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Author's Note: This chapter breaks away from the 1st person perspective I've been using thus far. There is a very good reason for this and it will be clear why around the end of this story (assuming I ever get that far, lol). Aryll's side will always be told in 3rd person, her shorter chapters set in interludes between the usual narratives. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter as much as the previous four and let me know in the reviews if you think I can improve on certain aspects. Criticism (though constructive, please) is welcomed.

A thousand thanks to everybody who reviewed last time!

Update August 21st, 2004:

A warning and an explanation:

I gathered from some of the reviews that the relationship between Aryll and Ganondorf in this following chapter seemed to be something other than what I had consciously intended. After playing The Wind Waker I was under the impression that Link and Aryll were orphaned and then I began to wonder about the profound effect the Forsaken Fortress must have had on young, impressionable Aryll and her psyche. Romance (and I share the sentiment of "Ew" lol) was the last thing I wanted to convey, instead it was Aryll's misconstrued association of Ganondorf with a fatherly figure. And, well, if you want to be Freud, you can delve into this "attachment" deeper, but some things are better left unsaid in PG-13 fics.

So if the idea of Aryll feeling anything but hate for her kidnapper makes you squeamish, skip on over to Chapter Six. : )

Thank-you again,

F.J. Stellar

:: Anchors Almost Aweigh::

..

She had ascended from her cell where the two Windfall girls forever bickered to doze in the glow of the fireplace, her head resting on his snug knee. It was only September and the Great Seas were enjoying the finest Indian Summer in years, and yet he had logs aglow in the hearth and the tall, hinged shades drawn shut.

He was from far away but she had never been sure just how far. Pretty far, she figured, and the place sounded as severe as he was. It rained once a year for a week straight, the only river swelling up the sides of its gorge. The rest of the time the sun beat down endlessly on the dunes without so much as a faint wisp in the sky. Outset had once suffered a minor arid spell lasting a few weeks and Gran's petunias had all wilted, leaving the islanders scratching their heads. She asked him if people wilted in the desert.

'The foolish and self-assured do,' he answered. 'Mostly outsiders who need to be humbled.'

Humbled. She didn't know that word. Reminded her of bumbled…like bumblebees. She half-dreamt, half-remembered the time she and Link had played tag in the buzzing sunflower garden across the way. One of the bees was disturbed by their rambunctious play and made her left cheek swell to twice the usual size. She had howled as Link helped her back to the house, close to tears himself. As Gran rubbed gingery ointment over her aching face, Link had asked fearfully is she was going to die. He was only young then and her swollen and purpled face looked like death to a boy who had just so recently lost both his parents.

'I'm allergic to humblebees,' she mumbled out of her half-doze. His deep laughter jarred her back into consciousness.

'Oh? And what of the haughty sort?'

She shifted and sat up, rubbing the drowsiness from her eyes. 'Them too,' she replied, and to her indigence, he laughed at her again.

She had never seen him fully in the light. The Forsaken Fortress was a place of many shadows and he seemed to exist as one of the vast, nighttime shapes that crept like eerie, twilight fog. Even now, in the orange glow of the evening fire she saw just one hooded eye and the age of only half his face. He was truly frightening, his voice such a rumble that she would cower to hear it raised. And yet she enjoyed his detached company just as much as he enjoyed hers.

'Do you miss the desert,' she asked him, busing herself with the ornate pattern of the sofa. Bands of tan, orange, and deep, indigo blue ran horizontally across the cushions with primitive figures of red. The figures were mainly people and creatures, fruit trees and birds, living in cloth and stitches. She imagined names and histories for all of them, but it was the design of a child coiled up on the ground below a searing, blood sun that held her attention the longest.

He didn't answer her, but took her little white hand in his rough, dark one and traced the patterns with her finger. 'Tan for the sand, orange for the heat, and blue for the ancient nobility of my people and the endless heavens that reign us.'

'How come the people are all red?'

He worded his response like he didn't want her to understand. 'It is the color that the desert has taken from so many.' He leant back and pulled her closer. With her cheek squashed against his chest, she glanced sadly back at the design of the child supine on the ground and recognized it as a young girl.

'She's dead, isn't she?'

'Well, that depends on you, doesn't it?'

..

Aryll didn't scream when she woke, but she was terrified just the same.

She glanced wildly around the cabin, assuring herself that she was indeed seventeen and aboard Tetra's ship, not seven and curled up in Ganondorf's lap. Aryll was slick will sweat but she felt a chill creep up from her twisted insides. Oh Goddesses, she felt ill!

Over the sound of her own, heavy breathing she heard murmured talk above deck, their low voices drifting down through the ceiling grate. The comforting groans of the rocking, wood ship eased her racing mind further and she let her head fall back down onto her pillow. Aryll's round, pale eyes remained stark and haunted though, as she questioned whether she had done the right thing by coming after all.

What if they came face to face with him? Did she want that? Her memories of the Forsaken Fortress were dim at best, but these dreams she had been having lately brought every conversation, every scene back before her eyes with startling vividness. Was it really revenge she wanted or was it a deeper, more twisted desire to see him again? No! No! No! That wasn't it at all! Aryll tossed furiously.

Aryll heard the clunk-clunk sounds of somebody coming down the stairs outside the cabin. She turned away from the door as it opened and she feigned sleep's stillness. The warm, lantern light of the hallway fell across her back and she imagined with a thrill of horror that it was Ganondorf ducking in through the threshold, not just Tetra, utterly worn and ready to drop into bed.

The two were sharing the cabin for Tetra didn't trust the crew around Aryll. Tetra's shadow, distorted along the wall, reached up and undid its hair.

"Aryll? You asleep?"

No response. She didn't want Tetra asking her why she was still wide-awake. The captain slipped into her nighttime attire without modesty and blew out her bedside candle. Tetra feel into her bed with an exhausted sigh, too tired to even shift to the most comfortable position.

"You needn't bother worrying, Aryll. He won't cause you anymore trouble." She sounded hoarse.

Aryll knew Tetra meant that whole mess with Link, but she wished that the captain was promising her the same with Ganondorf.

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A/N: I won't be posting again for a while, for I'm going away for a few weeks.

Make my day and give me a REVIEW! Pretty please!

Thanks for your time,

-- F. J. Stellar