The first three hours of their travel was a piece of cake, really. They followed a clear mulch-based footpath along the big people fence, and the most interesting thing to happen was seeing a few huge bugs between the enormous leaves of grass surrounding the path. Fascinating as that was, the bugs weren't threatening or even remotely interested in them, so the excitement wasn't very long-lasting. Sidon took a few pictures of the bugs with his slate, but that was that.

They took a snack break when they reached the point where they would be leaving the safety of the fence, and Sidon made a hilariously disgusted face at the smoked fish jerky.

"I can barely taste the fish itself underneath the flavour of smoke", Sidon said after he swallowed. He gave the rest of the portion a sour look. "It's so dry too, like eating sand that's been drying right above the waterline for weeks."

Link shrugged and tried to hold in his need to laugh at the poor Prince's expense, especially at the very specific comparison that implied Sidon had, indeed, eaten the mentioned sand before. Perhaps as a child, or someone had pushed him into it during fighting practice, or maybe he had just estimated his swimming speed wrong and crashed into the shore. Either way a funny mental image. Instead of laughing, because he was considerate sometimes, he dug out an apple from his backpack and held it out. He signed one-handedly: 'Nice and juicy.'

Sidon looked at the offering, then sighed and accepted it gratefully enough. He dutifully ate his nasty fish with the less nasty apple, and it seemed to go down a little better.

They continued on to the big rocks, now more like mountains, at the side of the big people road and prepared to settle into the bushes next to them to wait for the nightfall, as per Scavenri's instructions. The road they would have to cross looked as vast as the Gerudo Desert, and rougher to traverse than the mountains Link had crossed: there were pebbles, rocks, and sticks the size of fallen trees all over the place, not to even mention the craters that were big people footprints.

However, Link wasn't feeling patient about sitting still when there was daylight left for roughly three more hours. He peered into the direction of the stable, then towards the forest, and upon seeing nothing approaching waved to catch Sidon's attention.

'Maybe we should just cross now', he signed. 'I don't see any big people and it wasn't that long since we ate so I'm good to go.'

Sidon frowned at him. "I see your point, but Scavenri advised us to wait. He has traveled this path before so he ought to know what he's talking about."

Link had to admit to himself that listening to the locals was generally a good thing to do, but he had also found a lot of interesting places and adventures by doing the exact opposite. So he waved his hand dismissively. 'This road isn't much used. It only leads to the Lost Woods and nobody goes there. It's late enough that there won't be kids running around the stable. It's not my first time in here either.'

Sidon looked conflicted. He glanced at the desolate road, then at the still bright sun, then at the bag by his side. He grimaced slightly, most likely considering the fact that the longer their journey took, the longer he had to endure eating the jerky. In the end it seemed that his own comfort was the most compelling argument, as he stood up and threw the bag over his shoulder with a determined look.

"Alright", he said and joined Link at the edge of the road. "We'll just be quick about this. Scavenri said it'll take an hour to cross the road, and that's with him carrying his scavenged goods and with his small Minish legs. Surely we can do this faster if we try."

'That's the spirit!' Link signed, then the two of them gave one more glance at both directions before beginning to cross the road.

The endless sea of pebbles felt even tougher to travel through this time around than it had at the beach, possibly because they had gotten used to the gentle Minish paths they had walked on all day. They had to go around a huge pothole at one point, and Sidon looked severely tempted by the puddle in the middle of it; Link had to remind him that they didn't have the time to dally and climbing back up the pebble-y walls would be next to impossible. Sidon was obviously bummed, but had to concede the point. Link briefly worried about Sidon's current state of hydration because of this, but his scales looked fine; out of water for hours dry, but not dehydrated dry.

It was when they were roughly at the halfway mark that their luck ran out. The ground started to tremble gently at first and it got worse by every passing second. Thundering stomps, clacking gravel, impossibly loud screeching and teeth-grinding creaking approached at an alarming pace. They turned to look towards the forest with wide eyes.

A big person with a huge donkey and an enormous cart came out of the forest and towards the stable. Fast. Too fast for them to be able to run to the safety of either side of the road, much less in this terrain.

Sand, mulch and gravel was flying around with every enormous step the big person took. Pebbles were raining from the bottoms of their boots, and one hit on the head would be fatal. The donkey had four feet with hard hooves that crushed pebbles like they were made of thin glass. The cart had four wide wheels that ground the path underneath flat.

Link was frozen on the spot, wide eyes staring at nothing.

Air tasted like ozone and the wind was whipping sand into his face as he tried to take aim while furiously calculating the effect the whirlwinds would have and electricity crackled and Riju screamed for him to return to the protective circle now-

"Link!" Sidon shouted in alarm, grabbed his arm, and pulled him into motion. Link's brain was going in circles but he ran by instinct alone and scrambled through the tough terrain, acutely aware of the noise getting closer and louder and the earth shaking worse with each giant step. Sidon lost his footing from the quake but got up hurriedly. Link had to jump to safety when a pebble gave under his feet. Their progress was minuscule at best.

Then a giant foot stomped down behind them, making a crater into the ground and whipping sand and mulch into their eyes. Both of them fell prone from the force alone. Link could hear Sidon's voice but was unable to make out the words in the chaotic noise all around them. He scrambled up in pure panic, but was sent back to the ground when another giant foot hit the ground. He started crawling desperately, pushing his way through the pebbles at a snail's pace and he lost track of Sidon's whereabouts in the struggle.

He had barely made any progress when a shadow fell over him and his eyes widened. He shot up to his feet, thanking Hylia that there wasn't another quake happening right that second, and hurled himself recklessly to the side right in time to avoid an enormous hoof crashing into the spot he had been occupying a second ago. Pebbles broke into million pieces under the hard and heavy hoof and rained on him painfully as he scrambled backwards to get more distance. Then another hoof crashed down right behind him, just barely missing him and way too close for comfort. He hurled himself forward right before the hoof lifted up again, narrowly avoiding getting his head bashed in by its momentum.

Despite the scare, he knew he was safe now; that was the big person past him, the donkey past him, and that left just the cart. He had seen enough carts to know that it would be wider than the donkey, and thus the wheels wouldn't be anywhere near him at this point as long as he stayed put. So he pushed his panic to the back of his mind and started looking around for Sidon, a different flavour of fear rising within his chest.

He spotted a flash of red on the ground right before the cart wheel blocked it from his vision, making Link's heart jump out of his chest.

"SIDON!" he screamed, and started a mad scramble towards the spot, time feeling like it was standing still. The wheel passed, he saw the red thing laying on the ground unmoving, and then the next wheel rolled by, blocking the view again. He couldn't tell if it ran over Sidon or merely passed by him. He could only pray to Hylia that it was the latter, as he hurried towards the spot, cursing every pebble in his path and every quake that made him fall.

Finally the wheel rolled away and he could see Sidon laying still while Link kept getting back up every time he lost his footing. By the time he reached Sidon the quakes were lessening as the big person got further and further away from them.

And then Sidon sat up like it was nobody's business, obviously not crushed to death.

"That was close", he muttered seemingly to himself. He looked like he was about to say something more but he didn't have the time to do that before he was tackle-glomped by Link. They fell to the ground with Sidon giving an undignified yelp and Link wrapping his limbs tightly around the flailing Zora while pressing his face into his neck, not giving a single damn about the silver neck piece biting into his cheek.

"I thought you were dead!" Link cried hoarsely and pressed a relieved kiss on the uncovered spot on Sidon's throat.

"Link- Gills-"

Link loosened the grip of his feet and moved them a bit until he heard Sidon take a deep breath, then resolutely re-fastened them on the acceptable spot. He dropped another kiss with a satisfied sigh, just so damn happy that Sidon was alive that he didn't give Ganon's ass about propriety. Sidon's arms wrapped around his middle after a moment, too.

They stayed like that until both of them had caught their breaths, their hearts had stopped trying to break loose, and they could no longer hear the big person stomping in the distance.

Sidon broke the silence hesitantly. "Were you nibbling my neck just now? Ah, just checking."

Oh, so he had noticed. Link had half-hoped he hadn't so that he wouldn't need to explain himself and possibly complicate things between them.

"Yes", Link answered, not really feeling like correcting him on the act being kissing rather than nibbling, and using more words than necessary. It was semantics to him anyway now that he was caught, and Sidon just might have an explanation of his own to the suggested situation, while the actual action might raise more questions.

"Alright then", Sidon said, "I'm assuming it isn't a hostile gesture among Hylians?"

Link snorted, not even dignifying that with an answer.

"I figured as much. The tackling hurt considerably more anyway and I know that was out of affection, so… carry on, I suppose. I'm happy to see you mostly unhurt as well."

…Link wasn't going to question his luck or think too hard about his life choices or consequences when he was given a permission like that. No, he just firmly attached his lips to Sidon's neck and gave it an actual nibble after a short moment of pure gentle pressure of lips against scales. He sighed in bliss and moved on to a different spot higher on Sidon's neck, enjoying the jump in Sidon's pulse at the gesture. If he was crossing some kind of a line here, it was Sidon's own doing for giving him a permission to proceed. He was just seizing the opportunity, just like he did with most things in his life.

Link felt Sidon's arms tighten around him, and simultaneously heard a small sound of sand and pebbles shuffling, which was presumably caused by Sidon's arm fin dragging in the pile of dirt they were laying on.

…The pile of dirt-

Sidon stiffened, and released his hold with an awkward cough.

"Oh, it just occurred to me that we're in the middle of the road where we almost got crushed to death just now", Sidon said, and made a move to sit up. As much as Link didn't want to move, even he realized that staying where they were wasn't an option, so he yielded. "We really shouldn't spend a moment longer than necessary here."

Link stayed quiet, mourning the loss of the beautiful moment they shared, and removed himself from Sidon's person quickly and efficiently. He wiped the worst of the dust off of himself while Sidon stood up and did the same, then they both checked their gear to make sure nothing had gotten lost or broken. Finally they looked at each other silently, not quite sure how to proceed from there. Wherever the metaphorical 'there' was.

Link gave Sidon a tentative smile. 'We should get going.'

Sidon nodded, looking relieved, and turned to walk towards their destination. "Indeed. Let's go."

And so the journey continued with the both of them relatively unhurt, for now at least.