☙ Fairweather Friend ❧

Chapter Note: Don't mind this! This is a test of fic text! This song was the music we kept playing the entire time we wrote this. I hope to get it stuck in your head too.

“So, y’ stole my boomerang again?” Twilight scolds, half-scowling and half grinning. It’s a wolfish expression for sure.

“I didn’t steal anything!”

And yet, that big, gaudy, uneven, non-aerodynamic, wing-shaped boomerang is in Wind’s satchel. How? Certainly, this isn’t his fault. Sure, it is a really pretty weapon, and sure, Wind is a pirate — but he is also a hero. He doesn’t steal unless it is cool or morally correct or necessary or very, very funny to do so.

If anything, this boomerang situation has to be a joke played on him.

Twilight lowers his voice. “It was a lil’ funny the first time, but if I find this thing missin’ from my kit in the middle of a fight, that’s gonna be a problem.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“That’s why I’m askin’ you to stop.”

Well, how is Wind supposed to stop doing something he isn’t even doing in the first place?

Wait, that’s easy. Find the culprit and give ‘em what for.

“LEGEND!” Wind bellows.

The veteran swears and blearily rolls over in his makeshift bed. “What d’you want, pipsqueak? I’m trying to sleep.”

“Why? We’re gonna pick up camp soon anyway, Lege.”

“Do tell that to someone who cares.”

Before Legend can roll away again, Wind sits on him, glowering. Twilight looks tempted to join in. “Are you the one putting Twi’s boomerang in my bag every night?” Wind says, ready to begin the interrogation.

Legend is not a cooperative victim. He pulls his pillow over his head. “Fuck no? Stop accusing me of nonsense?”

“But it’s obvious, isn’t it? I’ve been on the same night shift as Wild for the past week, Time wouldn’t do this to Twilight, Four wouldn’t do this to me, the captain’s way more into puns than pranks, and Rulie and Sky are too innocent to even accuse. That leaves you as the most obvious culprit. Admit it!”

His voice is muffled under the pillow. “I did not do shit.”

“CONFESS!”

Wind sputters as Lege shoots up and starts beaning him with the pillow. Shortly thereafter, Twilight makes up his mind and decides to help sit on Legend. For a minute, it looks like Wars might break up the fight — but actually, he helps them sit on Legend too. It only really breaks up after Wild and Rulie jump in to save nefarious ol’ Legend, and get them all in trouble by waking up Sky in the process.

In short? Wind does not get that confession out of the vet.

•△•▽•△•

But he does stay up late the next night, waiting with bated breath to catch the thief in action.

(Or, smuggler, rather? Boomerang-shuffler? Wind-blaming-jerk? Culprit’s too generic, you need some pizzazz for this sort of thing.)

Trying to come up with the right label for the committer of the crime keeps him up for a while, but admittedly, trying to stay awake while pretending to be normally asleep in your relatively cozy cot on a nice balmy night in Twi’s cricket-chirpy Hyrule is not an easy task.

Just as he starts dozing off for real, a purposeful breeze tickles his ear.

Ah-ha!

Wind scrambles out of his cot as stealthily as anybody can manage when they’re half-asleep. He immediately knocks heads with the person hunched over his bag. White-hot pain shoots him the rest of the way awake.

Said person happens to have a pink streak in his hair and is handling a gaudy boomerang red-handed.

Wind’s eyes widen. “You—!”

“SHHH!”

Wind pipes down as a very frazzled-looking Legend slaps a hand over his mouth.

“I didn’t do jack shit!” Legend whisper-yells.

But the boomerang is in his grasp. Wind raises one eyebrow and very pointedly glances back and forth between the boomerang, and Legend’s face, and the boomerang, and Legend’s face, until eventually Legend shifts his hand to cover Wind’s eyes instead.

“Don’t look at me like that. I stayed up late to clear my name,” his brother-in-spirit insists. “You would not believe what I just saw. This thing flew into your bag of its own accord!”

Wind tries to raise an eyebrow again. Legend can at least feel that, if not see it.

“Oh, great. Y’all got ahold of my boomerang again, I see,” Twilight says, scaring the snot out of them both. Wind learns a brand new swear from Legend. It’s a rude thing to say about a Great Fairy, and he will repeat it with great discretion.

“Hi, Twi,” Wind whispers sheepishly. “What’re you awake for?”

“I’m on watch with Time and the old man’s pacin’ the perimeter right now. So, I figured, I’d check my bag and see if one of you was messin’ around with my stuff again.”

He levels Legend a look that forecasts future sitting-on-you incidents.

“Your boomerang moved. By its fucking self,” Legend continues to swear. “This is magic. We all know it’s magic. If anybody can tell you what’s going on with this thing, it has to be me.”

“How do you even know it’s magic?” Wind says suspiciously.

Legend raises an eyebrow. “You’ve seen Twi use it, right?”

Oh yeah. In hindsight, a boomerang that surrounds itself in blustery, green-smelling winds and darts between enemies with just a glance from Twi is probably magical.

Hang on a sec.

“If it’s a magic item, then how is Twi even wielding it? Don’t magic items take... you know... magic? To use?” Wind would know; he’d felt the deku leaf and elemental arrows drain his paltry reserves dry way too many times in his original quest. “And isn’t Twilight, like, the guy with just about zero personal magic capacity?”

Twilight snorts. “Don’t need it.”

“Yeah, you sure don’t, not when every magic item the goddesses hand you happens to come with its own personal battery,” Legend snarks, shaking the boomerang at him. “Between your spinner and your dominion rod, I wouldn’t be surprised if this one—”

He’s cut off short as the boomerang jerks out of his hands — smacking him upside the chin — and blusters on into the woods.

A horrified look from Twilight is enough to motivate all three of them to chase after it.

•△•▽•△•

Eventually, they find the boomerang again. They also find Time. They specifically find Time having what seems to be a friendly moonlit chat with the very animate inanimate object.

“In love? Yes, I suppose I can relate to that,” Time whispers.

A gentle breeze stirs around the boomerang. Baffled, the three of them start tip-toeing as they approach.

“Oh, my marriage is going well. I think it will remain well in the future, too, despite our current distance. On a related note... take good care of Twilight.”

The breeze stirs more vigorously.

“Right behind us? Ahh.” Time turns around, cradling the boomerang in his hands. (Since when did he become a professional boomerang wrangler.) As they slink closer, the old man holds it out. “Twilight! Why did you not tell me that there was a fairy inhabiting the gale boomerang? I would have been happy to meet her sooner.”

What.

Looking mortified, Twilight drops to his knees.

“Twilight?”

“LIGHT SPIRITS. I JUST PLUM FORGOT. SHE ONLY TALKED TO ME ONE TIME.”

“And to one Time just now,” Legend snickers.

The boomerang escapes Time’s hands and whacks Legend in the shoulder before returning to Twilight. “She doesn’t appreciate what you have to say about Great Fairies, veteran,” Time adds.

Legend swears again, but very quietly.

Wind crosses his arms. “So, why’s she in my satchel?”

“She’s taken a liking to your windwaker. If you would kindly agree to store her in the same bag as the baton, then she will stop shuffling herself around at night.”

That was it?

Magic wind fairy likes magic wind wand?

Well, that was anticlimactic.

As they ponder her demands, Wind and Twi squint at each other with thoughtfulness and dismay.

“I need that boomerang in battle,” Twi says.

“How do you know that the windwaker isn’t important for me to use in battle?”

“Probably ‘cause you don’t ever use it in battle. How ‘bout we split the difference? We put ‘em both in the same lil’ pouch; you get the pouch at night; I get it by day. If you need your windy wand thingy, I can hand it over whenever. Deal?”

“Deal.”

•△•▽•△•

Legend is smug but bag-eyed the next morning. “Now my name is cleared,” he tells Wind. “Next time, think twice before you accuse me at random.”

Sure, Legend didn’t actually do anything this time, but... “You’re still very blamable,” Wind sagely points out. “Besides, blaming you meant that you had enough motivation to help me solve the mystery! I think the moral of this story is that blaming Legend solves problems faster.”

Suddenly, Legend looks stricken.

“Also, stiiiiill sittin’ on you,” Twilight announces before tackling him to the ground.

This time, they all get in trouble by waking up Four.