A/N: Written after spending far too much time looking for new (i.e. FUN) ways to fuck shit up in Breath of the Wild. Written because I am 10000% certain that I'm not the only one who's done something like this in the game. Written because I've always wondered what the monsters thought whenever a new and fascinating biped walked into their camp.
The Creature
"Oh — what the fuck is that?" Gop shrieked.
Grunts of surprise echoed around the campfire as everyone laid eyes on the Creature. Og, the strongest and smartest of the four Bokoblins, immediately made his way over to the Creature, snout twitching as he sniffed around the Creature's body. The others followed.
"It's hideous," Ba proclaimed, purring in delight.
Og and the others voiced their agreement. It was hideous — and that was saying something, considering how all of them had witnessed Ubb dancing by the fire without his loincloth just the other day. To put it plainly, the Creature was unlike anything Og had seen before; with more than half of its purple heart-shaped face occupied by two colossal reddish gold orbs, the Creature was truly a sight to behold. As if that wasn't enough, the hideous reds and purples clashed horribly with the kaleidoscope of colors glowing from the spikes that surrounded that terrible face. Og inhaled deeply several times, inhaling past the metallic smell of the iron sledgehammer the Creature wielded on its back. The Creature, if Og had to say it, smelled strangely sweet, almost like those Hylians that he and the others loved to terrorize when any of them wandered too close to the camp. Og inhaled deeply once more. Could it be possible that the Creature was…
No, that was ridiculous. The Creature may have smelled like a Hylian that spent too much time picking those stupid white flowers in the wild, but it certainly looked nothing like a Hylian. Not to mention that Hylians didn't have purple lines over their bodies, or sharp bone-like protrusions on their right arms. Og concluded that the Creature must have eaten so many flower-picking Hylians that it began to smell like them too. What a monstrous thought!
As if in a trance, all four of them followed the Creature as it gingerly made its way towards the log in the middle of the camp, where a modest collection of weapons was propped up for easy access. They watched as the Creature picked up Ubb's wooden shield, along with Og's bat, a vicious weapon carved from the wood of an apple tree and reinforced with some bone.
"That's my shield —" Ubb whined.
"Not anymore, idiot," Og said dismissively.
"And that's your bat," Ubb muttered. "Idiot."
Og ignored him, too perplexed to care. What was the Creature going to do with their weapons? Was it going to lead them on a hunt for Hylian flesh? Or was it going to wash their weapons in the nearby lake for them? Now that Og thought about it, that would have been nice.
The Creature dropped the shield into the fire and lit the bat. Chaos erupted.
"What's it doing?"
"That's my fucking shield!"
"AAAH —"
"Calm down," Og shouted, watching as the Creature gestured slowly at the flaming shield with the fiery bat. "It's — it's strengthening our weapons. I think. Yes, yes — it's reinforcing our weapons with the power of fire! Look at how much stronger your shield is, Ubb! It hurts just to be near it!"
The Creature bobbed its head slightly, as though agreeing with Og. While Ubb leaned in to inspect his newly reinforced shield, Og, Ba, and Gop followed the Creature as it walked back to the log, lighting the other remaining bat, and then dropping Og's flaming bat to the ground by the bow so that it would catch fire too. So entranced were the three by the weapon strengthening ritual and the dance of the flames that they hardly heard Ubb's raucous shrieks — probably of happiness — in the background.
Time passed. They continued to follow the Creature, circling around the fire with it. Og was quite sure it was past their bedtime, but accommodating the Creature was more important than sleep. The three of them were tired, though. Gop in particular was not holding up well, his clumsiness worsening by the minute. By their twentieth lap around the campfire, Gop had singed his arms and legs at least seven times, small black burn marks marring his blue body. Og, observing the burns that glowed gray on Ba's black skin, deducted that Ba wasn't doing that much better.
"Where's Ubb?" Ba asked, breaking the silence.
Og looked around for a red body, continuing to circle the fire.
"I don't know."
"D'you think he's off testing out his new fire shield?" Gop said through a yawn.
"Probably." Og frowned. "Gop, you're too close to the —"
Gop yelped suddenly, his blue body engulfed in flames. They all scattered, except for the Creature, who kept its huge glowing eyes on Gop as he hopped from foot to foot, arms flapping wildly as he tried to put the fire out. He couldn't, and with horror, Og watched as Gop's body crumbled into a pile of ash.
"You did this!" Og and Ba shouted in unison at the Creature.
Neither affirming nor denying the accusation, the Creature bolted towards the trees. Og ran to the log where he last saw his newly fire-reinforced weapon, but it was gone.
"Where's my bat?" Ba roared.
"Where's my bat?" Og roared back.
"What about the bow? Where's the fucking bow?"
Enraged, Og swiveled his silver body, looking for something, anything, to pummel the Creature's marvelously ugly face in. His eyes lit up as he saw a rock. Heavy, sizable, and with a nice sharp edge, Og knew this rock would more than work. He picked it up and hurled it in the general direction that the Creature ran to. A sharp grunt of pain echoed through the darkness, and Og howled with glee.
"You hit me, asshole!" he heard Ba exclaim.
"Then get out of my way!"
By the time Og found and picked up the rock again, Ba had let out a grunt of frustration and begun heading back to the camp.
"What are you doing?" Og yelled.
"I'm tired. Time to sleep."
Og too was tired and longed for sleep. Setting the rock down, he headed back to the camp with Ba, and side by side, they almost immediately fell asleep by the fire, undisturbed by the rain that soon fell.
Come morning, Ba was nowhere to be found, but the Creature was back. A good night of rest under the soft pitter-patter of the rain had done a lot to wash away Og's disgruntled feelings for the Creature's fire rituals and its consequences. Besides, he found himself once again transfixed by the Creature's eyes. They seemed to reverberate from the Creature's head, and Og couldn't help but inch closer each time the Creature moved even slightly away from him. If he leaned in just enough, Og felt as though those eyes could swallow him whole and —
THWACK!
Og blinked, stupidly.
THWACK!
That time, he had braced himself for it.
THWACK!
This time, the iron sledgehammer slammed into Og's midsection and sent him flying. As he landed on his stomach, Og scrambled to get back on his feet, screeching all the while. The nerve of that Creature! That abominable piece of —
Hylian. In the Creature's place stood a tiny Hylian, yellow-haired, bright-eyed, delicate-faced. A male. Or female. Og couldn't really tell under the hood. But that wasn't important. What was important was killing the imposter.
Og hurtled his body at the Hylian, swiping with his hands. Frustratingly, the Hylian dodged with relative ease and ran. A glowing blue cube dropped from the Hylian's arms. Distracted by the blinding blue glow, Og momentarily leaned down to inspect the cube when it promptly exploded in his face. He flew, again. This time, he landed on his back.
"You're gonna have to do better than that," Og wheezed, winded from the fall. "My skin is as hard as a diamond!"
With a battle screech, Og leapt forward. The last thing Og saw was a beam of light shooting towards his face.
As the fire crackled gently before them, Link squinted over Zelda's shoulder, frowning slightly at the notes she had been meticulously inscribing in her tiny notebook.
"That is just as bad as eavesdropping, Sir Knight," Zelda said faintly, but she did nothing to shoo him away. Instead, she absentmindedly rubbed both sides of her left hand on the grass, wiping off some remaining traces of leftover purple war paint lest it smudge over her writing.
"I could've told you that," Link said, still reading over to her shoulder.
"Told me what?" Zelda murmured. She snuggled deeper into the Hylian hood she had borrowed from Link, exhaling into the collar to warm her skin.
"That the skin of silver bokoblins is reinforced with the power of valuable gems, such as rubies, sapphires, and even diamonds."
"Right, but it's another thing to see it for myself," Zelda said placatingly. "Besides, to tell me something, you'd need to talk, wouldn't you?"
Link sulked at the gentle barb. Quietly. Zelda smiled fondly at him.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, reaching behind her makeshift seat. "Here, can you help me put this back in the Sheikah slate?"
Zelda placed the glowing heart-shaped purple mask in Link's hands, along with the Sheikah slate. She looked closely at his face.
"You haven't been following me, have you? On my little field trips? I told you I can take care of myself."
Link said nothing for a while, but finally muttered, "I didn't follow you to protect you. I followed you to watch. And maybe step in if you needed help." A pause, then: "If you don't mind me saying, Princess, it was a damn good show."
Zelda smiled slyly.
"Are you talking about the actual fight with the silver bokoblin or just my stint wearing the Barbarian Armor?"
Link's eyes went wide and he sputtered incoherently, his cheeks and the tips of his ears glowing a rosy red. Zelda burst out laughing, reveling in the newfound freedom to make such delightfully inappropriate jokes. Even Link cracked a smile eventually, his handsome face lighting up in a way that made Zelda's heart pound a little harder in her ribcage.
"No, no, the whole thing was absolutely terrible," Zelda said, still giggling behind her hand. "Sadistic, even. I didn't know I had that in me."
Her smile disappeared, and the night suddenly felt shrouded in more darkness. Link cleared his throat.
"If I may, Princess," Link said delicately, "I think it could have been the mask."
They both looked down at Link's hands, where the mask lay. Its eyes, Zelda noted dazedly, seemed to glow brighter in the night.
"Explain."
Link exhaled through his nostrils loudly.
"I wasn't sure about this because until last night, I had been the only one to wear it, but the mask…I believe it changes the wearer. Or at least that's what I felt whenever I wore it. I started out wearing it because when I would, I noticed that creatures of all sorts wouldn't attack me. But the more I wore it, the more often I craved chaos, and when I couldn't find chaos, I…created it myself. The same way you did."
This was the most that Link had spoken since they had defeated Calamity Ganon together. And to think that it was all because he had witnessed her systematically manipulate and destroy a Bokoblin camp for her studies. A tight, uncomfortable knot sank heavily to the bottom of Zelda's stomach.
"I'm sorry if any of that has changed the way you think of me, Link," she said quietly.
Link shook his head.
"No, Princess, of course not." He paused. "But perhaps there is a better way for you to study these creatures. Without this mask."
Eyebrow raised, Zelda merely intoned, "Oh?"
Link nodded emphatically.
"I know someone who may be able to help." Link peered up at the night sky. "In fact, we may be able to find him right now, if you'd like. Did you by any chance bring back any monster parts with you?"
Wordlessly, Zelda pulled the Sheikah slate from Link's hands and opened the inventory, revealing a grand total of four additional Bokoblin horns, some Bokoblin guts, and a brand new diamond. Link nodded encouragingly.
"It's a start. We can collect more on the way."
Zelda smiled and pulled the hood over her face, tucking the Sheikah slate into her belt.
"On your command, Sir Knight."
A/N: RIP to all my Bokoblin, Moblin, and Lizalfo homies, and praise Ganon for the Blood Moon.