Babble - Beyond Dimensions

Chapter 4: The one where they realize you're not from around here

After packing up, the group continued their journey, throughout which Wild watched Babble carefully. The person was sweet and spoke with whoever was nearest, even though they definitely knew that they couldn’t understand them.

Most perplexing was that Babble simply did not seem to care. They grinned and babbled on, looked around with those gleaming gigantic innocent eyes that apparently had never seen monsters nor murder.

And Wild wondered how such a sweet person had managed to sprout from the harsh environment that was his Hyrule.

It was then that realization dawned upon him. Babble was not from his Hyrule. And Wild felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over him.

Babble was definitely not from his Hyrule, that explained their language and curiosity and unknowledge about the yiga and monsters.

“Twi?” he whispered to his companion. “Yes, cub, what is it?” the hero of twilight inquired. “Babble” Wild whispered. “They’re not from my Hyrule.”

“Yes” his mentor agreed. “I already had a similar thought. I think the others have also picked up upon that little tidbit by now.” “But where are they from then?” Wild asked, curious.

Twilight frowned, thoughtful: “I honestly have no idea. Probably a peacefuller time. Or maybe even a completely new Hyrule none of us know about yet.”

Wild’s eyes widened upon that implication: “You don’t think...?” “It could be, we don’t understand them after all, they could be anyone, even another hero” Twilight muttered.

Wild chewed his lips in thought…that last theory would actually make more sense than he’d like. But why did Babble if they were another incarnation of the hero not have any weapons on them at all? Dread settled into his stomach when he realized that this was probably Babble’s first adventure. The innocence that had been robbed from them all would soon be stripped of Babble as well.

In that moment he knew he could not let that happen, no matter what. Like Twilight was for Wild, Wild would try his best to be the mentor for this new hero. He was sure that once the others came to the same conclusion, they would join right in on his quest to protect the person’s innocence.

Up ahead Babble gave a surprised squeak when they crossed the snowline. They stood there, shivering in their green shirt (a Poloshirt) and light blue trousers (jeans) for a moment, before promptly stumbling back, nearly bowling over Wind, who had stood next to them. Babble’s eyes widened almost comically from where they had landed clumsily on their butt, their feet clad in strange red and white shoes sprawled out beside them.

“What is it, Babble?” Wind asked, stepping closer to the person. “Have you never seen snow before, too?”

Babble was quiet for a moment and simply stared at the snowfall line in front of them. Then they shot to their feet squealing and jumped over the line once more, then back, forth, back, forth….

None of the heroes could hide their smirks at Babble’s excited reaction, all of them already too used to the oddities of Wild’s Hyrule to care much anymore about that special phenomena.

“They’re not from around here, are they?” Hyrule muttered and everyone nodded in unison, the rest hung unsaid between them.

When the excitement died down a little, everyone prepared for the colder temperatures that they soon would have to suffer. They used and shared equipment as best as they could to keep warm and then they continued on their trip to where they had heard the portal was located.

Wild gave a warm cape with a hood to Babble, who silently agreed and quietly babbled something Wild was 99% sure was a “Thank you”. And so he answered in kind: “You’re welcome.”

Babble grinned and nodded but when he offered something spicy so they may keep warmer, Babble shook their head and scrunched up their nose in distaste. Nothing spicy for Babble, Wilds inner chief noted quickly down for future reference.

They traveled quietly and peacefully until suddenly Warriors gave a shout of alarm. When they turned to him they saw snow dripping down the back of his head.

Next to them Babble whistled inconspicuously, only stopping for a second to give a grin and a bad imitation of the glare Warriors had sent them all the time before quickly skipping away.

The glare Warriors gave Babble was legendary and they all became the receiving end of it when Legend, Wind and even Wild himself couldn’t help but snicker.

“Can’t handle a bit of cold?” Legend mocked and received a fist full of snow into his grinning face. What followed was a snowball fight that would be sung about even centuries later.

Sadly their joy wouldn’t last because soon the air was once more cut through with the screams of Babble who apparently had wandered off to avoid the snowball fight. The person rushed through their rows, wildly gesticulating, before quickly ducking into the debatable safety of hiding behind a boulder.

And just then suddenly things got very fast very cold because there were goddesses knows how many ice monsters: Multiple Frost Taluses (goddesses, there were more?! He thought he had slayed them all!) and Ice Wizzrobes.

“Sh*t” thought Wild and then already most of their group, surprised by the sheer number of enemies, were shock frosted.

“Sh*t” he thought, when he went to grab some fire arrows out of his sheikah slate, only to realize he had none left. After the fight with the bokoblins, he had forgotten to restock when they were in the village because of the drama Babble had made.

This was not good. Not good at all.