Quest 08

[newmemorywhodis]

i. Healing is terrible

Like many warriors, Link...was…not the best patient.

Sure, he could sometimes be very still, and patient. He’s spent countless hours on guard duty. But that, somehow, was different from being stuck in a bed. At least guard duty was doing something, even if that something was, paradoxically, standing around doing nothing.

Unfortunately, standing all was rather outside of the question, since thanks to Gaurus the Bleeder, Link’s leg was now broken.

Not that this stopped from attempting to flee his assigned bed wherever possible. In fact he was often seen hobbling around the hospital wing - usually by hopping - as he attempted to find some way to do something useful. Can he help sort medicines? Fold bandages? Clean surgical tools? Cook meals for other patients?

Until the medical staff noticed their rogue patient, and ushered Link back to his bed. Where he would begrudging stay - for a while - until once again restlessness took over, and the cycle begins anew.


ii. Looking after Donnie’s garden [Vault]

When Link is - finally! released from the terrible boredom that was being stuck in the hospital wing, he ends up making his way to Donnie’s underground garden, in the Vault.

For a long while he just sits on the ground by Donnie’s patch, crutches tossed to one side while he stares vacantly at the muddlebuds and bombs flowers.

Link should be helping. He wants to help. He’d find a way, broken leg or not. But any suggestion of Link joining the rescue team had been struck down immediately, so instead Link was here. Not helping at all.

…There’s some weeds around the puffshrooms, though. And the bomb flowers are ready for harvest. At least Link can take care of those.

Slowly, Link gets to work.


iii. Angry angry chickens [Flotsam]

Later - when the rescue is over and the Flotsam fleet is coming back together - Link makes his way back to his dorm room. Where he is met with a very, very angry chicken.

“...Sorry,” he tells Pepper the chicken, as she furiously clucks at him. She also pecks him, repeatedly. But since she mostly just gets at the leg that it’s a cast, he doesn’t actually feel anything.

He does feel pretty guilty, though. She hasn’t had any company - or anyone feeding her. And sure, that’s mainly because getting back had been a bit tricky for Link to manage. He still feels bad regardless.

As an apology, Link starts emptying his pack of several chicken-friendly meals.Meals which Pepper immediately descends upon - although this does not do anything to halt her angry clucking at all.

She’s probably going to be mad at him for a while…


iv. Time to get some sweet wheels [Vault]

They’d given him crutches, to get around on. And they were…okay. They did the job.

But Link had Ultrahand now. He could do better.

So just outside the Armory, with Pepper the chicken keeping him company, Link is making himself a vehicle. He doesn’t have any Zonai devices, but he’s still managed to scrounge up some pieces of wood and metal and a small collection of some wheels.

They’re the sort of thing that you usually wouldn’t expect a man with a broken leg to be able to move easily. Except Link doesn’t need to move at all: he just raises his right up, points it at a wheel, and as his arm temporarily changes in appearance a glowing green light connects the wheel and his arm. And the wheel lifts.

Deftly moving it through the air, Link positions the wheel next to the corner of a plank of wood. Then - as the green light disappears and his arm returns to normal - the wood and wheel move towards each other, as a green glue-light substands sticks the two together.

One wheel down! Now, just three more to go…

Comments

[bearsperminute]

"No truce with tiny furies, huh, Pepper?" She seems to have a god humor about it, pleased as punch to meet this new old friend of Link's.

It probably won't win her any favors with this particular chicken, but it's sure helped elsewhere. Glad to see you're doing better, then."

[newmemorywhodis]

Link hums softly. They've let him out now, so yes, Link's definitely doing much better. He's really not a fan of being cooped up.

"Healing is boring."

If only they had some Great Fairy fountains in this world; somewhere that he could just go to and find a fairy to heal him up quickly, without all this irritating recovery process...

[bearsperminute]

"... Yeah, I get that one. Not much to do but wait for your body to do what it needs to is a pain." She shakes her head. "Combat healers can get you up and running in a pinch, but severe wounds can't turn on a dime."

"Always makes me jumpy, wonder about getting back into condition."

[newmemorywhodis]

"I'll be fine."

Link wasn't worried about getting back into condition. He'd been through far, far worse. The limb wasn't infected with gloom. He wasn't dead.

By those standards, this was nothing. It was just irritating.

[bearsperminute]

"Eventually." She nods. Let's see... Does she have something nice for Pepper? She reaches into her pocket on her belt and rummages for a few moments.

[newmemorywhodis]

If she doesn't have anything, it's no problem; Link has more than enough.

But he will wait quietly - and watch, curious to see just what it is that Kanna is going to produce.

[newmemorywhodis]

Schloop! Another wheel stuck...except Link's attached it a little wonky. A faint furrow briefly appears between his eyebrows, before he once telekinetically grabs the wheel, and wriggles it.

This, apparently, is enough to detach the wheel - before Link rotates it a little and attaches it again. He hums, satisfied - that's much better.

"Gaurus the Bleeder," he says during all of this, absentmindedly.

[bearsperminute]

She has a few things, as it turns out. One of them is a bird chili-- since birds don't respond to capsaicin, it's a fine treat for any seed-eater.

She also has... a bit of fish and some dry grain if she prefers those.

[newmemorywhodis]

Like her person, Pepper the chicken is indiscriminate; she eats all. Although Kanna will find that she still faces the glare of beady little chicken eyes as Pepper consumes her gifts.

Bribery may be accepted, but it still won't actually get you much of anywhere with Pepper.

Meanwhile, Link is also going to grab one of those bird chillies. And eat it. You know, just to see what it's like.

[bearsperminute]

"Hey, wait--" It's too late.

This is not a chili for the faint of heart. Even for someone who's a connoisseur of chili peppers, these puppies are small, concentrated, and extremely hot.

[newmemorywhodis]

He's had chillies before! Eaten them straight off the bush, even. He's fine, he...

Oh, that is hot.

...That's really hot, actually.

Link's just...going to quickly fish some fresh milk out of his pack and chug it.

[bearsperminute]

"Oh, no. Hey, we usually only use a few of those for a whole dish, are you OK?" Clearly not what with chugging the milk, but she's at least making the right noises.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link nods; a gesture that is rather undermined by the fact that his eyes are watering, and he is not stopping with the milk.

He's fine! Fine. His mouth is burning, sure, but...totally fine! In fact, he is so fine that he'll also give her a thumbs up.

[bearsperminute]

"... While that's the spirit, let's see about helping you out with that." Oh no, she's learning.

Worse, she's starting to rummage through his house.

[newmemorywhodis]

Except Link doesn't seem at all bothered by her entering his dorm room. Possibly because he's still rather busy with the effects of the chilli. Or possibly because Link himself has a tendency to freely wonder into other people's living spaces without invitation.

Inside, Kanna will find that the space is small, but cosy. Other than the bed, there's a small table with a couple of chairs - and a vase in the middle, filled with a single blue and white flower.

Pressed versions of that same flower have been used added to a canvas that hangs on the wall, right by the bed.

[bearsperminute]

While it's not what she's looking for-- bread or rice would be favorite-- She is, briefly, arrested by the pressing. It's something she's had an interest in herself, once upon a time. She hasn't really had the time since joining up.

Or maybe it's just that she doesn't have the heart to restart a book that was so full of flowers and memories as it was.

Still, after handing him a roll, and he's not crying anymore, she asks, "You like flower-pressing, as well?"

[newmemorywhodis]

Link takes the roll, and bites into it. Does it help? He's not sure; though his eyes aren't watering like a river anymore, so maybe it is.

Then, he looks over to the flower pressings. The Silent Princesses.

"...The flowers keep longer," he says, his voice still hoarse from the chilli. Truth was, he couldn't really say he liked flower pressing specifically. He'd just wanted a way to preserve the flowers. And even though he had people now who could help grow new ones for him - who could help keep the vase on his table always full - he hadn't when he'd first arrived.

[bearsperminute]

"Ah, these ones, then," Kanna said, with a nod. "I used to have a book full of different ones, in another life."

The captain had been annoyed about her use of the encyclopedias as pressing-folds, but... well, it worked out, didn't it?

[newmemorywhodis]

Link makes a soft, noise of acknowledgement - one that conveys a sense of, 'oh, I've seen that kind of book'. Zelda has quite a few of them. He doesn't have any here, though. But if Kanna likes information on different flowers...

Grabbing his Purah Pad, Link opens it up to the Compendium. There, Kanna will see an array of thumbnails showing images of different flowers and herbs. One of them is the white-and-blue flower that Link has decorated his dorm room with.

[bearsperminute]

"Ahhhh. -- Huh, I knew you could take pictures, but I didn't know you took quite this many," Kanna says, looking them over. "Though part of the point of flower-pressing for me was going out into the field, too."

She slowly scrolls through the pictures. "I recognize some of these-- even aside from your own flower."

[newmemorywhodis]

"Pictures help fill out the Compendium," he says. And the Compendium, it seems, had a lot of entires. There seems to be a number of different categories - although what exactly those categories are will be tricky for her to identify, since they're written in Hylian up at the top of the screen.

But she gets a curious look from him when she says she recognises some - maybe she'll tell Link which ones?

[bearsperminute]

"I mean, I'd recognize violets anywhere--" she says, accidentally tapping the screen. This produces a-- "-- you said it's a compendium. It's a sort of field guide, then?"

She hums, looking through the entries by turning the page with a hand motion. "Did you write all this? Even if I can't read it at all..."

She's sounding and emoting being genuinely impressed about all of this. Sure, there weren't too too many flowers, strictly-- it looked like this was more about alchemy, maybe? There's some animal parts in there that she's not sure she'd use to cook a meal, for example-- but this is still incredible.

[newmemorywhodis]

Swift violents. Link takes a mental note - knowing that someday, when he sees Zelda again, she'll want to know all about which plants and animals other worlds have, and which ones they don't.

He also nods; yes, it was a bit like a field guide. Although he can't answer the same for her next question.

"Text was already written," he says, shaking his head. Link wasn't the one to write that.

[bearsperminute]

Now, admittedly, that was a little disappointing, but... "You'd make a fine photographer, if every you wanted to look that way."

She doubts he does. But it was worth saying.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link blinks. "Photo...grapher?"

It's not an Imperial word that he's familiar with. Which is probably because it's not a concept he's familiar with - the ability to take pictures at all isn't yet very widespread in Hyrule. In fact it's mostly just Link, and Purah's team of Sheikah scientists.