DISCLAIMER: I own nothing except this version of the plot; I do not own Roman Holiday or Zelda. Title song: Dear Maria, Count Me In by All-Time Low. Don't sue me.
Notes: First off, I am not quitting on Precedent, this is merely a side project that I've been entertaining myself with recently. I love old movies, and when I saw RH the other day, I couldn't help myself. If you haven't seen the film, I highly recommend it (Audrey Hepburn & Gregory Peck, c. 1953). However, in reference to this piece, it's not necessary. As for this piece itself, I'm having fun with it by trying out new things; I only have this chapter written so far, but I wanted to test the waters. Any form of feedback is very greatly appreciated and taken into careful consideration. Thank you for reading :)
The morning started terribly, with the obnoxious blaring of my flatmate's alarm clock. He slept in the room opposite mine, but the thin walls and closed door still didn't deter the sound from carrying, even after a month-long 'vacation' in Kokiri and the consequent resurgence of foolish optimism.
"SHEIK! Shut it OFF!"
Something grumbled; seconds later, the same something thumped heavily to the floor, followed by a deep groan. I smacked my hand over my eyes in frustration, because he was no doubt suffering from a hangover. We hadn't been home two days – hell, we hadn't been awake for more than maybe four hours in total, and he had somehow gotten himself passed-out drunk. I was sure that if I bothered to check the bathroom, there would be a puddle of indeterminate color and content, as well as an empty or near-empty glass bottle. During the entire trip to Kokiri Village, he'd complained incessantly about the lack of alcohol – despite the fact that I'd discovered the city's 'dry' status in the assignment notes and travel guide, and subsequently informed him four times prior to our arrival. This didn't remove me from blame, apparently, since he'd broken into our bar some time early this morning, and would no doubt whine about my lack of initiative in smuggling our own rations and assuaging his withdrawal.
Reluctantly pulling myself out of bed, I attempted to kick open my door to vent my frustration, but missed and ended up hitting the wardrobe. "Damn!" I hissed, lashing out and punching the heavy wood, and proceeded to angrily throw open the door and stomp across to Sheik's room. I jiggled his doorknob first, loud and hard enough to wake the living dead, or at the very least rip the damn thing from its place in the latch. No response. Knocking it inwards, I found him sprawled on the floor and swathed in his sheets, snoring loudly and half-naked. The alarm clock was quickly unplugged and hidden in a messy closet, and I moved into the kitchen to make a fresh pot of coffee instead of brooding over my interrupted REM cycle. I'd cry over the spilt vodka in the living room later.
My laptop still displayed the formatted notes document on a dimmed screen, which meant that I'd left the media player on and forgotten to take it off the charger. I saved it quickly before shutting the lid and stowing the machine on the nearby coffee table, as opposed to the couch on which it had spent the night. At some point later today, after checking in with the editor, I'd go through and turn my notes from the trip into a glossy article on 'Kokiri Forest PD Scandal: Are the nation's law enforcement standards too lax?.' With some additional luck and possible input from Sheik, I might even have a half-decent working title.
Just the thought of putting the piece together made me want to drink the entire pot of coffee I had brewing in the kitchen, mixed with a generous helping of bleach. The admin never realized how ridiculous some of its deadlines were for writers – especially following grueling meetings with disgruntled officials, and plane delays that only ever seemed to happen on the way there, when I had nothing to work with in the mean time, even if I had the motivation. Sheik, of course, just took pretty pictures and forwent the drama and stress, because he went to school to be a jackass photographer. Then again, he also apparently hated his liver with a passion, so I supposed things balanced out in the end.
I grabbed a clean mug out of the cupboard and set it near the machine before checking for breakfast. I'd been successfully avoiding new bulletins and assignments since my arrival home; during the actual trip, I'd focused solely on the task at hand, viewing only relevant material and blocking any new bias. This spread was supposed to be huge (hence the trip), encompassing statistics and interviews from several provinces, as well as several pages of just photographs, courtesy of Sheik. The assignment had come as a result of a series of incompetent police work, including the infamous Ganon trial that had rocked the nation since its beginning last summer. We, being the resident tag-team, were assigned the job because, as Malo had put it, it was "cheaper to send you two idiots than to hire new ones." That was mostly due to the fact that we had been friends for around seven or eight years, since second semester of junior year of college; accordingly, we knew each other disgustingly well, and could determine where the other might be at any given time with some degree of accuracy. Location came in handy when one overslept and needed to be at a certain place at a given time. (This was generally the present one's cue to take the unsuspecting interviewee to an impromptu lunch, at the absent one's expense.)
Malo appreciated it for what it was. I appreciated it because Sheik was damn good at his job, and made my articles pop. His camera case stared at me from the opposite side of the counter, near the trappings of a six-pack, which had no doubt served as his midnight snack. Likewise, my cell phone watched accusingly from its charging stand while I ate stale cereal. Instead, I turned to the window and its dusty curtains, and scrutinized the strange balloons hovering over Hyrule Field. A huge blue blimp floated slowly over the area, trailing a large banner declaring, "215th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION of GREY'S TREATY; JUNE 2009."
"Aw, man." Cursing, I snatched up the reproachful cell, only to discover nineteen voicemails and about fifty missed calls. This did not bode well. As if on cue, Sheik stumbled into the room and slumped across the counter, blankly eyeing the beer can pyramid near the stove. "Hey, man. I think we're in trouble."
He laughed, but it sounded more like a raspy cough. Some hangover. He seemed to have noticed that his hair was sticking straight up in a ridiculous cowlick, as he was bent over the sink and squinting into the window, muttering over his shoulder, "I told you to check your phone, didn't I? But no, Link has to focus. Link can't think of two things at once. Link-"
"Shut up." I pressed the phone to my ear, mentally bracing myself as the first message's number played out in the machine's voice. Malo. And he didn't sound happy. Caught in the midst of drying his face with a handful of paper towels, he spared me a curious glance at my groan. "We're supposed to be covering this stupid festival."
"Now?"
"Yesterday."
"Oh."
The message continued, the series eventually escalating into death threats, completely skipping over the "You're fired!" stage. Great way to start a morning. I sat down on one of the bar stools and put the phone down on the counter directly in front of me; the call was still going, with the messages playing out loudly on almost-speaker phone volume. Sheik raised an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed.
"I never understood why he won't call me."
I shifted the phone to the right, then moved it back again in a giant circle. "Well," I began, "maybe it's 'cause you always lose it. Or never charge it. Or because the one time he asked for your number, you thought it would be funny to give him the rejection hotline."
"Yes," he agreed. I watched as he opened the fridge door and moved several half-empty jars and old Chinese containers until he could fully see the pitiful emptiness. Coming away grumbling about eggs and Bisquick, he pointed at the stack of messy memos on the side of the fridge. "But at least I check my messages within a reasonable time frame."
"Only when you're waiting on a print confirmation," I shot back, annoyed. The messages were still going strong, somewhere between the ninth mention of the phrase "PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE" and the fourth of "I SWEAR TO DIN-!" Malon had also dropped us a line about meeting for drinks upon our arrival home, but we would get to that later; Sheik did not need to be encouraged at this stage of his hangover. He might do something irresponsible, like joyriding on a stolen moped again.
We both sat down at the bar and rocked our stools back and forth while the machine continued to prattle. The cereal was nearly gone by the time the messages concluded with a dramatic, "RETURN. MY. CALLS." Now that I knew for sure that I would be crucified upon my reappearance at the office, I grimaced at my friend and stood awkwardly. It would be in both of our best interests to work on our respective contributions.
Sheik glowered. "I think I know where this is going. Are you going to the Field?"
"Yes."
He glowered more intensely, which had a pretty hilarious effect, given his baggy and bloodshot eyes, and uneven stubble. As if in response to the description, he passed a rough hand over his face until the light scritch-scratching was clearly audible in the confines of our meager kitchen. "Well, buy food while you're out."
Laptop already slung over a shoulder, I glanced back at him as I grabbed my keys out of a dirty pair of jeans flung onto a nearby chair. "I'm not buying liquor," I said flatly. He grinned obnoxiously, Oh, I know. And I also know you'll cave. I harrumphed at him and wandered back into my room to find decent clothes and some spare cash, as well as my good coffee cup. Malo wanted the Ganon spread ASAP, because I had allegedly purposefully ignored my newest assignment, some stupid shit regarding the stupid festival. I caught another glance of the street out of my bedroom window, noting somewhat angrily the new unfurled flags, shiny lights, and recently-landscaped flowerbeds. In my opinion, the entire country was taking this thing entirely too seriously; it wasn't even an even anniversary year, or a centennial. It was two-hundred fifteen. Fifteen. Of all numbers to pick, why make a huge stink out of this one?
Shaking my head, I pulled on a pair of jeans and brushed off my t-shirt before heading for the front door, sans coffee cup because I didn't feel like digging through my unpacked luggage. Sheik had rediscovered the television and taken his cereal along for the ride, though from here it looked more like milk and a few sodden marshmallows. I shut the door behind me with a soft chuckle. We were in our late twenties, and our flat looked like a dorm room, sans the passed-out and/or naked sorority girls. What a sad reality.
On the street, I immediately recognized the annoying celebration mode of overeager denizens and misinformed tourists. There were Fused Shadow hats and Master Sword shirts, imp balloons and glow-in-the-dark party string; some street vendor at the next corner was selling those idiotic windsock hats. I passed without staring too hatefully at the excited lines, though I did eventually stop for a cup of coffee near the Field. We lived only about five blocks away from the Field – which wasn't actually a legitimate field, but more of a park – but somehow, the commute had been significantly extended by massive crowds displaced from downtown. By the time I got to the wi-fi picnic area, I realized belatedly that my usual benches had been taken over by fat men and shrieking children.
Well, this was brilliant.
I growled at the scene of crowded picnic tables, pedophiles-in-waiting, college kids playing with their dogs on the grassy common. I wanted to write, dammit, and get this assignment over with before I was mauled; watching Fido chase a Frisbee or attack a preschooler provided too much distraction. Still muttering angrily, I wandered down another side path, past the woods and the blue gazebo, back out to the other side of the Field. There was a small copse of trees near the corner of Palace and Crusade, and although I couldn't access the web, I could still hammer away at this article undisturbed. After finding a satisfactory patch of grass, I settled down and organized my notes into a chaotic pile of citations. Then I opened my laptop.
And then I realized I hadn't let it charge at all, that what I'd mistaken for the idle mode had simply been battery conservation, that Sheik had instead left several interesting videos open on my desktop and a silly doodle in Photoshop. A quick check of the history revealed how my poor computer had been borrowed and abused – and uncharged. This development was just fantastic; I'd rather spectacularly planned for this spread to write itself by the end of the day, and for me to submit for editing before I had my head repossessed. Now, I had less than an hour of battery life, a screen dim enough to make me squint, and a picture of Ganon being curb-stomped by a rabid-looking Princess Zelda. Thank you for your artistic prowess, Sheik.
I stuffed a hand into the case for a spare battery; upon plugging it in, I discovered I had at least three hours to work before this one would die on me too. Fuming silently, I set to work, eventually managing an extremely rough draft, sans references and citations, within the first hour and a half. Later on I would have to comb through the piece for grammar and readability, and all the little technicalities, before finally submitting for a read-over. It wasn't nearly as much progress as I'd anticipated, but there wasn't anything I could do about it now. I knew I couldn't entirely blame Sheik for the battery, since I should've checked last night to make sure it was really charging – but as for the doodle, that was all on him, and probably indicative of his late-night misadventures.
Either way, with a little less than an hour remaining on the spare, I saved a couple times and shut down, zipped up my notes, and swung the bag over my shoulder, deciding to hit the war memorial for a jumpstart on the newest festival article. By no means was I following my usual protocol now – but the sunshine induced a headache, Sheik's idiocy put me off, and I knew the liquor cabinet would be empty by the time I got home. The pantry would be decimated, more so than when I left this morning, when we only had a quarter of a box of Cheez-Its and a bag of freezer-burnt potato tots. Sometimes I wondered what my mother would say if she saw the way I lived now. Sometimes I really wished I was anything but sober.
The war memorial entertained a group of Zoras, complete with their waterproof cameras and dollar-store fans to ward off the midday heat. A fountain stood nearby as a commemoration to the classical goddesses: Din, Nayru, and Farore, encased in marble and wielding weaponry and steering wild steeds of glory. Malon often commented on how gorgeous the sculpture was, but usually accompanied her praise with criticism of the placement – but that was her personality, and her strong belief in karma. With her opinions in mind, I found a bench on the 'good' side of the statue, facing Farore and cast in the shade of several large maples. I'd just started notes on the general atmosphere and reception when a disturbance lit the small square with excitement.
Opposite Din, a Twili woman argued with a Goron vendor over directions or prices or something I couldn't distinguish. Twili were rare in Hyrule (barring festivals, especially ones associated with major events in Twilit history), though students popped up here and there, they mostly appeared in the richer areas with mansions and white-sand beaches. Many couldn't survive the bright light; none of them could, until sixty-some years ago when some sort of genetic advancement occurred in private labs, thus removing the threats of injury or death. My history classes had glossed over the sudden tide of immigrants and tourists from the Twilight Realm that hit Hyrulean cities around the 'fifties and 'sixties. Those Twili, the first-generation, had dispersed, ultimately becoming a considerable minority appearing only on censuses and university applications. Thus, when the (attractive and vaguely familiar) redhead appeared with translucent blue skin, I noticed.
And when she fainted, I didn't hesitate.