Foreword
Hello there, dear reader. I hope that you enjoy the journey ahead as much as I enjoyed my journey through the vastness of Hyrule.
In this fic, Link is mute, a trans girl, and a lover of food. If any of those things doesn't sit well in your stomach (I can understand how a heroine loving food might put you off), there's no need to leave your vitriol in the comments. As an addendum after receiving so many confused comments, I should note that I expect some readers to be put off by my more "controversial" decisions such as making Link a trans girl or being mute, and my remark on a heroine loving food was meant to be humorous and tongue-in-cheek as the aspect least likely to put readers off. No, I am not a "SJW" or "social justice warrior", and my decisions were not made to check off a list of "representation" boxes. Instead, I have incorporated these aspects into the character and story from the bottom up. Others, including at least one cis straight girl, and one gay trans girl, have commented favourably on my depiction of such topics. You are under no obligation to read this, but, if Link being trans is your primary concern, I can at least assure that other reviewers have enjoyed it and you lose nothing but a little time for trying it out. Also, feel free to be critical of my writing and storytelling! "Not leaving vitriol in the comments" refers to not complaining primarily about my decisions regarding Link being mute or trans or what have you, as those do not help me improve as an author and simply waste your time.
Moving on, the full foreword, which I have curtailed, can be read at d0cs.g00gle.c0m /document/d/1t7wLaoF03OsFO8RGwjCjWOyTOIwRipH8nIstbJPkpNw/edit
The following forward is entirely optional and is mostly composed of my long-winded, unedited musings on why I am going to write Delicious in Wilds. In fact, I am writing this forward prior to doing any work on Delicious in Wilds, including any form of planning. These words represent my thoughts, my hopes, my expectations, and my fears, and for the sake of those curious about what will go into Delicious in Wilds (or what went into it, since you will be reading this after I finish writing), here they are. I am going to sit here and write this without breaks until I finish, and so you have here my unfettered thought process. Spoilers for Breath of the Wild ahoy! I recommend briefly glancing at the FAQs on my profile page before continuing.
Delicious in Wilds is inspired by and named after Kui Ryōko's Danjon Meshi Delicious in Dungeon, a manga that follows a group of adventurers in a tabletop-inspired world as they must quickly descend into a dungeon without the time or funding to purchase supplies. Instead, the adventurers learn to eat the monstrous wildlife of the dungeon as they go. Delicious in Wilds takes this concept and runs with it: Every chapter of Delicious in Wilds will involve and provide a recipe for a meal. I intend to take liberties with the cooking system present in Breath of the Wild. Most if not all of the recipes will be based on a real recipe in Breath of the Wild, which will be provided to the reader at the end of each chapter.
The in Wilds epithet comes from the "of the Wilds" set of clothing, being the tunic of the original legendary hero provided by the monks. As the title of the game is Breath of the Wild and its key experience the exploration of the wilds, I felt Delicious in Wilds an appropriate moniker.
In Breath of the Wild, [...] the few moments in which Link emotes revolve around the cooking and consumption of food; small victories such as during the sand-seal race; and when it comes to the attainment of rupees, at least according to the item description of rupees. Link also emotes when alone, responding to temperature changes and so forth. Link's greatest beats of emotion, however, come from the aforementioned cooking: The interest with which Link observes the pot, the absolute glee upon a successful meal, the literal jumping for joy and celebrating upon a new recipe, the excitement at eating a meal, the satisfaction derived from delicious food.
I had thought myself simply reading too far into something that was central to the game and thus had had attention lavished upon the animations, but then I encountered Zelda's diary. In this diary, Zelda records Link's explanations for silence, as I noted above. Upon speaking to Link, Zelda comments that Link is a "glutton" who cannot turn down a delicious meal. Other than the explanation of Link's stoicness and desire not to burden others, this is Zelda's only comment on Link's personality. My, my. You can see where Delicious in Wilds began to form in my mind.
[...]
For me, The Legend of Zelda is about the gameplay. Please, go play Breath of the Wild if the gameplay appeals to you. Now when I turn to novelise the game, I cannot put the gameplay to word. So, instead, I must face the story and, finding it lacking, will change it to suit the tale I wish to tell.
In particular, my intentions for Delicious in Wilds are: to expand upon and improve the worldbuilding of various races and settlements; to give more backstory and significance to the Champions; to resolve the question of Zelda's sealing magic in a more interesting way than a deus ex machina of the highest calibre; to strip Breath of the Wild of its reliance upon fate and provide an alternate take on destiny; to make death meaningful instead of having ghosts wandering about who can apparently interact with the physical world but who couldn't be assed to try to beat up Ganon in the intervening hundred years; and, of course, to showcase as many delicious recipes as I physically can.
[...]
I hope that you enjoy Delicious in Wilds. And if you do not, then I will strive to do better in the future. Now, the Hyrule Fantasy awaits.
midna's ass. 24 April 2017.
A brief note to those reading after the seventh of December, 2017: Breath of the Wild's expansion, Ballad of the Champions, has released and given us quite a bit of new information regarding the Champions. Among other things, none of which is reflected in Delicious in Wilds, the expansion confirmed Urbosa not only significantly older than Zelda, but also the previous Gerudo Chief. As this information was not available during the writing of Delicious in Wilds, it is notable that Urbosa is only two years Zelda's elder in Delicious in Wilds and not the previous Parapan queen. If that makes the story uncomfortable for you to read, I understand and do not blame you. However, I promise that I would have no intention of supporting a pairing between an adult and a minor; had I been aware of this this prior to writing, I would not have included a relationship between the two in Delicious in Wilds. Because the relationship cannot be removed without rewriting a significant chunk of the story, I have chosen to leave it as is. Similarly, other content from the expansion will not be included in Delicious in Wilds. Thank you for reading!
midna's ass. 07 December 2017.
Chapter One: Fruit and Mushroom Skewer
Floating in warmth, she waits.
A faint sound resonates somewhere under her. A body. Her body. Something soft yet firm beneath her, supporting her head, her upper back, her rear. A breath of chill whispers over the top of her chest and radiates down her form. Her heart beats.
She lives.
The darkness brightens steadily, and then gives way to light; her eyelids flutter up of their own accord. A blur of blue and white above. She flexes her fingers, wriggles her toes, pushes against the now-hard material underneath her to sit up.
The sudden ache in her head closes her eyes for a moment as she adjusts. The blueness throbs behind her lids. Her palm splashes liquid. She registers the water receding. The air feels cool and dry. She breathes in and the somewhat stale scent causes her to cough.
The pain subsides as the last of the water drains. She opens her eyes. Her vision focuses.
An unfamiliar ceiling.
She sits up on some sort of—the word does not come easily to her—altar. The material slips enough that she cannot find purchase on its surface, no imperfections that she can detect as she runs her fingers over the side. Above her glows a blue crystal that dims as she watches. To her right: a featureless blank wall. To her left: the rest of the chamber. Two pedestals, inlaid with the same faintly gleaming orange pattern, though the pedestal closer to the door appears to lack the middle of its face. On the far side, she notices the wall broken up by a complicated mechanism.
Door.
She scoots herself to the edge. The muscles of her arms protest slightly at the motion. Her legs hang out. All ten fingers, all ten toes. She hops off and the impact on her feet nearly sends her into the floor.
Her legs shiver as she stands with her left hand on the altar for support. She tightens and relaxes her muscles until the quivers ebb. One step. Another. She approaches the first pedestal to rest on her way to the door.
The moment her palm makes contact with the pedestal, the pattern on its face shifts to blue. The pedestal hums. Instinctively she retracts her hand, but the surface of the pedestal begins to open as a flower blossoming. The centre of the pedestal, inscribed with a strange symbol resembling an eye, rises.
Sounds. No, words. A voice.
"...masurr..."
Leaning on the pedestal she tenses and listens. The syllables jumble, the words incomprehensible. The voice falls silent for a moment, then starts again. The voice continues without pause, seemingly emanating from everywhere and yet nowhere at once, as though the sound resonates through the very walls of the chamber.
She turns to look back at the altar. Then at the door. The second pedestal. The missing piece of its face has the same dimensions as the proffered rectangle of the first.
As the voice goes on without ceasing, she carefully takes up the rectangle. A stone tablet. Not stone, but of the same perfectly smooth material as the altar and the pedestal. It fits almost perfectly in her palm between her thumb and fingers. The pedestal returns to orange.
When she inserts the tablet onto the second pedestal she does so symbol-side-down. No response. She flips the tablet over, and it slots neatly within. Not a second later the pedestal gleams blue. The voice cuts off.
For a moment she hears nothing but the hum of the pedestal and the huffs of her own breaths. Then the door grinds out a noise and shifts to blue as well. The tablet rises up from the second pedestal. She picks it up without hesitation. After another brief respite by the second pedestal she pads to the immense door rising nearly twice her height. Two doors, with a split now visible down the line.
She pushes on the doors. They swing open with surprising ease. The sudden light blinds her; she lifts a hand over her eyes, squinting through the brightness. Dampness and freshness roll over her at once. A tunnel. And there, at the end:
Light.
She steps out. Water pools on the ground. As her vision adjusts she spots a wooden table in the centre of the cave alongside a wooden chair. Moss grows over the surfaces. On the table sits a metal container. A chest.
She raises the lid. Softness. Fabric. A shirt and trousers. A leather strip with a cupped pouch along its length. A pair of boots. She becomes aware of her own nudity and takes the time to slip on the clothing. She fashions the strips into a belt about her hips. The tablet, she finds, matches the pouch perfectly. The clothing and her body form another story: the shirt and trouser sag over her skin. The fabric stinks of mustiness; the hems have torn or unthreaded; patches seem to have gone amiss; the boots have cracked.
They cover her.
She removes the boots and tucks them under her arm for now lest the water from the tunnel floor creep inside.
She moves forward through the tunnel. Abruptly the land slopes up to a steep wall. She looks around: no other path forward, except perhaps dragging over the table to use as a stepping stone. Though in places the rock gleams damply, she finds purchase on the slippery stone. Digging her fingers in she hauls herself up. The muscles in her limbs threaten to go out. Bracing her elbow against the edge she pushes up and rolls herself onto the higher ground. Her heart thuds heavily in her chest as she catches her breath.
The light. Green along the ground. A peek of blue.
She half-walks, half-stumbles out from the innards of the cave. The clearness of the air overtakes her. She finds herself running, invigorated, nearly soaring over the ground. The enclosed tunnel above her gives way to the vastness of a blue sky. Her bare feet touch grass. Blades of grass, poking her to tickle the bottom of her feet, to cushion her footfalls. The wind that caresses her face and runs through her hair. The trees swaying under the same caress. The fragrance of the world.
A cliffside.
She pants and every lungful frees her further. At the edge the entire earth falls away beneath her to slope down in an endless sea of green. Trees. A lake further beyond. And there, in the centre of her view, a massive structure looming over the horizon, quiet, immutable, imposing upon the heart of the world.
Her head spins. To the right rises a spine of mountains piercing the heavens. To the left, in the distance, waits something like a massive thunderhead that does not move. Below her the plains roll forward in the gentle wind.
She has not words enough for all she sees but one burns at the tips of her fingers. She signs the word to herself, touching her hand to her cheek, to her eye, to the centre of her chest, a path she has shaped over and over in her life.
Home.
She stands on the cliffside for a long, long time.
The rumble of her stomach leads her away. She spots a tree heavy with spring apples down the hill. As she walks she scoops a fallen tree branch from the ground. Absentmindedly she strips the branch of twigs and leaves to leave something resembling a wooden stick. Her left arm goes through familiar motions, horizontal swings, vertical arcs, a forward jab.
Something to practise daily.
She fits the boots onto her feet. Standing, she taps the toe of her left boot against the ground. Something jingles by her hip. The trousers. Pockets. She reaches within the right to find a thin blue band. Her fingers move instinctively, to tie back her hair into a ponytail behind her head, secured with the band. Within the left she finds two hard blue circles and again her hands rise up automatically to open them and clip them in the lobes of her ears.
She faces the tree. The leather belt includes a loop at the back in which she slots her stick. She scales up to catch herself on the lowest branch.
She stretches out. The apple, round and red, sits in the curve of her palm. Dropping down from the tree she bites down and the sweetness brings wetness to her eyes. She eats in shade of the apple tree. The juices run down her chin.
The tree runs short of spring apples and her stomach runs short of room. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. Presently her throat burns. Somewhere close must reside the lake she spotted earlier.
Viewing her surroundings from the top of the tree she notes where the woods thin. She sets off in that direction down the hill. A stump—or rather, the long rusted handle of the axe embedded in the stump—gives her pause. From the handle hangs a satchel, the material softened by time but still usable. She unties the satchel and slings it over her shoulder.
As she walks she watches the ground. The tracks of animals reveal the existence of boars. Birds flitter by in the trees. When she follows one such bird on its flight to the next treetop her gaze alights on the mushroom growing by the roots.
Not poisonous. She harvests it from the ground and places it in her satchel. Onwards. More mushrooms along the way. Another apple tree fills the remainder of her satchel.
As she continues her downwards hike the forest levels out and then abruptly ends. Just beyond: the lake, broken up into several large ponds. On the other shore a strange domed structure protrudes upwards, decorated with a similar pattern to the tablet she carries. Closer to her a golden spire sticks from the ground, holding up the entrance to some kind of cave. To her right, on her side of the lake but a fair walk away, looms a building. The outer surfaces crawl with ivy. Strange weathered statues litter the walls and nearby.
She kneels by the lake. Her knees sink into the yielding soil of the bank. Cupping her hands, she drinks. Fish dart beneath the mirror of the lake. She lunges for one and splashes into the water. Collecting the mushrooms and apples that float out of her satchel takes her enough time to teach her not to catch fish with her hands.
The building draws her. She trots off to it. The statues reach long arms up to the sides of the building. Most of one wall and half of the roof have broken, leaving the insides to the elements. She enters through the broken wall. The weathered white stone within yields little information. At the end of what once must have been a massive chamber she sees an altar. Three depressions line the front of the altar, the scratches within indicating that three things must once have decorated the altar and been pried out. Beyond the altar stands a circle of seven statues, at its head a winged woman. One wing has broken off. The weathered face shows a kindly smile yet, matching the long gazes and wise smiles of its sister statues. Further behind that, a broken wall reveals a second chamber, seemingly empty save for a vacant crater in the floor.
She traces her finger over the inscriptions on the altar below the carved-out depressions. Symbols, letters. Blowing the dust from them she struggles to make them out. For a moment she simply stares at the characters to make sense of them. Then—as if struck by a flash of clarity—the inscription resolves itself into words.
Hyrule, protected beneath the Light of the Golden Goddesses,
Farore - Nayru - Din
and held in the loving embrace of the Seven,
Hylia - Sageru - Sheik - Kokir - Goro-goro - Zola - Erito
we are Your People, and we thank You for our lives and our peace.
Below the inscription lies a golden triangle with the heart missing. Gazing at the gold, she lowers herself to her knees.
She bows her head. She stills her breaths. She waits. She listens to the faint beat of her heart. She prays without words or thought.
The moment passes. She rises. Placing her palm against the golden triangle, she nods to the Goddesses and Their broken altar. When she turns back around she observes a metal chest waiting between the rows of pews.
Its contents reveal a wooden bow with a brown-tan quiver of arrows alongside a pouch of flint. She straps the bow to her back and finds space for the quiver below. The pouch of flint slings across her hips.
Further investigation turns up a collection of parchment and a tube in which to hold them, rolled up, on her back. Another satchel, small, containing lead pencils, ink, nibs, and a short ruler. She takes those along with her.
She quits the temple. On the journey back to the lake she notices a sword wedged in a gap of one of the statues. Grasping the hilt with both hands she pulls. She lands on her rear, sword in hand. Though the hilt has rusted, the blade seems sharp enough to function for now.
Approaching the lake from another angle brings her close to the golden spire. Not a cave at all. A landfall appears to have collapsed onto the inside of the small spire, blocking access save for one side. She peers down. The floor of the spire extends about a metre and half into the ground. And there, in the centre: another of those pedestals like those in the chamber where she awoke.
The blank space on the face.
She crouches on the edge of the hole, then swings her body down. Her boots smack heavily on the ground; a hollow sound rings through the structure. She knocks her knuckles against the rocks wedged into the open space between the platform and the roof of the spire. They seem steady.
The tablet slides into the open space. No reaction. She moves to slip it back out when the pattern along the surface flashes orange, then a blue bright enough that she stumbles backwards, eyes stinging.
The structure shakes. She catches herself on the pedestal, desperately floundering to rip the tablet up from the pedestal before the spire sinks her into the earth or collapses entirely.
A sudden force throws her to the floor as though an invisible hand had slammed into her chest. Gasping she stares up. The spire rises. Grass to sky. Clouds passing at an alarming rate.
The ascent slows. As soon as she can move she scrambles to her feet. When the spire stops, the impact jolts her a half-centimetre from the floor. Lights blaze blue over a great black crystalline structure just above the pedestal. Symbols shimmer on the facets of the crystal, though not in a language she can read. Liquid gathers at the point.
It drips onto the tablet. The tablet lights up. It rises up from the pedestal, and she can see the underside glowing as well. Hesitantly she picks the tablet and flips it over in her palm.
The tablet goes dark, then light. Symbols unrecognisable to her blink on the surface. The tablet makes a noise and darkens once more. She returns it to the pouch at her hip.
When she lifts her head to look out at the world around her with the spire raised, she faces a multitude of orange towers in the distance. High above the land, carved into the clouds. Her mouth opens involuntarily.
She backs away from the edge. She forces herself to breathe. Then she looks, again.
High up. Ridiculously high up, so high that leaping from the structure would take her minutes to descend to the ground, and there to splatter into blood and bone. Yet she spies strange platforms dotting the sides of the tower at regular intervals, spiralling around.
From her vantage point she surveys the land around her. A vaguely oval-shaped plateau. She unfurls one of the lengths of parchment from the tube. In the centre she sketches the plateau and begins to fill in what landmarks she can stop from her present viewpoint. Mountains, there, icy. A river. Something that resembles a cabin, possibly. The strange structure on the other shore of the lake, and similar structures scattered throughout. She marks four. The woods. The chamber where she awoke. The lake. The temple with its broken altar.
Curling the parchment up again she pauses to munch an apple. Then she begins her descent. Carefully she drops off of each platform. The material down the sides of the tower consists of a metal—possibly metal, though not cool to the touch, but the same temperature as the palm of her hand—grating that she can climb down. The exertion leaves red marks deep in the flesh of her fingers.
She rests. Another apple. She tries a mushroom. Earthy, she finds, yet satisfying. She pats the satchel. Half-empty.
Onwards, and onwards. The sun moves down with her as she drops from platform to platform. Eventually she can spot the end. A few more. A few more. Ten to go. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, slip.
She misses the third platform from the bottom. Her hands slap the edge as she flails but her fingers bounce harmlessly off the curved surface. She falls.
The impact knocks the wind from her lungs and slams her knees into her chin. Her jaw sings out in pain along with her head. Woozily she starts to rise to her feet, discovers the migraine throbbing at her temples, and lies back down.
She holds her head in both hands, face-down in the dirt. At least her body cushioned the fall of the items on her back and the satchel at her hip. The grass pokes at her face. The wind ruffles her hair. The scent of the earth settles in her bones.
An insect buzzing near her ear prompts her to turn her head and open her right eye. A grasshopper, hopping through grass. Its wings flicker from its back. She observes the grasshopper near her. Its antennae twitch. She puffs out a breath towards it and the grasshopper becomes absolutely still for a second prior to speeding away with all the haste that its tiny wings can give it.
A sound rumbles up from her stomach. It erupts from her throat as a laugh. She lies face-down on the ground, body aching, muscles hurting, regarding the grasshopper's escape, and she cannot stop laughing.
Her shoulders shake. Each time the mirth subsides she doubles up again in laughter. The edges of her mouth curve upwards in a grin that crinkles the corners of her eyes. As she laughs a blade of grass rubs the underside of her nose, and she sneezes with such force that she laughs all the harder.
She lives. She breathes. Her heart beats. Her body moves. She is alive.
No matter what else, these remain true.
By the time her head has ceased spinning and the laughter has left her with a goofy smile, she notices the sun dangerously low in the sky. Gold sinks through the forest and ushers liquid light over the lake.
A place to sleep.
The rusted axe. She embarks up the hill to locate the stump. Near the stump lies an overturned log with a protective overhang jutting out above it: a place to spend the night.
She struggles with the heft of the axe, her muscles unaccustomed to its weight. Still she chops down three smallish trees and breaks them up into variously sized pieces of firewood. Her arms ache. She drags them towards the overturned log. When she fumbles with the flint found in the temple no fire catches.
Grass. Blades of grass, sprinkled in a dry heap. This time, when she strikes the flint with the flat of the blade, sparks dance over the snippets of grass and take hold. She puffs breath onto the tiny ember until it roots into a steady fire that wards off the encroaching dark.
She slips the stick from her belt. Holding the branch and the blade at awkward angles she sharpens the tip of the stick and taps it against the log. From her satchel she produces mushrooms and apples. Using the flattened top of the log, she cuts them into thick, uneven chunks. By her fourth mushroom her slices have become somewhat passably even. She slides the chunks onto the tip of the stick, alternating mushroom and apple.
Her first attempt at holding the stick over the fire leads to the chunks burning to a crisp. The second attempt goes more smoothly. Those at the tip still burn, but the remainder has gone soft and juicy. She bites, chews, swallows. The sweetness of the apples balances the earthy, savory taste of the mushrooms.
The combination warms her belly. She inhales; the smell waters her mouth and she takes another bite.
A voice. The voice of a girl with golden hair sitting across from her, holding a skewer of fruit and mushroom over a campfire, studying a sheet of paper, hand closed around the golden and violet charms at her throat, raising her head. Looking directly at her. Saying a word.
Saying her name.
She blinks and shakes her head. The memory dissipates. When she finishes eating, she piles on firewood, trying to estimate the lengths of the flames and the night. Then she curls herself up by the fire with the satchel under her head.
The stars shine a path to the land of slumber. She follows.
The girl with the golden hair, saying her name.
Link.
—
Fruit and Mushroom Skewer (two hearts) - apple, hylian shroom
Chapter One. First written: 01 June 2017. Last edited: 26 August 2017.
Author's notes: Thus begins Delicious in Wilds, which was written from 01 June 2017 to 24 August 2017. Eighty-four chapters in eighty-four days. I would like to thank my marvellous beta reader, Emma, for having dealt with me over the past eighty-four days and continuing to deal with me now.
I originally intended to plan Delicious in Wilds chapter-by-chapter, yet I ended up beginning to write shortly after wrapping up adrift, based on Link's Awakening. As such, Delicious in Wilds was written by the seat of my pants, with me not knowing what the next chapter held until I sat down to cook a meal for it. Perhaps partially due to adrift's influence, as well as Link's own memory-less awakening, I adopted a somewhat dreamier style. I strove to differentiate this Link from those I have written previously. I chose to make Link left-handed instead of right; thus, Link carries the slate on the right hip rather than the left.
It may appear strange that the chests left near the shrine seem untouched despite their age; however, I do have an explanation prepared later in the story.
Seeing all of Hyrule for the first time left quite an emotional impact on me, which I wanted to accurately capture. Link signs the word for home, based partially on the ASL sign, which involves lifting your hand to your mouth and eye to indicate where you eat and sleep. Dialogue spoken out loud is recorded in unitalicised text; dialogue signed, in italicised text.
Naturally, I patterned the Temple of Time after that in Ocarina of Time, notably not my most-beloved Zelda title. This chapter introduces the Delicious in Wilds cosmology. While the Golden Goddesses Farore, Nayru, and Din are worshipped in some form or fashion near ubiquitously, different parts of Hyrule have their own local religions and faiths. Many worship of the Seven Goddesses, who are regarded as the progenitors and patrons of the seven major races of Hyrule, as popularised by the royal family. It does not sit right with me for only the hylians to have a patron deity, so I created deities for the other races as well.
Regarding the names of the Goddesses: Hylia comes from the franchise directly; Sageru comes from the "Goddess of the Sand" worshipped by the gerudo in Ocarina of Time, as well as the prefix "sa" common to the language spoken by the gerudo people in Breath of the Wild; Sheik comes from Zelda's disguise in Ocarina of Time; Kokir comes from the "kokiri" who became the koroks in the backstory of The Wind Waker, the latter being seen in Breath of the Wild; Goro-goro refers to the gorons' tendency to end their sentences with "goro" in the Japanese, as well as referencing the onomatopoeia of gorogoro (ゴロゴロ) for rolling rocks; Zola comes from the mistransliteration of "zora" in the English manual for The Legend of Zelda; and Erito is a phonetic portmanteau of "air"/"airy" and rito.
Link has been compared or linked, no pun intended, to grasshoppers throughout the franchise, such as Romani's nickname for Link in Majora's Mask. I thought it appropriate, therefore, to have a green grasshopper indicate Link's aliveness.
The first food I ever cooked in Breath of the Wild was a fruit and mushroom skewer; I anticipate that most players prepared either that or simmered fruit. The first memory Link remembered would have to have impact, and you'll see us return to the memory a few times to expand upon it. Note, too, the golden and violet charms around the speaker's throat; those will come into play at a later date.
Link remembers here the first clue to an identity: a name. Names, as you'll find out, become a crucial aspect of Delicious in Wilds, with one particular name held off until the very end. The journey, I hope, will be well worth it. Thank you for reading; see you topside.
midna's ass. 26 April 2017.
Beta reader's comments: Looking back now, it strikes me how different this chapter, and the few that follow it, are from the rest of the series. It's so much more lighthearted and meandering (not at all in a bad way, mind you) than the rest of it, which ended up very character-driven. It's actually that which makes it a really fun chapter in my eyes. It's really relaxing. The rest of the series is my Final Fantasy, and these first few chapters are my Rune Factory. I love it, but I also love what the series develops into. I think the fact that it starts off so meandering but becomes more focused is a very good thing; it's a great tonal shift that's paced really well.
Fun fact: The memory at the end, the very first memory in the series, is my favourite memory. Its abruptness makes it stick out really clearly to me. It feels really significant in its short length, if that makes sense. The scene with the grasshopper and the "home" scene are also some of my favourite scenes. Odd that a chapter I definitely wouldn't consider an absolute favourite has so many of my favourite little bits.
Emma. 26 August 2017.