Wind decides to pester Reader over their sketchbook
It wasn’t like the Chain didn’t know you drew.
The leather book in your bag, rough blank pages awaiting to be filled with the images that graced you on your journeys. A small container of charcoal pencils stored near it, tree sap gathered from a rubber tree serving as your eraser.
The materials weren’t fancy by any means, but sitting with a pencil and paper at the end of the day served as a lovely release, stress washing away with every stroke against the beige paper. Images were given life, immortalized in the carefully crafted images, each telling a story of the time.
Plants were one of your favorites to draw; carefully written notes stored in the corners of the pages noting facts and knowledge you had of the plants you drew. Each vein, stem, and branch told a story. The curve of a tree, its rough grainy bark, and its large roots that broke the surface of the dirt in easy trip hazards, a testament to the will of nature.
It was beautiful.
By no means were you considering yourself an artist, but the act of trying your best to preserve the images of plants extinct, landscapes of bygone eras, even as far as attempting to draw some of your travel companions was therapeutic.
These drawings were never meant to be shared however, embarrassment consuming you at the mere thought. Your sketchbook was private, and among the many things the Chain excelled at, respecting privacy was one of their best strengths.
The Great Sea of Wind’s era was among your favorite things to draw (Other than plants). The boats docked along the shore, the viscous sea that could take your life and just as easily sustain it.
The grains of wood, smooth from the sustained flow of water, marvels of construction that could keep afloat anyone, and any immeasurable amount of weight.
You let your hands guide you, the graphite rubbing onto your fingers with a decidedly practiced smudge. You were consumed in your work, the fading light of the sky serving as your only light.
You place your pencil to the paper again, steady stroke making its way across the page. You bite your tongue, the final curve of the mast requiring delicate attention an-
“Can I see?” The exuberant question erupted from someone in front of you, startling you. Pencil stroke bold across the smooth sky you had captured. You let out a deep sigh, electing to finish with your piece once you had another moment. The light wasn’t as good anymore either.
“Maybe when it’s done, Wind.” You address the boy, looking up to meet his grin. You loved to see him on Outset, it was like the stress the teen always carried was washed away in the presence of his family.
“You draw a lot.”
“I’m aware.”
“Pretty pleaseee?” Wind drawled, eyes looking between the leather book and you.
Maybe you needed to reconsider your stance on the Chain respecting privacy. The youngest was very much insistent on his peeking at your book.
“When it’s done, Wind.” You chuckle, pushing yourself off the sandy bank you sat on. Wind’s unimpressed glare was enough to make you laugh, placing a hand onto the blonde and ruffling his coarse hair.
“Why are you out here? I thought you were playing with Aryll?” You prod, following behind the hero towards his home.
“I was! Then Granny finished dinner, she made her famous soup!” The teen exclaimed, pace picking up to a skip. You can't help but laugh at the teens' antics, pace picking up to match his.
“Race you to Granny’s!” Wind called, laughing as he raced up the low slope towards his home. Now you weren’t very competitive, or so you claimed, but you wouldn’t lose a competition.
𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 — wind has gotten tired of his brothers’ teasing and takes a moment for himself in the woods. you end up finding him and give him some much needed comfort (~2.1k words)
𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 — wind & fem!reader
𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒 — platonic, no romance, some maybe bad advice, kinda whumpy
𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 — (from the future) the first fic i ever wrote o_o have not looked at it since i posted it
Legend rolled his eyes at his brother. “It wasn’t that deep, Wind. You need to loosen up.”
Wind felt like he was going to cry. It was the third time this week that one of his siblings had cracked a joke at his expense, and he was tired. But he didn’t let it show. He had learned that being as reactive as he was made them laugh at him more, and that in turn made him more frustrated. So he just kept bottling it up and up and up. And now that bottle was threatening to explode and blow the cap right off. He needed to get away. He needed to play it cool. If he didn’t they’d make fun of him again.
Wind rolled his eyes and with a huff, quickly walked to the woods outside. Once he judged himself to be a safe distance away, he broke into a run, tears running down his face.
He hated how they teased him. He hated how friendly they were with each other and not him. He hated how instead of ‘brother,’ he’d been demoted to ‘annoying little brother.’
Wind longed for the days when his brothers would give him hugs without asking, when they were kinder and didn’t tease so much, when they made him feel more loved.
And Wind hated that he thought that. Because he knew he was loved. He knew his family cared for him deeply. And he also knew that if someone were to ask him why he didn’t want to spend time with his brothers anymore, his throat would close up and he wouldn’t know what to say. Because he didn’t hate them, he loved them. And their presence was nice at times. But it felt like his feelings were too complex to explain, and that there was no one who wouldn’t try to resolve it with some dumb solution he knew wouldn’t work.
Wind just felt, and he couldn’t give any examples of what they did to make him feel this way. Because it was beyond just the teasing and jokes now. It was feeling brushed aside all the time.
Eventually, Wind collapsed next to a tree and laid down amongst some bushes at the bottom. He felt safe here, concealed. If someone were to pass by him, they wouldn’t be able to notice him. Maybe Time would come looking for him eventually, when it was time for dinner. Or maybe one of his siblings. He let the comfort of safety allow for his tears to turn into a steady stream.
He imagined what would happen if they came looking for him. None of the scenarios were good. If it was someone like Time, Sky, or Twilight, they’d probably give him a look of pity before telling him that the others didn’t mean it. The nicer way of saying that he was overreacting and throwing him a pity party. He did not want their pity. He wanted to be comforted, to be helped. He wanted it to stop.
He imagined if it was Legend or Wars, they would roll their eyes upon seeing his state. They’d tell him to suck it up or ask why he was crying. He didn’t know how he’d answer that. Maybe he’d ignore them and walk back home without saying a word.
He missed when Y/N was here, before she decided to move to Castle Town and start living on her own. The house was a little lonelier without her here anymore. She had always been a kind sister to him. Whenever she cracked jokes, it was never making fun of someone else. He could tell that she also got bothered when someone made a joke about her, and Wind felt seen with her. She always acknowledged him, took care of him, made him feel special. He hadn’t realized how much he relied on her till she was gone.
Wind wondered briefly if maybe there was another reason Y/N left other than to help out Princess Zelda and the residents of Castle Town. Maybe she got fed up with her brothers’ teasing and jokes. She didn’t want to be around them anymore.
Wind pulled the bottom of his tunic up to aggressively wipe away his tears, using the inside part in hopes it wouldn’t show on the outside. But the sound of someone approaching in the distance made him freeze and shrink, wanting to disappear completely into the bushes. Oh how good would it feel to disappear from this place. But it was an unrealistic thought. At the end of the day, he would have to go back to the house, and the same thing would happen again and again.
“Wind? Are you out here?” a feminine voice called out.
He felt his heart jump. Y/N was home. Why was she home?
He didn’t want her to find him like this. Didn’t want however long she was here to be filled with him crying to her about how miserable he was with their brothers. Goddesses above, he wondered if she would also say he was too sensitive. That he was overreacting and all their teasing was just how the others were. He’d break inside from how alone he would feel. His status as annoying little brother would be cemented. The others would be right about him.
“Legend said you went outside. Do you want to talk? I think Wild might be done with dinner in like two hours, so we have some time,” she said.
Legend said he was here? Wind wondered what else he said. Did he tell her that he ran out looking like he was about to cry? That he couldn’t handle another joke like the wuss he was?
Wind debated whether he should get out or not. She had walked by him, but was still pausing every now and then to survey the area. It would be so nice to talk to her. Surely she wouldn’t make fun of him. Not her. But he didn’t want her to see him getting out of his hiding spot. He wanted his safe spot to stay a secret even though he knew she would never abuse that knowledge. At least he thought she wouldn’t.
He slowly and quietly started removing himself from the bushes when he judged her to be a safe distance away. Brushing away the leaves that were on his head, he crept closer to her.
“Hi,” he whispered.
He tried to speak with his normal tone, but the crying had made his throat hoarse. It was still loud enough to catch her attention though. She turned to face him, greeting him with bright eyes and an even brighter smile. But it quickly turned into a face of concern that somehow still held her usual softness in it. He guessed it was obvious that he had been crying.
“You alright, kid?” she asked, stepping closer to him.
He wiped his nose with his tunic one last time. “What did Legend tell you?”
She pursed her lips and let out a huff through her nose.
“That he made a joke you couldn’t handle and ran away,” she said.
He wanted to cry again. Of course Legend said that, what else would he say? She probably agrees with him and—
“Which I’m guessing translates to ‘I made another joke at my little brother’s expense despite knowing he doesn’t like that,’ and then you got upset – which is a normal reaction by the way – and ran off to take a breather.”
Relief surged through him. Finally someone was taking his side on all of this.
It must have shown on his face, because next thing he knew she had wrapped her arms around him in a tight embrace, one that he slowly returned with just as much strength. And then he sobbed. And he couldn’t stop. After all of his siblings relentlessly making fun of him, someone was finally comforting him, holding him. He cried harder. Her fingers running through his hair and gently scratching at his scalp had never felt better. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay in this moment forever. He didn’t want to go back and face his brothers. He didn’t want everything to go back to what it was once she left.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” he cried.
She held him tighter, soothing him as much as she could. “I know Wind, I know.”
“Will it get any better?”
She hesitated to answer, and his heart dropped to his stomach.
“I’m-I’m not sure. I want to say yes and be hopeful, but I don’t really know what conversations you guys have had. It’s been a while since I’ve been back here,” she answered honestly. “Do you want to talk about it? It’s fine if you don’t want to.”
Wind sniffled as his tears slowed, wiping his nose against his sleeve. He pulled away from her a bit, and they moved to sit against one of the trees.
“Every time I get frustrated or feel like crying from their jokes, they just tell me I’m overreacting or I’m too sensitive. An-and Time says I should tell them to stop and be honest, but where will that get me? They see I don’t like it, so why do they keep doing it? Why do I need to be the one to fix it? What’s stopping them from just telling me to stop being so sensitive again?” Wind took ragged breaths as he let it all out. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t know what to do. I don’t-I don’t know.”
“I know, I know,” she whispered to him, slightly rocking him. “I understand how you feel.”
That grabbed his attention. He wanted to ask the question he thought about earlier.
“... are we part of the reason you left? You didn’t want to be around us anymore?”
She took her time to answer and that worried him. Goddesses, of course it was part of the reason. Why wouldn’t she want to get out of here at the earliest chance.
“To an extent, yes,” she said.
And then he felt like giving up at that. If she thought the only way to stop this was to physically leave the house and never come back, Wind didn’t know what he was going to do. He had years more to deal with this. He didn’t know if he could handle that.
“But I did also start snapping back at them, you know. I don’t know if this was the best way to go around things, but I figured that if they hardly cared about how I didn’t like their teasing, then I don’t really need to care about how they feel about what I do to them. Not sure if that’s considered ‘healthy,’ but it worked I guess.”
She rubbed his arms and planted a kiss on his forehead. “My solution kind of worked. I’m not sure if it would have lasted long-term. It definitely helped that I had an opportunity to get out of here.”
Wind didn’t respond. He figured there wasn’t much to say in the first place. He tried to remember any memories of her being mean to them, but nothing came to mind. Maybe she did it out of his sight. He didn’t like the idea of being mean to his siblings in return. It felt like giving up to him in a way, a bad solution. He agreed in his head that it probably wasn’t the healthiest tactic.
“Wind?”
He hummed back.
“Do you want to take a break from being here?” she asked. “Maybe come live with me for a bit?”
His head snapped up to look at her with wide eyes, disbelieving. He felt his throat start closing up again.
“You’d eventually need to go back of course,” she said. “And it probably wouldn’t fix anything, but a break could be nice.”
A break would be nice.
“Please,” he croaked.
“Of course,” she replied with a smile, planting another firm kiss on his hair. “If you want, maybe we can talk some more later and see what can be done about the others.”
Oh he wanted to cry all over again. This isn’t what he wanted, but it was good for now. To be able to wake up and not dread interacting with his brothers. A temporary respite. He hated having to settle for this, but goddesses he was grateful to have this chance.
