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“I have a question.”
Twilight doesn’t look up from the washtub where he’s got his pelt, rather focused on scrubbing out the blood that’s now coagulated in the fur, but he does hum out an inquisitive sound to Legend, across from him and using the other side of the washtub.
The vet’s hands have stopped for a second, breath still a bit harsh from effort as the younger leans against the wooden side of the tub. “Where’d the pelt come from?”
“Hmm?”
“I mean,” when he glances up, Legend’s pushing hair out of his eyes, wet fingers slicking it back enough that it stays, which is quite the look but decidedly odd on him when they’re all used to seeing him with hair in his eyes all the time, “a wolf? Isn’t that, I don’t know, kinda on the nose?”
“How so?” The blood is stuck rather badly, having dried to the fur during the course of their travels, and sudsy water makes seeing through to the areas where it’s worst rather hard.
There’s a cascade of said water as the vet drags whatever thing he was washing (Wild’s blue tunic) out of the tub, wringing it out briefly before setting it atop the already hefty pile of washed clothes sitting beside them. “I mean, wouldn’t that be like, I don’t know, me wearing a rabbit’s skin?”
He looks up just long enough to grin at his brother, more because Legend said it out loud than because he actually thinks it’s funny. Still, the vet so rarely says anything about it that it always makes him grin when the other does, at last, admit the truth; that he’s a small, cute, fluffy little creature that doesn’t have much of a bark at all, or a bite (though rabbits can, and do, bite rather fiercely in his experience).
In answer to his grin, he gets the captain’s shirt thrown in his face. It’s not wet, not yet anyway, but his nose can pick out the soldier’s distinctive after-shave and the smell of his silly hair oil on the fabric, and it makes him sneeze just slightly as he shakes the thing off of his head, hands still tangled in wet fur. Legend’s sniggering when it falls off of him and into the water, oddly bare hands reaching to snatch back the fabric and plunge it deeper into the suds.
For reasons he’s still not sure of, they’re the designated washermen of the party. Wild is the cook, Time the leader, Warriors the strategist, and they are the washers. Granted, it’s not often they can or do wash their clothes, but somehow, it always ends up being them. Honestly, he thinks it might be because he’s one of the strongest of their party and thus one of the only ones who can tip the tub afterwards without help, or maybe because he can heft the basket of sopping clothes afterwards over to wherever they’re hanging things (in this case, the inn wash-lines) but he’s not sure why, or how, the vet ended up doing this job, especially when the sharp-mouthed younger hero is also the one to do half the mending in the group as well. Still, it means they’re stuck together for the time being, plenty of work to do and the silence stretching too long between, so he answers.
“I mean, I turn into a wolf.”
“That means you already have a wolf fur though,” and it’s so weird to have those fingers point at him without a thousand rings on them. Legend's hands look practically naked without his jewelry, and it makes the rancher stare for just a second before they move back under the water while the younger scrubs away at the captain’s frankly rank clothing (travel is sweaty business after all). “That you wear one in hylian form is just....”
“What?”
“Did you hunt one?” The hands fall still and dark eyes slip up to him, a brow cocked and a confused look on the other's face. “Did you come back from your adventure and say ‘heck, I’m a wolf now’-” and goats, the vet’s fake-drawl is enough to make him snigger, even though he knows he’s being mocked “-’might ‘s well jist go git me a real wolf skin ta wear ‘round so folks know I’m hot shit’.” Legend’s smirking as he finishes, eyes dancing with mischief, but he sounds ridiculous, and mocked or no, the rancher can’t avoid laughing at it.
“Naw, hardly that.”
“What then?” And water splashes his way; not enough to really get him wet where he isn’t already, arms and hands thoroughly drenched and fingertips getting close to pruney now, but just enough to be intentional.
He splashes back, just a bit bigger, just enough to have it slapping the sides of the tub, enough to have Legend jerking back with a sharp breath as a droplet or two fly up to land on his nose. “I had it before.”
That doesn’t seem to be what was expected, because the vet pauses, eyes flying up and ears pricking forwards briefly, body still leant back away from the water as he stares. “What?”
“Had it already,” a scrub through the fur has some of the blood coming free, in little pills and chunks that he’s still trying to work away with his fingernails. He’s focused on that, so he doesn’t see if Legend keeps watching him or no when his hands enter the water again, but it doesn’t really matter. “Back when I first came round to Ordon, I-” and he pauses.
Does he want to tell this to Legend? Heck, he hasn’t even told this bit to Wild! To Time either for that matter (although the old man’s destined to find out eventually, if only as Shade). Then again though, it’s not like it’s some kind of secret, he just hasn’t had a reason to bring it up yet. Besides, this whole shifter business is something they share in common, and he’d learned something about Legend because of it, so maybe he should?
The vet’s watching him when he looks up, violet eyes searching his face, features screwed up just so into a frown. For a second, it reminds him of Zelda, especially when all his hair is pushed up and back from his brow like hers is, and maybe that helps convince him just a bit more.
“Back before Ordon,” his hands fall still as he leans back on his heels some, letting the pelt drift to the bottom of the tub and settling his arms on the edge of the thing as he speaks, drip drying themselves against the wood. “I lived south, with my folks.”
The vet nods, oddly serious after the playfulness of a moment before, but he appreciates it; they all know it’s rare to share a story of the past, and the respect is appreciated
“Edge of the desert, harsh sorta place. Nice folks though, and pretty in it’s own way.” Very pretty. It’s rare that he actually misses it, but some days, when the trees stand so much in the way that he can barely make out the sky, he does sort of miss the openness of the world he’d known as a small child. “Sky gets all burnt up and red at the end of the day and it jist... burns off the sands, makes the air swim and the world feel all big an’ magical like when the stars come out.”
The vet’s lips tug just so into something like a smile at that. He likes stars, their Legend, they’ve all seen that by now, and Twilight would wager a bet that his brother is now wishing he could see them from out on the edges of the same desert he's talking about right about now.
“Hot most days, not much in the ways of big furry creatures.”
“Not even sand seals?”
The rancher shakes his head. “Nah. Those things live deeper in. We were at the edge of the sands. Still horse territory,” he nods towards the outside, in roughly the direction of the stables, “had Epona with me back then too, though she was little more’n a filly.”
Legend nods, leaning forwards against the side of the wash tub himself, fabric still in hand bit ignored for the moment as he listens.
“It was nice, in a way.” Sort of. He misses it and yet doesn’t. It’s weird, knowing the place is there still now when it hadn’t been for a good part of his life. “Any’ays, long story short, that’s where I grew up ‘till I was about, well, bit younger’n Wind, I guess? Maybe ten or eleven or so; old enough to think for m’self, young enough to be stupid.”
“I started adventuring at eight,” Legend drawls, deadpan, “I think that’s just a reflection on you if you were still being stupid at that age.”
He snorts. “Yeah, sure, I guess. Most kids my age were dumb too though. Heck, we all were! Hot headed little gremlins without a smack a’ sense to us, all eager and ready to show off.”
“You saying you were a hot-head as a kid? You?”
“Well,” a grin tugs over his face, even as he tips his head on one side, avoiding meeting violet eyes as he considers it, “not quite. Dumb kid? Yeah. Hothead? Only when I was pushed.”
“Uh huh.”
Blue eyes roll before he turns them back to the younger, who’s got a grin of his own tugging at the corners of his lips, hair starting just now to slip back down and over to hide the glitter of his eyes. Twilight half considers splashing him to see what would happen, or to retaliate, but elects not to; Legend’s too competitive for that to go well, and the whole tub’s contents would end up on one or both of them that way if he did. The little back and forth before was risky enough.
Instead, he just holds his metaphorical horses and pushes on. “Least ways, I was a kid, and my neighbors and school fella’s were the same, an’ like any young boys, we kinda lost all sense when there was competition afoot.” Not unlike his brothers now, funnily enough. “Well, this one day there was this one kid, Darpa,” a scoff escapes him even now as he thinks of the guy, “real piece of work. I think he had it in for me, really. We used to spar ‘n I was al’ays better than he was, so he’d always try to get my goat in any way he could.”
Legend groans faintly at the goat phrasing, but hey, if Warriors can make dog jokes and no one stops him, then Twilight is fully of the opinion that he should be allowed to talk a bit about goats! In moderation of course; he’s learned his lesson by now about oversharing goat facts. The vet, however, does not seem to share that opinion. “Goats?”
“Hey, we had them back in my first home too! I’ve had goats longer’n you been alive!”
“You’re like only a year or two older than me!”
“Still older!” And yeah, he is trying so very, very hard not to splash the vet right now, but he is restraining himself, somehow. Really, it is a small kind of achievement to resist as well as he has so far.
“Just tell the story already,” comes the impatient huff, the water rippling as the captain’s shirt is immersed once more. “What did Derpa do?”
“Darpa.” He correvcts, but in his mind he wondering how he never called the guy “Derpa” growing up, Ordonia’s hooves, that would have been golden! Why couldn’t he have gained a little brother before he’d moved to Ordon? He has a feeling Darpa would’ve hated being called that!
“What did Darpa do then,” the vet snorts, rolling his eyes.
“He challenged me,” a shrug, though it really isn’t anything to shrug off. Still, the vet doesn’t need to know that. “Our home was a walled city built up to protect the border-”
“Wait, waitwaitwait,” and oh shit, there’s that excited mischief again; try as he might to pretend, Legend really is just a kid as much as the others are. “A city? You grew up in a city? Country-boy goat-man is a city slicker by birth?”
“D’you wanna hear the story or not?”
There’s a heavy sigh, put on annoyance even as the vet mimes zipping his mouth shut. His eyes are still glittering though from behind his hair.
Twilight elects to ignore how much that makes the kid look like a scarless version of Wild and gets back to his story. “Like I was sayin’, the city was bult up around this old sword. Big, black, magical thing-” and the lights go out in dark eyes, the vet stiffening and- goats, Twilight wishes he’d had that sort of sense back ten years ago “-Darpa was telling all of us that magic swords made for better fighters. Said he’d pull it one day and be better’n all of us. So, like idiot kids we were, we snuck down to try our luck with it.”
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah,” he clears his throat a bit, even though he doesn’t need to, and shifts on his heels. “Didn’t go well.”
“What happened?”
“Well, Darpa, and the other with us, Zeu and Rioma, they tried their luck, but nothin’.”
“And then you tried,” He’s not sure if Legend realizes that he’s ducked his head, like he’s trying not to bare his throat, but he did.
The rancher nods, grimacing a bit. “Yep.”
“And?”
“Whole town disappeared in a cloud of sand.”
Legend’s face crumples.
The rancher heaves a breath. “They didn’t die,” he assures. “It was a curse; took the whole place out to- I guess- a version of the dark world. I don’t know all the details, we never hashed ‘em out after-”
“You saw them again?”
Oh, right, he didn’t clarify that, did he? “Yeah, yeah I did.”
The vet breathes what almost sounds like a sigh of relief.
“During my adventure we undid the magic ‘round it. Whole town’s back the same as before now, even my folks are still there, weird as that is. But back then, I didn’t know that. I was jist...well, it was jist me out there in the desert, with Epona, jist sorta wanderin’ round trying to find what t’do with myself.”
“That’s how you came to Ordon?”
“Mmmhmm.”
The vet mulls that over a second, dropping his head to stare down into the water with a frown. Admittedly, it is a lot to process, but Twilight did have something he was trying to say here; he wasn’t just trying to tell the vet about what some might call the worst day of his life. Honestly, it’d be kind of a crappy thing to do if that was his intention.
“Also why I avoid magic as a rule, since I never know what might happen an’ if I could hurt someun’, but that’s besides the point. Point is, I was out there for a bit. I knew the roads well enough and just sorta followed them north, since I used to hear my father say that’s where his people were from, an’ I figured my northern family might be able to help somehow.”
“In contrast to a southern family?” The vet sounds, still sounding a bit hesitant.
The rancher just chuckles though. “Yes, actually. My mother’s from the desert people. Long story that one, and more the romantic type, so I don’t know-”
“Please don’t.”
“Y’know, most boys yer age-”
The vet’s glare shouldn’t make him want to laugh, but it does, flat, unimpressed, but faintly flushed around the tips of his ears. “No thank you.”
“Alright, alright.” He does splash just a bit, under the pretense of turning his attention back down to the pelt, which is easier to work on now that it’s been sitting for a moment. “Well, anyways, I was travelin’ north, up through the forests of Faron- big dense things, none of which I’d ever seen before. Heck, there weren’t hardly any trees down at the city, and I’d never seen so many in my life!”
Under the vet’s breath, he hears the other murmur “were hardly any” but he elects not to acknowledge it. He may or may not be playing up his accent just a bit here, and if anything, seeing the vet roll his eyes yet again at him is fully worth it.
“Unfortunately, trees come with more’n jist leaves, an’ that’s about when I met my first real wolf.”
Dark eyes dart up, wide and startled and almost...hmm, is Legend maybe... not keen on wolves? Wolfie is one thing, he knows, but even Wild (whos’ had to fight a whole pack of them before, by the cub’s telling), doesn’t react like that when they’re brought up. If anything, the champion always just looks vaguely annoyed at the subject, if not occasionally wary when blue eyes dart his way as though to judge if he’ll take offence at that annoyance.
“Scared me quite a bit, I won’t lie,” mindful of the vet’s... dislike of being seen upset or startled, he keeps his eyes down on his own pelt. “I knew about jackals, saw my father come back from huntin’ ‘em plenty of times when they got up too close to town. Jackels is jist big dogs though- wolves, that’s whole ‘nother matter.”
The nervous chuckle from the vet seems to agree with him, and it confirms his suspicions; Legend does not care for canines. Given his animal form though, that is pretty reasonable.
“Epona got us outta there, but I think that was the first time I really jist let myself get upset about what was happenin’, first time I admitted jist how sacred I was; how much everything frightened me.” He probably should check in and see how the vet’s reacting to that, but... he doesn’t. Not for Legend’s sake, but more so because lifting his eyes from the pelt in his hands seems suddenly quite difficult.
It was rough, losing it all. Losing home, his family, his mother and father and his friends. Knowing it was because he’d handled dark magic he should never have touched only made it worse though. Admitting that, to one of the others no less, is suddenly harder than he’d thought it would be.
For a moment, silence sits between them, just the sound of the water moving in wash tub and dripping from the pieces in the basket beside them filling the air of the small washroom they’re using. Eventually though, he breaks the silence with a sigh and glances up, a half-smile pulling over in an attempt at assurance as he sees the vet’s eyes fixed on him, brows furrowed and lips pursed. “I made it Ordon without injury. It was the first town, an’ well, I jist never left. Never looked further north or went back south again till my adventure started. Didn’t feel the need. They took me in an’ gave me a home, gave me work, even treated me like I was one of their own, even with my bein’ hylian. It felt right, like a home ought.”
“What about the city though?” Dark eyes blink slowly. “Didn’t you...you know...”
“I studied magic,” he admits, and watches the vet’s jaw loosen at the words. It’s not quite a jaw drop, but it’s close. “Any spare wages went to buyin’ books on the stuff so I could learn. Maybe undo the curse or fix what I broke. It got fixed too, not by me- but yeah, I didn’t forgit. Tried to, but I guess our kind aren’t meant to do that sorta thing.”
The vet scoffs, blowing out his cheeks as he does. “You could say that again.”
“Our kind aren’t meant to do that sorta thing.”
“I didn’t mean literally!” A splash slaps against his side of the tub, nearly cresting high enough to hit his chest, but falling just short of doing so.
He wants to splash Legend back so, so badly. He doesn’t though.
“Shouldn’t have said it if ya didn’t mean it, vet! Loose words is dangerous to go speakin’!”
“Oh shut up!”
He does. He smirks and goes back to his washing, scrubbing at the blood that’s now coming away with much more ease, even if he still does have to work the tufts of fur nearly individually to get it all. Still, a few rough scrubs have the suds turning faintly pink, and distantly he wonders what that means for the captain’s shirt still sitting there beneath them.
Legend only lasts a little while before eventually he breaks, scowling past hair that’s fully fallen into his face again as he grouches, “so you’re just ending there?”
“You told me to shut up,” he maybe pushes the pelt down into the water harder than he needs, makes the soap bubbles ripple wildly, sudsy crests dancing across the surface of the water and making it rise just a bit higher up his brother’s forearms.
One oddly ringless hand pulls out long enough to grab some random piece of clothing from the pile of dry, unwashed things, to throw at him again. That would be fine, except it ends up being someone’s shorts and that is definitely not fine, and sort of disgusting.
“You could jist say ‘please’,” he might toss the shorts a bit further away from himself then he needs to, and they land in a corner with a faint ‘thwump’ even as his brother snorts in answer, “no need to throw stuff.”
Another roll of the eyes, and then, mockingly, “pwease.”
That makes him pause. “Are you two?”
“If we’re rankin’ the best hero, then maybe.”
“Grow up.”
“Tell the story! Come on, what does any of that have t’do with you wearin’ the skin of the same animal you shift into?”
Right, that’s where this started, huh? He was getting there, but maybe he’s been taking a moment more than need be. “Alright, alright,” he concedes, “fine then. Where was I?”
“Ordon,” and then, quieter, like Legend doesn’t know that he’s got the second-best hearing in the whole party (which he does know), the vet murmurs, “soundin’ like an old man with that kinda talk.”
He ignores that, pushing on instead both with his pelt and the story about it. “Okay, well. I got hired on as a farm hand pretty early on. I was young, but I had a horse and was willin’ to learn, so we learned. Picked up watching the goats pretty well, even figured some of it out m’self; how to wrastle ‘em down when they got out or when they needed medical care. Ain’t standard practice really; most hands just lasso ‘em and work from there.”
“But you’re a showoff who has muscles,” comes the snort, and the grin, and the flicker of light in violet depths once more, “which you like to prove to everyone who can see.”
“Sounds like jealousy to me there, vet.”
“Maybe cus it is! Heck, what were you eating? I’ve been traveling near a decade an’ I’m maybe half of you, at best!”
Really, there’s no other answer to that except for to flex, just a bit., just a little bitty bit. Just enough to have Legend huffing so hard his hair flies straight up in the air.
“Like I said, showoff.”
“An’ like I said; I wrangled goats. Not them little things you got in main Hyrule, Ordon goats is as big as oxen, and strong as ‘em too.” Not that he’s had much experience with oxen, rare as they are in his part of the kingdom. “I started with the kids worked my way up- an' it helps that sumo is a common sport in Ordon.”
“I’ll stick to boxing.” Comes the drawled-out reply, shirt slapping back into the water.
“Probably for the best.” He’s barely restraining laughter because the captain’s shirt is definitely gaining a faint amount of pink to it’s color. He didn’t realize there was that much blood in the water, or on his pelt, but he doesn’t point it out; it’d be funnier to let what happens happen and make their perfect captain walk around in a pink shirt for the next week or so; he can’t wear his spare forever after all.
When Legend glances back at him again though, he picks up where he left off. “Wolves are a bit of a problem around Ordon, enough that everyone knows to avoid ‘em, but if something happens to the herd, it’s easy to guess why.”
A nod.
“Usually, I didn’t have to handle it much. I was a kid, so they left me to handle the kids, but when I got older, I’d get left with the herd as a whole. Most the other hands’d got married or moved off by then, so I was the main ranch hand around to mind the goats for anyone.” Which was nice, in it’s own way. It was usually quiet enough work, much of it spent in the saddle, riding the pastures and making sure none of the herd strayed off. Occasionally, Epona got to stretch her legs with a good gallop when one did try and wander off, but all in all, most days with the herd were quiet ones spent either riding or sitting in the grass and trying to make whistles out of weeds. He sort of misses that simplicity, although he doubts he could go back to it easily now.
“This one time though,” he pushes on, pausing his scrubbing, which has the vet following suit to watch and listen both, “there came a pack of wolves when we were in the far fields. I tried callin’ fer help, but it was too far off for anyone to hear, so it was jist Epona an’ I.”
Bucked teeth catch on a lip, gnawing somewhat as the vet’s brows pinch up again.
“I was scared,” he admits. “Hadn't faced one before since I first came there, an’ I was all alone. Thought for sure I’d die or something.”
“But?”
“But I didn’t,” he chuckles, a bit breathless. “It was my first real fight. First time I had to face anything, but also the first time I won. Before that, I just ran away; ran from the city when we lost it, ran from the wolves when I saw ‘em first time, ran from my mistakes when I made ‘em. That fight though? That was the first time I ever faced down the things tryin’ to ruin my life, an’ I not only fought back, but I won.”
It’d been bloody, been a mess. He’d been sore for days and Uli had near lost her mind with worry at how much he’d been bleeding, both from the teeth and claws that’d torn into him, but somehow, some way, he had managed to win.
“We didn’t lose a single kid that day, although,” and he raises one arm enough that the faint white scars that rail over sun-loved skin can be seen, faintly silvery with water still dripping off them, and violet trail over obediently before raising to catch his own blue, expectant and waiting for him to continue. Twilight smiles in answer. “Scared everyone near half to death an’ they didn’t let me off alone for a bit. After that though, Rusl made sure I had a sword on me if’n I’d need it.”
“And the pelt?” A bare hand catches a corner of the dark material for emphasis, pulling it out of the water with just a slight struggle; the weight’s more than doubled now that it’s soaked, so it takes some work to lift even part of it.
He chuckles. “I downed one. Most jist ran off once Epona and I stepped in, but I had to down one of ‘em afore then.” Back then, it’d felt like a victory, like something amazing. Now, he feels just slightly guilty, having been a wolf himself and seeing how hard it can be to get by, to stay alive; how harsh nature really is for the wild things, but even still, he doesn’t resent his younger self for that kill. “We made a pelt of it. Mostly jist cuz you don’t waste things in Ordon if you can help it.”
“This pelt?”
The water rushes as he tugs the thing fully out, strands all slicked down and clinging to each other from water alone now, not a bit of blood left seeped into the strands. “Yep!” It takes a bit of effort to hold it up, but he does anyway; Legend wasn’t entirely wrong about him showing off, but he thinks they all have a bit of a flare for the dramatic, so it’s fine. “I wear in winter mostly, Ordon’s too hot for more’n that really. But when I set out after my adventures,” the effort or wringing the thing out is not for show, but entirely real, and he’s straining just a bit when Legend offers his own to hands to help twist the thing, abandoning Warriors’ shirt in the now pinkish water. “Well, it kind of felt a bit wrong at first, like you said,” he pauses long enough to heft the thing onto the pile of clean and sopping clothing before settling down again, grabbing another piece of washing, and continuing what he was saying, “like, there’s a part of me that’s a wolf now. I turn into one and wearing a skin in hylian form felt...odd.”
Legend makes a noise that sounds faintly like agreement.
“But, I used to wear it all the time, an’ when I did slip it on again, I remembered what it means to me.”
“Victory,” the vet guesses, “courage.”
“Yeah.” he nods, smiles at the other, “it’s like wrapping myself up in the reminder that I can face things, I can fight things, and I can surprise myself with what I can do.”
The twist of his brother’s lips feels more genuine than the last few times he’s done that.
“An’, well, I was settin’ out again for the first time in a long time,” he chuckles, nerves from back then touching his tone. “The adventure was over an’ I didn’t know what was comin’ next. I needed that reminder, that assurance that I’d done it before an’ I can do it again. That, and, well,” the laughter turns a bit more genuine, more playful as he tosses his head to get the hair falling in his own eyes to move away, “It kinda felt ironic, y’know?”
The vet shakes his head, but his smile hasn’t faded. “I guess if you want to embrace that kinda thing, sure, whatever.”
“It’s freein’, I’m telling ya! Recognizin’ that part of yerself can change yer life.”
“Oh, so I should want to be a ball of pink fluff?” Comes the huffed-out reply.
“Are you always pink? Or was that jist from the crystal?”
This time, the water does crest high enough to reach his chest, slapping right out of the tub and soaking through his shirt. Unfortunately for Legend though, he’s only got so much restraint. His own splash is enough to reach up and over the vet’s head, leaving the younger sitting there spluttering, blinking away surprise before sharp eyes fix on him and all clothes are abandoned in favor of pushing as much water as he can in the rancher’s direction.
By the time any of the rest come looking for them, the washroom as a whole is soaked, Warriors shirt is most definitively off-white and nearly the color of cherry blossoms, and both of them are thoroughly drenched.
Somehow, the shorts in the corner are the only thing that remains untouched and remotely dry, although they stay that way because he refuses to handle them again and Legend, apparently, is of the same opinion. Quite frankly, he’s not sure if anyone grabbed them, but given that nobody complains of being short a pair, there’s no way to truly know. Either someone else grabbed them, or else there’s a random pair of shorts left behind at that in in a random Hyrule.