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Wind stepped through the portal and into something cold and wet. The landscape in front of him sparkled in the sun, a gentle sea of white covering the ground. He looked down at his boots. The white stuff covered them, too. He lifted a foot. The white powder fell off his boot and disrupted the perfect white layer.
"What is this?" He asked.
The eight other heroes turned to look at him in various states of bewilderment, and Wind almost felt self-conscious. He didn’t like it when other people knew something he didn’t. It only worked to reinforce the idea that he was a helpless child, inexperienced compared to the others. Then a look of realization dawned on Warriors' face.
"You live on a tropical island," he said. "Of course you wouldn't have seen snow before."
Wind frowned. "Wait, how did you know my island is tropical?"
Warriors' eyes widened like he'd been caught in a lie.
"It's called snow," Time said. Wind sent the captain one last suspicious look before giving in to his curiosity and turning to face Time. The Old Man had bent over – his armor creaking like the hull of a ship all the way down – and grabbed a handful of the white powder.
"When it gets very cold, it snows instead of raining. That's why there's so much of it here."
The sailor gasped. "This stuff fell from the sky?!"
Time smiled. "It did."
"That's amazing!"
The other heroes smiled now, too. Wind wasn't childish by any means, and he could certainly hold his own in battle. But there was something endearing about how the young boy lit up as Time explained.
"I remember the first time I saw snow," Wild said, a wistful glint in his eyes. "It was on Mount Hylia just a few days after I'd woken up in the Shrine. The view from up there..."
His voice fizzled out, the champion apparently unable to put his thoughts into words.
"Does snow mean something different in your eras?" Hyrule asked, tripping nervously like he was trying to keep his boots out of the snow and failing. "Because I'm not really looking forward to dealing with poison today."
"What?" Sky asked. "What does poison have to do with anything?"
"Snow is poisonous? I still have the scars after last time it snowed."
Hyrule wilted a little under the stares that followed.
"Rulie," Legend said, "with every thing I learn about your era, I get more concerned."
Wind frowned. "So is snow poisonous or not?"
"It's not," Warriors reassured. "At least not normally. Your era must be an exception, Hyrule."
"Snow is actually rather well-liked," Time said. "Many children like playing with it because it can be shaped into small sculptures."
He pressed a handful of it into a ball between his hands in demonstration.
"It's a lot of fun."
He blinked at Wind. The small sailor barely had time to realize what was happening before Time launched the snowball directly into Warriors' face.
Everything was completely still for a moment while everyone processed what had happened. The captain blinked slowly like his brain was still catching up to the situation, snow dripping from his face. He raised a hand to wipe it away.
"Sprite," he said carefully, "you're a dead man."
He bent over and grabbed his own handful of snow, shaping it into a ball in the same motion. He threw it after Time, who ducked behind Legend. The snowball, which had been aimed for the Old Man's chest, hit the much smaller Legend in the face.
Warriors held his hands up in surrender.
"Sorry, Vet, I wasn't aiming for..."
"Oh, it's on, pretty boy!"
The others were quickly roped into the fight as they were hit by the fallout of Legend, Time, and Warriors' fight, and suddenly, the snowballs were flying left and right. Wind had never made snowballs before, but he had a good aim. Soon, he and the others were covered top to toe in snow. It was cold and wet, but a lot of fun, he decided. And afterwards, they found a little cave and got a fire going. Wild made something hot and spicy for them to drink, which Warriors insisted was tradition after a snowball fight.
It snowed more that night, and Wind sat in the cave and watched the white flakes float through the air in gentle swoops. It was cold, but with the campfire and a blanket around his shoulders he almost didn’t feel it. Wind had missed his home a lot since the first portal carried him away, and with the frequent monster ambushes, it felt like there was always something wrong or something to quarrel about. But today the Chain had felt like something more than a group of heroes on a business trip. It had felt almost like ... a family. It was nice to think of the others like that, Wind thought. He had a sister back at home. Perhaps he could have eight brothers while he was away.
That was Wind's last thought before he went to sleep that night. And it was with that thought in mind that he threw a snowball in Four's face the next morning when they woke to even more snow.