Beautiful Bugs ( Beedle x Reader BOTW / TOTK )

Starry Night Fireflies

"The monsters need to be distracted, and right now, they keep coming by like we're a three eyed tiger in a travelling circus," You turned to your unfortunate companion. "Even a fascinated audience has to rest at some point. It's getting late," The sun was setting and you could just barely see the fiery reds and pinks of the sky breaking through the treetops. Shadows were lengthening fast. "We should stay quiet until they fall asleep. Let them forget about us. Then we escape... try to, at the very least,"

"You sound so sure... are you one of those heroic types?" even through the sweat of fear, he gave the smallest of smiles.

"No... but I will certainly try to be. I'm a weird farmer's apprentice and thought I'd try my hand at exploring the great outdoors. What about you?"

"I'm a roaming shopkeeper; I'm always exploring. Maybe we would have met in better circumstances in another life. You can call me Beedle," he was beginning to relax, sitting back on his hands.

"I'm ((Y/N)). Nice to meet you, fellow adventurer," you tried to embellish the silly niceties with a happy overcompensation.

"My pleasure," he smiled back. His expression slowly fell though, and his voice became soft. "How long have you been captured?"

"Auh... um, not too long. They got me right at dawn. I've been here since,"

His eyes bugged out as he straightened up. "Since this morning?! Have you had food? Water?"

You grew even more sheepish, rubbing at the back of your neck. "Umm... No?"

"Friend! You need to rest to reserve what little energy you have left. I will stay awake until it's a perfect time to do something productive while watching for other people and opportunities to escape," he started searching the ground, figuring something out. "You would think grass is comfortable, but believe me, it can be as prickly as a-... hm, here,"

Although he barely had anything, he -without a second thought- undid his bandana and laid it out flat and then grabbed at the back of his shirt. You could feel your face burn as he pulled it up and over his head and added it to the makeshift bed. "It's not much," he said, "but it'll be a good barrier,"

You forced yourself to look away, and because of it, he pieced together your hesitation, although for very wrong reasons. "I swear they're clean! Mostly. Go ahead and sleep or at least rest your eyes and slow your heartrate; it's important that both halves of our team are capable when the time comes. I promise I'll wake you up as soon as we're in the clear,"

You accidentally glanced his way and saw much more than necessary and found that as a good driving force to finally lay down with your back to him- your brain already buzzing. "Thank you um... it's actually really soft,"

"Only the finest fabric," Beedle chimed, "Now shhh, rest. I'll be quiet,"

You sighed out built up stress and tension and tried to relax. The cloth had the faintest scent of warm spices and ash- a scent you couldn't place from a land you didn't recognize- with tinges of the merchant's own faint smell. It was... comforting. You tried not to think but trying not to think only made you think more and become aware of it. Your thoughts went to the bokoblins and how hard it would be to slice one in half and shifted to thoughts of your wooden cage, wondering what force it would take to break it. Wandering thoughts fell to Beedle and your last image of him and how he came to be perfectly toned and how his beetle pack must have weight a hundred pounds. Then you saw bugs in glass bottles and trails leading to nowhere. Eventually, your thoughts and dreams became indistinguishable from one another- melting together as you fell asleep.

You awoke to a soft shake.

"((Y/N))," Beedle whispered. "Look,"

You groggily sat up to a black world. Before you eyes could fully adjust, you noticed a glimmering up in the canopy of trees and stared at it with the light of the stars in your eyes. They were twinkling. Dancing. "Beautiful," you breathed, taking the bars in your hands to better see them. The starry night sky. When a firefly landed on your hand, you were finally able to shake off sleepiness, realizing what you were looking at. Bugs. Thousands of pretty bugs.