The cattails shivered, and the petals on the swamp irises cringed inwards until you could scarcely see the purple. Irene bit her lip. Above them, birds fled their trees. Below them, near the roots of the bottlebrush, a mole poked out its head and whiffed its nose in disgust.
"I don't understand." Whatever Link muttered quietly after that was lost to the ringing in her ears, and she tried not to smirk as the Hero raked a hand through his hair before extending the other to return her flute.
"What, that you aren't good at it right away?" She took the instrument back and wiped it off, then set it in her lap.
"It's just that-"
"Because you're good at everything right away?"
"Well, I mean-"
"You could probably get better with practice," she said with a cavalier shrug, eyes twinkling.
He shook his head and straightened his back.
"Really."
Link sighed wearily. "No. Clearly, this is the most difficult instrument in the world, and can only sound pretty after centuries of toil by the mouths of the most talented of virtuosi-"
"It took me about three months of steady practice in the woods."
"Don't believe it."
So Irene brought the flute up and played a note with honey-sweet tone, her smirk tugging more and more at her lips as he blinked rapidly, so bright and blue. It was, she had noticed, a habit of his when he was flustered.
"You must've practiced from all hours of the night," he groused, crossing his arms, but she could have sworn his teeth flashed a smile.
"Nah, about an hour each afternoon, depending on the song I was trying to learn."
"Well," he said on a breath that was close to a huff "Maybe it's enchanted and only reacts to witches-"
"Nope, just a regular ol' flute Gram carved when she was little. Found it in the attic." She had plucked it from a dusty bookshelf, where it sat sandwiched between a cracked and dusty crystal ball and the jar of pickled eggs she'd been sent up to fetch. "Song-playing spells are boring and easy, so I learned the old-fashioned way."
"But how would I know if you've cast one? I hear witches can be awful sneaky-"
"Only rarely sneaky."
"And I've heard they like to enchant innocent bystanders for no good reason-"
"Only good reasons!"
"Maybe you've actuallycursed my ears. Maybe everything they hear from you is beautiful, you might sound like a dying cucco and I'd be none the wiser-"
"Dear Hero of Graffiti, are you jealous?"
Link sputtered out a no and blinked even quicker as he turned his head and crossed his arms, and Irene snorted as she pocketed the flute and slid off the tree stump, scraping a few of the crust fungi from its sides as her feet touched the ground.
"C'mon, let's get wherever you're going, although I'm stopping by Gram's to drop these off before we-"
"Play an actual song, maybe? Not just a note. If you want. It's okay if not-"
She looked at him through one eye, the other obscured by her hat from this angle. "Sure."
Irene brought the flute up and played one of the hymns she'd found scribbled into the feet of her favorite spellbook's pages. It was a light and lilting thing, that jumped like a billygoat between octaves, and she could hear Link chuckle as she concluded on the quickest of trills before -
She jumped to another, a plodding old folksong her Ma once taught her, then to a third, an ancient storm-song with looping notes that still often brought the rain. So she did not startle when the first fat drops fell and hit the brim of her hat; did not break the melody when Link yelped in surprise. But when she looked over at him, she couldn't help but notice his expression loosening like the sun-cracked ground around the stump. And she wondered if he could hear her notes start to waver, just a little, as she let the corners of her mouth curl up into a smile.