve wanted to. Well, aside from the whole dying part, but that’s neither here nor there. His point was that he felt a little lighter. He wasn’t going to go sharing any secrets with anyone any time soon, but maybe… Maybe having someone to talk about this one while he travelled wasn’t the worst idea.
-
Bonus:
“None of my secrets will come out unless necessary or if I want to play a prank on Warriors, let’s be real,” Legend said. The duo were quiet for a moment, before they both started laughing their asses off, because this was a wonderful idea.
“Now that would be a sight to see!” Hyrule managed to say between his laughs. Legend nodded, unable to speak due to his own raucous laughter. Maybe he would do that…
A month later, Legend proceeded to scare the everloving shit out of Warriors by popping out of a wall and saying ‘boo’. He might’ve gotten stabbed because of it, but it was totally worth it.
guess who’s back (back again) with new writing for the first time in months
it’s me, back with the domestic fluff no one asked for, but i wrote anyways - for the @linkeduniverse weekly prompt over on the discord! now! here we go!
check it out on ao3 under the same name!
In all honesty, there’s nothing better in the world than waking up next to the person you love most in your life. Sure, some people might say that other things rate higher (like an entire room filled with chocolate chip cookies, for example), but to Warriors? Waking up in his home with his boyfriend curled up in bed next to him was nirvana. With a content sigh, Warriors snuggled a bit more into the blankets as Thom snored next to him, arms sprawled out like a starfish. It was cute, and Warriors had never been happier that Thom had closed the bakery for the morning.
“Mmmm… Today’s going to be great,” Warriors murmured to himself, looking up at the ceiling before his eyes fluttered shut again and he drifted off. It felt like only a moment passed before he felt someone lightly shaking his shoulder. Groggily, Warriors groaned as he attempted to blink the sleep out of his eyes. There was a light chuckle to his left, and an arm snuck around his waist.
“...Thom?” Warriors said sleepily, looking over his shoulder to see Thom’s soft smile.
“Morning, pumpkin,” Thom replied, voice just as sleep-laced as Warriors’ own was. His hair was a bit messy, falling down one of his shoulders as Thom squinted slightly, vision impaired without his glasses. Warriors grinned dopily, rolling onto his other side and tucking Thom’s hair behind his ear.
“Mornin’,” Warriors said, before giving Thom a quick peck on the lips. Thom laughed, shoving him away slightly.
“You have morning breath,” Thom complained. Warriors laughed at that, as Thom unraveled himself from their blankets and started to go through the motions of getting ready in the morning.
The two weaved around one another as they went through with their respective routines - Thom was picking out his outfit for the day while Warriors got ready in the bathroom. It wasn’t long before Warriors walked out of the bathroom in his chosen outfit for the day with perfectly done hair. Thom grinned at him as Warriors peered over his shoulder at the three shirts laid out on the bed.
“I’m not sure which one to wear today,” Thom said half to himself. Warriors hummed appraisingly, giving each shirt a glance. All three were vaguely similar, but Warriors gestured at the second shirt - a light blue button-up - after a moment of thought. Thom nodded back, grabbing a pair of pants from where they laid on the bed and headed into the bathroom to get ready himself. In the quiet of their shared bedroom, Warriors took a few moments to situate his scarf and make any last minute adjustments to his current ensemble. Even if Warriors wasn’t doing anything particularly fancy today, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t look nice.
“Well, now I feel underdressed,” Thom commented. Warriors spun around and locked eyes with Thom, who was leaning on the bathroom door frame.
“You’re dressed just right. All we’re doing is having breakfast with the others before the nine of us go on our way,” Warriors replied as Thom walked over to him, putting his chin on Warriors’ head and wrapping his arms around him in a hug.
“And how do I hate that you can’t stay longer,” Thom said as Warriors grumbled halfheartedly about his hair. His boyfriend was more important than being presentable.
“You know I do too, hon. But Zelda had something I needed to deliver the next time I was in Hyrule, so we need to do that before we switch to someone else’s,” Warriors said, sighing as he spoke. Both of them wished they had more time with the other. At least it was better than the war had been.
“I know, I know. At least we have now. And until breakfast is done,” Thom replied, squeezing Warriors for a second before letting go and heading to the door.
“But for now… I’ll get started on breakfast, and you can go and retrieve the other Links, yes?” Warriors nodded as Thom opened the door, Warriors following quickly behind him.
While Warriors made for where he’d left his boots the previous evening, Thom looked at the ingredients in his personal pantry with a calculating eye. There were a multitude of options - bacon was a must-have, but there were so many other things he could add to breakfast. Warriors glanced over at Thom as he opened up the door leading to the staircase.
“I’d go for muffins!” Warriors called out, hearing Thom’s considering hum as Warriors closed the door behind him. Oh, he really was hoping for muffins.
-
The walk over to the town’s inn wasn’t long at all, thankfully. Warriors waved at his neighbors as he passed, giving a few scattered hellos and how-do-you-dos as he made his way to the inn, picking up an apple from one of the scattered stalls in the street for a few rupees to munch on while he walked. And his walk was finished just as his apple was, and after tossing the apple core into a nearby bin, Warriors opened the inn door to a ruckus.
The innkeep gave Warriors a tired grin, before letting out a heavy sigh. Without so much as a word, he pointed at one of the corner tables, where the rest of the Links were seated. He could very clearly see the grin on Twilight’s face as cards flew through the air and Legend screamed in frustration. Raising a curious eyebrow, Warriors walked over, with only Time and Hyrule noticing his approach.
“You’re a filthy cheater, Twilight!” Legend cried, slamming his hands onto the table. Twilight’s grin only grew wider. Warriors locked eyes with Time, who only sighed heavily at Warriors’ inquiring eyebrow.
“Maybe you’re just no good at go fish,” Twilight replied, trying and failing at keeping his laughter quiet. Legend opened his mouth to speak again when Hyrule nudged him.
“I think we need to wrap the game up anyways,” Hyrule said, pointing at Warriors. He waved as the six people that hadn’t noticed him standing there took a double-take.
“When did you get here?” Wind asked, hopping out of his chair as he spoke.
“A few minutes ago. Thom’s getting started on breakfast, so I wanted to come and get y’all so we could eat before we head out,” Warriors replied. He gave it a few moments as what he said sunk in, before all eight of them had varying degrees of reactions. Wind, Wild, and Hyrule all immediately stood up and started walking quickly (or running, in Wild’s case) back to their rooms. Four reached for his pack at his side, while Sky sat up straighter in his seat. Legend’s fuming decreased while Twilight put up his cards and Time headed over to the innkeep, presumably to pay for their lodgings and apologize for the ruckus they’d caused during their game of go fish. Warriors chuckled to himself as Wind raced back in, pack thrown haphazardly over one shoulder.
“I’m ready to go let’s go!” he cheered, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Warriors chuckled to himself as Wild and Hyrule filed in not long after Wind did, and the others grabbed their bags from where they’d left them at their table. The perks of travelling with a group of heroes? They were almost always ready to go at a moment’s notice. It paid to be prepared.
In no time at all, the group of nine was leaving the inn - Warriors noticed the apologetic looks that both Time and Sky gave the innkeep as they left - and headed back to his and Thom’s home. Hopefully the muffins were done at this point. Wind chattered excitedly about the card games he’d stayed up late playing with Wild, Four, and Hyrule the night before as they walked, with the occasional comments from Twilight about the book he’d been reading or the embroidery project Legend had made some progress on. To be fair, Warriors might’ve spent most of his evening talking with Thom after the rest of the Links had left, keeping his hands busy with his newest knitting project. But they didn’t need to know that.
Either way, they arrived at the bakery in short order, and they filed up the stairs to the apartment quickly. All of them were excited to get to eat - they’d stayed in Warriors and Thom’s small town enough times to get excited to have any of Thom’s treats. It really was a pity that Thom couldn’t send any baked goods with his letters.
“We’re here, hon!” Warriors called as he opened the door. From the kitchen, Thom hummed his acknowledgement as their group filed inside and started heading for the dining room. At least they’d set out the extra chairs last night and forgot to put them up when they had retreated to their bedroom for the night.
“Muffins’re in the oven, the eggs’ll be done soon. Go ahead and sit down,” Thom said absentmindedly, not taking his eyes off the stovetop. A wise decision.
“Muffins?” A chorus of voices spoke up, some more excited than others. Wild looked over at the oven with clear interest, while Wind’s head poked out from the dining room with a grin on his face.
“My idea,” Warriors spoke up. Twilight slung an arm around his shoulders with a bright grin.
“And a wonderful one at that,” he said. Legend came up on his other side and nudged him with an elbow to the side.
“I knew we kept you around for a reason,” Legend joked, getting both Hyrule and Wind to start laughing.
“I thought it was my battle skills or my roguishly good looks, not my boyfriend’s fantastic baking,” Warriors replied in an equally joking tone. The laughs grew louder.
“Just for the baking, Warriors,” Legend said. Wild and Twilight joined the laughing as Thom turned around, holding a pan filled with scrambled eggs.
“If you’ve got any kind of looks, it’s the scruffy type,” Thom cut in teasingly. At that, Four choked on the air as the rest of the group practically howled with laughter and Warriors pouted. The remaining Links that weren’t in the dining room made their way over there, but Warriors hung around in the kitchen, just in case Thom needed a second set of hands.
“I thought you loved me,” Warriors said jokingly. Thom laughed as he moved the eggs from the pan to the platter filled with eggs and put the pan in the sink to be washed later that day. Not wanting to be in the way, Warriors took a few steps left as Thom ducked by before putting a stack of plates in his outstretched arms.
“The silverware is already out, I just forgot to set out the plates. Do you mind, pumpkin?” Thom asked, already whirling around to grab the platter of eggs to make room for the almost-done muffins.
“Got it, hon,” Warriors replied, heading out into the dining room with the stack of plates balanced carefully in his arms. Ten plates in one stack would be a recipe for disaster if he didn’t carry them with care - plus most of their tableware had been a housewarming gift from his Zelda, so Warriors would be extremely upset if he dropped any of them. Based on the way that Twilight’s eyes boggled when he walked into the dining room, though, he wouldn’t be carrying all of them much longer.
“Farore, why are you carrying all the plates? Lemme help with that,” Twilight said as he stood up and took half the stack in almost one motion. Warriors laughed a bit, letting himself relax a bit. Five plates is nothing compared to ten.
“Thanks, Twilight - these were part of a housewarming gift, and I’d hate to break them,” Warriors said, walking over to the table and starting to set out plates in front of the set out chairs. Twilight joined him after a moment, and the chatter around them was very welcome. Wind’s excitement over muffins was contagious, it seemed. So the cheer that went up when Thom walked in with a platter covered in muffins wasn’t a surprise.
“Heh, didn’t think my chocolate muffins would get this many cheers,” Thom chuckled, setting the muffins down before going and getting the other platter of eggs and bacon. Miraculously, the group of heroes held off from eating any of the muffins until the other platter of food had been set down and Thom had taken his seat next to Warriors. The moment that Thom sat down, the heroes descended on the food like a committee of vultures, with nothing but scraps remaining once each hero had grabbed their fill of food for the morning. Thom gave Warriors a meaningful glance as Warriors shrugged. What? Thom’s food was good and they were all hungry.
Unsurprisingly, the people that talked the most while they ate were Thom, Time, Four, and Warriors - and Warriors was only talking because they were discussing their plans for the delivery they were going to be making relatively soon. The other six people at their dining table were fully invested in their meals, not the light conversation going on. Thom found it highly amusing. To Warriors, it was just another Tuesday.
The meal was over too quickly, in Warriors’ expert opinion. He wanted to spend more time with his boyfriend, but alas. The duties of a hero are never really over. Thankfully, everyone’s bags were already packed up, so the walk out of their apartment and to the entrance to the bakery was a short one filled with thank yous and assurances of shared recipes the next time the group came to town. Standing just outside the front door of the bakery, Warriors gave Thom a tight hug as the rest of the Links stood behind him and some of their neighbors watched on curiously.
“I’ll miss you,” Warriors murmured, arms slung around Thom’s neck. Thom squeezed his arms around Warriors’ waist a bit tighter as he hummed his reply. A quiet “aww” could be heard somewhere on the street, but Warriors couldn’t care less at the moment. He wished that this moment could last forever, that he didn’t have to leave. But he did, and so he let go. Right as he was about to turn around, though, Thom caught his wrist.
“Wait a second…” Thom said, catching Warriors off-guard.
“Yeah?” Warriors asked, tilting his head ever so slightly. To his surprise, Thom’s hand moved to cup one of Warriors’ cheeks in his hand as Thom brushed a thumb over his cheek. Almost humming to himself, Thom smiled a bit.
“There’s a little something on your face,” he said, leaning forward. Warriors’ brow furrowed, but it wasn’t visible very long as Thom kissed him soundly. There were a few cheers around the street, one of which sounded remarkably like Twilight, and as Thom moved away, Warriors was left with a very red face and an inability to think straight. With a very soft shove, Thom pushed him towards the group of heroes with a smile on his face.
“Now get going, my hero. You’ve got a job to do, and I’ll be here when you get back,” Thom said. Wordlessly, Warriors nodded, before making some sort of shapeless gesture for the rest of the group to follow after him.
“You’re going the wrong way,” Thom called after a second or two of walking. Warriors immediately turned around, and then the heroes were on their way.
alright!! got more @linkeduniverse fic coming your way, buds! it’s! a bit of a long time coming on my end (if you count like two weeks as a long time but whatever) and i’m excited!!
check it out on ao3 under the same name!!
It’s dark for a few seconds, before the studio lights up. The camera turns on, and focuses in on a man wearing a dark green shirt with a blue scarf wrapped around his neck. There’s a glimpse of a tie under the scarf, but it’s not extremely visible. He grins as he gestures at the camera, and there’s a sigh from behind it.
“Hello lovely viewers back at home and welcome back to Hyrule’s hit baking show, Nailed It! I’m your wonderful host, Link Ellanher, and today we’ll be going back in time to a period not too long ago, where heroics were common and-” Link’s introduction is cut off by another voice behind the camera.
“Stop it with your theatrics, Warriors, and get on with it!” Link - Warriors - sighs, and looks pointedly at the camera. As he does, a banner goes across the bottom of the screen, reading, “Link Ellanher (Warriors), Master of Prose.”
“And that was snarky comment number one from the peanut gallery. Alright Legend, let’s get on with it, then!” Warriors says. The camera turns towards a fully-stocked kitchen with three separate workstations as Warriors continues to speak.
“With today’s episode, we’ll be taking a look at the heroes of old - or not so old, in this case - and our three contestants for today will be attempting to recreate some delicious treats inspired by some of the heroes of the recent past for the opportunity to win ten thousand rupees! Now, shall we introduce our contestants?” Warriors asks, perfectly timed. The doors swing open and there’s a cloud of smoke. Three people walk out into the room, but as all three of them start to walk in the middle figure starts coughing. The one on the left stops and turns towards the middle figure.
“Hyrule, are you alright?” the left figure asks. The middle figure - Hyrule - coughs a few more times as the figure on the right turns back around.
“You need a hand?” they ask, and Hyrule shakes their head as they stand back up. Their brown hair flies around a bit as they walk forward.
“No, I’m. I’m good. Just wasn’t expecting that,” Hyrule says, before looking at the camera directly.
“Legend you should’ve told me there was smoke, you know I take deep breaths to calm my nerves!” Hyrule says, and there’s a quiet mumbling sound from behind the camera. Offscreen, Warriors laughs as the three contestants stand in a row. The camera cuts over to Warriors from where the three contestants stand.
“Oh contestants of ours, shall you introduce yourselves?” Warriors asks. The camera cuts back over to the three of them. It’s quiet. There’s a cough from behind the camera. Then the figure on the right steps up with a sigh.
“I’m Link Lon Lon Junior, and if you call me that I will scream. Call me Twilight. I’m only on this show because you asked me to be Warriors, you know that,” Link - sorry, Twilight - says, and the camera moves back over to Warriors, who’s cackling.
“I know, I just wanted to hear you have to say your legal name that you never go by,” Warriors grins. The camera pans back to Twilight as a banner unfurls underneath him onscreen, reading, “Link Lon Lon Jr (Twilight), Tired of Warriors’ B.S.” For a moment, Twilight locks eyes with the camera, before it bobs once in solidarity. The camera pans over to the next person in line, Hyrule.
“Hi, I’m Link Hyrule, and I think I can nail whatever challenges you’ve got today! You can call me Hyrule, that’s what everyone calls me!” Hyrule says, and if anyone could be the personification of the :D emoticon, that was Hyrule in that moment. A banner unfurls under Hyrule onscreen, reading, “Link Hyrule (Hyrule), Trying His Best!” There’s a chuckle from behind the camera as it pans over to the last contestant in line.
“Hello! I’m Link Crimson, but you can call me Sky. Warriors asked me to come on the show, but I love baking too, so I think we’re all going to have a great time,” Sky says, giving the camera a smile. The same banner unfurls under Sky as it did under the others, reading, “Link Crimson (Sky), Here To Have A Good Time.” The camera switches view over to Warriors, who’s looking over to his left and tapping his foot.
“He’s taking too long…” Warriors mutters, before cupping his hands around his mouth and yelling.
“WILD GET YOUR BUTT IN HERE!” he yells, and a blue streak dashes into the room. A hat falls from their head as the blue streak solidifies into a person as they vault over a table and come to a skidding stop next to Warriors, not even breathing hard.
“Sorry ‘bout that Warriors, I got distracted. Muffin?” the blue-clad person offers. Their polo is covered in powdered sugar and flour, their long blond hair is in a messy bun and they’re not wearing an apron, but the muffin they hold is immaculate. Warriors sighs, before taking the muffin.
“As all you viewers back home will know, this is the renowned chef and baker, Link Farore, or Wild. Who’s also renowned for his tardiness,” Warriors says, turning towards Wild and putting one hand on his hip. Wild only shrugs, pulling a second muffin out from somewhere and munching on it. Twilight raises an eyebrow as a banner unfurls under Wild onscreen, reading, “Link Farore (Wild), A Literal Child.” As Wild continues to munch on his muffin and the three contestants look at Warriors for a few seconds, it’s quiet. Then Warriors blinks a few times, before his eyes widen.
“Oh my goodness I almost forgot our wonderful guest judge for this episode. Might I introduce the head baker and owner of one of Hyrule’s most well-known bakeries, Heroic Baked Goods, Thom Ellanher?” Warriors says as the camera pans over to a set of doors. Everyone on set pauses when no one walks out from behind them. There’s no smoke, no silhouette, nothing. Warriors’ brow furrows, before he seems to come to a realization. He mouths something to himself, before looking back at the camera.
“But that last name sounds… Very familiar to you viewers, doesn’t it? Well, that’s because it’s my last name. May I actually introduce the wonderful Thom Ellanher, my wonderful husband?” Warriors says, and this time someone comes walking out when the doors open - though they look to be walking rather fast. The tall man with long reddish-brown hair bends down slightly to give Warriors a kiss on the cheek as he walks up.
“I’m sorry about that pumpkin, I got a call from Annamarie about something that I needed to take. I thought you were introducing me as not your husband?” Thom asks. Warriors sighs to himself.
“I was going to, but you missed your cue, hon.” Thom blinks, before smacking his face with his palm. As he does this, the banner that’s unfurled under everyone makes its appearance, reading, “Thom Ellanher, Handsome but Oblivious.” For a moment, the studio’s quiet.
“You’re married?” Wild asks, looking over at Warriors and Thom confusedly. Warriors raises an eyebrow, holding out a hand with a ring on it, nudging Thom as he does. The other man holds out a hand with a matching gold band on it and Wild blinks.
“Huh. Did not expect that,” Wild says, and Warriors’ eyebrow raises further.
“What do you mean by that, hmm?” Warriors asks accusingly, and Wild puts up his hands. There’s snickering off camera, and a significant pause.
“Well! Shall we get back on topic? The show will go on and all that jazz?” Warriors asks, quirking an eyebrow. There’s a hum of affirmation as the snickering dies out, and the camera angle changes.
“Today, the three of you will be attempting two challenges,” Warriors says, directing both the attention of everyone in the room and the camera itself towards a door to the left of the judge’s table. It’s labeled with a bright blue “1.” Cutting back to the judges for a moment, Warriors grins.
“With the first of these, the winner will be getting an extra prize! Baker’s Choice!” There’s excitement in the air, and Thom is smiling while Warriors grins. Wild just looks like a maniac, but that’s normal.
“Behind this first door here, we have not three but four treats inspired by the Hero of the Four Sword himself! May I present… Four Sword sugar cookies!” The door opens with a puff of smoke, and the camera focuses in on four immaculate sugar cookies. They all look fairly similar, with each having the same face but in different colors - either green, blue, red, or violet.
“I thought you normally had three treats to choose from?” Twilight asks from where he stands, raising an eyebrow at Warriors. Warriors shrugs.
“This is about the Four Sword, I couldn’t not have four cookies made. And the forgotten cookie will be remembered,” Warriors replies as he turns towards the contestants.
“Well? What’re you waiting for, go pick your cookie!” Warriors says, waving his hands. Hyrule jumps into action half a second before the other two, and races up to grab the cookie he’d been eyeing the entire time. With Hyrule’s abrupt movement, both Sky and Twilight are spurred into action, and race their way over as well. After a few nudges, there is one cookie left and Twilight, Hyrule and Sky are standing back where they were before their mad rush began. Each one of them holds a cookie. Twilight’s is red, Hyrule’s is green, and Sky’s is blue. Warriors gives a sad glance over at the violet cookie sitting alone. The camera focuses in on it for a second. Sad music plays for all of two seconds, before the camera moves over to the three contestants again.
“Alright, you’ve made your choices. One hour’s on the clock… Go! Go, go go!” Warriors says, moving his hands in a shooing motion as a timer appears at the bottom of the screen. Yet again, Hyrule takes off like a shot towards the middle baking station, while Twilight and Sky move at a more leisurely pace while still staying about as fast as they can reliably go. With those three starting on their cookies, the trio of judges makes their way up to the table.
“I still can’t believe you’re married,” Wild says, and Warriors laughs.
“I don’t talk about it a lot, yeah, but you really didn’t notice the ring?” Warriors asks as he pulls his phone from one of his pockets. Tapping a few times on the screen, he brings the phone up to his ear. Almost immediately after he does that, he starts talking. The person he was calling must have picked up quickly.
“Hey Four! ...Yeah, I’m filming today, I actually wanted to invite you down. Why? ...I don’t have an ulterior motive, no… There’s a cookie in it for you? Alright, see you in fifteen!” Warriors takes his phone and taps the screen again, sliding it back into a pocket. Wild raises an eyebrow curiously.
“What was that about?” he asks, and Warriors only grins.
“You’ll see.”
While the judges talked, the contestants immediately got to work. The camera focuses on Twilight as he takes a few seconds to scan over the recipe before going and grabbing what he’d need, setting it out in a bit of a disarray. He glowers at the mixer that he pulls out, before starting to sort his ingredients. The camera moves over to Hyrule, who’s already putting things into the bowl of the stand mixer as he makes a face at something. Sky, meanwhile, is meticulously checking and double checking the ingredients he has, so he can make sure everything that he needs is there.
“Sky’s being particularly thorough,” Wild comments. Warriors and Thom both nod as Sky starts separating his ingredients into different categories.
“Twilight is as well, even if I do know he doesn’t care for baking much,” Warriors adds, and Twilight makes a vulgar gesture over his shoulder as he reaches up to grab something from a cabinet.
“Rude much!” Warriors gasps, right as there’s a loud whirring noise and a puff of flour.
“Did… Did Hyrule put his stand mixer on the highest setting?” Thom asks. The camera angle changes, showing Hyrule covered in flour. He shakes his head, and little bits of flour fly everywhere.
“Yep! Regretting it!” Hyrule chimes from his workstation, brushing bits of flour out of his hair. The camera shakes a bit, almost in a disapproving manner. As the competitors start in on the monotonous bits of cooking, the camera pops back over to the judges as Warriors leans on the table, the violet cookie sitting next to him, waiting for something.
“So! Wild, Thom! How would you go about this interesting process?” Warriors asks, looking between the two of them. Wild gives Thom a gesture, and Thom sighs, before he starts to explain.
“Well, these cookies won’t have cookie cutters, that’s for sure. You’re going to want to cut out the exact shapes of the cookies after you make the dough, since you’ll need to be precise with certain aspects. Especially those fingers on the green and blue cookies, and the pom-poms on the red one. After you get them baked, you’ll decorate with royal icing, outlining the bigger areas and filling them in, and adding the details afterwards on top,” Thom explains. Warriors nods to himself and leans against Thom a bit.
“You could say it’s one tough cookie,” Warriors says, and there’s a groan from across the room.
“Your puns are the worst, Warriors,” Twilight groans, and the camera shakes a bit as Twilight visibly goes through the five stages of choosing to not slam his head onto the table.
“I know,” Warriors replies, a shit-eating grin on his face. There’s a laugh from Sky’s part of the kitchen as he moves about his workstation. He hums to himself, and even if it sounds a bit out of tune it doesn’t sound all that bad. The camera focuses in on him as he moves to grab a rolling pin so he can roll out his cookie dough. The humming only get louder as he gets to work. As the camera pans over to Twilight and Hyrule, they’re both doing the same thing. Though Hyrule looks to be having a bit more trouble with rolling out his dough.
“It’s… It’s sticking to the rolling pin,” Hyrule mutters as the camera focuses in on the rolling pin Hyrule holds. Thom raises a single eyebrow from where he sits at the judges’ table as the camera pans over. Wow, the camera’s been moving a lot, do they not have multiple cameras? Or is there just one overtly enthusiastic camera man? As if to prove this point wrong, the camera angle changes, focusing back in on Hyrule. If one pays attention, they can see an angry blond man standing behind another camera.
“What did I do wrong?” Hyrule asks, looking up at the ceiling. Meanwhile, the blond man fumes and walks up to the judges’ table, crossing his arms. A different camera focuses in on them.
“I’m the cameraman, let me work the cameras,” he says. Warriors raises an eyebrow. As the cameraman fumes, a banner unfurls just like for the others, reading, “Link Hyrule (Legend), The Personification of Salt.”
“You’ve been using one camera. We have more than just the one, Legend,” Warriors says. The cameraman - Legend - huffs and walks off, right as there’s a noise of triumph from Hyrule.
“I figured it out! I didn’t flour the rolling pin!” Thom sighs again.
“Why did I agree to do this?” Thom asks quietly. Warriors leans into his side again, looking up at him.
“Because you love me and I asked nicely?” Warriors asks in reply. Thom glances down for a second, before sighing again and giving Warriors a kiss on the forehead.
“That is the exact reason,” Thom replies. The camera changes to Twilight, who’s rolling his eyes but has a face like he’s used to their antics.
“Been friends with Warriors since college. Helped him get together with Thom, did not expect them to be this lovey-dovey,” Twilight mutters as he grabs an exacto-knife and studies the cookie he’s supposed to be cutting out closely.
“These pom-poms are gonna be the death of me,” he mutters. The camera changes again, focusing on Sky as he slides a cookie sheet with four cookies on it into the oven. They don’t really look like what they’re supposed to, but Sky tried his best, and that’s the spirit of the show. Hyrule grimaces from his station.
“Oh, oh no, he’s getting his cookies in the oven and I still haven’t…” Hyrule looks down at his dough and the camera zooms in. It looks a bit… Patchy? Hyrule frowns, before picking off a few pieces of dough from the rolling pin and pressing them back onto the dough. He smacks the dough with his hands a few times, before moving to cut out his little waving man.
“Well, Sky’s ahead of the game,” Wild says as a different camera focuses in on the judges. Warriors is still snug against Thom’s side, but they’re all looking at the contestants. A camera behind the judges focuses in on the contestants, keeping the judges in frame.
“Pays to keep organized,” Warriors comments, giving Wild a look. Wild puts his hands up.
“My kitchen’s organized!” Wild protests, and Warriors laughs.
“I’ve seen your kitchen. If it’s organized anything, it’s organized chaos. You’re the only one that can get around in that mess,” Warriors says. Wild pouts as the camera changes and it shows in quick sequence both Twilight and Hyrule putting their cookies into their respective ovens. Twilight’s have a semblance of what they’re supposed to, but Hyrule’s… Look like lumps. The time flashes across the bottom of the screen, reading 48:47, and Hyrule hums happily to himself as he walks away from the oven.
“Cookies in the oven, got the cookies in the oven. Let’s make some icing,” he half-sings, moving around the workstation to try and find the royal icing mix. As Hyrule does that, Twilight does the same and Sky works on making his own. While they start on their cookies, a door opens and a short man with a headband walks in, wearing a slight disarray of colors but he still manages to pull it off.
“Four! You made it!” Warriors calls as the man, Four, walks up to the judges’ table. As with everyone beforehand, a banner unfurls under him onscreen, reading, “Link Minshi (Four), Just Here For The Cookies.” Four raises an eyebrow at him as Warriors looks around.
“Legend, can you get a chair?” Warriors asks into the room. There’s a flash of red in one of the corners and a loud groan. Four pauses, glancing at the door nervously.
“Might want to make that…” Four trails off as a blue blur runs into the room and at Warriors.
“Warriors!!! School let out early today so I called Four to come pick me up!!!” Warriors jumps up as the blue blur solidifies into a bundle of teenager. Warriors leans back a bit to lessen the impact and sets the teen down on his feet. As the teen bounces on the balls of his feet, yet another banner unfurls on-screen, reading, “Link Outset (Wind), A Baby That Should Not Be Here, Stay In School Kids.”
“Wind what do you mean school let out early? Today’s not a holiday or anything, right?” Warriors asks, turning to Thom for confirmation. Thom nods as Wind starts talking.
“Oh, there was just an issue in one of the chemistry labs, so they had to get the school cleared out. I think it might’ve been Four’s cousin, but I don’t know,” Wind shrugs, and Warriors turns to Four with a raised eyebrow.
“I don’t know much about that, all I know is that Wind asked me to pick him up since he said both you and Thom were busy,” Four says, and Warriors narrows his eyebrows before sitting up straight.
“Can you get another chair, Legend? My brother’s here too, apparently,” Warriors calls. There’s a louder groan from somewhere, and Twilight looks up from the icing he’s making.
“Oh, hey Wind. What’s up?” Twilight asks. Wind grins and starts to go on the spiel that he’d just given Warriors. The camera focuses in on Warriors and Four, though.
“Well, I asked if you’d want to come in ‘cause I had these wonderful contestants making cookies of Green, Red, Blue, and Vio,” Warriors says. Four pauses, taking a look over the kitchen. When he takes a closer look, he spies the cookies that’re sitting out by each workstation. Four raises an eyebrow.
“Did you want me here for accuracy, or?” Four asks, and Warriors laughs and shakes his head a few times.
“Oh, no. Vio the cookie didn’t get picked, do you want to eat it?” Warriors asks. Four seems to think for a moment, before shrugging.
“It’ll be odd eating a cookie with my own face on it, but I suppose,” Four says, right as Legend lugs up two chairs and sets them down. He glares at Warriors for a few moments, before stalking off.
“Alright, pick a spot and put your chair there,” Warriors says. As the two new arrivals get adjusted, the camera angle switches back to the contestants. Sky’s glancing down at his icing, his eyebrows furrowed.
“This looks a bit too thin… But I’ll run with it,” Sky says, shrugging. Hyrule laughs from his station, holding up a spoon covered with a thick clump of royal icing.
“Think mine’s too thick!” Hyrule says with a laugh, moving back down to work on his frosting. Twilight sighs from where he’s working. His icing looks fine, but he isn’t the most confident in his cookie shape. With a deep breath, he moves to sort out the different colors he’ll need. From what he can tell… There’s nine colors. He’s going to need a lot of red.
“I’m not going to need that much green,” Hyrule says quietly from his workstation, looking over the cookie he’s supposed to be making. Twilight actively makes a face as Hyrule says that.
“Did… Did he just say he wouldn’t need that much green for the Green cookie?” Four asks worriedly from the judges’ table. Wild just puts up a hand.
“This happens. Don’t say anything, Four,” Wild says. Four opens his mouth to speak, but thinks the better of it and takes a bite of his cookie.
Time flies by while Sky, Hyrule, and Twilight make their icing. Wind tells Warriors about his day as the clock ticks down. A timer goes off somewhere, and Sky runs over to take his cookies out of the oven. Hyrule starts to fret over his icing as Sky pulls his cookies from the oven. Twilight glances over at the oven and nods to himself. A timer flashes along the bottom of the screen as Twilight’s cookies - which sort of look like what they’re supposed to - come out of the oven. 21 minutes and 39 seconds left. Warriors opens his mouth to say something when his phone rings.
“I swear…” Warriors mutters, reaching for it. He raises an eyebrow at the caller ID, picking it up.
“Hi sweetpea, what’s up?” Warriors asks. Wild looks over at Four and raises an eyebrow. Four shrugs. Thom tilts his head, before his face brightens.
“...What? You need me to… I’m on set, sweetpea,” Warriors says, sounding a bit defeated. Then he perks up.
“Wait, you know what? My show, my rules. Bring ‘em over,” Warriors continues. There’s a loud noise from the phone, and Warriors smiles softly.
“Let them know I’ll see them in twenty. Love you, sweetpea,” Warriors says, before hanging up the phone.
“What was that about, pumpkin?” Thom asks. Wild opens his mouth to add on to that, when Warriors interrupts him, a huge grin on his face.
“Annamarie’s bringing Amity by,” Warriors says. Thom pauses to process for a moment, before grinning gleefully.
“Oh, they’ll love this,” Thom says. The camera pans over to Hyrule as Wild and Four start to ask Thom and Warriors what they mean. He’s staring at the oven, as if watching the cookies bake will make them bake faster. From his station, Sky glances over curiously.
“He’s… Does he not know that they should be done by now?” Sky asks quietly. Hyrule gives the cookies another glance, before gasping.
“They’re done!” he says triumphantly, opening up the oven and taking the tray with the cookies on it out with the oven mitts he has on. He takes the tray over and sets it down on the counter, nearly knocking over a bowl in the process.
“Be careful man!” Twilight calls from his station, and Hyrule grimaces a bit.
“I didn’t mean to knock into anything, whoops!” Hyrule says, reaching over to grab a spatula to take the cookies off the tray. His cookies look… A bit browner than they should be and nothing like they should, but he’s putting his all into this. That should count for something, right?
“Time to decorate,” Sky says, tapping one of the cookies with his finger. It’s not hot to the touch, so it’s perfect to ice. Nice. Hehe, nice. He laughs a bit as he picks up his black icing and starts to outline the basic shape of his cookie. Twilight, meanwhile, gives all of his cookies a critical glance.
“I know I should probably outline these first, but. Would icing the big red bits be better?” Twilight muses to himself. Thom blanches from the judges’ table as Twilight nods to himself and picks up the first of the reds.
“Is… Is he not outlining the shape that he needs to fill in??” Wild asks, confused. Warriors looks over at Twilight, who locks eyes with him and winks.
“That shithead! He’s doing it on purpose!” Warriors says angrily, narrowing his eyes. Twilight only winks again and goes back to icing his cookie.
Hyrule, meanwhile, has also started icing his cookie. But it’s clear from the look of distress on his face that he did not think this through.
“I’m out of green!” he mutters to himself, looking at all the other colors he has. There’s still some white left, right? Yes. But there’s not… Fuck it. Hyrule takes half of the white and dumps it into the green icing bag, hoping that the colors will work out right.
“Alright, there’s seven minutes left on the clock everyone! Let’s get those cookies decorated!” Warriors says. Hyrule balks, and Sky looks down at his cookies. He’s only just finished the basic outlines, he… Might need to hurry a bit more. Twilight, meanwhile, grabs an inverted spatula and starts spreading the royal icing on his cookie. Warriors grimaces as Twilight locks eyes with him and grins. Goddesses. Why this.
“This isn’t what I wanted today, goodness,” Warriors mumbles, leaning into Thom’s side more. Thom doesn’t say anything, he just stares at the atrocities against baking that both Twilight and Hyrule are committing.
“We just need for Amity to get here, pumpkin. Everything will be fine,” Thom replies, and Warriors hums. The camera switches over to look at Hyrule, who’s grown worried again. The icing did… Not do what he’d hoped.
“Aw beans,” Hyrule mutters, continuing to ice the cookie because what else can he do? Leave it un… Wait. This could work for him. He could get like. Those green sour candies and put those on top of the icing that could work? With a nod, Hyrule finishes putting the white icing on rapidly and runs off to the pantry. The camera follows him as he tears across the room, looking through the candies until he finds the green sour strips he was searching for. With a triumphant cry, he makes his way back to his cookie and starts layering the green strips over where they should go - the white parts of the icing.
“What is he… Is he using sour candies?” Four asks, sounding concerned. Wild nods, giving them a critical eye.
“It could turn out okay, but I’m not thinking it will. Sour won’t pair well with the cookie or the icing,” Wild says. Thom nods as Warriors gives another glance at the clock and sighs loudly.
“Oh thank the goddesses there’s only two minutes left! Finish icing your cookies you heathens!” Warriors says. There’s a swear from Twilight’s general direction, while Sky smiles down at his cookies. They don’t look good, but they look sort of what they’re supposed to look like! All he needs to do is add the final details and everything will be stellar. Hyrule’s also confident in his cookies because he did, in fact, have enough icing for the other colors. It was just a grievous oversight on his part to not make enough green.
“I’m not a heathen!” Hyrule calls back, fiddling with the sour candies so they can make a semblance of the hair on the cookie.
“You’re committing baking crimes, Hyrule,” Legend’s voice comes out of nowhere, and Hyrule whirls around. Legend stands in the doorway to the pantry, and Hyrule stares at him for a few seconds.
“You burnt cookies one time Legend. They caught on fire,” Hyrule replies evenly, and Warriors’ eyebrows raise into his hair.
“I am so glad you’re not baking, Legend,” Wild comments, and Legend glares at Wild for a few seconds, before flipping him off and walking off into the void where cameras don’t reside. Wild blinked for a few seconds, before turning back to the other judges.
“Well, that happened,” he says. Hyrule, meanwhile, looks into the nearest camera like he’s on the Office. Warriors laughs, before looking at the clock again. Well, that’s bad news for the contestants here! At least they’re all almost done!
“Five seconds! Four, three, two and one put it down you’re done!” Warriors yells. Hyrule drops his icing bag in a hurry, while Sky calmly sets his stuff down. Twilight stares at the cookies, giving his horrible icing job a once-over. Then he sighs.
“Alright, come and bring us judges your tasty treats!” Warriors says, Before any of them can start moving to the center of the room, there’s a gasp from across the room. The camera pans over to a very small child, who immediately starts running across the room.
“Papa!” the small child yells, grinning and jumping into Warriors’ arms. Warriors spins them around, a grin on his face.
“You have a kid?” Wild asks, incredulous.
“Yeah! My name’s Amity!” the kid in Warriors’ arms says. Another banner unfurls onscreen, this one reading, “Amity Ellanher, A Literal Six-Year-Old.” Wild blinks, and Amity wriggles a bit in Warriors’ hold before spotting Twilight.
“Oh!!! Uncle Dog Man!!!” Amity says happily, and Twilight smiles at Amity.
“Did you bring any of your dogs with you Uncle Dog Man?” Amity asks curiously. Twilight laughs, before shaking his head.
“No, I couldn’t bring any of the boys with me today, they’d try to get into the food,” Twilight replies. Amity starts to pout, but Thom taps Warriors on the shoulder and gestures for him to pass Amity over.
“Daddy!!” Amity cries, reaching their arms out towards Thom as he takes them from his husband’s arms.
“Hi there, my little hero,” Thom says, and Amity grins. One of their front teeth is missing, but it’s all the more endearing.
“Alright well. We need to judge these cookies. Amity, honey, I don’t think you’ll want these,” Warriors says. Amity shakes their head.
“No! I want a cookie! Can I have some?” Amity asks. Warriors pauses. Hyrule, for his part, immediately whirls around and plucks up his cookie that he’d been using as a model.
“They can have this one? It won’t be as bad as mine are going to be,” Hyrule says. Amity pauses for a few seconds, before shaking their head.
“No! I want one of your cookies! I love you and I want one of your cookies!” Amity says, smacking their little hands into Thom’s arm. Warriors pauses. Thom also pauses. Actually, everyone pauses.
“I… I suppose?” Warriors eventually says. Amity throws their hands into the air, nearly smacking Thom in the face. There’s a big grin on their face as the group of four walks over to Twilight with his cookies.
“Alright Twilight. You were trying to recreate this cookie here, let’s see what you did!” Warriors says. Twilight, without any fanfare, takes the glass covering off the cookies.
“Nailed it,” he says in a deadpan. Thom immediately grimaces, despite hoping he wouldn’t. Wild, on the other hand, busts out laughing. The cookies have seen better days. Red is oozing everywhere, and there’s barely a defined face. The pom-poms are the only thing that actually look vaguely like pom-poms.
“I’m… I don’t have words for this..!” Wild wheezes, and Twilight just rolls his eyes. Warriors gives it a level look, while Thom schools his face to not look like he just saw someone deliberately stepping on a cat.
“So… You took the unstructured approach?” Thom asks. Twilight shrugs.
“Man, I just wanted to see if I needed to outline my cookies. Turns out I did,” Twilight says. Thom pauses again, while Amity reaches for one of the cookies.
“I want one! Uncle Dog Man made one, I want one!” Amity says excitedly. Twilight laughs a bit, as Wild recovers from his laughing fit.
“Well. Let’s try it, shall we?” Warriors asks. Twilight nods, and all three of the judges convene on the plate like hungry… Judges. For lack of a better word. Warriors breaks off one of the pom-poms and takes a bite. His eyes widen as he chews, and he gives Twilight a look as the other judges go and eat.
“That was really good, Twi, where in the world have you been hiding that baking ability? Jeez!” Warriors chides playfully. Twilight laughs as Wild raises an eyebrow and Thom nods to himself. Amity makes another grabby-hands motion, and Thom breaks the other pom-pom off for them. They grin while they eat the piece of cookie.
“Yummy!! Uncle Dog Man can you make me cookies sometime??” Amity asks. Twilight’s laughs grow louder, but he nods through them.
“That cookie was surprisingly good. Not too tough and dry. The icing was a bit… Too sugary for my tastes, but I can’t point out too much wrong with it other than how it looked,” Thom says. Wild nods, motioning his head towards Thom.
“Yeah, I definitely agree. Really enjoyed it, but it could’ve been better,” Wild adds. Warriors shrugs.
“Already said my piece man. Alright… Next!” Warriors says, and the quartet moves down the line to Hyrule. Hyrule bounces from foot to foot anxiously, and as the judges stop he attempts to stop moving but his hands start moving instead. Ah, anxiety. Hate it.
“Alright, Hyrule! Here’s the cookie you were trying to make, let’s see what you did!” As Hyrule attempts to stop his fidgeting, he grabs the glass cover and pulls it off, his hand shaking a bit.
“Nailed it!” he says, voice wavering a bit. There’s a pause in the room, before Wild takes a step forward and gives the cookie a critical eye. It doesn’t really look like it should, there’s not enough green, and… What is that? On the icing for the hair?
“Is that… Sour candy on the icing?” Wild asks slowly. Hyrule nods, shaking a bit. Before he can speak, Amity smacks Thom’s arm.
“Let me down! I want to give Mr. Hyrule a hug!” Amity says. Hyrule smiles shakily as Thom sets Amity down. Amity immediately runs for Hyrule and takes his hand before hugging his legs.
“You’ll be okay! I’ll stand here with you, okay?” Amity asks. Hyrule’s smile is a bit less shaky as he smiles. Amity continues to stand next to Hyrule, one hand holding Hyrule’s, and the other attached to the arm wrapped around Hyrule’s leg as they hug him. The camera focuses there for a moment, and on screen a few sparkles fly across the screen.
“Let’s try this sweet and sour creation, shall we?” Warriors poses. Thom and Wild nod, and each of them break off a piece. They all make sure to get a piece with a bit of sour candy. When Warriors puts it in his mouth, he chews for a moment, contemplating.
“The sour candy does not help with flavor,” Warriors comments after swallowing his bite of cookie. Thom nods, but Wild shrugs.
“You know I’ll eat pretty much anything. I can say the candy doesn’t particularly… Work as well as you probably thought it would, but it’s an interesting mix!” Wild says. Amity reaches up for a piece of the cookie, looking up at Hyrule as if they’re asking permission. Hyrule nods, and Amity breaks off a piece of the cookie and puts it in their mouth.
“Yummy!! Sour candy!!” Amity says, continuing to munch happily on their piece of cookie.
“The texture is… A bit cakey,” Thom comments, and Hyrule’s hopes appear to raise for a moment.
“But that’s not really what you’d want from a cookie. Maybe try not getting as much air when you cream together the sugar and the butter, or watch how much flour you’re putting in,” Thom continues. Wild nods.
“I noticed you were just putting everything together in your stand mixer, did you separate your ingredients?” Wild asks. Hyrule gives a slight shake of his head.
“Maybe… Try that, next time,” Wild advises. Hyrule nods.
“Alright. Thank you very much, Hyrule, now onto our last competitor!” Warriors says. Hyrule glances down at Amity, who shakes their head and clutches onto his hand tighter. Hyrule gives the six year old a watery smile, and they grin back. Now that is an adorable sight.
“Alright, Sky, here’s the cookie you were trying to recreate… Let’s see what you did!” Warriors says. Sky lifts the glass cover with a slight flourish, moving his hand to indicate the cookie that sits on the plate.
“Nailed it!” Sky says happily. Warriors’ eyebrows raise above his head. These cookies look a bit off from how they should, and the icing colors are off (the gold looks brown and the tan looks a bit… yellow) but the structure?
“This… Wow,” Warriors says, giving the cookie an interested look.
“The colors are off, but the structure is good. It looks like it’s supposed to, for the most part,” Wild comments. Thom nods.
“It’s good, for having had an hour to do. You’ve got to have good time management to do something like this,” Thom says. Sky smiles.
“I like to think I’m good at managing time,” he says.
“Well. We should probably eat this,” Warriors says. He glances over at Amity and the camera pans over to Amity refusing to let go of Hyrule’s leg. Their smaller hand is still holding onto Hyrule’s, and he’s laughing quietly at something Amity said. Amity doesn’t look back at their papa when he speaks, they’re focused on the story they’re telling.
“Alright, let’s munch then!” Wild says, reaching forward and breaking off the moderately-well iced hand at the top of the cookie. He takes a bite as the others snap their own pieces off the cookie.
“It’s… Tough,” Wild says, looking down at the cookie with a slight disappointment. Warriors and Thom take their own bites of cookie, pondering for a moment. As Thom finishes chewing his bit of cookie, Warriors is still chewing and making a face.
“How long did you put these in the oven for?” Thom asks. Sky puts a hand on his chin, thinking for a moment.
“Uh… There wasn’t a specific time on the recipe, so I guesstimated?” Sky replies. Wild facepalms. There’s laughing a bit further down the line, and it sounds a bit like Twilight. The camera only fixates on Sky’s confused face.
“Is that bad?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
The room goes quiet for a few seconds. Thom, Warriors, and Wild all lock eyes.
“But other than that, it’s a pretty good cookie. Try and… Not guesstimate next time,” Thom advises. Sky nods. Then Warriors claps his hands together.
“Alright! Us judges have come to a decision! Come on and shuffle on down this way!” he says. Amity looks up at Hyrule as he doesn’t move.
“I can walk with you Mr. Hyrule! If you want!” Amity says, taking Hyrule’s hand and leading him down to where Sky stood. The camera pans over to Warriors and Thom, who both have slight tears in their eyes.
“Our baby’s being such a sweetheart,” Warriors says, giving the softest of smiles. Thom nods.
“They’re our kid, pumpkin. I bet they got it from me,” Thom replies. Warriors gasps and shakes his head.
“They did not get it from you, they heard you call me one of the no-no words last week!” Warriors replies, and Thom places a hand over his heart. Before they can continue their “argument,” Wild clears his throat.
“Are we not going to announce the winner of round one?” Wild asks. Warriors coughs, and Thom straightens his collar, before they all turn towards the three contestants and one six year old.
“The winner of this round is… Sky!” Thom says cheerfully. Sky’s eyes widen at the declaration, and Legend starts to roll a cart out. Barely in frame, Amity squeezes Hyrule’s hand a bit.
“And with this round, you get a very special prize… You’ll be the star of any decorating club with this… 263 piece decorating set!” Warriors announces as Legend continues to push the cart. He tosses something to Warriors, which he catches flawlessly behind his back.
“Not only that, but you get the rockin’... Gold chef’s hat!” Warriors continues, pulling out a gold and sparkling chef’s hat from behind his back and walking up to Sky and crowning him with the bedazzled hat.
“Now Twilight and Hyrule both know who to look out for. Now… Follow us on over to! Door! Number! Two!” Warriors grinned as he started power-walking to the door to the right of the judges’ table emblazoned with a “2” in the same manner as the first door was. The camera follows after him, as the rest of the judges started walking towards the door as well. The contestants followed, and Amity still refused to let go of Hyrule’s hand.
“Alright! So this next round is called Nail It or Fail It! With this challenge, we’ll be asking you to go above and beyond the past round. As all of you know, there are multiple heroes within recent memory. And within this recent memory, one of those heroes was married. Let’s see how y’all fare at recreating the one, the only… Hero of Time’s wedding cake!” As Warriors finishes speaking, the door opens with a flourish. A four-tiered cake covered in caramel and flowers is revealed as smoke pours out onto the floor. Hyrule and Sky’s jaws drop, but Twilight locks eyes with Warriors. There’s an anger there, and Warriors only grins back.
“This twelve tiered cake is a masterpiece befitting a hero of the era, with four main tiers made of three layers of cake each, covered with just the right amount of buttercream, and caramel artfully drizzled down the sides. The flowers are made of fondant, and you’ll have to make those yourselves,” Thom explains. Warriors’ shit-eating grin only grows larger. Twilight’s glare grows sharper.
“But don’t worry, y’all’ll be getting a bit of help in this round. Each of you will be getting a panic button, where one of our two judges will come over and help you for three minutes! And Hyrule, since you had a bit of trouble in the last round, you’re getting something extra,” Warriors says. Amity glances at Warriors curiously as Hyrule tilts his head to the side slightly.
“You’ll be getting the “Running Wild” button. At any time, you can press it and Wild here will go and bug your opponents for three minutes,” Warriors continues. Wild grins at Twilight, for some unknown reason, and Twilight grimaces, breaking the glaring contest with Warriors.
“Alright, bakers! You’ve got two hours on the clock! Go! Go, go go! You don’t have all day!” Warriors says rapidly. Twilight and Sky rush off, and Hyrule glances down at Amity for a moment.
“I’m gonna go sit with my papa now, but you’re gonna make the bestest cake! I love you Mr. Hyrule!” Amity says, before letting go of Hyrule’s hand and running over to sit at the judges’ table. Warriors makes to go call for Legend to grab a chair when they just clamber up into his lap like a little monkey. How cute.
As the trio of bakers get to work, the camera focuses on the judges as Amity gets settled in their papa’s lap and does a little happy wiggle. Warriors grins down at them and ruffles their hair.
“Aaah!! Papa, no!!!” Amity protests, giggling all the while. Thom smiles softly at his husband and their youngest.
“So. Wild, how would you go about making a cake like this?” Thom asks curiously. Wild pauses to think for a moment, and Wind watches him intently.
“Well, I’d definitely make sure that the cakes were all done right - though I’m not sure if they’ll be able to do all twelve tiers between their two ovens-” Wild is interrupted by Warriors chiming in.
“Oh, they can, I had Legend test earlier,” Warriors says. Legend peers out from the first set of doors and glares at Warriors for a second before disappearing into the cameraless void.
“That’s cleared up then. If I can fit all the cakes in the ovens, once they’re baking I’d start making the buttercream icing, caramel, and the fondant decorations. Airspraying the fondant might end up being more effective than coloring the fondant itself, but that comes with its own risks. I’d go the long route, even if it’s more tedious. I’m just hoping that the air isn’t filled with the smells of burning sugar in a bit,” Wild says. Thom nods. With that, the camera pans over to the three contestants. Hyrule is reading over the recipe a bit more, while Sky is grimacing.
“I’m going to need. Multiple stand mixers,” he mutters to himself. Twilight is glaring at the recipe, and glaring over at the stand mixers.
“I’m going to need how many eggs??” Hyrule asks confusedly from his station.
“This is too much cake,” Twilight says in a deadpan. Warriors laughs from up at the judges’ table.
“That’s the point!” he says with a grin on his face.
“I hate you,” Twilight grumbles, and Warriors’ laughing only grows louder. The contestants continue to work on getting all their ingredients together, and as the stand mixers start to whir, Amity starts to fidget.
“Oh! Amity!” Wind says, catching the six-year-old’s attention. With a curious glint in their eye only a small child could get, they tilt their head curiously.
“You wanna hear about the dog I got to see at school today?” Wind asks. Amity sits up ramrod straight and nods vigorously, As Wind starts to weave a tale of the goodest of girls, the camera pans back over to Hyrule, who’s vigorously cracking eggs into separate bowls. He has two stand mixers set up - as does everyone else - and he’s attempting to get his eggs cracked into a separate bowl before he goes and actively starts mixing. An improvement from the last round, at least. Sky, meanwhile, is working on adding his wet ingredients to the dry, while Twilight is just… What is Twilight even doing? He certainly doesn’t know what he’s doing. The camera tilts a bit, before moving back to Hyrule. He looks like he’s humming something to himself.
“Baking cakes, gonna bake some cakes, yeah!” Hyrule sings quietly to himself as he shimmies slightly in place and the mixers work their magic. There’s a quiet laugh behind the camera - is Legend camera-manning again? Who knows.
“This is the worst idea you’ve had, Warriors!” Twilight calls from his station. The camera angle changes, and oh, look at that. Twilight is covered in flour. It got all over his hair, now he looks more bleach blond than dirty blond. Funny.
“Not at all!! It’s the greatest for multiple reasons!” Warriors calls back, laughing as he does. Twilight glowers at him, before going back to angrily sorting through his ingredients. Warriors’ laughter only grows louder.
In no time at all, the contestants are getting their cakes into the oven in a slightly precarious manner, and Wind has changed from talking about his school day to talking about a new book he’s been reading for one of his classes, about dragons. A timer declares they have around an hour and a half left.
“Alright, let’s make this caramel,” Hyrule mutters to himself as the camera moves around the room. He reads over the directions and frowns to himself.
“Heat over the stove? But… You know what, I’ll make the icing,” Hyrule mutters again, moving around to make the buttercream instead. Twilight, in the meantime, is grinning as he stirs a pot over his stovetop.
“The only thing that I’m confident in making,” Twilight says, stirring a spoon as he glances down at the sugary mixture contained in it. Sky’s reading over his recipe, and nods to himself as he moves to go grab both the ingredients for caramel and buttercream.
“Oh, that’s smart. He’s making both the buttercream and caramel at the same time,” Wild comments.
“Saving time, but he needs to be careful,” Thom adds, and Wild nods.
“Yeah. If he’s not careful, he could mess up the buttercream by overwhipping it if he doesn’t keep an eye on it, or he could burn the caramel and that would stink,” Wild says. Four nods solemnly from where he sits, and Wild raises an eyebrow.
“How would you know that?” he asks. Four stares at him for a moment.
“Shadow wanted to try cooking. He burnt chocolate and sugar, it smelled disgusting,” Four says in a deadpan. The camera focuses in on Four’s face, and he stares into the camera disarmingly.
“I couldn’t get the smell out of the house for two months, Wild. Two months,” Four says. The room is quiet, other than the sound of stand mixers whirring.
“That sounds stinky!” Amity pipes up, and the camera pans over to Amity’s wrinkled-up face. It’s adorable. But all six year olds are.
“It was, Amity. So, horribly stinky,” Four says. Amity nods.
“Hmm hmm hmmmm, making buttercream,” Hyrule hums as the camera changes. The stand mixer is whirring, and he’s slowly keeping an eye on how he’s putting everything in. A notable improvement from the last round. There’s a loud sigh, and the camera pans over to Twilight, who’s lifting his spoon up and letting caramel drip from it. Perfectly golden brown.
“How’d you do that?” Hyrule calls, looking at the masterpiece from where he’s making his buttercream.
“Just keep an eye on it!” Twilight replies. Hyrule pauses, takes a look down at his buttercream, before nodding and deeming it sufficient. Time to work on the caramel, he guesses. Right as Hyrule starts on his caramel and Twilight starts on the buttercream, there’s a rancid smell that starts to make itself known.
“Oh hell no,” Four says, standing up and starting to walk out. Wind, who he’s sat next to, shakes his head.
“You’re staying, you’re my ride back home, Warriors can’t take me,” Wind says in a rush. Four looks at him.
“Sky just burnt his caramel I don’t want to smell that,” Four says, right as Amity starts to wrinkle their nose and look up at Warriors with confusion.
“Papa it smells bad!! I don’t like it!!” Amity says. Warriors sniffs, and immediately regrets it if the look on his face is anything to go by.
“Oh goddesses, we need to get some fans in here. Legend can you please get some fans?” Warriors calls. Legend pops out of nowhere, wrinkles his own nose, and runs off to presumably get something to get that smell out of mind. Two seconds later, the sound of the ventilation gets louder, and a fan sound makes itself known, whirring loudly.
“Thank you Legend!” Warriors calls. There’s no reply, but no one needs it. The acrid smell slowly leaves, right as Sky turns around and grimaces.
“Oh goddesses, I burnt my caramel!” Sky says, running over to the pot and immediately turning off the heat and taking the pot off the stove.
“I’m not going to have time to make more of it, oh no,” Sky mutters as he fills the pot with water and puts it in the sink. This is going to be abysmal. He could always make a little bit and make an extra batch of buttercream and flavor it with the caramel and try that? Sky nods to himself, deciding to try being innovative.
“Oh, that’s what that smell was!” Hyrule says as he starts moving his caramel off the stove and heads towards the ovens to pull out his cakes. At least he remembered to grease the pans this time! That’s a crucial step, and he remembered it! Hyrule’s so proud of himself. As Twilight finishes up his buttercream and takes a glance at the oven, he rushes over to pull all his cakes out as well. Sky follows soon after, and a timer along the bottom of the screen reads 59:52.
“One hour left everyone! Oooooone hour!” Warriors calls while Amity messes with his scarf. Hyrule nods as he sets his cakes down one by one and starts assembling his cake. Buttercream between the layers, making sure the cakes are evenly spaced… Would he need cake boards? Hm.
Twilight, meanwhile, was also putting his cake together, though he wasn’t putting all four mock layers together yet. Each stack of three was set aside as he places each on a cake board and takes dowel rods and put three in each cake. Now he’d know where to place each cake. As he let his cakes sit off to the side, he turns on one of the burners on the lowest heat he could possibly get it and puts the caramel back on it. It needed to be a bit warm if he wanted his plan to work. Now, with that out of the way, it was fondant time.
And Sky? He was just a disaster. He was leaving another mixer with more buttercream in it running, making more caramel on the stove, and was glancing at the oven anxiously. After a few more anxious seconds, Sky moves the caramel off the hot burner with a nod and dashes over to grab his cakes, almost forgetting to grab an oven mitt in his rush.
“Fantastic!” Sky replies, carrying two cakes and setting them down on the counter, before going back for more. As all the cakes are laid out, Sky starts applying the same technique that Twilight is, and starts putting each mock layer together with cake boards and dowels.
There’s a triumphant cry from Hyrule’s station, and the camera pans over to see six layers of cake stacked on top of one another. As Hyrule turns to go and grab the next cake board, however, the camera zooms in as the top three layers start to sink.
“Oh no,” Thom whispers from the judges’ table, drawing the rest of the table’s occupants to what’s happening.
“Oh no indeed,” Wild says quietly. Right as Hyrule turns back around, the top three layers fall into the lower three, smushing the bottom three layers. Hyrule stares for a moment, before his eyes start to water. In a panic, he smacks one of his two buttons and Warriors and Wild lock eyes.
“Running Wild!” Warriors says, and as Wild vaults over the judges’ table and a timer next to the graphic of the Running Wild button with 3:00 appears on screen, Twilight locks eyes with Warriors. Meanwhile, Amity is wriggling in Warriors’ lap, and manages within a few seconds to wriggle their way out and starts running over to Hyrule. They reach him right as Wild reaches Sky and starts to bug him.
“Oooooo!! What’re you up to?? That’s a lot of buttercream can I have some I want some!” Wild says. Sky sighs quietly, attempting to ice his cakes. Twilight watches with trepidation, while Amity grabs Hyrule’s hands in their smaller ones.
“Mr. Hyrule it’s gonna be okay!! It’s gonna be okay!” Amity says, tugging on his hands. Hyrule looks at Amity, eyes watering with unshed tears, and they give one of those smiles that only small children can give.
“I’ll help you! Just cause your cake col-lap-sed doesn’t mean we can’t make it not col-lap-sed!” Amity continues. Hyrule sniffles and nods.
“Okay,” he says quietly, before taking Amity’s hand in his and leading them over to his cooking station. They gasp, wide-eyed at all the things Hyrule has set up. Before Amity can say anything, Wild runs across the floor and dashes at Twilight, jumping onto his back.
“Sweet Din, Wild!” Twilight says as Wild koalas around him.
“What’reyoudoingwhat’reyoudoingwhat’reyoudoing!!!” Wild says like an excitable child. The timer at the bottom of the screen declares 1:28 on the Running Wild timer. What’s disarming about Twilight, though, is that he shrugs off Wild being a koala.
“Making fondant decorations,” Twilight says. If you look closely you can see a slight twitch at his brow, but it’s barely noticeable.
“Ooooo!! Pretty!!” Wild says, watching over Twilight’s shoulder as he keeps on molding fondant into a shape that doesn’t really look like a flower, but he’s trying his best. Meanwhile, Hyrule is talking to Amity over at his station.
“So we need to make flowers, but I need to figure out how to not make the top two layers fall into the cake,” Hyrule says. Amity blinks, before gasping.
“Daddy always says he puts… Uh… Cake dow-ells in his cakes!!” Amity says. Hyrule pauses, putting a hand on his chin.
“Cake do- Oh!” Hyrule moves to look for something and whirls back around when he finds what he’s looking for.
“I should… Put them in the cake to support the cake board oh,” Hyrule says, glancing at his sunken cake.
“Well. I can’t fix that, it’s beyond saving. But I can make sure that none of the other layers do that,” Hyrule says, sticking cake dowels into the cake at where the edge of the cake board would go, in the middle, and a few extras just in case.
“Struc-tur-al sup-port is im-por-tant!” Amity says soundly, and Hyrule nods.
“Alright, so do you want to make some flowers Amity?” Hyrule asks. Amity gasps and nods.
“Yes!! Pretty flowers!!” Amity says, clapping their hands together a few times. Hyrule smiles at them, and as Amity starts to mess with fondant, Hyrule continues to assemble his cake properly. There’s a loud “aw” from the judges’ table, and the camera pans over to Thom and Warriors both smiling softly. A buzzer goes off somewhere, and Wild hops off Twilight’s back as the “Running Wild” timer disappears from the bottom of the screen.
“Thank the goddesses,” Twilight mutters as Wild heads back up to the judges’ table. Wild only winks in a childish manner. Twilight rolls his eyes at the antics, as he goes back to working on making fondant flowers. They don’t look the best, but he’s trying. As he starts to work, Warriors and Thom lock eyes.
“Is this allowed, pumpkin?” Thom asks. Warriors shrugs.
“Hon, it’s my show. And Amity’s our kid, they like Hyrule. Legend, would you mind getting that smaller apron stored away?” Warriors calls. Legend pops out from nowhere, already holding it. He walks over to where Amity and Hyrule are, and hands the smaller apron to Hyrule.
“For the kid,” he says, and Hyrule nods.
“Hey Amity, you wanna match?” Hyrule asks. Amity looks up from making some cartoonish looking flowers and grins. Their missing front tooth only makes the grin more endearing.
“Yes!” they say, and Hyrule drops the apron over their head, tying it quickly in place. Amity oohs and aahs at the apron, and gasps when they see their name embroidered on the upper part.
“That’s my name!” they say. Hyrule laughs.
“That it is! Do you want to make more flowers now?” Hyrule replies. Amity nods rapidly, moving back to making more flowers.
Sky, meanwhile, is rushing to make his fondant decorations. Using some quick thinking, he decides to make all of them white and airbrush them to look like the colors they’re supposed to before he puts them on the cake. Nodding to himself, Sky starts working on his fondant decorations. A timer flashes along the bottom of the screen. Roughly thirty minutes remain, now.
All the contestants plus one six year old get down to the gritty business of the final half hour, working as rapidly as things will allow. Hyrule finishes assembling his cake in a quick fashion, and starts working with Amity on the fondant decorations, quickly deciding to follow the style that Amity had started with. Plus he probably wouldn’t be able to make the fancy flowers that were supposed to be atop the cake anyways, so making them look a bit more cartoonish works to his advantage. Sky’s pumping out fondant flowers as fast as he can make them - which is pretty sloppily, but there’s a lot of them - and setting them all down so he can airbrush them with basic colors. Twilight, meanwhile, is still making flowers, but he’s paying attention to detail somewhat while still going fast.
“Is… Is Sky going to airbrush his flowers?” Thom asks, turning towards Wild with a curious eye.
“What’s so bad about that?” Wind asks, looking up from the game he’s playing on his phone curiously.
“Well, he won’t be able to get the pastel colors he needs, so his flowers will come out looking a lot more vibrant than they’ll need to be,” Wild replies, and Wind nods, even if he doesn’t necessarily understand.
“Mhmm,” Wind replies, his eyes darting back down to his phone. There’s a very interesting game there, to be sure. Four glances over, raises an eyebrow, and goes back to watching the contestants.
Time continues to go by, with decorations being made and contestants being watched. Eventually, Warriors takes a glance over at something and gasps.
“Oh, oh my! Five minutes remaining!” Warriors calls out. He glances around at the different contestants.
“You should be getting those details on your cakes, and getting your cake screens up!” Warriors continues. Twilight pulls up the screen as he starts putting fondant flowers on the individual layers. Hyrule pulls the screen up, before lifting up Amity to place a flower at the tippity top of the cake. Sky, meanwhile, yanks the screen up as he sets the last layer of cake on the top, before going back to furiously airbrushing his fondant decorations.
“Sky’s going to town,” Four comments, laughing as he does so. Warriors nods.
“That he is!” he replies, right as Sky releases the trigger on the airbrush. He doesn’t hazard a glance down at his hands as he grabs a second bowl of buttercream colored caramel (and flavored with it too) and starts to put it all over the cake as to mimic caramel falling.
All the contestants are in a rush as the final minutes slowly start to wrap up, and as the timer on-screen reappears with seconds left on the clock, the bakers are all scrambling to get their last few details. Twilight is placing something on the top of his cake, Hyrule’s fiddling with something, and Sky’s haphazardly placing things on the cake. Amity’s also messing with something. Making something out of fondant? Hm. Wonder what it could be?
The countdown clock flashes red as the final seconds start, and Warriors opens his mouth as the timer flashes.
“Three! Two! One! And you’re done!” Warriors calls, and each of the contestants lift their hands away from their cakes. Amity looks up at their papa, pouting.
“But Papa! I was making something for Mr. Hyrule! Not the cake!” Amity pouts, and Hyrule gives them a curious look. Amity lifts up a fondant heart. A lopsided one, but one nonetheless.
“I made you a heart because I love you!” Amity says in that six year old way. Hyrule tears up as Amity hands it to him, and the camera pans over to the judges’ table, where there’re soft smiles all around.
“Alright, now that my child has stopped being an adorable bean… Bakers! Wheel us your creations!” Warriors says, as the three judges step down from the judges’ table. Wind’s still engrossed in whatever game he’s playing, while Four seems content to watch from a distance. Each cake is wheeled over, and Amity skips behind Hyrule as he moves his own cake.
“Alright, before we get to judging the cakes on appearance and taste, we have two planned special guests for tonight!” Warriors says as he looks at Twilight and grins wolfishly. Twilight tilts his head a bit, before narrowing his eyes in a glare.
“As everyone will know, these cakes were recreations of the Hero of Time’s cake from his wedding. We had the wonderful fortune of being able to get both the Hero of Time himself and his wife Malon to come on the show today! Might I introduce Link Lon Lon and his wife, Malon Lon Lon?” Warriors says. Twilight’s glare only grows more intense as two people walk onto the set, their hands entwined with one another’s.
“It’s a pleasure to be here, really, Warriors,” the figure on the left says. They have a noticeable accent, one that’s very calming.
“It’s not a problem, Mrs-” Warriors cuts himself off as the two people come into view. A tall blond man with a scar over one eye, and a shorter redheaded woman. The woman puts the hand not holding the man’s on her hip, and she gives Warriors a look.
“Now what have I told you about calling me Mrs. Lon Lon, Warriors?” the woman says. Warriors looks admonished for a moment, before nodding.
“Right, sorry Malon,” Warriors says. Malon sighs quietly, and looks up at the man.
“Well, Link?” Malon asks, and the blond man blinks, before nodding slightly.
“Like my wife said, it really is a pleasure,” Link says. A banner unfurls on screen under the two standing together, reading, “Link (Time) and Malon Lon Lon, Couple Goals.” As it does this, Malon looks to her left and perks up.
“Oh, Link, honey! Warriors, you didn’t mention that Link was going to be on the show!” Malon says. Twilight goes bright red, and smiles a bit at his mom. Warriors grins.
“Well, I thought it’d be a nice surprise,” Warriors replies. Malon moves to speak, when Time interrupts.
“Both of our sons are here, apparently,” Time says, and that draws everyone’s attention. Wild grins, face bright red.
“Hi mom, hi dad,” he says quietly, and Malon perks up. She takes a few quick steps towards Wild and gives him a big hug, before turning towards Warriors as she speaks.
“Link, honey! I didn’t know you were on this show! Warriors, you didn’t tell us both of our sons were going to be on this show!” Malon says, slightly admonishing.
“I… Didn’t know Wild was your kid?” Warriors replies. Time raises an eyebrow curiously.
“You’ve known the pup here since you were both in college and you didn’t know that he had an adopted younger brother?” Time asks. Warriors goes red, and tucks his lower face into his scarf as the tips of his ears turn bright red as well.
“N...No?” Warriors says, voice muffled by his scarf. Before anyone else can say anything, Thom reaches over and leans down to give Warriors a kiss on the cheek.
“It’s fine hon. Wild didn’t know you were married or that you had kids, so it should be even,” Thom replies, propping his cheek on Warriors’ head. Malon perks up at that.
“Link, you didn’t know Warriors here had a husband or kids? Now shame on you!” Malon says as she wags a finger in his direction. Before anyone else can speak, though, there’s a gasp.
“Auntie Malon!” Amity cries as they run at Malon and hug her legs. Malon smiles softly and looks down.
“Oh, look at that. My favorite child,” Malon says. Both Twilight and Wild gasp, and Wild puts a hand on his chest offendedly.
“Mom, I thought you loved me!” Wild says accusingly. Malon opens her mouth to speak, but Amity looks up at Wild and blows a raspberry, before hugging Malon a little bit tighter.
“I love you, Auntie Malon! But I gotta go! I gotta stand with Mr. Hyrule, I helped him with his cake!” Amity says, before running back over to Hyrule and grabbing his hand again. Malon coos at the sight, before looking up at Time.
“Goodness, I remember the times that both our sons were like that,” she says. Time inclines his head slightly, nodding a bit.
“Mmm, it’s been a while,” Time replies. It goes quiet for a second, before Warriors clears his throat pointedly.
“Mm, yes. I did invite the two of you on for a reason,” Warriors says. Malon tilts her head slightly, curious.
“As I mentioned when I called last week, on the show here, people try to recreate these amazing sweet treats, and since the second challenge was yours and Time’s wedding cake, I thought I would call the two of you in,” Warriors explains. Malon and Time both nod, and Warriors turns to the three competitors and six year old.
“So you have five judges for this round. The three you had last round, plus Time and Malon here. Now… Twilight, could you show us your cake?” Warriors asks. Twilight locks eyes with Warriors and glares. For a moment, it seems like Twilight won’t do it, but he sighs and presses the button to unveil his cake.
“Nailed it,” Twilight says, voice slightly more exuberant than the last round’s reveal, but not by much.
“Oh my,” Malon says, giving the cake a once over. The cake looks roughly like how it should, but the fondant decor… Does not look like flowers. There’s too much buttercream, and the only redeeming feature is probably the caramel.
“That’s… Definitely a cake,” Warriors says, covering his mouth as to not show off the full grin he has. That would just be rude.
“It looks off, son,” Time says, not trying to soften the blow whatsoever.
“Well I did only have two hours to make it, so,” Twilight replies almost automatically.
“Only two hours?” Malon asks, turning towards Warriors with a bit of concern.
“The intent isn’t a perfect recreation, just the best they can do with what they have,” Thom says, and Malon nods, turning back around.
“Well, for two hours, it looks good. You’ve got the basic structure of the cake, all the elements are there, there’s just a bit too few fondant decorations,” Wild says. Thom nods.
“And we’ll get to see how it tastes in a bit,” Warriors adds, before clapping his hands together.
“Alright! Onto the next cake!” Warriors says, making his way to Hyrule and Amity. The others trail after him and come to a stop scattered around him.
“Okay, Hyrule. Let’s see what you did!” Warriors says. Hyrule pauses, and Amity looks up at him from where they stand next to him holding his hand.
“We can both hit the button!” Amity says, reaching up with their conjoined hands. Hyrule nods, and Amity smacks their hands onto the button that brings down the screen.
“Nailed it!” Amity choruses after him, sounding a lot more excited. They’re bouncing on the balls of their feet.
“Oh, honey, what happened?” Malon asks, looking at the collapsed layer of cake. The cake itself is about a tier shorter than it should be, and the fondant decorations look a lot more cartoonish than realistic, but the caramel looks good at least!
“Forgot to support the second layer of cake and it crushed the first,” Hyrule says quietly.
“It’s fine, Mr. Hyrule! It’s gonna taste good!” Amity says, tugging on his hand slightly.
“Yeah. It should, I paid more attention to what I was doing,” Hyrule replies.
“You did your best in the time you had, and you recovered from the cake collapse admirably,” Thom says, giving Hyrule a reassuring smile. Hyrule smiles shakily back.
“I agree. And besides, a cake’s nothing if it doesn’t taste good!” Warriors adds. Wild and Time both nod quietly.
“Absolutely. Sometimes the best things don’t look the prettiest,” Malon says. Hyrule’s shaky smile gets watery, and Amity looks up at Hyrule with concern on their face.
“Mr. Hyrule! Don’t cry!! It’ll be okay!!” Amity says, tugging on his hand again. Hyrule sniffs a few times.
“They’re kind of happy tears,” Hyrule replies, his smile wobbling a bit. Amity pauses, before grinning up at him. Their missing tooth just. Makes that grin even more adorable. What a small child. How cute.
“Adorable children aside, let’s move on! To the last cake!” Warriors says, barely managing to tear himself away from his adorable child. Thom nods, as does Wild. The five of them make their way to Sky, who smiles a bit.
“Alright, Sky! Why don’t you show us what you did!” Warriors says enthusiastically. And Sky, just as enthusiastically, presses the button that reveals his cake and moves his hands to show off.
“Nailed it!” he says, his cake on display.
“Is that. Is that buttercream instead of caramel?” Wild immediately asks. Sky’s smile, surprisingly, doesn’t waver at all.
“Well, I made do with what I could, cause I burnt my caramel, so I tried my hand at making caramel-flavored buttercream. Not sure how it turned out, though,” Sky says, gesturing towards the caramel buttercream. Overall, the cake doesn’t look too bad. The buttercream on buttercream doesn’t look… The best, but it’s about as good as one can get without actual caramel.
“I saw you airbrushed your fondant decorations,” Thom comments. Sky nods.
“I thought it would save time!” Sky replies cheerfully. Thom nods.
“Well, the disadvantage is sharper colors than you’d normally have. It saves time, but you lose the right color,” Thom continues. Sky nods once, and Warriors claps his hands together. While they were walking from cake to cake, two more chairs appeared at the judges’ table, almost as if it were magic.
“Alright, bakers, bring us the best slice of your cake and we! Will! Taste it!” Warriors says, before leading the five judges up to the table. Twilight, Hyrule, and Sky all cut pieces of their cakes - although each of them cuts from different places, with Twilight favoring a middle layer, Hyrule favoring the top, and Sky going directly for the bottom layer - and take them up to the judges.
“Well, Twilight. Your cake is first,” Warriors says. The cake starts over with Time, who takes a bit with his fork and passes it on to Malon, who repeats the process and passes the slice of cake down the table.
“The buttercream is good, though the caramel is much better. Did you put some in between the layers of the cake?” Wild asks curiously. Twilight nods once.
“Good choice!” Wild says.
“The cake is fluffy, the buttercream is good, even if there’s a bit too much for my tastes,” Thom says.
“I have to say that I’m a bit biased, but nothing will beat the cake we had the day we got married,” Time says, giving Malon a soft smile. She smiles back, leaning into his side. Wild sticks his tongue out childishly, and Twilight rolls his eyes at Wild’s antics.
“It’s good! Never knew you could actually bake, only that you made a mad caramel dip for parties,” Warriors says. Twilight shrugs.
“If I have a recipe in front of me I can manage pretty well. Plus I picked up a lot of stuff from osmosis from third wheeling you and Thom when Thom would talk about baking, so,” Twilight replies. Malon laughs at that, which gets Wild laughing, and eventually the studio is filled with laughter. As the laughs die down, Warriors claps his hands together again.
“Alright, alright! Hyrule, your cake is next!” Warriors says. It goes through the same process that Twilight’s cake went through with the grab a bite and pass strategy.
“This is moist cake, though the buttercream is a bit too buttery, and the caramel isn’t… Quite at the right consistency. Have you ever made caramel before?” Thom asks. Hyrule shakes his head once.
“I, for one, love it. You took what you had and you did your best, and that’s admirable,” Malon says. Time gives a silent nod from next to her.
“I’d try adding a bit more sugar or vanilla next time you try and make icing, the buttery taste won’t be as prevalent,” Thom advises. Hyrule nods.
“The cake turned out really well. I liked it a lot, although there are a few things I’d recommend you try with mixing ingredients together,” Wild says. Hyrule nods again, and Warriors sets his fork down satisfied.
“I liked this cake, it was light. The buttercream, not as much. There’s improvement to be had, and I believe you’ll get better with time,” Warriors says. Hyrule nods for a third time, and feels another tug at his hand. Amity. They grin up at him, and Hyrule smiles back down.
“And now, Sky’s cake. Let’s taste it!” Warriors says, and Sky’s cake undergoes the same process that the last two have undergone.
“There’s… A bit too much buttercream for me, here,” Warriors says.
“I can agree, but your ingenuity in trying to keep all the elements you needed while not having all the elements is admirable,” Thom adds.
“The cake is light and airy as well. Good contrast to the buttercream. Well. The buttercream’s pretty lumpy, what happened?” Wild asks. Sky glances down at his shoes for a moment.
“Well… I panicked when I burnt the caramel,” Sky mutters, looking back up.
“But I still did the best I could,” Sky continues, smiling slightly.
“That’s the spirit, honey. You did the best you could with the time you had, and that’s good,” Malon says.
For a moment, the room is quiet. Warriors glances up and down the line, meeting eyes with each of the judges. They all nod, and Warriors gives Thom a nod.
“Alright, so. All of your cakes were good, but there was one that was better than the rest. Thom, you ready to make it rain, hon?” Warriors turns to his husband, a glint in his eye. There’s a matching one in Thom’s.
“I’ve always wanted to do this, pumpkin,” Thom says seriously, lifting up a bedazzled “gun” of some sorts. There’s a small slit on the end, is it for… Money?
“Papa, how’s daddy gonna make it rain? We’re inside!” Amity says, tilting their head to the side curiously. Warriors laughs quietly at Amity.
“You’ll see sweetheart,” Warriors says, before looking at each of the three contestants.
“The winner of this round not only gets ten thousand rupees, but gets to take home the soon-to-be-collectible Nailed It trophy, which is… Legend? Where’s the trophy?” Warriors asks, looking around. From the void where cameras don’t reside appears Legend, his hat slightly askew as he passes Warriors the trophy and walks off, ignoring literally everyone except Hyrule, who he nods at when Hyrule gives him a wave.
“Alright then! The winner of Nailed It is… Sky!” Warriors says. As soon as Warriors finishes his sentence, Thom pulls the trigger on the “gun” and rupee notes start flying. Sky gasps and grins.
“Congratulations!!” Warriors says, as everyone at the judges’ table gets up from the table and walks around. Warriors passes off the trophy to Sky as Twilight, Hyrule, and Amity walk up. Amity reaches over to tug on Warriors hand.
“Papa, I want up!” Amity says. Warriors smiles at them, before obliging and picking them up.
“Thank you so much for watching this episode of Nailed It! The Linkpocalypse, that’s for sure,” Warriors grins as the rest of the group clusters around him. Twilight squeezes himself in on one side next to Warriors, with Thom on the other side. Wild’s standing behind Twilight, and Sky’s next to Wild who’s next to Hyrule. Four and Wind are both in front of Warriors, while Time and Malon are in the back. It makes for an almost perfect group picture.
-
The laptop snapped shut with a clicking noise. The fan whirring in the room continued to make noise as the chair previously occupied by someone made a scooting noise on the hardwood floor. As feet pad across the room, someone hums an unfamiliar song quietly.
“That was… Odd,” an unfamiliar voice says, moving to grab something hanging nearby.
“Maybe the next episode’ll be different,” they continued, moving towards the door as they slip on a pair of shoes.
“For now, let’s go chow,” they said, leaving the laptop and source of the show behind. There’ll be more time to watch it later.
ah yes, another @linkeduniverse fic for the LU discord weekly prompt - i wrote this whole thing today over the course of about three hours and i’m very proud of it!!
check it out on ao3 under the same name!!
linked universe was created by @jojo56830 !!
The day was winding down at this point. The sun was starting to set below the treeline of the clearing they’d taken refuge in. Dinner had been made and eaten, and the group was all settling in for a rest. Four was polishing his sword, Wild was scrolling through something on his Sheikah Slate, Warriors was messing with a few flowers, Hyrule was reading something, Legend was looking through his pack for something or rather, Wind was smiling as he read over a letter, Twilight was reading a book, and Time appeared to be asleep. Sky was content for the moment, just looking up at the clouds as the colors of the sky started to shift from blue to pink and yellow and orange. But his hands itched to do something - he’d been walking the whole day and he just wanted to do something with his hands. Maybe…
With the slightest of smiles on his face, Sky rummaged about in his bag for a bit before coming across the exact thing he’d been looking for - his harp. He spotted Legend raising an eyebrow at him from across camp as he sat back down with harp in hand, but Sky just shrugged it off. He wanted to hear harp music, and that’d let him do something with his hands.
There were a few noises of slight surprise as quiet harp song started up, but the harp persisted as people continued to go about settling down for the night. It was nice background music to have, in Sky’s mind. The music was quiet, but it had a way of filling the clearing they sat in. And the rest of the group had come to the same conclusion, and the way that Warriors was humming along was definitely a confirmation of that. He spotted Wind’s head moving to the beat, and one of Legend’s fingers tapping. Sky wasn’t playing anything in particular, but there was something he could play. Not something that they’d all recognize, but it was something Sky could play either way.
Chords started to ring throughout the clearing, and Sky let his eyes drift shut as his hands moved through the motions of the harp he’d learned years prior. His Zelda had taught him this song when they were both younger. In simpler times. This piece was one of the first songs he had learned to play, if not the first itself. And Sky knew that by far, this piece was one of the best he could play.
Sky’s eyes drifted back open when he heard humming again - from Warriors. Who else would be humming along? To Sky’s surprise, though, it wasn’t Warriors humming along. It was Twilight, who was still reading his book, but he hummed along with a slightly modified tune. If Warriors wasn’t humming, then what was he doing? Sky glanced over, and was even more surprised to see Warriors mouthing along words to the song. There weren’t words to this - Sky would know if there were words to this piece, he’d known it for years. In his surprise, he stumbled over a note - which he shouldn’t’ve done, he knew this piece in and out - and Twilight’s humming stopped. Everyone turned to look over at Sky, who’s stumble had made what should’ve been a satisfying conclusion for a progression into a discordant ending.
“Did something happen, Sky?” Wind asked, sounding concerned. Sky blinked a few times, before looking over at Warriors.
“You were mouthing words to the song I was playing,” Sky said. There was a nod from Warriors as he set down the flowers he’d arranged into a braided bouquet of sorts.
“Yeah, because there are words to the song and I know them,” Warriors replied, passing the braided flowers over to Hyrule, who smiled at the spontaneous gift.
“There… There’s never been words to that song in my memory,” Sky said, setting his harp down next to him. Warriors paused at that.
“That song has had words for as long as I can remember. My mother used to sing that song around the house a lot, and whenever a bard passed through our town, that would be a popular piece to perform,” Warriors said, his brow furrowing slightly.
“I know that song as well, the children always asked me to play it for them back in Ordon,” Twilight chipped in, putting a bookmark at the page he was reading and gently putting it up in his bag.
“But I’ve never heard words for it, or a violin ever playing this song,” Sky said. There was a quiet moment, as the three of them thought for a moment. Warriors’ hand was on his chin, Twilight’s brow was furrowed, and Sky was just looking down at his harp, befuddled.
“...How would you like to hear the words, Sky?” Warriors asked after a minute or two had passed, snapping Sky out of his thoughts. There was a silence in the clearing at this point, and Sky just knew that everyone was watching this interaction carefully.
“...Is there anything in particular that I need to play or just play what I’ve been playing?” Sky asked. In his periphery, Sky noticed Wind perk up, but his main focus was on Warriors and how he lit up.
“From what I could hear you playing, just do exactly what you were doing but a bit faster - Twilight, you said you knew the violin part for it?” Warriors asked, turning from Sky to Twilight.
“You don’t even need to ask,” Twilight replied, reaching into his own bag to pull out his violin. Sky started to fiddle around with his harp again, Twilight started making sure his violin was in tune, and Warriors hummed a few warm ups. The rest of the group watched on with interest. Sky noticed Wind and Hyrule both visibly vibrating. Although Sky was more focused on making sure that his harp was in good shape to play something faster, since he’d been playing it at a slower pace. Not only had Sky noticed that Warriors was mouthing words at a faster pace, but he was asked to play faster. So making sure he could move faster was a necessity.
“You two ready?” Warriors asked as Sky set his harp in his lap and Twilight stood up with his violin at the ready, bow poised over the strings. With nods from both Sky and Twilight, Warriors stood up, but not before glancing subtly over at Legend.
“If you haven’t heard this song before, the tune is fairly suitable to dance to,” Warriors said, directing both Twilight and Sky’s gazes towards the lone dancer of their group.
“Is this what peer pressure feels like?” Legend asked, reaching into his bag to presumably retrieve his dancing shoes. Warriors was grinning almost maniacally, and Sky could feel a smile on his face. It was nice, he thought, to have times like this. Where they could relax and have music. Speaking of…
“What tempo are we going at?” Legend asked, looking between Warriors and Sky. Sky looked over at Warriors for the answer, since he wasn’t really sure. The one who knew the version of the song would know the tempo, or at least that’s what Sky thought.
“Folk song fast - possibly about as fast as the music Twilight was playing when you danced for us last,” Warriors replied, and Legend whistled.
“Damn, you sure you’ll be able to keep up with that, pretty boy?” Legend asked, raising one eyebrow in curiosity.
“Watch and you’ll see,” Warriors replied evenly, before looking back over at Sky.
“If you don’t mind, Sky?” Warriors asked. Sky nodded at that, glancing over at the rest of the group before letting his fingers drift over the harp’s strings. The music was quiet, but most harp music was. But when Warriors came in and started singing after the second repetition of the chorus… Sky could definitely say he wasn’t expecting it.
“There will come a soldier, who carries a mighty sword,” Warriors sang. His voice was crisp, and clear, and this isn’t what they had heard when Warriors had sung last. And oh, that verse seemed like all of them, the heroes.
“He will tear your city down, o lei, o lai, o lord.” Never mind about the heroes comment.
“O lei, o lai, o lei, o lord. He will tear your city down, o lei, o lai, o lord.” Twilight had joined in on the words at that point, and Legend seemed to have gotten a grip on the beat of the song. Legend started swaying and the swaying turned to dance as the small interval without words ended and the next verse began.
“There will come a poet, whose weapon is his word,” Warriors sang, and Sky could hear whistling. Someone was whistling as he played and Warriors sang and Legend danced. With a quick glance, Sky confirmed it was Four - who else could whistle with that perfect pitch?
“He will slay you with his tongue, o lei, o lai, o lord.” The words kept the beat, Sky found. He didn’t have to endlessly repeat with danger of going through a part he’d already done, with the separation that the verses allowed for.
“O lei, o lai, o lei, o lord. He will tear your city down, o lei, o lai, o lord,” Twilight joined Warriors in the verse again, before starting in on some violin. Legend’s dance became the forefront of the piece, and Four kept up with his whistling that didn’t fit with the words but fit into the whole of the song nonetheless. And as the words started up again, the violin died out but the whistling persisted.
“There will come a ruler, whose brow is laid in thorn,” Warriors and Twilight both sang this bit, though one sounded a fair bit better than the other.
“Smeared with oil like David’s boy, o lei, o lai o lord.” This was Warriors alone, as Twilight dropped out for that bit of the verse. Sky noted that Wind was moving his hands about a bit, as if he were conducting an orchestra. Hm…
“O lei, o lai, o lei, o lord. Smeared with oil like David’s boy, o lei, o lai, o lord,” Twilight joined Warriors again, and the whistling grew louder. Legend’s dance grew a bit more intense as the whistling did, yet there wasn’t a gap in the words.
“O lei, o lai, o lei, o lord. He will tear your city down, o lei, o lai…” There was a pause, and even Sky stopped momentarily, getting the silent cue. The whistles were gone, and Legend had froze mid movement. For half a second, the clearing was filled with silence.
And then it came back.
“Oh,” the note went up, and Sky picked up the harp song again. The whistling picked back up with the harp, and Legend started to move yet again. Twilight plucked out some quick pizzicato on his violin, and Warriors started to sway in his place.
“O lei, o lai, o lei, o lai, o.” Everyone in the group sang this bit - Legend’s dance grew less intense as he sang along with both Twilight and Warriors, and Sky hummed the tune to the words as he kept up with his harp. The violin started up again, and Legend jumped up and spun. The vocals came back again right as Legend completed a second spin after a short sequence.
“O lei, o lai, o lei, o lai, o.” With the second repetition, Sky joined in on the words, drawing Warriors and Twilight’s surprise. What? He was allowed to sing! And he’d caught the gist at this point, it’d be a shame if they didn’t have an extra voice to add in. And as Twilight went off on the repetition of the violin part, Sky let a bit of flair sneak into his harp. He wanted it to sound good, dagnabbit!
“O lei, o lai, o lei, o lai, o lei, o lai, o lei, o lai, o!” Warriors’ pitch gradually got higher, ending on a high crisp note, and everyone else’s voices chorusing in - the one that shocked Sky the most was Time, humming along - supported that high crisp note. It was wonderful, and Sky loved how the different parts came together. And as the last few notes rang throughout the clearing, Sky looked up at Warriors to see a happy grin on his face, one of true glee.
“...The words were a lot catchier than I thought,” Sky said, breaking the silence that had persisted in the ending of the piece. With the magic broken, the clapping started. First Hyrule, then Wind, then the others that hadn’t participated in some way - and those that had.
“That improvisation on the harp was wonderfully done, Sky,” Twilight said, and Sky smiled bashfully.
“Well… I just thought that a bit of flair might help a bit,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.
“Your violin was amazing, though! And Legend, the dancing was wonderful, and Four I loved the whistling. And Warriors - you really brought the story of the song to life!” Sky turned to each of the people he mentioned as they were mentioned, and the grin he had was apparently infectious, because the rest of them started to as well. Warriors looked uncharacteristically bashful, though.
“It… It wasn’t much, really. Just how I learned how to sing it from my mother. It’s a pretty popular lute piece back in my hyrule,” Warriors said, glancing away from the rest of the group and… Was that a hint of red on his face? Sky wasn’t going to mention it.
“Are you embarrassed, Warriors?” Legend teased. Oh, and there was someone mentioning it.
“No!” Warriors replied, voice squeaking a bit and. Wow Sky hadn’t thought that was something possible.
“You are,” Twilight said, sounding slightly surprised. Warriors’ face went slightly redder.
“So you can take a million compliments from pretty girls yet one compliment from a friend is what flusters you?” Legend said, and there he was with that teasing tone again.
“Pretty people just give me platitudes, that was sincere! That’s what’s flustering about it!” Warriors replied, as laughter started up among the group. Warriors, the flirt, unable to take a sincere compliment? Bonkers.
“It’s not funny!” Warriors said, voice higher than normal, and the laughter only increased. If this was going to cause fun things like this, Sky would have to bring his harp out spontaneously more often.
