Just an effort to get scenes and ideas out of my head and onto paper as neatly as possible. I've never written for a video game before, and I don't normally latch onto minor characters, but I've developed a fondness for this group. There will probably be a noticeable focus on Ashei and Shad, as I find their snippets of background and the contrast of their personalities interesting. This first one doesn't wrap up as nicely as I'd like, but I think it's a good place to start.

Down to Business

Shad's rented flat was very small and filled more with research material than any of the necessities of living. It was tucked above a restaurant that was across from a blacksmith, and Ashei could smell the strange mix of odors every time she entered the room, particularly when both businesses were operating such as they were now. She scrunched her nose slightly and went about picking her way across the book-strewn floor over to the bed tucked in a corner. She frowned at its sleeping occupant and leaned over. "Shad," she whispered loudly, giving his shoulder a good shove, "Wake up, hey."

Shad groaned in half-conscious protest as he slowly opened his eyes, and at the sight of a shadowed figure looming over him, he yelped loudly and tumbled from the bed. "I say!" he squawked from the floor, now wide awake and trying to disentangle himself from the sheets that he pulled down with him, "Must you always barge in like this? You're likely to give me a heart attack one day!"

Ashei took a step away from her flailing friend and shrugged. "You gave me a key, yeah?" she said, holding up the item in question and tucking it into her pocket.

"Yes!" the young man continued irately. He had managed to stand up and was now wrapping the sheets hastily around his body and fumbling for his glasses. "And it came with very explicit instructions to use it only in the presumably rare case you would need urgent access to my home while I was not present! In any other instance, knocking is a perfectly adequate means of entry!"

"I'm already in now, yeah?" she replied, shrugging again, "And it is urgent. Rusl just got back into town and everyone's at Telma's. I thought you'd want to be there, but go back to sleep if you want."

"What?" Shad cried, the beginnings of his regained calmness fading back into mild panic. He hurried over to a dresser that was squeezed between two impressively crammed bookshelves and began to hastily pull out clothing that had been shoved in the drawers with no apparent rhyme or reason. "Dear me, that's much earlier than we expected. I haven't even begun to prepare for our discussion. I need to…" He trailed off here, having been halfway through dropping the sheets to get dressed when he realized Ashei was still there, standing with a hand on her hip and watching him with a bored expression. "Ah," Shad mumbled, "Could I, ah, have some privacy…please?"

The woman raised an eyebrow and sighed, as though moving was a great inconvenience. "If you want," she replied dully, turning to leave, "I'll go on ahead, yeah? See you there."

Rusl pushed his empty mug away from him and looked around the room with a puzzled smile. "I was under the impression I was the only one missing from our little group," he pondered aloud, "I was expecting a full house."

Auru, sitting to his left, shrugged and lifted his drink. "I ran into Ashei by chance on the way here. She offered to fetch Shad, so she's probably kicking his door down as we speak."

"I didn't kick it down. I used a key." The two men looked up as the woman in question strode across the room and dropped into a chair at their table before continuing, "He was asleep."

"So you left him there?" Rusl asked, shifting over to make room.

"No, I woke him up," she replied blandly, waving a hand to catch Telma's attention from across the building, "He'll be here once he changes out of his skivvies, yeah?"

The older two exchanged concerned, if undeniably amused, glances.

Sure enough, though, the scholar of their group showed up several minutes later, fully dressed and carrying several books and a large, rolled up paper tucked under his arm. "Welcome back, old boy," he greeted, looking a bit harried, "I do apologize for my tardiness."

"No trouble at all. It's good to see you again." Rusl nodded his greeting as shaking hands was out of the question until Shad put down a few of his books. "So is what I hear about the trouble at Lake Hylia being over true?"

"Well, to some degree, yes," Shad explained, carefully placing his things on the table and settling into a chair, "The water's flowing again and the Zoras have reappeared, but the temperature is still well below average. The area has certainly seen a strange weather pattern lately."

"Including Snowpeak, yeah?" Ashei cut in, "The path to the mountain is still mostly frozen. I'm going up there if it clears. Something's not right with it. I need to see it myself to know what, yeah?"

Auru tapped his chin thoughtfully and nodded. "I'm heading into the area to look into some of my own suspicions about that desert in a day or so. I can make a side trip and check the pass for you on the way back."

Rusl smiled almost wistfully. "Sounds like everyone has been busy making plans while I was away," he commented, glancing between the others and settling his gaze on the bespectacled man across from him, "Any grand adventures in the works from you, Shad?"

"Ah, nothing so direct," the younger man mumbled, looking embarrassed, "I've mostly been keeping up with my father's research into the land's history. To know the past is to know the future, you know. Although I have been working on this…" Here he cleared some room on the table and unrolled the large paper he had brought, revealing a near-finished and highly detailed map of Hyrule.

The others looked suitably impressed. Even Ashei let out a low whistle and leaned forward to inspect his work. "You made this, Shad?"

His embarrassment only increased at the attention. "Well…yes, I suppose," he answered, eyes averted, "It was largely just a matter of copying and enlarging existing material and making a few changes. The maps in the castle's auxiliary library, in particular, were quite up to date and hardly needed editing…"

Shad's explanations grew increasingly indistinct as he went on, Ashei rolled her eyes at him, and Auru chuckled quietly to himself as he settled back in his chair. Rusl grinned at the familiarity of it all and ran his thumb along the edge of the map. "Well," he observed in a murmur, "It looks like it's back down to business."