Chapter 6:

Volvagia's Unexpected Setup

Volvagia was bolting all around Link's house, searching every nook and cranny. After he had deduced that there was nothing of value that he could take without Link noticing he took to staring forlornly out the window to watch for anything that might reveal Link's location. Finally he heard Link and Skull Kid's voices, and he rocketed out to greet the two.


"I understand the concept of being able to see what you're catching before you reel it in", said Link, "What I don't understand is that if you have the water elemental being a bulge in the water that fish could swim inside of, why couldn't you just bring it up on land and shake the fish out of its body?"

"If the elemental is moving in one direction but the fish are moving in another, or even just at a different speed, they'll just fall out", explained Skull Kid, "The water elemental moves just like waves in a lake, except that objects that get caught in the waves of an elemental's movement, don't get carried along like objects caught in the waves of a body of water. They just stay in the same place. I know; it's very complicated."

"Yeah, it really is."

Moments later they were both tackled by a red blur.

"What's for dinner?" asked Volvagia.

"Uh…"

Without waiting for an answer, Volvagia started rummaging through the food that Link and Skull Kid had found.

"Let's see what we have here: Hylian pike, good with salt. Blue chu jelly, delicious and nutritious as long as you can swallow without it making you vomit because it tastes like a pie made from a well used boot. Purple chu jelly, can be a miracle potion, and could just as easily kill you. It doesn't taste very good either. Enjoy… Green slime, not edible for humans and causes hot gas to erupt from dragon scales if consumed, inhaled, or taken as a suppository. Can only be destroyed by intense heat. What's this? PEPPERS? MINE! Lettuce, Yuck. Ordonian catfish, meow…What's all this slop? Oh yeah, food only for you… Tomatoes, fruit or vegetable? Don't know, don't care. Blue potion, tasty. Red potion, don't drink and drive. More peppers? MINE! GIMME!"

"OH DEAR LORDS! MAKE IT STOP!" hollered Skull Kid, "HOW DO YOU TURN THIS THING OFF!?"

"Like… This!" gasped Navi, who had dropped a sledgehammer on Volvagia's head.

"It's the only way we've been able to get him to stop talking. Knocking him unconscious", sighed Link, "Generally, hammers do the job."

Once again, Volvagia was a tangled heap of coils and his head lolled around in silly looking positions. "Thank you for the tar pits, and have a nice trip through the wonderful salad", he slurred dizzily before losing consciousness entirely.

"Well, that's… different..." Link inquired.

Only minutes later, Volvagia came to and began busying himself around the house, searching for a way to help out. After failing to be of service to anyone else, he finally came back outside to where Link was cooking a pike on a crude frying pan he had made years earlier.

"Can I cook?"

"No", answered Link, "You neither can, nor will."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Give me that!" snapped Volvagia, snatching the frying pan out of Link's hands, "Why can't you guys get off of your high horses and let me help! Besides, I'm a good chef."

With that, he held the pan above his head, steadied himself, and exhaled a jet of blue flames at the bottom of the pan leaving it glowing hot.

"Awwww. Volvagia! It took me and Skull Kid hours to catch that! We—" He looked at the fish in the pan.

"Din almighty! That's incredible!" he said, taken aback, "That looks delicious!"

"And there's more where that came from", said the dragon, who had put on a face that said, "I told YOU so."

"Just go inside and take a break", said Volvagia, "You've been breaking your back working, and here's something that I can do really well myself."

"Actually, I think I should do something first" said Link. He started to run towards the Lost Woods when Skull Kid suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of him.

"You seemed to have left all of your masks back at the portal to Termina", he said bluntly, holding out a bag filled with masks, "I'll be taking your Skull Mask by the way. I can't do you all of these favors for nothing."

"Thanks Skull Kid, you saved me a lot of trouble. That Skull Mask is yours."

"I know it is."

"Please go inside Link", said Volvagia, who was already cooking a third fish, "I've got a surprise ready for you."

"All right, all right, I'm going."


Link walked inside to find Saria sitting at the table waiting for him. No sooner had he sat down when the door opened up and Volvagia came bustling in with three big plates of food, each of which were covered by a large Deku leaf. "Dinner is served!" he said proudly.

"Where did you get the plates?" asked Link suspiciously.

"The Castle"

"Oh for the love of Farore! If you cause any more trouble, I'll see to it that you never see another piece of gold for the rest of your life!"

"That's cruel."

"Yes it is, but it would be fair enough for me to sleep at night without an entirely guilty conscience."

"Okay enough! No more bickering over who killed who! I have food here!"

"What?" exclaimed Saria.

"Nothing."

He put one plate down in front of Saria and took the leaf off, showing her a very artistic looking salad-like meal composed of lettuce, fried potatoes, sliced tomatoes, diced cucumbers and shredded carrots. In the centre was a green apple surrounded by diced strawberries and red grapes.

"Wow!" exclaimed Saria, "I would have never guessed that you could cook at all, much less as well as this! What did you make for Link?"

Volvagia put down the second tray. It was more than a disappointment: A well cooked fish, a burned fish, a pile of ashes that looked like it may have been a fish earlier that day, flaming peppers, and some glowing rocks that looked like they would be lethal if swallowed.

"SORRY THAT'S MINE!" shouted Volvagia, who snatched the plate back with a very instinctual look on his lizard-like face, "This one's yours." He placed the other plate of food in front of Link, showing him a neatly arranged assortment of fruits, vegetables, and fish. There was the Hylian pike that he had cooked with Link watching, some blueberries, some green grapes, a green apple, peas, broccoli, and some sliced kiwi fruits with the peel sliced off.

"That's a particularly green looking meal" Saria said, then with a laugh she continued on by saying "maybe you should check to see if it's sick."

Link cracked up.

"Ohhhhhh, I get it!" laughed Volvagia, who soon proceeded to move to the other side of the room and began eating.

"You can eat with us you know", said Link approaching Volvagia. He was surprised by Volvagia's sudden mood swing that took place as he came closer to Volvagia's food.

"MINE!" cried the little dragon. He started blocking his plate from Link's view, snarling at him and puffing smoke out of his nostrils. "Oh… Sorry… I get this way when I'm eating. I'll just go outside." He took the plate and darted out of the house. He darted back in with a candle, lit it, and darted back out again. Then he darted back in again and put some potions and drinks on the table. He left the house for the last time that night.


"We're alone", noted Saria.

"Then this is a perfect opportunity to tell me how you changed yourself, and why."

"Well, it's really not as long a story as I said. I just couldn't stand waiting for you any longer. I went out of the forest and began wandering Hyrule looking for you. You see, when a Kokiri leaves the forest, they don't just drop dead. He or she will simply begin aging past the general Kokiri limit. In other words, that Kokiri will not die immediately, rather, he or she will live for about the same lifespan of an average Hylian."

"That makes sense. But why couldn't you wait for me to come back?"

"I thought that maybe… maybe you had…" She stopped talking, seeming almost afraid that she would get hurt by saying what she felt, "I thought you had found someone else."

"I wish I had the time to look", Link said sheepishly, "This whole time I thought I was in love with Zelda and it was only a day or two ago that I could only see her as a friend. Also, there are two other girls who are head-over-heels in love with me... Well, actually one of them is a zora who thinks that she's engaged to me–waitasecond!"

"What's wrong?"

"Ohhhhhh, CRAP! Now that she remembers the Imprisoning War she'll think that it's just more proof that I'm supposed to marry her! Oh, boy! Why can't I just have a break from having to avoid people!"

"Okay, I'm really confused now."

"Well, you see there's generally some person out in the world stalking me and if I end up getting caught by them, they generally try to kill me. In the case of Princess Ruto it's worse: She just starts stalking me whenever she sees me, but if she catches up to me, instead of trying to kill me, she tries to marry me right there on the spot!"

Saria was staring at Link in a way that gave him the impression that he had just told some outrageous story, which he understood to be the case for this particular story, except that in this case the story was a hundred percent true.

"Link, have you been eating strange plants from the Lost Woods again?" she asked.

"No! It's all true! One hundred percent of it! Besides have I ever lied to you?"

"No", she answered truthfully. She took a long sip of water as she let the information register. Two seconds later, she had put down her cup and was about to swallow the mouth-full of water in her mouth, when she did a spit-take that ended up all over Link's tunic and fell out of her chair laughing her head off.

"You didn't figure she'd react like this?" inquired Navi incredulously, "What you told her is outrageous! I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't been there!"

"I still don't understand", said Saria when she finally stopped laughing, "Do you like any of these girls back?"

"I really don't know, so I can't just go and just tell one of them that I'm in love with them. That applies to you too, now that we're the same age. Besides, if I did tell one of these girls that I loved her, I'd break the hearts of the other two… and you. I just don't want to be a heartbreaker."

"I understand", she said gloomily.

"We could hook up secretly though. I mean only until I'm sure that I'm not in love with any of the other girls."

"Really?" said Saria, overjoyed.

"Well, you would be a good start. I lead an almost pathetically unromantic life. You're smart, funny, and…", Link just stared at her for a moment, taking in how beautiful she looked, "absolutely… gorgeous."

"Aw, you're just saying that".

"Oh? I thought you knew that I'm not", Link replied cheerfully, "And by the way, for thecord that's the second time somebody's said that to me today."

Saria giggled.

A voice in the back of Link's head suddenly began to persistently nag at his common sense, just repeating the same things over and over again: 'You love this girl! Why aren't you telling her so! You even know that she loves you back! What in Hyrule are you afraid of! Forget about Malon Zelda and Ruto, you can break it to them gently! They'll get over it!' With some effort – and feeling slightly shocked by this sudden rush of emotion – Link managed to silence the voice.

Volvagia suddenly popped his head through the door, making them both jump.

"Your food's getting cold, and I guarantee that I'm going to find it hard to make gourmet dinners without proper chef's equipment."

Link looked down at their plates and looked back up at Saria, "He's right. And I have to start packing and getting ready for the journey ahead."

They ate, and were about to say goodbye to each other when Skull Kid fell through Link's rooftop and planted Link's Gerudo Mask cleanly on Saria's face. Her body began to glow white, and slowly it changed. Her hair colour changed to a deep red colour with green streaks. The colour of her eyes changed to a deep brown and her skin tanned.

"Holy Farore! That thing works!" gasped Link.

"Duh!" answered Skull Kid, "You think that just because it won't change you, a male, into a Gerudo, it won't work for females? It can't transform males because Gerudo's are all female!"

"Except for one…" Link muttered under his breath.

"That felt weird", said Saria, "Well, goodnight Link."

"Uh, Saria, we're gonna have to find a way to get that mask off."

"Huh?" Then she noticed her reflection, "Yikes! What just happened to me, Link?"

Link just stared.

"Uh, Link. My face is up here!"

"OH! Sorry!" he said, looking up at her face, and away from the place on her body that he'd been staring at.

Saria looked down at her breasts realizing that they were almost twice the size with the mask on.

"You had a magic mask put on you. It can transform you into the creature that it depicts."

"So how do we get it off?" asked Link and Saria at the same time.

"With my help, that won't be a problem", said Skull Kid. He jumped up in front of her face and pressed his right hand over Saria's face, slowly moving his arm back towards himself.

Saria's body suddenly returned to normal and at the same instant, the mask materialized seemingly out of nowhere into Skull Kid's hand.

"Am I back?" she asked.

"Yup", said Skull Kid, jumping out of Link's house through the hole he had made in the roof.

"You seem to be hanging out with a very peculiar bunch."

"I can't argue with that."

"Well, goodnight Link."

"You too Saria."


"…Fairy Slingshot, Deku nuts, Deku seeds, Zora, Goron, and Deku Skrub Masks, Mirror Shield, Ocarina of Time, Bomb bag, Fierce Deity's Mask? …Only for emergencies."

"Well that's everything", said Navi.

"Anything else you need?" asked Volvagia, popping out from under Link's bed.

"Nope, thanks for offering though", answered Link."We're good thanks", agreed Navi.

"Okay. 'Night everyone."

"HOO!" hooted a loud voice that startled all of them.

"I'll check and see who or what it is", said Link. The speaker of the voice was waiting just outside the door, where a very large owl stood.

"Kaepora Gaebora?"

"Yes, it is I."

"Why are you here?"

"Why, I thought you could use a little help."

"No, not really."

"YES! Yes really!" called Navi, just before the sagely owl took off, "Could you tell Princess Zelda that Link wants to meet with her privately in two days time?"

"Of course little fairy, if what you say is true of course."

"It's true enough", answered Link.

"Then I shall depart right away. May we meet again soon… HOO!", Kaepora Gaebora took flight and headed for Hyrule Castle.

"Is everything set?" asked Navi.

"Yes", replied Link, "Goodnight you two, we have a big day ahead of us."

"HEY!" shouted Navi, "Look what I found!"

Where Kaepora Gaebora had stood lay a shiny gold object.

"It looks like… a chest key…" inquired Link.

"And I think I know what it's for!" giggled Navi, "But we have to go to the castle first. Oh well."

They heard a sob from under Link's bed where Volvagia was.


"I'm six years old and I don't even have a sizable hoard of loot!" Volvagia groaned, whispering to nobody in particular, "I really hate to do this to Link, but I have got to find a way to seize that key and open those treasure chests."


He doesn't do anything in this story. This is just a tiny piece of information linking this story to my upcoming sprite comic on Zelda Universe