((CAN: Those visiting my site, Katen Giri no Boukendan() will need to pay very close attention to the start of the chapter here. It's essential to the plot anyway for everyone else, but the Boukendan-ers will pick up some needed hints. And for everyone, whether they know my site or not-yep, I *am* insinuating what you think I am, about Impa. Not about the Queen of Hyrule stuff, that's been a theory of mine for a long time, but the OTHER thing. Like I said, Sheikah age pretty slowly. At least, in my world they do. Ever slower than Gerudo! And going with my theory, the King is still technically her husband, so yes. Zelda is going to have a little sister. O.o If this is getting too weird for you, go ahead, stop reading now. I don't blame you. My world is inherently twisted. Actually, Keena ('tis Impa's other daughter's name) has a lot to do with the actual plot behind the greater whole of the body of stuff this fic is part of. If you go to said above site, there's a nice little blurb I wrote where you actually meet Keena, who's very peculiar in her own right. OK, end self plug and explanations. now.))

((Also, pardon me for using the phrase "deep purple." I was listening to Smoke On The Water at the time and it subconsciously popped up.))

Spinning Slash, Chapter 13: Ancient Waters

Three vibrant strips of brilliant green light scythed through the eternal, undulating blueness inside the Temple of Light in the Sacred Realm.

"Whatever this is about, Rauru, it better be good-I was right in the middle of cooking something, you know."

The somewhat tall, balding man dressed in the plump-collared habit simply shrugged his shoulders; they were nearly hidden beneath the fat roll all stitched will yellow swirls. "I'm afraid I didn't call this meeting, Saria," he sighed, and little silvery curls danced up beneath his mustache. In what was called The Golden Land, everything seemed to shine, even the very air itself.

"I would very much like to know who did, then," Darunia roughly enquired. His hands were knit in front of his chest, and every little tap of his boulder-sized foot caused the slight teetering of the platform they rested upon.

"That would have been Impa," he replied, with a little cough to clear his unshaved old voice. "Don't ask me what she wants, she's been acting rather funny lately anyway."

"We've all been on an edge recently," Ruto's pearly ichtyian voice chimed in. The scales along much of her face and running down the sides of her arms were pushed up in the wrong direction, giving her a fuzzy look in those areas. "What with Twinrova puttering about all over the place, no matter what they say! My people only managed to do off with everything they've done to us as of earlier today."

"They've been vying for a hold on my forests for a long time, as they control much of the life-force in Hyrule," Saria offered, chin down to her collarbone. "I heard something about the Gorons from Link, but Zora's Domain I know nothing about."

Nabooru, flecks of orange flying off her as she whipped her long red ponytail around, gave a disdainful sideways glance. "Puh! They may be the matrons of my society, but they're the last thing I'd need fouling up life right now. The entire Fortress is up in a big hullabaloo after some escape that went up last night."

Saria clicked her tongue. "My husband was behind that one. So were my daughter and her friend. Sorry."

Nabooru clutched her thin shoulders with long red nails, lifting up both her legs and quite comfortably sitting cross-legged in the middle of the air. "Well, next time you see him, give him my thanks," she sarcastically jibed. "He made my life a living heck for a day."

A sluice of deep purple bars rained down, centered above the purple dais where the Seal of Shadow's engraving sat. Reassembling themselves into a sensible pattern, they made the form of an agile woman who could have either looked a very mature 15-year-old or a very youthful 50-year-old one. It happened to be the latter. The white hair in her tight bun was a trait of her kind, as were the pale skin and eyes that flamed red in darkness. The color that accompanied her fall only had to deepen slightly when it put together the dark black suit she was wearing.

"Ah, the woman of the hour," remarked Ruto, now trying to smooth down her face so it didn't look like she needed a shave. "Impa. You'd better have a good reason for calling us up here, you know."

"Sorry." She had the voice of a combination lock, secure with the subtlest of clicks pulsing beneath it. "It's just that I felt-"

Ten black pricks of pupils were all focused squarely on her, it was true, but it wasn't her voice that captured them. All the eyes were shot down almost two feet from beneath her chin.

"Impa, you're-" Rauru amazedly began, though a swift hand chop sliced off his statement there. "Hey, Sheikah age, bub, divide in half to make the Hylean equivalent, that makes me twenty-five," she expediently rectified him.

"Well, I know, but the King-well, he's getting on in years, you know, I didn't think he would-unless it's not him," Rauru breathed heavily. "And that would have made you ten at the time you took your disguise, so it's not a failsafe system, that divide-in-half job."

"Yeah, well, we initially develop at the same rate," she rebuked. "Besides, this isn't about the fact that I was really the Queen and I had to fake my own death," she moaned. "What I was going to say is that-"

"But will they know?" Rauru would not abandon the topic he'd latched on to, that being whatever Impa was. "That they're really a royal? I mean, it would make sense."

"Drop it," Nabooru advised, and they all nodded along with her good advice. Pleased with herself, Nabooru reclined, the barest outlines of a silvery declivity beneath her back. "We can all see what's up, Rauru, since we are all Sages and we do have the mage-sight," she scolded him. "And pretty soon everyone else will know, 'cuz it's not like something you can just hide forever," she yawned. "Unless you wear loose clothing. And even that doesn't work, because people will notice when suddenly, you've got a-"

"Will someone let me speak?" Impa was sharp, and she thought she could hear a few coughs masking a dark comment or two. She thought it came from Rauru's direction, thought it was unlike him to pull a masked insult, let alone an insult at all. Met with silence, she gave an affirmative foot stamp. "Right. As I was saying. I've heard plenty of reports of Twinrova popping up everywhere. Domain, Goron City, and recently-from my telepathic tile-Shadow Haven, the last refuge of my people. Now, all these reports have been odd because."

"-Because Twinrova hasn't actually done anything," Darunia vouched. "Just flown about and frightened the willies out of a couple people. Not like them at all, really."

"The Zora have good reason to infer it was them that set the Phantom on us," Ruto chirped, the gills on her neck ruffling up. "That certainly qualifies as 'something' in my book!"

"But you don't know that. Past experience makes us suspicious, but we haven't found any credible evidence to prove they're up to something."

"All these facts are old hash, Impa, why did you bother calling us here?" Rauru was almost motionless, as per usual, but his jaded old eyes had an indigence stewing behind them. "Unless you've noticed something that should concern us."

"Something extremely unsettling, Rauru," she sighed, and flexed her long, nimble fingers. "The call I got from Haven was on spot-of-the-minute; a live report." She snapped her fingers. "Twinrova was trying to bargain their way in."

"Same thing happened to us," groaned Darunia, who kept crossing and un-crossing his arms in a nervous and impatient fidget. "What's the big deal?"

Impa glared at him. "Do you know what lies in Haven?"

"Well, yes, or course, we all do," said Saria with boredom. "Most people don't, but, we're privileged that way, aren't we? Aside from some of the last Sheikah dwellings, it's where the Book of Dusk rests."

The Book of Dusk was a spellbook of an ancient writ, penned by the Sage's Apprentices. Mudora, Byrna, and Somaria, three students to the first seven Sages of old, had put together two master grimores of spells. The Book of Dawn was the first, whose now-crippled pages listed the most powerful in chants to cover all a person could worry about in life. The Book of Dusk was much the same, only it held the secrets to command over death. Experimenting with those necromancies, it was believed that the Apprentices had accidentally created the ReDead and Gibdo that stalked darker corridors. As with any object possessed of power that great, or the potential thereof, it was no surprise Impa was worried about Twinrova being near to it.

"Well, the Book of Dusk. you can bring people back with that book, you know. Back from the dead. Of course, you'll probably end up nearly killing yourself in the process, as it takes an un-Goddessly amount of power to fuel those kinds of spells, but it can be done. I mean, what could Twinrova do with a book like that.?"

Saria knew what her fellow Sage was insinuating, and she knew full well her stance on it even before Impa had clarified her topic. "They wouldn't dare. They know what Link'd do to them if they did! Besides, there's us. My power fairly doubled six years ago when I got involved in that little tangle, and Rauru has his magic that could very easily smite them upside the head, and Goddesses know we each have something we can do."

"But we can't deny there's a possibility that they could!"

"I for one think you're overexaggerating, Impa," breathed Nabooru, who did a little backflip in mid-air and smoothly fell back into her floating cushion. "Not like you'd be to blame if you were-I know being in your situation makes me catty."

"Not that again," snorted Saria. "Didn't you say we should forget it."

"And by bringing up that she said to forget it you're remembering it again," snarled Impa, clearly touchy about whatever it was that was up with her. "Totally off topic. Heading back towards the path, I don't think I'm overexaggerating. There's a definite possibility that they're trying to do what I think they're trying to do, and Hyrule is in serious trouble."

Nabooru cackled in such a fashion that one might think Impa had just made a hilariously amusing joke. "Trouble? Pah! Link's more than a match for that overgrown pig, even if he is coming back! How many times does the poor guy have to prove it to ya?" She kicked one leg up to the side and did a sort of cartwheel, gazing around at the Chamber of Sages upside-down. The action was so childlike and ridiculous it might come off as mocking.

"He kills," stammered Impa, putting her hand to her heart. "He kills for the warmth of blood spilling over his fingers! He kills to view his reflection in a glistening stream of red! He kills just so he can feast upon the hearts of his victims and gnaw their bones."

Nabooru righted herself, delicately alighting on the floor one more. "Goddesses, you Sheikah are so melodramatic," she lamented, clicking her tongue as if she woken up with a bitter flavor in her mouth. "You start speaking poetry every time you meet up with something you don't like. Ever consider writing a novel?"

"Nabooru, if he's coming back," Impa pleaded. "If! Even I know it may not happen. But it could. It's possible. It's probable! If Twinrova really are planning on restoring Ganon, then we must do something to prepare." Her knees were bent; she wanted to get down on them, and she would genuflect to make her plans into actions. "Not much! Put extra seals on the Triforce. Find any powerful artifacts-like the Wind Waker, Ether, Quake and Bombos, anything he could possibly use-and seal them away, too. Put extra guards on everything. And make sure that you yourselves are in apt condition to fight if he comes. Do whatever it takes. Train. Saria, you, make potions. Darunia, help release the pressure in Death Mountain so that he won't be able to coax it into eruption. Ruto, find safe places for all the Zora! I don't think he'll strike about against his former people, but be careful, Nabooru. And, Rauru, I think you should do what you already do best-pray. If we ever needed the Goddesses, it's now."

"You're going to become highly unpopular for a while if this turns out to be a false alarm," scoffed Ruto, who wasn't fancying the prospect of herding all the Zoras into hiding. True, they had a sanctuary built for emergencies, but it was in a rather dank and ugly underwater cave that no one would like to hide in for long. "I presume your yourself are planning on ferreting all the Kakarikans off somewhere while we wait out this little spell?"

"No, but I am placing them on alert," nodded Impa, who stepped off her seal and arched toward the center dais. "As for me." She placed the black tip of one thin foot inside the center engraving, and jumped to bring her entire body into the circle. "I am going Tima M?ditori for a week or so, however long it takes. So, don't go looking for me."

"Tima M?d. Impa, you can't! We're going to need you!" Rauru stammered. "Besides, what good is it to us if you come back a year older than you started?"

"It'll be all the better for me, Rauru," she replied loftily, hand perched above her heart. "Any way you look at it, I've gone and made myself vulnerable for quite some time. Better a week than seemingly endless months, right?"

The unconvinced Sage inquisitively raised and eyebrow, seeming to swivel on a lazy Suzan built underneath his vestments. "But if you are right, and he returns. This week. What'll we do without the full circle?"

"Oh, you can manage," she grinned, managing to pull off a little wink. "There's always Zelda. Six out of seven works nine out of ten times. Doesn't it?"

Rauru mumbled, "Your ratios do nothing for me." A few clicks signaled his soft-shod foot rapping up and down on the Sages' charmed marble pillar.

"Could we call the dismissal of the meeting now?" asked Saria, looking anxious and with her mind likely on something that may or may not have been burning at the moment. She twiddled her fingers. "I was kind of busy when I got called here."

Impa sveltely pranced back to her circle, seeming to glide across ice that formed beneath her as she walked. For her bleeding speech, she gave a surprisingly bubbly grin at the request made. "I suppose," she chuckled, her red eyes rippling like a lava flow against the mostly stilly blue atmosphere. "But before I go. I really must make this clear to you all. Now I know, at last count, all of us here have at least one child."

Saria nodded, thinking of Posie, currently an absentee from her life, and suddenly seeing flashes in her head of her sister-in-law Aryll's adopted son Click. "Yes. Posie, Link, Tony and Bruno, Zelda, all of Nabooru's daughters, and Ralloy. What about them, Impa? Aside from that fact their ranks will shortly be. aherm. joined."

"Warn them," Impa clenched a fistful of air. "If-if we are dealing with the return of Ganon, they are prime targets and in great danger. We as Sages are too pure for his claws to touch, but they are easy targets for him and removing them would eliminate future threats for him. Rauru, your son Ralloy-"-she nodded to him-"-he's a grown man and a warrior; I think he is well to defend himself. Zelda is defended as well, for she holds the Spirit of the Seventh Sage. And Posie has her wonderful father. But this does not mean they are free and clear! Be especially careful. I know I'll be watching closely over my other. There now," and she rubbed her hands together to try and give a sense of finality to it all, "I've finished my ranting. Any more parting words?"

"Erherm," Rauru cleared his voice. In a voice so sheepish a ram's bleat could be underlying it, he muttered, "And congratulations, I guess. On. you know. and all."

Face falling soft, she happily sighed: "Thanks."

*****************************

"I don't want to hear it. Don't-want-to-hear-it. You understand me?"

"We understand ya alright, but that doesn't mean we're gonna accept it. You might as well say it, Mr. B. We are-"

"Don't, Elaine," Link hurriedly scolded. His nose was buried between a browned crease, a parchment valley appropriately placed in the rift between Ipanajou and Death Mountain. "We're gonna get out of this. I swear it!"

"Daddy, you don't have to act like you know what you're doing," sighed Posie fitfully, tearing cockleburs out of her hair. "'Cuz you sure don't."

"Posie, love, I do know what I'm doing. I have a handle on this situation. Just gimmie some slack, kid!"

"He's hopelessly obstinate; give it up, Posie," Naomi tried to caution her. Obstinate: A good, strong word that described Link perfectly. She was glad she was in the company of two kids who understood what it meant. She had had to ask Posie earlier why she had the vocabulary of a 37- year-old-man, and she couldn't help but giggle a bit when Posie had rather wittily answered that it was because her favorite book was written by one. Naomi remembered a similar story about one of her favorite Outside authors- at the age of three, that author had found a biology textbook for high- schoolers. In kindergarten, her favorite words had been "abstract" and "protozoa."

"That or he thinks if he ignores our problem, it'll go away," moaned Posie, who batted her eyes and shook the rain vigorously from her head. "I guess he thinks we'll un-lose ourselves."

"Ha! Un-lose," grimly gaffed Naomi. "Good one. Yeah," and she lackadaisically blew at her temple hair. It didn't budge an inch; it was too sodden with rain. "It's getting as muddy here as it was in the Fountain Cave."

"Muck muddy grime gross sludge slop," rattled Elaine from a vacant nowhere in the middle of her brain. "That's all it's been. Why did I feel excited about coming on this trip? It's been walk, walk, walk, misadventure, walk, walk, nearly get boiled, walk, walk, Gerudos, runrunrun walk walk walk fall into a stream, float, get picked up and dumped at Zora's, walk, walk, wade, wade, wade, Freezair, wade, wade, walk, walk, dodge, walk, run, move in circles, walk, walk, walk."

"That's funny, I could swear you were having fun earlier," Naomi sighed with sarcasm. "Oh well. Not like I haven't had mixed feelings about anything before."

"Well, the life of a hero isn't all glitz and glamour," Link mumbled over his shoulder. Walking with his neck contorted and his eyes on his companions, he resembled a strange owl from some twisted forest. "It's a lot of muck, mud, and grime. And blood. Seriously, someone should shoot those bards for making up glamorous ballads like they do."

Posie nodded, nostrils choked with the memory of her burst, slain Dodongo. Elaine took a small gulp as well, eyes full of saline remembering their Lizafos. Naomi looked sideways at them, feeling the sadness their little hearts sent out and sympathizing. The incident in the desert had been quite a scrap, but she hadn't killed then. When they'd come for her at Randy's house, then she'd killed. Only four members of the dozen-strong force were healthy enough to drag her back, and of the other eight, three had tasted their final battle.

Link turned away, satisfied that they'd not complain so steeply now. "War is worse, though. So much worse. I was born during the Great War. it took my father, my mother, all of my grandparents except my mother's mother, and three of her siblings. Even my father, who was a soldier, was murdered before he saw a day of battle. Killed by jealousy and hate. Never become a general, Posie. be a warrior, a good warrior, but don't be a general."

Posie didn't need to be told to stay away from that profession. Link complained about Igre Rendelholfe on a daily basis. From what she'd heard, he was best summed up as a right bastard. Though she'd never dare use such terminology out loud.

Droopy Navi had her soaked wings plastered to her back and wrapped around her shoulders, her glow turned down several grades and her entire person looking like something to be thrown out with the rest of the trash. "I'm not having fun," she said blatantly; that was already obvious. "I'm wet, I'm cold, and I'm bored. I need a nice warm fire and a cozy blanket. Let's see, what else can I whine about? That fact that we don't know where we're going, except that we should be headed in the general direction of a lake?"

A large white streak, illustrated like a great vein in the sky's arm, whipped across the sky. A rumble taunted it less than a second later.

".Not to mention there's a chance we'll get electrocuted?"

"Hey, I played dodgeball, volleyball, basketball and Four Square in the rain. You can at least walk, no, ride on my shoulder through it."

"I'm just sick and tired of water in general," sniffed Elaine, unintentionally punctuating herself with a sneeze. "The Tragic Tale of Posie Blade and Elaine Parkerstine needs a new plot device."

On more than one occasion in their lives, the four could have sworn that Nature had a voice. A brilliant flash brought its less-than-silent companion, who seemed to agree with a resounding "Yes."

"No more falling into pits. No more running into stuff. I don't want to meet anyone else. Is adventure always this repetitive, Daddy?"

Link rotated the map he held; perhaps he had been reading it upside- down. It didn't help. "Sometimes, kid, sometimes."

"I agree on the pits part," sighed Naomi, who held her hand out and gagged as if to push away some offensive offering. "No more Swiss cheese. There's still plot holes that need patching for me, never mind real, physical, tangible ones in the ground!"

Posie shook her head, looking back and up at Naomi. "Holes can't be tangible," she corrected. "The dirt on the sides of the hole can, but not the hole itself."

"Thank you, Einstein," thanked Naomi sarcastically. "I'll remember next time that you're such a literalist. Never let me use an old adage around you, no siree!"

Posie let her back face Naomi again, but she made obvious the intelligent finger she held high as she possibly could into the air. "She who repeatedly quotes others says nothing intelligent enough to quote herself," she tailored from a longer expression she had once heard.

"Deep," pondered Elaine, looking skyward and half-expecting the Muse herself to sweep down from it at that profound statement. "Who said that? Someone like Dickinson or Shakespeare, or all those other old stuffy authors sophisticated-looking people like to pretend they read?"

"Actually, I just made it up on the spur of the moment."

Elaine giggled. "Well, I s'ppose it would be defeating its own purpose if you didn't, then?"

There was another responsive burst of laughter from her smaller friend up in front of her.

"Ok. I think I've found the path that will put us back on the trail," Link interrupted. "It's simple. About a thirty-minute hike. Not long. We've survived for the past few wandering without much of a point, I think we can go for a half-hour more."

"It has to be at least 15 by now," groaned Naomi, whose forest- blocked vision left her without a sun to judge by. But her gut instincts were telling. "We stopped to eat at about noon. I think it's definitely been around three hours!"

There was a cough marked with Navi's signature fairy buzz. "Care for some bad news, Naomi?"

"Sure, sure." After all, she thought, it couldn't be worse. It was already raining.

"It's only been a little under one. Hour, I mean."

The Gerudo shrieked with rage and more than a little disgust. She was certainly intelligent enough alone, and she didn't need to pretend to have read Shakespeare. She had. Romeo seemed like a Sage at the time, though Sage of What, she didn't know-"Sad hours seem long." Well, if sad hours were long, lost ones were positively protracted. She was positive that any nonexistent watches she might have owned would have turtle-bred second hands that lumbered on in a slow-and-steady that wouldn't win any races. She mumbled into her hands, feeling like a doll made out of lead-"Goddesses help me."

"Well then, start praying," sighed Link, who was developing a small fidget-he'd unroll the map, stare at it, and then roll it up again, as if it would shift each time he turned away and magically reform the world with it to bring them the correct path. "We need all the help we can get."

Naomi threw her arms up the air. They fell with all the grace of a plummeting elephant. "Great. So you're admitting we're lost."

"I would prefer we used the phrase. unsure of our current coordinates." His little twitch went off again. Unroll, glance, roll. "Or. currently unaware of our longitude and latitude. Or. locationally challenged. Or."

"Lost," groaned Posie, Elaine, Naomi and Navi all at once.

Seeing Naomi's lip mold into a sneer, he quickly gave in. "Ok, lost works."

***********************

Modern technology is something we often take for granted. Our cars, air conditioners, television sets and radios-nearly all of us alive today were born with the comfort of knowing these things would always be here for us, always there to lay back upon when the world turns its rough shoulder to us. And yet these machines that give us our cushioned existence here in the Outside are diseased pathogens upon the earth, coughing up rude toxins that give our fragile sphere many dire cracks. And we dare sit and wonder how it all happens.

No Outsider could have ever survived beholding the bottom of Lake Lolita, wild purity set in the crystal-fine waters of near-machine-free Hyrule. No Zora fins would dare stir up its silts as they did then-Lolita is rich in pearls, for every grain of sand is round as a tiny ball and reflects the sun like so much gold dust coating the lake's blue floor. Silver clouds tainted yellow-green by a combination of water filter and sunlight laughed up in the azure depths, as a foot of mottled gray-green dug into the floor with its claws to propel itself onward toward the King of Lolita's woven-seaweed-and-driftwood throne, set among his abalone palace.

"Your Majesty," the servant panted, letting the bubble-rich water saturate his bat wing gills. As a fish did, his lips were large and brilliant red-but unlike fish, he bore two curved sets of scythed teeth, and his jaws were fully articulate in the speech of man. "Visitors."

Many before had likened the less couth, slightly devolved Zora kind to the oversized spawn of frogs and sharks. But the King of their sort seemed to have a bit more turtle in him than any other reptile or amphibian. Unlike the King of the more respected and humanoid blue Zoras, he wore no fancy ornaments and hefted no staff. He was simply an immense creature-large enough that, should one of his servants displease him, he needn't send them to be beheaded, he could simply swallow them in one gulp. But he wouldn't think of such a thing. He may have been slightly barbaric, but he was no cannibal.

"Well, Scout, send them in! Send them in, boy, don't stand there!"

"My lord," and the Zora gave a bow that was deep beyond those to which the lake submerged. "We do not have visitors in our immediate lake, not yet. I merely said, we have them, as in, they are nearing our lake and may enter it."

"Ah." This King laid back, his throne creaking beneath him. He felt very rich at the moment-and he liked to feel rich. It made him feel so much more than merely King of the Lake, but as if he were King of the Sea. "Tell me, scout. Who discovered this? Was it you?"

"'Twas indeed, milord, said in all humbleness, of course," he genuflected on his monarch.

"What did these visitors look like? Did you get a good look at them?"

"Two of them, milord," nodded the servant, careful to keep his voice respectfully soft despite his eagerness to share. "The other two were very small."

"Tell me what you have found," the King sternly, but not harshly, commanded.

"Well," the servile Zora began, biting his large lower lip with many teeth in order to find the proper description to convey his sights. "One of them, travelling behind. She was a Gerudo-long red hair; dingy and patched purple clothes; very strange markings on her face." Few bubbles flew from his mouth as he talked. Good. It was considered very crass indeed to speak and make many bubbles, much like a human spitting as they talked.

"Gerudo," he snarled, raking a few new lines into the already weathered surface of his armrests. "Foul creature, how did she enter our woods? She shouldn't be here."

"She was with the other, milord," the insignificant Zora scout desperately tried to reclaim the King's good humor. "Sort of middle-sized fellow; mildly lanky. sharp features. Dressed in a green tunic, white leggings and undershirt. blonde hair that shone from a mile away, milord." The servant bowed repeatedly. "And. a most peculiar long hat that resembled a sock. Also green. If you please, milord."

The King of the Lolita Zoras put a spiny, webbed hand to his large red lips, letting a few deep breaths run over his many-ribbed gills and pump oxygen to his brain for thought. "Hmmm. sounds familiar, that fellow does. I seem to recall. my, it must have been at least ten years ago! A young chap, dressed almost just like that with the features you described. why, he showed up at the lake here, apparently with his heart set on defeating Agahime! Whoever that was," he tutted to himself. "Well, I felt sorry for the lad and sold him a pair of our best flippers at a steal, anyway. Wasn't much of a swimmer, he wasn't."

"It couldn't possibly be the same person," the reporter replied. "He must be a grown man right now; why would he dress the same way now as he did when he was a teenager? Preteen, if he was that much of a 'young chap?'"

"There are some with stubborn tastes," proudly stated the King, licking his lips and thinking of the excellent lunch he'd just been served.

A sudden brisk stroke of brilliance fell through his mind. Calmly, almost casually now, he seemed to have entered a windfall of memory. "Say, I think I remember that lad's name! Something beginning with the letter L. Leo? Liam? Logan? No, it was something uncommon. ah, Link! That was it. Link. Does that name ring bells with anyone here?" He surveyed his court, full of guards, mages, and pages running back and forth on errands.

A few faces twirled back and forth under the silver surveillance of a few rays of sun sinking in from between the cracks in the roof. Some of them had never heard the name before in their lives-unless they were speaking about chains or golf courses-while a few were vaguely familiar with the Hero and his exploits. One guard swallowed thickly while an advisor's eyes roved around and around, swiveling like billiard balls in their sockets. Wild-Zora eyes are highly mobile, and the metaphorical eight ball was sunk in the corner pocket every time those eyes did another rotation.

The few seconds of silence the King was presented with well his hat hitting the floor, and no one was so far rushing to pick it up with an eager answer. "Anyone?" he tentatively inquired.

"I-know a little about the man," one mage prompted himself into reply, hot steam and vapor exhaled with his breath from the eternal stream of fireballs he coughed up. "He's a sort of idol among the Hyleans-a hero, a saint, whatever you wish to call him. He has brought down numerous great fiends in his short time-Ganon, Agahime, the Far Nightmares, Vaati, Veran the Sorceress, General Onox. oh, I'm fairly sure there are others, but their names escape me at the present point. The chap's a fairly large name, as it goes. I couldn't tell you the names of those with him, however."

The Wild-Zora King lifted himself by the fins to settle himself more properly, letting himself be dipped into irony as if he'd been caught, fried, and served with tartar sauce. "So, that little wench from all those years ago pulled through. good on you, boy, good on you. Now, I won't say no to a little evil-adds some spice to life once in a while-but Hyrule's a better place without the likes of some of them. I do know Ganon. How long are they in coming, do you think?"

The scout looked up at his curious monarch and did a few quick calculations in his head to answer this next question. "Oh, if they continue along the path they are going-two days, milord."

The Wild-Zora king sighed, taking a deep breath and then blowing a few exquisite silver orbs into the water. "Are they trying to come this way? Seemingly? Knowedly? Do we have any assurance?"

"Most definitely, milord," the scout piped up. "They had Marks. Resonating on their chests, brightly to our eyes. They must have received them as a gift from one of the royal Zoras."

"Very well." The King waved a little banishing backside fin, shooing off the scout. "Now, please, go show our guests the. express route."

********************

It seemed Link's declivity toward the naïve was being ground down to a flat plain as of late. Finally admitting they were lost? Naomi was sure he could say no truer words. Until now. Now, in one simple guttural outburst, he made one singular statement that no person in that situation could have possibly disagreed with. "Arrrrrrrgggg!"

They seemed to have been ambushed, though their would-be abductor or attacker had very bad aim. Perhaps he'd been going for the element of surprise, shocking them all into a paralyzed terror so that he could collect them like mushrooms or ravage them as a lioness ravages her latest catch. He certainly hadn't made a superior shot. He landed about a yard away from Link's feet, coercing a startled yelp from him and a few muffled squeaks of alarm from Posie and Elaine. His skin was a scaly and wet blue- green, deep in tone upon his head and lighter in color down his body. A few, sparse quills rose from his arms and back, a thick green web stretched tight between them. His lips were of a fungal red that were nevertheless highly unattractive, dotted to the far left and right by well-shown glistening teeth.

His homely face jerked upward from where it lay on the ground, quickly taking in its worm's-eye view of Link's slack-jawed stunned expression and more face-on one of the clearly baffled Posie. Moving his rubber lips in a slow, drawled pace that make soft smacking sounds out of water, he mouthed-"Good, I've found you."

"Good? Does this mean to infer you were looking for us?!" Naomi blared, mildly outraged. Nearly("Nearly" in her books being rather loosely defined) getting knocked over by a kipper-in-the-raw did not count as good. ("Good" in her books being anything that did not seek to interrupt her usual, predetermined routine.)

"Aye, milord sent me out here for you."

Elaine suddenly pointed, jabbing her finger as if she held a knife every time she stressed even a single syllable. "Wait! You're one of those- errm, wild Zoras, aren't you? Yeah. is your master the King of Lake Lolita?"

The young scout got to his feet, only to fall in a genuflect again at the mention of his commander's name. "Yes, he is. The honorable, King of the Sea."

"Is he still callin' himself that?" snorted Link, having memories all too clear of his exploits with the fishy emperor. Well, he thought to himself, it wasn't his fault he wasn't very good at swimming, was it? He wasn't then, anyway. Link found it exceedingly humorous that his friend Mr. M had left out, from the "game" that was supposed to prequel all others, his need to beg the Royal Zora King of a pair of flippers. And then buying some off that overgrown excuse for a salmon. "Well, does he still remember good ol' Link?"

"He. needed to be reminded," the scout slyly looked to the side. He was ashamed of his lord's lack of long-term memory. "But yes, for the most part. he did remember. He wished me to bring you to the lake."

Link scratched his head, baffled that someone he had only met briefly a decade before would so willingly send him a chauffeur. Perhaps his now- escalated reputation had something to do with it, though he couldn't see a sociophobic King of feral Zoras keeping up much with current events. "Well, that's, uh, nice of him. What's your name, anyway?"

"Kenta, sir-not a very royal one, but it will do?" His eyes seemed to plead sympathy for a lack of a better titled while he eased up from his bow.

"Name's just a bunch of letters thrown together in a pretty pattern. 'Course it'll do!" Posie gave a rather large thumbs-up for such a small person. "I'm Posie, by the way, and this is my friend Elaine, my daddy-but you knew him-and Miss Naomi."

"Um-" Link re-adjusted his hat. "I-didn't ask for an introduction, but that was nice of you anyway, Posie," he shrugged.

A little flipping ball of light rushed forth from Link's hat like an eruption, but stopping as if held by leather straps a few inches from the Zora's amphibious face. "And I would be Navi, but-"-sighing, she turned her back-"-not like anyone ever gives a care about the fairy."

"No-you are all most welcome in His Majesty's palace," Kenta said, now at his full posture. He was about four feet in height, near chest level to Link. "It's only a short hike from here."

Link held the much-fingered piece of parchment up to the little light coming in from the tree's canopies, scanning the dotted lines and jaggedly- inked mountains. "Yeah, but this map says-"

"Forget the map, Linky-boy," Naomi sliced.

Kenta licked his lips. "She speaks truly. A map does not show all paths to be taken."

Eager to cut their walking half, the four humans and lone fairly gratefully followed.

They began their condensed trek to Lake Lolita through a sudden slice in the woods, pointed out by their Wild-Zora leader some yards behind and carefully concealed beneath the bows of a Virentan Tanglewillow, a rare plant found mostly in the marsh-lands of Viren whose leaves were covered in a sticky secreting and its twigs in thorns that helped it live up to its name. Before the death of magic, its ancestors were supposed to have lived in southern Africa where they ate the humans who became trapped in their limbs, but most found the entire concept silly. This tree had blunt thorns and the rain had washed its leaves slick and clean, making for an easy trail. They slipped on past as easily as Kenta, whose hard and well-oiled scales threw back foliage and sluiced past mud.

Despite the tangling, packing roots of the trees, said mud was abundant as the rain washed bare the knots digging deep into the earth from the towering trunks. Thankfully, however, there was no need to get down on hands and knees and wade through it, as there had been in the Fountain Cavern. Kenta chose a path that leapt lithely around any big puddles of the stuff, even though the ground was certainly very wet. Link had to wonder if they were heading toward Lake Lolita or Swamp Lolita-the spongy forest floor here not only had a peculiar, curly texture, but it smelt distinctively of peat moss. Naomi two-stepped around as the floor became mushier, trying to avoid soaking her rather thin slippers in an overlarge pond of murky water.

"It's just an illusion," Kenta chided her. "We like our privacy, you know. So we placed this faux swamp here to deter outsiders-if you just will it away, it'll vanish; no fancy equipment needed."

Four breaths were simultaneously held as four minds each attempted to dispel the rather squelchy mirage-they were let go all at once, as well, as the oozing landscape they thought to be crossing disappeared without even blinking once.

Naomi allowed herself to proceed without doing jitterbugs. Link no long had to rumple his sharp nose at the odiferous bayou, and Posie and Elaine wore looks of a homogenous, yet candid relief.

Over the course of the day so far, Link had grown on harboring trees in his eyes, so a little jolt of stunned awe coursed through him when he realized there came a point in his sight where he could find only grass. It was short but ecstatically green, rather like a vast and well-groomed lawn. It danced around in little hillocks where only the occasional shrub dared to tread, re-weaving itself into a new pattern every time the wind took a different highway. A few saddened stems stuck up from the ground-the tired stubs of dandelions, having already lost their seeds in soft explosions. A particularly strong gust, no doubt, or a direct hit with a swollen raindrop- feral Zoran children didn't seem to be of the sort who'd purposefully blow out their white flames.

Elaine jogged ahead of the group, closely followed by Posie. Excited, knowing their next destination was less than a half-mile ahead of them, they used their size to convenience as they dodged a few embracing bushes to reach the place where the forest began balding. Link shouting a "Wait, hold up!" to their backs as he attempted to pick up speed against the messy floor, they cleared the last tree before anyone else of the group did. (Except, of course, for maybe Navi, who leapt from head to head in the ordeal and could have been alight on any one's when the two girls made their exit.)

The two of them stopped when a log appeared in their crow's-flight path, and they leapt up on its back with the Olympic agility only joy can bring. Posie found her clasp on the slippery, rubber-fuzz moss so she could lie upon it stabily, while Elaine knelt and watched, as if to be a spectator to an amazing sport.

Indeed, the placid god that was Lake Lolita was something very demanding of the eye. There were those who preferred its solemn company to that of Hylia's, for though Hylia could claim to dive deeper, Lolita was broader and its speckled surface did indeed seem at distance a sea, one which oscillated from the bright shallows to the dark depths in ways Hylia never did. Every time the rain stuck him, this king gained a new ring, one which, should it desire, could become as big as the lake himself.

It was a sight both mesmerizing and calming. Link and Naomi let themselves crumple up by the felled tree Posie and Elaine had claimed, taking a few gulps of the ionized air and enjoying the sweet scent the rain left upon their tongues. But they all knew what lay beneath the surface of that water, and this left them devoid of peace. Even if Kenta had been highly courteous.

Speaking of such, the Zoran underling slid up behind them, mercifully holding behind to give them their moment of accomplishment. But once they had enjoyed their brief breather, it was time to press forward and under Lolita's surface. Clearing his throat rather loudly, so it could be heard over the ruckus the downpour was making, he said, "Well, let us move on now. Milord is waiting for us."

Elaine turned around to look at Kenta, then after a few moment's pondering made the decision to stand. Two blotches of a new green painted her dress, right above her knees. "How are we going to go in? We don't have gills, you know."

"Your seals," and Kenta gestured to her chest. With his fine, enhanced eyes, the spined crest of Water shone like a neon drawing through her clothes. "Once you are accepted by the Lake, you will be able to breathe as if in air."

"Tidy," clicked Posie, who had briefly admired the henna-like spot made on her personage back when she had had her soak. "These do, err, wash off, don't they? I think Knashi said they did."

"A single drop of Lolita's water anywhere on your body and it will vanish. You will have been taken."

"And we can return. At any time. And still get through?" Even though this had been the gist of their sleeker guide, Knashi, Link looked for a reassuring confirmation from a resident of the lake they were about to trespass into.

"This is a gift which cannot be taken back. Though we may appear harsh, we are a bit more trusting of those with the courage to make it this far. Unlike that Deku Tree of the Lost Woods, who will sometimes hand out more temporary spells."

Link sighed a little-he did live in those very Woods after all, and did not like its planted guardian spoken ill of. Even less, its humanoid one. But Posie did not cringe at this minor slander at all-the Great Deku Sprout had always treater her very poorly. No, not even the mayor of her homestead liked her-well, no respect, as they were so fond of saying. Whomever they might have been, who so liked to revel in clichés.

"So I guess we just-"-Naomi creaked up on her feet again, staring determinedly at the surface tension she was soon to break-"-walk on in, then?"

Kenta bowed a little, with respect, and muttered, "Not without me. Even if the waters see you as no harm, there may be those among my people who would wish you gone. Even though the court has been informed of your coming; indeed it was they who sent me-certain, ah, peoples harbor a deep dislike of the human race."

Links hand raced behind his neck in an unconscious, flinchy little gesture. Its jagged terrain was mapped out in scars-like much else of his body. Nobody could affirm this wild-Zora's statement better than he. Their fire- spitting mages had left deep burns on large segments of his back. Nearly taken a sizable shred of his nose, though with one like his, it wasn't like he'd miss it. "I know what you're talking about."

"You have had tangles with them before."

Posie nodded for him. "Too many. I know-he's told me them all. And, hey, if you won't listen to our voices-his scars speak for themselves. Third-degree burns that never completely healed from your mages, I think?"

Fingering the skin between his shoulder blades, it having the texture of row of tilled soil, Link nodded in affirmation. At the time that mark had been laid there, it had been a very big, very serious, potentially life- threatening wound, so of course Link had little to no recollection of the actually event itself or the recovery. Every back-blast, every gut-punch, every thigh-slash was a complete whirl of blindness now. He could easily attribute any cut he possessed to some Universal Injury. Ganon was a good pick.

"Uh-oh," Elaine suddenly warbled.

Link zipped a gaze over to his right. Elaine was tentatively fingering her scalp, upon which every thread of her russet-colored hair stood erect as the trees in the forest behind. An entire crimson curtain waved delicately up behind Naomi's head, as if suspended in a bizarre anti-gravity bind.

He had witnessed this phenomena before, in the now-lost chapter of his career detailing the adventures of a boy roused from seven years of sleep to find himself a man. Rip Van Winkle, only under shorter detainment. But this. he could feel the bubbling feeling rising up in his hairs, charming them like an army of thing gold snakes This was what it had been like before the Phantom Ganondorf called down upon his deadly bolts in an attempt to strike Link down.

".Guys?" Posie swallowed a bitter mouthful of phlegm-it tasted like fear. Bloody fear. "I think this means we should run."

Somehow even with the prophecy of what was to come Link trickled a few loose lacings of sad humor. "Are Gerudos really faster than lightning, Naomi?"

The bolt had not even crashed upon them yet and already they seemed frozen by it, it having melted through their bodies and fusing their feet with the earth below. "That was-sort of a joke."

Someone finally had the sense to realize that, if the four of them continued to gawk up at the heavens like a peck of befuddled turkeys, several million volts of unbridled static would surge open the clouds and be born merely for the purpose of reducing the lot of them to smoking cinders. Said person was also tasting the lightning before it was ever created, sniffing out the tracers it let down to find a suitable spot to land upon. The miraculous energy-detecting powers of Navi were at work again, and she took it upon herself to act.

When it comes to magic, fairies do not have much of it. Only enough to give them prolonged life and unnatural endurance, plus the odd sixth and seventh sense. But like any magic-wielding creature they can draw from a source if one is nearby, and next to Navi there just happened to be a rather large one. A person-by the name of Posie Cassandra Blade. Untapped magepulse soared around her body, a side effect of being the child of a Sage-and as Posie was not very adept at magic, very little of it had ever been used.

Navi, therefore, used what little spare magic she had to secure a drain- line in Posie's sources, funneling as much of the unattempted power into herself as her fay body could hold. A ripe flavor much like that of the world's most potent pepper rolled around her tongue on the exact millisecond she mimed a yank on her tapping string, pulling out a supreme flood that left the five of them absent from the world just as the heavenly spear had struck.

From Posie's point of view, this experience was a most extraordinary one indeed. Though she knew that lightning would strike within the seconds, she felt oddly overwhelmed by lethargy and unable to attempt a rescue of even her own self. The peculiar rumbling that came with warp-song travel began to emanate from her gut, but she could not have guess that an instant later she would suddenly be smote blind, deaf and paralyzed via a sensation that seemed to her like her soul being drawn out from her lungs. Was it the bolt? For a moment she blacked out, unable to determine what had just become of the physical world.

She then looked down with a suddenly-restored sight, only to find herself still lying upon the log, which now bobbed in the middle of some vast ocean.

The lake seemed so much larger when one was right in the middle of it.

"What in the name.?" Naomi breast-stroked a few paces forward, taking as her raft the jerking, swirling piece of rotting wood. "What just happened here?"

"I dunno," gasped Posie, who fell over on her stomach, "but I feel like that lightning bolt killed me and than one of the Goddesses brought me back to life."

"Amazing magic," awedly whispered the idly drifting Zora. Not everyone had been transported with the same relative placement-Elaine was clutching his shoulders with the viciousness of her will to life, even though the air buoyed under the water was hers for the taking now. "Someone among us executed a spot-of-the-minute group teleportation spell. To take five people even a quarter of a mile." He shook his head, his reflection blurrily agreeing with him. "Which of you is capable of such magic?"

"None of us alone," said Navi, who had performed the spell from her usual refuge of Link's hat, now flitting out to make her deed public. "I cast the spell, but the magic came from Posie. She's got plenty of it to spare, and I-err, figured since she's not exactly using it, it wouldn't hurt to nick a little."

"So that's what that was," groaned an astonished Posie, massaging her temple a little while her eyes drooped in fatigue. "Well, it did hurt; a lot, and I don't think that was just a little," she scoffed. Her heart pounded like that of a marathon runner, even though she had done none of the work of channeling the weave of the spell. She had merely been the vessel holding the proper ingredients. "You could ask before doing that again."

"Well sorry, Little Miss Princess, but someone had to do something, or else we'd all be adventurers flambé, electricity being the pyrotectant of choice. And since everyone was so mesmerized with the prospect of their immanent death, it had to be me!"

"Look, Navi, I don't know if you've ever had your magic yanked from your body from an outside force, but it really is painful," Link showed his full support. "You've saved the day for us again, I won't deny, but that was sort of a mean thing to do without asking. I don't have a lot of magic in me, but I've had it taken from me by Zelda and the Sages in battles because my magic is inherently more effective on Ganon's armies than theirs. Simply because it's mine. It's not exactly a hobby of mine-to have so much power taken from such a small body in so short a time must have been excruciating."

"For a moment, it was like I was trying to breathe in fire," Posie related in the best way she could. "Then I fainted-"

"We all did, it wasn't a faint," Navi explained. "For just a mere second we were on the plane of oblivion while we were moved here, over the lake. I'm. I'm really sorry about that, Posie."

"Well, at least we live," gulped Kenta. "I thank you, Navi, but mostly I thank Posie, for fueling our escape."

Elaine trembled, dress sodden and clingy, "I want to get out of here."

Link paddled about, peering underwater in an attempt to seek the palace where the so-called King of the Sea lived. His vision, he found upon submerging his head, was as clear he could receive above water. Though he didn't feel anything suddenly sprout around his neck, he could draw in with his human lungs and be given the satisfaction of a long, deep breath. "Where we really need to go is down," he said, stroking his messy bangs out of his eyes as they glued themselves there with a conglomeration of water drops. "And, so far, the breathing underwater thing checks out all right."

"Swim down?" asked Naomi, nicking her idle feet a few inches as the log clutched whirlpooled around.

Elaine openly shuddered at this. "But I can't swim," she protested. "All I know how to do is sink."

"Sinking might be a good thing here," mused Posie, peering over the edge of her overgrown raft into the enigmas wrapped up beneath the rippling surface. "You'd get down, wouldn't you?"

Kenta clicked his beaded tongue a few times at this. "Not good enough. The human body is light; it floats, and in order to be grabbed by the undertow spells that keep us on the floor you need to paddle down further. If you do not know how to swim, as you say-"-He looked down to his shoulder, which had been taken hostage by Elaine-"-then I suggest you learn. You will have to learn someday, anyway."

"It's not too hard, is it?"

"Nah," said Link, who splashed up to the flipping Wild-Zora and took hold of Elaine's arm. "Just kick your feet and move your arms. Like this!" He did a few petite laps in front of her for effect, hoping she would-to coin an appropriate pun-get the drift of it. "I could show you how next time you visit us in the forest; we've got a little river you know. But for now, I suppose I could just pull you down or. something."

Naomi suddenly yelped when her bar of support spun over as if under the cleats of a mad log-roller, taking Posie for a tumble into the surprisingly temperate waters of Lake Lolita. Posie's outfit instantly turned a dark, sodden shade of olive green, her hair becoming a dampened hay. Purposefully sticking her head under, she attempted to inhale. Not a deep breath, mind, in case the spells set upon her were faulty, but just one enough to test the veracity of the spell. She did not feel it go directly into her lungs as air normally would have, but no check would reveal gills or anything of the sort outside her body. It had to be an inner change, then, that let the breath finally come to her as a refreshing gulp of oxygen.

She came up, hardly confounded by the sudden switch from water to wind. "My water-breathing spell seems OK too. I guess yours would be fine, then, as well."

Squeezing all the bravery she could muster out of her already-wrung heart, Elaine let go of Kenta's slippery limb and let herself plunge under. Second near-drowning experience in two days, she thought. I survived once, so I should be able to go it again, right?

The fact that her lungs made no effort to cease their tireless job even as their normal airway was muffled by the lake surprised her, at first. Opening her fearfully-clamped eyes, she was assaulted with a clear and utterly peaceful scene of particles drifting near the surface of the water, suspended eternally in a season of serenity even while a storm-fed tension wracked the silvery ceiling above her.

My Goddesses. This actually works!

Not that she would take the utterly incredible Knashi for a crackpot, but some things had just seemed to implausible to her before. Like the fact that Tony the Terrible and Posie's feud goes way back to their parents' days, a nasty little devil living in the back of her skull chided her. But living in the here and now, and actually feeling the water she inhaled turn to breathable oxygen, her soul-wound tight as a rubber band-snapped open and relaxed. She decided to try and force a yawn to see what would happen, but the merest thought drove her mouth agape. Still, she didn't choke. She aimed for one further experiment.

Even without splashing at all, her body hung comfortably just below the lake's tossed surface. She stuck her head up a little, fighting a little to keep it in a steady position. Right where her nose lingered above the surface tension, but where her mouth was submerged. Calling her nostrils to a halt, she took a deep breath in through her mouth. and let it escape through her nose. Then she reversed-she took a breath through her nose and let it fly between her lips. Whatever system had been fixed up inside her apparently took an interchangeable atmosphere. Concentric circles blossoming on the lake's surface slightly distorted her eager smile.

"Not so difficult once you get the hang of it," the bubbles popped beneath her ear. Though it was somewhat of a sloppy gurgle to normal hearing, apparently their charms had worked on their ears as well. Words spoken beneath waters were clear as a summer sky. Posie's head darted up beside Elaine's, and her slurped gulp was only one of exhaustion.

Elaine was at lost for something in which she could say in reply to this. "My foot feels all squishy," she ad-libbed. "The one that still has a shoe on it."

Posie laughed. "If my boots weren't Kokiri make, I'd be fearing for their lives right now," she chuckled. "They're leather. They'd shrink like. until. well, like washed wool until they were too small even for me!"

Elaine grinned and blew a few pearly bubbles into the water. Even Posie could make jokes about her size on occasion-just so long as she knew her company would laugh at the joke itself and not its subject matter. "Not to mention they'd get all stiff and cracked. What DO you Kokiri treat your clothes with, anyway, and why don't you sell it?"

"Hey, tell it to the Deku Tree, not me." Posie shrugged, then sunk underneath the great rippling blue.

Someone grabbed the hem of Elaine's dress-it was Naomi, kicking her way into the heavily-shaded deep. It occurred to Elaine, recalling ancient tidings of safety from the adult's lectures, that they were probably in a very dangerous situation at the moment. Lightning had already proved itself capable of striking nearby, what if it hit the lake? Hopefully the Zoran colony was situated deep enough that and electric pulse would lack the push to make it there.

The quality of light underwater quickly changed from suffocated of sun to eerily illuminated. Mage-lights of myriad blues delicately decorated fallen shells and pieces of seaweed, almost indistinguishable from the bubbles themselves except for their subtle glow and engorged size. The particles of jetsam found floating in the water became thinner and sparser as they dived deeper, and the pressure caved in on everyone's heads. Posie's ears popped no less than three times as she relentlessly scooped through the water in effort to stay abreast of her crew. Link had had plenty of experience under water before, and figured he would probably come off the end of this episode with a bad case of the bends.

Then they approached what looked like a strange film in the water, like one might find between water and oil poured on top. Beneath it the lake looked even more infinitely blue than it had on the surface; blue enough to be a rival of the ancient eyes of the Blades. Almost electric blue, Elaine thought, and was uncomfortable reminded by her own self of what toiled in the clouds. It seemed free of even the mites the rest of the waters possessed.

Kenta stopped in his strokes right before it, stoking up a few gentle whirlwinds of foam and being exceedingly cautious not to come in contact with the force field. Naomi extended her free arm to Elaine's torso, hugging the girl to her chest as she fought not to surface. Posie followed her friend's earlier example, savoring her time stuck to Link's arm. Fighting the fierce water pressure was tiring, and seeing her fatigue, Link was more than happy to let her stay. He even gave her an extra safeguard against floating away, by firmly placing a hand over her.

"Once you pass through here, you'll sink gently to the bottom and you may walk as normal," he edified them. "Please don't go wandering off, as I feel you may encounter the less courteous of our denizens all too soon."

"In other words, the ones who want to kill us."

"Perhaps I would not put it in such. blunt a tongue," Kenta murmured, nonchalantly blowing a few wreaths of foam up into the lake. "But that is the basic idea.

"Now then, bottoms up!" He twisted over on his stomach to paddle down into the oozing shield, which sucked around him like a greedy jelly. His claw- decorated fins, the last to pass through, let it pucker back up around them with little cracks and ant's gunshots. Underneath the surface, swirled as the sphere of a soap bubble is, he twisted upright and fell in a melting fashion some twenty feet down the lake bottom.

Posie broke free from Link and volunteered to be the next through. She did not like the feeling of passing through the protective coating; it felt like hands made from the stuff of a bog were poking at her skin. But the first fingers she ventured into the odd, magic gel felt something akin to a tropical sea beneath, and so she sliced apart the curdled water to venture into whatever lie beneath it.

As soon as no part of her was trapped in the clammy palms of the shield, her boots seemed to pick up an imaginary ballast and immediately flew beneath her. She felt like a feather caught in the wind's game of tag as she delicately swirled down to end in a delicate crumple on the lemon- colored silt. All around her, her friends peered about at the curious invisible elevator into which they had stepped. Only Naomi managed to stay on her feet once her toes reached sandy bottom. Link and Elaine hit gently, it was true, but their noses still filled up with mushy mud.

Kenta had clearly done this several times before. He'd stroked in pinwheels as he'd fallen, looking silly though maintaining his balance all the way to a perfect ten-point landing. He let the inexperienced group time to right themselves before he dared speak again. "Fine, then. Is everyone here?"

"Yeah."

"I'm here!"

"Righty."

"Yeah. whatever."

"Still here. .If anyone cares."

"Well, incurably bitter since we forced you to look after the kids, are you, Navi? Come on, lighten up! Don't be scum on the underside of a rock." Link grabbed his hat and gave it a good squeeze, making Navi gag. "Here, take the opportunity to do the job you came to do. Talk about the wild Zora" He reached under and yanked her forcibly out, flicking her into the open(and ghastly, diamondly clear) waves. Even with fairy magic, there was no way she was going to fly underwater-not even in this surreal liquid that might not be water at all, the way it left no drag on any of Link's previous actions. The most she could do was whip up a lather, no matter how hard she beat her wings. So it was she was reduced to the single most humiliating mode of transportation for a fairy-walking.

"Errmmm. well. the Wild-Zora. can I still hitch a ride, Link?"

"No."

"Posie?"

"Hoof it, Glowball." Navi's back got a seaweed rubdown, thanks to the small(but derisive) kick she'd just received.

".Elaine?"

She ignored the fay entirely.

Navi gulped. ".Naomi?"

The Gerudo snorted, kneading her right shoulder with her left arm. Bubbles erupted from her nose. "This is funny! I think I'll watch your misery for a while."

Kenta rolled his eyes a complete 360 degrees back into his head and around again, switching the view the others caught from him from front to back. He began his paces towards something that sent spirals of rainbow-colored light through the water, carved high and glittering like a grand castle set in gemstones. He was wordless, but Link saw. He dashed after the scout and servant, priceless clouds spawning in his wake. Posie, Elaine, and Naomi took after him. Their collective breaths were a quick, sloshing rush.

"Hey! Wait! .I can't run that fast! Man, don't leave me behind again!"

And so the little fairy struggled onward, through the hungry lake floor that threatened to slurp her up like only so much Halloween candy.

No difficulties could the crew have spoken off. To them, the sand was firm and an expedient dash, not messy and full of slippage like that in the Haunted Wasteland. The fairytale structure in the distance grew far more defined as they marched up to it; though it was nothing quite as romantic as a towering palace pasted with emeralds and rubies, it was near enough. Castle? Yes. Albeit a crude one; more of a reinforced fortress. But the walls were paneled in tiles beaten with authentic mother-of-pearl. It was impressive even without well-defined turrets and towers, shimmering like a lost treasure in the gilded sea floor. And it had likely been built for service, too, what with its thick outer wall and heavy gates. Though it did slightly beg the question as to who in their right mind would attack something on the bottom of a lake.

The effect was awesome; it was also more than a little bit blinding up close. Red fires, green jungles, pink sunsets and blue oceans yelled at their eyes from every angle imaginable, occasionally multiplying thousandfold when one of the Goddesses' electric howls split the sky. A spike that hit true to the lake arched mercifully across the grease-like barrier over the castle, forming a fleeting yellow spider web above their heads. It was a lucky thing for them that they were so well protected, though it can be said that it still put their hearts in a frenzy and threatened to do in their eardrums.

Green, teal, and occasionally purple tickled the edges of their vision. Posie was doing pirouettes back and forth to try and get a full view of one of the gofering Zora maids or servants, occasionally managing to put all of a back in her head, or pulling in the details of a pair of strong Zora legs. And Elaine was beginning to notice that large red lips were a rarer Zora feature than she thought. Some of them had thin, bluish lips. Oddly, those with the lips did not seem to have noses. Those without, however, had pushed-up gorilla-like noses, and those seemed to have a more vibrant coloration than the others. Perhaps the Zora species split even further among this clan here?

"Ah, excuse me," she mumbled to Kenta, following him around a corner and nearly avoiding a run-in with a serving cart. "How come some of the Zoras don't have any lips like you, but have noses instead?"

"Oh, we all have noses, but the males' are less prominent. But, the females have smaller lips, so I suppose we're not so shortchanged."

So the brighter, nosed ones were females, and the ones with lips were males. It made better sense now. Posie nose suddenly became very itchy and she had to scratch it, feeling a little grateful hers had been tamed a little by her mother's genes, wasn't quite the schnoz her father's was. Or, that human females did not suffer a similar gender discrepancy.

Funny looks battered them through the many winding hallways they transversed, but even the most literally boiling glances were harnessed. Lucky for them, the King of the Sea and all his court had been informed of their coming.

Eventually they came to a room almost indistinguishable from every other corridor they had seen, save that the paisley on its walls was interrupted here by strips of seaweed that hung vertically down, decked in numerous Zoran figureheads and crests and majestic, impressionistic corals. Upon a gilded dais at the end of the hall there was a relatively dull looking chair, carved and complied out of warped and salted woods that had already seen the battering of a century's worth of waves. And for the show his lodgings put on the King of the Sea looked like nothing special-he was simply a very large wild-Zora male with all of the standard-issue red wing- gills, beaded green skin, and the inner-tube lips around which the water boiled every time he spoke. The small fish which swam about the place like free-range, docile birds clearly avoided his headspace. Those who strayed inside it were likely impromptu snacks.

Kenta deposited them at his feet, and genuflected in a submissive, but highly respectful manner. Much like a priest to the altar of his god. Link gave a slight bow of introduction, and Posie and Elaine pulled off curtsies much tidier than those they had attempted to show Princess Zelda. Even Naomi managed a well-mannered kneel, and this was to the leader of one of her race's greatest enemies! Meanwhile, their highly helpful guide skittered back through a congestion of scholars and mages, nearly stepping on a fairy only just keeping her lungs from bursting as she rather painfully caught up.

The great statuesque Zora budged, relaxedly blinking and sucking on the water around him. "So. You have come to our lake."

"Yes, sir," Link nodded. Though this Zora was definitely in a position of high power, he felt somehow that a "Majesty" or "Milord" wasn't in order here. "We were hoping to ask a favor of you."

"Hmm." The King's right hand suddenly shot up, prickly thumb and forefinger perfectly skewering an unwary minnow innocently drifting past. Breathing a rush of steam and fiery bubbles, he cooked its insides into a useless mash before he slurped it up as a mid-conversation treat. "Favor. One does not usually ask favors of royalty. suppose you could get away with it again, I think. What do you want?"

As if made top-heavy by its great weight, that Zora's immense head lunged forward, Link's entire face absorbed in one titanic eyeball of brewing red and slivered black.

"Ah. um. Well, we're going to Mount Ipanajou, and we were informed by a very reliable source that you-"-Link noticed how panicked his reflection in the immense crimson iris was-"-you might be able to help us get there." On the "might," that infernal "might," Link's voice cracked like a neglected hardwood floor. He had to struggle to not see the Wild-Zora king in blonde ponytails, suddenly his younger sister Aryll who had teased him horribly while his voice had been changing.

"Hmmm." The King retracted, as if into a shell. "Ipanajou." If he had had a beard, or anything slightly resembling one, he would have stroked it. He spat, "Our kind never go up that way."

Link and Naomi winced with synchronization. Link because the reply was harsh as a summer's day, Naomi because the King had "accidentally" spat a short jet of boiling water in her direction.

"But," his expression softened, "that is not to say we do to know the way from here."

Posie looked enthusiastic askance up at the king, only half daring to believe those sweet, candy words.

"We could not send a guide up with you, no, but we could provide you with an adequate map. I am sure, one much better than the one you are currently using, which I daresay has become a limp pulp at the hands of the lake."

Link hadn't been thinking about that. His face puckered. Vellum parchment was hard to come by, though it could withstand much more than his simple paper map. Which was no doubt, yes, now a sloppy mass of wood shavings putting glop on the rest of his supplies. Oh, dear-and what of their food? He performed his signature front sling and tore open that front flap, and threw aside the mass of dribbly ink and soggy sawdust to forlornly lift up a soggy sandwich.

"And I most certainly feel some new supplies are in order for you. Four people to Ipanajou, along the quickest route-quite a bit you're going to be needing, to make it through. This will certainly cost you, Link, you realize that."

"Hoping that my wallet hasn't shrunken on me and got my money in a stranglehold, how much would that be?"

"Hmm." The King tattooed his claws across the pores of his throne, pondering some design he had carved into his armrest in a fit of boredom. "I do not want to overcharge you, but I do not want to give myself the short end of the stick. would a price tag of 200 rupees sit reasonably with you, Link?"

Link performed a quick mental calculation, factoring in what he had paid the Freezair and subtracting it all from what he had initially brought-as much as he could stuff into his wallet, roughly 1000 rupees worth of cash in yellow, purple, red, blue and green denominations. And even that was tiny tubers compared to what was, in truth, his immense fortune. His job did pay very well, after all. "I can manage that pretty easily, yeah. How's that all add up?"

"Oh, around thirty rupees for the navigational advice. and 170 for the food," the King of the Sea laughed.

Link had a happily indifferent smile. "Sounds about all right when you ask me."

The fishy monarch braced his arms up against their respective rests, and took a moment to apparently un-wedge his massive posterior from the slightly cramped chair, standing upright upon his slicing feet and wiggling his fingers in rumination. "Now, if I recall correctly, our libraries are somewhere over this way, where we can get you a better map. And-Kenta!" What served as his neck snapped around, and the water sizzled as the King of the Sea spat a torrent of flame that quickly created bubbles full of steam.

"Yes, sir?" The servant meekly stepped forward, perhaps a tad frightened by his lord's sudden display.

"Notify the kitchens. We need a week's supply of food for four. and make sure you tell them it's humans we're preparing for, so they'll keep the showy stuff to a minimum."

Silently he bowed and skirted backwards through a hallway that, a minute ago, the party had not noticed had been there. Excluding Navi, who had most excellent eyesight if she did say so herself.

"Sssso." Posie licked her lips, not surprisingly finding them tasting slightly of fish. "How do you keep books underwater, anyway?"

"We don't," the King answered, taking heavy, echoed steps off toward the heavily abalone-plated doors lurking behind the throne. However, rather than an all-out assault of mother-of pearl, the designers of this structure had been more sparing, instead creating deep-carved patterns set with the mineral, transforming simple cuts into generous platinum plants. There's an underwater cave that's dry as a bone over this way, and we store the books there. Though with some of our scrolls, we cover them in a waterproofing solution. which I daresay we had best do with your new map."

"What sort of solution?"

"Well, we have a bit of machine that we, ah, may have, err, smuggled from the Outside."

"But that's illegal!" exclaimed Naomi, who didn't even bother to realize that she was not one to be talking about illegal activities. She did, however, realize that it likely did not matter much, as this was a colony of feral Zoras here who was likely well out of the King's jurisdiction.

"It's really harmless," the King of the Sea tried to defend himself. "All it does is just coat papers with a small layer of plastic. You ever seen plastic before? It's not all that common here in Hyrule, but I here it's becoming bigger in, hmm, where's that again? Ah, Holodrum."

Naomi glared at the enlarged water sprite, but figured it not a topic worth lingering over.