A/N: Yes... it's an actual update, after months and months of nothing. I don't even know if people are interested in reading this anymore. However, I have at long last decided that a job begun is only half-done, so I'm going to attempt to dedicate my summer to ending my unfinished fan-fictions. Be aware I am working on two additional stories that are in notebooks and intended to be not only more serious, but much longer. Also now that my brother's going to college I'm sure to get to use this computer to write more. Yes.

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Zelda's phone rang bright and early the next morning. Her eyes opened to the underside of her covers, and she realized she'd been twisted up hopelessly in her sheets. By the time she was able to untangle herself, the phone had quit ringing. Getting up from the place she'd fallen on the floor, Zelda ran to pick up the phone, as the person calling was kind enough to be in the middle of leaving a message.

"I know you're there, Zelda, you must be! Where else would you be at this hour? Pick up your phone! Get out of the bathroom or whatever, and follow the sultry sound of my voice to your message machi—"

"Malon," Zelda interrupted, picking up the phone. "Give it a rest."

"Oh, you are there!" Malon said gleefully. "Cool. I want all the details of what happened last night."

"Uh-huh...and you couldn't call me later because...why?"

"Because we have the breakfast shift this morning and I want you to have enough time to tell me everything! Hello!"

Zelda jumped and ran back into her bedroom. "Crud, I forgot we had morning shift today!"

"How on Earth could you forget?"

Changing her clothes and trying to keep the phone balanced on her shoulder, Zelda replied, "I dunno, I guess just because last night was so—oops, sorry!" The phone dropped to floor with a loud clunk as Zelda quickly pulled on a T-shirt. She picked it up and resumed with putting on socks. "Last night I was kind of, you know, distracted... and I wasn't really thinking about work."

She winced as Malon let out a long, high-pitched squeal. "I can't wait for the low-down! I'll be at your place in like, ten minutes to pick you up."

"Okay," Zelda sighed. "And no offense or anything, Mal, but you really need to get your own—"

"Love life, I know," Malon said. "But at the mo', I don't have one. So you're like my soap opera. I need to know what's going on in your world."

"Right...'kay, well, see you in a few, then. Bye."

"Ciao!"

Dropping her phone on the bed, Zelda rushed to the bathroom and grabbed a toothbrush. The events of the previous night kept running through her head like a film reel. Laughing at something funny Link had said, she nearly gagged on her Crest tooth-paste. Once recovering, she began pondering about a dream she'd had last night, and related the tale of it a few moments later in Malon's car...

"...it was like we—me and Link—were in The Blue Lagoon," she said to her gum-chewing friend as they drove down the avenue. "I was...hey, would you take out those ear phones? They make me feel like you're not listening to me."

"Nothing's on," Malon said, taking the iPod out of her pocket. "I'm just too lazy to take them out. Besides, I'm all psyched to hear you finish your story."

"You are lazy," Zelda muttered, stowing the iPod inbetween their seats. "Anywho, it was basically like...I was the Brooke Shields character in the movie, and Link was the, you know, guy, and it was just so romantic."

"Yah, I bet it was!" Malon laughed.

"Oh, it was really not that raunchy," Zelda said. "It was just the idea of it that was romantic. Like if my dream was an '80s movie, it would've been a PG."

"Which, considering it was an '80s movie, really isn't saying that much," Malon snickered. This comment cost her a bruise-less left arm as Zelda retaliated with a punch to said limb.

"Right, so anyway, like I told you last night, he took me to P. F. Chang's," Zelda continued. "It was—"

"Jumping Jehovah, the lighting in there is so romantic!" Malon interjected.

"Yes, yes it is," Zelda concurred. "So we got this kid of a waitress who was probably no older than sixteen or seventeen; she'd literally bulldozed Link earlier at the bus station in her attempt to board the already-in-motion-vehicle, so she felt kind of awkward at first, but I think we were okay eventually ...and then I found out that he is as much of a Harry Potter freak as I am."

"Really? As in, would he be able to tell me what the eighth word in the second sentence of paragraph four in chapter twelve of book three was?"

"DEMENTORS!" Zelda shouted.

Malon stared at her. Zelda stared back.

"...sorry," the blonde apologized. She cleared her throat. "I'm really not that obsessed, really... a-hem... as I was saying, what I meant by his being equally obsessed is that he could answer nearly all the Harry Potter trivia questions I asked him. Now that right there is a fine quality in a man, if you ask me."

"Quite," Malon agreed. "So how was the movie?"

"Malon, it was amazing! The best yet, and quite welcome as well, considering how disappointing the third one was..."

"Good to know. I have to see it soon, would you want to again?"

"Um, do spiders flee before basilisks?" Zelda asked. Malon didn't say anything. "...yes, I'd love to go with you."

"Fabulous." The red-head pulled into Frankie's parking lot. "Well," she said, "here's to another wonderfully exerting morning serving the elderly and the impatient."

"You said it," Zelda sighed, getting out of the car. They walked into the restaurant, where they were immediately greeted by an ecstatic looking Ruto.

"Hi guys!" she squealed loudly, embracing them both tightly at the same time.

"Uh, hi, Ruto," Zelda said back. "Not that I don't love you or anything, but could you please not choke me?"

"Oh, sorry!" she apologized giddily, letting the two of them go.

Rubbing her neck, Malon said, "Yeesh, why the sudden burst of happiness?"

"Because I think people should always be this happy!" Ruto gushed. "Especially if they wait on the old who need sensitivity and optimism! You guys should follow suit!"

They stared at her. She blinked, still smiling, then skipped away, back to her place in the kitchen.

"Whaddya think, girls?" asked Frankie himself, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. "I've decided that in order to keep this place more popular and pleasing to our mainstream customers, our staff should adopt a happier attitude!"

"What do you mean, happier?" Malon asked. "What're we, emo?"

"Don't you use your young people jargon on me, missy!" Frankie warned her. "If you keep up your morale, you'll keep up the customers' morale! They'll return again and again because of the cheery service they remember from here!"

"Boss, half these people can't remember their middle names, let alone whatever kind of service they encountered here," Zelda pointed out. "They just keep coming back because they notice the '40s layout. Besides, unlike most retro diners our food is actually good, which should be enough to inspire them to come back."

"Besides, what's all this about morale?" Malon asked. "We're running a food place, not a WWII Canteen!"

"And in addition to that, I don't think my role model would approve of this new decision," Zelda said.

"And who would your role model be?" Frank asked skeptically, folding his arms impatiently. "Daria Morgendorffer?"

"Darlene Conner."

"All right, all right, girls," Frankie sighed. "I can't make you be as cheery as Ruto. But it'll keep you from getting the raise she is."

"No way, Ruto gets a raise for being overly friendly?" Malon asked incredulously. "What if she inadvertently scares someone off?"

"...we'll hope that won't happen," Frankie replied. And with that, he swept off to his mysteriously-located office.

"Well now I'm depressed," Zelda remarked, stepping behind the cash register.

"I don't see why you are," Malon said, standing on her toes and looking out the window. "It's looks as if your new beau is coming into our humble establishment."

"WHAT?"

True to Malon's word, Link and Mikau were indeed making their way from the latter's car towards Frankie's. When he came in through the main door, Zelda nearly slipped on the newly waxed floor in her effort to get over to him. Instead, she slipped on some bacon grease Ruto had spilled earlier.

"WHOOAAA—AHH!" With a loud clunk, our heroine fell to the floor rather ungracefully. Ouch.

Amused, Link walked up to the counter and peered over at her. "Nice fall."

She quickly stood up and smoothed out her worker's apron. "I try." Link laughed, and that made Zelda laugh, which made Malon and Mikau laugh, and pretty much they soon turned into a quartet of laughing lunatics.

"That's the spirit, Zelda!" Frankie called to them, sticking his head briefly out of his office. "Be jocund!" He shut the door again and the laughter abruptly stopped.

"What does jocund mean?" Link asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I think it means to be merry," Malon replied, starting to wipe the counter they were all standing at with a wet dish rag.

"Like as in, have a jocund Christmas?" Zelda asked.

"Right," Link chuckled.

"Why do you know what the word 'jocund' means?" Mikau curiously asked their red-headed companion.

For a moment Malon seemed to go into a reverie, looking out into space. Then she struck a dramatic pose and declared, "'Be thou jocund! Ere the bat hath flown his cloistered flight, ere to black Hecate's summons, the shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done a deed of dreadful note!'"

They stared. Malon cheerfully (or jocund-ly) continued washing the counter, humming, and apparently oblivious to the fact that she had just completely weirded-out everyone else.

Then finally, Link asked, "Who the heck is Hecate?"

"Oh," Malon said, seeming to snap immediately back to reality. "Well... when I was in high school, I had to memorize a scene of Shakespeare with one of my friends, and we decided to MacBeth, and he was Lady MacBeth and I was MacBeth because of the whole gender reversal thing, you know? So anyway, 'jocund' was in one of his paragraphs and I had to look up what it meant."

Another silence followed this explanation, which Zelda eventually broke by inquiring, "Wait...there's cross-dressing in MacBeth?"

At long last Malon finally looked up to stare at them, saying, "You've read MacBeth, haven't you?"

They all shook their heads.

"Basically what I meant by the whole gender reversal thing was—well actually no, I'm not going to tell you what I basically meant. You'll just have to get the play and read it for yourself!" She stuck her tongue out at them.

"Yeah, right!" Zelda scoffed. "Like I'm gonna read Shakespeare when I don't have to. Please."

"I'll just get the Roman Polanski version," Link concurred. "Want to come over and watch it Zel?"

"It's a date."

"Cool. When do you get off tonight?"

Zelda was about to reply, but Malon spoke before she could. "She actually gets off at two, today. Not one or one-thirty, Zelda, TWO."

"Right, yeah," the blonde said. "That's it."

"Sweet! I'll come back for you, then."

"Wait, aren't you two fine gents going to order something?" Malon asked.

"Uh, sure," said Mikau, grabbing Link's sleeve and forcing him to sit down on one of the bar chairs. "I'll take a, uh... an omelette. Cheese."

"Righto, gov'ner," Malon said. "And what about your friend, here?"

"Um..." Link stared at the menu. "Water...and a couple of your Belgian waffles, I guess. Astonish me!"

"When you say 'a couple,' do you mean two, or like, three to four?" questioned Zelda. "Because we have some guys who say a couple and want two, and then some guys who say a couple and demand they ordered more."

"Two will be fine," Link assured her, returning the menu and smiling (rather adorably, I might add).

"Hey, Link," said Malon. "Did Zelda tell you she had this dream last night where she and you were—"

"—visiting the set of the fifth Harry Potter movie?" Zelda quickly interrupted to keep her friend from completely mortifying her. "Yeah, yeah, we were like... there. In England. With Daniel Radcliffe and everyone."

"Ohmygosh he's so hot," Malon whispered under her breath.

"And..." Zelda stared at her. "Ew, Malon, you pedophile."

"I'm not a pedophile," Malon defended herself. "I'm allowed to say that people younger than me are...attractive."

"Yeah," Mikau seconded.

"Besides, critics were behaving the same way about Brooke Shields when The Blue Lagoon came out," Malon said, winking.

"HEY!" shouted a particularly cantankerous old fellow a few tables back. "WOULD YOU PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE REST OF US!"

That night...

"This movie's really bloody," Zelda remarked, as she and Link watched the scene in which the Thane of Glamis and Cawdor murdered Duncan in MacBeth. "Oh, gross!"

"I didn't really even realize that Shakespeare wrote such violent stuff," Link commented. "...cool!" A beeping sound went off in the kitchen. Patting Zelda on the shoulder as he removed his arm from around her he said, "Popcorn's done."

She paused the movie and followed him into the other room. As Link emptied the bag into a large bowl, Zelda eyed an even bigger bowl holding some kind of red liquid. "What is this?"

Link looked at it for a moment, then remembered, "That was Mikau's. It's some kind of fruit punch. He was going to bring it for his cousin's piano recital, but ended up forgetting it, I suppose."

"...so it would be okay if we had it, right?" Zelda asked, smirking.

"I'll get the ladle." True to his word, Link opened a nearby drawer and took out the said utensil. Subsequently he plopped it into the bowl and stirred it around, cackling, "Double, double, toil, and trouble!"

Zelda cackled evilly as well, picking up two plastic cups that were on the counter. "Uh—something, something, cauldron bubble!" They burst into rounds of evil laughter. It was rather loud, and so saying, it reached the ears of two certain neighbors who just happened to be walking by.

A knock sounded at the door, and Link went to answer it. It was Saria with her grandmother, Impa.

"My goodness, are you all right?" the elder one asked worriedly. "We heard loud noises coming from within!"

"Oh, sorry," Link apologized. "We were just watching MacBeth, and got a little carried away with the—"

"I love MacBeth!" Impa gushed loudly. "'Out, damn spot, out, I say!' Oh, yes!"

Zelda jumped when a weeny little puppy whipped between her legs, from inside of the house and out towards the yard. "What the—"

"Ah, no," Link said. "That's Mikau's dog, S—"

"Let me guess," Zelda said darkly. "Spot."

"Good one."

"Oh dear, I'm so sorry," Impa apologized, pressing her hand daintily to her heart.

"It's fine," Link and Zelda said simultaneously. The former turned to the latter (...) and asked, "Ever chase a Chinese Crested Terrier in the dark before?"

"Nope." She grinned. "Let's go see what it's like!"

So instead of spending the night cozily watching a movie about a grotesque murder spree, Link and Zelda spent their unofficial, unorthodox second date running around the neighborhood trying to catch a nervous puppy.

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A/N: Yeah, well, that was quite random. That's what you get, though, when writer's block starts attacking. I know how annoying it is when an author starts something you really like and doesn't finish it, so I'm at least trying to finish them, so... yeah. Have a very jocund day.