Babble - Beyond Dimensions

Chapter 11: The one where they cheer you up

They had been walking the whole morning, journeying through the maze that was Hyrule’s Hyrule. It was less than ideal, but it was fine. Wind would still have preferred travelling by boat. The vast ocean, the salty breeze and the warm, sun on one’s face were incomparable.

Was Wind missing his Hyrule? A lot, to be honest.

Would he let the others know? No way. He already was the youngest of them. They probably wouldn’t take him serious anymore if they knew he was having something as childish as homesickness.

So he swallowed his wishes and dealt. At least his sister kept sending him letters to keep him on top of the situation. It helped a lot if he were to be honest.

And once he got home and Tetra found him he may as well start digging his own grave. That was something to consider, too, if the letters were to be trusted.

Glancing to his side he saw Babble nervously looking around, always making sure to have at least one Link in every direction in front of them.. The bubbly persona from yesterday was gone and left only a twitching anxious mess behind. It was rather concerning and somehow managed to alarm every single big brother instinct that Wind possessed, regardless the fact that Babble obviously was older than him.

Wind would have liked to ask them what the problem was, but sadly there still was the language barrier. It had become pretty infuriating.

And if Wind was to judge, he was obviously not the only one alarmed by the 180 change in Babble’s behavior (a good proof example was the worried glances Wild kept sending Babble).

But not only Babble had changed, but so had Legend. The most experienced of the heroes seemed a little down, a little quieter and kept as far as he physically could away from Babble. It was obvious and Wind knew that everyone else had realized it, too, but wouldn’t try to press on it. They all had their fair share of trauma and if something was brought up, everyone would try to deal with it by themselves or seek help, or if it got too bad the others would indirectly do their best to help, whether the hero in question would like it or not.

But then again, none of them could understand Babble, so it was not like they could ask for help, either. Which wasn’t helpful at all and brought him back to the beginning of his thoughts.

Because if he were to guess it was probably a little homesickness that Babble felt. It had been now over a day since they first met, and it had been quite obvious that Babble was not a person from Wild’s Hyrule. They weren’t one from Hyrule’s Hyrule either, if someone let Wind judge by their scared glances.

So when they made lunch break in a small forest Wind tried to convince Babble to come explore with him. It was a little harder than planned to get them up and going, but when Four joined in, obviously having assessed Babble’s mental situation as needing a distraction either, they finally managed to convince them.

The two of them led Babble away a little from the rest of the group and then stood there, not having thought any further. Babble twitched at every little sound the forest made meanwhile and clutched their bag against them as if it was something holy that needed protection with their life.

Finally Wind got an idea. Quickly pulling out his sword, he cut down some gras. Some action, even if it was something as futile as cutting gras, always seemed to help distract his mind. Also he usually got some rupees out of it.

Just like in this case.

Grinning he turned to the other two and paused. Four had cocked his head aside and smiled fondly and Babble…well, Babble’s eyes were wide as saucers and their mouth was hanging open as they unabashed stared at the two fist sized green rupees that had appeared where Wind had cut gras.