Dubious Food

"Eating it won't hurt you . . . probably."

(This story takes place after the events of Breath of the Wild, sometime during the restoration of Hyrule.)

Chapter 1

Mushrooms

Link had to have the strongest stomach of anyone Zelda had ever met. The funny thing was, he was actually a pretty good cook, when he wanted to be. But it seemed like more often than not he just wanted to experiment. And his experiments were, well, interesting. Zelda herself enjoyed a good science experiment when there was a reason for it, but Link's cooking could get . . . a little out of hand.

Sometimes she was convinced he did it on purpose just for kicks. One time, on one of their many treks into the wild, she returned from a river bath to find him hunched over a cooking pot, eagerly stirring something with an ominously putrid aroma.

"What is that?" she asked apprehensively.

"Diced keese eyeball, ground hinox toenail, shredded durian," he replied without looking up, "and some salt and a little butter."

"Are you trying to make an elixir? Because you'll need—"

"Nah," he said. "Just a little stir-fry to use up some ingredients."

"Link, we have plenty of ingredients. If your pack's too full you could just throw those out."

"Yeah, but then I'd never get to find out how they taste together."

She stared at him as he whistled and stirred. "That's not our lunch, is it?"

"Don't worry. I made you an omelet." He gestured to a plate on a rock next to the fire. "This is my lunch. . . . Unless you want some? I'm glad to share."

Deciding (by what standards, she knew not) that the contents of the pot were cooked enough, he scooped them onto another plate.

"Link . . . You can't eat that."

"Yeah?" He grinned. "Just watch me."

Zelda did, reluctantly. At the first bite, Link's face was that of someone who was trying very hard not to make a face. He suppressed a gag valiantly, but Zelda still noticed it. After a few more bites, however, he was eating it as calmly as if it were an apple pie.

"So . . . how is it?" she ventured.

"Not bad. A little strong at first, but it grows on you."

"Mm-hmm. I'll take your word for it." Zelda took a seat upwind to eat her omelet.

Having grown familiar with Link's cooking antics, Zelda wasn't surprised to occasionally see him messing around with the cooking pot in the castle courtyard. (Apparently the royal chef had banned him from the kitchen unless he promised to follow a recipe.) When she was in the presence of anyone else, Zelda would walk on by, but later her curiosity would get the better of her and she would ask him what he cooked that day. Sometimes, his inventions actually sounded quite edible. Other times she regretted asking.

On one instance, however, it turned out she was very glad she had asked. They were sitting in the library as the sun set, Zelda tracing a copy of an ancient diagram and Link reading a book of Korok folk tales.

"Your cooking smelled pretty good this afternoon," she commented. "What was it?"

"Hmm? Nothing too extraordinary. Just a bit of venison, and some really good mushrooms."

"What kind? Hylian shrooms?"

"No. I don't know. They were yellow."

"Zapshrooms?"

"I don't think so. They had spots."

"Sunshrooms? Or endura shrooms?"

"No . . ."

Zelda listed every yellowish mushroom she could think of, but Link said no to all of them.

"Wait, where did you say you got these mushrooms?" she finally asked.

"I just found them growing behind the castle."

"Link, you can't just eat unidentified mushrooms!"

Link looked completely confused. "Unidentified mushrooms were one of the first things I lived on after I woke up from the Shrine."

"Those were just Hylian shrooms."

"Yeah, but they were unidentified to me. Zelda, don't worry. I do this all the time. I'll be fine."

And it had seemed like he was. The night and morning passed uneventfully, and so did the next afternoon as they rode to Kakariko Village for a feast that the villagers had invited them to. Early evening found them sitting among a small crowd of Sheikah in Impa's spacious front room, joining in the laughter and chowing down on rice balls and stuffed pumpkins.

Zelda hardly noticed the first time Link left the house. He returned only a few minutes later, and she assumed he had just been to the latrine. But when he abruptly stood up again shortly after that, she asked him if everything was all right. He didn't answer as he hurried out the door.

It took him longer to return this time, and when he did, he was walking slowly, and looked pale. He seemed to sway a bit as he sat down on his cushion next to her.

"Link, are you all right?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he muttered shakily. "Just . . . ate a little too much food."

Zelda was suspicious. She had seen Link eat loads in a sitting before, without problems. The boy had a metabolism as high as Mount Lanayru. But she let him be and continued to chat with the villagers, hoping he would feel better soon.

Only a few minutes later he got up a third time, half stumbling, supporting himself against the door jamb as he left the house. Distracted from her current conversation, Zelda sat up and wondered whether she should follow him. She saw out of the corner of her eye that Paya had noticed him too, and seemed to be considering the same thing. No, it wouldn't do to have the poor girl fretting over him; best to take action herself before that could happen. Zelda excused herself and headed out the door.

She found Link on his hands and knees on the riverbank, his face hanging over the water. When he saw her, he closed his mouth and sat back, frowning hard.

"Wh—why'd you follow me?" he said haltingly, almost in a whisper. "I— told you I'm fine."

"Link." Zelda knelt down and held her wrist to his forehead. "You're not fine. You're burning up."

"I— just ate too much. Give me— a minute to rest, and I'll be all right."

He clearly needed to vomit and didn't want to do so in her presence. "All right, you stay here then," she said. "I'm going to see if anyone here has any healing elixirs."

"Zelda, I don't need . . ."

She left without listening to his arguments. Reentering the house and making her way around the villagers, she took a seat next to Impa.

"Pardon me," she said with a quick head bow, "but do you have any healing elixirs? Or know anyone who does? The sort for nausea and fever."

"Are you well, child?" Impa raised her eyebrows and glanced at the door; clearly she had seen Link's exit too.

"I'll be fine," said Zelda, "but an elixir or two would be most helpful."

"Of course. Paya!" Impa called the girl over. "Show the princess to the elixir cabinet, please. She's feeling a little out of sorts. Take anything you need, Your Highness."

"Is . . . everyone all right?" ask Paya with concern.

"Everything's fine," said Zelda. "Just a little stomach upset. Nothing to worry about."

After evasively reassuring Paya about a dozen times, Zelda finally made her way back to the riverbank, a small bottle in hand. She found Link curled into a fetal position on the grass, his hands over his eyes.

"Link. Can you sit up?"

He slowly lifted himself into a sitting position, scrunching up his eyes against the fading light.

"Here. Take this. It's the only medicine they have here, but it should help at least a bit."

She uncorked the bottle and put it in his hand. He lifted it shakily to his mouth and swallowed, cringing. Setting the empty bottle down on the ground, he took a few deep breaths.

"Any better?"

He nodded, and started to push himself up as if to stand. Then, suddenly, he was back on his knees on the riverbank, retching and coughing.

Well. Too late to give him privacy now. Zelda waited, a patient but concerned hand on his shoulder.

"I'm— sorry," he gasped after a minute.

"What in the world for?"

"I just wasted their medicine." Link sat back on the grass, still feverish but temporarily relieved from the nausea. "And, uh, I'm sure watching me puke wasn't what you were hoping to do this evening."

"No apologizing, silly. Princess's orders. It was worth a try. And I'm sure my evening isn't half as spoiled as yours right now. Come on, let's get you home so you can rest and have some better medicine."

"But, the villagers—"

"Will be fine," Zelda interrupted. "They're kind people. I'll go excuse us to Impa and get the horses ready."

The ride back to the castle was torturous. Zelda had considered warping Link home with the Shiekah Slate, but she knew that warping could cause dizziness even in a healthy person, and she was concerned about what it might do when combined with fever. So they took the quickest route possible but rode slowly, with Link slumped over his horse much of the time. The only relief was that soon there was little light left to accost his eyes and aching head. Nevertheless, at one point he apparently passed out briefly and almost fell off his horse, so after that Zelda sat behind him in the saddle, leading her own horse by the reins.

They were not far from home when, passing by a wooded area near Hyrule Field, Zelda noticed a spot of firelight a short distance to their right. She gently reined in the horses behind a patch of trees and waited, listening. Yes, it was a bokoblin camp, and no, she didn't want to deal with it right now. Normally, Link would have had no trouble fighting off the monsters. And Zelda had been improving her own fighting skills lately, enough that she could probably have fought off a small group like this on her own. But right now she knew that if it came to a fight, Link would try to aid her, and that could be disastrous. Her heart pounding, she directed the horses onto the grassy roadside so their hooves wouldn't clop, and moved on as silently as possible. Thankfully, the bokos continued their fire dance without noticing them.

She felt a surge of relief as they rode through the castle's main gate. Directing a servant to stable the horses, she guided a now dizzy and shivering Link to his room, instructing him to go straight to bed and telling him she would send the royal medic to administer elixirs.

"Zelda, I'm sorry," Link mumbled again as he sat down on his bed.

"I thought I told you no more of that," she responded.

"I'm supposed to be your bodyguard. But I didn't even get up when there were bokos nearby. Some bodyguard. If they'd had more lookouts we might be dead now."

Ah, chuchus. She had hoped he hadn't been aware of that. "How many times do I have to tell you I can bodyguard myself. And we can bodyguard each other. Nobody has to be strong all the time. Besides, you yourself have said stealth is just as good an option, and I'd say we did pretty well with it back there. Now lie down and get some rest."

Zelda called for the medic and explained the situation. Then, noticing her own growing tiredness, she went to the elixir cabinet herself and drank an energizing elixir. After that, she headed to the library to investigate something that had been niggling at her mind all evening.

It was technically early morning by the time she found it. She had pored over every book of plants and herbs that she could find, searching for the image that was so faint in her memory. She was beginning to conclude that whatever book it was in must have been lost to the Calamity, when it suddenly occurred to her to leave the herbs section and turn to the sections on crime and warfare. And there it was, nestled between books about weapons and espionage strategies: an ancient, loose-paged little book about poisons.

She flipped carefully through the weathered pages until she found the illustration that she'd once seen as a girl: a yellow mushroom with purple spots. The colors were almost completely faded, but she could tell by comparing it to the other drawings that it had once been very bright. Below the illustration she read:

Killshroom

Feeding on soil infused with decaying Malice, this extremely rare mushroom is found only in areas where great evils have been destroyed. Do not let its bright appearance or savory scent fool you: it is one of the deadliest poisons known to exist. Not only that, but the delayed onset of its symptoms makes it an excellent choice for untraceable assassinations, if the assassin is lucky enough to have such a rare find in their possession. One to two days after ingestion, the victim will begin to experience fever, pain, and dizziness, accompanied by vomiting. As the symptoms progress, weakness and dehydration will increase, possibly leading to delirium. Death follows in a few days to a week. Although likely to be misdiagnosed and treated as an infectious disease, the symptoms of killshroom poisoning are uniquely resistant to all common elixirs. Since the poison does not cause wounding, it is also unaffected by fairy dust.

Zelda marched to Link's room and, seeing candlelight under the door, let herself in immediately. She found him more-or-less awake, half-propped up on pillows with a cloth on his head, while the tired-looking medic prepared another elixir in the corner of the room.

"Link." She held the illustration in front of him. "Is this the mushroom you ate?"

Link squinted at the ancient page before looking up at her. "Yeah," he said with a weak smile. "That was it."