A/N: Warnings I give to the light of heart and those with no sea-legs...
Ch. 3- The Storm
A/N: The PERFECT Storm! MWUAAHAA! cough I'll be here all week folks....
"Gonzo!"
"Yes, Miss Tetra?"
"Angle us a little more to the south. And Mako!"
"Miss?" the spectacled man gave her his attention.
"Tell Link." Tetra watched as Mako scuttled up to the upper edge of the ship and yelled their new position to the young hero, who promptly altered his course. She could see his patterned sale veer off to their left. There was an ancient sounding creak of timbers as Gonzo laboriously turned the ship so that it was sailing south. This position made Tetra feel more at ease, it meant that more of the wind was filling their sails, propelling them more quickly over the choppier seas towards their goal. Once they got closer, they would have to change their angle again, so that they could continue to the place where the pelicans flocked like tattered pieces of paper in a small dervish.
But now, all that mattered was speed.
The light was turning an ominous red as the sun began to set behind the dark storm clouds, which rose above them like a mountain range of dark fortresses. Their battlements were bedecked with whispy cirrus and their windows bathed the sea in the last, burning remnants of the day's light, Jacob's ladders thrust from the sky.
Jacob's ladders. They were something Mako had mentioned or heard about once, or had he read about them in a book? Tetra couldn't remember. All she could recall was that they were bridges between Heaven and Earth. Were they real? She couldn't say. There certainly wasn't anything that disproved their identity. An angry rumble of thunder bellowed from the sky and in her chest. Perhaps there were angels going to war....
She hoped that they were not caught up in the ensuing struggle.
But as their phantom island grew closer and closer, as did the storm, filling the sky and blotting out all light but for the burning red, casting eery shadows and tainting the foam of the sea.
"It's an ill wind, Miss Tetra." She turned to see Mako again, standing next to her. "I don't like it one bit, and the boys don't either.."
"I know, Mako."
"It doesn't matter which way we go, we can't avoid this storm.."
"I know." She looked at the strong planks beneath their feet for a moment, as if imparting some word to them that would ensure their staunch temerity against the oncoming typhoon. Her mouth becoming a grim line, she looked up and said, "Get everyone prepared! Tie down everything that needs to be secured!"
"Ay-ay!" Mako shouted as he rushed to do her bidding. The crew secured canons and boxes of equipment, moving over the ship with the discipline of soldiers and working with skilled hands. The wind began to buffet their bodies.
Niko was the first to cry out when the first shock of lightning ripped the skies above them, tearing through the clouds like a harpoon through a whale's hide and just as swiftly. Rain beat down with the strength of stone pellets, instantly flooding the deck with an inch of water before it could even flow off the sides, making it slick and any kind of movement risky. Barrels shuddered in their restraints and the ropes and sails groaned audibly, barely discernible through the deluge of rain and darkness as they flapped violently in the gale force winds. Like the smoke and mirror tricks of a man long dispossessed of his own mind, red light flickered through small windows in the clouds that opened and closed like the mouths of a thousand beasts. The world titlted crazily as the ship fought with the sea.
"THIS STORM WILL BE THE DEATH OF US!!"
"RAAHHH-"
"The crosswind-!"
"NIKO WHERE ARE YOU-"
"MAKO!"
"ZUKO!"
"MISS TETRAA!"
The cries of her men pounded into Tetra as she clung desperately to the central mast of the Dragon's Shear, letting out an angry cry. "HOLD ONTO SOMETHING AND DON'T LET GO, WHATEVER YOU DO!! DOOON'T! LEEET! GOOOO!!"
She could barely make them out as they huddled against boxes and clung for their lives to ropes and each other, the winds seeming to try to dislodge them all by coming at them from every direction at once. She gasped in horror when Nudge almost flew off the edge of the ship, saved only in the nick of time when Gonzo's hand flew out to grasp his own.
A flash of lightening gave Tetra the illumination she needed to see Link's sail veer at a dangerous angle, nearly jumping out of the water. "LIIIINK NOOOOOO!!" She made a desperate dash like a thing posessed for the side of the ship, slipping in the water but kept upright by the wind.
When the winds came Link's arm was nearly wrenched out if its socket as the sail tether tried to jump out of his grip like some wild animal, burning his hands as it nearly slipped free. The seas roared in his ears and spray and rain filled his mouth and nose, The Red Lion beginning to fight his control like its animal name-sake. Fear begin to knot in his stomach like a nest of snakes as he watched the bow slice like a warrior's twisting machette through the dark waters, out of control.
"WAAUUGH!"
To his right the dark timbers of the Dragon's Shear wetly reflected the bad light, fearfully close, the storm giving it a power and malevolence and savagery in its violent movements through the sea. As each monstrous swell approached and passed the ship reared upwards, nearly upending itself, and then came down with a deafening fume, a mountainous harbinger of death, beautiful in its symmetry made visible from below, timbers curving like a solid ribcage. It seemed at odds with the sea and the very storm itself, a feuding brother of the gnashing monster raging overhead.
To Link it seemed the upper jaw of a terrible maw as a whistling zephyr, a cool blast of wind that seemed apart from the storm itself, put all of its power into The Red Lion's solitary sail and propelled it at a sharp angle, skimming through the water and flying over the crest of the next roller, nearly un-doing Link when his boat shockingly slammed onto the water again and smoothly skimmed into the trough of the waves.
The light of the storm was all but blotted out, but for a single lightning flash that illuminated the wide, gleaming bottom of the Dragon's Shear as it loomed above him, and then began its swift, weighty descent into the trough. All of the sounds of the storm faded from Link's sensitive Hylian ears but for the sounds of groaning giant timbers as they came down to meet him. First the mast splintered like a mass of fluttering toothpicks, the sail going where it would, and then the ship crashed down upon The Red Lion with a sound as that of bones under a giant's foot.
"MISS TETRA, NO!"
"Get her into the hold-!"
She almost choked when Gonzo caught hold of her red bandana and yanked her out of harms way. Strong arms lifted her into the air and forcefully brought her through the wind and down the tilting stairs into the relative safety of the hold. Tetra fought the arms that sought to keep her safe as she tried to catch a last glimpe of the sea, seeing in a lightning bolt's flash what may have been drifting, tattered timbers and a torn sail.
"LII-III-!" She choked for real now as tears cut off her cry and flooded down her cheeks, a small echo of the deluge outside. She was whisked into her own room and suddenly wrapped with a fierce, loving hug as her protector held her close and sat on the edge of her bed, rocking back and forth, silent tears running from his own eyes as he thought of all that he wished he could've kept the Little Miss and her friend safe from. The rest of the crew joined them in their huddle of sorrow, adding whatever comfort they could give to their ailing Leader, their cries added to the wailing of the wind outside.
The first thing Link noticed was the cold, a deathly chill that reached into the marrow of his bones and made him go numb, and an aching, everywhere. The water sloshed against his skin and soaked through his hair and clothes, his hat gone forever. Shapes whorled before his closed eyes as he tried to keep his breath from slipping out of his lungs like steam through a child's grasping fingers and take away what buoyancy he had, making him sink to the bottom of the Sea like a stone and join Ganondorf and the old King in their watery tomb.
For all he knew it was his time to go join the ancient ruler of Hyrule, but he felt that couldn't be so. He had a mission to accomplish, people waiting for him to rise to the surface....
Link valiantly fought the darkness that began to encroach upon his mind and body and lost.
To be continued...
Ch. 3- The Storm
A/N: The PERFECT Storm! MWUAAHAA! cough I'll be here all week folks....
"Gonzo!"
"Yes, Miss Tetra?"
"Angle us a little more to the south. And Mako!"
"Miss?" the spectacled man gave her his attention.
"Tell Link." Tetra watched as Mako scuttled up to the upper edge of the ship and yelled their new position to the young hero, who promptly altered his course. She could see his patterned sale veer off to their left. There was an ancient sounding creak of timbers as Gonzo laboriously turned the ship so that it was sailing south. This position made Tetra feel more at ease, it meant that more of the wind was filling their sails, propelling them more quickly over the choppier seas towards their goal. Once they got closer, they would have to change their angle again, so that they could continue to the place where the pelicans flocked like tattered pieces of paper in a small dervish.
But now, all that mattered was speed.
The light was turning an ominous red as the sun began to set behind the dark storm clouds, which rose above them like a mountain range of dark fortresses. Their battlements were bedecked with whispy cirrus and their windows bathed the sea in the last, burning remnants of the day's light, Jacob's ladders thrust from the sky.
Jacob's ladders. They were something Mako had mentioned or heard about once, or had he read about them in a book? Tetra couldn't remember. All she could recall was that they were bridges between Heaven and Earth. Were they real? She couldn't say. There certainly wasn't anything that disproved their identity. An angry rumble of thunder bellowed from the sky and in her chest. Perhaps there were angels going to war....
She hoped that they were not caught up in the ensuing struggle.
But as their phantom island grew closer and closer, as did the storm, filling the sky and blotting out all light but for the burning red, casting eery shadows and tainting the foam of the sea.
"It's an ill wind, Miss Tetra." She turned to see Mako again, standing next to her. "I don't like it one bit, and the boys don't either.."
"I know, Mako."
"It doesn't matter which way we go, we can't avoid this storm.."
"I know." She looked at the strong planks beneath their feet for a moment, as if imparting some word to them that would ensure their staunch temerity against the oncoming typhoon. Her mouth becoming a grim line, she looked up and said, "Get everyone prepared! Tie down everything that needs to be secured!"
"Ay-ay!" Mako shouted as he rushed to do her bidding. The crew secured canons and boxes of equipment, moving over the ship with the discipline of soldiers and working with skilled hands. The wind began to buffet their bodies.
Niko was the first to cry out when the first shock of lightning ripped the skies above them, tearing through the clouds like a harpoon through a whale's hide and just as swiftly. Rain beat down with the strength of stone pellets, instantly flooding the deck with an inch of water before it could even flow off the sides, making it slick and any kind of movement risky. Barrels shuddered in their restraints and the ropes and sails groaned audibly, barely discernible through the deluge of rain and darkness as they flapped violently in the gale force winds. Like the smoke and mirror tricks of a man long dispossessed of his own mind, red light flickered through small windows in the clouds that opened and closed like the mouths of a thousand beasts. The world titlted crazily as the ship fought with the sea.
"THIS STORM WILL BE THE DEATH OF US!!"
"RAAHHH-"
"The crosswind-!"
"NIKO WHERE ARE YOU-"
"MAKO!"
"ZUKO!"
"MISS TETRAA!"
The cries of her men pounded into Tetra as she clung desperately to the central mast of the Dragon's Shear, letting out an angry cry. "HOLD ONTO SOMETHING AND DON'T LET GO, WHATEVER YOU DO!! DOOON'T! LEEET! GOOOO!!"
She could barely make them out as they huddled against boxes and clung for their lives to ropes and each other, the winds seeming to try to dislodge them all by coming at them from every direction at once. She gasped in horror when Nudge almost flew off the edge of the ship, saved only in the nick of time when Gonzo's hand flew out to grasp his own.
A flash of lightening gave Tetra the illumination she needed to see Link's sail veer at a dangerous angle, nearly jumping out of the water. "LIIIINK NOOOOOO!!" She made a desperate dash like a thing posessed for the side of the ship, slipping in the water but kept upright by the wind.
When the winds came Link's arm was nearly wrenched out if its socket as the sail tether tried to jump out of his grip like some wild animal, burning his hands as it nearly slipped free. The seas roared in his ears and spray and rain filled his mouth and nose, The Red Lion beginning to fight his control like its animal name-sake. Fear begin to knot in his stomach like a nest of snakes as he watched the bow slice like a warrior's twisting machette through the dark waters, out of control.
"WAAUUGH!"
To his right the dark timbers of the Dragon's Shear wetly reflected the bad light, fearfully close, the storm giving it a power and malevolence and savagery in its violent movements through the sea. As each monstrous swell approached and passed the ship reared upwards, nearly upending itself, and then came down with a deafening fume, a mountainous harbinger of death, beautiful in its symmetry made visible from below, timbers curving like a solid ribcage. It seemed at odds with the sea and the very storm itself, a feuding brother of the gnashing monster raging overhead.
To Link it seemed the upper jaw of a terrible maw as a whistling zephyr, a cool blast of wind that seemed apart from the storm itself, put all of its power into The Red Lion's solitary sail and propelled it at a sharp angle, skimming through the water and flying over the crest of the next roller, nearly un-doing Link when his boat shockingly slammed onto the water again and smoothly skimmed into the trough of the waves.
The light of the storm was all but blotted out, but for a single lightning flash that illuminated the wide, gleaming bottom of the Dragon's Shear as it loomed above him, and then began its swift, weighty descent into the trough. All of the sounds of the storm faded from Link's sensitive Hylian ears but for the sounds of groaning giant timbers as they came down to meet him. First the mast splintered like a mass of fluttering toothpicks, the sail going where it would, and then the ship crashed down upon The Red Lion with a sound as that of bones under a giant's foot.
"MISS TETRA, NO!"
"Get her into the hold-!"
She almost choked when Gonzo caught hold of her red bandana and yanked her out of harms way. Strong arms lifted her into the air and forcefully brought her through the wind and down the tilting stairs into the relative safety of the hold. Tetra fought the arms that sought to keep her safe as she tried to catch a last glimpe of the sea, seeing in a lightning bolt's flash what may have been drifting, tattered timbers and a torn sail.
"LII-III-!" She choked for real now as tears cut off her cry and flooded down her cheeks, a small echo of the deluge outside. She was whisked into her own room and suddenly wrapped with a fierce, loving hug as her protector held her close and sat on the edge of her bed, rocking back and forth, silent tears running from his own eyes as he thought of all that he wished he could've kept the Little Miss and her friend safe from. The rest of the crew joined them in their huddle of sorrow, adding whatever comfort they could give to their ailing Leader, their cries added to the wailing of the wind outside.
The first thing Link noticed was the cold, a deathly chill that reached into the marrow of his bones and made him go numb, and an aching, everywhere. The water sloshed against his skin and soaked through his hair and clothes, his hat gone forever. Shapes whorled before his closed eyes as he tried to keep his breath from slipping out of his lungs like steam through a child's grasping fingers and take away what buoyancy he had, making him sink to the bottom of the Sea like a stone and join Ganondorf and the old King in their watery tomb.
For all he knew it was his time to go join the ancient ruler of Hyrule, but he felt that couldn't be so. He had a mission to accomplish, people waiting for him to rise to the surface....
Link valiantly fought the darkness that began to encroach upon his mind and body and lost.
To be continued...