Hebra didn't really have seasons. It was cold, and dim, and snowy for most of the year round. The base of the mountains, where the lodge was and the road into Tabantha, always had the most frigid winds. The air only really settled at the northernmost snowfields, where nothing moved or breathed. Even in the hot springs, tucked away under clever rock formations or off an unmarked path, the air swirled and tumbled almost constantly, a chilly reminder of the icy mountains above.
Some lucky nights, the clouds would clear away and the sky would come alive with wisps of strange light, and if you sat on a peak high enough, you could watch the wisps twist into different shapes, shifting with the changing wind. Strings of green and blue, rising and fading seemingly at random, and never the same no matter how many lucky nights there were in a row.
It was on one of these nights that Link found himself sitting on the roof of the Flight Range, bundled in several layers of thick blankets over his tunic. Only his head stuck out, and still he shivered just a bit when the wind howled too close. But he hardly seemed to notice the cold. His eyes were too fixed on the lights above him, shifting and swirling among the stars.
He had never seen anything like them. They had appeared slowly, in little wisps and strands about an hour ago, when he had only been looking at the stars as a distraction from his own wayward thoughts.
It was nice to see the sky so clearly here. The last place he had seen the stars was on the Plateau, the night after he had woken up, before the task had crashed down on him in an unbearable weight. After he started the shrines, and the king told him exactly what he had failed to do one hundred years ago...well he hadn't been thinking about anything but finishing the task set before him. His thoughts had been dark and scrambled, too distracted to even think of looking at the sky and trying to calm himself down from the edge.
But now, now that he actually had a place to stay every night and someone to talk to who didn't stare at him with regret and anger in their eyes, he found himself on the roof, staring at the sky and thinking in circles. At least until the strange lights had shown up, and then he had been properly distracted by the show they put on. Endlessly dancing, casting odd glows off the snowy slopes around them, in big swaying streams of green and blue—they were captivating, in the least. He had been watching them for some time now.
The wind changed behind him, a shift upward which could indicate the arrival of only one other person. Link did not move, watching the lights shift and change.
"You've been up here for hours," Revali said, his taloned feet clicking on the wooden roof as he walked over toward him. He stopped beside him, frowning a bit as he looked down at him on the roof. "You're going to freeze if you keep this up, even with all those blankets you pilfered."
Link looked up at him briefly, the green and blue of the lights reflected off his eyes, which were a bit too watery to blame entirely on the cold. One of his hands emerged from the blanket mound, and he patted the patch of wood next to him.
Revali gave him a flat look. "Sit? No, thank you, I don't envy your spot at all."
He patted the wood more insistently, almost slapping at it in a much louder pattern.
"Alright, alright, fine. Pushy Hylians and their silly desires..."
He kept grumbling as he settled down next to him, trailing off eventually as they both turned their attention back to the lights. It was quiet, only the sound of the updrafts behind them to fill the air. Neither of them seemed keen to break the peace, their eyes too lost in their own distractions for the moment.
There was a peacefulness to the silence, however, unlike the pressing quiet they each encountered elsewhere. Somehow, they found an odd solace in one another, even if it was only for a few moments, begrudging and full of misdirection and sideways glances.
For now, the avoidance was a comfort. A distant caring was better than a smothering 'love,' after all.
Link nudged Revali softly after a few moments of peace, gaining his attention. When he was certain his eyes were on him, he signed.
"I don't think I ever did this before."
Revali's eyes flicked back to his face, watching him for a moment, no judgement in his eyes, just watching. That was one thing Revali never judged him on. He would whine about everything else Link did, from cooking at all hours of the day to using too many arrows trying to shoot a Korok's balloon to disappearing deep into Hebra and not reappearing for hours. But he never once made him feel guilty for the past he had left behind, for the things he couldn't remember.
"No, I don't think you did," he said quietly, barely audible over the wind. His gaze returned to the sky, but his eyes were somewhere far away. "It certainly is beautiful..."
Link nodded, but he had stopped watching the lights. He was still looking at Revali. When he glanced back over at Link a few seconds later, they both looked away quickly. Revali cleared his throat roughly, and they were quiet for several minutes.
"I never knew you could see them from here," Revali said some time later, his voice still soft and distant in a way it rarely was. All his boisterousness seemed to have left him for now. "The elder took all the fledglings to see them at the peaks, once. They're much closer there...but I never realized they could be seen this close to home..."
"What are they, anyway?"
"I have no idea..." he trailed off and was quiet for a moment, his expression wistful. "There used to be a woman who ran an apothecary, just before you enter the village. The smaller buildings off the main bridges, you remember?"
Link nodded. Revali had dragged him back to Rito only once for food, and he remembered him pointing to the abandoned buildings on the outskirts of the village. They were small, and clearly old, and primarily, empty. Link hadn't asked what they were for, and Revali hadn't offered any information until now.
"She ran her apothecary from one of those little huts," he went on, looking at the lights again. "She was old, older than the elder was at the time. I can't recall her name...at the festivals every year, she used to gather all the children in the biggest roost and tell stories. Some were the ones we would hear all the time—legends of the Rito, the songs we pass down, and all that pomp. But one year she told a different story, about the lights over Hebra...
"'The great dragons do not come to Hebra,' she said, 'Because Hebra is the place where the mountains touch the sky. Since these mountains were formed, none of the great spirit dragons could fly through Hebra's peaks, for there were too many of them and the dragons too large to fly safely. Naydra once tried to fly through the mountains in the east. But one wrong turn and she split the mountain in two, and her beautiful horn splintered into a great crown of ice. One more hit, and her horn would surely break apart. So you see, even the great ice dragon cannot visit Hebra.'
"One of the other fledglings asked how Hebra was kept safe, then, since the dragons were meant to be our great protectors, watching over Hyrule while the Goddess slept," he shook his head with a bit of a smile. "And she said, 'Hebra is protected not by the spirit dragons, but by the dragons of the past, the great ancestors of the spirit dragons, their brethren from long ago. They appear only at night, when the sky is clear high in Hebra's many peaks, to dance with the stars and protect us from the monsters of the night. It is these dragons who watch over Hebra. And though they do not take the forms of the dragons elsewhere in Hyrule, they are just as powerful, for no other dragons can dance among the stars.'"
Link watched the lights morph and shift, rising and falling in great streams of green and blue light, bending and swaying to a rhythm all their own.
"I think I like that," he signed, and Revali watched him carefully. "Dragons in the sky, watching over us..."
Revali hummed, his eyes lingering on him for a moment before going back to the lights in the sky. "It's only a story..."
Link nudged him again, and he brought his attention back down. "Maybe it isn't...maybe it's not just a story."
Revali stared at him silently, at the almost hopeful look in his eyes, and found he couldn't possibly say anything to take that look away. He sighed and looked away, anywhere but at Link and the fragile happiness in his eyes.
"I suppose you're right."
They were quiet for a few moments, watching the dancing of the lights across the sky, the stars blinking through them intermittently.
"The dragons are real."
Revali looked over at his movement, frowning slightly. "Can you repeat that?"
He nodded. "The spirit dragons. The ones you said protect Hyrule. They're real."
Revali's eyes widened a bit. "Really?"
He nodded again. "I've seen two of them—Farosh. She guards the Spring of Courage, but she flies all the way from Faron to Gerudo. I saw her by Lake Hylia when I...when I first left the Plateau." He paused for a moment, his expression going dreary and worn. But it cleared away with a shake of his head. "The other one, Dinraal guards the Spring of Power, I think...I saw her from the Tower in Hebra. She flew over the canyon one night."
Revali glanced in the direction he pointed, eyes wide with surprise. "I had no idea they were real."
"They're beautiful. Dinraal's horns are covered in fire, and Farosh is surrounded by electricity. But they don't hurt anyone. They just fly by..."
"I'd like to see that..."
Link smiled a little. "I could show you?"
"The dragon, you mean? Dinraal, right?"
He nodded. "I know where to watch her from. Maybe...tomorrow?"
Revali almost smiled. "Alright. But only if you get inside. You're redder than a wildberry and as cold as a keese. I'm not going to tout your corpse over to the Tower."
Link laughed, a breathy sort of sound that seemed to take Revali by surprise, if the little jump he did was anything to go by. But Link nodded and pulled his blankets around him more tightly, getting to his feet a little haphazardly. Revali caught him by the elbow before he could slip, holding him firmly in place until he managed to get his feet to stop slipping on the wood.
"Thanks."
Revali only shook his head. "Come on before you break your neck."
He let him keep a hold on his arm as they made their way over to the edge of the roof where the posts jutted out enough to climb down. "I can make dinner."
"I'm not going to take that privilege from you. Be my guest, as long as you're actually in front of the fire and not turning into an ice block, I don't care."
"I promise to stay in front of the fire, alright?"
He hmphed, letting him go to climb down the post while he flew down to the landing. Link made quick, if sloppy work of getting back into the roost, where Revali was already waiting, watching him carefully. He shrugged the blankets off, tossing them over the hammock and shuffling over to the fire, warming his hands and ignoring the shaking in them.
"If you're going to continue your stargazing, you're going to need a thicker tunic than that..."
Link looked up at him, confused. "I bought this in Rito. There wasn't anything else."
He huffed. "Well. It hardly even fits you right." He shook his head. "We'll get you another one. See if they can't make it with thicker feathers than that nonsense. Cheap, useless..."
His grumbling went on, but Link only smirked and rubbed his hands together. If he had learned anything in the last few days, it was that once Revali started muttering under his breath, there was nothing he could do to get him to stop. All he could do was wait him out.
Not that he minded, really. Especially when Revali only ever seemed to grumble his own concerns about Link's wellbeing. It made a pleasant feeling settle in his chest, warming him more than any tunic ever could.
******
"You can't afford to waste so much time aiming in the air," Revali said, tossing a towel at his face. "Every second you take to find your shot, your target is moving, and you are moving. You have to take your shot when the moment comes, not wait for the best angle possible—especially in your case, where you have so little control. You know this. If you wanted to swim, there are hot springs for that."
Link rolled his eyes, wrapping the towel more tightly around his shoulders as Revali continued to mutter about "incompetence" and "stupid Hylians without wings," all the while digging through their supplies to try to start the fire. They had been training for a while now, and the fire had gone out at some point, likely while Revali had fought the updrafts to come fish Link out of the water at the base of the Flight Range. Whenever it had happened, the roost was cold now, and even Revali didn't like it to be cold for too long.
Still grumbling under his breath, Revali eventually stomped over to the grate with more kindling, flint and a knife. He shoved the kindling into the pile of wood and sat down a bit dramatically before he began furiously swiping at the flint. It wasn't working. He was making sparks, but they were going everywhere but at the kindling under the grate. With every failed attempt, he only hit the flint harder, which was making less and less sparks, and more bits of unusable flint all over the floor.
Link let him try it a few more times before whistling shortly. When Revali's eyes snapped to him, he gestured for the flint. This earned him quite the unimpressed look.
"You're an icicle," Revali said flatly, turning back to the grate. "I can practically feel you shaking from here. A blizzrobe would do a better job of starting a fire than you."
Link whistled again, louder. Revali glared, and he glared back. "Let me do it."
"No. You'll break the flint."
"You're already doing that."
Revali let out a sound that was closest to a growl, and tossed the flint at him, holding the knife out point down. "Go on then, do your worst."
He took the knife and scooted closer to the grate, ignoring how his hands were still a bit numb and tingly in the fingers. Revali had his arms crossed and looked a bit too smug for someone who had scattered bits of flint all over the floor. He ignored him, fumbled the knife a little as he adjusted his grip, and scraped the knife down the flatter side of the flint.
The kindling went up in smoke, and a few seconds later, the dried out wood caught and the fire was going once again. Link handed the flint and the knife back to Revali, who looked somewhere between stunned and righteously angry. He glowered at the cheery flames for several seconds before pushing to his feet, muttering something darkly which sounded a lot like "show off."
Link smirked for a moment before the wind blew too close for comfort and he shivered, abruptly reminded of the fact that he was soaking wet and his toes were a bit numb. He frowned down at his tunic sticking to his stomach, pulling at it with shaking fingers before giving up entirely and yanking it over his head. The action made his hair stand on end, but he only tossed his tunic somewhere behind him and scooted closer to the fire's warmth.
He didn't notice Revali staring, at least not for a few seconds, too focused on warming up to think of much else. But Revali was indeed staring, his eyes caught on the starburst of scars spiraling all across Link's chest. His expression was stalled somewhere between horror and forced composure; it seemed he had entirely forgotten his upset over the flint, too confronted by the visible signs of...whatever had happened to Link one hundred years ago.
Before he had any hope of puzzling out what could leave such a mark, Link caught him, his eyes going wide as he realized where Revali was looking. He stiffened, but didn't turn away.
"I don't remember it," he signed a bit stiltedly, and Revali finally tore his eyes away to look at him properly. "I know it's...that day, but I don't remember it."
They stared at each other silently, a thousand unspoken words passing between them in that brief moment. So much of the strange trust they had built came from moments like this, when neither of them had to say much to understand.
"How?" Revali asked quietly, keeping his eyes fixed on Link's face.
"One of the machines, I think..." Link signed slowly, half shrugging. "They shoot these beams...they were all over the place when I went to..."
The confusion left Revali's expression as he trailed off, replaced by something close to horror. "The Guardians."
Link only shrugged again, looking into the fire, his eyes dark. "Like I said, I don't remember it."
No answer came immediately, but he could feel Revali's eyes lingering on him for several seconds more. "I think it's better that way."
Link looked over at him sharply, but Revali had taken to staring at the fire as well. The tension slowly seeped out of them both, the sounds of the wind and the crackling fire enough to ease them away from the dark path their conversation had taken.
A comfortable silence fell for a few moments, at least until Revali apparently became too exasperated to sit still and launched to his feet, stalking over to their supplies and grumbling about dinner. Link watched him calmly, catching the blanket eventually tossed his way and bundling up in it.
Usually, he would cook, but it seemed Revali needed the distraction tonight more than he did, so he didn't press. He was still a bit too cold to be much help anyway. No, he was much more comfortable warming up by the fire. Besides, Revali likely wouldn't have let him help anyway. He was far too stubborn for that.
A short while later, Revali passed him a skewer loaded with a near obscene amount of fish. He signed a quick, "thank you," and dug in, only realizing then and there how hungry he was. They had been training for several hours...
"Do you even breathe between bites?" Revali asked, his expression scandalized when Link looked up at him.
He shrugged. "Hungry."
"I can see that."
"Thanks for cooking."
Revali looked away, frowning. "I'm not completely incompetent, you know."
Link only smiled at him, not rising to the bait. "I know."
The simple response seemed to throw Revali off more than anything else. He gave Link a bit of a wild look and then quickly went back to his own food, grumbling something under his breath that Link couldn't make out. But based on how puffed up his feathers had become, it couldn't have been anything too terrible.
Either way, he let the comfortable silence fall again, too content to bother breaking the peace for a little while. But eventually, he found his thoughts straying somewhere else, and frowned, looking up at Revali.
"Do you think she's still looking for me?"
"The Princess, you mean?"
He nodded, poking at his skewer in a disinterested sort of way.
"I'm sure she is," Revali said, his voice flat and stiff. "Whether she is looking well, that is an entirely different and pointless question. Besides, she would never come here. Not after the tongue lashing I gave her last time we spoke."
Link looked up at him sharply, but Revali was spearing more mushrooms with a skewer quite aggressively, too caught up in his own scowling to notice Link's eyes on him. It was only when Link whistled lowly that he looked up, still scowling.
"What do you mean?"
He rolled his eyes and went back to mutilating the mushroom in the cooking pot. "After you ran off. I'm not certain when you left exactly, but the Princess revealed her stunning lack of aptitude." He paused for a moment and met Link's eyes. "She hadn't told us before how you defeated the Calamity, or so quickly."
Link felt his eyes widen, and something close to anger roiled in his stomach. "Why?"
"Who knows," he shrugged. "Before then, none of us really knew where you were. I had arrived at Kakariko some few days before, and I—" he frowned, shook his head, and continued. "Well, I hadn't seen you along the way. You came up in conversation and I—we asked where you were."
"We as in the...others, right?"
"Primarily Mipha and Daruk, but yes. Mipha is the Zora Princess, she piloted Vah Ruta, and Daruk is a Goron, he piloted Vah Rudania. Overgrown lizard if I've ever seen one. But anyway." He waved his hand and moved on. "We asked her where you were, thinking you might know more about the state Hyrule was in than she did, and she spilled everything. Including the fact that you had apparently been in the village the whole time."
He attacked another mushroom so harshly it burst apart and he glared at it, fuming. Link did not immediately continue the conversation, waiting until he had managed to get his fill of mushrooms on his skewer and seemed calm enough to continue. Though the fact that Revali had...waited for him in the village did make him feel oddly warm in his chest.
"She clearly wasn't going to say anything else of value, so I left to go find you wherever she ditched you," he went on, rolling his eyes. "Mipha came along as well. But your room was empty, of course, and then some little Sheikah girl was wailing, claiming you must have been kidnapped until she realized your things were missing. Anyway, I told the Princess that she had all but pushed you away with her stupidity and then I set out to find you. She was quite red in the face when I left."
Link fought a nasty sort of smile. Something fierce and ugly in him was happy that Revali had unsettled her. More positively, though, the warm feeling from before returned, knowing that Revali had defended him, cared enough to question the Princess and tell her she was wrong. Especially considering it sounded like he was the only one to do so.
And he was the one who actually found him, who kept showing up even when he ran off, who he eventually decided to stay with. Not because he kept pestering him (though he did) but because he made it perfectly clear he wasn't going to cart him back to the Princess. And in the days that followed, he had more than proven he didn't judge Link for forgetting, or for not pursuing whatever fragments of his memories might have lingered somewhere.
There was a petulant hurt in the Princess's eyes when she spoke to Link, when she talked in circles around him as he sat and stared back at her, weighed down by her expectations and his own failures in meeting them. She hadn't tried more than a few times to speak to him. When she realized he wasn't going to answer her, she left.
Revali never did that. And Link knew that he had ignored him often, particularly when he had been chasing him all around Hebra.
He could have given up just like she had, but he didn't. And that really made all the difference.
"She always talked at me," he signed, and Revali watched him carefully. "She would...she kept talking about all these things from...before, and I didn't know what she was talking about, so I had nothing to say. It would only make her upset. She never stayed long."
Revali scoffed. "Of course she didn't. Selfish girl. The moment she realized you couldn't have the conversation she wanted you to have with her, she left you alone again."
"I don't know why she didn't...understand." He shook his head, looking at Revali as if he would have the answer to the implied question. "I don't...that part of me is gone. I don't...I don't want to remember all of that. And she..."
Revali waited a few moments, but when he shook his head again, he answered. "She wants everything to go back to the way it was then." He paused, looking somewhere distant. "I don't know how close the two of you were, but you were with her often, that I know for certain. I'm assuming that she believed once the fight was over, you would wish to travel with her again."
He shook his head rapidly. "I don't want to...I don't even know her...why would I want to..."
"You don't have to," Revali said decisively. "She can't force you. Even if she did discover you here, there would be no right for her to make you follow her around just because she wants you to. You...you can stay here...if you want."
He looked away as soon as he said it, avoiding Link's eyes and picking at his skewer distractedly. His feathers had puffed up again, and Link had the sudden desire to touch them. But he only scooted closer and nudged him gently to get his attention back once again, a soft half smile on his face.
"I'd like that," he signed quickly, but genuinely. "I'd like to stay here."
Revali smiled, and it lit up his whole being like nothing else, all his grumpy exterior gone in the face of Link's genuine happiness.
******
"Link."
He groaned, swatting at the hand above his face and turning away.
"Link, so help me—"
Revali poked him awake a bit roughly, a frown already set on his face. "If you want to eat before we go, you're going to have to wake up, you know. I'm not going to spoon feed you."
Link grumbled something incoherent, not really words, and rolled out of the hammock and onto the floor with a painful smack.
"Very smooth, well done."
He glared up at Revali, taking the skewer of mushrooms he passed over without a word. They ate in silence, no light beyond the embers of the fire and the weak light of the impending sunrise.
Only a few moments later, Link was pulling on his warmest tunic and stomping into his new boots (Revali had finally forced him to get ones without cracks in the soles).
Revali already had his bow on his back and was waiting somewhat impatiently on the landing, his scarf blowing harshly in the wind. He turned away as Link joined him, crouching enough for him to climb onto his back (much smoother this time than the last) and hold on a bit tightly to his shoulders. It was a bit awkward with the bow on his back too, but they managed it. In a flurry of wind and snow, they were off, flying north deeper into Hebra.
They didn't speak as Revali flew, the wind far too loud to be able to hear each other anyway. The temperature slowly dropped, going from cold to downright frigid as the snowstorm picked up into a blizzard, and the sun blotted out among the clouds.
Link wasn't too concerned about where exactly they were going. Revali chose their destinations most days, and they would poke around and kill time until darkness fell. Sometimes they would find the odd monster still lingering around and get rid of it. Other times, Revali would catch sight of something he found interesting and they would explore around, sometimes finding treasure or the like. Still other times, they managed to stumble upon a shrine for Link to complete, and Revali would make camp and wait for him.
It didn't really matter what they were doing. The benefit of these sorts of trips never came from what they managed to find, even when it was something as important as a shrine or a place Revali wanted to scout. There was something simpler than that which made it worthwhile, even when they returned to the Flight Range empty handed.
Maybe it was the act of leaving the Range every once in a while, or maybe it was the chance of discovering something. Maybe it was just more interesting to explore somewhere he doubted he had been even before.
But more than that...well, it was just nice to spend time with Revali, without the pressure of forgetting or the awkwardness of trying to remember. It was...freeing.
He hadn't spent much time with the Princess before fleeing, but the few hours she had lurked in his room were more than enough to draw a good comparison. Zelda did nothing but poke, prod, and nudge him toward things she assumed he knew. When she discovered he didn't know, or recalled that he had forgotten everything, her whole being would deflate with sadness and she would leave with little more than a few parting words.
Most of his time in Kakariko Village had been spent alone, cooped up in the dim rooms facing the waterfalls behind whoever's house he was in. A young girl would come in every couple hours to check on him and give him food. She was nice enough, but she didn't talk anymore than he did. The Sheikah elder was somewhere below him, but he didn't leave the room.
Except when he fled through the window, anyway. And then, he had only climbed out and skirted his way up the cliff side before using the Slate to go back to the Plateau and find somewhere to stay for a while.
Even when he was traveling, he rarely interacted with other people. Sure, there was the strange merchant Beedle, who always seemed to beat him to stables and towns, but beyond the occasional stock up, he avoided people on the roads. He avoided the roads after a while.
The desire for solitude (or maybe it was loneliness) eventually pushed him to Hebra, and it was then that Revali finally sniffed him out. And while they had avoided each other for a while too, after that first time at the Flight Range, he...he didn't want to leave.
Revali was different. He didn't gape like the people on the road or at the stables, didn't look at him with mixed pity and sadness like the Princess. He didn't push for him to remember. Didn't even mention that he couldn't remember, most times. They only spoke about things like that when Link himself brought it up, and Revali never pressed him to continue when he inevitably lost the words.
When they talked, it felt like...like maybe he wasn't missing anything because he forgot the past. After all, if something could be this...if something could be this good now, then maybe it was okay he didn't remember one hundred years ago. Maybe it was okay to just be now, here, himself, with Revali.
And sure, Revali could be more prickly than a wildberry bush, but he wasn't ever outright rude. He was nothing like the Princess had been, either...
"Are you done brooding back there?" Revali called, snapping him out of his thoughts. "I'm going to land, so hold tight."
He gave no response beyond gripping his shoulders a bit more, holding on more consciously as Revali began to fly lower. They left the updrafts quickly, gliding smoothly lower, and Link marveled again at Revali's skill in the air. Even inhibited by carrying Link on his back, which had to be awkward, Revali flew as if he owned the skies. Every move he made was deliberate and well thought out; he never floundered.
It came as little surprise, then, that they made an easy landing on one of Hebra's many snow covered slopes. Link hopped off Revali's back and brushed the hair which had come loose back from his face.
"There's a frost talus under the ridge ahead," Revali said, pointing to the odd shaped rocks to the east of them.
"Are you sure?"
He huffed, fixing his scarf and giving Link a pointed look. "What other massive ice structure would there be down there? Besides, one of the guards of the Village mentioned it. Apparently it's been a nuisance before."
Link hummed, pulling out the Slate and scrolling through his gear. "Do you need anything?"
"Fire arrows, if you have them. They should melt the ice to let you climb it's back. And I can cover for you, if it tosses you off."
He nodded, and with a brief glow of blue light, he passed a nearly obscene amount of fire arrows over. Revali made a startled sound that was nearly a laugh, but put them in his quiver nonetheless. Link smirked, but quickly went back to the Slate and got his own weapons ready.
"That is one of the most ridiculous pieces of weaponry I have ever seen."
"What's wrong with it?"
"You're going to fight a frost talus, a solid piece of rock and ice which could easily toss you at any moment, with a metal sledgehammer as tall as you are."
Link grinned cheekily. "You're the one who said I'm short."
"You are," Revali said, exasperated. "I tend to judge weapons by a different standard from Hylians! That hammer is ridiculous!"
He only shook his head and hefted the sledgehammer onto his shoulder. The motion sent Revali into a bit of a flutter, jerking away from him with a curse. Link only laughed.
"I'll be fine," he signed with one hand, and tilted his head in the direction he had indicated earlier.
Revali stared at him for several seconds with the same stunned expression before shaking his head and pushing on, grumbling something which sounded suspiciously like "stupid oversized weaponry...heavier than he is."
They made their way carefully to the edge of the ridge and peered over the side of the slope. Sure enough, there was a large chunk of glowing white ice rock sticking out of the ground. It was a good thirty or so feet below them, right in the center of the area. The edge of the talus's weak spot—an ore deposit on its back—was just poking out from under the snow.
Link tossed the sledgehammer over his shoulder, where it clanked briefly against his shield. "You wake it up, I'll land on its back."
Revali stared at his hands for several seconds of silence, as if they had personally offended him. "You're going to land on its back."
He nodded.
"How, exactly, are you planning to do that without shattering your ankles?"
He rolled his eyes and tugged the glider from its place, tucked behind his shield. It opened with a snap, the fabric flapping in the light breeze.
Revali's eyes had fixed on it the moment he pulled it out, and they did not move for several seconds. Something, something was stirring in his expression, but Link could not puzzle it out. It was almost frightened, or perhaps simply distressed—he couldn't be sure. Whatever it was, Revali was unsettled and he had no idea why.
After a pause just a few seconds too long, when he was beginning to question if he had done something wrong, Revali nodded rapidly. "Of course," he muttered.
Link frowned. His voice sounded off, but he was already pushing back to his feet, the moment passed. He let it slip away unquestioned.
"It'll likely spring up once its coat of ice melts," he said, seemingly forcing his voice back to normal. "Once it's on its feet, then glide down to it. If you try before then, it might throw you off."
He nodded, still holding the paraglider loose in his hands. Revali's eyes flicked to it once more before he shook his head and dove off the edge of the slope, flying quickly down toward the frost talus.
Then the fight had begun, and both of them forgot the small moment which had preceded it. And maybe that was why it was so comfortable to be with Revali. No moment ever pushed beyond its own bounds. Somehow, intuitively, they had parsed out each other's boundary lines, and neither of them moved past those lines without clear permission.
Moments which would have been excruciating under the pleading eyes of the Princess were only passing pains with Revali. The past wasn't an ache, a gaping hole in his chest he couldn't fill—it was just a blurry picture he could choose to look at or not.
And even if he chose to put it away, Revali stayed and kept up whatever task they found themselves doing at the time, no judgement in his eyes for forgetting or leaving the past where it lay. He had no idea how they had gotten to this point so quickly, but...he was very happy they had.
A few minutes later, when the talus had exploded in a puff of purple smoke and chunks of shining ore, Revali quickly landed next to him, pulling him up from where he had fallen and brushing the snow off of him with a frown.
"You need to be more careful," he scolded, his hands tight on his shoulders to hold him still as he looked him over with a critical eye. His feathers were soft where they skated over his face, his arms, even though his frown was severe. "That thing nearly threw you off several times. What would you have done if it had? You could have broken a leg, or worse your neck."
"But it didn't throw me off," Link signed, waving his hand dismissively. "I'm alright."
Revali was not amused. "You have a very twisted view of 'alright.' You do realize you're bleeding?"
He frowned, looking himself over and finding a thin gash on his arm. Thankfully, it wasn't too terrible. With a hum, he took out the slate with his other hand and scrolled around on it until he found his elixirs. A little bottle of odd red liquid appeared a moment later. He drank it with a grimace and watched as the cut sealed itself back up again.
Revali was staring at where the cut had been, looking almost curious, at least until he noticed Link beaming at him, and he rolled his eyes with a scoff. "Come on daredevil, back to the Flight Range before you find some other reason for injury."
He nodded happily and followed Revali as they began the trek back up the slope, picking up stray pieces of ore as he went.
*******
Several days passed in easy wanderings. After selling every bit of ore they had pilfered from the frost talus (and after Revali spent an almost terrifying amount of the rupees on arrows and yet another, somehow warmer tunic for Link, which he all but threw at him, grumbling about frostbite the entire time) they had gone back to their usual routine of training and wandering around the mountains. Some days, though, they spent only in the Flight Range, one or both of them too tired to bother exploring the cold mountains surrounding them. More often than not, it was Link watching as Revali trained, too worn or simply not in the mood to join him in the Range's course.
And so Link found himself staring into the fire as he poked at the stew he was making for lunch. Revali was flying endlessly around the Range's course, taking out targets in a way that gave away how little he was really trying. They had nothing better to do, though, and so they were both occupying themselves, unbothered by the slowness of time's passing. It was just another quiet day, pleasant in its simplicity.
Occasionally, Link would glance over and make sure Revali wasn't doing anything too odd. There was no reason to repeat the fiasco that had been Revali overtraining one day earlier in his stay here. The amount of complaining he had done in the days that followed, all because he had pulled a muscle in hsi wing trying to do some maneuver in the tight space of the Range...Link did not want a repeat of that.
But Revali didn't seem too concerned with overdoing it today. He moved with ease and repetition, running through the same familiar maneuvers rather than trying anything more difficult. Link watched him for a few seconds as he came in and out of view, one, two, three arrows sailing toward their targets all at once, each of them hitting as Revali flew lower and out of sight. The targets were quickly filling up with arrows, all of them clustered around their centers.
No doubt Revali would whine about having to dig them all out later. Link smirked a bit at that and went back to his stew. Revali would likely take a break soon anyway. Either that, or Link would drag him out to eat something before continuing on.
There was a commotion of hooves and feet somewhere to his left, but he ignored it, too focused on making sure his stew didn't burn to care who had wandered into the Flight Range now. It happened every once in a while—someone from Rito Village looking for Revali or a traveler too lost to find the trail. Link never bothered with coming out unless his help was really needed. Whoever it was, they were likely here for Revali anyway, and he would handle it.
At least that's what he thought until someone came scrambling up the ladder, and he realized that wasn't likely to happen, given who it was.
Princess Zelda stood, bundled against the cold and gaping at him from the entryway.
They watched each other for several seconds of absolute silence, with expressions a mix of surprise and trepidation, neither of them moving. Link fought the urge to flee from her questioning eyes, find some place to hide and hole up before she could poke and prod and find him lacking, as she always seemed to.
She broke the moment before he had the chance to move, and the moment, the balance between potential peace and another painful present, shattered.
"You've been here?" she nearly squealed, her face scrunched with distaste and something like disappointment. "Why are you...why are you here?"
Link could only stare at her as she looked around the roost, too stunned to come up with anything reasonable to reply.
Her eyes went around the small room and found it unsatisfying before settling on Link once again. She looked him over as well, and seemed to come to the same conclusion she had about the roost. There was a sourness to her expression, and that familiar hurt. Or perhaps it was disappointment. He couldn't be certain. He really didn't want to know.
He didn't want her here. Not that she would hear that, even if he could make his hands move to the right words.
His silence seemed to set her off even more, her face burning red and brow furrowing low over her eyes. "Why did you leave?"
He was frozen, staring at her as her anger became ever clearer.
"You just left, you didn't tell anyone where you had gone! Do you have any idea how long I've been looking for you? We thought you could have been—been—well, who knows what could have happened to you? What are you doing here?"
Link backed away from her, lunch long forgotten. She followed him back, her hands on her hips and her expression more fearsome than he had ever seen it, even when he had watched her face the Calamity itself.
"Well?" she demanded highly.
His breathing had picked up, his eyes darting around her for an escape, but not finding any. She blocked the way to the ladder, and unless he rounded the boiling cooking pot, he wouldn't be able to dive off the landing into the Range either.
"You still won't speak to me?" she asked, but it was hardly a question. Her expression went from furious to hurt. "After everything we've done together, all those talks and—and defeating the Calamity—don't you see? You don't have to hide behind that burden anymore! We can—"
She stepped closer to him again, and he stumbled backward, shaking his head. The motion only seemed to anger her once again, and she glared at him.
"What is wrong with you? Why are you—" she cut off, face burning. "Haven't you remembered anything?"
She might have continued, but Revali landed, hard, on the landing just feet away from her, the sound of it and the wind that followed the motion silencing her.
"I don't recall sending you an invitation," he said flatly, his arms crossed and eyes narrowed. "Do you make a habit of invading whatever homes you want at any time?"
"So you've hidden him here the entire time?" she demanded angrily.
He rolled his eyes. "I haven't hidden him anywhere. In case you've forgotten, he is his own person. I haven't chained him to the floor."
"Then why would he stay here?" she cried, her voice shrill and her face red. "Why would he want to be with you? All you do is insult him!"
Revali's eyes went cold and hard. "The fact that your childish nature hasn't changed in the last one hundred years does not imply that others haven't changed," he said, his voice steady even as his hands seemed to shake with anger. "I'm not the person I was then, anymore than he is."
"What are you talking about? He—who else would he be?!" Her voice rose higher and Link backed away another step. She did not seem to notice. "He was—he was asleep. What change could have happened when he wasn't even awake?!"
"Have you forgotten what that did to him?" Revali shouted back, stepping closer and looming over her. "That thing took all of his memories! As you thought it would! Or have you only forgotten why that even had to occur? Why his wounds were so terrible that a century had to pass before they could be healed? Or did you forget the part where your failure was to blame for it?!"
She gaped at him, her mouth hanging open for several seconds before she shut it with an audible click. Her eyes burned with something sickening, something ugly, but even knowing that, there was no predicting the words which she spat next.
"It's no more my fault than it is his!" she screamed. "I am not the one who squandered any hope they might have had out of some—some reckless need to destroy our chances! I am not the one who left the world to die!"
She gestured wildly at him as she said it, and all the air seemed to leave the room at once. For several seconds, no one moved. An oppressive silence fell, and even though he knew the wind could not have died so suddenly, he couldn't hear it at all. There was a horrible ringing in his ears, her words rattling around in his mind and digging into him harshly. He was only half conscious of stumbling back a step, his back hitting the roost's edge.
She looked over at him, the anger slipping from her eyes when she saw his panicked, devastated expression, how pale he was.
"I—" she faltered, her voice small and almost frightened. "Link, I didn't mean—I didn't—"
She reached out, but he flinched away from her, a wild look coming into his eyes that could signal only one thing. Revali looked over at him, and seemed to recognize it immediately, but he didn't dare make a move.
"Link—"
He shook his head again, frantic, his breath coming hard and fast. The Princess was still half reaching for him, her eyes wide and teary, but her words stuck like barbs in his thoughts. He felt like he was sinking into them, and he wouldn't be able to pull himself out of the mantra of failure failure failure.
Whatever stability he might have found in the last few weeks, whatever brief peace he had scrounged up with Revali, it seemed far away now. Everything which had been crushing him before—everything that had weighed him down, drowning him to the point of being desperate enough to face the Calamity with nothing but half rusted swords and broken shields—it all seemed to fall onto him again, unbearable and painful and—
He had to go. He had to go.
"No, Link—"
Revali finally moved, making a mad grab for him, but he had already scrambled over the banister behind him and jumped at the cliff face behind the roost. His hands scrabbled for purchase and found it, and he was moving, forcing himself upward.
Within seconds he had climbed up and over the side, ignoring the stinging in his ungloved hands and the icy wind pulling at his shirt. He slipped, losing his footing and falling into the snow. It was frigid, flakes like needles in his skin as he pushed himself back up, moving as quickly as he could through the drifts, hardly paying any attention to where he was going.
Shouting followed after him, Revali's voice clear even over the wind, but he didn't stop. A blizzard picked up around him and the ground sloped ever upward, and he had no idea where he was, but he didn't stop. Even when the sky grew dark and the voices behind him had long faded, and his legs were stinging and his hands were numb, he didn't stop.
His tunic, his sword, the slate, they were all back in the roost. He didn't care. He couldn't go back there. The little safe haven was gone, trampled over by the same token that had ruined all of Central Hyrule to him. He couldn't face her, couldn't face her questions and her judgement and her blame.
He stumbled, barely keeping his feet as his foot slipped on a hidden patch of ice. The snow was falling so hard now it was becoming difficult to see where he was going. If he even knew which direction he ought to turn in. He didn't even know where he was going. He only knew he had to be gone.
Wrapping his arms tighter around his middle and ignoring the quickly freezing tears that managed to escape his eyes, he trudged deeper into Hebra, the wind howling and blowing snow over the trenches of his footprints.
******
"Stupid stupid stupid—"
Revali was practically incoherent, cursing as he fought the wind blowing south out of Hebra. A terrible storm was descending, and fast. In any other case, he would have turned back long ago, before his wings could ache with fatigue or the cold could bite through his feathers. With the wind fighting him so much, he could only progress by forcing his way through, fighting the currents of the air, and that was never a smart plan for prolonged flight.
But he couldn't turn back. Link was out there somewhere, without his tunic or his weapons or any other silly little thing he crammed into that odd slate. No way to defend himself—from the cold or from any stray monster that happened upon him.
The thought of him hurt, or frozen over with cold—he forced the image away, cursing again and pushing harder against the wind, his eyes scanning the ground below for something, any sign. But there was nothing. Nothing but snow and ice and screaming wind, the temperature dropping steadily the further north he went.
The look in his eyes when he had fled...haunted and guilty in a way that made his stomach turn over and his beak clench in anger at the idiot who had scared him off again.
Oh, he wanted to throttle her, but he hadn't hesitated long enough to do more than shout for her to get out and never come back. He couldn't give Link any more of an advantage than he already gained, and even so, from the moment he called his gale and soared over the Flight Range, Link was nowhere in sight. Not even a stray boot print to show where he could have gone.
But he knew Link, and maybe even more than that, he knew Link when he panicked and made a mad getaway. He wouldn't be thinking of somewhere smart to go, particularly without his slate or things with him. He would walk and keep walking until he couldn't any longer, and with this weather...
He had no idea how long he had been flying. The sky had gone dark and dismal, but the storm was likely to blame at least for a part of that change. What concerned him more was the temperature. It had gone from cool to downright hellishly cold very quickly, the wind and snow not helping in the slightest. No matter how long it had been, he had to keep going.
He pushed harder against the wind, ignoring the ache already beginning to burn in his wings. This was no time for smart training or worrying about soreness the next day. He had to find him.
If Link was hurt...
His thoughts turned dark, and he attempted to distract himself by scanning the ground again, a bit frantically. Still, no sign of him. The fresh falling snow might have been obscuring where he went. He forced away the urge to change direction. Link was not foolish enough to wander in circles. He would—
"Link!"
Revali had always been proud of his skills in the air. Ever since he was much younger, and not exactly allowed to fly on his own, he had taken every opportunity to better himself, to become the very best at every form of aerial prowess available to a Rito. And he had managed it; he was the only of his people to master the updrafts so completely, and even without this skill, still the best flyer the village was likely to see.
It was only that ingrained skill that kept him from dropping to the ground faster than a dead keese the moment he caught sight of Link, collapsed and half buried in snow. As it was, he made a dangerously sharp dive, pulling up at the last second and landing in a cloud of snow and sharp wind. He hardly paused long enough to catch his breath before he began digging desperately at the snow around Link.
He wasn't moving, but he was breathing, and his eyes were only half closed. But his hands were nearly blue and there were drops of ice frozen to his face. He didn't seem to notice Revali's efforts at all. He only lay still in the snow.
More frightening, however, was that he hardly shivered when Revali finally pulled him out of the snow drift. He was too still, too cold in Revali's arms.
"You're okay," he mumbled, mostly to himself, hardly knowing if Link was even conscious enough to hear him. The words tumbled out regardless. "You're okay, it's okay—"
He looked around, his eyes scanning around the endless expanse of white for somewhere, anywhere more sheltered than this open snowfield. There was no way for them to quickly return to the Flight Range unless he could fly, and he couldn't carry Link if he was unconscious. They would need to find some temporary shelter, at least until the storm passed or he could get Link warm enough to fly back.
His eyes landed on an odd opening in the mountain not too far away, the dark gray of the stone poking out from beneath the snow. The wind blew right over it, but didn't seem to be reaching inside. It would have to do.
Steeling himself, he got to his feet once again and carefully pulled Link up with him. He was stiff and couldn't keep his feet on his own, nearly collapsing and dragging them both back down the moment Revali managed to get him standing, a pitiful sort of groan escaping him as he leaned into his hold. Revali caught him before he could fall, and quickly started pulling him toward the opening in the mountain.
"I've got you," he muttered, catching him again as his foot slid in the snow. "It's alright. You're going to be fine."
Soon enough, they were slipping through the thin crack in the mountain side, Revali all but carrying Link at this point, mumbling platitudes even he wasn't really listening to. As soon as they were out of the wind, and the slightly warmer air of the cave settled over them, Link seemed to give out entirely, leaning heavily on Revali with his eyes closed.
"You can't sleep yet," he said, nudging him until he opened his eyes blearily, not really seeing much. "You have to stay awake, alright? Until we get you warm. Stay awake."
He only stared at Revali, his body starting to shiver almost violently. The cave was warmer than outside, but not as warm as the Flight Range, and Link had none of his usual protection. There was really only one thing he could do.
"Come on," Revali sighed.
He dragged him a bit deeper into the cave before giving up and dropping down to sit. His wings were aching and Link was moments from collapsing in a heap. Sure enough, the moment Revali began to sit, Link nearly toppled over. Only Revali's firm grip on him kept him from hitting the ground hard. He caught him again and somehow managed to get him mostly sitting up next to him, their backs to the cave wall.
Link leaned on him, and Revali didn't bother to move him. He only pulled him closer, ignoring the twinge in his wings as he wrapped them around Link's shivering form. His fingers were like icy knives digging into Revali's chest, and he was shivering hard enough to shake the both of them, but Revali only held him closer, too relieved to have found him to care that he was practically clinging to him.
If he were perfectly honest, he rather enjoyed it. It was...nice to hold him. He only wished it didn't come bundled with borderline hypothermia.
"Silly featherless Hylians," he muttered to no one in particular.
Link only burrowed further into the embrace. The snow on his shirt was beginning to melt, leaving the worn out fabric cold and wet. He seemed to be more conscious of what was happening, if his cuddling closer was anything to go by.
"When we get back to the roost, we're getting you proper clothes for Hebra. And you're wearing them. No more of this freezing nonsense. The next thing I know I'll be chiseling you out of ice blocks."
He pulled a hand away from Revali, shakily signing a weak, "Sorry."
"No, no," Revali shook his head, holding him a bit tighter. "Don't apologize. I know why you left. I don't blame you."
He didn't offer any kind of reply, beyond holding onto him again, hiding his face in the crook of his shoulder.
For a long while, long enough for the little light streaming into the cave to fade almost completely, they sat in careful silence. The wind slowed, and the snow began to settle. The air seemed to warm gradually around them, whether because of the calming wind or the passing storm, it wasn't clear, nor did it particularly matter. All Revali was happy for was the fact that Link was gradually settling, his tremors easing off into the occasional shiver.
As the threat slowly passed them by, Revali calmed enough to loosen his grip on Link just a touch. For a moment, he thought Link had seriously hurt himself by running off, but it seemed that he had found him in the nick of time. Now, some time out of the wind (and sharing the warmth of Revali's feathers) seemed to have coaxed him back from the brink. He was still cold, and his hair and thin shirt were wet with melted snow, but he was awake and he was warming up again. A fire would help, but he would take what he could get.
Besides, it wasn't so terrible to be this close to him, to hold him for a little while...
"She's wrong, you know," Revali said softly some time later. "What happened one hundred years ago was not your fault. I know you don't remember it, but...we failed you long before you fell. What happened after we lost was not your fault. No matter what deluded thing she believes."
Link nodded, a small sort of half motion mostly hidden by the fact that he still had his face buried in Revali's shoulder. He'd hardly moved at all, even when his shivering had stopped.
"You're not a failure, and you didn't leave our world to die. I don't believe you'd ever be capable of something like that." He sighed, shook his head and continued. "We might not have always been on the...best of terms, but I do believe that anyone who looks at you and the way you behave for more than two seconds of unselfish thought would know that you would never be capable of something like that."
Link looked up at him, his eyes heavy with unshed tears. They stared at each other for several seconds, another unspoken conversation passing between them, all happening with nothing more than a glance.
"She's wrong," Revali said firmly. "You know that, right?"
He nodded slowly, but looked away, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.
"You're not a failure."
He dropped his hands and gave a half shrug, looking down.
"You're not, Link." Their eyes met again. "Not for giving your life in a fight you couldn't win without help, and certainly not for defeating the Calamity in a way she didn't want you to. And you are not a failure for leaving your past behind. No one can force you to remember what you don't want to remember. That's your choice to make. Not hers or anyone else's."
Link stared up at him as if he were some kind of apparition, as if no one had ever said anything of the sort to him before. A sickened part of Revali suspected that assumption was true.
"And you don't have to leave, either," he went on quietly, his voice barely above a whisper, and perhaps a bit desperate. "I know why you ran today, and I won't..." He paused, frowning. "I won't stop you if you really do want to leave, but—"
He cut off as Link shook his head rapidly, his eyes wide and nearly panicked. "I want to stay with you," he signed fast, his hands still shaking just a touch. "I didn't—I couldn't—"
"Link—"
"I couldn't stay today, but—but I—I didn't mean to—"
"Link," he said more insistently, grabbing his hands and holding them tight enough to stop him for a moment. "It's okay. I told you, you can stay with me. I...I want you to stay."
He went absolutely still, frozen, staring up at Revali again as if he were a phenomenon he had no way of understanding. Revali watched him back. For once he fought to keep his expression open and clear. He wasn't guarded or hiding his true feelings behind a scowl. He only watched Link back, calm and maybe a bit concerned, but earnest all the same in whatever set of mixed emotions he was feeling then.
"I want you to stay," he repeated, more sure of himself, nodding firmly as he finished. "I...the last few weeks have been...I know that I'm not exactly the easiest person to be around, but you...I enjoy being around you, and..."
He trailed off again, the words escaping him entirely, and Link was still only staring up at him, wide eyed and hanging onto his every word, even when he was quiet for some time.
They slipped back into that strange, silent communication they had stumbled into mastering, watching each other and somehow saying more then than they had in the whole conversation which had preceded it. Maybe it was the fact that even with sign, Link never was one to talk often. Maybe it was Revali's preference for grumbling over actual conversation. Or maybe it was something distinct to only the two of them, something undefinable and strange, but nevertheless very real.
Link held his gaze intensely, like he was trying to look straight through him and puzzle out his thoughts. Whatever he found there, it must have been a good thing, because he smiled, a small fragile little grin, and rested his head on Revali's shoulder again.
"Stay with you," he mumbled, his voice hoarse and hardly above a whisper, worn from disuse and shaking just a bit, from the cold or some nervousness it wasn't clear.
Revali froze only for a moment, too surprised to be ashamed for all but gaping down at him for several seconds in a stunned stupor. It was only when it became clear that Link had dozed off, his arms wrapped lazily wrapped around him and head on his shoulder, that Revali finally came out of his shock enough to smile just a bit.