( written for the October cdc prompt of "corn" !! )

Recently, Hushsound had found out about the existence of some strange holiday that was coming up, know as "Halloween". He was sure that perhaps they had some sort of equivalent back in Hyrule, but he had never heard the name before, and he found the traditions of it very fascinating. Dressing up, celebrating the spookiness of life... it was so unusual to the norm that Hush found it very fascinating, and had been throwing himself into all of the research about it that he possibly could. In this research, he had happened to find out that there were certain parts of fall that had come to be associated with Halloween thanks to the fact that they existed and flourished together within the same month. Things such as the many different multicolored leaves that fell from the trees, the pumpkins that sprouted at this time, and another thing... corn. Hush had found this one a bit surprising, since he didn't think that there was anything inherently spooky about corn, and it didn't seem to be used in any Halloween rituals, like the pumpkins were. Stil, the crop was mentioned in several of the books that he had gathered on Halloween and Fall, and he found himself growing more and more curious about it over time, since apparently you could eat it.

He had eaten a great many different things when he had been known as Link, but amazingly, Corn hadn't been one of them. So, this would be his first time trying the food, and seeing how it was. It had taken quite a bit of searching around for him to finally obtain some corn from someone in the tavern of the group, and now he was enthusiastically getting ready to try it. From everything he has read, it was better warm and cooked, so he had set up a little fire and had slowly cooked the corn over it, before pulling away and putting it down so that he could dig his teeth into it. There was a pleasant crunch as the domestic feline took a great big mouthful of the vegetable, and he found that the taste was... interesting. A bit bland, but not unpleasant, and he even felt a faint smile coming to his muzzle as he chewed and swallowed, before enthusiastically repeating the process. Soon enough he had finished the entire ear of corn, and he found himself happy and sated, moving to dispose of the empty ear and go to get some sunbathing done, since he could already feel his eyes beginning to droop because of his now full belly. It seemed as though his research into Halloween was serving him well so far, since he had discovered just how delicious corn was.

However, his peace and happiness didn't last long, and as soon as he was settled beneath the sun, his form soaking in the warmth, he felt something shift in his stomach. It gave an unpleasant gurgle, and all of a sudden he felt like something was distinctly wrong. It took a few more seconds for the reaction to take full effect, but soon Hushsound was stumbling to his feet, racing towards the pier with such a frantic look in his eyes that most people just moved aside without question. His stomach rolled with each step he took, and he became worried that he wasn't going to make it and was just going to get sick in the middle of camp, but thankfully it seemed that the goddesses were looking down on him at least somewhat fondly, since he managed to stumble to the edge of the pier and lean over before he absolutely retched, the entire contents of his stomach evacuating his body without his consent. It felt awful, and it was several minutes of sickness before Hush was finally able to recover, stumbling a bit on the pier before finally just collapsing down to the surface of the pier. Closing his eyes, the small male groaned weakly to himself as he laid there, shaking his head faintly at his own past decisions. The groan was probably the most noise that he had made in days, and it certainly wasn't a pleased one.

Hushsound felt... well, kind of awful when Goldie was the first one to arrive on the scene of him puking his guts out. She definitely had better things to be doing than dealing with him. After all, she was the captain of this whole entire damn place – surely she had something better to do than just mothering his dumbass. If he just hadn't eaten any of that corn... he had been way too enthusiastic about eating the Halloween treat that he had heard so much about. When Goldie questioned what had happened to him, he sighed heavily and shakily sat back on his haunches, lifting his arms to begin to sign with his paws, a still slightly nauseous look on his face as he did it slowly, trying to keep himself upright and away from vomiting again – and certainly not vomiting on Goldie, "I had been hearing about this Halloween thing since this month started, and I really wanted to get into the fun, so I did some research about it... I found out that corn was one of the foods that sort of went with Halloween. So I decided to try it, and... well, this ended up happening. I think I might be allergic to corn." He was very grateful that Goldie knew how to sign, since he didn't have anything to write on right now, and he certainly didn't want to try speaking at the moment. His voice was already rough and unpleasant sounding when he hadn't just vomited, and he was pretty sure that it would be even more hard on the ears now that his throat had been torn apart by the allergic reaction.

If Hush had known that Goldie had at first assumed he was vomiting because he was hung over... well, he probably would've been kind of horrified. Even after he had reached adulthood, he had never even touched a drop of the sauce, and he hadn't even drank when he had been an adult as Link. Not from others' lack of trying, granted. Urbossa had once offered him a drink before her death, but he had declined, far too nervous about the task ahead to indulge in anything like that. Zelda had offered him a drink after they had defeated Ganon, but he had declined it then as well, not really wanting to dull his senses after such a gargantuan task that had exhausted him so thoroughly. Others had tried as well, but he had just never really seen the appeal of it. He still didn't see the appeal of it, although he had seen plenty of drunkards hanging out in the tavern, which wasn't exactly unusual, considering what the place was meant for. Perhaps that was the reason that the tavern was always so damn loud, something that often drove Hush away from the place.

If Hush was being honest, he often hated it when others were worried about him in general as well, even when it wasn't the leader of the entire group. Zelda had always been the worst offender, but similarly to Goldie, Hush's little found family had constantly worried over him when he had overworked himself. After the fall of Ganon, he had done so often, pushing himself to be the ideal knight for the princess and constantly bustling from place to place, doing as much work as he possibly could. This had commonly led to incidents where Link would ended up leaned against a wall, his eyes closed as he tried his best to get his breath the hell back. When this had begun to happen more and more often, his little family had begun not become more and more annoyed and concerned about him, eventually forcing him to take a break. Thankfully this time Hush hadn't pushed himself too hard, he had just made a bit of a mistake that has let to his current unfortunate circumstances. Thankfully, it seemed as though his mistake had mostly been corrected by the whole "getting sick" thing, but he could still feel a faint nauseous cloud over his head, wanting to lay down for a moment just to settle his stomach.

In fact, the small feline sorr of settled down against the wood beneath him, keeping his paws up so that he could sign slowly as he nodded, a soft sigh leaving him as he shifted, "Yes, I think that I've gotten everything out. I didn't ear too much, just one ear of it to try it... I never expected for even a moment that I would be allergic to it. That's too bad, considering I can't eat it for Halloween time." He sighed softly, shaking his head a bit from side to side. He supposed that he was lucky that the only allergic reaction that he had was the vomiting, since it was far better than if it was something like his throat closing or his body breaking out into hives. He also supposed he was lucky that he had managed to get to the water, since he hadn't ended up getting sick on land and having it smell. Right now the air just smelled of sea water, and nothing else really.

The next to arrive on the scene of his sickness was Idyllfields, someone whom Hush had met before but wasn't too close to, but he still felt a small frown on his face when Idyll fretted over him. A sigh left him, and he opened his mouth to tell Idyll that he was alright – that they didn't need to go running off just to make him feel better – but it was too late, and soon the other had come back over with a bowl of water in their mouth, placing it down in front of him and saying sorry. Not wanting to seem ungrateful, the small feline croaked out in an especially ripped up voice, wincing at the fact that his already rough voice had been made worse by the sickness, "Thank you, Idyll... I'll be alright, don't worry about it." He leaned down to gently lap at the water with his tongue, taking in several large gulps of water just to soothe the burning that had clutched the walls of his throat ever since he had vomited. He had never really gotten sick before, this was all an unpleasant new experience to him, and he silently wished that he could've done it somewhere more privately. At least then he could've made himself better, rather than bothering other people with his allergy problems. He decided to make a small mental note never to eat corn again if he didn't want an unpleasant repeat of the experience, although he knew he would probably have to write it down somewhere, since by next Halloween he would probably have the same stupid idea.