Chapter Text
Zelda made Link take a break. He’s been clearing the roads of monsters, helping guide people to different areas of Hyrule, and guarding Zelda against Yiga attacks since he defeated Calamity Ganon two years ago, and he had been going constantly for at least several months before that victory. He had to admit, he can’t remember the last time he actually took time to just relax from doing things for other people. So, at Zelda’s urging, he decided to let off steam his own way, and came to the Great Plateau. As far as you can get from anyone, since he’s the only one who can get to it.
Which meant no Yiga assassins, no Zelda to nag him to take it easy, plenty of monsters to take out some stress on, and a nice little woodsy hut already set up.
He wondered who actually built that hut. Link doubted the ghost king built it, but who else could have? He never actually told Zelda he talked to her dad. Or that he talked to the Goddess Statues. He didn't even know how to explain that. Oddly enough, the Goddess would talk back sometimes. He knows that’s not normal; he accidentally mentioned it to Purah once, and he swore her to secrecy in exchange for being a test subject for her Purah Pad teleportation. It kinda worked?
Anyway, kill some bokoblins, go fishing, maybe climb a mountain if he felt like it. He hasn’t bothered clearing out anything up here yet, so might as well get something done. Hopping up from the covered fire, he made his way over the Hopper’s Pond, he liked gathering the herbs from around here, and there was that monster camp on the pond edge. The camp used to be four red bokoblins way back, now one was black colored. Bit harder to kill, but not by much with his equipment.
He lined up a shot with his Steel Lizal Bow, releasing the arrow, getting a headshot and stunning the lookout, as it fell into the water, drowning. Link always found it amusing that they couldn’t swim. Lining up the next shot at one of the ones dancing by the meat spit, he lets loose another arrow, another headshot, it falls face first into the fire and Link needs to stifle his laughter as it jumps back up, trying to put out the flames. He takes his time, the monsters having no idea where he is. He’s glad he took to using his green hylian leather armor. Blends right in with the foliage. A few shots later and the monsters are dead, he helps himself to their dinner and the parts they left behind. He can always use more elixir stock. The guts are gross, but they make good elixirs so, win some, lose some. The horns are good for selling for rupees and making weaker elixirs to sell.
He was just enjoying a chunk of the seared steak, heading toward the forest of spirits to kill the Talus there, when he heard shouting and a loud crash. That… that was the Talus throwing its arm, could another monster have woken it up? No way, they avoid it. But then who? Link broke into a dead sprint, getting through the tree line, to see the one-armed Talus bearing down on two Hylians, a man knocked to the ground, limp and still, and what looked like an older kid.
“Stay down, I’ve got this!” He shouted to them, sprinting to get between them and the Talus, equipping Daruk’s Boulder Breaker with a thought and flash of blue.
He shouted to get its attention as he pulled out one of his square bombs, tossing it as its other arm, detonating it on contact and stunning it enough for him to climb on it, pulling Daruk’s trusted battering ram, winding around and getting two solid spin hits before bringing it down onto the ore rock, shattering the badly cracked weak point, he jumped down to run to check its former victims’ condition as it exploded into black smoke.
“What happened? How’s he looking?” Link asked the kid, who was holding his torso as best he could to him, to try to protect him with his own body.
“He’s hurt! He won’t wake up! Why couldn’t you have done that an hour ago when he was still awake?!” They screamed back at him. He’s panicking, he couldn’t be more than…15? Technically old enough to fight, but really shouldn’t have to. He needed to calm him down.
“Hey, I’m sorry, no one should have been up here. My name is Link, can I take a look to see how injured he is?” He tried to reassure the kid.
He doesn’t usually give out his name, that’s asking for Yiga attacks, but they’ve never come up here, and the kid is terrified for his friend. Something he said must have worked, because he relaxed and nodded, setting him down more on the ground. Link made sure his head laid flat, untied the blue and white neckerchief covering his neck, and felt for his pulse. Steady pulse, no obvious signs of cuts or broken bones, feeling around his head, his hand came back blooded. Head injury, they need to stop the bleeding. He pulled the eyelids open to check for reaction. Normal reaction in one eye, dilated the other, probably concussion.
“We need to get him someplace to get him bandaged up. I could give him an elixir now, but he might have a concussion, and it won’t help with that,” he pulls out a bandage and a fairy tonic “hold his head so I can wrap it.” Link told the kid.
He gingerly lifted his head as Link dabbed the bandage with fairy tonic, pressing it to the bloody spot, and wrapped it with another to keep it in place.
“There. That’ll have to do for now. There’s a place we can set up camp a bit past a pond over there,” Link pointed back toward Hoppers Pond, aiming for the abandoned monster camp at the end of the valley. The kid nodded his agreement, definitely calmed now that his friend's life wasn’t in danger.
“Sounds good. How are we going to move him though, he’s pretty heavy?” The kid asked.
“No worries, I can carry him.” He lifted him up carefully, avoiding jarring his head. He certainly wasn’t light, but Link’s carried heavier loads.
“Whoa. You’re strong. You don’t look like you would be.” The kid remarked. Was that his version of a compliment?
“Eh, it’s all lean muscle, I don’t really bulk out. Now, can you tell me what I can call you? I don’t want to call you ‘weird kid’ after all.”
“My name’s Wind, and his name’s Twilight.”
“Good to meet ya. Wish it was under better conditions.” Odd names, Link thought, but he won’t judge. They were passing the pond camp.
“Are we stopping here?” Wind asked.
“No, actually. There's an abandoned camp deeper into the valley, it's a bit of a walk, but it’s covered, and there will be rain soon.”
“Huh,” Wind sniffs the air, “oh yeah you’re right, good thinking!”
“I do know this place, so are you two travelers and somehow ended up on the top of the Plateau?” Link asked, curious how they got here. Getting a good look, Wind looked like he was just in a blue tunic, doesn’t even look like it’s armored. Might be enchanted though, so there is that. Definitely not mountain climbing, or Talus fighting gear.
“Heheh, yeah, something like that,” Wind answered, scratching his head, looking embarrassed, “We didn't exactly plan to be attacked by a boulder. Neither of us had ever seen that kind of monster before.”
“That’s fair, Talus are mostly hidden out of the way and most people stick to the roads so few people have actually fought one. You’re lucky I was up here; I used to fight them semi-regularly.” Link bragged a bit.
“Why is that? Do they not stay dead since they’re rocks?” Wind asked, curiosity in his face. That’s a question that will too easily lead to ‘what’s the calamity’ and ‘how did it get this bad?’ Breathe, remember. Fulfillment of other's expectations placed on you does not make it your responsibility. Thank you, Zelda and Purah.
“Something like that, but this one will stay dead, don’t you worry.” Link proclaimed.
“How did you do the blue flashy thing with that big axe thing? That was cool!”
“Oh, my Boulder Breaker? I can switch my weapons really easily, see?” Demonstrating by switching the Boulder Breaker to a soldier broadsword just by concentrating on his slate without breaking his stride.
“That’s so cool! I wish I could do that. Although I don’t have that many weapons, anyway. How many do you carry?”
“About a dozen or so, plus my bows. Killed a few monsters that way before I found you two. Here we are, that’s the camp.” Link explained as they came up to the skull shaped rock hut.
“What the hell! Why is it shaped like a skull? That’s both awesome, and creepy!” Wind exclaimed.
“No clue, but monsters use them as huts, they probably just carve them from the rocks,” Link elaborated as he carried Twilight into the hut, setting him down to the side, “I’ll get a fire going, can you check your friend to make sure he isn’t injured anywhere else?”
“He’s my brother, and no, that's the only place he got hit. That rock monster hit him with the boulder on his shield, but it still threw him against the rock and hit his head.”
“What about his arm? Taking that much force could have fractured something. Better to find out now and set it than find out later when he wakes up.” Link asked during the wood bundle from his skate and pulling out the flint and his sword.
“Oh, you’re right! I didn’t even think of that…” Wind mulled, checking his shield arm, “um. What would I be looking for if there was a break?”
Having finished the fire, Link came back over to show Wind how identify a fracture.
“You can’t really see it unless there’s bruising, but since he got hit with a boulder there would be bruising anyway, so you have to feel for it,” Link explained, picking up Twilights arm gingerly “if you feel along here, you can feel the bones in the arm, follow those up to the elbow and if you feel any lumps of bumps, that’s probably a fracture.” Wind hummed his acknowledgement at the information.
“See, here, there’s a small bump here where it’s otherwise smooth, and it is offset on the other side. Looks like he did break it.” Link finished.
“Oh shit, is it really bad?” Wind asked, worry in his voice.
“No, it’s only a small fracture, and I think it’s only in one bone. I can set it, but then we’ll have to wait for him to wake up so he can drink an elixir to deal with his concussion and the broken bone. He should be fine, don’t worry.” He finished his work as a medic by shifting the arm in the right way to set the bone and reassuring the young worrywart.
“That’s good. He took that hit for me, and I was afraid I got my brother killed…” he confessed, a haunted look on his face.
“Hey now, he took that hit because he loved you, and wanted to protect you, nothing else. Don’t blame yourself for him getting hurt,” Link reassured Wind, “to be honest, I shudder to think what a hit like that would have done to you.”
“Hey! I’m tough! I can take a hit too!” Wind fussed at the concern.
“I’m sure. So, tell me, what’s a little badass and his big brother doing on the Great Plateau? Hard to get to, you definitely didn’t wander here.” Link asked.
“Ummm… we were actually trying to get away from some people who were chasing us, yeah!” Wind explained.
“Is that right? Why are they chasing you?”
“Umm…In my village we have a tradition of the young boys dressing up, and taking a special sword to go, uh, kill a big monster. Twilight didn’t want me to do it, so he took me away. The rest of our family sent the boys to chase us down and bring us back.” Wind elaborated on his story.
“You seem to be traveling rather lightly. Those bags you carried here couldn’t hold more than a few days of food, not to mention climbing gear to get up here or get back down. Unless you’re as crazy as me and free climb everywhere.” Link deduced, chuckling.
“That’s cause, uhh, the guys caught up to us the other day after we got here. We didn’t think they’d track us, so we got sloppy. We had to leave our supply bag behind, that had most of our food.” Wind exclaimed.
“And they’d all be up here now still? I can probably get your food back and get you guys outta here once sleepyhead wakes up and gets an elixir.” Link offered.
“Would you? That’d be a big help! They, uh, probably wouldn’t stop though. Unless…” Wind whispered. Link hummed a question, "unless you can steal the ceremonial sword they brought with. It’ll stick out, it’s a pretty recognizable sword.”
“You think that if they lose track of you, and the sword, they’ll give up? Worth a try. What’s it looks like?” Link questioned.
“It’s a shiny blue blade, with a fancy winged purple hilt.” Wind described.
Wait. That sounds like the Master Sword. A replica maybe?
“Sounds distinct enough, are they all armed?” Replica aside, actual skill info would be more helpful.
“Oh! Yeah, there are five of them!” Wind claimed. What the heck? One on five. That’ll be interesting… “yeah, the one with the sword is crazy skilled with it, there will be a guy in green, he carries a huge greatsword and swings it fast. Then a thinner guy in armor, he’s good with his sword too. There will be a little brunette guy in green, he has tons of magic, and he can throw fireballs from his sword. Then there’s the one with blond and pink hair with an attitude, he might not look like much, but he has a lot of tricks up his sleeve.” Wind finished listing off.
“So, you’ve got a sword ace, two more skilled with their swords, a magic caster, and an expert” Link summarized.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Your family is a bit much.”
“Sometimes, yeah. Please don’t hurt them.” Wind requested.
“I won’t… this won’t be easy, but I think I can do it anyway. What’s the supplies bag look like? I’d like to steal that, before trying for the sword.” Link asked, already laying out a plan in his mind.