Disclaimer and Notes: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and all of its characters belong to Nintendo. This story is for fun and not for profit (and I doubt anyone wants it, anyway).

My dear ArkNorth was watching me fiddle around in Twilight Princess HD. He's watched me countless times on the original TP and has played the game himself, and so knows the characters. As usual, he started making snarky and weird comments. I commented back, we both laughed – and that's how little crack stories are born. Weird for the sake of weird – written for my own and his entertainment. The reader is WARNED.

RENADO THE CANNIBAL

A Twilight Princess Crackfic by Shadsie (Blame ArkNorth)!

Link had a suspicion that there was something wrong with Kakariko Village that had existed long before the clouds of Twilight had settled over the land. Perhaps he had smelled it when in wolf-form. There was a stench of murder on the air.

The young man's common sense told him that a destroyed and mostly deserted town was not the best place to dump off the children from his village, but he had no other choice. The local priest seemed nice enough, but the way he leered at the youngsters gave Link pause. The way he leered at him – always leering – gave him even more pause.

The first night that Link had spent in the village as a human being, Renado said to him quietly, by the fire; "You do know that we were reduced to dog meat for a time." He passed Link a skewer of small roasted potatoes. "Barnes managed to find some overlooked supplies recently, but I supped the little ones on dog-stew when I'd first found them. I told them that it was pork. That is how dire our predicament has gotten, Link. Everything is looking up lately – since you arrived. Our cucoos have returned and the grass is greening. Please do not tell the children what they ate."

The food situation was still scarce in Kakariko Village by the time that Link came back from a run-in with an angry Goron guard up the trail to Death Mountain and was given a tip by Renado to head back to Ordon. Again, he could not bring the children with him, for the road was rife with monsters and he had only one horse. He had to tame her again. Poor Epona… he would never know what had happened to her that had her running into the village pell-mell and so slow to listen to him. At least, Link thought, she had not spent much time with Renado, his daughter and Barnes – who seemed to be the only survivors of whatever had happened in Kakariko. He worried that horsemeat would have been on the menu for the desperate.

How in the world were the kids going to be fed while they stayed here? There had been those found supplies. Link resolved to bring back some fat pumpkins upon his return.

When he'd returned from learning how to do Sumo wrestling and pinching some iron boots from Mayor Bo of his native Ordon Village, he came too late upon a scene of horror. The boar-riding monsters that had raided the village in the first place were bearing down upon the children again. Colin pushed little Beth out of the way and had taken the brunt of the front-half of a giant pig. The big orc that had ploughed him over held the unconscious boy up in a taunt. Link rode hell or high water after boar-rider king, out to the field where the gap-toothed monster had the poor boy tied to a pole on his saddle like a battle-flag.

Link did not know if his young friend was even still alive.

The battle between the horseman and the boars-goblins culminated in Link pushing the orcish king off the Bridge of Eldin. He was as gentle as he could be holding Colin for the ride back to Kakariko Village, relieved to feel the child's breathing.

He presented the boy to Renado and the other children of Ordon. Colin spoke briefly to Link about "finally understanding" what it means to be strong. He apologized to Beth for pushing her. He then passed out. Talo tried to carry him, but Renado halted him.

"Hmmm, well-tenderized," the shaman muttered as he scooped the wounded boy up in his arms. None of the children heard it, but Link's sharp (and sharply-pointed) ears caught the line. "Well, off to the cookpot – er… inn, off to the inn with him!" he said.

Link shook his head. Was he hearing things? The sun was bearing down upon his head and he'd had a hard fight. In fact, he was pretty sure he'd yanked an arrow out of his right butt cheek at some point, but had bound up the wound so that bleeding wasn't noticeable.

After tending to his horse, he wandered into the hotel and walked painfully up the hotel stairs to the second floor to one of the disheveled rooms.

"You should go see to the Gorons," Renado said, assuring him not to worry.

His daughter, Luda, and Beth were swabbing Colin with wet cloths dipped periodically in bowls of water with plants in them as he moaned and twitched on the bed. Link turned to Luda.

"Oh, Father says that this mix of eleven herbs and spices will make him better!"

Did she subtly lick her lower lip?

Link raised an eyebrow but was ushered out. He decided to go see if he could talk some sense into the Goron chieftain and resumed his jog up the Death Mountain trail.

Midna popped out of his shadow. "Don't the adults in town seem to be acting funny to you?"

Link shrugged. He expressed that he needed someone to take care of his young friend.

"Take care of… yeah… right," Midna said.

Link gesticulated with his hands. He figured that once he settled things with the Gorons that trade-business and supply lines would re-open and whatever Renado and Barnes had done to survive after the attacks of the Twilight creatures would be forgotten in favor of everything becoming normal again.

They'd eaten dogs - that much he knew. He didn't want to think about them eating anything more drastic than that.

That was when he remembered some line his mentor, Rusl, had fed him long ago about how some men being worse than monsters. That was also when he remembered that peculiar feeling and smell of malice he'd detected as a wolf.

Who was he leaving his children to?

A Goron rolled right into him, sending him right into a rock wall.

"Do you have any bones left?" Midna asked from his shadow. Link responded by spitting a tooth out on her.

When he finally reached the inner dwellings of the Goron Tribe and met the acting chief, he was challenged to a Sumo match. Link slapped on the iron boots he'd gotten from the mayor of his town and made a good show of it. However, his show was not good enough. He was unceremoniously dumped out of the ring…

… Fifty times.

The elder asked him if he'd like to challenge again. He did, again and again. The young would-be hero's body bruised. His bones were jarred and he was sure all of them had hairline fractures. He wiped the blood from his nose as he sat, splay-legged on the floor beside the ring, looking up. His shins felt shattered beneath the boots. He had to get up, though. He had to prove himself so he could get the problems with Kakariko Village resolved.

So Barnes would have his bombs and the shaman would have his hospitality business and they'd have food and Colin wouldn't potentially wind up as "dog stew!"

A shadow appeared over him. He looked up. Renado? What was he doing here?

The priest addressed the Goron chief. "Ah, ha! You've done a fine job, Cor Goron!"

Fine job?

"I knew I could count on you! Pure Hylian! Such a rare delicacy! Thank you for tenderizing him up for me!"

The Goron leader laughed. "Always happy to help!"

Link felt Renado's arms beneath him, lifting his broken form up. He yelped.

"No! No! No! Is this how it ends?"

End.

I'm sorry… I have to haul out and do something stupid once in a while.