Chapter 14

I was just a little nervous as I walked to the staff room. Alright, maybe more than just a little. And perhaps part of that nervousness was caused by the fact that I had been called to the school on a Saturday afternoon. The butterflies in my stomach were a little diminished as Tetra stuck her head out of the room and called me in quickly.

"How many other people are here?" I asked quietly, ducking into the room.

"See for yourself." I gave Sheik and Dark smiles in return to theirs, but my eyes stuck to Link. He stood behind the other two, glaring at the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. On the other side of the room, standing near the wall opposite the one Link was staring at, were Vaati, Kafei, Ganondorf and a couple other Sports Academy boys. The Principal stood at the head of the room, calmly sipping her coffee.

"Phones away." There was a quiet groan as all those in the other side of the room pocketed their phones. I slowly approached Link, not even sure he knew I was there, and put my hand on his back. He turned around sharply, his eyes wide, but he smiled when I met his eyes and wrapped my hand in his. He opened his mouth and I silence him with a finger.

"I'm sorry, and you're forgiven," I told him.

"Thanks," he replied, obviously relieved. He kissed my hand.

"I hear that there is some sort of... disagreement, between you two groups," the Principal said loudly, slamming her cup down on a table. The coffee sloshed around. "Anyone want to tell me exactly what they're about?" Silence. Everyone was looking at their shoes. The room stayed quiet while she started drilling us with questions. "Listen, if no one is going to tell me exactly what this is about, I'm going to have to draw my own conclusions."

"It's not that important," Vaati tried hopefully.

"'It's not that important', ha!" she snorted. "Let me tell you that your 'nothing important' rendered two of my students unconscious and several others quite severely injured. Are none of you going to give me an answer?" Again, silence. "Fine. You five," she pointed to Sheik, Dark, Tetra, Link and I, "are free to go, but I will be seeing you all in detention for all of next week." We made our way out of the classroom, not saying a word until we were all outside. As the door closed behind us, the five of us, ducked down and all jostled for a place to put our ears to the wall.

"-Frankly, I think this has truly got to end. Which is why these lovely papers are coming to you three," there was a loud groan and some spluttering objections from inside the staff room. "Let me assure you that your parents had just as hard a time trying to figure out why you were being expelled," we all mouthed the word 'expelled' together, "from our specialty sports program.

"And you other two," Vaati and Kafei, "are being suspended for all of next week. Any other funny business from you and I'll be sure to personally hand you certificates that look exactly like the ones that those three are holding."

We walked away from the staff room, each of our day's considerably brightened.

"I'll see you guys later." I kissed Link on the cheek and gave the others a wave as I headed to the gate. Dark pulled up next up to me on his motorbike.

"Hey, Zel, Link and Sheik are coming to my place tonight. Wanna' come?" he asked.

"Sure." After all, if I tried to hide away from them for much longer, I would eventually be dragged from my house and thrown into the nearest body of water in order to get some sense knocked into me.

"Awesome. Link said he'd pick you up around six."

"Right. See you later." He revved his bike, flicked the visor of his helmet down and rode off down the road.

Entering my house, I was met with the frightful smell of something cooking.

"... Midna?" I called hesitantly, closing the door behind me.

"Yeah?" She appeared at the other end of the corridor, a carrot in one hand and a knife in the end.

"What are you doing?"

"Cooking lunch."

"Ah. And what, exactly, possessed you to do such a thing?"

"I was hungry and there was nothing to eat. I didn't know when you'd get back, so I just did it myself."

"Okay. And what did you do?"

"I made pasta!"

"Mm hmm." Indeed, there was some in the boiling on the stove.

"Alright, well, I'm going upstairs. Call me when lunch is ready." I turned around when I was halfway up the stairs and called back down, "Oh, I'm going to Dark's house tonight. Will you be alright alone?" Her answer was a little muffled by the sound of crackling in a hot pan, but it sounded affirmative enough.

(xxx)

"Hey Zel! Link is here!" Midna called from downstairs. I mumbled in my sleep. Crap, when had I fallen asleep? "Zelda!"

My bedroom door creaked open after a minute, and a hand ran through my hair. I groaned into my pillow. "Wake up, Zelda."

"Ugh." I dragged myself out from underneath my blanket and put my chin on Link's knee, blinking sleepily.

"What made you so tired anyway? It's a Saturday," he said. He put his hand on my pillow, moved it away quickly, then slowly lifted the pillow up, peering under it suspiciously. He gingerly pulled out a couple of heavy volumes, letting them go as if they may be infected. "Why are you studying this stuff? Biology... Math Methods... You're already pretty much a year ahead."

"Yeah, well I won't be next year." I yawned widely. "I need to keep up with all those smart asses as Hylia High, don't I?"

"Does that... I... You're going?" he stammered hopefully.

"I guess so."

"Yes!" he whooped, and ducked down to plant a kiss on my mouth. "I have no idea what I did right, but I'm so glad it was."

"Maybe going out and getting drunk for one night did you good," I suggested dryly, cocking an eyebrow. His entire face flushed red so quickly I had an urge to laugh.

"Who... who told you about that?" he said in an incredibly restrained voice. He had covered his face with my pillow, probably to cover up the lingering redness.

"Kind of slipped out of Dark's mouth," I mentioned innocently, shrugged. Link mumbled something into the pillow along the lines of 'I'm going to kill him'.

"... I'm sorry," he finally muttered, still avoiding my eyes. I smiled a little.

"I forgive you." I tweaked his nose. "But if you ever drink again while you're still underage, and I get wind of it, I will throw you out of the nearest window and set both Tetra and Dark on you."

"O... okay." He laughed. Once. Very nervously. "Should we... go?"

"Yeah, just... let me put these away." I wandered in a circle around my room, once, and once again, and ended up just putting the two texts back on my bed. "I need to buy a new bookshelf," I sighed. "Let's go."

"When are you going to be back?" Midna asked from over the top of a book. Just that she was reading at all was a sign that she was really bored. I gave her a sympathetic look.

"Late," Link answered for me.

"I have my phone with me; call if you need anything," I called as he practically pushed me out the door.

Link looked so happy as he handed me a helmet and sat down on his bike, I almost expected him to skip all the way to Dark's house. As it was, I sat down behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. I had to admit as he drove down the main road; Link was a pretty good driver.

After fifteen minutes or so, Link took a sharp turn under some overhanging trees and came upon a wide driveway. We climbed off the bike at the end of the road and, putting our helmets under our arms, started walking towards the gate that was perhaps fifty metres away. I looked with interest at the paddocks that stretched out on either side of the path and into the distance.

"Dark has horses? I didn't know that." He had never mentioned them before.

"Yeah, he's had them for years. He gave up riding recently, though, because none of the horses liked him enough for him to stay on their back for more than about a minute," Link explained. I caught a glimpse of something from the corner of my eye.

"I think we're about to be ambushed," I said to Link, just before it happened. Sheik and Dark jumped over the fence and bounded towards us, grinning manically. Unfortunately, by this time in the year, I was more than accustomed to that look.

I hid behind Link, who realised what was happening a little late but still attempted to hide behind his motorcycle.

"Too late. You're dead," Dark said, tapping Link on the head with the flat side of the sword.

"I wasn't ready!" Link complained. Dark replied with a mutter, and Link tackled him to the ground, the sword forgotten on the ground.

"Hey Zel," Sheik said.

"Hi," I replied. "I'd love to talk to you and everything, but it's a little hard with you pointing that at me."

"Oh, right." He put the point of the sword into the dirt near his feet. I stood up straight and smiled. Link and Dark were talking animatedly to each other, both covered in dirt and slowly standing up.

"Sheik," Dark called, grinning, "Looks like we're gonna' need those ropes."

"Ha!" Sheik turned to me jubilantly. "So you finally decided to go to Hylia High?"

"Yeah." I couldn't figure out what the topics of ropes and my changing school had in common.

"I'm not gonna bother to ask why, just in case you start to question your logic," he informed me. "So, congratulations."

"Thanks," I laughed. Dark led us into the house, which I quickly discovered was much bigger from the inside than it looked from the outside, and then we were steered back outside again. With the sun still poking out from behind the clouds, it was deliciously warm outside.

I leant against an apple tree as Dark mentioned something to Link, making them both laugh. Sheik was squatting next to the cucco coup, just looking at the three birds inside. Looking up, I plucked one of the tiny little red apples from the tree, ran my finger over it, and then took a bite. Which I promptly spat out again. The little apple was sour as anything. I coughed once, and then wheezed painfully. Dark and Sheik had already looped my stomach with a rope twice and then pulled it tighter.

"Hey! What are you doing? You're..." They were tying me up. To an apple tree. "You're trying me to an apple tree!"

"Exactly." Dark relished the word. They wrapped the rope around my waist twice more, this time catching my hands, hard as I tried to move them away, and keeping them bound to my side. As Sheik tied my knees and then my ankles, I wriggled enough for the rope around my torso to loosen a little bit, just enough for me to yank my arms out. I got ready to strangle one of them, whichever was closer, but Dark suddenly caught my wrists, picked up another rope and tied them so tightly that I couldn't move them apart at all.

"Believe it or –Ow! – not, tying – Holy crap, Dark, OW! – your guests to a – ow, Sheik, ow ow ow OW – goddamned apple tree isn't polite!" I turned my attention to Link, who was doing something useless. "Aren't you going to help me?" I wailed.

He sighed. "Are you guys going to let my girlfriend go, or am I going to have to fight you for her?"

"Try me," Sheik urged, grinning. Link shrugged and then threw a mock punch at him. Sheik ducked and pushed him onto the ground, then proceeded to climb up the tree, over my head, and tie me just under my arms. It was smart wearing a shirt with sleeves.

"Link, that was a crappy shot," I told him.

"I apologise. Maybe I should try something different-" Just as he was about to jump at Dark, whose back was turned to him, Sheik leapt out of the tree and on top of Link, knocking them both into the little dam. Dark laughed as Sheik climbed onto the bank, dripping wet but looking extremely pleased with himself.

"Now, to tie these knots..." Sheik muttered to himself, fiddling with the ropes that they had already partially secured. Link resurfaced with a gasp.

"Enjoying yourself in there?" I asked him caustically.

"Actually, the water is quite nice," he replied, floating on his back. "I might just stay in here for a little longer.

"Wonderful!"

Dark and Sheik sat down on the grass in front of me after they had tied and retied all the ropes. They looked up and smiled sweetly at me.

"If I could move right now, I'd kick you both."

"In that case, I feel it is very beneficial to us that you can't do either at the moment," Sheik noted. Oh, how I hoped they'd get bored of this soon. Sheik moved and knelt beside the cuccos, cooing softly to them.

"Aw, hello. Are you hungry there, beautiful? Of course you are, because Dark can't feed you nearly enough. Oh, hello you! You're looking slightly different from last time. Have you lost weight? I love what you've done to your hair," he murmured, running his hand through his own shoulder length blonde locks. "You know, maybe you could give Dark some advice about his hair. I seriously think it'd do him some good. You know once, he came to school with it tied up and all girly like. I have a feeling your owner is going crazy, but don't tell him that. He might not feed you for a while, and I don't think that'd do you any good. Say, would you like a worm? Here you go, I found one right here. Look, it's a big juicy, wriggling worm!"

I was almost completely certain that Sheik had gone completely crazy by this point. I shared a look with Link, who was still paddling in the water, and found that he agreed with my conclusion. Dark was nowhere to be seen just as his mother came walking up the hill towards us.

"Hey kids!" she greeted, wiping her hands on her pants.

"Hi!" Link and Sheik replied.

"How're you going Link? I haven't seen you around here for a while. I remember last year you were over three times a week for dinner," she laughed.

"Yeah, well, Aryll's decided that cooking isn't so bad, so I only have breakfast duty now. Eggs and toast, I can do." They laughed, and then Dark's mother turned to me.

"You must be Zelda," she said.

"Yeah. I'd shake your hand right now, but I'm kind of tied to a tree."

"I can see that," she laughed. Oh, but she wouldn't even think of perhaps untying me. "I'm getting fish and chips for dinner by the way. Any objections?"

"Nope," we chorused.

"Great. Oh, and Sheik, the black cucco over there prefers beetles." She walked towards the house. Just as Sheik went back to conversing with the fowls, Dark appeared from behind the shed, his arms full.

"... What are they?" I asked him as he let them fall to the ground near me.

"Tools." He picked up a tomahawk – why on earth did he have a tomahawk? – from beside the drill and the crowbar and took a swing at me. It dug into the wood of the tree just a couple inches from where my neck had been a moment earlier. In the next few times that he took a swing at me, I was pretty convinced that he wasn't actually trying to hit me. Nonetheless, it was no less scary.

I didn't even have a chance to relax for a moment when he put down the tomahawk and picked up the drill, flicking it on and making it whir. I gulped. I hated that sound.

"Hey Dark, stop!" My voice was a little too high.

"No," he decided with a grin. Apparently, he was having fun. He touched the end of the drill with the top of his finger. "Have you ever turned it on against your skin?"

"Ugh, no. I'm not suicidal."

"I think you should try it then." He put the tip of the drill on one of my bound hands.

"What, being suicidal?" I squeaked, just before he turned it on. I flinched away, shaking. Only my hands weren't shaking, and that's because Dark was holding onto them tightly. "... Please stop?" I was going to get nightmares from this. I don't think he answered before he moved the tip to my temple. Was he trying to kill me or what?

My eyes were squeezed shut so tightly, I wasn't even sure I'd be able to open them again. My jaw was clenched and the rest of my body was trembling. I was doing my best to hold still, lest the drill slip and actually kill me.

"Hey Dark, stop." Link was standing next to me now.

"I was only kidding, Zel," Dark said, turning off the drill.

"Zel." Link poked my arm.

"Zelda." Sheik snapped his fingers next to my ear.

"Untie me now," I said slowly, taking deep breaths, "so I can throttle you all!" They all started laughing as I glared at them.

(xxx)

Dark yelled and ran to hide behind the tall grass on the other side of the dam. Link put his arms around me and Sheik shuffled to the far side of the cucco enclosure, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

"Now, where's that crowbar?" I asked, rolling my wrists. Finally, after nearly three quarters of an hour, I had convinced Link to untie me. Well, help untie me. He had agreed only to untie my hands and loosen the knots behind my back in exchange for me to not hit him. And thank the Goddesses he had agreed to that, because I had been very close to simply biting through the knots. Being tied to a tree like that was more uncomfortable than I ever would've thought.

"Whoo, there's no way I'm ever arming you with a crowbar," Link said, shaking his head.

"... Please don't hurt me," Dark requested, creeping back to this side of the dam. I guess he decided I wasn't too dead set on killing him since I hadn't gone after him to moment I was untied.

"Give me a while to consider," I replied grumpily.

"NO! Please don't hurt me Zel! I'll pay you compensation!"

"With what?"

"Hugs!" he yelled, running to me and hugged me tightly. I sighed. You couldn't be angry with Dark for long. "All good?" he asked, looking up through his hair.

"Yeah, yeah, you're forgiven," I laughed. Damn him and his puppy eyes. A car drove up the driveway, and the horn honked twice over the loud music that was pouring out of the open windows. Dark ran to the gate to open it, waving.

"My step-dad brings food!" Dark yelled happily, calling us into the house.

"And Dark's sister," Link moaned quietly as we walked.

"Don't like her much," I guessed.

"The feeling's mutual." Dark's little sister strode past us, purposefully avoiding Link's eyes. If anything, she looked to be the complete opposite of her older brother; quite short, long blonde hair and walking with her chin jutting out.

"What did you do?" I whispered to Link once she was safely out of hearing distance.

"I, uh, borrowed her lizard once and painted it. Pink."

"A completely spontaneous decision?"

"Of course."

My stomach flipped hungrily as I walked into the house, greeted by the delicious smell of hot fish and chips. Dark's mother was already dividing one of the two big packages into four plates.

"Hungry?" she asked. We all nodded. "Oh, I forgot to ask before, but where's Tetra today?"

"She had swimming and then karate tonight," Sheik replied.

"See Dark, you should start doing sport too. Instead of just sitting there with your sketch book all day." She prodded her son with the back of a fork.

"Whatever." Apparently, they had had this discussion before. "Anyway, if I want to get into the Art institution next year, I needed to hand in a piece to send with my application."

"Hey Link, why don't you try out for Arts too?" I asked, poking him in the arm.

"Don't really want to. It's more expensive for one thing. And if Dark gets in, I can just steal all his tips," he shrugged.

"Don't try and steal any more than that," Dark warned, waggling a finger at him. "Don't you even dare to try and touch my markers."

"Yeah, yeah." Dark, Sheik and I plopped onto the cough, food in hand, and Link took the armchair just off to the side. Dark fiddled with the remote, flicking through the channels on television.

Half an hour later, Sheik finally stirred enough to ask, "What exactly are we watching at the moment?"

"... I have no idea," Dark replied slowly. He twirled the remoter in his hands. "Any suggestions for another movie?"

They finally decided on one. Before I knew it, Link was sitting next to me and I was falling asleep on his shoulder. He kissed my forehead, then my cheek.

"Aw, so sweet," Sheik murmured slyly.

"Does Sheiky want a kiss too?" Link snickered, raising an eyebrow.

"Not from you." When I gave him a grin and leaned towards him a little, he tried to scramble away, but only ended up falling off the couch on his behind. "Or from you!" I chuckled.

"Shut up, I'm watching!" Dark complained. He threw a couple pillows in our general direction, though his eyes were still on the screen.

"Sorry," the three of us muttered. And before I knew it, I was asleep. I didn't even know what it was, but the movie must've been boring.

A/N EDIT: re-uploaded 28/01/11

Author's Note:

Hey there!

So, how d'you like the chapter? Poor Zelda, being tied to a tree by her best friends...

This chapter was right at the end of the third term of school, but I'm going to skip the holidays. It would be filled with nothing more than mind numbing filler. And nobody likes filler.

But there's gonna be 2/3 chapters more. Now that we know that Zelda has finally decided to go to Hylia High, we can just get on with the sad partings. *smirk* Alright, not yet. But soon.

Okay, now I'm not making any sense. I beg that none of you ask me why in the world I'm writing this at 1:30 in the morning, and why I'm humming Christian hyms to myself while I'm doing it. But I'm going loopy. So you're just going to have to live with it.

I'll leave this here, before I start rambling on and on and on and on... oh crap, I've already done that, haven't I? Sorry, to everyone whose time I've wasted.

buddy w