"So you do have the skills to back up all that talk." Urbosa was impressed in spite of herself. Up until now, she had thought that Revali's constant boasting had been just that: talk. Arrogant, sarcastic, and heavily opinionated, she had found little about the Rito Champion worth bothering with; the possible exception being how easy it was to get a rise out of him with just a few well chosen words.

She had, on some level, accepted that he would not have been chosen as a Champion-by his own people or by Zelda-if he had not been at least somewhat capable, but all she had personally seen before today was a tendency to argue, a penchant for making biting personal observations that would have been better off left unsaid, and a near constant need to remind everyone how great he was.

Now however, she was forced to reevaluate her opinion of him.

Revali was still quarrelsome. Still rude. Still very full of himself, if the way his feathers puffed up in response to her comment were any indication.

"You haven't even gotten a taste of what I'm capable of," he told her. "This was a piece of cake. The fact that the rest of you couldn't handle it, when you're supposed to be Champions..."

Urbosa tuned the rest of the monologue out as she turned to look for their scattered companions, though the Rito was still on her mind.

Revali was clearly a master of the bow. He drew, aimed, and released all in the same graceful motion that looked as if it took about as much thought and effort as breathing. His speed rivaled that of any archer she had seen thus far and, even more impressive, there had been not the slightest sacrifice of accuracy in all that haste. His aim had been perfect.

Mipha resurfaced from the pool she had been all but forced into. Tiny droplets of water caused her red and white scales to almost sparkle in the sunlight. She looked around warily as she stepped onto dry land, stooping to reclaim her trident as she joined Urbosa and Revali.

"I'm all right," she said before Urbosa could ask. Turning to Revali, she added, "That was incredible! I've never seen anyone fly like that."

Urbosa, admittedly, had very little experience with Rito outside of their Champion, and even less experience with flight, but even she could tell Revali felt more comfortable in the air than on the ground, now that she had seen him in his element.

"Well done, little brother!" Daruk called as he lumbered up to their group. Grinning broadly, he came to stand beside the Rito. "That was some might fancy work with the bow and arrow, and all of it up in the air, too! I don't know how you do it."

The Rito cocked his head slightly, as if studying the Goron. "It helps that I'm not the size, shape, or weight of a small boulder," he pointed out.

Daruk, characteristically, refused to be offended by the observation. Throwing his head back, he roared with laughter. Urbosa realized what was coming next and had just enough time to grimace as the Goron slapped Revali heartily on the shoulder-she had been on the receiving end of the gesture just once, and had been sore for several days as a result. Even Link, the most common recipient of the Goron seal of approval, still stumbled every time Daruk got carried away and forgot that he currently traveled in a company of non-Gorons.

Revali, not prepared in the slightest for the assault, went down with a surprisingly undignified squawk, one knee slamming into the ground as he threw out his opposite wing to catch himself. Urbosa felt an eyebrow raise as she watched the scene unfold.

Daruk bent over as best he could. "Sorry, brother, I-"

"Don't touch me," Revali all but snarled at the Goron. Daruk backed up quickly, still apologizing. Urbosa rolled her eyes the Rito's theatrics.

"Revali-" Her fellow Champion ignored her, shoving himself upright and turning to glare at Daruk briefly before storming off.

He passed Link without a word. The Hylian watched him go, then turned his questioning gaze back to the others.

Daruk shrugged. "I didn't think I hit him that hard," he mumbled.

"You didn't," Urbosa assured him. "Not any harder than you've hit Link, or me. He's probably just embarrassed that you caught him off guard."

Link looked back over his shoulder in the direction Revali had gone.

"He'll be back when he's ready." Urbosa reminded them all. "It's not like he hasn't wandered off before."

Urbosa pursed her lips as the sun grew low in the sky and the others resigned themselves to setting up camp for the night. While it was true that Revali had on more than one occasion wandered off-particularly on instances when his quick temper had gotten the better of him-he rarely disappeared for more than an hour, and they had never been forced to set up camp overnight while waiting for him.

"I'll be back," she told Link. He looked up from his cooking pot only long enough to nod; the Hylian knew where she was going. Urbosa could feel both the Goron and Zora Champions watching her as she set out in the direction Revali had gone earlier, ignoring the approaching twilight.

"When I find him-" she grumbled to herself, following what looked like a game trail through the trees. The area had a reputation for being peaceful enough; the hinox they had stumbled across earlier had been a surprise. How the monster had made its way here of all places, Urbosa had yet to figure out.

Perhaps it was a sign of the coming battle with Calamity Ganon. The world had been restless of late; smaller monsters seemed both more plentiful and bolder in the past few years, and moblin sightings were getting more and more frequent. Rumors of lynels cropped up now and again where before the creatures were thought to be all but extinct. And today they had run right into a hinox where none were supposed to be.

Mipha had been closest, caught staring right up at it as it pulled an entire tree out of the ground and started swinging it about wildly like a club. It had barely missed her as she dove into the pool of water she had initially been investigating.

Daruk had not even been able to approach the monster. One fierce swing of its makeshift weapon had sent him flying. Urbosa and Link had drawn their weapons, but neither had been able to get close enough to even consider hacking at the creature's legs.

Revali had flown in, tucking his wings neatly to dive past a wild swing as if it were little more than an inconvenience. Then he had drawn his bow and loosed an arrow with deadly accuracy into the hinox's eye. For a brief second he had seemed to hang suspended in the air as he aimed and fired. In the next he was gripping the bow in his talons and soaring upward into the sky, only to turn and rain down a flurry of arrows as he plummeted towards the monster once more.

Catching sight of her quarry Urbosa stopped, placing her hands on her hips, and waited. Revali perched rather than sat on a fallen tree, wings crossed in front of his chest. It was a rare sight. The Rito usually imitated his companions-sitting instead of perching, walking with them rather than flying, sleeping on the ground rather than in a hammock. Urbosa had noticed over the past few weeks that the Rito tended to be at his most difficult when he was no longer trying to fit in.

Revali glared at her for a long moment. The message was clear; he had no intention of explaining himself.

"I can wait all night," she told him. The Gerudo had waited out most of her companions at one point, Link included. Revali was generally the easiest to manage-the bird did not seem to be able to go very long without offering his opinion on something, and once he actually started talking it was fairly simple maneuvering the conversation in the direction Urbosa wanted it to go.

"What. Do. You. Want?" Revali ground out. She half expected him to turn away, but he remained in place, watching her.

"What do I want?" Urbosa echoed. "You've been gone for nearly four hours. The others are setting up camp."

"So?"

"So?" The Gerudo shook her head. "It's one thing to cool off for a bit and come back. It's a completely different matter for someone to have to come looking for you. Or to have to make an unplanned camp because you've been missing for hours. Were you planning on coming back tonight? Were you planning on coming back at all?"

Revali huffed. "I don't need your wings to protect me, mother hen," he snapped.

It took the Gerudo a moment to figure out what he meant, but then she remembered one of her occasional visits to Hyrule Castle Town with Zelda. They had been watching a cucco strut about with her chicks, the fuzzy little things cheeping as they hopped about, when a sudden downpour of rain caught them all off guard.

Hylian and Gerudo were almost immediately soaked. The chicks, on the other hand, had run straight back to their mother, the hen gathering them all under her wings to keep them safe and dry in the storm.

Urbosa shook her head. The Rito hardly struck her as the type to need protecting. Revali had a way of turning even the slightest of perceived insults back on a person with razor sharp efficiency; that, more than even the near constant bragging, was largely what made him so difficult to be around.

"What, exactly, is it I'm trying to protect you from?" she asked. Dropping her hands from her hips, she took a seat beside him on the fallen tree.

He didn't answer. Looking him over, Urbosa realized he hadn't moved since she had found him. He was still staring out into the increasing darkness as the sun disappeared beneath the horizon.

"Revali?" Urbosa took a moment to really look at the Rito.

He remained perched as he had been when she first saw him, still facing the same direction. One shoulder hung slightly lower than the other, and he held the adjoining wing close to his side. His breathing, now that she was close enough to hear it, was shallow and strained, and even in the fading light she could see that he was trembling ever so slightly.

Urbosa considered several possibilities before speaking.

"You're hurt." He flinched, but did not turn his head, confirming her statement. "The hinox? I didn't think it touched you."

"It didn't," Revali snapped.

"Daruk?" she asked. "I know he didn't hit you any harder than the rest of us. He may not even have hit you that hard. I know he's been working on it."

Revali huffed, started to move, then winced. "I'm a Rito, not a Goron," he grumbled, his words quieter than the woman expected.

"And I'm a Gerudo," she retorted. "Not a Goron either, you may have noticed."

Revali sighed and turned his head slightly toward her. "But also not a Rito," he pointed out.

It was Urbosa's turn to sigh. "Pretend I have no idea what you're trying to tell me," she said, turning so as to see him better. He was so much harder to read when he was this still.

For a long moment he said nothing. Urbosa waited. Whether he were reluctant to answer or simply trying to figure out how to do so, impatience would do more harm than good.

"Rito can fly, right?" There was frustration in his voice, but for once it did not seem to be directed at anyone in particular.

"Last time I checked." Revali ignored the retort.

"But we're larger than Hylians. Not as large as Gerudo, but still..."

Urbosa waited.

Revali sighed in exasperation. "Sure, we have feathers. And wings. But we still have to be able to get off the ground. Even Hylians are heavy."

Urbosa considered this. "Are you saying Rito are lighter than Hylians even though they're bigger? How?"

Instead of answering, Revali asked a question of his own. "How much do you know about birds?"

Urbosa frowned. "Like cuccos? Owls? Sparrows? Not much," she admitted.

"Their bones are thinner than those of most animals," Revali explained. "And hollow."

"Oh? Oh." It took only a moment for Urbosa to figure out what he was getting at. "Are you saying Rito share the same characteristics?"

Reluctantly, Revali nodded. Urbosa had never seen him so tense.

"Is that why you left? Because you're injured?" She demanded, and watched as his good shoulder hunched in reply. "Why didn't you just say something? Mipha could have healed you then instead of you suffering for hours, and we could have been on our way..." she trailed off as he tried to huddle further in on himself and immediately regretted it. "You don't like being vulnerable, do you?"

He turned his head just enough to glare at her.

Urbosa shook her head. Pushing herself up from the fallen tree, she stood. "I'm going to get Mipha," she told him, "and send her to you. And you're going to let her heal you, and if you can't be nice while she's doing it, then you're just not going to say anything at all, or I can just drag you back to camp with me and everyone can watch while she heals you there. Agreed?"

Revali dropped his head. "Agreed."

It took very little time to reach the camp. Waving off Link's silent appraisal, she went straight to Mipha, pulling the Zora aside to speak with her privately. Keeping her voice low, she explained.

"Apparently Revali's hiding because he was injured earlier and didn't want anyone to know. I told him he was to let you look him over without arguing." She considered the young princess before her. "You don't mind, do you?"

Mipha shook her head. "Of course not," she assured the Gerudo. Smiling, she added, "He's really not so bad, you know."

Urbosa chuckled as the Zora left. Making her way to the Goron Champion, she settled beside him with a dramatic sigh. "I wished someone had warned me about the amount of babysitting involved in being a Champion; I would have declined in a heartbeat."

Daruk laughed. "You would have done no such thing," he said. "You would have accepted anyway and still complained about it."

"True," the two older Champions sat in companionable silence for several minutes before the Goron shifted, and turned to study Urbosa.

"You found him?" he asked. Urbosa nodded.

"I did."

"He all right?" That was all Daruk was worried about. He was hardly one to pry, and if Urbosa said he was, the Goron Champion would willingly leave it at that.

"He will be." Urbosa considered her next words carefully. "I don't think he appreciated your earlier...display of affection."

Daruk's eyes narrowed briefly as he thought. "I hurt him," he guessed, sorrow crossing his features briefly before they smoothed away. "Sometimes I forget that I am not among my Goron brothers."

"We're all well aware," Urbosa said dryly. "Nobody holds it against you."

"How do you know?"

Urbosa rolled her eyes. "Because I know I don't. Because Link keeps letting it happen. He wouldn't if it really bothered him, you know." She waited for him to acknowledge the truth of the statement before continuing. "And Revali wasn't angry. You know he's very vocal about assigning blame where he thinks it's due. The most he had to say was that he was a Rito, not a Goron. No accusations."

Daruk relaxed minutely. "I should apologize, though."

Urbosa shrugged. "I get the feeling the less it's talked about, the happier he'll be," she admitted.

"I just won't do it again, then."

"Sounds like a plan."

Mipha returned shortly after they finished their discussion, followed by Revali a few minutes later. The Rito busied himself with his usual evening routine, with one exception. After checking his bow and going over his arrow supply, Revali chose to string a hammock up between two trees instead of laying out his bedroll like the others.

"Did you get it taken care of?" Urbosa asked the Zora softly. Mipha nodded.

"Fracture of the coracoid bone," she offered, then hesitated a moment before continuing. "Did you know their bones are hollow?" she asked.

"Not until he mentioned it earlier." Urbosa admitted. "How fragile, exactly, does that make them? Should we be worried?"

Mipha smiled. "As long as he's not being knocked around by Gorons or anything stronger, he should be all right. From what I could tell, the bones are lighter and slightly hollow, but the way they fit together, they reinforce each other to create a surprisingly strong skeletal system."

"That's something, at least." Urbosa commented. Turning to look at the blue-feathered Rito as he settled into his hammock, she added, "I don't know whether he thanked you or not, but I'm sure he appreciates it."

"He did, actually." Mipha offered, turning to look as well. "It was barely a whisper and I almost missed it, but he did thank me."

Urbosa was surprised, but not displeased. "Good. There may be hope for him yet."

The Zora princess looked thoughtful. "It was the only thing he said the entire time. Other than that he stayed silent."

Disclaimer: The Legend of Zelda Universe, Breath of the Wild in particular, does not belong to me.