Yes, THAT Flaming Idiot

 It’s new and strange and very different to suddenly be traveling with so many people. 

 And Hyrule likes it; he does. He does. He does! Honestly, he actually likes having people around- after so long of having to avoid them for their own safety, it’s like breathing fresh air again after living for years in a cave! Still, there’s a difference between fresh air as you step into the open and being basted with the full force of a gale, and sometimes being around the other heroes is more like the latter. 

 It’s better than being estranged from humanity as a whole, but there are still times when not needing to balance keeping track of eight other people is itself a blessing. 

 They’re all capable. Even Wind, the youngest, holds his own in a battle with all the skill and confidence as anyone else who holds their title. He doesn’t actually need to look out for them, but it’s still the right thing to do for his brothers, and you never know when someone else might slip or be tired or if and when something slips through a defense because someone didn’t know they’d even need to be on the lookout for that sort of thing. 

 They run into that a lot actually. The threats in their individual homes are all so different, as proven by the horror on the faces of the rest when he and Legend had drawn their swords at the first sight of a Zora, or by the fact that he’d never even considered that the plants in the captain’s world might try to eat him. 

 In a way, it makes them all jumpier to know that they don’t actually know all the things that might kill them anymore, and that just adds to the stress. 

 And stress it is! Eight people. Eight new people. Eight people with different likes and dislikes and tastes and senses of humor and tolerance levels for all manner of nonsense. If he and Wild wander off, Legend and Warriors will just roll their eyes when they get back, but Twilight fusses and scolds like they’re still little kids. Meanwhile, if someone starts a prank war, the rancher is only too eager to join, meanwhile it’s Legend who hisses and scolds the second anyone else touches his things or person without permission. 

 He’s figuring it out, but some of them are difficult. Some of them are Four who he can’t read for the life of him, or Time who’s stern expression make it difficult to get too close (unless of course you’re Twilight and Wind). Some of them are easy though, like Warriors whose all open arms and words of advice, and Wild whose far fewer words but eager adventure and chances to explore each new w3orld as tehy come into it. 

 The easier though, he thinks, is Legend. 

 Maybe it’s because he already knows so much about the other, maybe it’s because there’d been something like understanding taht passed between them the first time they’d come to running water and the rest had looked up confused at why on earth they oughtn’t drink it without checking first. Maybe it’s the way Legend’s hand falls to his blade in the same second as Hyrule finds himself doing so, or the way he shakes his head when they suggest going off path. Maybe it’s the easy back and forth when he tries teasing the other, just to get handed back the same in a slightly sharper tone, but softened with the way light sparks in twilight colored eyes as a smirk that’s almost familia is leveled his way. 

 There’s a thousand reasons why, but the most likely is because Legend’s the first hero he’d met of the lot of them, and that time spent one on one, just the two of them traveling together before they’d come upon the others, had built a sort of trust between them. After all, they’d had to learn to let the other guard them while they slept, and he’d had to accept the food the veteran offered him because heavens know he might have starved in that foreign place otherwise, especially when the vet had constantly been murmuring about how poisonous the plants they’d been surrounded with actually were. Maybe it was learnuing to cover someone else in battle, legend’s shield saving his life once when the otehr had raised it just in time to protect him from a blow he’d been to busy to fend off for himself, a favor he’d followed up with a similar such sav a little later on, when Legend had been too cornered for his usual dart and stab method of fighting to serve him very well. 

 Whatever the case, sometimes, when the fresh air of friendly faces does whip up into an overwhelming gale, Hryule teds to start guiltily wishing they were back in those days again, just the two of them, when he wasn’t alone but he wasn’t nearly so overwhelmed either. 

 “Traveler!” The voice catches him off guard, pulls Hyrule from his musings and has him turning about just in time to see Legend himself clambering over a log, puffing a bit and looking cross, but no more than usual as he swipes his skirt free from the splintering surface. “There you are. The rest are getting worried that you haven’t come back.” 

 His tone is even, matter of fact, it’s so unpretentious as to actually be pretentious, because he knows Legend himself probably was also worried and just doesn’t want to admit it. 

 “Sorry,” he is, just a bit, more for making them worry than for staying away at all. “I’m fine, just....” 

 Dark eyes scan over him, searching for injury, for strain, for a hint of a limp as he moves loosely along towards the veteran, who stops in his own steps to let Hyrule come to him. He won’t find anything, Hyrule thinks, although then again, he might find something Hyrule himself hadn’t noticed as well; Legend’s sharp like that, and a total worrywart. He's liable to make a mountain out of a molehill when he’s worried about someone, especially when it’s one of the few heroes he’s somewhat close to. 

 If it was the captain, the old man, or Four, it’d probably be concern, but he’d be brash about it, with the rest though, well, they’ve already seen how panicked he’d gotten about Wild and Twilight’s respective injuries, and given how he’s started to soften to Sky and how he looks at Wind, Hyrule’d wager a guess that they’ve somehow moseyed their way into his heart as well, though whether he knows it yet is still to be determined. 

 “I just needed a minute,” it’s easy enough to admit, to let the words gust out of him with a sigh and a crooked little smile that has the sharpness on the veteran’s face fading somewhat, has brows ticking together ever so slightly instead.  

 “You good?” 

 “Overwhelmed,” he admits, dragging a hand through his hair and letting it catch on the curls as he looks up again pas it, meets eyes that are creased with concern now and tacks on “the rest are a lot sometimes.” 

 The vet’s gaze slips away, sidewise a second as he muses on the words before giving a short rather tight little nod, like maybe he’s not sure if he ought to admit it aloud. “Yeah, they are.” 

 “Makes me kinda miss when it was just you and me, you know?” 

 Violet flicker up, find brown, hold and stare all sharp and startled, and Hyrule meets them with a smile. It seems to do the trick too, and something in that stoney face cracks as the vet tugs his cap off his head to smack against his leg, like he’s actually got a need to dust it off, or just wants to distract from the way his breath gets heavier as he nods. “Yeah, me too.” 

 Legend doesn’t tend to relax first, if at all, in Hyrule’s experience, and he’s never the one to prompt anything except action out of the people around him. That’s okay though, because as an adventurer, Hyrule never minds forging the path ahead for the both of them, and if that means being the one to plop himself down again at the base of a tree, well, he doesn't mind if he does! 

  Legend takes a second longer, sparing a glance back again towards camp for a moment like he’s not cwertain if they can linger at all, that the rest won’t come to drag them back if they take even a second longer, but then Hyrule pats the ground at his side and something like longing flickers acorss the pinched face of his brother. 

 “Just for a minute,” Legend warns him, like either of the actually believe it, but he knows Legend needs to at least pretend that they’re goig back in a bit. If it works it works though, and at least the other moves, marching the short distance over and then dropping himself down at Hyrule’s side with a faint fwump from his skirts. 

 The vet’s presence sparks a warmth at his side, blocking the breeze there as it whispers past them. 

 Hyrule doesn’t say anothing. 

 Legend doesn’t either. 

 Neither of them has an issue with that. 

 Somewhere, not too far off, there’s the sounds of the camp, of someone’s voice raised in the cadance of a complaint and Time’s distinctively stern tones answering them with what could be a scolding or just a passing remark; no one except twilight can tell the difference even when they’re right beside him, and from a distance it’s truly impossible. 

 “They’re probably wondering why we’re ot back yet,” Legend murmurs, fingers working a seam on his cap in what Hyrule’s long since learned to recognize as anxiety/ For all that the veteran is just that, a veteran, he’s also still kind of young, and experienced or not, he seems to constantly be on edge about just about enything and everything that happens around and too them. Even just a quiet moment seems to make him think something terrible is coming, that it’s the calm before a storm, and it’s a thousand times worsewhen tere is actually something wrong. 

 In answer, the traveler just shuts his eyes and lets his head sag to one side, let’s it fall to the vet;s shoulder in a way that makes the otehr jump a second before going quite still. 

 “We’re not idiots,” he murmurs back, “they know we can handle ourselves.” 

 “This shadow took down Twilight,” Legend drawls out, but his hands are still rubbing at blue fabric, “and last I checked, he’s two of me.” 

 “Nah,” Hyrule chuckles, “Twilight’s tons nicer than you, you’re a grouch.” 

 “Not what I meant,” it’s huffed, but the sound of skin on fabric slows anyways. 

 Hyrule lets himself sag a bit closer. 

 Usually, he doesn’t care for contact. For fairies, it’s dangerous to get to close to each other because then your wings get in each others’ ways and both of you end up falling out of the sky. It’s different for hylians, for honestly, he’s not used to that either. Zelda- Dawn, doesn’t take well to physical contact after bieng locked up for so long, and while Aurora is the exact opposite, she’s rather a bit too much at times as a result. Legend’s not like either of them though, he’s sor of just...there. There and warm and solid and even for all his fussing and frowning and heaving out sighs, he’s never once pushed Hyrule away when the traveler does prompt contact. 

 It’s a happy medium, he thinks. If Legend isn’t up for it, he’ll say so, but while he never prompts any contact himself, he’s almost always open to it when Hyrule does, and usually, after a moment, he’ll eve return it. 

 Like now. There’s a weight against the top of his head as the shoulder beneath it rises and falls with one of those customary sighs, like Legend minds, even though he’s got his own head resting against Hyrule’s.  

 “Time’s gonna yell at us.” 

 “We aren’t his kids,” Hyrule reminds, “we’re grown adults.” 

 “Doesn’t stop the old man.” 

 “Might, after you yelled at him about it last time.” 

 Silence again, and the weight against his crown increases. A boot scuffs through the earth, and he finds himself swaying slightly, body following the motion of his head as Legend leans back some against the nearest tree, which is quite close indeed. Once he’s settled, Hyrule lulls his head back a bit further, eyes opening to gaze upwards. 

 It’s so green in this era of Hyrule, and he almost regrets laying his head to the vet’s shoulder now since it means craning his neck to be able to see it. 

 The weight against him moves though, and the shoulder rises, stiffens, as the vet’s gaze follows his own, like he’s looking for some threat he thinks Hyrule’s spotted. 

 A ball of anxiety this guy, honestly. 

 “Isn’t it pretty?” He asks, shifting to lean back more, head lifting properly to take it in. Much as the contact was nice, Legend’s a bit boney, and when the other is tense it’s terribly uncomfortable to have those bones poking Hyrule so sharply. 

 Said tension bleeds away slightly with a hum though at the confirmation that it’s not an enemy or threat that has the traveler’s attention, just the sky. “You should see Orchard Hill, it’s prettier.” 

 “No, it’s not,” Hyrule challenges, dropping his head and gaze to catch his brother’s, to see the way Legend’s face pulls into a pout at the perceived offence to his home treescape. “How could anything be prettier than a healthy forest?” 

 A hint of fire bursts alight in the depths of darkness in Legend’s face, a confident little smirk taking over as he looks back up again, one hand lifting as though to paint the image for him in thin air. “Imagine all that, except so thick that the sun won’t get through.” 

 “Hmm?” Hyrule prompts, leaning back against the bark of the tree once more. 

 “Interspersed,” Legend continues, a warmth touching his tone as he leans further back, hair slipping on the curve of the tree’s bark enough that his whole frame shifts to a hairsbreadth away from Hyrule’s own, both hands now raised to gesture skywards as he starts to wax poetic about his apple orchard in just the way the traveler was hoping he might. “There’s little dots of pink and red and gold, all just starting to peek out from blossoms that are the softest, purest pink you’ve ever seen in all yer days,” his head lands on Hyrule’s shoulder this time, and the traveler accepts the weight without even a flinch. 

 “Even pinker then your hair?” He teases. 

 Said hair hisses some at the speed with which the vet turns his head, cheek smushing against the fabric of Hyrule’s sleeve. “Yes,” he hisses, glaring, “pinker than my detsalb hair.” 

 Hyrule giggles. 

 Legend scowls, but the light in his eyes doesn't die even a bit. if anything, it seems to brighter more at the sound of his brother’s laughter. 

 “Go on,” he prompts, shrugging his shoulder a bit and jostling the head rested on it, “is that all is, or was there supposed to be something impressive about all that?” 

 It’s the right words, but he knew that already. It’s just the thing to get Legend going on, to have him yapping away about his orchard and trees, about the fine apples he grows and how they’re the best in the whole of the world, enough to turn any other apples to sawdust in your mouth once you’ve tasted them. 

 Hyrule knows he’s right too. There are poems from Legend’s days about those apples. Actual poetry about ‘blessed fruit blossomed beneath the hero’s hand’. 

 And apples turn to plants, to trees, to the tellings they whisper between themselves that no one else can hear, which of course has Hyrule challenging him to translate what the breeze blows between their boughs, the chattering of the leaves high overhead and the branches that sway to send sunlight dancing over the two of them and away again in turn. 

 And of course Legend rises to the bait, translates the words Hyrule can’t hear. Tells him about the gossip that travels through the forst, how one tree has dared bloom earlier than her sisters and how she’ll regret it when her sap freezes up again in a week or so, how her sisters think her a fool and how at least she’s not such a fool as some otehr tree that once stood by the banks of a river but fell in a storm after she bloomed the second the snow had stopped. He listens as Legend starts to chuckle about the way the trees talk about them as they lay beneath the branches, how they’re apparently such charming little creatures, and so decent indeed to appreciate the magnificence clearly before them, although also rude to presume to call any other tree more magnificent. Although, apparently, tere are some among the great forest who seem to wonder if they really are so great now that they’ve heard tell of these wonderous apple trees. 

 It really only takes a second or so before Legend’s stopped telling him the conversation and has instead joined it, but Hyrule doesn’t mind.  The vet’s shoulder settles over his chest and his head against his own shoulder and the warmth is a pleasant shield from the fresh air that blows against them. Legend’s voice softens and sweetens the longer it sounds, the characteristic ire slipping free for something free and light and sweet as apple slices. 

 It’s perfect. Like a drink of fresh water aftr too much savory soup. It’s simple and sweet and so soothing and he wishes it could last- while not forever, at least for a while, at least until he’s ready to run headfirst back into the breeze again and greet the bustle and noise of eight other people instead of just one.