"Wild, no." Fi is millennia years old. She will not waver.
"Wild yes." Link grins in a way that is usually acceptable to most people as an 'odd smile', but Fi knows is his way of baring his teeth so she knows he won't back down.
They stare for quite a few minutes, somehow neither of them blinking. Then she catches that twitch at the corners of his mouth, and all at once she falls soft.
He's already perking up in victory before she can even sigh, and give her go-ahead.
But she can't hold it against him, when he leaps around her, chanting her name in thanks.
Somewhere, distantly, she wonders, how she's grown so. . .pliable, for lack of a better term.
Then she sees her master grinning and laughing, like the light of Hylia, and wonders how she could have once been so stiff.
(Sky would love him, she thinks. All of her masters would. As they would one another. As she, them.)
The source of their stand-off is this:
They had eventually made it to Hateno, after many shrines and innumerable Koroks, Link riding into town on his horse, Piccolo. He'd dismounted easily enough, plucking a flower and tying it into his mane amongst many others. Surveying the town, this one felt larger than Kakariko, but less crowded due to the openness of it.
Link liked it.
They visited the shops, Fi giving a pleased hum at the dye shop, dutifully commenting on each outfit he decides to dye. Smiles serenely as he plays with village children, and lights blue flames, and visits goats. They eventually go to the laboratory and meet Purah and her assistant, and while difficult to a degree (she remembers Link well enough, whereas all he has is nothing. He likes her well enough though), it's overall a good day.
He has his horse following along behind him as he scans the hills as dusk gradually falls, wondering where to camp, when he sees it.
A little worn down, but nowhere near as decrepit as the ruins that litter Hyrule. Sad, perhaps a tad lonely, but something about how it sits just so, away from the main village, how it's sequestered away- well, Link likes it.
Piccolo follows easily enough, going to drink from the overgrown pond, as Link pokes around, Fi trailing behind him, tilting her head curiously. "It's quite worn down," she observes.
"Tired," he agrees. A hand on the weathered stone. "But strong."
That's when Bolson and his buddies scare the absolutely blessings out of them.
They give a whole schpiel about how they want to fix up the house and sell it. And Link is honestly considering, fingers tapping his lips as he mutters and thinks. Fi manages to grab his attention and draw him away to discuss this.
It's honestly a waste of valuable resources, and time, especially when there's so much to do, and he needs to keep his rupees to buy supplies. Add in how much they travel.
Fi voices none of this, because she knows that he knows. But with that last expression on his face, and how he curls his arms around himself, she thinks. And-
What must it have been like, to wake up in a world you don't know? The only home you've known, was what was once your tomb? Trailed along on a journey, gamely going forwards, finding loss, and grief, and devastation? The few memories Link has are from friends, close like family (one closer, still), and the aching feelings they left with him. He has no memories of his blood family, no knowledge of his training, though his muscles recall. Hyrule a different one from the one that he had once called home. How must that feel?
And Fi calculates, abstractly, emotion against situation, and what she knows of Wild, (her master, Champion Link) and-
This is something that is his. Something solely his choice. Something that Link, Wild, has, that Champion Link, Hero of Hyrule will not lose.
So, she lets him.
No, she supports him.
They spend around a month in Hateno, taking out monster camps, and completing shrines, while helping Bolson and his crew where they can. The first night after purchasing the property, even though there's no furniture, Link sleeps on the floor, where he can see the waxing gibbous through a hole in the roof. There's a contentment deep down to his very bones, and Fi finds she feels it too.
By the time they move on, the house is patched up and there's furniture. There's promises of weapon displays, outside gardening, and a door when he returns with the supplies.
Fi knows by the twitch of his ear that he won't be getting that door anytime soon.
It's months of memories and fights and quests; Link does make time to come by Hateno, easy with the lab nearby. He hangs the weapons of his departed friends - he's cautious to use them, knowing his penchant for breaking weapons, no matter how well made - as well as images from his Slate that Purah helps him replicate into things called photographs. He somehow managed to take a photo of himself and Fi, although only he can see Fi, a ghostly afterimage in the frame.
He spends lazy days recuperating from wounds laying in the grass under the shade of the apple tree, a breeze scuttling clouds in the blue sky above, the pond rippling beside him. Fi is happy to hover and rest with him, tranquil, content. Especially when he brings her body home from The Lost Woods, his hand laying loosely on the hilt, and she feels the breeze in his hair and the grass tickling her blade.
Days like these Wild breathes easy, and so does Fi.
They're muddy and exhausted and triumphant in the empty sort of way, fighting too long and too tired to revel in victory.
Fi can feel the sudden unsteadiness that comes from a burden finally lifted, relieving despite his trembling frame as he walks Zelda to their home. They'd teleported there, Zelda leaning on one side, Fi's body firmly grasped in the other hand as she floats beside him, keeping watch for danger. They're covered in blood and bruises and only the late hour keeps them from being seen and screamed at by the kind people of Hateno.
Home looms from the dark, a haven after their nightmare; it's quiet, and dark, and after everything that's happened, there's no happier sight.
Taking one last step off of the bridge, he pulls up short.
". . .Link?" Zelda's voice is achingly tired.
"Oh." Fi is bemused because she suddenly knows exactly why he stopped. He sounds dazed. "I'll need to get a door."
Zelda pulls her head up and squints at the house, incredulous. "What."
Then suddenly Link is laughing, Fi joining in with her own tinkling bells, and Zelda starts giggling, until the two of them are on the ground, gasping, tired but alive and home.
"Welcome home," Fi murmurs to them, as Link helps Zelda up, and he flashes Fi a smile.
They're home.
