"O~One bottle of beer on the wall, one bottle of beer!"

They had walked, slow and steady, for three miles. The sky grew dark over their heads as the sun disappeared behind the horizon. The landscape had slowly turned rocky and barren as they went towards the mountains, growing colder, with a chill now blowing over the tundra…and Yellow's singing had gone on the entire time, for five hours, as strong now as it had been when he'd started. He had lost count and started over at least three times. Shadow was now completely convinced that fairies, as magical beings, did not have or use lungs. Or brains.

"You take one down and pass it around-… Uh, zero bottles of beer on the wall!"

Shadow waited. The final, offkey note faded into silence. Yellow did not start again. There was just Shadow's own steps, and the faint sound of buzzing wings.

His shoulders relaxed. Finally... Silence.

"Hey, Shadow?"

Of course. What could he possibly want now? He glanced up. "Mm."

The fairy looked a little confused. "What's beer?"

Somehow Shadow managed not to snarl at him. His expression didn't have the same restraint; Yellow flinched and drew back in midair.

"Sorry, sorry…um, just curious."

Shadow looked away, staring ahead again. "…Have you sensed anything?"

"Well-" The fairy stammered. "Er, no. Not yet."

He responded to this with a grunt. Hadn't thought so. That would be far too convenient. He stopped walking, and glanced around. There was just enough light to see, the sky tinted a bright orange. Up ahead were a few scattered trees, and rocks that turned into boulders and glaciers of stone the closer they were to the mountains. Somewhere close by that was sheltered from the wind would be best…

Yellow earnestly looked around as well. "What are we looking for?" He asked.

"Somewhere to camp."

"Camp…? Oh, right," he said absently. "I forgot people need to sleep."

Shadow looked at him, his mouth open, and then away again without saying anything. Fairies, evidently, were tireless as well as brainless.

He strode forward again, more slowly, gaze sweeping critically around the barren, bumpy ground. Yellow dutifully looked around too. The fairy turned slowly around in place, hoping to see somewhere that screamed, or maybe just politely murmured, "Camp here!".

He finished the full turnaround, only to see that Shadow was twenty feet away.

Yellow jumped, "Wait for me!" and hurried after him.

Luckily for him, Shadow had stopped. He was looking up at a boulder that jutted majestically from the ground, its bulk blocking the wind. He made a vaguely satisfied noise, slung the pack from his back, and rifled through it.

"Oh, are we 'camping' here?" Asked Yellow. He sounded pleased about his newly gained grasp on the concept.

Shadow nodded, digging through his bag. He pulled out a sharp edged rock, a little bundle of some-kind-of-meat jerky, a cooking pot, two different sheathed knives, a thick coil of rope, two corked bottles of a sloshing mystery liquid, a bag of nuts, and, somehow, a whole sleeping bag.

He left out the sleeping bag, jerky, and the rock. Everything else went back in, nothing sticking out and the pack's flap closed neatly on top.

Yellow watched, more and more boggled as this went on.

"Uh?" he said, at the end. "How does all of that fit in there?"

Shadow shrugged. "Practice."

With that, they gathered firewood and stones for a fire pit and settled in there for the night. Or, Shadow did, anyways. There wasn't really much two-inch-tall Yellow could do, but he did try. A canary ball of light left for intervals and came back with tiny armfuls of twigs, moss, and pine needles for kindling.

He dropped another load of moss into the ring of stones, and looked over at Shadow with his pile of wood. "Are you sure there's nothing else for me to do?" He asked.

Shadow brought down his sword on another broken branch to split it. "Yes."

"Okay," Yellow said, nodding. "Just making sure!"

He glanced down at the small but painstakingly collected pile in the fire pit. He'd never started a fire in his life, but that was probably enough kindling, right? Right. It probably was. It looked right.

Yellow swelled with pride at a job well done, and looked up again. Shadow was holding down a branch with his right hand and chopping at it with his left.

"You don't talk much, huh?"

He let his sword down, and grunted.

"That's okay," Yellow said cheerfully, undeterred. "Strong but silent is a common hero personality."

Shadow paused mid-chop, and looked at him, brows furrowed. "What?"

"Don't be so surprised, Shadow. I do know some things," Yellow said proudly. "The Deku Tree passes her wisdom down to all of us fairies."

He spoke with a sarcasm that deadpanned a question down to a statement. "Is her wisdom where you got the beer song."

Yellow paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. "Well, I mean, I can't rule that out…" He nodded slowly, seriously considering this possibility. "Could be. All I know is that my brother Green knew it."

Yellow, now Green. Okay then. Shadow went back to what he was doing. He would snark about that later, once he wasn't as tired. Build a little fire, warm up, put it out, go to sleep. The plan was foolproof, since there were no fools out here in the wilderness, besides Yellow. No one who could suddenly appear and ask him to do things while he just wanted to sit down.

A howl rang through the night.

"Eep!" Yellow jumped in midair. "What was that?"

Shadow chopped the last branch, and sheathed his sword. That looked like enough now. "Just a wolf."

"A what?" He sounded worried. "Is that dangerous?"

Shadow stood up with the bundle of sticks, and walked over to the little fire pit. "Probably not."

"Uh… Probably not?"

Shadow knelt, and arranged the sticks to lean against each other, pointing up, making a little tent shape with the kindling inside. "Fire usually keeps them away."

"Oh." Yellow sounded relieved. "That's good."

The fairy watched with interest as Shadow drew his sword again, stuck it next to the tent of sticks, and struck the steel with the rock. Sparks flew off and Yellow gasped. The sparks caught Yellow's hard-found kindling, and a hot orange started to eat a cluster of pine needles.

"Wow! That's incredible!"

Shadow glanced at him. "Not really." He pointed at it. "It's already going out."

Yellow looked at it again. The pine needles that had caught were smoking, but as he watched the orange faded into black. "Oh."

Shadow made an unconcerned noise. "Always happens…"

He struck the sword again. No sparks. Yellow gasped anyways.

He swore under his breath, adjusted the angle of the rock, and tried again.

Bang.

"Oh!"

Bang. Sparks.

"Oh wow!"

Bang. Sparks.

"Oh, gosh!"

Bang. Sparks.

"Ohhh!"

"Would you stop that?"

"But it's so cool!" Yellow shook from excitement. "Look, look, it's working!"

It actually kind of was. The sparks had caught in different spots in the kindling, making spots of orange light and more smoke. Shadow watched the tiny embers barely flicker to life. Good, that might actually get the sticks to light…

Yellow had a look of eager anticipation. "So, what happens next?"

What happens- Shadow stared at him. Really? Does he not know what a fire is? What kind of education did the Momku Tree or whatever give this guy?

"…You'll…find out?"

"Oooh…!" Yellow grinned. "I can't wait!"

Well, whatever. He's accomplished setting up a fire. Shadow sat down, and glanced around for wherever he had set down the jerky.

The wolf's howl echoed through the mountains. It sounded much closer this time.

Yellow yelped. "There it is again!"

Oh, of all the damn things… Shadow turned his head, scanning the sparse landscape around where the sound came. Nothing but the trees and rocks.

"I don't see anything," he said.

Of course, that was when a large dark shape emerged from between two fir trees. It stepped — revealing its bipedal stance — within their baby fire's dim radius of light.

It was a grey wolf, but only if you stretched and twisted one to fit a nearly human frame, and added other bits that weren't supposed to be there. Bared claws on front paws that looked suspiciously like stunted hands, for example. It was almost twice Shadow's height, and wore maroon and purple tattered scraps, perhaps from unfortunates who had met it before. A scraggly light blue mane shot down its head, and dangled in front of angry, brutish eyes.

It bared a snarl of craggy teeth, the beast's hot snorting breaths turning into fog in the night air.

Yellow cried out and zipped behind Shadow's back, cowering.

"…Ah." Shadow sighed, and stood up. At least he already had his sword out. "Nevermind."

The creature growled, dropped on all fours, and leaped. Shadow took a swing at the darkness. It was unable to stop itself and its head was whacked aside midleap. It landed roughly with a startled whine on its side. Shadow quickly stepped backwards as it recovered and scrambled to its feet. He could feel tiny hands clinging to the back of his tunic.

"Get off and out of the way," he hissed.

"Oh," Yellow let go. "Okay-"

A ball of light in the corner of his eye fled. A normal wolf, just being hungry and trying to hunt something that couldn't kill it back, would have fled too at this point. This thing dove at him again.

He threw himself aside, and it tore through air. It landed and was about to turn when both Shadow's hands thrust the sword deep into its side. It howled with pain and thrashed to force him away, a stray claw raking down his arm. Lines of blood sprung up his left arm, but Shadow didn't let go.

A kick hit him in the face, forcing him to stumble back and regain his balance. The creature stood up to its full height with claws bared, breathing raggedly, the gaping hole in its side oozing blood down its body.

Shadow dove forwards into its faltering swing, closed his eyes, and buried the sword in its stomach.

For a moment, it kept standing. Then it made a few unhealthy-sounding choking noises, and thudded to the ground.

Shadow opened his eyes, and waited a moment just to be sure, then stepped forwards to draw his sword from its body. He drew it across the grass to wipe off the blood, and sheathed it, making a note to himself to clean the blade more thoroughly later.

Then he paused, and stared down at the dead thing at his feet. His eyes were, in more ways than one, used to the darkness, and unflinchingly took in the details of it. Somehow, the gut wounds were the least grotesque thing about the creature. He should be feeling something… Surprise, maybe. Revulsion. Pity. This wasn't something he had seen or fought before. Bokoblins, yes. Bandits, yes. Cursed chests that ate shields and/or hands, yes. Not…whatever this thing was. This twisted, monstrous, stupid thing whose instincts had told it all the wrong things.

He couldn't come up with much besides "tired".

"Yay! Good job!"

Shadow jumped. Oh. Right. His dramatic monologue had forgotten that Yellow was here.

"You've slain the monster!" His little voice came from a ways behind him. "At least, uh- That was the sound of you doing that, right? Are you alive? Is it safe to look?"

Shadow turned around. Yellow was in the air behind the fire — so that was where he went — holding his tiny hands over his eyes.

"Yes, Yellow, I killed it."

He peeked out from between teeny tiny fingers, and with great relief let his hands down. "That's good. Oh, but-" He fluttered forwards, tiny expression filled with concern. "You're hurt!"

The claw marks on his arm hadn't yet stopped bleeding. Shadow shrugged. He's been through worse.

"Don't worry, though," Yellow began.

Shadow walked past him towards the sleeping bag, casually kicking dirt over the fire on his way to smother it. The bright orange died. "I'm not worried."

"Uh- Well-" He stuttered, verbally tripped up just then. Yellow recovered and trailed behind Shadow. "Okay, but you should-"

"I'm fine." He sat down. "I'm going to lay down now."

"I, I wouldn't call all that blood fine-"

"Unless you can magically heal it and make it go away," Shadow said, intent on wiggling the sleeping bag to slide it over his legs, "just let me go to sleep."

"Oh!" Yellow lit up, smiling. "Well, then, I have good news!"

"You're going to let me sleep."

"Well, yes, but- Here," Yellow flew towards him. "Let me show you."

He stopped at Shadow's arm. His soft glow flared into a bright yellow flash. Shadow winced as the light stabbed him in the eyes, and squeezed them shut a little too late. A bright red afterimage danced on the inside of his eyelids.

It faded, and Yellow chirped, "There, done! Look!"

Cautiously, he opened his eyes again, not sure what to expect. At a minimum, maybe another very bright light. Or to hear "Wait, that wasn't right…" and then feel very keenly the results of an amatuer very ineptly doing magic.

All his vigilance brought to his attention was that his arm had stopped hurting.

He slowly turned it over, examining it. The blood, the wounds, and even an unrelated bruise he'd had before were completely gone, as if the fight had never happened.

"Oh," he said, turning over his arm one more time just to be sure. How unsettling… "You…healed me."

"Uh huh!" Yellow nodded.

Shadow looked up at him. "I'm already doing something for you. Why did you do that?"

"Huh?" Yellow blinked. "You were- You were hurt, and I can heal…so I did? I don't understand the question."

"I get the reward after the quest." He said patiently, as though it were a rule of life that everyone had to learn at some point. "I've barely started on yours."

Yellow turned this over in his tiny head, trying to see the point of this new concept. Then he flipped it upright again, like an uncooked pancake of the mind, still not quite understanding.

"I…can heal," he repeated slowly, since this was the thing he was sure of. "So…I did. Uh…" Yellow thought very hard. The hypothetical pancake sizzled in the pan. "You're already doing me a huge favor; I-I wasn't trying to make you do more stuff for me, or anything? I just, you know, figure that since you're helping me, I should help you too!"

"…Hm." Shadow's brows lowered. "That's a new one."

"Is it?" Yellow blinked. "Uh, but, isn't being nice to people who are helping you what everybody does?"

Shadow did not answer him. He said, "Good night, Yellow," with a stern finality, and lay down in the sleeping bag with his eyes firmly shut.

The pancake was finally golden brown, and emerged fully formed from the pan. "Oh…" said Yellow. "Um, good night."

He hovered there for a while, thinking, which he was not fast at. New pancakes, slowly cooking. What was he going to do about this…?

Then Yellow made a decision, and looked down. He couldn't tell whether Shadow was asleep, or just had his eyes closed and was still trying to get to that point, but his only movement was slow, tired-sounding breaths. The fairy made a quiet, thoughtful hum, and landed gently on the ground by Shadow's head. He sent himself into sleep too, waiting for daylight with his new charge.