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“I’m just saying... A birthday cake would have been nice... You know, with frosting and candles and Wind would have sung... Four would have liked that...”
“Hm.”
Wild blew carefully, sighing with relief when the spark finally caught.
“Time would have played the Ocarina and Sky could have played the harp... We should have had some presents at least. Like a sword. Or a hood. Four seems to like those.”
“Hm...”
He yawned, dropping down next to Hyrule who stared at the sky with droopy eyes.
“When’s yours?”
“What?”
Hyrule craned his neck to look at him, “When’s your birthday?”
Wild paused.
“It’s next year,” he hummed after a minute, shifting a bit to angle himself closer to the warmth of the fire.
“When."
His voice wasn’t demanding, just curious.
Wild shifted again, now with a frown on his face.
It was a long minute before he replied, surprising Hyrule who had more or less settled for never getting an answer.
“The first day of Farore.”
Oh.
“That was two days ago.”
He rolled onto his stomach to look at Wild who twisted himself onto his side to face him, a slightly lopsided smile on his face.
“Your birthday. We didn’t celebrate” he stated the obvious. “How-“ He pulled a face to distract himself from the mild feeling of guilt starting to form in his gut, “How old did you turn?”
Wild grimaced.
“Mentally or physically?”
Hyrule gawked at him, suddenly horribly aware how rude this question was to Wild of all people, “Sorry, sorry”, and scrambled on to say something else but Wild interrupted him quietly.
“A hundred and eighteen.”
His posture was relaxed, one hand playing with the grass before him, eyes slightly thoughtful.
“Zelda was always the elder one between us. It bugged her a bit, I was so young and she felt like I had already achieved so much more than her.”
Hyrule tried for a comforting smile but the conversation had quite quickly breached territory he couldn’t help with. He momentarily wished he was Twilight or Time instead, at least then he could muster up the courage to properly congratulate his friend without making this awkward but that only made the fact that they were both lost and alone without two of their unspoken leaders ever more prominent.
Wild seemed to read his thoughts and sighed, rolling himself back on his back. He jumped after a moment, raining hits down on his tunic, smoke drifting out from under his hand. When it subsided he let out another, deeper sigh and inched closer to Hyrule, pulling his clothing as far away from the fire as possible.
“This sucks” a third voice muttered off to his right and Hyrule almost jumped out of his skin.
Twilight lay on his back beside him, arms folded behind his head and stared tiredly off into the stars.
He blinked a little when he noticed Hyrule’s wide-eyed stare.
“Hello,” he muttered, too tired to care, “You wanna see something awful?”
Hyrule nodded, mouth agape, eyes growing to the size of saucers when Twilight pulled a face, Wild chuckling softly and then turned into a weird whirl of black mist.
Within a split second a large wolf trotted around him, slumping down between him and Wild, eyeing him silently.
Stark blue eyes.
...Hyrule knew this wolf.
This was-
“Oh. That was you” he muttered dumbly, closing his eyes with a resigned sigh. Nothing would throw him off tonight anymore. He had seen far worse.
The wolf grunted, nudging gently at his shoulder. Hyrule lifted a hand without looking up, patting his snout affectionately.
The wolf made another weird noise that morphed into words in a weird way- “’s a secret. Please keep it.” -when he opened his eyes Twilight lay next to him again, looking done with the universe.
Someone’s stomach growled.
“I can cook,” Wild suggested, voice flat.
Twilight and Hyrule grunted their affirmative.
No one moved.
“Can you hug Wild for me?” Hyrule slurred after a while, half asleep, “You’re better with him...”
“’m not a kid...”
Twilight lifted a heavy arm and planted it across Wild’s chest. Wild groaned but didn’t shove it off.
“Happy?”
Hyrule made a noise that was more of a half-snore than a sensible sentence and leant his head into the pelt around Twilight’s shoulder. Within seconds he was out.
Twilight frowned.
“Cub?”
“Hm?”
“You awake, cub?”
He was greeted with a grunt and another head leaning lightly into his shoulder pelt.
“Can you sense the others at all?”
Wild made a weird noise, scrunched up his forehead and sighed.
“No.”
“Do you know where we are?”
Wild was silent for a moment. After a long pause during which Twilight had honestly figured he had drifted off, he shifted a little to fumble his Sheikah-slate off his belt, grimacing when the bright screen burned in his eyes.
“Not my Hyrule.”
“Too bad.”
Twilight closed his eyes, feeling Wild squirm next to him to put the slate back where it belonged. Hyrule sighed in his sleep.
“Tomorrow morning we set out to find the others.”
“Hm.”
...
“Cub.”
“Hm?”
“Happy birthday.”
“Hm.”
If Wild’s face was a little bit softer afterwards Twilight didn’t mention it.
Seconds later he fell asleep.