Author's Note: Hey guys, I wrote something! I've been kind of exhausted by school lately, so sorry I haven't been putting out any stories. I haven't even had much work to do lately, it's just that I always feel so tired and unmotivated to write. So I decided to just try and force it out so you guys can have something to read. Now, enjoy an idea I came up with quite some time ago, but am only just now getting around to writing.

Disclaimer: All I own are ideas that worry my best friend/personal therapist.

/OO/

Was it unusual that dinner around the campfire almost never occurred without a screaming match? It wasn't to Red. Not anymore, at least. He'd long since learned that the only way to get through one of those was to yell back, even though he hated yelling at anyone. Especially when it was Blue he was yelling at. There was little he could do about it though, since Blue's temper was getting increasingly easier to set off the closer they got to completing their journey. Every item acquired, every boss defeated just seemed to make Blue grow more on edge, and Red couldn't for the life of him figure out why, nor why it was always him that Blue seemed to target the most. Blue would yell at just about anyone when he was in one of his moods, but more often than not, Red was who he went after.

Tonight was a night like any other. Vio read by the light of the campfire, perched atop one of two fallen logs they'd managed to drag in from the nearby forest to sit on. Green sat beside him, an exasperated expression on his face while he listened to Blue yell at Red over how much of their money they should be spending on food. 'Honestly,' Green thought to himself, 'is there anything that Blue won't fight about?'

"I say we should only be spending two hundred rupees, max!" Blue yelled, glaring at Red in a challenging manner, daring him to fight back as if he didn't already know that if pushed too far, that's exactly what Red would do.

"And I say that's not enough!" Red exclaimed, a look of frustration on his face. "That's even less than we've been spending on food lately, and we almost always run out of food before we get to another village to stock up! We need to spend at least three hundred!" He was so tired of arguing with Blue all the time. It drained his energy, and put strain on his throat. 'Please, Blue,' Red thought, 'stop fighting me.'

"Are you crazy?!" Blue screamed, "we'll go broke in no time if we start spending like that!"

"And we'll starve if we don't!" Red fired back.

"Guys," Green said tiredly, "can you just stop arguing for a few minutes so we can-"

Blue was quick to cut off his leader mid-sentence. "Stay out of this, Green!" he snapped, glaring at their leader. "This has nothing to do with you!" Blue quickly looked back to Red, standing up from where he sat beside the other. "I for one don't feel like going broke just because someone feels like eating an entire horse every night!"

Red gasped, staring up at Blue for a few moments before his face began flushing in anger and he stood up to defend himself. "I do not eat nearly that much!" he yelled. "If anyone eats that much around here, it's you!"

Blue's glare seemed to worsen, and his own face began heating up much the same as Red's. "At least I actually put that to good use! I train harder than anyone here, and you and everyone else knows that!" Blue yelled, getting closer to Red until he was almost screaming in his face.

Red's hands clenched into fists that shook with his barely controlled emotions, wanting so badly to just back down and cry for a bit, but knew he couldn't do that until his latest argument with Blue was settled. "Well you know what?" Red asked. "I've just about had enough of-"

"Two thousand three hundred and eighty-seven," Vio suddenly said, turning a page in his book and keeping his head down to better read the words.

Red looked at Vio in confusion, wondering where that unexpectedly random comment had come from. "What?" he asked Vio.

"Two thousand three hundred and eighty-seven," Vio repeated, still not looking up from his book.

"What the hell is the supposed to mean?" Blue asked, his expression one of annoyance. Annoyance at both Vio for interrupting his argument with Red, and for... Well, just everything, really.

Vio sighed, marking his place in his book before closing it and setting it on his lap, finally lifting his head up to look at the two. "Collectively, we have exactly two thousand three hundred and eighty-seven rupees. Say we do spend three hundred on food. Then we'll have two thousand and eighty-seven. Add in other expenses like medical supplies, say a hundred and fifty for that, then we have one thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven." Vio looked at Blue in annoyance. "The cost for a room at an inn is eighty rupees, which brings it down to one thousand eight hundred and fifty seven. Ninety more spent for bombs, seventy for arrows, sixty on potions, thirty-five for slingshot ammo, and forty for lantern oil. All in all, that brings our two thousand three hundred and eighty-seven rupees down to one thousand five hundred and sixty-two rupees, with a grand total of eight hundred and twenty-five rupees spent."

Green, Red, and Blue all stared at Vio in stunned silence. They'd never seen him work with numbers like that before. "So... What you're saying is, that I'm right," Red said, slowly starting to smile.

Vio sighed, nodding his head and going back to reading. "Given that we would spend roughly that much every week, and we amass at least one thousand rupees in-between stops at villages to stock up, yes, Red. We could definitely afford to spend three hundred rupees on food."

"Ha!" Red exclaimed, looking triumphantly at Blue. "Vio just proved you wrong with math!"

Blue flushed angrily, then looked away from Red. "Whatever!" he said, turning around and stalking off from the group. "I'm going for a walk in the woods!"

"What?" Red asked, his previous emotions giving way to worry. "But Blue, it's dark out!" Red started to follow Blue, reaching a hand out to grab at his shoulder. "You could get lost or hurt or-"

"Shut up, Red," Blue growled out, continuing towards the woods. "I'll be fucking fine."

Red flinched, his hand freezing where it hung extended in the air for a few moments before slowly dropping down to his side. He watched Blue go until he couldn't see him anymore, then sighed and turned back to the log he'd been sitting on. He slowly walked over to it, taking a seat and picking up the bowl of soup he'd set aside when Blue had started the argument about food funds.

Green looked at Red with a frown, then looked to where Blue had disappeared. "Don't worry about him," he said, "he'll calm down and come back in one place just like always."

"Yeah," Red said, "like always. Just like tonight, we had a stupid argument over nothing like always." He sighed, setting his bowl beside him on the log and leaning his head in his hands, his elbows propped up on his knees. "Why can't things just be peaceful?"

"Because Blue is an idiot," Vio said simply, turning another page in his book. "One that can't control his temper. He'll simmer down eventually, Red."

Red sighed and nodded his head, barely paying attention. These daily arguments with Blue were draining. When they were happening, he may fight back with everything he had, but after it was all over... He just felt so tired and empty. 'I wonder if this is how Blue feels after we argue,' Red thought to himself.

Since his eyes were cast to the ground, Red noticed almost immediately when something strange began happening. Words formed on the dirt ground, small and solid black letters that stood out against the glow from the campfire. "Want help dealing with the asshole?" they read.

Shadow. There was only one person Red knew that communicated through shadows, and that was Shadow himself. He stared at the words for a while, wondering why Shadow didn't just come out and ask him, then after a few moments, slowly nodded his head. "Please," he quietly whispered. "I just want him to be happy."

The words on the ground faded away, and were replaced with new ones. "Then meet me at Lake Hylia tomorrow morning. Don't be late."

Red nodded again, whispering a relieved "Thank you," to the words before they disappeared. He lifted his head up and looked over to Green and Vio to see if they'd noticed anything, sighing when he saw Green eating his soup and Vio still reading. 'I wonder if I should tell them...' Red thought, then shook his head and picked up his bowl of soup that had long gone cold. 'No. Whatever it is Shadow's planning on doing, he must not want the others to know if he couldn't come out in solid form.' Though Shadow wasn't exactly the most trustworthy person out there in he day-time, he was always himself at night. Only then was he free of Ganondorf's control, and able to do whatever he liked. Able to be himself.

Red sighed again as he lifted a cold spoonful of soup to his mouth. Tomorrow he would get help. Tomorrow he'd find a way to stop these arguments with Blue. Tomorrow, he'd find a way that they could be friends. As the cold soup slithered down his throat, making Red shiver at how he could feel it moving through him, he looked to the woods Blue had yet to return from. 'Just you wait,' Red thought to himself, one hand clenching into a fist. 'I'll find a way for us to get along, no matter what.'

/OO/

Author's Note: Yeah, that's my first piece of writing outside of English class since... What, June? To anyone that was hoping this was an update of A Demon's Curse, I'm sorry. That one's going to be a while. It's at the top of my documents on here, which means I'm going to be doing it much later than the others since I'm working my way up from the bottom, and there are about eighteen others that come before that.

Lately I've taken to writing late at night, and by late I mean 10:00 PM-12:00 AM. So while I am working on my writing once again, it will still probably be a while until some specific stories get updated. Sorry about that. But if you made it this far, I'd like to say that I hope you enjoyed chapter one, and that I will see you guys next time. Until then, lovelies!