BotW/TotK Fanfic · 2:00am Jul 24th, 2023
The new Zelda games have given me great enjoyment, and a wistful longing for more which is familiar to many in the MLP community. The Rito in particular have my interest, being in my opinion the best constructed of the races with sadly the least overall screen time. This happy union of heart and mind lured me to write a brief (2k word) fanfic interpretation of the events of Breath of the Wild from Teba's perspective, which I have attached under the page break for anyone interested. It includes an outsider's view of Link, a slight expansion on events, and giant birdfriend cuddles.
Champion
My time with the champion was
No, that’s not right.
My time with Link was brief. I don’t know why he chose to come first to the Rito and tame our divine beast, for its threat was more existential than immediate. Looming over our village, Vah Medoh fired only in paradoxical defense at any of us who flew too close. I know this detente would have been temporary if the Calamity was not repulsed, but even now I wonder if we Rito would have done better to aid the others rather then endlessly plot our next, futile attack. I suppose it rankled that something could defeat us in our own skies, and we are nothing if not proud.
I, no less than the others. I am skilled, but it was more luck that lead me to be one of the few warriors left uninjured from our assaults on Vah Medoh. I spent my time at the flight range, locked in a fit of what I now recognize as cringing vanity. I practiced my dives, my swoops, my aim, thinking that if I could but disable its defenses I could get close and… what then, I did not consider. Every bomb arrow in Hyrule could not dent the beast. But still I practiced and planned, and I suppose it did all come to good in the end.
I saw Link’s approach from the next mountain over, trudging through the snow wearing a curious mix of a Rito ruby headdress and an old green coat of unknown make. Implacable, uncomplaining, quiet. Two lizals ambushed him, he dispatched them both and continued his jog. Anyone who has watched him for any time knows what I am speaking of. He would not stop moving, would barely catch his breath after a life-or-death struggle before running or climbing on.
Link spoke quick, low, and serious, sitting by my fire in the bare shelter of the flight range’s open hut. He could purify Vah Medoh, bring it around to the side of the Rito where it was always meant to be. By then my headstrong impulse had resolved into quiet despair masked by endless training, and when he resisted my first efforts to send him away I allowed myself to reconsider. His earnest simplicity, his open-faced claim to be able to tame the divine beasts. Indeed, his quest from peak to valley to do just that… he was easy to believe, easy to trust.
We trained for a week together. He slept on the ground next to the fire, then we would wake and practice or hunt. Everything was focused on our own survival or enduring what came next.
He was so quiet. Those who know him know. I would complain, or comment, even give him compliments, and he would only perhaps shrug or nod. If that could not suffice he would speak to answer a question, then fall again into silence. It might have felt arrogant from another, but to look in his earnest blue eyes was to see not one hint of haughty pride. He almost seemed a machine at times – doing tasks, going through our drills, eating too quickly to enjoy it.
I know why everyone is tempted to only call him by his title. He is the Champion of Hyrule. His every moment was bent to its salvation, with no wasted breath or time, falling again and again to rise and heave himself back to the fray. He had no family, perhaps no close friends. Like a whirlwind for justice, racing from place to place, inflicting violence and departing before those saved could ask his name. It is comforting and simple to call him Champion, to think of him as a legend made manifest bringing salvation.
He is not just that. He is Link.
He took a hard fall on the third day and cracked his shoulder. I saw him bleed, heard him grunt in pain as I bore him to the shelter. He rubbed on a fairy-dust potion and was back at it before evening.
I saw him scowl when the day’s hunt found nothing but mushrooms, and stubbornly shove them between his lips.
He woke me in the middle of the night with drawn sword, leaped and shouting at a noise outside our shelter. It was a wandering elk, and nothing more.
“What would attack us all the way up here?” I snapped.
“Yiga,” he said, and sat back down.
The word meant nothing to me then, but I had the wisdom to wonder if he slept every night like that. Nerves ever on a knife’s edge, ready to explode at an errant rustle of wind. Traveling alone, always alone. No Hylian, Zora, or Gerudo could keep up with his ever-desperate pace, and now I know there was a risk of treachery besides.
But what of us Rito?
I broached it to him, and he shook his head. His work needed to remain low, seeking bare clues in every hut and copse. He could not simply fly from place to place. Worse, his path would lead through the deserts of the Gerudo next: no place for any sensible Rito. When we were done, he would return to his natural state. Alone.
Every sentence from his mouth needed its own question to pry loose, but I was growing curious and a little worried for him. Was he not tired? Would he be alright?
Nod, smile, shrug. He was fine.
(He had to be fine. All Hyrule was counting on him.)
He woke me up the next night, sword in hand as he charged screaming from our shelter. This time it was an arctic fox. At least it furnished a reasonable breakfast.
The day came. You know the story. We disabled Vah Medoh’s guns, but not before it got a piece of me. I had meant to remain, to cover him from the sky as he explored. I thought even of flying underneath, ready to catch him as he made one perilous leap after another to reach all the terminals. But I couldn’t maintain a stable flight. Like everyone else who thought they might fight alongside Link, I would have been a burden.
So I left. And he was alone.
Then the beast turned blue. It perched atop Rito Village as a watchful protector, waiting for the moment to play its part in the final battle on the side of Good.
Down he floated, hanging from his para-glider. The triumphant hero.
I don’t know how he was able to hold on. A frozen wound ran down his shoulder, leaking chilly blood into a green coat turned white with frost. His eye was blackened, and the ruby gem in his headdress was cracked from absorbing so much chill. He moved stiffly, landing without comment before making his way to our communal fire. He cooked and ate, rubbed more fairy dust on his wound, and sat down to sleep. No word spoken. No Rito welcomed him, which shocked me until I remembered it was just us two at the flight range. I told my wife on returning, and I think it was the elder who sent Link out to find me. Everyone else was in the dark. He was a mere Hylian traveler to the others, with the good sense to buy cold weather gear before leaving. Nekk said he palmed valuable gems just to afford the headdress.
Was that foolish of Link? With all our fates resting on his shoulders, does he not have a right to demand all the help he needs? A full outfit fit for the highest mountains, and all the arrows and cooked meat he can carry? And an escort, every bold Rito warrior at his command?
But then he would not be Link. I cannot even picture his kindly face in a cold sneer of command, loudly giving orders to be obeyed.
There he sat on the hard wood, exposed to the wind for we Rito build no walls. Slapped-on ointments for his injuries, unseasoned meat and roast apples for his supper. Sitting, about to sleep with sword in his grip, thence to awake and press on without one word to those he saved.
Alone.
But not tonight. Just once, not this night.
My dear wife agreed, and we brought him to our abode. We had him bathe properly in heated water, presented him with a fine clean jacket I bought from Nekk to replace his tattered green. Then we took him into our hammock, had him lay between us as we puffed our feathers for the night. Even though them I could feel how cold he still was, lingered from that battle above the clouds. He warmed slowly in our embrace, protesting not at all. He merely smiled, nodded, although at every step he did hesitate. So unused to gifts, to appreciation, to… to what he deserved.
I felt a last, chilly wet trickle seep through my feathers as we went to sleep. I wonder if he cried, silent as ever. But that may be sentimental embellishment. Perhaps it was a little bathwater.
I wish he would have stayed longer. We could have fished and hunted in greater ease, returning each day to warmth and song.
Instead, he left. I knew he would. I was smart and prepared arrows and food the night before, for if I gathered them that morning he would have been gone. We packed his bag, and as a last thought I gave him one of our bows. He thanked me in two words, and was on his way.
But our eyes met, before he turned. I think I could see the gratitude, the affection in those blue eyes. The sense that he knew that I knew he was not just the champion, not merely a legend from out of time to set the world right.
He is Link, and he is my friend.
We met a few times after, always so briefly. Always our eyes meet, and I am again struck with affection. And then he is off, dragged along by his princess and now striving again to save the world after the castle began to float and the sky began to fall. He will succeed. He is the champion.
I wonder if after this new calamity is put right, the world will need no more champions in our lifetime. I wonder if his princess might then release him, and what he might do. He seems ill-fit to be a dull farmer, or to rule some part of the kingdom in Zelda’s name.
A solitary life would suit him, but not too solitary. Game and fish in the brisk forests of Rito lands, and in the village there could be made a nest with walls as the Hylians do. I wonder if when his long, long battle is over he might rest his wings here, and we might be friends as friends ought to be, sharing joys and feasts and laughter. It would be a good life, a good end to his endless struggle. I think he would enjoy it.
I will not speak of it yet. The sky yet falls, and his war is not won.
After, though. There will be an after for all of us, and Link as well. There will come a time when he need not be alone anymore.
That nonchalant Link just wandering into an NPC's life.
That constant motion.
That silent protagonist.
That look into a life in the wilds.
That taste of living with a target on your back.
That genuine gratitude and appreciation.
Them Rito married couple cuddles!
That time to leave for the next problem to solve...
'Twas good.
Wish I had the writing chops to express how nice this was, how much I enjoyed it, and how much it left me wanting more (like any truly good experience).
edit:
(I didn't pay attention to who authored the post before reading. One engrossing vignette later and I simply must know who made it happen. Ah! I shouldn't be surprised that it was-)
That Rune Soldier Dan!
Delightful stuff... though given my personal experience with BotW, it's only half of the story. You left out the bits where Link would find some bizarre arrangement of stones or pinwheel improbably placed at a mountain peak, do something incomprehensible, and come away with a golden seed with a distinctive smell. Or that time he vanished in tendrils of blue light for three days because he "forgot something."
And, of course, Tulin's tales of what happened several years later, with Link supergluing monster horns to the decayed weapons they'd scavenge from the landscape while using ancient ships of legend as trampolines, was even more surreal. But that's the Champion for you; he presses onward no matter how great or how ridiculous the task... as long as something else doesn't briefly catch his notice.
In all seriousness, great work in capturing the eerie, silent juggernaut that is the Hero of the Wilds at work, and in giving him something approaching a suitable reward for all he's done. Rupees are one thing; emotional support is quite another.
Link is this fascinating entity. A superhuman heroic cryptid who is as quiet as he is dangerous, felling monsters from the weakest red Bokoblin to Ganon/dorf himself.
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Tulin, at dinner: "And then Link attached one of those bombs to his sword, and before I could say anything he swung and it exploded, knocking him off. Dad, I think he died. A fairy flew from his pocket and zipped around, bringing him back. But he was still plummeting to the ground, and before I could reach him he whipped out his glider and managed to land where the shrine was. We lost about an hour of effort getting back up to the floating ships. I didn't want to ask him why he put a bomb on his sword but I kinda did, and he just shrugged and smiled."
Teba, quietly putting down his fish: "Now, son. I'm sure you wouldn't want Link or I to flap beak on embarrassing things that you've done, so do him the same favor and keep this between us three."
"Dad, is he okay?"
"No he isn't, Tulin. That's why he needs good friends."
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Shucks, thank you~
Man, the Rito were such a bit race that their Champion was the only one to be injured in BotW, also is the only one not also related to the past Champion, and their Sage is the only one that isn't also their Champion.