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Revali is six years old when he first nocks a bomb arrow and lets it fly.
His aim is off; the arrow goes wide and bounces harmlessly off of the husk of a long-dead tree. Had he lit its fuse, the explosion would have surely alerted everyone in the village. Maybe someone would have even come running, admonishing him for being out alone near an untended camp fire and “playing” with such dangerous weapons.
…no, of course they wouldn’t have. Who is he kidding? And besides, they would be wrong to do so. Revali does not play, he trains, because if he wants to get even an ounce of his father’s attention, he’s going to have to earn it.
A frigid breeze bites through his feathers as he carefully maneuvers his way over the snow to retrieve the one bomb arrow he has and carefully check it over for any damage. The red-tinted canvas shell that surrounds the gunpowder is still untouched, but the fuse is already beginning to fray rather badly. Oh, well. When he shows the elder warriors how good he has gotten, he’ll get all the bomb arrows he needs. They’re only designed for one use—he thinks he’s doing pretty well taking care of this one.
He trudges back to the small circle he drew for himself in the snow and lines up his shot again, mindful this time of the fact that the rounded tip of this particular type of arrow does not allow it to fly the way he’s learned to expect. His second shot is a success, arrow striking the center of the sandbag exactly where he’d wanted it to go.
Any Rito old enough to stand could manage to hit that target, the disapproving voice of his father echoes in his head. Come to me when you actually have something impressive to show.
Right. Revali collects his arrow a second time, once again inspecting it for damage (the canvas is looking a little thinner in one small patch, but otherwise fine) and takes to the skies. His wings are still small and weak, even though he is decidedly not a hatchling anymore, and he wobbles a bit as he catches an unexpected updraft, struggling to keep his grip on both bow and arrow as he ascends.
Revali loves flight even more than he loves his little wooden training bow, which is to say, more than life itself. It’s the one thing that truly allows him to feel free, the one thing that gets him far enough away from his father that his every move can’t be scrutinized.
He nocks the arrow, aims his shot, and….
His arrow flies true, until another rogue gust of wind whistles past him, nearly knocking Revali out of the sky and sending his arrow careening sideways into the extended branches of the massive tree he’d managed to build a fire below. It catches on one in particular, the little sack of powder tearing open and spilling towards the flames below.
Most of the powder is swept away by the wind, thankfully, but at least some of it must make it into the fire, because whatever’s inside a bomb arrow makes a lot of noise.
Revali can barely hold back a screech as he tumbles to the ground, whipping his head around to look desperately towards the village for any sign that he’s been heard. Of course, he’s not sure who might come for him if they had. There are so few adult Rito left in Tabantha village, and he’s not sure if his absence has even been discovered yet. They wouldn’t risk sending anyone out unless the problem actually seemed dire.
…honestly, even if his father had noticed him missing, he’s still not sure if anyone would come.
Revali allows himself a moment to catch his breath and ensure the fire has died back down to a normal size before he launches himself skyward once more, collecting a slightly singed arrow shaft from where the force of the rapidly growing flames had sent it. The wood is still serviceable, if blackened and burnt, and surely he could attach something else to its end that would mimic the flight of a proper bomb arrow. He already knows he’ll be back.
Clearly, his training is far from complete.
Tomorrow, he will try again.
Revali crouches in the snow and breathes.
He can feel the subtle changes of the wind dancing beneath his wingtips, an ability he’d noticed wasn’t normal not long after he’d displayed his skills with a bow in front of the elders of Tabantha Village. They had been suitably impressed by his insistence that the air ‘just held him up,’ that the reason he could hit so many targets in a row without spreading his wings to fly was that the sky itself was helping him (but never guiding his aim. That had all been learned by himself.) Even Revali’s father, typically disinterested in anything Revali ever accomplished, had actually deigned to look at his son as he’d said it.
Of course, his father had determined his use of the winds to be cheating, no matter how fascinated the other warriors of Tabantha had been. That was why Revali had left. And good riddance to him. Rito Village was close enough to reach in one day at the speeds Revali is able to fly, and far enough that he highly doubts his father will be willing to inconvenience himself to make the journey.
Besides, it’s been close to a decade since that first night sneaking out to fire the same dud bomb arrow over and over into the snow. If Revali wants to improve further, he’s going to need the means to actually challenge himself.
So he crouches in the snow, and he feels for the subtle changes in the wind, and he breathes. It didn’t take long after that initial revelation that wind behaved a little differently for him before he began trying to control it. Now, he can whip up a strong gale in an instant to carry him upwards faster than even the strongest of Rito fliers, but keeping himself steady as he rides the winds is still more difficult than he would care to admit, and half the time he still ends up careening sideways into a snowbank.
He can’t allow that to happen today. Not when the Rito Village elder is watching, not when every capable warrior has put their own training on hold to see.
Revali breathes, and the winds whip up around him.
He holds himself in position as tightly as he can, eyes forced open despite the sting of snow being driven into them, as he spirals skyward. He drops the gale the instant he feels himself begin to wobble—he cannot lose control of it, not now—and nervously glances downwards to find that he has soared much higher than he’d expected to.
“It’s incredible,” the captain of the guard is saying to the elder when he finally lands, having allowed himself the indulgence of a few—well, okay, several—victory laps. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He kneels before them, as is custom in the village to show respect to a warrior ranked higher than oneself. The elder nods an acknowledgement, but the captain shakes his head, beak turning upwards into a smile.
“Rise, Revali,” he says. “I thought your archery skills were impressive enough, but this feat more than proves your worth. Rito Village is honored to have you as its protector.”
“Captain,” Revali replies, fighting to keep his voice as neutral as possible.
There is the expected, and highly appreciated, round of congratulations, before the others finally leave him to it. Revali clamps down on the urge to return to the village with them—of course he would love to receive more praise, but he has more important things to be doing. He isn’t supposed to know it yet, but he’s overheard some of the other warriors whispering about a looming threat brewing near Hyrule castle, of a nation-wide search for warriors suited to face it. Revali already knows he’s going to be chosen. He will not settle for anything else.
The instant he’s alone he rubs frustratedly at the red marks on his cheeks, knowing full well that the paint will not flake under the friction and getting annoyed at its failure to do so anyway. He may have accomplished a feat that will see him considered an adult, but even that will never be good enough in the eyes of his father. The shame of his youth will mark him for a while longer.
Besides, the others hadn’t seen him up there, felt what he had felt. He knows he can do better.
Clearly, his training is far from complete.
Tomorrow, he will try again.
Revali climbs out of his hammock at the newly-constructed flight range even before the sun is up, lighting the fire under the cook pot and preparing one of the fish he’d caught on his way home for a quick pre-training meal. His growing collection of bows looms from hooks overhead, practically dwarfing the singular singed bomb arrow he still keeps to this day, mounted directly above his hammock as a reminder. He has long since moved on to better training techniques than simply firing an arrow he knows will never fly straight, but for some reason he just can’t quite bring himself to get rid of it.
He’d been selected as Vah Medoh’s pilot months ago, has spent every waking moment since training his body and his mind for his duties, and now, with a new blue champion’s scarf around his neck, he is finally going to be putting those skills to the test. Supposedly. For all he knows, today is going to result in yet another pointless ceremony, but Revali is nothing if not prepared to showcase his progress to the others regardless.
The princess and the other champions will be arriving from the Rito Village inn soon, and they will resume their pilgrimage across Hyrule together. Revali doesn’t understand the purpose of all the formalities; every moment they waste traveling or engaging in pointless ceremonies is time that could better be spent training. They certainly need it; each day it seems less and less likely that the princess will ever unlock her powers, and it’s not like that knight of hers is going to be able to pick up any slack when he can barely pull his own weight among the group. Revali still doesn’t understand what he’s doing here, but it seems that everyone else is on Link’s side, so it’s just not worth ruffling his feathers over. At least, that’s what he will keep telling himself until his body actually listens.
The rest of the party arrives just as the first rays of sunlight are beginning to peek over the mountains, at varying levels of alertness. The princess looks half-asleep, almost as though she had tried to stay up through the entire night, flanked closely on either side by the Gerudo chieftain and that insufferable silent knight with his prophetic sword. The Zora princess greets him with a warm smile, which Revali does his best not to reciprocate with a scowl, and the Goron’s loud “Good morning, little guy!” practically rattles the walls.
“Not little,” Revali insists, glowering, but is gleefully ignored.
“You are well, I hope?” the Hylian princess asks, a formality that she needn’t bother attempt to placate him with. Revali has one job, and that job is not wasting his time making friends. Are the rest of them missing the part where the entirety of Hyrule is at stake?
“Fine,” Revali says, since he at least knows better than to irritate the heir of the royal family. “Are we leaving now?”
“Not quite,” the Zora princess says apologetically, and… okay, fine, if he’s going to save the world alongside these people, he should probably be willing to call them by their names. Mipha continues, “We ought to discuss our plans first. The king has concerns that the Calamity may come sooner than anticipated.”
“Ah.” That’s… unfortunate. Revali has every faith in his own abilities, and what he’s seen from the other champions (even, begrudgingly, a certain irritating swordsman) is certainly nothing to scoff at either, but still. He’d thought they would have had more time.
“We all have every faith in the princess, of course,” Urbosa says before anyone could possibly get the chance to say otherwise. Not that any of them would dare—Revali had seen what her lightning had done to those Yiga soldiers, and he has no desire to experience it for himself. “But it may be prudent to have a backup plan in place, should any of us fall in battle.”
“Do not say that, Urbosa, please!” the princess insists, eyes widening in a near-frantic expression.
“She’s right, tiny princess,” Daruk says apologetically, for once not smiling. “I’ll rest easier at night knowing that if anything happens to me, the rest of you—and the Gorons—will know what to do.”
“I have made my personal arrangements with my people already,” Mipha adds quietly. “But I believe it would be beneficial to discuss alternative battle strategy as a group.”
The princess continues to look devastated, but does not offer any further protest. Link, sitting quietly at her side, extracts what looks like a collection of mushrooms and herbs from the sack slung over his shoulders, gesturing at Revali’s cooking pot with a silent question.
“Fine,” Revali says again, both because it probably would be beneficial to have alternate plans in place and because he can’t think of a valid reason to deny Link use of the cooking pot in front of everyone without making it look like he’s still holding his grudge against the knight. He isn’t. The others begin a solemn discussion, and Link proceeds to prepare a mushroom skewer as they do, somehow managing to make even the act of rotating his stick next to the fire insufferable.
Revali, for his part, has no peace to make with anybody, irritating blond-haired Hylians or otherwise. He can begrudgingly respect the other champions for their desires to leave their next of kin behind with some closure, but that is not something he has to concern himself with.
Besides, he has a much more favorable solution to their fears: become the greatest warrior in the world, and simply never die.
Clearly, his training is far from complete.
Tomorrow, he will try again.
“We will be going to battle soon,” a soft voice says with a determination typically reserved for someone who does not expect to live to see the next day.
Revali looks up from restringing his bow to see Urbosa, perched on the edge of the tower with her feet dangling over the ground far below as though she has no fear of gravity nor any other laws of physics, turning what looks to be some sort of ceremonial hairband in her hand. At a glance it appears to have once been ornate, but time and use have worn it down to barely a scrap, certainly not strong enough to be used for its intended purpose anymore.
“Yes, it seems so,” Mipha is saying softly at her side, either oblivious to Urbosa’s tone or deliberately choosing to ignore it. She, at least, has her entire body firmly planted on the tower, and so is considerably less likely to fall. Revali relaxes ever so slightly. Of course he will catch Urbosa should she suddenly begin to plummet, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to be pleased about it. “Oh, that is lovely. Your first fighting tournament, you had said?”
“It was gifted to me to commemorate my first victory as a Gerudo warrior,” Urbosa confirms, opening her palm to allow Mipha a closer look. “I have worn it in every battle since. It has become a symbol of good luck, in a way.”
“I have something like that as well,” Mipha says, gesturing to the many ornaments adorning her Lightscale Trident. “The Zora believe that certain gemstones hold powers beyond those that can actually be harnessed with magic. Luminous stones, for instance, offer protection from a loved one.” She runs her fingers along one in particular, lodged at the center of her weapon. “This one was given to me by my father, when I accepted my position as Vah Ruta’s pilot.”
Daruk’s signature chain rattles as he lumbers over to join the conversation, the Boulder Breaker scraping against the strange material the towers are constructed of as he sits. “Ya know, we Gorons aren’t much for material possessions,” he says. “But I get having something important like that. I’d feel naked without my gauntlets!”
“You are naked, practically speaking,” Revali interrupts before he can stop himself.
Daruk roars with laughter, as though he’s taking the insult as a compliment. Perhaps to him, it genuinely is. Ridiculous. Revali’s always known he’s the best of the champions, but to be grouped with people so concerned with their superstitions is… well, it ought to be embarrassing, really.
…his mind wanders to a certain singed arrow shaft currently tucked into his backup quiver on Vah Medoh, pouch of gunpowder sewn to its end by wings that had not yet been steady in flight. Everyone has their weaknesses, he supposes. All he needs is to ensure the other champions never discover his.
“What about you, Revali?” Daruk asks, mercifully too far away to offer one of his customary claps to the back. Not even Link can keep his footing after one of those, not that Revali’s ever been keeping an eye on him, or anything. “Got a special little good luck trinket you’d like to share?”
“Certainly not!” Revali squawks, turning his beak away. “I have no time for such superstitions. Besides, I like knowing that my skills are uniquely my own.”
“...none here would think less of you if you did,” Mipha says, an implacable emotion in her voice. “There is no shame in holding on to comforts of the past.”
For her, perhaps. Revali does not have the luxury of a legacy to fall back on. It has always been him and his bow against everything else, something none of the others could ever understand.
“...asinine, the lot of you,” he says, and takes flight with no particular destination in mind.
It isn’t fair, how the other champions so easily claimed their destinies. Barring the princess, whose plight he could certainly understand—if, admittedly, grow a bit frustrated by; he’d also had a father who’d insisted on one “proper” way of doing things, but Revali hadn’t had any trouble going against the man’s wishes, and he doesn't quite see why the princess is so insistent on following a path that clearly leads to nowhere—none of the others know struggle the way he does. The knight who seals the darkness, especially, had simply had his destiny handed to him on a silver blade.
He shoos away the thoughts of Link before they even have time to fully form. Honestly, how dare he continue to be such a bother to Revali without even being present? Some people have training to do.
He finds himself at the Castle Town firing range soon enough—hardly adequate compared to what he is used to back at Rito Village, but woe as he is to admit it, he cannot stray too far from the others. He easily empties his quiver in a single volley scattering across every target on the western side, and lands to check his handiwork.
Perfect bullseyes. All except for one.
He retrieves his arrows. He does not have time for this—the princess had requested a meeting at sunset, and he really ought to have been paying more attention to the time—and so he departs, swearing to himself that next time, he will do better.
Clearly, his training is far from complete.
Tomorrow, he will try again.
Tomorrow dawns, and with it, the Calamity comes.
(He did not have enough time.)
He uses his Gale to launch himself skyward, wings flapping even before he reaches its zenith. He has to get to Vah Medoh now, before it’s too late.
(He does not have enough time.)
The other champions, sprinting towards their horses, keep pace with him for all of five seconds before he streaks past them towards Hebra, towards home, towards the one chance they have at stopping this. The other champions, he knows, will never make it to those divine beasts in time on their own.
(Why did he think he’d have enough time?)
He fights his way past a horde of lizalfos, who are just barely too good with their bows to risk allowing any closer to the village. He fights his way through the unnatural winds that tear at the cliff faces he calls home, struggling to reach Vah Medoh, wind and rain tearing at his feathers and loosening arrows from his quiver that he doesn’t have time to rescue before they plummet down, down past the village and its terrified population and into the yawning chasm below.
(None of them will have enough time.)
He bursts into the divine beast, grabbing his backup quiver and transferring its contents into the one at his hip even as he launches himself towards the control terminal, desperate to get the cannons up and running as soon as possible. Even if he cannot reach the castle in time, he can at least save his homeland from suffering the same fate.
(The others need more time. How can he buy them more time?)
The tip of his wing brushes against the activation panel, and the terminal writhes. Before he even has the chance to shout in surprise, the entire thing pulses, faster and faster until it begins moving and warping and growing, and suddenly it comes alive, a creature built of sludge and malice with a single, glowing eye.
Calamity Ganon? Here?
The monster screeches. Revali runs. He calls to his Gale and throws himself skyward as the thing’s arm fires the first of the cannon blasts at the spot he’d just been standing. He pulls three arrows from his quiver and fires them as one, face twisting in anger as the creature bats them away as though they were nothing.
He doesn’t have his Great Eagle Bow. That is currently mounted on the wall at the flight range, having been determined too cumbersome for the trek to Lanayru. Its absence had certainly allowed him to get back here faster, but now he would give anything to be holding it between his wings.
As he fires a second time, the chamber around him itself begins to cry out, a distress signal Revali knows all too well. One of the other pilots. Someone else must have made it to their divine beast, somehow, and is fighting for their life just like Revali is.
Has the calamity really spread so far so quickly?
A second distress signal begins shrieking through the chamber when Revali is halfway through his quiver, followed almost immediately by a third. So there truly is no hope, it seems. He sends another volley towards the creature, which looks just as unharmed and dangerous as it did when the battle started, where Revali was already exhausted. Now, he is even worse, and the shard of the calamity only seems to be growing stronger.
His quiver almost empty, he spares a glance at his own distress signal, the only one left untouched. Fundamentally, he knows he is alone. He isn’t sure he’d want anyone to come for him anyways. He doesn’t want anyone else seeking out their death here, if only his sacrifice might suffice to give the residents of Rito Village enough time to escape.
Always a coward, his father would have said. But his father is not and never will be one of Hylia’s chosen, and so what he would have said does not matter.
Revali thinks of a little six-year-old Rito who once shot an unlit bomb arrow into the snow, trying so carefully not to make a sound despite knowing for a fact that no one would come looking for him if he did.
There’s no point to it. Nobody is going to come.
…he sets the signal off anyway.
He draws his last arrow, barely looking at it as he aims, heart nearly stopping as he notices—the shaft, blackened and burned over a decade ago, has long since been weakened. This arrow will not fly properly. That had been ideal for training, but now….
A sharp cry of pain tears its way out of his chest as the monster’s cannon fires, beam tearing its way through his wing.
“Just… a scratch…” he wheezes, grip fumbling for the object that was his last chance at landing a hit, finding that the arrow has finally crumbled to dust.
This can’t be real.
(He’s not good enough. He has never been good enough.)
(The shame of his youth will mark him forever, now.)
He looks directly into what passes for the monster’s eye. Maybe Mipha had been right, after all, with the words she’d whispered lowly to the other champions while Zelda had been praying to a silent goddess at the Spring of Wisdom, just barely a few hours ago: maybe they were destined to fail, so that the princess might succeed.
Well. If death was all that awaited him all this time, the very least he can do is face it like a true champion, and not the failure that his father always claimed he was.
Clearly, his training was far from complete.
There will be no tomorrow to try again.