Disclaimer: I don't own LoZ: OoT.

...-...

It had been almost four days since Brii had recruited her target to help her find her non-existent cat in hopes of luring him into a secluded area and killing him. As they'd traveled, she'd had to say that she probably could have killed him anywhere in Hyrule field, rather than searching for privacy. It hadn't really dawned on her until this point that trade between towns had all but stopped since Ganondorf's reign began.

While she figured she could probably kill him at any point, the hero proved to be a little...off. He constantly traveled with a weapon brandished, or at least in hand. Surprisingly, he kept his sword sheathed most of the time, instead cycling between a bow, a sling shot, and small deku seeds. Every now and then he'd drop one of the seeds and the sharp snap along with the blinding flash of light always startled Brii.

Navi merely called him an idiot after each blunder...when she wasn't using more colorful language. Honestly, Brii had never heard a fairy speak in such a manner and she had to wonder just where Link had found his.

Brii had tried reaching into her bags for poisons a few times, but every time she went for something, Link would suddenly be right there, asking her questions. He had to know there was no cat. He was screwing with her, but she couldn't tell why he'd let it go on like this. Why not just kill her? What if she was leading him to a trap? Well she was, but still.

"Do you...ever relax?" Brii asked as Link flipped his sling shot through the air and caught it.

"Huh?" Link paused and in a moment he'd pocketed the sling shot and was juggling those damned seeds again. "Oh, yeah. I'm always relaxed."

"Hence why he loses things," Navi hissed. The fairy seemed to prefer to hover around Brii rather than her charge. It made the assassin uneasy.

"But...you never just-" Brii's voice made a light squeak as Link dropped another nut and it temporarily blinded her. When she could see again, she thought she saw an amused expression on the hero's face for a split second. However, as she blinked to banish the aftershock of the light from her eyes, his face resumed its perpetual, innocent curiosity. He was so screwing with her. "You never just walk. There's always something in your hands."

"Yeah, well," Link shrugged. "Where I grew up, you had to be ready for anything...some of the kids there were real dicks. If you walked around empty handed, you'd wind up tied up naked to a small tree in front of the prettiest girl in town's house."

Brii stared at him blankly. "You...wait, what?"

"Hmm?" Link seemed to have already forgotten what he'd just said. Just as she considered demanding that he repeat himself, his mind wandered in a different direction. "Does your family own a horse?"

"Come again?"

"A horse. You know, something you ride on."

Brii frowned. Her real family was long dead and she hadn't really spent much time developing her fake one. Honestly, she'd hardly spent any time developing her cat. Link was oddly apathetic toward the creature he was heading off to save. Instead, he asked her about politics continuously. What was Ganondorf's main agenda? Had he raised taxes? Had he made new laws? Were any of them reasonable? Had Hyrule actually benefited his coming into power in any way?

Seeing as Brii didn't pay taxes and she only participated in politics to find potential clients, her answers had been wanting.

And now, after keeping her preoccupied with real matters for four days, he was suddenly moving on to personal? Brii shrugged. "No."

Link looked disappointed. "Ah, I see. I was going to offer to help your family out in any way you needed if I could get a horse."

"You...do know there's a ranch out here somewhere, right? Why not just buy one...?" Her voice trailed off as Link's good humor slipped for the first time and Navi cackled gleefully. "They wouldn't sell you one?"

Link scuffed his boots along the grass as he walked. "Uh, no. They wouldn't."

"Why not?" Brii would have expected the common folk to rally beneath their valiant hero, helping him in any way they could.

Even as Link tried to say it didn't really matter, Navi came to rest on Brii's head so that she could more comfortably tell her story. The fairy seemed to have issues flying and speaking at the same time. "Oh, it's precious really. Link saved them from Ganondorf's men and asked about a horse, but-"

"Navi, shut up," Link muttered, grabbing at the little ball of light. The fairy was too quick for him and in seconds she floated well above the duo in the air. He gave Brii a pleading look as though she might somehow control his bug. "It really doesn't matter..."

"Doesn't matter?" Navi's shrill voice squeaked with sadistic pleasure. "Dipshit here thought he'd be all smooth and flirt with the little thing taking care of the ranch in her father's absence. He got something alright, though it wasn't a horse."

Brii felt like she had to agree with Link. She didn't want to know anymore.

"Fucker!" Navi hissed as she narrowly dodged an arrow.

Link notched another one, seemingly forgetting that Brii was even there. "She was just about to give me the damned horse when you got in the way!"

"A fucking week of barely leaving her goddessdamned bed for anything other than a piss and you expect me to believe that bullshit?"

"You're just angry we didn't let you watch. You freak," Link snapped, letting another arrow fly.

Brii really wished she could un-hear that.

Link wasted another three arrows before finally shouldering his bow and beginning to haphazardly juggle his seeds again. "She was seriously considering giving Epona to me when you had to yell something about an engagement."

"My apologies. I just thought the little bitch deserved to know she was being used."

Brii slipped a vial of poison out of her bag whilst the two continued to bicker. How did she want to do this? He still had those seeds, though he was flinging a few at his fairy. As a few arched away and slammed into the ground a few yards off, they snapped and flashed. Perhaps she should wait until he had his slingshot out?

But then...she'd need to cut him to get the poison to work...or trick him into drinking it. Strange as he was, she didn't think he was that stupid. Honestly, she'd been so thrilled to have a chance to get her poisons that she'd just grabbed the first one she could reach. It wasn't one of her better ones and she was cursing herself for even bringing it along.

As she opened her bag and tried to switch the vial for another one, Link abruptly froze in his tracks and his long ears perked up. He turned over his shoulder to give Brii a hopeful smile, as though he expected her to somehow forget all that she'd just heard and he pointed ahead. "I think I see the alcove."

He didn't wait for her to respond before he took off running toward it. She had to pity him. It had to suck having such a bitchy fairy following him around everywhere. As Brii let him get a bit of a distance between them and reached to pull out a different poison, she felt a soft pressure on her shoulder and froze.

How had she already forgotten the damned fairy? When she was even thinking about the little monster?

"So...just a heads up, poison's not the way to go," Navi muttered, her voice reaching high notes that Brii hadn't known were possible by any creature.

As the assassin finished wincing, she turned to inspect the little ball of light, trying not to pale. "I'm sorry?"

"You're here to kill the little prick," Navi said, calmly. Her voice was lower now, almost to a normal tone. "I'm all for it. I hate Hyrule and I want to go home. If it wasn't for my community service, I wouldn't be here."

Brii stared at the light, wondering if it was joking.

The fairy hopped back into the air and bobbed twice. "The faster he dies, the sooner I fulfill my punishment and can go back to binge drinking and partying all night long."

"What did you do?" Brii asked. She'd catch the little bugger in a lie and then try to convince it that she wasn't really out to kill the hero.

"Sweetheart, don't change the subject," the fairy fluttered her wings a couple times to stay in the air near Brii's face. "Look. Mr. Hero spent seven years training in an alternate reality or something and while he was there some creepy old guy helped him build tolerances to most every poison. He's also really damned good with a sword, so you don't want to try to fight him in combat." Navi bobbed again and sighed. "And seeing that a story about a cat was the best you could do, I wouldn't count on your resourcefulness either."

Brii's eye twitched. "What's left then?"

"Know any magic?"