As far as Link knew, Shad was quite the pacifist. He may have had a dagger, but he only ever used it to cut things, like branches and bushes when they were travelling, or occasionally rope and cloth. Sometimes he would use it to pick locks, as well, but that was very rarely, considering that he had a more advanced lock-picking kit that wouldn't, in fact, destroy the lock in the process. It was also pretty useful in travels. The last use of the dagger was it being his personal bookmark, but that was kind of obvious. Shad had no idea how to actually fight with it. Those were the only useful things he used it for.
Shad didn't exactly know how to fight with anything. He didn't really like fighting in general, actually, and he usually sat back and let the rest of the group do all the violence. He, instead, would come up with the strategies and tactics, used his logic to solve all that he could when needed, and was very good at guessing where certain things could be, as well as where the group should go next. He was also a great translator who could read texts that would guide them through certain places. That was his element. He was, indeed, the scholar. Not a fighter.
Link hasn't even seen him punch someone before. Ever. There were multiple times where Link nearly punched the hell out of some jerk who personally insulted Shad to his face. The only reason he ever held back was because Shad didn't even fight back, didn't even seem to care that someone insulted him. Well, he held back physical interaction, of course. Verbal was a different story. A few short words out of Link's mouth and anyone could run away crying. (Which, he supposed, was why he said very few words in the first place. As a child, he was known for accidentally saying insulting things without even understanding why they were harmful.)
Truly, after knowing Shad for so long, Link had come to believe that the scholar could only be a pacifist. It makes sense. He doesn't fight, neither verbally nor physically, and he may get annoyed and say a few rude things, but it's usually because him and his friends had been interrupted or someone's not really paying attention to something important. Other than those few moments, Shad was just... well, a nice young man with a lot of joy to spread around. It was hard to believe anyone disliked him, and usually over things so incredibly stupid. Like how he likes to read. Or his passion for sky chickens, which, admittedly makes Link smile. It's sort of admirable to be so passionate about something. (Which reminds him, he really needs to take the scholar to sky chicken land.)
Of course, that's what Link believed. Never has he ever been so unbelievably wrong.
Him and Shad had decided to do some errands for the Resistance by going to the markets and stocking up on supplies. It seems that they will be gone for quite a while, as they were going to give Yeta and Yeto a visit to speak of ancient artefacts, and it was most certainly a long ways to go, especially if they were going to take a cart. With an added three days, they would need to buy quite a lot of blankets, possibly firewood, ingredients for soup (which Link brought a list for), medicine, and other obvious supplies.
Shad couldn't help make a comment about Link's attire.
"You realise, old boy, that you are much too underdressed for the journey that we're about to take in a few hours, correct? What even happened to your chain mail? Even your hat is gone!"
"I left it at Telma's, mother hen."
Shad glared, but Link couldn't exactly see it past the pile of bags full of supplies stacked up in his arms. He had easily felt it, however, and it was impossible to stop him from laughing at that.
"If it makes you feel any better, I could go over and buy us some coats, just in case...?"
"No, it's alright, Link, I suppose I am being a little overbearing. You have, after all, been there before. But if I were to be honest, it surprises me how your environment seems to never affect your performance in... well anything, really. I am a tad miffed by it."
Link chuckled, turning his body so he could peer past the bags.
"It's not that I'm never affected by it. I think I'm just good at adapting."
"Remarkable considering you've never been outside your village until rather recently in your life."
"True."
The two stopped walking as a group of drunken soldiers bounded in front of them, some dancing to the tune that played in the distance, others singing off-key to no tune at all. Some were strangely silent and unmoving, simply walking along the direction the other obnoxious ones cleared through. Shad scrunched up his nose at the smell of cheap alcohol, a worse smell than the drinks Telma sold. Link was just frantically trying to find a way past them without dropping anything, since he found it rather difficult to see what was in front of him.
Despite how hard he had tried, he eventually found himself toppling over, being pushed aside by a rather rude drunkard. The food and medicine he had in his grip thumped to the ground. Thankfully, the medicine fell on his legs, which was apparently softer than the stone ground considering he didn't hear any glass break. Unfortunately, the food tipped over, and wrapped cheese, mini pumpkins, bagged milk, (Seriously what is with Castle Town? Why is the milk in bags?), and a bota bag filled with water scattered about.
"Link! Goodness, are you alright?"
Shad put his bags down, (which was considerably less than what Link had, considering his physical strength), and reached a hand to help the other up. Link waved it off and got up himself. He quickly brushed off his bottom and bent down onto his knees again, picking up everything and setting it into the bag.
It was a bit annoying that the soldiers were still dancing drunkenly around them. Honestly, it was in the middle of the day, what were they even doing drinking at this hour? What could have possibly indicated that drinking was a great idea at 10:00 in the morning?
Shad frowned disapprovingly at them, knowing that they were too drunk to understand what they had done and apologise, but still wishing they had at least noticed that the poor lad had stumbled to the ground. And not just anyone, but the very same person who had just recently began training them in combat! What sort of doofs do they let into the royal guard, anyways?
Everything was once again put into the bags, and Link reached under the bags, connecting his arms together, struggling the lift them back up. Carrying them wasn't hard, put trying to pick them up from the ground all at once was proven to be difficult. He stopped for a moment, adjusting the position of his legs and back, then—
SLAP!
Link jerked up, nearly throwing everything into the air. He stood there in shock for a moment, hearing bags fall to the ground. Strangely, he wasn't the one who dropped the bags, but he was too surprised at the moment to even think about that. All that was going through his mind was oh my goodness, did someone just slap my ass?
Then, he heard the yelling.
"What the FUCK do you think you are doing?! I don't give a shit how drunk you are, how DARE you do that, and to your superior no less! You uncouth, disgusting, vile pig! I should have you—"
The green hero blinked some of his shock away, then quickly crouched down to set the bags down so he could turn and see who on earth was mouthing off some person.
And the shock all came back.
"I may study my father's findings, but I'll have you know that I studied law as well, and I can most certainly have your ass thrown in jail for not only sexual harassment, but blatant disrespect to your superior, a high authority, AKA the bloody hero of the entire kingdom of Hyrule!"
Shad, the sweet scholar who rarely shouted, much less shout profanity, was ripping those drunks a new one. And they seemed to be very afraid, at that. His once amused/concerned expression was now replaced with a red, furious face, his glasses slightly fogging up, the tips of his ears also going a very bright shade. Link can't say he's ever seen the scholar that menacing looking before.
Honestly, this is the first time he's seen the scholar even remotely react this way at all to anything. He was expecting a more motherly approach to this, but boy, was he wrong.
"Actually, I can have ALL of you arrested considering a very recent law that has been enacted by Queen Zelda herself about drinking while on the job, which, by the way, means that you are prohibited to drink alcohol before 3:00PM and after 3:00AM! Yes, I know your damn schedules, you have 'day guards' quite literally written on your armour! And don't even get me started about disturbing the peace, considering that I, and several other witnesses, at that, watched you bumbling oafs knock over at LEAST three people, one of which was a child! And me and my friend here only just entered the square! None of you have excuses, and I suggest you get out of my sight before I decide to introduce each and every single one of you to the back of my hand, and I am not opposed to slapping those pathetic faces of yours until they bleed! LEAVE!"
The guards seemed to have been snapped back to reality, suddenly sober enough to run off in a straight line right out of the town square. Several surrounding people applaud, apparently agreeing with the scholar about how gross and unwanted they were, and very grateful for him dealing with them. Especially in the way that he had. Link, however, was simply in shock that not only did the scholar call them numerous insults, using profanity along the ride, and threatened to arrest them, but he also threatened to backslap them until they bleed. Now that was not the words of a pacifist.
He felt unreasonably excited at this newfound side of his friend. He never imagined that this was how the scholar fought. Is this how scholars in general fight? Was it just Shad? Why did it matter? This was simply too good to be true.
He had to tell everyone.
"Link?... Link, are you listening? Goodness, are you alright? Did you hit your head?"
The hero shook his head, snapping himself back to reality, now realising that he had been staring directly into Shad's face as he spoke the entire time. The same old, familiar mother face. The face of whom also seemed to be feeling along his head for any bumps.
"Er, I'm fine. Just a little shocked."
Shad lowered his hands and sighed.
"Reasonably so considering you were just sexually harassed—"
"It wasn't that extreme—"
"The degree of which the crime was committed doesn't matter. He touched you with sexual intent. It's a crime. So what if it was just a slap? That doesn't suddenly make it okay."
Shad's voice still seemed to hold a bit of threat in it, slightly growling over his last sentence, and Link decided it would be best not to argue any further. He was admittedly a little frightened to experience how that secret backhand strike would feel like. Instead, the hero turned towards the bags that Shad had dropped, which had blankets and pillows somewhat compacted inside. Nothing fell out, of course. How unfair.
"Well, um, we should pick everything up and get going, huh? Everyone's probably wondering where we are."
Shad reached to pull out his pocket watch, frowning at the time.
"Indeed, that took up a bit of time, I'm afraid. Apologies for the delay. Well then! Let us be off! Er, do you need any help with picking your bags up, old boy?"
Ah. What started this mess to begin with.
"Nah, I don't think anything bad's gonna happen this time. Or any other time, for that matter."
Shad laughed as Link wiggled his eyebrows at him.
"I should hope so!"
Link smiled and puffed his chest out proudly, quite pleased with the looks of pure disbelief that was given by the whole group. They were already at Yeta and Yeto's place, bundled up in blankets on the floor, next to the fireplace. Shad had walked out of the room to speak with Yeta, who apparently had something useful to say about his research.
"...You're joking, yeah?"
"Nope! Shad totally blew up! Like... like a volcano!"
"There's no possible way... Shad could have said any of that."
"He did! I can prove it—"
Shad reentered the room, looking a bit confused, biting his lip and looking to the side.
"Er... is anything, perhaps, wrong with Yeta's memory? So far I have been led on a wild goose chase looking for a book that doesn't seem to be anywhere around... Hey, what are you all talking about? You look concerned."
Link smiled and shrugged, taking his chance.
"Nothing much. It wasn't a big deal."
"What wasn't?"
Shad narrowed his eyes and walked over to his spot next to Link, sliding under his pile of blankets.
"Oh, the town square thing. You remember, right? Not much a problem—"
"That was a big deal, how can you just brush that off?! I was about ready to claw their faces off, and I wasn't even the one who was harassed! How could you— wait a minute."
Shad glared.
"You just tricked me, didn't you?"
Link grinned brightly and nodded. He tipped over and laid on his side, snickering a bit as he got comfortable. Shad continued to glare for a few more moments, then turned towards the others, who looked even more shocked and concerned than they had been before. He didn't speak until Link's breathing evened out. Once the boy was out, he was out.
"...I am protective."
Rusl snorted.
"That's the understatement of the year, kiddo. And even if you are protective, it's just... new."
"Okay, yes, I know. You're all implying that I'd only do that for Link, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Yup."
"It's obvious."
Shad groaned and rolled his eyes in aggravation, turning over and facing the opposite direction as Link.
"Be quiet. Let's just go to bed already."
There were a few snickers amongst the other three, but they laid down as well, shuffling a bit in their blankets until they were comfortable. An hour or two passed, the fireplace still crackling, everything just as before, and Shad remained awake, now feeling uncomfortable with his choice of sleeping next to the youngest of the group. Honestly, he should have figured that Link would have said something. If he had known that before, he would have chosen a spot that wasn't so uncomfortable. The others will probably tease him about it in the morning. Link may not know it, but the rest did, and... Well, Shad didn't really swing towards women.
God, he seriously shouldn't have erupted at those royal guards, even if they did deserve it. Now he's paying the price.
He heard someone jolt up, and he stopped breathing for a moment, surprised.
"The old men are asleep. Don't pretend to be sleeping too, I know you're not."
"Dear lord, Ashei—"
"You like him."
Shad quietly groaned to himself, burying his face into his hands.
"For goodness sake, shush!"
"You're going to tell him. I'll train you to do it. Whether you like it or not, I'm going to see the day you tell him."
Shad wasn't sure why exactly this terrified him so much. Probably because she was whispering it, which made it extra creepy. And also because she was whispering it while the very same person they were talking about was literally right next to Shad.
And then Link made a noise, scrunching up his nose as if something was tickling it, and shifting his head. Shad turned to see if the other woke up. The hero's eyes were closed, but he was now faced directly towards Shad head. If he did open his eyes, they'd be looking at each other fully.
Dammit, he looked... nice.
"You really love him," Ashei whispered, not really giving an expression, but the irritating grin was definitely heard.
"Ashei, I swear to Nayru, I will do whatever training you want me to do, just shush up about it! Please!"
"Fine."
That's all that was said. Ashei dropped back down and fell asleep almost as quickly as Link did, and now Shad was even more on edge than before. He couldn't find it in himself to turn away from Link, too frightened that the boy would wake up from it, and he most certainly knew that if he continued, Link would wake up to see Shad directly facing him, which is even worse. Also—
Wait a moment...
What did he just promise to Ashei...?
Oh no. No. I did not just agree to that. Wait, no, I did. I did just agreed to that.
Shad felt a bit of himself die inside.
"Goodbye, friendship. Hello, impending disaster," he whispered to himself.
Still...
He couldn't help but feel a little hope, too.