Link's Shorts

Between Moments (Meeting Revali)

Watching the Rito warrior's display left him without breath. The treacherous Tabantha winds whipped around Link and his companion horse, standing behind the Princess and her pure white thoroughbred. Her tail flicked impatiently, wishing to get out of the cold and into a warm stable. Link understood the sentiment, the cold air still prickling through his thick clothing, but made no mention of his discomfort.

Meeting the Rito warrior was far too important for a little chill to get in the way.

Instead, Link watched on, wind-blustered face impossible to read as Revali's gift whipped him into a cyclone, throwing him high into the air. From high above, barely a speck against the brilliant sapphire sky, came loose three arrows. They hit their targets true, breaking them apart, and Link stepped towards the cliff's edge to get a better look as the fragments fell to the deep canyon's floor.

There was another whistle and an arrow thunked into the ground beside him, warning him to keep away from the edge while Zelda gasped. Unfazed, the Champion turned his head back towards the sky in time to see the avian do a flip mid-air, letting another three arrows fly. This time, they pierced the sky with a scream, exploding against the far walls' targets dead on.

Impressed, Link stared up at Revali as he circled once, then landed. He held a grace about him that the other Rito didn't quite have. There was something more refined about this man. Something different.

"So?" said Revali with a laugh, ignoring the Princess as she approached to stare down the Hylian Champion. "Did you actually see any of that, or were you too busy looking at the canyon floor?"

Link's lips twitched upwards, briefly, before that stoic look replaced itself upon him. He couldn't afford to let this big-headed Rito warrior inflate himself any more. From what the Princess had told him, he was pretty full of himself already.

Raising his hand to speak, the Rito laughed, cutting him off. "Don't tell me, you're speechless with awe?"

Link paused, glancing at the Princess. Had she not told him?

Moving his fingers quickly, he said with his hands, "No. Mute."

Revali stared, then narrowed his eyes as he tried to puzzle out the signs. "We must have different hand-languages," he said finally, turning to the Princess. "You never told me he couldn't speak."

"Well..." Began Zelda. "I didn't think it was relevant." She turned back to the Champion, smiling at him with a soft look of compassion in her eyes. "Why don't we teach him fingerspelling?"

Link began to nod, but Revali's voice cut over him again, saying, "No, no. It's fine! I know how to spell."

Turning to the Rito, Link began to spell to make a point, "C-A-N-Y-O-U-R-E-A-L-L-Y."

The warrior blinked. Link repeated himself, only to make Revali scowl. "Look, if you're trying to confound me then you're doing a bad job of it. Princess, just translate what he has to say." Turning his back to the two of them, he crossed his wings stubbornly.

Frowning, Link signed to the avian's back, "Dick."

"Link!" Exclaimed the Princess, before bursting into a giggle.

That's when the memory began to fade. The Princess was saying something else, something soothing to Link, smoothing down the ruffled feathers between him and the Rito, but he couldn't hear it. She was too far away, now.

Sitting up in bed, Link looked around the dark room, an emptiness filling him from the bottom of his heart. It gripped him hard, leaving him gasping and without breath.

I miss him, he thought to himself as he struggled out of bed and down the stairs, throwing open the door to see Hateno village below. Bustling. Full of life.

Alive.

Unlike his friends.