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Blue’s hands keep shaking.
“It’s going to be hard to make tea like this, you know,” Red says softly. Not chastising, but a reminder to Blue to try to focus on something else. His anxiety bleeds into the body on freezing days like this, no matter who’s fronting, and he doesn’t react well to direct comfort.
Vio might say “get your shit together,” but Red isn't that brutal. Just blunt.
The tremor doesn't fade entirely, but it lessens. In the back of his mind he knows Green is talking to Blue, distracting him, but Red doesn't pay it any mind as he fills the kettle with water. The increasing weight further stills his hands and gives him a better sensation to focus on than the cold. He keeps his attention forward—on the sensations—to block out any influence Blue might be leaking.
After he puts the kettle over the fire, he grabs a mug and sets it on the hearth, just close enough to let it warm up slowly. He feels Vio join him—not taking over, just watching as Red grabs a hunk of ginger wrapped in cheesecloth.
I want cinnamon and milk too.
Okay, not just watching.
“I'm the one making it.” Red sets the ginger aside. “No milk.”
I'm going to be drinking it. I want milk tea.
“I'm making it for Blue,” Red says firmly. He shuffles through the rest of their spice jars until he finds the mint, which is nearly empty. “You’ll have to remind us to get more when we go to the market.”
There's a wave of disappointment—reluctant acceptance, but Vio doesn't leave.
Red slices off two chunks of ginger and puts the rest of it away before grabbing the mortar and pestle from underneath the counter—heavy, almost slipping through his fingers due to the numbness. It shakes the whole counter when he sets it down.
The mint leaves are still as fresh as the day they were cut, held in stasis by the enchantments on the jar. When he crushes them down, they smear at the bottom of the bowl, though they don’t quite smell as fresh as they should; enchantments aren’t perfect after all. He throws the ginger in and gives it two good hits. No more than that. Pulverizing it completely won’t do any good, and it will be harder to strain. Vio hates any kind of “debris” in his tea, and—well. He is going to be the one drinking it. Red likes chewing on tea leaves when he gets to the bottom of the cup, but he’ll be nice on this one.
The herbs go in another little square of cheesecloth, tied into a loose knot, which then goes in the mug. Red sits at the hearth, warming his hands up a little bit while he waits.
“How’s he doing?” Red still doesn’t dare look back, lest he accidentally draw Blue forward—can’t do that ‘til they’ve got everything ready.
Better than some days.
Some days being the snowstorms—the howling winds that rattle the roof, the walls of snow that cover the entire door and trap them inside their own home, the constant cold even with a fire and piles of blankets and warm food and as many layers of socks as they have in their wardrobe.
It’s hardest when they have no way to distract themselves. No work, no patrol, no errands to run.
Small mercies, it doesn’t snow heavily often in Hyrule. The summers are brutal, and Link always hated them—but as they are now, the colors are happy to deal with heat if it means that the winters aren’t too bad.
Red wonders, briefly, if they had gone back to being Link, if Link would be scared of hypothermia the way Blue is.
Odds are three to one that he wouldn’t be, but what do we know. Vio’s words are accompanied by the vague feeling of a shrug.
“Not much.”
No point in speculating.
Yeah, it wouldn’t do them any good. The old Link is gone—he might as well be dead.
Can we not?
“Right. Sorry.” Red brings his focus back to the kettle, a faint bubbling just starting to be heard over the fire.
At a rolling boil he pours the water into the mug and leaves it and the kettle both at the hearth while he jumps up to finish preparations—two blankets, a candle if they end up reading past dark, and…
Is it too much to ask if I can keep reading my book about the history of Gerudo dark magic?
“Vio,” Red sighs.
Kidding. Get the third volume of The Cursing of Château Castle.
“Much better.” Red pulls the book down from their growing collection and piles all his goodies on the side table next to the armchair, and throws the blankets onto the chair. “Tea should be ready now.”
Squeeze the cheesecloth to get the last of the liquid out. Add just a little bit of honey. Keep the spoon in, because Vio is anal about stirring before every sip. He places the cup next to the book and unlit candle.
Red himself plops into the chair, falling into the cushions and then falling back, back, back, until he’s no longer there—Vio seamlessly taking his place, immediately shuffling the blankets around to get comfortable.
Vio picked a good book, Red tells Blue instead of asking if he’s okay.
He’d better have, Blue replies instead of saying no.
Green nudges Blue forward and Red joins, hovering in the body’s senses without crowding Vio too much. He takes a sip of tea—Red doesn’t like the taste much, but that’s fine. The lingering mint they all feel is for Blue, not any of them really.
Vio begins reading. Not out loud, but his internal narration is strong enough that they don’t even need to look at the words on the page with him. He even does voices, which is cool. Red can’t imagine different voices when he reads stuff on his own.
Blue’s presence is no longer quite as heavy and jittery now that they’ve all settled in, listening to Vio read while he’s all cozy in a blanket, the cold completely unable to reach them—reach Blue.
Vio blindly swirls the spoon in the tea once before picking it up and taking a sip, and his hands don’t shake.