#fsff23

"My way's more fun," Shadow replied, unrepentant.

"You can't really argue it's outside of Harvest Festival tradition," Vio pointed out, inclining his head toward a group of children who were running past, their faces hidden behind snarling masks.

"We probably wouldn't have gotten out if you hadn't busted a hole in the wall anyway," said Red, plucking a piece of straw from the back of Blue's tunic for him. "Given our track record with navigation..."

"Ugh, don't remind me."

Shadow was still snickering when Green and Zelda returned to the group with drinks. He accepted the cup Zelda handed to him and raised it to his lips — expecting, perhaps, more of the apple cider they'd drunk earlier in the day. Instead, he only had a moment to process the cold fizz of carbonation before he was dumped head-first into a memory.

Sugar and bubbles bursting on his tongue; something that felt very similar singing through his chest. The smell of fire, of volcanic ash. The sound of partying Hinoxes, loud but distant, muffled. A balcony, a horizon, a starry sky, and Vio—

"This is evil root beer," he realized aloud.

"'Evil' root beer?" Zelda repeated, eyebrow raised.

"We drank this at the Fire Temple," Shadow clarified.

"Oh, you mean the contents of the Hyrule Castle cellars, which you stole." Zelda's voice could have rivaled the Gerudo Desert for dryness, but there was a spark of amusement in her eyes.

"There's nothing especially evil about it," Green said, looking down into his own cup dubiously. "It's just root beer."

"Well, it was stolen," Vio said with a shrug, taking a sip of his own drink.

"In that case I guess this isn't evil root beer," said Red. "Because we didn't steal these."

Shadow eyed the others' cups speculatively. Zelda leaned away from him and Blue gave him a 'don't even think about it' look, but Shadow just shrugged, reached over, and snatched Vio's cup right out of his hands. Vio didn't so much as blink before reaching back to steal Shadow's original cup.

"There," Shadow said, voice echoing into the cup as he raised it to take a drink. "Now it's evil root beer."

There was laughing, and eye rolling, and a couple fake grossed-out faces. Then Red set about making a fire, and Green pulled out a bag of some squishy white sweets that were apparently meant to be speared on sticks and burned before eating.