Chapter 10: Windfall Island Woes

"Holy Farore! What is that?!" The weather had been just fine a moment ago. More than a little too hot, maybe, but calm, peaceful. There hadn't been a dark cloud to indicate a storm. No uncharacteristically strong waves. No malevolent wind to indicate trouble. Absolutely nothing to warn them of the funnel of wind that was quickly descending from above, which only left one option. Kid had misconducted and angered the wind gods.

"That is our ride," Kid informed him proudly.

"Our ride?!" Link repeated, horrified. Wrenching his gaze away from the whirlwind and to Kid he demanded, "What do mean our ride?"

"I'd hold onto something if I were you," Kid advised him, grinning like he'd just pulled off a magnificent prank, which, Link supposed, he had.

No sooner had the Hero of Twilight taken his counterpart's advice did the gale above them complete its descent. They were now in the eye of the storm and for a split second Link enjoyed the way the wind swirled around them, claiming them as its own, shutting them off from the world, protecting them. Then the moment of tranquility was shattered as chaos forced its way inside their little haven, destroying all potential for enjoyment.

He quickly grew dizzy as the little boat was spun violently around and around, eliciting a scream out of him that he'd had no intention of letting loose. It wasn't long before his vision was a blur of bright colors, his eyes watering as they were whipped by the wind.

When the ocean beneath them was replaced with air and the sky grew closer and the closer and the horizon more expansive, Link decided it was a good time to shut his eyes. He tried not to think about how high they were going, though he certainly noticed the temperature change. How could he not? The heat on the Great Sea was so oppressive that he hadn't had a real break from it since he arrived.

Link allowed his curiosity a tiny peek and instantly regretted it. They were very high. Too high. Even though his vision was a swirling mess he could tell that there was a barrier of clouds below them and nothing but the bright blue sky and glaring sun above. Vertigo struck him hard, and he clutched the sides of the boat harder.

Suddenly the swirling mass of wind supporting them died, leaving them floating in the air. For a moment they were suspended there, held in place by an invisible force. And in an instant it all changed. For a moment he wasn't just suspended in the sky, he was flying. For a moment he was clutching soft, durable feathers, not hard wood.

He gasped as the winds returned with a vengeance and continued to spin the boat, making him question whether he'd seen anything at all. The world was still spinning out of his control. Of course he hadn't seen anything.

Deciding it was better to keep his eyes closed, Link screwed his eyes shut once again, bracing for the impact that was sure to come when they hit the water below. They were hitting water right? Link silently uttered a prayer to the goddesses, hoping it wasn't too late for such things.

Later, he couldn't tell exactly how much later, he felt the sailboat slowing its spin and the dissipating of the winds around them. Link didn't trust it, not for a second.

He heard Kid laugh. "You can open your eyes now."

Adrenaline still pumping hot in his veins, Link slowly peeked open one eye and then the other. Despite the fact that they were no longer moving, his vision was still spinning which wasn't helping his stomach settle in its rightful place.

"You…" Link said, pointing an unsteady finger at his counterpart who didn't seem to be disoriented at all but that could have just been a byproduct of Link's own disorientation. "I don't trust you anymore. What kind of ride was that?"

Kid smiled. "You have Epona. I have cyclones."

"And I prefer Epona," Link announced, trying in vain to blink away his dizziness. "Aren't you dizzy at all?"

"Sure I am, but it's not so bad once you get used to it," Kid said, slipping the wind waker out of his belt.

Link straightened as best he could, suddenly alert. "What are you doing now?" If Kid summoned another one of those things…

"I'm just changing the wind direction so the others can get here faster," his counterpart answered. "But if you want another ride I guess I could-"

"No! Don't you dare," Link warned him, trying to sound as stern as possible but failing miserably in his panic. It was just as well. Kid's good mood was contagious and he'd hate to ruin it.

"What if I did?" Kid tested, tapping his chin with the wind waker as if he was seriously contemplating it.

"Then I'd abandon you and you'd have to go shopping by yourself."

Faux horror alighted on Kid's face. "Oh no! Anything but that!"

They both burst into laughter then and anything else they tried to say was incoherent nonsense which only succeeded in making them laugh harder. Once they'd somewhat composed themselves, Kid used the white baton to redirect the wind, much like a maestro would conduct an orchestra. As a strong wind blew past them, Link couldn't help but put a hand to his head to ensure his cap wouldn't be blown away. It was a miracle that it had even stayed in place during their little venture with the cyclone.

"I thought we were already here. Where are we going?" Link wondered, as Kid turned the boat away from the docks, which did not meet his expectations now that he had a good view of them. The docks in sight were small and only two vessels bobbed in the waves nearby. Compared to Kid's humble sailboat, they were large but compared with Tetra's ship, the boats docked at the island were dwarfs.

"We are here, but Tetra always docks at the back of the island so we might as well too. It'll be easier that way," Kid explained.

Link said nothing. He supposed Kid knew what he was talking about so he didn't complain and waited patiently while Kid guided the red boat, whose bow resembled a dragon more than it did a lion in Link's opinion, to a small cove on the other side of the island.

Link tried to contain his eagerness to escape the dragon boat as they cruised to a stop in the quaint little cove, but he was sure that some of it showed. Even though he'd only been away from solid land for a day or two it still seemed far too long. Being whisked away by a cyclone didn't exactly help one feel closer to the ground either. Fortunately for him, Kid invited him to get out so the sail could be lowered and stowed away without much hassle.

Once Link stepped out of the boat and onto the sand, he noticed the broken rock.

"What happened there?" Link inquired, pointing to the damaged cliffside that made up the cove.

"Tetra's crew," Kid answered without looking up from his work. "I thought we told you about that."

Link furrowed his brow, trying to recall the conversation but came up empty. "No, I don't think you did."

"Oh, well, long story short they got drunk, went looking for us, mistook a bomb for a candle and kind of blew up the tunnel," Kid summed up.

"Ooookay," Link said, drawing out the word as he absorbed this new information. Tetra's pirates were still something of an enigma to him. He couldn't figure out whether to be intimidated by them or amused. Not to mention that their relationship with Tetra was an odd one. At times they seemed like workers and Tetra their boss. At others they were like a big dysfunctional family, the members' exact roles never quite clear.

Nonetheless, Link could visibly see that Tetra was in her element so to speak. She was far more comfortable now that she had her boys back and could boss them around to her heart's content without any sort of defiance. Looking back, Link almost laughed out loud as he realized that she'd been trying to do the same to him a week ago. Of course, all of her attempts at intimidation had failed miserably, for he had battled things far scarier than her.

"Ready to do some shopping?" Kid's question pulled him out of his thoughts, and Link turned to his counterpart who had climbed out of the boat and was already near the end of the cove.

Link nodded. "Lead on."

The island wasn't big, he'd gathered that much from just looking at it. But he hadn't realized just how small it was until he was trailing behind Kid, trying to absorb as much of his new surroundings as he could without lagging behind too much.

Aside from the two of them, there was only one other person in sight and the man didn't spare them so much as a glance, obviously more interested in the three pigs he was feeding than them.

The grand arch ahead of them appeared to contain some type of writing etched into it, though he couldn't make heads or tails of the symbols. The written language of the Great Sea was so unlike the written language of Hyrule that he found it hard to believe they were really the same one.

He'd only taken two steps beyond the gate when it hit him. Coming to a halt, he brought a hand up to his nose in attempt to mask the odd smell. It was sickly sweet, like rotting fruit, except it was mixed with other strange, equally pungent odors he couldn't identify. Chemicals maybe?

"Kidwhatisthatsmell?" Link asked as quickly as he was able.

Kid stopped and turned around, a puzzled expression on his face as he tried to figure out what Link had said. After a few seconds, he gave up. "What?"

After steeling himself for the smell to assault him with a vengeance, Link let out the breath he was holding and repeated himself, only slightly slower this time. "What is that smell?"

The puzzled expression didn't leave his counterpart's face, and Link watched as Kid looked around, trying to pinpoint what the source of said smell could possibly be.

Kid snapped his fingers. "Oh! I know what it is."

Link motioned for him to continue since he didn't want to open his mouth and inhale whatever invisible fumes were in the air.

"It's the potion shop," Kid declared, pointing at a door a few feet away with a wooden sign before it. While he didn't know what the sign said, he did know that he wanted no parts of the shop. Not only because of the smell, but because the guy that was crudely drawn onto the sign looked like he was high on something, namely whatever was in the bottle he was holding.

"Tell me we don't have to go in there," Link pleaded.

"We do but if you can smell it now, you probably shouldn't go in there. The place is filled with fumes," Kid informed him.

"And you trust this potion maker guy?" Link wondered, taking a step back, partly in fear of Kid's answer and partly in an attempt to distance himself from the shop.

Kid shrugged. "Well … yeah. His potions work."

'Just because they work doesn't mean they're safe.' If he wasn't concerned with breathing in too much of whatever was emanating from the potion shop he would have said so. Instead he just raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"Um…why don't you give me the money, and then I'll go get what we need." Kid offered. "Do you need your bottles filled too?" Link was about to shake his head no, he most certainly did not need his bottles filled with whatever concoctions originated from that shop, but then he realized it probably wouldn't be wise. Foul smelling or not, medicine was medicine. If he needed it later and didn't have it…

Sighing in defeat, Link wordlessly dug around in his pouch until he found the empty bottles stored there and handed them to Kid along with the wallet full of rupees that Zelda had given him.

"I'll be fast," Kid promised, turning and running to the shop he'd indicated earlier without bothering to stow away the items Link had handed him first. Link was sure he was gone from the vicinity by the time Kid managed to wrestle the door to the potion shop open. It was bad enough with the door closed. Suddenly he was very glad that he didn't have to step foot in the place.

After some backtracking, Link found a short stone wall to sit on. It, along with another low wall of stone, lined only a small section of the path which he found odd. It was like someone stopped building it out of boredom, or possibly, they realized there was no point to it, as Link certainly couldn't discern one.

As he waited for his head to clear, Link couldn't help but let his eyes wander. The heart of the island appeared to be very compact, the buildings close together, reminiscent of the architecture in Hyrule Castle Town. Though his view was obstructed by a large building, Link could just make out a windmill beyond it, turning with the wind. If he concentrated, he could almost hear its timbers creaking from here. Besides the windmill, unscalable buildings, and arched gateway, Link quickly found that there wasn't much to look at, at least from where he was sitting.

Even though he knew he shouldn't be, he was unnerved by the peacefulness of the island. It was so quiet, and for being a merchant isle it was strangely devoid of life. He'd expected to be greeted by a large port town, complete with sailors at the docks, children playing games and adults running errands. Instead he'd been greeted with a humble little island, nearly as remote as the other islands he'd been to thus far.

Despite the proximity of the buildings to one another, Link knew that this was not Castle Town. It wasn't even close. Literally. From the sea chart Link had seen of the Great Sea, he knew that the place where the castle was buried beneath the sea wasn't exactly close to Windfall which meant that this town couldn't have ever been the bustling town he knew.

Looking around, Link noticed a shop behind him. From the painted sign on its awning Link could only conclude that it was a bomb shop. The only bomb shop he knew of in Hyrule was Barnes's and that was in Kakariko Village.

'Maybe this place used to be Kakariko Village,' he mused. Then another thought hit him, something that the ancient talking tree had told them, that people in his world had counterparts in this one and vice versa. What if Barnes's counterpart was running that bomb shop? Link had the sudden urge to check, but then realized he probably wouldn't be able to tell anyway. What constituted a counterpart? It was sharing a soul, as far as he recalled and since he couldn't see souls, there was no way he'd be able to tell just by looking at a person. Still…

"'Hoy!" a voice snapped him out of his reverie and his eyes immediately sought out the source. It didn't take long for his gaze to settle on two little girls running towards him.

'Geez, I hope they don't think I'm Kid. We should have thought this through more…' Link thought, watching the girls warily as they stopped in front of him, gasping for breath.

"Hah … have you seen any bees around here?" one of them asked breathlessly, brushing hair that had been shaken loose from her ponytail out of her face.

"Um ... no," Link replied, inwardly wincing as the girls' hopeful faces fell. He hurried to make amends, thinking fast. "But I'm sure there are some by those flowers over there." Link pointed out the patch of flowers he'd noticed earlier and the children turned to look.

"Oh, no! Not honey bees!" the other girl exclaimed, shaking her head and smiling as if he'd said something silly.

"We're talking about the Killer Bees," her friend chimed in.

The blonde nodded eagerly. "So? Have you seen them?"

"No, but why do you need to find the uh…killer bees?" Link asked, hoping the girls were just playing a game. Their next words assured him that it was indeed a childish game.

"Because they stole our rupees!" the brunette huffed, stomping her foot to punctuate the direness of the situation.

"Yeah! Meanies." The second girl pouted and for a second Link thought she was about to cry.

Her chestnut haired friend put an arm around her shoulders. "It's okay, Potova, we'll get them back." She then turned to him, smiling sweetly. "Thanks anyway, mister.

The formerly dejected child brightened. "Yeah, thanks! And be extra careful with your wallet, there are thieves around!"

Before Link could reply the girls ran off, and he was left feeling very confused and vaguely unsettled. He'd never heard of killer bees before, much less bees that stole rupees, but from his experience with the Great Sea, he couldn't exactly write anything off as too weird to be true.

By the time Kid returned, Link had managed to convince himself that killer bees were extremely dangerous and he'd just let two little girls run off to their deaths. As Kid handed him four bottles filled with potion, he had to ask if only to ease his own conscience.

"Is there any chance that giant bees are going around stealing-" He was cut off abruptly by Kid's laughter.

"Hey! I'm serious!" Link insisted, which only made his counterpart laugh harder.

"You…had me…at giant bees!" Kid choked out between giggles.

"Yeah, yeah. I get it, I'm hilarious," Link conceded, rolling his eyes. This world was making a fool of him. "Now answer the question. Are. There. Giant. Bees. Stealing. Rupees?"

"Where'd you hear that?" Kid asked once he'd regained his breath, still unable to wipe the amused smile off his face.

"Some little girls came by and told me about it," Link explained. "Well … they didn't say they were giant bees exactly, but still."

"You said bees, so I'm guessing they were talking about the Killer Bees, right?" Kid speculated.

"What the heck are killer bees?" Link demanded.

"You mean, who," Kid corrected him.

"Come again?"

"The Killer Bees. They're a group of boys that like to cause trouble," Kid clarified.

"Oh…" It was all Link could say. Seriously, how could he have known that "the Killer Bees" was code for a group of boys?! Now that he did know that, the stealing aspect suddenly made more sense. "Do they normally steal from people?"

The smile on Kid's face slowly melted into a frown. "No."

"Huh, well if those girls were telling the truth, they are now," Link announced.

Kid was silent for a few seconds before speaking again. "Where did they go? The girls, I mean?"

"That way," Link replied, pointing in the general direction he recalled them running off in.

"Okay, c'mon." Kid motioned for him to follow.

"Are we going to help them?" he wondered, sliding off of his seat on the wall.

"Sort of," Kid replied.

Link was relieved when the younger boy led him up a slope to the left rather than through the gate. After trudging up a wooden walk and passing under a smaller arch, they emerged into a square of some sort. He spotted the girls walking nearby with their backs to them. Kid saw them too and cupped his hands over his mouth to amplify his voice.

"Joanna! Potova!" The girls stopped in their tracks, whirling around. Kid gestured for them to come closer and after a slight hesitation, they did.

"Wanna find the Killer Bees?" Kid inquired.

The girls' eyes widened and they shared a glance as if to confirm that they'd both heard the same thing. Turning back to Kid, they exclaimed, "Yeah!"

Kid then launched into an explanation of where each member of the Killer Bees was hiding and how to catch them. Once he was finished the little girls stared up at Kid in awe for a few moments before running off and throwing a couple of elated thank yous over their shoulders.

"How do you know where they are?" Link wondered.

Kid shrugged. "I just guessed. They hid there when I played hide and seek with them before." Nothing more was said on the matter and the two of them continued walking, though Link had no idea where it was they were headed.

When a large open air shop came into view, Link was sure that that was their destination but his counterpart proved him wrong by making a beeline for a set of wooden steps. The sign outside of it showed what appeared to be a steaming cup of coffee or tea. A café? A bar?

When he stepped inside the building he was relieved to find only warm smells of fresh food greeting him. It helped cleanse the scent of salt water and sweat and seagulls and whatever else he'd picked up near the potion shop from his nostrils. He was pretty sure it was poisonous. Even if it wasn't, he didn't look forward to drinking any of those concoctions. If he was lucky, he wouldn't have to.

The two of them were barely able to take two steps before they encountered the line, or rather, the cluster of people who were struggling to maintain some semblance of a queue. Both he and Kid moved around, craning their necks to see past the people crowding the steps. Burly sailors and irritable women crowded the narrow space, and by the sounds of it, the serving counter as well. So this was where all the people were.

"What's going on?" Link asked. He meant for Kid to answer him but instead the woman in front of them turned around. She was quite young, mid-twenties by the look of it, and the worry lines that creased her forehead seemed very out of place.

"You don't know? It's just awful! They've raised the prices again. No one can afford it but the rich."

As if he'd been listening to the young women's explanation from the other side of the closed door, a man sporting clothes that were much more elegant looking than anything the rest of the people were wearing entered with a cane in hand.

"Move, urchin!" screeched the man, brandishing his cane at Kid who just so happened to be in the man's path. Kid glanced over his shoulder, surprise alighting on his face. He scrambled back out of the way but not before the ghastly looking man rapped one of his legs sharply with the cane.

Kid hissed in pain, crouching down to rub his sore leg and shooting a glare at the man as he hobbled his way past.

"Hey!" Link called after the wealthy man who was dealing out the same treatment to any other customers who were in his way.

"Shhh!" Kid shushed him without looking up. "Don't."

"Why not? He just called you an urchin and hit you. I think I have a right to yell at him for it. He can't go around treating people like that." As he spoke, he tried to keep his voice quiet, even, but it was hard. People really infuriated him sometimes, thinking they were special.

"He can 'cause he's the mayor of Windfall," Kid muttered, straightening and resting his back on the wall. "If you start messing with him, he'll throw you into the jail."

"How did someone like him ever get to be mayor?" Link mumbled, leaning against the wall in frustration as he was forced to listen to the irritating shouts of the man that thought himself more important than everyone else.

"He got rich," Kid stated as if that explained everything.

Link supposed it did in a way, but money wasn't everything. Obviously this man hadn't learned that yet.

It was then that the uproar started. It had been steadily building as people were first denied what they came for, and by the time Kid and Link had entered it had been an unhappy hum. Now it exploded as the greedy mayor caused mayhem, purchasing all the food he could and still having money to spare.

"Come on." Kid sighed, pushing off from the wall and taking the couple steps to the door. Link followed his counterpart out of the building and down the steps, away from the chaos, though it wasn't completely stifled. He could still hear the protests from outside.

"Are we not getting anything?" Link asked.

"Not right now we aren't," Kid replied. "It'll settle down later and if it doesn't then Tetra and her men can handle it."

They walked in silence for a few moments before Link decided to ask the question that had been burning a hole in his brain. "Has it always been like this?"

"No," Kid mumbled, kicking a nonexistent pebble in the dirt. At least Link thought it was nonexistent. He couldn't see anything but a small cloud of dirt fly up as a result.

"Oh … well, what happened?" he wondered.

"I wasn't fast enough," Kid stated, anger in his tone, but Link knew it wasn't directed at him. "I let Greatfish Isle get destroyed. It used to be a huge farm so it was our main source of food, but not anymore."

"Where's it coming from now?"

"Nowhere," Kid mumbled as if he didn't want Link to hear, but of course he did. His hearing was too sharp to miss much of anything.

"Can't you guys make a farm somewhere else? Even if it's not a full-fledged farm, at least a garden or something?" Link suggested.

Kid shook his head. "Wouldn't work. Nowhere else has fertile land. The only place that's good for growing food now is Forest Haven but we can't use it."

"Why not?"

"Because it belongs to the Great Deku Tree and the Koroks."

"And they won't let you have a farm or something there knowing what happened?" Link inquired, incredulous. The Deku Tree they'd met in Hyrule had been kind. He couldn't see such a kind spirit denying the humans help.

"Nope, the Great Deku Tree claims we'll ruin the land and it'll end up like Greatfish someday," Kid explained. "Even if he did let us turn it into a farm, we'd never be able to get the animals back."

"But I saw pigs here earlier," Link refuted.

"Greatfish had more than just pigs. They had cuccos and cows and probably more than that."

Link opened his mouth to offer some sort of solution, but quickly closed it, realizing he didn't have one.

"I know we need to find Ghirahim and deal with him but … Tetra and I … we need to find a new Hyrule soon. If we don't, I don't think anyone will be staying alive for very long." Kid hung his head, and Link couldn't help but wonder what happened to the cheery boy he'd stepped onto the island with.

Suddenly, he knew exactly what the quietness of the island was. It was fear. A fear that was so great no one wanted to address it, in hopes that if they forgot it, it too would forget them and disappear. But problems didn't work that way. They got worse, angrier the more they were ignored. And sometimes even when they were given attention, but they never got better. Not that way.

"Let's just take one problem at a time, okay?" Link advised, putting a hand on his counterpart's shoulder and wishing he could say something else. Something that would fix everything. But he couldn't. No words could mend this.

Kid didn't seem convinced but he gave a small nod anyway, and Link let his hand fall back to his side, knowing it wasn't doing any good either. "What else does that list of yours say? There must be something else we can get without having to go back there."

Kid unfolded the piece of parchment that had previously been crushed tightly in his fist and quickly scanned it. "Bombs. We can get those cheaper from Beedle."

"The guy you told me about that runs a shop ship?" Link recalled.

Kid confirmed his recollection with a nod and the two of them made their way to the docks, taking the alternate route so as to avoid the wicked potion shop.

As they neared the water Link didn't see any sign of a different boat. The two ships that were in the harbor were still there, just as silent and lonely as they were when they'd arrived at the island. The only difference was the presence of a young girl perched on the edge of the dock, legs crossed primly.

"Hi, Mila," Kid greeted her once they reached the docks. She gave a small gasp as if he'd startled her out of her thoughts and snapped her head up to look at him.

"Oh, it's you..." Mila said wistfully. "Hi."

"Have you seen Beedle's shop ship recently?" Kid questioned her.

"Not for a while now," Mila replied, redirecting her gaze to the water.

"Are you on break or something?" Kid wondered.

"Not at all," Mila huffed, sticking her freckled nose in the air. "I quit."

This statement startled his counterpart into speechlessness for a few seconds. "W-what? Why would you do that?" Kid interrogated her, seeming more distressed over the matter than the girl was. "I thought you needed the money." Again with the money. Just how bad was it?

"I do, but Zunari hasn't been getting any business lately. No one has money for frivolous things anymore," Mila claimed, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind a pointed ear. So she was a Hylian too. Now that Link thought about it, he had yet to see a person with rounded ears. Did the goddesses only spare Hylians when they flooded the kingdom?

"It's fine, though," the girl assured him. "I help the sailors dock and such now, which reminds me … how'd you even get on the island? Where'd you dock? Around back like those horrid pirates?"

Suddenly reluctant to answer, Kid just bit his lip.

"Hmph. That's what I thought," Mila muttered, rolling her eyes. A flash of red flew through the air and landed in her lap. Only when she picked it up did Link realize it was a rupee. His eyes went to Kid for an explanation. Did he think giving this girl money would fix everything? No. His counterpart was smarter than that. He probably just wanted to do whatever he could. One problem at a time, Link had said it himself.

"What's this for?" the girl wondered, examining the red rupee in her hand and glancing quizzically at Kid.

"Payment for being a weirdo and not docking where I'm supposed to," Kid supplied.

The girl smiled wryly and flipped the rupee back at him like a coin. "If I charged every weirdo I came across, I'd be rich again."

"Oh, well, take it anyway," Kid ordered, tossing the money back to the girl.

"I don't think so." The girl shook her head and returned the rupee to Kid. "I'm not a thief, you taught me that."

"It isn't stealing if I'm giving it to you," Kid pointed out.

"It is if you're giving it to me for no reason. I haven't done anything for you so you shouldn't be paying me," she countered, seeming insulted by how dumb she thought Kid was being.

"Will you take it if I say it's a gift?" Kid tried. His counterpart really wasn't going to take no for an answer. Mila, it seemed, had yet to realize this.

"Nope," the girl refused.

"Why not?" Kid demanded to know.

"Because it's not my birthday, and it isn't any holiday I know of either so it can't be a gift," she reasoned. "Oh, and before you say anything else, I don't take charity either."

Kid frowned, visibly frustrated. Just when Link was going to speak up, Kid's eyes brightened with the promise of an idea.

"What if I said you could help us?" Kid wondered.

"Then I'd consider it," Mila answered. "What do you need help with?"

"We're here trying to do some shopping but we can't get into the Café Bar to buy anything. Do you think you can get us in?"

"Of course I can." Mila declared with unwavering confidence.

Kid made to give her the crimson currency but she waved a finger at him. "Ah, ah, not yet. I haven't done a thing for you. You'll pay me for my services afterwards and not a second before."

"Fair enough," Kid conceded, putting away the rupee. Movement in Link's peripherals caused him to glance at the ocean. A decorated ship was approaching the dock.

"Is that the ship?" Link asked. His counterpart turned to look and then quickly turned to address Mila.

"Do you mind if we stop at Beedle's first?"

Mila motioned for him to go ahead. "Do whatever you want. I'll be here as long as a better job offer doesn't come around while you're gone." She smiled, but Link had a feeling that she wasn't joking.

The shop ship drifted to a stop near the end of the dock. Kid was first to board, followed by Link. Stepping inside the ship, they were welcomed by a tan, shirtless young man that could only be the proprietor of the shop.

As Kid started talking to Beedle and making his purchases, Link couldn't help but notice the businessman's uncanny resemblance to Coro. Both were dark skinned and seemed to have an affinity for doing business shirtless. Beedle was also very friendly, just like Coro. However, Beedle seemed to be more successful than Coro, as he had more wares to sell and had apparently constituted a membership policy. In fact, thanks to Kid's membership, they managed to get bombs and arrows for a great deal.

As they exited the shop, Link decided he liked Beedle, if only because he felt somewhat familiar. The two heroes hopped back onto the dock where Mila was waiting just as they'd left her. Once she caught sight of them, she rose to her feet, dusting off her faded dress.

"Alright boys, follow me," she instructed, clapping her hands as if they were animals that needed to be rounded up. She led the way off the docks and onto the path with the two of them close behind. To his chagrin, Mila led them underneath the welcoming arch, and Link held his breath, silently urging their new guide to walk faster.

"So, Link, who's your friend?" Mila asked conversationally.

For a second he thought that she was speaking to him, and Kid must have thought so too for he remained silent as well. By the time they'd both determined who she was really talking to, Mila was already glancing over her shoulder at Kid, figuring he needed a little prompting.

"I know you don't have a brother, but you two look like brothers. If you're not related that's really creepy."

"Uh…no! We are! I mean, he's my … cousin." Link knew Kid was bad at lying but this was a whole new low. Thankfully, Mila was either daft or she wasn't paying much attention.

"Does your cousin have a name?" The question was innocent, logical, but little did Mila know that posing it was torture. A name? They most certainly couldn't tell the truth, especially now that he had a new title as Kid's cousin.

Link shot his counterpart a panicked look, and was dismayed to find a similar expression on the younger boy's face. Gesturing franticly behind Mila's back as seconds passed by far too quickly, the two of them tried with little success to come up with a solution.

"Well?" Mila huffed, obviously impatient for an answer as she stole a glance over her shoulder once again.

"It's-" Link was cut off by the fumes wafting out of the potion shop nearby as they became strong enough to elicit a cough from him.

"Fado," Kid blurted out. "His name's Fado." Link shot Kid a skeptical look to which his counterpart only grimaced. Where had his counterpart come up with that name? It couldn't have been from the Fado he knew, Link was sure he'd never mentioned him to Kid before, or if he had, not by name. Link resolved to question his counterpart about it later and let it slide for the time being.

"So strange names run in the family, huh?" Mila commented.

"Heh, yeah, I guess." Kid gave a nervous laugh, and Link just shook his head, displeased with his new name and his counterpart's lying skills. Not that he was much better at thinking on his feet like this. They really should have prepared a fake name and backstory earlier.

"Let me guess, Fado, you're from Outset too, am I right?" Mila queried.

With a quick glance at Kid, who was nodding vehemently, Link answered, "Yes."

"Hmm, thought so. It's the clothes you know? No one else wears that kind of stuff."

"Right," he agreed, hoping that Mila was finished with small talk. Unfortunately, she wasn't.

"So … Link, why'd you never tell me you had a hot cousin?"

"W-what?" Kid stammered, thoroughly shocked. Link himself nearly tripped in his bewilderment. Did she really just say what he thought she did?

Mila whirled around on her heel, walking backwards now. "No offense to you. I mean, you kind of look alike, but you're more cute and he's more … ya know."

Kid's face grew as red as the rupee he'd attempted to gift Mila with earlier and he instantly became interested in the ground. To Link's horror, the girl's attention was no longer one Kid, but on him.

"How old are you?" Mila inquired, twirling a strand of her blonde hair around her finger. Goddesses, was she flirting?

"Seventeen," Link answered reluctantly.

"I'm almost sixteen," Mila boasted, her tone indicating that he should be impressed by how close they were in age. He wasn't.

"I'm almost eighteen," Link informed her. After a short pause he added, "And I have a girlfriend."

Mila sighed and quit playing with her hair. "Of course you do." She turned back around, disinterested.

"You do?" Kid wondered, looking up at him in surprise.

"No," Link mouthed, shaking his head fiercely. His counterpart nearly gave him away by laughing, but Link glared at him, and Kid somehow managed to reign in his mirth.

Whether it was because she was cross that Link was taken or not, Mila threw open the door to the Café when they arrived, nearly hitting a few people by the sounds of it. They followed, softly apologizing in Mila's wake as the young girl pushed past people and up the stairs with her head held high.

It grew more and more clustered the closer they got to the landing, and once they were at the top even Mila had trouble plowing through everyone.

"Oi! Gillian!" Mila called once they'd more or less managed to get to the front of the displeased crowd. The woman behind the bar counter appeared to be too frazzled to hear her, but that didn't stop their hired helper.

Mila hefted herself onto the counter and the bartender certainly couldn't ignore that.

"Mila-" Gillian, Link presumed, started before she was abruptly cut off by the young girl.

"Listen, I have paying customers for you," she gestured to Kid and Link. Relief spread over the woman's face but it was quickly dashed by the uproar that followed.

"Oi! I was 'ere first!"

"Unbelievable! Don't serve them until you serve me!"

Cries of protest swelled like a monster wave in the ocean. Glares were thrown their way, and Link couldn't help but search for possible escape routes. The windows were nothing more than tiny cutouts in the walls. Even if they were bigger, it wouldn't be wise to jump from this height. The only way out was the way they'd come in.

"Oh hush up!" Mila cried, getting to her feet, so she was standing on the counter now, impervious to Gillian's protests about how she was dirtying it.

When her request failed to produce any results, Mila yelled, "QUIET!" Still, she wasn't loud enough to silence the rowdy residents of Windfall Island.

Link sucked in a breath and let out a piercing whistle. He normally used it to get the attention of the goats at the ranch, but it seemed to work on people just as well.

Mila nodded at him in thanks, and then turned to address everyone gathered in the café. "You can stop your complaining because everything you need is going to be paid for!"

"By who?" a woman demanded.

"Certainly not by you, the poorest girl on the island," another quipped, and the two women chortled at the thought of it.

Mila frowned but didn't add fuel to their fire. Instead, she pointed at Kid and proclaimed, "He's paying for it."

All eyes turned to a thoroughly shocked Kid. Just who did Mila think she was, volunteering their money like this?

"So," the former debutante continued, "if you'll all get into an orderly line so Gillian here can take your orders-" She didn't even have to finish her sentence, for the crowd quickly organized themselves, animated by the promise of instant service and free items. Free for them, that is.

Satisfied, Mila hopped down from the counter and made her way over to them, head held high.

"W-why did you do that?" Kid stuttered, still stunned from her recent performance.

"Because it's obvious that you can't get anything you want until these lovely people get what they want." Mila shrugged. "It's just how it works."

"Yeah but … I don't even know if we can pay for it. Can we pay for it?" Kid wondered, turning to Link.

"I … don't know," Link admitted. Zelda had never told him how much money she'd brought with her. Even if they could pay off the other customer's expenses, there was no guarantee there'd be enough for them to purchase what they needed. He only had about five hundred in his personal wallet, and he had no idea what Kid's contained.

"If you can't pay in full then at least do half of each person's order," Mila piped up. Kid pulled out the wallet Zelda had brought with and opened it, trying to count the currency inside. After a minute Kid looked up, closing the pouch of rupees.

"I think we'll be fine as long as no one takes advantage of this," Kid announced.

"Do half," Link urged him. If the prices were really so outrageous to warrant so much protesting from customers, the chances were that they'd end up coughing up all of their rupees before they even got to buy anything.

Unfortunately for them, offering to pay half of what was owed didn't appease most customers. The majority expected them to pay off their orders completely, as Mila had so graciously promised with her earlier proclamation.

About five thousand rupees later, by Link's count, they were finally able to purchase what they'd come for. Thankfully, the wallet Zelda had given them wasn't completely empty. It had at least a couple thousand left inside it to fund their exploits. By the time they were finished purchasing what was left on Tetra's list, however, there were only a few hundred rupees remaining.

"Think she'll be mad we spent pretty much all of the money?" Kid wondered as they waited for Gillian to retrieve the supplies they'd just purchased.

"Probably not," Link replied from where he was leaning against the bar counter. After all, it wasn't as if they'd just thrown the money into the ocean. It went to a good cause. Besides, if Zelda didn't want them spending so much of her money, she wouldn't have brought it. Right?

"This is a lot," Mila noted as she watched the pile of supplies grow. "It's not all for you, is it?"

"No," Kid admitted.

"Let me guess, it's for those pirates," Mila said, contempt clear in her voice.

"What do you have against the pirates?" Link inquired, curious.

Mila gave a small laugh that held no humor. "What don't I have against them? They're the reason why I'm poor. I'd steer clear of them if I were you. They're nothing but trouble."

"I met them. They're not that bad," Link said.

"Give them time," Mila returned.

"Ahem," Gillian cleared her throat to get their attention. "I'd appreciate it if you three started carting this stuff off. I'm going to run out of room soon."

"Oh. Sorry," Kid apologized, reaching for a stack of crates on the counter. Link followed suit, hefting a barrel into his arms. As soon as he did, he knew he wouldn't be able to carry anything else. He was strong, but not that strong. Suddenly he wished he had power bracelets too, or something akin to them. It would make transporting everything to the cove a heck of lot easier.

The three of them struggled down the stairs, each burdened with supplies. Mila, since she wasn't carrying anything nearly as heavy as the two of them, was able to provide aid as they descended the stairs, and they were soon on the way to the cove.

After a while, Link lost track of how many times they trekked back and forth between the cove and the Café Bar. Suffice it to say that by the time they were done, they were all out of breath. The sea breeze stopped cooling them after the third trip to the hidden retreat at the back of the island, and Link was completely regretting his decision to not retrieve cooler clothes from Ordon when he'd had the chance.

"How long until Tetra and the others get here?" he asked, hoping it wasn't long.

Kid finished handing the red rupee he'd promised to Mila and looked up. Squinting at the sky his counterpart said, "I'd say it's been about … an hour and a half since we got here, so we have at least an hour more to wait."

While Link wasn't the most impatient person in the world, sitting outside in the heat didn't make waiting any more appealing. The island had to have some kind of indoor activity they could whittle away time with. Still, they couldn't very well leave the supplies out in the open. Someone would surely steal them.

"Hey, Mila," Link called to the girl that was slowly slinking away, red rupee in hand. Link took a purple rupee from his wallet and held it up so she could see it. A pang of guilt washed over him as he witnessed her cerulean blue eyes widen, glittering with need. "If you agree to sit here and make sure no one takes any of our stuff, then you can have this."

"Agreed!" Mila chirped happily. "I'll make sure nothing happens to your things." She then plopped down in the sand amongst all of the crates, boxes, and barrels full of goods as if to prove it.

"Where do you want to go?" Kid asked him as they strolled away from Mila and back towards the heart of the island.

"I have no idea. What's there to do here besides shopping?"

Kid was silent for a few moments as he thought. "Want to play a game?"

"Does it involve running around outside?" Link queried.

"No."

"Then sure."

Kid led him back to the square and into the large building that sustained the windmill. Immediately he could see the game that Kid was referring to, though he had no idea how it worked. A cannon, obviously, hopefully, fake, was pointed at a grid of squares suspended from the ceiling. Beyond it was a painted sky and sea and a cardboard ship that oddly resembled Tetra's.

The only other person in the room, a man, was slouched behind a small table, looking like he'd given up on life long ago. Their presence didn't do anything to change his expression and he continued impatiently drumming his fingers on the table top, staring off into space as they approached.

"Hi," Kid greeted. The man peered down his nose at Kid, as if just noticing him for the first time.

"Hey. Welcome," the man returned the greeting his voice a monotone that contested with Fi's. "It's ten rupees per game for kids. You wanna play or what?"

Kid nodded, handing the man a yellow rupee.

"Yeah, OK. Then, uh…AHEM!" The dull man cleared his throat, pocketing the rupee. Straightening, he swept a colorful cardboard cutout from behind his table and held it up to his face in one fluid motion.

Suddenly all dullness was replaced by an enthusiastic performance as the man took on the role of an admiral, adopting a strange accent and incorporating sound effects as he explained the "situation" and the rules of the game. After he was finished, Kid confirmed that he was up to the task of protecting the island from the squids and moved over to the cannon.

Link followed him, eager to see if his counterpart could win. As far as he'd gathered, it was a game of luck, not skill.

Kid shot the corners first, being met with a sploosh from the proprietor, every time. After a few more misplaced bombs, the man shouted, "Kaboom!" and a brightly colored explosion mark dominated the square he'd struck instead of an X. Kid hesitated, obviously thinking. He then directed his next shot to the right of where he'd just scored a hit. Kaboom! He kept going. Kaboom! One more to the right. Kaboom! One squid down. Two to go.

Kid explored the grid then, sending off experimental shots until finally he struck gold again. His next shot, however missed, but he redeemed himself and hit another spot and then another. Only the small squid remained.

"Kid, you only have two shots left," Link warned him.

"I know." Kid gritted his teeth, eyes searching the board as if doing so would reveal to him where the last squid was hidden. After a few seconds he decided and fired a square close to where he'd found the medium sized squid.

"Sploosh!" the man cried. Sighing heavily in defeat, Kid shot a random square to end it.

The grid lit up, revealing the last squid's location and Kid groaned in frustration. It had been hiding by the larger squid, not the smaller one.

"Oh, bad news, uh sailor. The enemies…have retreated. Or something," the man announced, dropping his act and returning to his disinterested state. "It's ten rupees per game for kids… Wanna try again?"

"Yes!" Kid answered eagerly, practically shoving ten rupees into the man's hands. Kid jumped back into the game with a vengeance, determined to win. He'd been so close.

And he kept getting close. Link watched as Kid lost the second game and tried a third which didn't yield any different results. Both times he was able to find two squids, but the smallest one always eluded him.

"Let me give it a try," Link spoke up, before his counterpart could pay for another go.

Kid hesitated for the briefest of seconds before stepping aside.

Delving into his own wallet, Link removed a yellow rupee and made to hand it to the proprietor only to have the man shake his head.

"It's twenty rupees per game for adults," the man said in his monotonous voice.

'Of course it is,' Link thought, digging out another yellow gem from his wallet. This time the man accepted the money and Link moved over to the cannon where Kid was already waiting.

The faux cannon wasn't hard to maneuver where he wanted it and soon he was making random guesses, avoiding the corners because no squids were ever hidden there. After a few misses he managed to hit something and soon he'd discovered the large squid. He found the medium one soon after. All that was left was that forever elusive two-square long squid. He searched near the other squids since he'd noticed that at least two squids were always close to each other and those that he'd found weren't in the same area. Unfortunately, this strategy didn't provide him with victory, and he watched as the grid lit up, revealing that the last squid was indeed nestled in one of the corners.

"But they were never in the corners before!" Link protested, convinced now that the game was rigged. Games like this normally were.

"It's randomized every time. Sometimes they're there. Sometimes they aren't. That's why I started off hitting the corners at first," Kid piped up.

The proprietor asked if he wanted to play again, and Link just handed him twenty rupees in response. It probably wasn't smart, seeing as, between the two of them, they'd already wasted fifty rupees, but he couldn't stop now. They had to win. Just once.

Winning turned out to be extremely hard and after Link successfully lost again, Kid was insistent on trying his hand at it once more. Link let him, only because it was cheaper. It was a good thing too because Kid lost and Link doubted his luck would have been any better.

At this point they were beyond frustrated but something kept them from walking away. Whether it was their stubbornness or the hypnotic allure of the game, Link was grateful for it because that was the round that Kid won. Not only did he win, but he beat the high score using only seventeen cannonballs.

As Link watched the man hand Kid his prize, an orange rupee, an idea took shape.

"You know what this means, right?" He asked Kid.

"I got lucky?" Kid guessed.

"No, well, yes, but even better. We can win back some of the money we lost at the café!"

"You're right! Let's do it!" Kid urged him, handing him the rupee he'd won so Link could add it to Zelda's wallet.

They dove back into the game with renewed vigor. More often than not they lost but occasionally they won and a prize of fifty rupees wasn't too shabby either.

By the time they'd decided to stop they had managed to add the sum of their winnings, one thousand rupees, to Zelda's wallet. It wouldn't stop her from noticing, Link was sure, but it was something at least.

They bid farewell to the proprietor who insisted that he couldn't tell them how fun it had been for him. For the life of him, Link couldn't tell if the man was being sarcastic or not. As he followed Kid up a flight of stairs he came to the conclusion that it didn't matter.

"Where are we going now?" Link asked.

"Ferris wheel," Kid replied, opening the door at the end of the short hall and stepping outside.

"What's a ferris wheel?" Link wondered as he followed Kid outside into the heat. He hadn't noticed how much cooler it had been indoors until now.

"It's like a windmill you can ride," Kid explained.

When they came to the edge of the wooden deck Link could see that his counterpart's description rang true. What he hadn't noticed before were the gondolas attached to the rotating wheel.

"Jump!" Kid exclaimed, startling Link as he did just that. The young boy had jumped early and for a moment he thought that Kid would fall onto the red, blue, and white striped awning below. Luckily his counterpart managed to just barely land on one of the seats.

Link waited until the gondola was closer before he hopped into it and sat down across from Kid.

"So why are we riding the ferris wheel again?" Link wanted to know.

"Because it'll give us a good view of the ocean so we can see if the others are close yet," Kid answered. "Plus ... it's fun."

As the ferris wheel lifted them higher and higher Link couldn't help but agree. It was fun. Not a perilous or frustrating type of fun but a serene type of fun. The island grew even smaller the higher they rose and it was at that point that he noticed the lighthouse. It wasn't active at the moment of course, but it was there nonetheless and quite large.

"Look over there," Kid said, pulling Link's gaze away from the idle lighthouse and to the sea. Unlike the town, the ocean didn't shrink with height, it grew. He was so focused on this aspect that he almost forgot to look where Kid was pointing. A ship was sailing towards Windfall Island, and it was quite close by the looks of it.

"They'll be here soon," Kid observed, his eyes on the approaching pirate ship.

Link hummed in agreement, wishing that they could just stay on Windfall Island a while longer. It was peaceful here. Even if it was a false peace.

"We should get going. Tetra won't be happy to find Mila guarding everything, and Mila definitely won't be happy to see her," Kid spoke up as the ferris wheel took them below the rooftops once again.

"Oh, before we go, I wanted to ask you something," Link said, causing his counterpart to sit back down.

"Okay. What is it?" Kid asked.

"How did you come up with the name Fado?"

"Oh that…" Kid rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "It was just the first name I could think of that wouldn't be suspicious. Fado was the Sage of Wind before Makar, but that's not common knowledge and no one alive now ever even knew there was a Sage of Wind that died, much less his name, so I just figured it'd be a good fake name to give you. Sorry if you don't like it."

"No, it's fine," Link assured him, slightly stunned. His counterpart had put a lot more thought into the name than he'd first suspected. Briefly he wondered if the Fado that had once lived in this world had any relation to the Fado that he knew, but he was quick to shake the depressing thought from his mind.

They spent the next few rotations in silence, and Link began to regret ever asking Kid about the name. He'd obviously reopened old wounds by posing the inquiry. Eventually, sick of the silence and hoping to close the old wounds he'd inadvertently reopened, he asked Kid if they could see the island they were going to next from here. To his relief Kid happily pointed out Dragon Roost Island as they neared the peak of the ferris wheel. Even from their vantage point above the rooftops, the island was nothing but a hazy image on the horizon. The pirate ship, on the other hand, wouldn't be a dark shape on the water much longer.

After Link pointed this out to his counterpart the two of them disembarked the ferris wheel and made haste to the shady cove where Mila was waiting for them. The young girl brightened when she saw them, but Link suspected that was because she was looking forward to the payment he'd promised her. Once she had the purple rupee grasped firmly in her hand, Mila bid them farewell and left.

It was just as well, for a minute or two later the pirate ship rounded the side of the island, coming to a halt parallel to the shore. Link was already dreading dragging everything onto the ship but he needn't have worried. Tetra's crew knew exactly what they were doing.

In less than a minute after the ship had drifted to a stop they'd lowered a gangplank and soon the narrow beach bustled with activity as pirates both large and small began to transport the supplies onto the ship. Link and Kid aided them as best as they could, and Tetra even managed to convince Linebeck to help, although the man grumbled about it.

With all of them working together, they managed to get everything onboard, including Kid's sailboat, in record time, and before Link knew it he was being forced to adjust once again to the motion of the ship beneath his feet.

"May I have my wallet back please?" Zelda inquired, strolling up to him with ease and holding her hand out expectantly.

"Sure," he said, taking the wallet off of his belt and dropping it into her awaiting hand. He watched as she looked down at the wallet, her expression unreadable, and then back up at him.

"What did you do?" she demanded to know.

He considered playing dumb but quickly discarded the notion. The princess wouldn't fall for any act that he put on, so he quickly explained the truth. When he finished Princess Zelda was quiet.

"Are you mad?" Link wondered.

"No," Zelda replied. "I think it's good that you helped those people. I'm just wondering how they'll help themselves later."

A sick feeling settled into the pit of his stomach, and it wasn't from the motion of the ship. Had paying for everything, somewhat against their will, helped at all? Of course it had, but it was only preventing the inevitable. Eventually those people would need to purchase food again, and maybe next time they would be able to afford it, just barely, because they'd been able to keep their money this time thanks to Zelda's wealth. Eventually though, the time would come when they couldn't afford it anymore. Eventually the food would run out entirely. How long was it until then? How long until they had nothing left?

Unconsciously, he found his gaze wandering over to his counterpart who was talking with Linebeck, laughing at something the man had said. But he wasn't laughing, not really, and that's what broke Link's heart the most.