Chapter Text
Last night I dreamed there was a big snake soaring through the sky.
Out from a chasm it came…and into a chasm it went. When I saw how big it was, I put on my best disguise until it passed.
If I ever really saw something that big, I’d probably faint. I’m glad it was just a dream.
I’m also glad I haven’t been skipping my new disguise training.
- Yiga journal entry
Scattered footsteps broke the silence of Gerudo Town. Three young girls tiptoed in sync under the moonlight, steering through the main plaza but squeezing behind the empty stalls to avoid detection from the guards stationed at the north gate.
Rearing up to a house on their right, they crept up to the two figures lying on the thick purple mat just outside. A girl several years their senior lay in a deep sleep, limbs sprawled in a bid to claim the space all to herself.
“Aubri,” one of them whispered as she nudged her shoulder. No response.
Another patted her cheek as the first kept shaking. “Aubri – Aubri, please. We need you.”
The third had a better idea. She took off her earring, the metal growing cold from the night air, and poked her stomach.
“Gah!” Aubri shot up with a stifled gasp. “I’m up, I’m up!”
Before she could protest she was stopped by three little hands pressing into her face with a shoosh motion, pointing to the snoring caretaker beside her, who, to their luck was an even deeper sleeper than her.
“Follow us,” they whispered.
They took the familiar route north of Fegran’s house and up the stairway by the Sand-Seal Rental shop, leading to a wide alcove stored with various weapons and food crates. Aubri already knew the drill, heaving a crate out of the alcove under their expectant stares.
She hopped onto the crate and ushered them forward. One by one she held out her hands and let each girl use them as footing to reach the rocky top of the town’s outer walls.
After hoisting herself up with ease she loitered closely behind the others as they took in the sight of the mountains beyond. The Gerudo Highlands stretched out before them, their flat snow-topped peaks glinting in the moonlight far above the bright speckled dots of electric keese flapping across the dunes. Aubri sighed and watched cold vapour escape her mouth. This sight was nothing special to her.
She knew the children were captivated by something else.
“Here she comes,” whispered Kalani. “She’s so pretty.”
“Her mane is so fluffy,” Dalia squeaked. “Some day I’ll feed her some berries and she’ll let me pet it.”
“No you won’t, because she’ll zap you!” said Pearle.
“Actually, my mama says if I’m extra helpful at the stall this week Lady Riju will let me wear the Thunder Helm. Then I’ll pet her fluffy mane without getting zapped, we’ll fly through the sky together and we’ll be best friends.”
Pearle was about to retort when another claim grabbed her attention.
“And her wavy horn, shiny as always.”
“Nice obser-bation Aubri. Except,” Pearle piped up, “last time you said she had a straight horn.” That girl had the air of wit beyond her years and was always eager to show it.
“I wasn’t wearing my glasses. Lay off.”
Kalani sensed a disagreement brewing and stepped in. “It’s okay if you can’t see her. You’re a big vai now, and when we can’t see her that means we’ll be big vais too and we get to explore.”
Pearle leaned forward and raised a finger, “Pasha’s sixteen and she can still see her."
“Why do you trust Pasha?” Aubri snapped. “Maybe she’s a bigger liar than me.”
Dalia sensed nothing and kept musing. “I’m sorry you can’t see her. When we become best friends I’ll ask her why, so we can sort out this mistake and maybe she’ll be friends with you too.”
“My mum says it’s because her mum let her see things a young vai shouldn’t see.”
“Yeah? She said that?” Aubri sauntered forward. Her next words were spat through gritted teeth. “And my mum said you’ll all leave home like lambs to the slaughter.”
Aubri knew it was a mistake the second it left her mouth, but it was too late. Pearle, the only one who knew what slaughter meant but not the idiom it formed, was sent into tears.
“Y - you’re not going to scare me this time! My mum says big vais who try to be scary are just hiding their own scaredness.” At that she leapt down onto the crate by herself and ran out of their sights.
“Ah – Pearle! Calm down before you get us into trouble!” The others said as they swiftly followed. But before Kalani left she made one last appeal.
“I know she said something bad. But if you keep making Pearle cry, we won’t want to play with you anymore.”
“Fine then. Your mums will ban you all from being with someone like me anyway.”
Aubri let them disappear and sat down with her arms wrapped around her knees, facing the empty horizon. Sudden shouts from the north gate soldiers erupted through the silence again, but before she could invent an excuse for her late-night wandering she spotted the source of their anger.
“Please, it’s my son.”
It was a grown man holding a small child in a blanket.
“No voe are allowed in Gerudo Town. Step back.”
“Can’t you see we’re not going to hurt you? He’s suffering from frostbite. I don’t know how long he has left, he’s in urgent need of shelter, there’s nowhere around for – “
“Kara Kara Bazaar is not far from here. You will have passed it en route.”
“We were attacked by monsters on the path and I have neither the energy nor hands to fight them off again!” His voice cracked more with each plea.
“I will send a soldier to escort you. Dorrah!” The other guard stepped forward to assist.
The man’s voice grew stronger. “He needs shelter now. I’ll gladly stay out here if it means you can take my son into the warm. He may be a voe but he’s only a child. Please, don’t be responsible for my boy’s death.”
Dorrah began to waver, but the first only raised her spear. “The more you appeal to emotion, the more I suspect this is another Yiga plot.”
The man laughed with disbelief. “What?! Unbelievable… How callous do you have to be to accuse a father and son in need of being crooks? If we were m - “
“No voe are allowed in Gerudo Town.”
“Some day.” He staggered backwards. “Some day things will change. Traditions will fall out of favour, Gerudo Town will become a place for everyone…“ He caught sight of Aubri nestled on the roof and the two locked into a second of awkward eye contact. “…And your sheltered vehvis will be all the happier for it.” He stormed off with purpose and faded into the oncoming sandstorm.
“Aubri!” A familiar voice hissed from behind. “The children told me you’d be up here again. Get down from there right now before they see you!”
She cursed herself. If Fegran was already this angry what did she have to lose by jumping off the other side and absconding with a sand seal? It would be harder this time with that Divine Beast on the loose.
Then they both heard chattering from the guards. “Lots of voe clamouring at the walls to get a peek at us tonight. More so than usual.”
“Keep your guard up,” said the other. “This isn’t the first time the Yiga have tried underhanded schemes to get Riju’s heirloom, and it won’t be the last.”
As Fegran saw Aubri clutch her stomach tightly at the mention of this, her tone softened.
“I promise I won’t stay mad if you come down now.” Aubri complied. She met her halfway and held her hand as she hopped down the wall. “There we go.”
Aubri resolutely avoided her gaze as if anticipating what she would say next.
“I know your mother taught you many great things, but it’s not normal to use such intense language at vais much younger than you.”
Aubri said nothing and shut her eyes tight.
Fegran offered a reassuring smile in vain and patted her hair. “She’ll come back to see you soon. She will.”
“She promised that a year ago,” Aubri said to the floor.
“Your mother is a remarkable fighter, but she’s not immortal. She has her limits and her mission will take time, but it will be done.” Fegran was now wrapping her arm round her shoulder and affectionately squeezing her. “And when it is, home will be safer for the both of you.”
That is if they don’t find a reason to arrest her, Aubri thought. But seeing how Fegran smothered her more with each protest, she dropped it.
As they lay back on the mat she asked “Why can’t I just leave now? I’m strong. I can go help her.”
“Because it’s against the rules” Fegran said between a yawn. “We’ve been through this.”
Aubri huffed. “Rules were made to be broken.”
“You have to learn the rules first,” and at that she turned over, her words drifting to a tired murmur. “The key to being strong is getting a good night’s sleep.”
She didn’t sleep, but lay on her back staring up at the boundless sky from which no dragon had ever appeared for her. Not even before she saw the world for what it was.
* * *
It was happening again, that same nightmare.
I must have let sleep take me again, and this is my punishment, he thought.
Except this time he was trapped under the chasm it dropped into, in this cramped purgatory infested with monsters and gloom. This time the snake was yellow instead of the blue he knew well, and instead of a chilling breeze it produced the one natural nuisance he hated more than anything else Hylia had ever conceived to torment her people.
His hair stood on end and he thought he heard an ominous crackling issuing from the eightfold blade at his hip. Tossing it in a panic, he watched it skid across the cliffside and tumble down the nearest canyon before remembering this place had no thunderclouds.
The snake was fast approaching and would soon catch him in its sights. There was nothing to do but disguise himself as an unassuming puffshroom and pray the creature wasn’t an omnivore.
He waited and waited for the beast to pass, but strong electric currents in the air made him too aware of the stimuli his disguise shouldn’t feel; his spikey hair growing static again, threatening to break the illusion.
There was nothing else to do but think about sponginess. He was a spongy puffshroom. He didn’t have hair, and he didn’t think about words, because fungi don’t have the cognitive abilities for speech. And they definitely don’t think about family.
They can’t see, hear or smell either. Picture nothing but the void.
The snake looked directly at him and everything went black.