Well, in case you haven't noticed, I've officially nixed update schedules. Too difficult to keep at the moment. Self-pressure isn't always good, I've decided. Also, if you guys want regular updates on what I'm up to, please visit my DA instead. Not even for the art, but just for the journal entries. I update those like every week, sometimes more often, and i usually always do include some sort of business about my fanfics. In fact, most of the people that keep tabs on me in my DA can claim to be very up to date on matters of my fanfics. XD

Example, if you check my DA, then you will know that my computer has been virused. Did it affect the story? if it did then I wouldn't be updating now would I? Naw, the story's just fine and the virus will not effect the chapters of this story or Forgotten Legends.

SubZeroChimera, hehe, you'll see. But not in this chapter.

Ephriokko, yes, Itaav is still vaati, let's not forget that. XD As for Cole, hehehe, don't count the chickens before they've hatched... As for castle in the Sky, I had just watched the movie when I thought of the concept for this fanfic. It's a heavy influence, really, but I'd be lying if I said other things like general steampunk and How To Train Your Dragon weren't influences as well. XD

The Pride of the Goddesses was always terribly active whenever it was ported on the harbor specifically made for it. Almost everyone on the ship was rushing and crowding the catwalks, all trying to get off the ship to visit the marketplace on land, meet with relatives and so on.

But two boys weren't in any such rush to get the catwalks.

Itaav was confidently and proudly leading Link to the fruit of his labors high on one of the sail decks. It had taken a while for the Engineer to get permission from above to be able to use that space for his airship. He'd chosen that place specifically too. It was one of the few spaces that allowed conversion into a small little hangar. In fact, he had to build the little hangar and reinforce it with shield spells before he even began on Helmaroc. He wasn't about let some hurricane to blow it away.

Climbing deck after deck after deck, though, wasn't Link's idea of a good start to the day. It was just days ago that the princess had landed on him from who knows how many feet in the air, and while the fairies fixed him up, they couldn't take all the aches and pains away. But the Scaler found himself more intrigued with the fact that there were so many decks on the ship he called home. This may not have been his first time going up these decks, but every time he climbed them he still couldn't believe the massive size of the place. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure he'd been on the other side of The Pride.

"Deck7B-13," Itaav announced with a sly grin as he approached their door.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Let's just get through, I'm tired of walking." He snarled.

His friend rolled his eyes and said, "Pansy." But he opened the door and led the way through right after.

The door went right into the small hangar that Itaav had fashioned. Upon going in, Link hadn't seen much change from last. It was still a dark and warm place, warm in a very unpleasant and stuffy sort of way that Itaav somehow didn't seem to mind, and the only major light seeming to come from the open hangar door. But even though it was still a bit dark, the mess that was the Helmaroc could still be seen, clumped to one side of the hangar with its dirty and oily tarp covering. Link did have to admit that, even with a tarp covering it, it certainly did look bigger.

Itaav clutched the tarp dramatically. "And now…" he said, as if anticipating a drum roll, "The Helmaroc!" The tarp came off.

From the way his friend constantly spoke of its beauty and prowess, Link had expected something grand and glorious. And maybe that was how Itaav viewed it. Maybe the Engineer truly did think his precious Helmaroc was a work of art for the ages. To Link, it just looked like a piece junk made from scrap metal, dirty canvas, and two-by-fours.

"You're kidding, right?" Link asked flatly.

Again, Itaav looked truly, deeply, and mortally offended. "Kidding? How can you not admire her? Her frame, made of intricately designed, hollowed out iron tubes – designed after the skeletal composition of a bird! The wings are even designed to flap when necessary! And the tail wing, the turn radius it has! I could go on and on abou-"

"Don't. Please." Link said as he approached what he viewed to be a hunk of junk. He poked one of the canvas wings and his finger immediately recoiled. "It looks like it'll break any second."

"Shows what you know," Itaav snapped. "I suppose the best way to prove you wrong is to take care of our bet."

"Let's do it." Challenged Link.

"Ladies first," Itaav gestured to open air cockpit.

"Then go on in." Link said with a smile.

His friend just gave him a snide expression before going in first, arranging himself in his pilot's seat. It wasn't anything like Link had seen before. The back of the chair was down low, positioning Itaav at an obtuse angle rather than at the right angles normal chairs made. Itaav's outstretched arms were holding onto a small steering wheel, and there were pedals more towards the front on the chair stand - leaving Link wondering where on earth Itaav had got those since there weren't any bicycles on the ship.

"So how does thing move?" Link asked as he reluctantly entered. He still felt that Itaav's precious airship would break at any second.

"It has wheels at the bottom. On a really windy day it can take off on its own, but on a normal day, even with the drafts up here, the sails take away most of the wind. And since the sails are so huge, even when they're not up they block wind. So it needs a little nudge." With a smirk, Itaav lowered his goggles over his eyes.

Link took that as a sign he should put his own goggles on. As he hastily put them on, the machine suddenly lurched forward. The blond really hadn't expected it to be so sudden and ended up nearly falling to the bottom of the cockpit, only stopping himself by grabbing onto the rim of the cockpit. "Magic's cheating!" Link made sure to shout out.

"It's just a head start! Don't get your undies in a knot!" Itaav shouted back.

Link frowned, mostly because he wasn't sure whether or not Itaav was lying about 'head starts' or not. They may have been friends but Link knew that Itaav didn't always tell the whole truth. And there wasn't anything he could do about it since he wasn't magically inclined at all.

The Helmaroc zipped out of the hangar and onto the small deck quicker than Link was comfortable with. He kept his hands tight around the rim of the cockpit, expecting the airship to at least lift off of the floor a little. It didn't. The end of the deck was coming.

There was good news and bad news in this situation. The good news was that this deck had no rails to block the passage of the airship. The bad news was that, because of the deck's location, there was nothing but water to cushion the crash of the airship. And landing in water at how knew how many feet high was pretty the same as landing on flat sheet of rock. Very painful, dangerous and, in all likelihood, deadly.

"Itaav…" Link said quietly. His friend did not respond. The Helmaroc dipped down as it fell over the deck. "Itaav!" He cried again, only to be ignored again. They were falling closer and closer to the water. And if they somehow managed to survive the fall, they were stills crewed. At least Link was, because he couldn't swim. "Itaav!" Link screeched.

"And here we go!" Itaav shouted in what sounded almost like maniacal glee. Pulling down at the steering wheel with all his might, the airship's nose gradually went up. This was all mostly for show on Itaav's part. They'd fallen so low there really wasn't any sort of eddy of wind that could lift them like that, not that Link knew that. Right now the lift was all happening because of the wind magic that Itaav had always been so good with. Unfortunately, he never counted on it involving so much effort. They couldn't be up on Helmaroc for long if the process was going to be this draining… And especially if Link kept squealing like a little girl.

The airship finally made it high enough to glide on its own. Catching the breeze under its wings, the ship lurched for a moment before steadily and smoothly going bobbing up and down with the wind.

Link, who had finished screeching and panicking as soon as he noticed they had been lifting rather than falling, still found himself having a little trouble letting go of the rim of the cockpit. He had a feeling he shouldn't move around too much anyways. Too much weight on one side would throw off the balance, probably. Worse yet, this all meant that Itaav had won the bet. Whether climbing up to the updraft was real or fake, it did prove that this piece of junk his friend admired so much was airworthy. And if was fake, Link couldn't prove it. So either way, Itaav won.

"Still think this girl's junk?" He heard Itaav say from the front.

"I guess it isn't," Link conceded a bit bitterly. "Not impressive to look at, though."

"She doesn't need to be," Itaav countered. It wasn't but a few seconds later that he added, "But I plan to work on that when the kinks are all ironed out."

The Scaler frowned. "Kinks?"

"Yeah, kinks. You know, flaws?"

"Just making sure I heard right because we are kind of… riding the kinked machine."

"Oh relax!" Itaav said, glad his friend couldn't see the evil grin appearing on his expression. "It's nothing that would interfere right no-" He cut himself off into a deathly silence before the airship rocked uneasily. This was all his own doing, of course, but he didn't want Link to know that.

Panicked as the ship did another sudden rock, Link asked, "Itaav? Itaav, why did it just do that? Why is it still doing that?"

"I-I don't know! I think it might be a malfunction in the tail wing!" He cried out, all the while glad Link didn't have the guts to wander to the front of the craft to see his amused face.

"What? B-but that controls the steering right? We're still over the water Itaav! I can't swim!" Cried the blond.

Itaav was genuinely surprised at how much he was enjoying making Link panic, but he decided he may as well have at least one more laugh before landing and finally letting his friend relax. He dipped the Helmaroc down towards the water at an alarming speed. Link was yowling out profanity and prayers, or a weird mix of both, as they lowered and lowered. And then Itaav pulled up, again using a good chunk of his own magic to propel them upwards, before steering them back towards the hangar.

"Gotcha."

It took Link a full minute to grasp what had happened before he started yelling profanity at Itaav, and for a moment the Engineer considered that continued gliding might be better for his self-preservation than landing. But Link began rocking the airship himself so much that Itaav was really given no choice.

He set the Helmaroc down, just narrowly avoiding a punch from Link as the vessel came to a complete stop. Ducking out of the way and jumping off his seat clumsily, he climbed out of the Helmaroc's cockpit.

"Get back here!" Link shouted, clumsily following the simpler way out of the airship with his jelly-legs. But even with the wobbly walk, he was catching up to the purple haired Engineer quickly.

"Listen, sorry! You can keep your rupees! Sorry!" Itaav yelled as he ran out of the hangar.

Link continued to shout bloody murder.

"Zev, please," Zelda was gripping the sleeve of her brother. "Please let me leave the ship!"

"Zelda, I'm telling you, those Gerudo are not on the ship! You're perfectly safe!" The prince said tiredly, attempting to wrench his sisters hand off of him. He did love her, he really did, but her pointless worrying was getting to him.

"But how do you know!" The princess asked. "Did you find them?"

Zev flushed, slightly embarrassed. "Well, no, but that's precisely why-"

"That doesn't mean they're gone, Zev! It just means you haven't found any evidence that they're still here! Really, you're reasoning is stu-"

"Zelda." Her brother looked down at her with a harsh expression. "What my reasoning is doesn't matter. There have been no sightings of the Gerudo here or anywhere else on the ship since the raid. And I understand that Cole's death has you on edge and may have you paranoid – but you are not leaving this ship. Princesses don't leave the ship. Ever." Zev's voice was firm and cold. It startled her. He'd never used that tone of voice with her before... and even he seemed to notice it. For a moment, the hardness in his face wavered, but returned quickly. "Now enough of this. You're late for your tutoring. Go."

She bit her lip and nodded before heading the opposite way down the hall. All these years Zev still treated her as if she'd never grown up. She never realized she had been treating him the same way. She had always viewed him as the boy that would always be willing to do whatever she said because he was her "big brother." But now he was a fully grown up and realized prince; someone who knew that not being calm in the face of insecurity would send the wrong messages to everybody. And from that brief glimpse of uneasiness on him, he didn't believe most of the words he had said (though he probably was trying). He was trying to make her feel better, in his own way.

But it's not working, doofus. She thought bitterly, completely passing the room she was supposed to be receiving her tutoring at. Phooey on the tutor today, she had better things to think about! They're still around and I know it! It isn't safe in here!

It wasn't as if she could leave either, though. She couldn't. Zelda was still the princess, and as such she had a responsibility. … Even it is just to be a figurehead.

All of a sudden, being a princess didn't sound so great. Well, it really wasn't all that great, she thought, but she didn't exactly have anything to compare it to. Or rather, having visited the outer wall for the first time just the other day, she did have something to compare to… and she wasn't quite sure whether she liked the outer wall or the inner wall. If only there was some sort of… middle wall. She would've liked that. And if she had been born into a middle wall, she probably wouldn't have to worry about Gerudo stealing her off in the night.

Then again, she didn't really have to think about it now since it wasn't night. She kept thinking about it anyways. Being inside this cramped ship, the estate they called the palace… She shuddered before pausing to look behind her. Zelda had an eerie feeling that someone was following her, but there couldn't have been. She knew that for sure because this particular hall was barren and devoid of any sort of secret passage. Unless her stalker was thin enough to fit behind the tapestries hung on the wall.

She hugged herself as she shuddered again. All of a sudden, the shadows around her felt very… uninvited. Everything was becoming claustrophobic.

Zelda threw off her shoes and ran down the hallway into the closest room she could find. It was one of the "palace's" many tea-rooms, which was perfect since they all had balconies. Startling a few maids and butlers that seemed to be readying the room for mid morning tea, she went straight for the balcony and clutched at the rails farthest out on the deck. Taking in a breath of the salty sea air, she realized she was breathing hard. Was she really that's scared…? Scared of something that wasn't there? Was the threat of the Gerudo possibly looming anywhere really frightening her that much…

No. That wasn't fear of the Gerudo. That was fear of something else. But what could it-

"What's that?" Zelda thought out loud as she saw something zooming around the bow of the main ship. It was certainly much too big a seagull – unless it was a monster seagull. Actually, a monster seagull sounded intriguing… and it was kind of shaped like a bird, whatever it was flying around… Was it a mutant bird? Squinting her eyes in an attempt to get a better look at it, she realized it was moving a little too statically to be a bird. And she almost thought she may have seen people in it. Was it some sort of aircraft?

"Amazing…" Someone on The Pride had built an airship! A working airship! For a moment, just watching the airship glide steadily through the air was enough to make her forget her own worries… only to replace with it longing. Seeing that airship fly through the sky without a care in the world, she knew the people piloting that had the capability to leave. They could come and go to The Pride as they pleased, go wherever they wanted to go, see all the places they wanted to see… had something to run away with.

Briefly, Zelda wondered if in her mind she was being like all the princesses in the storybooks who wanted to run away and not be a princess. She supposed she might have been similar to them, except she really didn't mind being a princess. All the danger that seemed to be involved with being a princess lately, however, was a completely different story. She could do without the Gerudo and people dying for her.

Just as Itaav sent Helmaroc soaring down wildly to send Link in a panic, Zelda took her eyes off of them. Again she was swept up in a stream of guilt over the death of Cole. And again she remembered that there were still Gerudo on this ship, looking for her. She looked back into the tea room she had just been in, carefully eyeing the maids there. They looked like normal Hylian and plain old human girls… but were they really? Was she just being paranoid like Zev had been saying she was?

She looked back out to where she had seen the airship, but it was out of view now. An airship… if she had one of those, she could break tradition and leave the ship. She never thought she would ever even think it, but she really wanted to get off The Pride now. To Zelda, the great big ship that she had been born and raised on simply didn't seem safe anymore. I think anywhere is safer than here now…

And then a new thought process hit her. The Pride was no longer needed. They had land on the Great Continent, and there were islands scattered few and far in between the Great Sea. What was the point of staying on the sea, in a massive ship in which only the people in the Inner Wall seemed to have any sort of personal space?

Tradition most likely. Much like princesses never left The Pride, Hyrule would remain a country floating in the sea… even though it always hadn't been.

The land of Hyrule. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine it, but frowned. She couldn't. Because the only land that came to mind was the image of the Great Continent, something she'd never been on or really even saw.

Zelda opened her eyes again.

She didn't want to be on The Pride of the Goddesses anymore. Did that mean she didn't want to be a princess anymore too?

Oh don't be silly Zelda! Listen, try to think of this from Zev's point of view! Even if it is stupid reasoning! She thought.

No Gerudo had been found after the raid. They all ran away back to their ship. It was very possible that the ones who had killed Cole ran away to the ship too. But that didn't make much sense since they were on a very different side of the ship. They didn't have the time. Which means they came from a different ship. There was no evidence of a different ship having been there, so perhaps they sailed away. Yes, yes that made perfect sense. After all, why stay on the ship for so long after the raid and not take any action? They did run away… So she had been worrying for no reason…

She scowled. That wasn't what happened. Logically, Zelda supposed it made sense, but why kill Cole? That made no sense at all. It wasn't like the Gerudo. Maybe it was like the Gerudo of old, but not the Gerudo of the Sea Naga. They would rough people up, wound them, but generally not kill. And Cole certainly couldn't have been so much trouble that they would have to kill him! There were so many ways they could have avoided the messiness of killing; especially since they outnumbered him!

Now Zelda could see why even Zev was troubled by his own line of thinking. Cole's death just didn't fit into this equation very well. It was very out of character for them…

"Ah, princess?"

For a moment she had thought she'd jumped out of her shoes before remembering she had dumped those in the hall. Taking a deep breath, she looked to the maid who had addressed her. "Y-yes?"

"Um, morning tea is ready, and since you're already here, we thought you might like some?"

"Oh. Oh yes! Tea… that would be lovely, thank you…" Zelda said with an anxious smile. Yes, tea would be nice… It would take her mind off of all these complicated thoughts, if only for a moment.

Zelda's segment was originally going to be longer so this chapter would get straight into the action of the story... But I would've had to cut it off at a funky place, so decided I'd just start on the action next chapter. In fact, it kind of makes more sense to start next chapter, but I won't get into that.

You know, this Zelda is fun to write. She's got kind of a quirky thought process that's both very childish and philosophical at the same time. Being a sheltered but educated princess with a brother like Zev is probably to blame.

Speaking of Zev, he's actually not a terribly important character. XD This chapter will probably be the last we see of him for either the whole story or the vast majority of the story.