Attention all ye who enter here: Opus Triumphant has a tongue of molten silver and a heart of pure gold. He's got a flatter-gun and he ain't afraid to use it!
Just for this chapter, I ask you all to simply discard your love of Link, just for a bit! Simply let him go for three - no, two minutes of your time.
Then repeat after me: Pix does NOT hate Link.
He is just a convenient lightning rod of hate (™Colin Mochrie), being the only other male character in the game for whom I have no particular affinity.
This chapter picks straight up from the last one, so read the ending over before beginning. Or, if you're one of those people who sees a story and skips straight to the last chapter, read the entire thing. I hear that often helps.
... ... ...
Not the first thing on her mind?
More like a distant hundredth.
Zelda heard Marth chuckle beside her and shift his head closer to hers, until the tips of their hair met on the grass, and the sky they saw had to be the same. Sighing and casting her eyes upward, she halfheartedly wondered if she should attempt again to watch for comets, and, in the case that she did, if she and Marth would finally see the same one.
"Looks like the shower's pretty much over," Zelda heard him murmur beside her.
"There's one," she whispered, pointing straight up at the brightest star in the black heavens and its nonexistent stream of stardust, pretending to follow its silvery tail through the sky until it disappeared halfway to the horizon in a brilliant splash of imaginary fireworks.
Marth didn't question it, but instead turned his head to her with a quizzical look.
"Why are you so set on making this wish?"
"I just am."
"No," Marth persisted, "I mean, can't you make it yourself?"
"It doesn't work that way," Zelda sighed in frustration before realizing that now she'd have to explain herself. Marth's tiny smile indicated that he knew the same.
"Well?" he asked, "How does it work?"
Zelda sighed, wondering how best to describe it in a manner that might accurately express its meaning and importance to her. In fact there seemed no way to do it, for she'd tried many times to pass the significance on to Peach, and had always ended up with a ludicrous glance or derisive laugh - unintentional, she was sure, but it somehow never failed to hurt her, or at least make her suicidal for a night.
She glanced over at Marth for a moment, who appeared to be waiting silently and expectantly, and wondered briefly if he might do such a thing to her; if he would deem her a raving lunatic like so many before him and dismiss it as the fantasy of a smitten girl too young to be talking of real love. And if he couldn't understand and share her chimeric notions, then who could she entrust with her romantic Elysium and her imaginary arcadia; her pipe dreams, her fond illusions; her fanciful castles in the sky?
Perhaps, if Peach's kingdom and Samus's home planet had more tradition, and were more deeply rooted in romance and mystery, those of her friends would understand her when she spoke of it... but they were modern cultures - countries overridden with strange technology; an entire universe filled with machines and robots... she really couldn't expect them to make some more room for the fool's paradise of an old-fashioned princess.
But perhaps - just perhaps - she had a chance to reach Marth, for through the rich tapestry of Altea's lifestyle and their lavish history, there had to be mention of knights and lords; of high-born romantic ideals and chivalry that passed down traditions of honor and grace, and raised men as lovers instead of fighters. Those days may have been over, but while Link had been too far gone to even contemplate the concept, Marth was right there in front of her, and if she didn't do it now, she'd never gather the courage.
"You know that ancient Altean belief?" Zelda asked after some thought, "The one where two people who love each other... they share a dance, an embrace, and finally a kiss, and that means they'll be in love forever - that even if they have trouble in a relationship, even if they can't stand each other after a few years... they'll always be in love?"
"Our oldest tradition," Marth replied with a smile, "If I remember, I asked you to dance once, before you broke it off with Link."
He tried to kill you, Zelda remembered, nearly laughing. "That was pretty funny... I did it, too. Best dance of my life."
"Embrace," Marth added as if reading a list, and then with a smirk, "check. And kiss?"
The smile grew intoxicating, until the princess believed she might swoon like a proper lady. "I think we've got all our bases covered."
"Yes," Zelda replied softly, "for that belief. For your belief."
She looked away. "I don't have mine yet."
z100 Marth was silent for a moment. And then, gently, "... tell me."
"It's - " Zelda began, and then sighed, "It's hard to explain... it's not the same as Altea, but it's kind of similar... about the same things, really, like eternal love, and that kind of stuff... but no," she trailed off, a slight blush coming to her cheeks, "I really shouldn't - it doesn't matter anyway, just a thought I had... more of a fairy tale, I think - I mean, I only heard it in passing, not - "
"Zelda."
"Right," she continued quickly, "sorry, but... are you sure you're - "
"Interested?" he finished for her, and then, "Yes, I am. Take your time."
Zelda smiled. "All right. Thanks... it's just that it's really a sort of Hyrulian superstition, and I heard about it from my nursemaid..."
She laughed suddenly, remembering fondly the old woman, and the fussy way she had about her that made it somewhat ridiculous to imagine her in a romantic situation of any kind.
"She was a real character... she always used to tell me all the time about 'true love', and how wonderful it was, and how lucky I would be if I ever found it... I guess she did, once, too... just trying to spread the wisdom."
The princess waited, turning her head slightly to the side and almost hoping Marth would interrupt her, but he was silent.
"She was the first one who told me about it... that if you love someone so much that you couldn't stand to be without him, and he did as well, then all you'd have to do was make a wish on the same shooting star... and even if you don't get married or even start something serious, you'll always have a special bond... you'll have love for life. Isn't that a beautiful thought?"
She looked over at Marth, whose unreadable expression suddenly sent embarrassment coursing through her like poison, painting her cheeks a bright shade of red and muddling her words when she next spoke.
"Of course, that's just stupid, I guess... forget I said it, I'm just being an idiot. Again. Goddesses, I do a lot of that lately don't I? I'm sorry, I - "
"Zel," Marth interrupted, grabbing her arm, "stop it. Remember what we said: you are not stupid - "
" - for being myself," she finished resolutely, and sighed. "Sorry. It just... I wasn't sure you'd..."
She gave an apologetic wince, even though he couldn't see it. "... understand."
"Are you joking?" he replied, "That kind of thing isn't a mystery to me. You know that."
"Well, Peach seemed to think it was silly. I sort of didn't want to tell you... I thought you'd laugh."
Marth gave her an odd glance. "You thought I would laugh at the concept of sharing something that important? You're not the only hopeless romantic in the world."
"Anyone else would laugh, though," Zelda complained. "You mean to say that if I told that to Link, he'd just take it without a snigger?"
"That's Link," Marth replied, as if it were explanation enough, and Zelda smirked. In response Marth turned his head to her as a disturbing thought appeared to cross his mind. "You didn't tell him, did you?"
"No," Zelda giggled, "scared you, though?"
"Yeah," he replied with a smile, "wouldn't want him to get the idea you liked me better."
"Not unless I felt like watching the apocalypse... or just listening to some incessant whining..."
"Or getting molested on the dance floor during a huge party," Marth added, grinning.
Zelda burst out laughing. "Or bearing witness to another drunken nude serenade at three in the morning."
"Oh, Jesus, I remember that."
"I wish I didn't!"
Zelda couldn't contain herself as the image of a naked, completely inebriated Link ran howling through her mind, screaming an indecipherable mix of 'I love you, Zelda' and 'what shall we do with a drunken sailor' as he streaked through the empty corridors of the Smash Dorms, before staking out in front of Zelda's room and settling down into a quieter ballad about herbs and their many uses.
"Way hay and up she rises," Marth crowed all of a sudden, and once again Zelda exploded with laughter, wiping the tears from her eyes as the song coordinated comically with the visual.
"Patent blocks o' diff'rent sizes," she joined in cheerfully, bobbing her head to the melody as they continued raucously,
Sling him in the long boat till he's sober,
keep him there and make 'im bale 'er,
pull out the plug and wet him all over,
take 'im and shake 'im, try an' wake 'im,
trice him up in a runnin' bowline,
give 'im a taste of the bosun's rope-end,
give 'im a dose of salt and water,
stick on 'is back a mustard plaster,
shave his belly with a rusty razor,
send him up the crow's nest till he falls down,
put 'im in bed with the captain's daughter -
Zelda had to wipe more happy tears from her eyes at the memory of Link's high, off-pitch crooning as she finished with a jaunty "earl-aye in the morning!"
"Damn it," Marth choked through peals of laughter as they nearly rolled into each other in their mirth, "how the hell did he remember all that?"
"And he was really hammered, too," Zelda added with an enormous grin, "must be a trade secret of drunks worldwide."
The blonde princess couldn't help a few stray giggles as Marth burst into laughter once again, containing himself after a few long moments to gasp, "God, we really shouldn't be making fun of him like this."
A small flinch of irritation flickered through her mind, as did an involuntary why not?
"Oh, yeah," Zelda replied, her smile faltering for a moment as she thought in more detail about the drunken sailor's event, and in truth, about Link in general, "...that might be construed as paying him back for being an ignorant asshole."
The effect of the sentence was tremendous, and managed very neatly to extinguish any trace of a good mood in a matter of milliseconds. It was as if the oxygen had been vacuumed from the air, leaving a cold atmosphere in which it was very hard to breathe. The moment they both fell silent, breath bated at who would speak first, Zelda knew that what followed would be terribly unfair, as Marth certainly didn't deserve to get yelled at... but somehow she couldn't bring herself to smile and deliver the much-awaited 'just kidding'.
Could've used a better word than 'asshole'.
Her stomach churned as she waited agonizingly for him to say something. He didn't, and as if by instinct alone, she began to get antsy.
"What?" she asked irritably, "It's true, isn't it?"
Marth was silent still, and the princess began to feel as though she'd said something unutterably terrible. She hated the sensation, as it often made her feel dizzy and nauseous, and simply unable to say the right things.
She did it all too often, too - she'd called her mother a pompous whore once and shocked Peach into fainting, and had been left afterwards wondering what kind of a person insulted her own family with such severity. Then there was the time she'd spoken openly about a nasty and untrue rumor concerning Yoshi's hospitalization for depression, and had been heralded by her fellow Smashers for weeks after as a libelous shrew.
'His silence flouts me', Zelda quoted angrily to herself, listening to the pregnant pause and wishing that she could hear something besides the pounding of her own heart.
She hadn't even said anything so horrible; many people would have called Link the same thing given the chance. Even Link himself wouldn't take it so seriously as Marth appeared to have, so really, what was the point in acting so -
"No one before you ever meant it."
Zelda's eyes narrowed, and she threw a glance - more of a glare - at Marth. Reading my mind now, are you?
"I don't know what you're talking about." she replied coolly, looking away and trying not to think about what he'd said.
"I've heard him get the butt of so many insults, it's hard to keep track of them all," Marth continued, "but they were jokes. You just went from happy to hateful without blinking an eye, and I'm pretty sure you weren't kidding."
Zelda didn't answer him for a moment and folded her arms tighter around herself, feeling suddenly cold. In truth she didn't know why she'd been so derogatory, and knew that as long as she didn't think about it, she'd never have to know.
"Why do you hate him?" Marth asked.
"I don't hate him," Zelda said in flustered response. "I just... he's..."
She sighed and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and trying to keep the image of his face from her mind. "He's a little too much sometimes. He needs to get with it... by now, he should know he's out of the running. I mean, really," she continued impatiently, "he's just wasting his time. What does he think he's going to accomplish?"
"He's just lost something," Marth replied evenly and quietly, "he's trying to cope as best as he can."
"Yeah, well, of course he's lost something," Zelda snapped, "me. Big surprise; I wonder what he thought would happen!"
She fell silent for a moment, teeth clenched lividly as she tried to work out why she was so angry, as well as find the best way to cool off and make it look as though she'd never blown up in the first place.
Oh, please, she snarled internally, is this really what I call blowing up? That's wonderful; I goddamn raise my voice a little and I get all scared.
"Ugh!" she shrieked, the hands on her cheeks forming into claws. She was such a baby - crying at the first sign of trouble, crying the very moment she encountered what Peach called the 'men don't get me syndrome' - a delusional infant who either hadn't yet outgrown her childhood fantasies or was simply too complex to be understood.
"I don't dislike him because I broke up with him," she exploded suddenly, "I broke up with him because I dislike him! He doesn't understand anything about love, it's all just kiss, kiss, sex, kiss, sex, grope - "
"Move on," Marth intoned quietly from beside her.
"That," Zelda hissed into the air, her eyes wide with aggravation as if she were in a staring contest with the unblinking sky, "is it. Exactly it."
With a groan she heaved herself over, rolling onto her stomach and resting her elbows on the ground, palms digging into her eyes as if she were trying to gouge them out. "I just - I don't understand how he could be so cold. You know? I mean, we were dating; hugging and kissing and everything. He even told me he wanted to marry me someday!"
She let her elbows drop, and felt her chin smash uncomfortably into the dirt.
"How can you marry someone if you don't even love them?" she asked halfheartedly, "He acted so romantic; so devoted... but there was nothing behind it."
Marth was silent for only a moment more.
"... you thought he was the one, didn't you?"
Zelda looked at him uneasily at the sudden question, and feeling the burn of tears in her eyes, nodded. Then realizing that he couldn't see it, she added in a small voice, "Yes. I thought."
"But he didn't share your view of love?"
The princess was silent.
He didn't have a view of love.
"Link wasn't the only one," she said after swallowing the tears back, "He's still not the only one."
She looked sideways at Marth, feeling his eyes bore into hers.
"No one thinks we're going to make it," she murmured, her frown apparent, and her distress snaking its way into her voice against her will.
"Your parents?" Marth asked after a few seconds.
"Don't get me started," she retorted bitterly, averting her eyes and staring into the ground.
Her parents were the least of her problems; she saw them once a year. She was greeted with Peach's blithe, cheerful face every morning when she went to the bathroom to brush her teeth; Samus's quiet, friendly smile every day on the other side of her dorm room, Roy's hyperactive ear-to-ear grin as she met him and Marth for breakfast in the mess hall. She wasn't stupid - they had ears, they could hear; mouths as well... they could talk.
"They think I've got goddamn puppy love," she muttered at the grass, "I've got puppy love and you're just using me to get at Hyrule's wealth."
The worst part was that no one had seemed to blink an eye at it - apparently wealthy men routinely exploited younger, significantly less wealthy women for money they didn't need.
"They don't get it," Zelda continued quietly as she looked once again at Marth, "it's not just some stupid crush... this is real."
As if he would have needed proof, Zelda wriggled suddenly closer to him, an arm protectively around his midriff, head resting on his chest, her ears suddenly filled with the sound of his heartbeat. He closed an arm around her shoulders in return, pulling her in tighter, and she shut her eyes, reveling in the sudden warmth that spread through her body.
"I would know if it wasn't real," she said softly, "I want to make this wish because if we don't... we won't be together forever. And they'll be right."
Zelda felt Marth's fingers run through her hair, and closed her eyes with a smile.
"We'll make that wish," he told her quietly as she shifted up further, settling her head just by his, "don't worry."
He trailed off, winding a golden tendril about his finger, and Zelda turned her head towards the sky once again, exploring the vast black canvas with her eyes and consoling herself that if fate so desired, she'd someday have her chance to make up for the wish they'd missed today.
We'll make it work, she told herself privately.
And they would - Peach and Roy and Zelda's cold, political parents may have dismissed her childhood superstitions, but after all, she hadn't made the wish with them.
And then, while she and Marth lay with the sky in their eyes, it was as if fortune had suddenly turned improbably and miraculously in her favor, for a glimmering spot in the sky shimmered once; twice... and, like the violent, graceful stroke of a paintbrush, tore a chrome streak into the sky, leaving its silvery residue in the night as it disappeared with a flash beneath the black horizon.
A smile spread slowly across Zelda's lips. With a happy sigh and drew closer still to her lover, feeling both their heartbeats quicken in unison as the glowing imprint shot through her memory.
Mind focused; more content at that moment than she'd ever felt before, and with a sense of security and warmth flooding her body, Zelda took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and made a wish.
... ... ...
"Love is not two people staring into each other's eyes, but two people looking ahead in the same direction." - Antoine de Saint-Exuperey
... hooray for poorly presented metaphors! Oh and, weird line breaks for no reason because the chapter starts and ends to quickly that I can afford no space for confusion.
Repeat after me: Pix does not hate Link.
She just sees him as a perfect opportunity to get Zelda fired up about something.
I hate when there are no in-game symbols to make a part of the story... like the dance between Squall and Rinoa, or Galahad's Sword in Shadow Hearts II. There's nothing I can do but make up ancient Altean and Hyrulian superstitions.
Quote: 'His silence flouts me,' slightly modified from the Taming of the Shrew, 'Her silence flouts me, and I'll be revenged!" Song: Drunken Sailor, Sea Shanty which is abominably fun to sing with a bunch of friends in a crowded car, and even funnier imagined sung by an inebriated, dancing Link.
Opus Triumphant (who I am assuming is male, because it's better to mistake a woman for a man than the other way around, unless you're a japanese animator, which I somewhat doubt) - As I have said before, you have this habit of charming the hell out of us humble fellow writers, and I'll be surprised if you aren't site-famous by now.
PirateGoddess - The ending wasn't originally supposed to be such an abrupt cliffhanger... the chapter was getting long, and I figured that it would be the best possible time for a chappie break (FFnet requires some cunning timing if you're going to stay accessible!) But I'm glad someone thought it worked; thank you for the review!
razzkat - Thanks very much... always glad to please!
Thank you all and good night.