Chapter Text
The innkeeper had barely finished saying, “You’re welcome to decorate if you like,” before Wind had already grabbed some decorations from a nearby box and was halfway up the nearest support beam with a string of garland in his teeth.
The beam creaked faintly as he shimmied up, boots smudging old dust, pine-scented garland trailing behind him like a ridiculous green tail.
“Hylia- Wind, please be careful,” Sky called, hands hovering uselessly like he could catch him from three meters away. His gaze tracked every wobble.
“I will!” Wind replied, voice muffled around plastic needles. “I’m a sailor, I know what I'm doing.”
“More like a gremlin,” Legend muttered, though he was already kneeling by another box of ornaments, sorting through the countless decorations. Glass clinked gently as he set aside anything that looked too fragile for Wind’s vicinity.
Hyrule laughed softly as he strung blue ribbons along the mantle, fingers nimble from years of tying knots and bandages. Time stood beside him, placing fake pine cones on random surfaces.
Four decorated with meticulous precision. Every ornament on his small tree was perfectly spaced and perfectly aligned. He circled it twice, adjusting one bauble by a finger’s width, standing back, then adjusting it again until some private equation in his head finally balanced. Warriors stood beside him, trying to get Four to reign it back a bit.
Legend’s was the opposite: a chaotic masterpiece of color and tiny mismatched trinkets. Little carved animals, half-chipped hearts, charms from a dozen different towns - things that didn’t match in the slightest but somehow felt like they’d always belonged together.
Sky and Twilight lit a little bundle of festive herbs, holding it just above a candle flame. The dried sprigs caught, then smoldered, releasing a warm, cozy scent that curled through the room - pine and citrus and something sweet that made the whole place feel instantly safer.
Wild settled on decorating the stair railings, humming a little tune under his breath. His fingers moved quickly, looping garlands and ribbons with practiced ease.
Wind, having reached the top of the final beam, stretched precariously to secure the garland. “See?” he called down. “Perfectly - woah - fine!” Wind let go of the beam and deliberately fell into Sky's arms. They all gathered at the middle of the room taking in the sight of the fully decorated common room of the inn.
The whole place looked magical.
...Until the room dropped into complete darkness. For one second, no one spoke.
Then Wind shouted, voice too loud in the sudden dark, “Did I do that?! I swear I didn’t touch the lamp-!”
“No,” Time answered calmly, somewhere to the left. His tone barely changed. “Looks like a magical fluctuation. Happens in older buildings.”
There was a shuffling. A bump. The scrape of boots on the wooden floor. Someone’s shoulder knocked into a table, ornaments clacking together.
“Who’s elbow is that- ow- whoever that was, you’re buying me dinner,” Legend snapped as someone stepped squarely on his foot.
“Sorry!” Hyrule’s voice chirped from somewhere far too close.
In the darkness, something warm flared gently to life.
Sky’s lantern bloomed open, golden and soft. It painted their faces in warm light, catching in Twilight’s eyes and glinting on Time’s reading glasses.
“All good,” Sky said, smile radiant in the new light. “Just a blackout.”
A collective breath eased out of the room, shoulders lowering, tension bleeding away as the shadows retreated.
Wind exhaled, then grinned, “It’s actually kind of nice like this.”
Candles flickered to life as Four lit them one by one, each wick catching a flame. Warm light pooled over the garlands, the ornaments, the twinkling ribbons, softening every edge. The glossy red of an ornament turned deeper, richer; the blue ribbons along the mantle now glowed like twilight sky.
Time adjusted a candle on the mantle so the pine cones threw long, gentle shadows up the wall. Hyrule stepped back to watch the way the light wove through the ribbons, in awe with how pretty and magical it looked.
Wind hopped down from his beam with a thump and a small skid, boots squeaking on the floorboards, and planted himself in the middle of the group, cheeks flushed and hair mussed.
“We should always decorate in a blackout! It looks so much prettier this way!” he declared, throwing his arms wide as if the idea alone could summon another.
Legend snorted. “You say that until you trip and break something.”
“I don’t trip!” Wind protested, instantly indignant.
“…Wind,” Twilight drawled from near the tall tree, one eyebrow clearly raised even if the dimness softened the expression.
Wind opened his mouth, paused, then deflated a little. “Okay, sometimes I trip.”
“Understatement of the year,” Legend said, but there was laughter under the words.
The boys laughed, the sound bouncing off the low ceiling, mingling with the soft crackle of the hearth. The inn glowed warmly around them, little circles of light and shadow wrapping everything in a quiet hush.
Wind was right. The decorations looked better this way - everything wrapped in warmth and candlelight, just for tonight.