serving OSHA violation realness

i gotta be honest i was so unreasonably proud of myself for being able to infodump to my partner about how "they had gay carpenters in ocarina of time but then they took the carpenters and made them less gay but kept the haircut idea. and then they made another gay carpenter but for real this time. look at him he's fabulous" after so many years away from the series (five? six?) without having been wikisurfing first. like actually dude i retained that from 20-fucking-11. wow

"Say...you're that Baelve dude, aren't you?"

Baelve immediately assumes his most neutral-offended face. "'That Baelve dude'? You heard this from who?"

"From whom," Flexter chirps, pushing up imaginary glasses. "From your only friend, obviously."

"She's not my friend."

"Dude," repeats Flexter, making a show of their mental note and confirmation.

Now that they've firmly established that they won't be making friends (saves Baelve the trouble of demonstrating how that just doesn't go, for him), Bolson clears his throat.

"Wonderful to see that we have some strapping young folks to help us. It seems my pal Link got another, more pressing call - he dropped off the twenty logs, handed me a sackful of unhulled rice, and fecked off. We always made such a good team, too..."

Bolson's entire lanky frame droops with the force of his disappointment. And who wouldn't be? You've got Link, the legendary hero, personally helping batten down your hatches and rebuild your village, but then he can't stay, because unfortunately there are pirates marauding all over the continent, and while not everybody can be Bolson, it can't possibly be that hard to help him.

Or so Flexter thinks. Baelve probably also doesn't estimate this a herculean task, but Baelve is also inclined to reserve all judgement except that petty, it seems.

The first step is to cut down palm trees, avoiding those with a prominent bend in their trunks. Flexter wouldn't mind this if not for the fact that the trees with bends are (one would assume) far easier to catch before they gain terminal velocity and come down on the innocent, if not unsuspecting, lumberjaime's head.

The associated risk of getting hit by a plummetting palm fruit is also much larger than Flexter ever might have calculated. "Come on, babe, put your back into it!" And Flexter is, they swear, but then maybe they're just weak. Certainly, they don't have the lung strength to shout back to Bolson, who'd piped up in the middle of a flurry of surprisingly manly grunts.

But okay, tree down. Now to-- Oh, no, Bolson's still working. So they can postpone the central pillar project and focus on the debris floating in the wreckage of the inn for now. It's a straightforward task with two people to manipulate the waterlogged boards and iron beams.

But once Bolson's finished with the foundations ("Okey-doo!") it's back to hauling logs.

"Can't Link, like," (huff, puff) "move things with his mind?"

"I wouldn't put it past him," Baelve agrees. They've got the tree trunk wrapped with ropes and are taking a slow circuit around the back of the Lucky Treasure Shop (village head? mayor? same difference, except this town's swanky enough to have gambling, apparently) to hoist it up to the second floor.

"This cannot be safe in the rain. Can he come back, and I'll fight the Demon King?"

Baelve doesn't dignify that with an answer.

The other buildings are, thankfully, a little easier - they can shove the logs up from underneath.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you - you two are my saviors! Mwah!"

Not just Bolson's, but Lurelin's at large, right? Credit for moving a bit of debris and some logs isn't what Flexter's after, but maybe they'll stick around a while and interview some residents and locals. Traysi'd probably appreciate it, as would the merchants.

Before they could say anything about it, though, Baelve puts in, "So we're done here?"

Bolson frowns, but true to form, brushes it off, giving Flexter one last brilliant smile (and maybe a wink - Flex's not sure how to feel about that one).

"Wowww, you really are stiff."

"She called me stiff?"

"She didn't. I did."

when you pick a palm tree log make sure it's a straight one