New Home - BotW Link x Reader (Undergoing Revisions)

Chapter 32 - Seared and Scarred

Link peeked out when the rain at last appeared to stop, and I blearily watched as he did so. After I finished snipping his bangs, we'd talked for a while, and of nothing of value, not really.

Unable to scrounge anything together to eat, all we were able to do was snack on what little provisions we just so happened to keep in our pockets - a pouch of dried berries from my own pocket and, go figure, nothing from Link so we had to share. Though we were still hungry, we had few other options but to wait out the storm, so wait it out we did.

"It's over," Link said at last, and I sat up, stretching my arms above my head. I was met with a few satisfying pops of joins and bones, and I relaxed with a content sigh. Link was already gathering up our things and I joined him in doing so. We tied our tunics to our waists, then began the climb down.

I dropped down the last few feet and landed in a puddle, sending rainwater and mud splashing around but I didn't mind. I turned and faced the ever-darkening world. The clouds of the storm had hung down about the earth like a blanket, and now that the clouds had cleared, one might have expected it to be brighter out - if not for the fact that it was by now nighttime.

The moon was visible through the breaks in the trees, a waxing gibbous that cast its glorious and reflected light down at us. The entire world seemed to take on a ghostly blue hue, and I curled and uncurled my fingers to work the tension from them after my arduous climb. Link stood next to me, cracking his neck to one side and then to the next.

"It's a beautiful night," I said, because it was.

I began to walk further from the rock and into the forest. The trees were considerably spread out here. This wasn't the tight and almost suffocating forests of Necluda, this was the rather uncharted and unruly land between Hebra and Central Hyrule.

The land here was flat anyway, and I realized right away that maybe I should let Link lead, considering I had no idea where the horses had gone to - but for this moment in time, I was content just to walk slow, my fingers linked behind my back, looking up at the fractured canvas of sky I could see through the branches.

I let my gaze catch on different things, on this constellation or there on the moon, and when an owl passed through, I let my eyes follow it as it dove low through the trees, flying on silent wings and weaving in and out from between the trunks.

When something golden and glowing appeared just before me, I smiled, because I'd heard of these but had never seen one for myself. They didn't live out east, not as far east as I had grown up, and so this was my first time seeing them.

It was my first time seeing them, but I knew exactly what they were.

—

She was right; it was a beautiful night.

Link followed from a few paces back, content with the slow and lazy pace she took up. From here, a few feet away, he was able to watch the way she took in her surroundings. She had been looking up at the stars but certainly there were more stars residing in her eyes than in the sky; the pale shade the entire world seemed to take on right now was ghostly for most, but heavenly for her. She looked as though she lived for the moonlight, for the way it shone down and made her eyes shine.

Her gaze was soft, and when an owl dove down, she lowered her gaze to watch it fly past. Even long after it disappeared into the trees, she kept her gaze directed ahead of her, not at all perturbed by the idea that Stalfos might be lingering beneath the dirt at their feet, waiting for an opportunity to spring up and catch them off guard.

He allowed her to exist as such, bathed in the light of the moon. He elected himself to be diligent, and he rested his hand upon the pommel of his sword.