The village of Talonmere had not seen a Gerudo bandit in eleven years.
It had now seen one for approximately forty-five seconds, and already Brother Aldous was fairly certain that was forty-five seconds too many.
"Your coin," the bandit said, pressing the curved tip of her scimitar against Aldous's chin. She was tall, red-haired, and possessed of the particular confidence common to people who had never been pecked to death. "All of it. Now."
Aldous looked at her with the patient expression of a man who has recently survived The Peckoning three times and therefore no longer fears very much.
"Sister," he said gently, "I would encourage you to reconsider."
"I would encourage *you* to start emptying your pockets."
"I have very little coin."
"Then this will be quick."
"That," Aldous said, glancing upward almost imperceptibly at the thatched rooftop above them, "is not what I meant."
The bandit followed his gaze. On the rooftop sat a single white cucco, watching the exchange with one orange eye. It blinked. Slowly. With what could only be described as *judicial* patience.
The bandit laughed. "You're protected by a *chicken?*"
"We prefer *Feathered Witnesses.*"
"I'm going to rob you and *then* I'm going to make soup."
Brother Aldous closed his eyes, pressed his palms together inside his layered white-and-red sleeves, and said, with great serenity: "She didn't mean that. Probably."
What happened next was later described by seventeen different witnesses in seventeen completely contradictory accounts, which scholars of the Covenant had long since accepted as the natural consequence of events that the human mind simply refuses to file correctly.
The single cucco on the rooftop became two. The two became eight. The eight became a sound — a rising, overlapping tide of indignant clucking that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, from the inside of barrels and the tops of weathervanes and, most disturbingly, from a well that everyone agreed had been sealed for decades.
The bandit's scimitar swung. It connected with nothing. Or rather, it connected with air that *should* have been Aldous's chin and simply wasn't anymore, even though Aldous had not moved.
"What—"
A cucco landed on her sword arm. Then her shoulder. Then her head.
"GET OFF—"
Another dozen dropped from the sky like feathered judgment. The bandit spun, slapped, kicked, stumbled backward into a rain barrel, climbed *out* of the rain barrel, and discovered that the rain barrel now contained four cuccos who had not been there a moment ago and were extremely offended about it.
She ran.
The flock followed.
Then, after precisely ten seconds, they didn't.
The village square was quiet. Feathers drifted down like pale snowflakes. The bandit was somewhere in the middle distance, possibly still running. It was hard to tell.
Aldous opened his eyes.
A small boy, no older than six, tugged on his robe. "Mister," the boy said, "where did all the chickens go?"
"Back," said Aldous.
"Back where?"
Aldous looked at him with great kindness. "That is the correct question."
The boy's name was Pip, and he followed Aldous to the village inn with the determination unique to children who have witnessed something extraordinary and refuse to let it go without explanation.
"Are you a wizard?"
"No."
"Are the chickens wizards?"
"We do not use that word for them."
"But they came from *nowhere.*"
"They came from *everywhere,*" Aldous corrected, settling onto a bench with his cup of tea. "There is a difference. Wizards *make* things happen. The Feathered Witnesses simply... remind the world of a rule that was already there."
Pip climbed onto the bench across from him without asking, which Aldous respected.
"What rule?"
"That certain things are protected." Aldous tilted his head. "Tell me — you know of the Hero?"
Every child in Hyrule knew of the Hero. Pip nodded with the gravity the subject deserved.
"Chosen by the gods," Aldous continued. "Gifted with courage. Destined to face great evil across every age, reborn again and again through centuries of conflict." He sipped his tea. "A truly remarkable arrangement."
Pip nodded again.
"The cucco," Aldous said, "has never needed any of that."
Pip blinked. "What?"
"No chosen bloodline. No sacred relic. No prophecy, no reincarnation, no goddesses whispering instructions through ancient stones." He set his cup down and folded his hands. "In every era, in every version of Hyrule's long and complicated history, the Hero must be *called.* Must be *found.* Must be *trained.* And even then there is considerable uncertainty about the outcome." He gestured vaguely toward the square outside, where a single white feather was still spiraling down from somewhere implausibly high. "The cucco simply *is.* No summoning required."
Pip was quiet for a moment.
"So they're stronger than the Hero?"
"The Hero is chosen once per age, sleeps for a hundred years sometimes, and frequently starts his journey by falling into a ditch." Aldous said this without any particular judgment. "The Feathered Ones are on duty *continuously.*"
Pip considered this with the seriousness it deserved. "Have they ever fought each other? The Hero and a cucco?"
Aldous paused. Set down his tea. Looked at the middle distance.
"There are accounts," he said carefully, "that the Covenant discourages reading before bed."
"Who won?"
"The records are incomplete." He folded his hands. "The Hero survived. We know that much. He is, to his considerable credit, quite resilient." A pause. "He did not, however, attempt it a second time."
Pip's eyes were very wide now.
"What about the Princess?" he asked. "She has magic. And the triforce bit."
"The Princess," Aldous said thoughtfully, "has on at least two recorded occasions been observed feeding cuccos by hand, in a calm and respectful manner, with no provocation whatsoever."
"So she's smart."
"She is *extraordinarily* intelligent, yes. One of the wisest figures in Hyrulean history across any era." Aldous picked his tea back up. "We believe that is not a coincidence."
Pip chewed on this for a while. Outside, a merchant was passing through the square with a cartload of pots, whistling to himself, completely unaware that he had a cucco sitting on top of his cart. It watched the inn window with the serene patience of something that has been watching things since before the road existed.
"Mister," Pip said.
"Mm."
"Are they actually gods?"
Aldous opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at his tea for slightly longer than was comfortable.
"The Covenant," he said at last, "has a doctrine that strongly discourages asking that question in any room with a low ceiling."
"Because you don't know?"
"Because we once held a formal theological debate on the subject in a modest assembly hall, and by the end of it the building had somehow acquired forty-three cuccos that had not been there at the start." He set his cup down very deliberately. "No windows had been opened. The doors had remained closed. Brother Fenwick maintains he heard, very briefly, what sounded like laughter, though he admits this could have been a coincidence."
"Was it a coincidence?"
Aldous stood, smoothing his robes with the careful precision of a man who had spent considerable time being judged by birds.
"The Covenant," he said, "finds it more productive to simply live quietly and not press the issue."
He dropped a small coin on the table for the tea, bowed to Pip with genuine warmth, and walked toward the door.
"Mister!" Pip called after him.
Aldous paused.
"That bandit said she was going to make soup."
"Yes."
"Is she going to be okay?"
Brother Aldous considered the horizon. Somewhere out there, feathers were still settling. Somewhere out there, a very fast Gerudo was learning something the Covenant had been teaching for four hundred years.
"She'll be fine," he said. "Probably."
He pulled his hood up, adjusted the three golden feathers stitched into the hem, and walked out into the afternoon.
Above the inn, a cucco watched him go.
It blinked once.
Then it was simply gone.
This story is based around the joke that cuccoos are the strongest species in Zelda. They can be hit, they can be harmed, but they can't die. You hit them too many times, and they summon a lot of cuccoos for about 20 seconds as punishment for attacking them too much. Use the idea however you want, even if you don't use it for Zelda.