Chapter 16: The one where they have a good time

The reunion on the ranch was always beautiful to watch. First there was a passionate kiss once Malon, who had been cleaning up the kitchen at the time, had realized just who was standing there in the doorway.

The Links stayed quiet while their Leader had his reunion as they carefully piled into the thankfully large enough room, whilst above Babble's head there seemed to be a huge question mark as soon as they had carefully puled the door closed and turned their view forward, their height making it possible to see what was happening.. Confused they goggled at the reunited pair, their head tilted sideways and the workings within their brain seemed to almost cause smoke to leave their ears.

Twilight, who had been taking in the peaceful atmosphere that the ranch house had, saw their plight, and gently lifted his left hand to point at his right ring finger. Understanding seemed to bloom across Babble's face at that and they gave a firm, thankful nod.

And then finally Malon and Time parted and turned to the others in the room, their leader had a love-sick, dopey look on his face while Malon seemed a little giddy.

Twilight watched them and wondered if his own parents had been like that, too. It was clear that Time was his ancestor and while Twilight looked up to the man as is father figure he couldn't help these thoughts. He had been very young when he'd become part of Ordon village, so whatever memory he had from his real parents was almost non-telling just as he never understood why he had been found that day in the village, as he couldn't remember how he got there.

After his adventure Twilight had travelled Hyrule searching for his missing past but had never found out anything. And so the only thing he had from his parents had been the only thing he had always clearly remembered: Epona's song.

And knowing that it had been Malon's mother who wrote that song made it pretty clear which way Twilight's lineage went. And as he soaked in the warmth that was Lon Lon Ranch he couldn't help the thought that this reminded him of the feeling he had in Ordon. The feeling of home.

"Oh my, if I had known you came today, I would have prepared more lunch" Malon lamented, but Wild quickly interfered: "That's no problem, really. I think if we work together we can quickly make something."

Malon smiled, nodded and then she took care to hug each of them as a greeting, whether they acted like they liked it or not.

And then, finally her eyes found the newest member of their group. "Oh my…? Another one? And who might you be?" she asked curiously as she neared them. Babble's eyes widened almost comically before they nervously gave a soft "Hi".

"We call them Babble cuz they do not understand us" Wind, who stood next to them, explained quickly. "Four's learning their language so we can communicate."

"You're learning their language and yet you haven't even bothered to learn their name?" Malon chided, crossed her arms and gave the smallest Link the from mother's patented Disappointed Mom stare. The colorful hero seemed to shrink away by instinct and Twilight wondered if the teenager had activated his Minish powers. But then he seemed to catch himself to finally explain: "Look, it's not like we didn't ask, it's just like we cannot speak it."

Quickly Four turned and babbled spoke something to Babble at which they seemed to pout for a moment, before sighing and then opening their mouth to speak, only to have once more a bubble escaping them. And what was that with them being unable to say their name?

"Oh" Malon only muttered, watching as the bubble float up to the ceiling where it burst. "They can't say their name, then?"

"Yes" Babble replied, their pronunciation absolutely terrible but definitely understandable. Four stood next to them, grinning and clapping on their shoulder as a praise for a job well done. Though Babble had probably guessed what the question was, it still meant a small success. While the learning seemed to have been mostly one sided they seemed to have listened enough to what Four was learning to repeat the most simplest words. Which was a huge step forward.

Malon nodded in thought, having come to apparently the same conclusion. And she clapped her hands before announcing: "Anyway, we should get lunch ready now, you must be starving! Just go to the guest rooms to unpack and then Wild and I should have managed to make something in the meantime." Wild nodded determined next to her and thus the Links scattered. Wind and Four sandwiched Babble between them to guide them to the room where they had stayed in the last few times.

It was really heartwarming to watch how well the - apparently if the postman was to be believed - dimension-traveler had been accepted into their rows. Twilight smiled and then he proceeded to the room he would share with Warrior and Wild for the foreseeable future until either they continued their travels through portals (unlikely, seeing as Time would rather not be parted from his wife too soon) or were ripped away by spontaneous time skipping once more (definitely more likely, it was as if Dark Link or whatever else was responsible for their sudden timeskips didn't want them to have happy and peaceful times).

When lunch was ready and done they all sat on the extended table that now was within the eating room of the main building of the Ranch and enjoyed the eatable piece of paradise that had spawned from the combined cooking skills of both Malon and Wild.

And then, while the others were in amicable conversations, Time asked his wife in friendly conversation: "I've noticed there were some more plates to be washed from this morning. Did your father come back?"

The woman shook her head: "No, Dad's still out delivering milk all over Hyrule. It was actually a young man who had searched for nightly shelter and had found it in our shed. I might have attacked him, thinking he was a burglar when I found him. Poor kid had been absolutely terrified."

Time laughed and praised his wife for her skills with a pitchfork while Twilight, who had been silently listening in, had to secretly agree with whoever had been on the wrong end of Malon's pitchfork. The redhead could be absolutely terrifying if angered.

Malon continued: "The young man was actually the reason why I was not as surprised as I probably should be regarding to poor Babble's name troubles. His name was Ga" A small bubble fled her lips. "non."

Suddenly there was clatter the loud sound of a lot of tableware falling on the wood that was the table as six more people's heads instantly whipped around and concentrated only on what the woman had to say, as well as several variations of the phrase: "Did she just say Ganon?"

The only one still unperturbed eating was Sky who had the incredibly luck of not having to have dealt with an incarnation of Ganon and thus only paid halfway attention due to them having explained the story behind that name.

"No, no, sillies" Malon soothed. "It's Ga(another small bubble)non. Two n, not just one. I don't know why, but somehow it's impossible for me to speak it right. He had trouble saying it, too. I don't know why. He was just as surprised as I was."

Instantly the tense atmosphere relaxed, but most of them still seemed a little more attentive than probably necessary.

"Did he look Gerudo?" Time questioned and Malon nodded thoughtfully: "Yes, he did, but he swore me up and down that he was human. He said that back where he's from there are no Gerudos and everyone's human, no matter their skin color."

"And you believed him?" Warriors inquired, doubt written plainly across his face.

"I looked him in his eyes, and he said he was good and so I believed him. Anyway, it doesn't matter right now, he left hours ago directly after breakfast." Malon answered firmly. Next to her, her husband nodded in agreement: "I trust the judgement of my wife in this case. So let it go, boys."

Quiet murmurs opened to that, but no one openly disagreed. Four was quietly translating to Babble as best as he could. Babble's eyes took on impossible sizes and nearly seemed to pop out of their head by the time the smallest hero was done.

Then they snapped their head to Malon and babbled quickly at her, Four next to them strained to catch it all. And then he translated as good as he could: "Babble asked if he wore strange clothes like they do and if he couldn't talk either? I did not catch that right, something about journals or notebooks?"

"Well, his clothes, especially his trousers look similarly strange to yours, Babble, now that I think about it" Malon explained while Four quickly translated. "But he certainly spoke fluently and accent less Hylian as if he were raised near here. But now that you mention it, he did have a notebook with him. Some pages were missing, though, and he wants to hunt the thief down to get them back."

While Four was translating Wind quietly asked: "Why steal pages out of a stupid old used journal, though? There's a lot of better things one can steal!"

"Why, maybe it's magical" joked Hyrule and everyone had a good laugh at that.

Grinning, Four turned once more to Babble to translate and make them join in with the laughter, but the message had apparently the opposite effect than intended. Babble's face turned grim and they stared at their plate for a moment. And then they explained quietly their thoughts to Four.

Four gasped and paled before quickly letting the rest of the group know of Babble's thoughts: "Babble thinks that Ga(a small Bubble)non is from their dimension. They think they actually know him."

And while this piece of news instantly brought new revelations that no one was ready for yet and thus spawned in loud talks once more, Twilight saw Legend staring openly at Babble, now cold eyes practically pinning them, his thoughts unclear.

But, of that Twilight was sure, his thoughts had to be racing as much as all the other's were if not more.