Wooh ho! I'm back! Did ya miss me?

Chapter 9

Playing House

It's been two, whole years since Trinity's arrival and it turned out that the family adjusted well. Even Adah.

But that doesn't mean it was perfect.

Adah was right. Things did change.

Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. Either way, it all sort of evened out.

Adah had a hard time dealing with Trinity needing tending to and almost went crazy with the crying. But then again, it taught Adah that she, herself, needed to stop acting like a baby. She was a big sister now.

Now the age of six, Adah and Cole began to take on some responsibilities. Yes, responsibilities. See, Zelda, despite being royal and privileged, did not think it was necessary to spoil her children. She was certainly not going to raise three snobs in her family. And neither was Link.

Yup, the King and Queen were very down to earth when raising their kids.

First of all, if they were going to do it right, they had to be with them. That is the one thing Zelda wanted to make sure to do. Ever since she was little, she always wished her father would pay attention to her. She did not want any of them to be wishing the same.

Second of all, was of course, making sure not to spoil them. They were to make their bed every morning and follow the rules that Saria, their teacher, had taught them.

So everything was going good in the castle. Well, everything except one.

As it is known, Impa has been around for quite a long while. Sadly, se has become ill over the last year. Most days she spends in bed.

Which is a total annoyance to her because Impa is a very independent Sheikah. She could beat up Link any day. So it wasn't a surprise when Impa insisted that she at least still have tea with Zelda every morning in the library.

"I'm ill not crippled.", she had remarked once, making her way down the hall for the first time as Zelda scowled at her.

"But you could faint or something.", Zelda argued, following her into the library, lugging Trinity on her hip and Adah on her legs. Thankfully, Cole had followed behind, giving Zelda some slack.

Impa plopped back in the large chair, watching Zelda attempting to make her way into the room.

Adah happily let Zelda go upon seeing cookies laid out for them. Quickly, shejumpedoffof her mother, rushing to the plate laid in front of the fire. Cole did the same once entering the room.

With little Trinity still in her arms, Zelda sat down and took a sip of her tea.

Trinity tried vainly to squirm from her mothers arms and to her siblings for a cookie, but Zelda would not allow it. Last time she did, Trinity got a nasty bump from a fall. She was still getting used to the walking.

Trinity was unlike Adah in many ways. For one, she was a quiet little thing. Aside from the late night crying, she was a shy baby.

As for the physical features, Trinity had more pale skin than normal, sky blue eyes, and to top it off, blondest of the blonde, straight hair. She looked like a porcelain doll. Such a fragile girl.

Adah seemed to have a hard time with Trinity's beautifully straight hair. She wanted the same so bad that she would sit for hours trying to hold it straight in hopes that it would stay that way if she held it long enough. Least to say, it didn't seem to make a difference.

Trinity was a girl of little words, but when she wanted something, she would make sure someone knew. One of those times being now.

Trinity whined crankily, fighting and kicking at her mothers protecting arms.

Finally, Zelda gave in, freeing the toddler to go receive her cookie by the fire.

The baby beauty came up to her sister, latching onto her, making Adah very agitated. Adah reached up her cookie so that her sister could not reach, shooing her away. "Get you own.", she snapped.

Trinity backed away, ready to burst into tears, but was immediately taken into the arms of big brother Cole.

"Don't be so mean.", Cole scowled. "She's little. Be nice."

"But she tried to take my cookie!", explained Adah defensively. "The plate's right there."

"Saria told us to share.", Cole argued. "You don't listen."

Adah rolled her eyes, grabbing a cookie from the plate and placing it into Trinity's tiny hands. "There.", Adah said crossly, making her way across the room, far away from her siblings.

Adah walked up beside Zelda, burying her head into her lap. "I don't like Cole anymore.", she mumbled.

Zelda chuckled slightly at her daughter's comment. It hadn't been the first time she'd said that. Of course, she would soon forget and play with him later as if nothing had happened.

"Yes you do.", Zelda told her. "You love Cole and Trinity. Your just being cranky." Zelda ruffledAdah's hair, making her grumble with annoyance.

"No I don't.", she argued. "I don't like any of them."

Zelda smiled down at her. "Well then, I guess we'll just have to put off our visit to Ruby's house, that is, if you can't behave with your brother and sister."

At the mention of Ruby's house, Adah's ears perked up, forcing her to look up with interest. "We're going to Auntie Malon's?", she asked excitedly.

Malon had acquired the name auntie due to the families' closeness, as did Zelda with Malon's kids.

"Not if your going to be this way.", Zelda warned.

"I won't.", Adah said, sure of herself. "How long can we stay?"

"We're all visiting for the week.", answered Zelda. "Only if you be good though."

"I will!", Adah assured her, now tremendously excited to go to the ranch. It was winter now and a perfect time to play with her friends.

Adah and her siblings loved the ranch so much. It was sort of a vacation spot for them, and now that Ruby had attained five brothers, there was never a boring moment. It was never quiet in that house.

Later that day, the family was ready to set off to the ranch, Impa included. The ranch was much larger now, and taking the whole gang was not a problem.

After the birth of Ruby, Malon and Kevin decided they needed some more room, since Indigo and Talon still lived there. The ranch walls had been expanded largely over unused space of Hyrule field, allowing the ranch have hills and such.

As for the housing, Malon and Kevin had built a separate house on the opposite side of the ranch, which was very large, and to go with that, they built an inn right next to it to make the ranch a place for travelers to stay also.

Indeed, the ranch had well expanded its potential to the most popular destination in Hyrule where you had to get early reservations, preferably six months in advance, to stay.

But every once in a while, when the royal family had come to visit, the ranch was closed down so that Zelda and the rest of her family could enjoy a long relaxing week with their close friends without publicity issues.

Yup, all was good. Aside from the constant busyness of kids running up and down the stairs, chasing each other, laughing, fighting, doing whatever all day long, it was pretty peaceful for the most part, and Zelda and Link never seemed to mind.

The family had made it to the ranch late that night. Being too late to stay awake, the family settled in and went to bed just an hour after arriving, which was no problem because, one, they were all worn-out, and two, they would have plenty of time to have some fun the next day.

And that they did.

The group was up at breakfast, more so brunch, by eleven, enjoying the meal that Malon had prepared for all week, making sure there was enough to feed the whole lot.

The children, all eight of them, excluding Sean, sat happily at the children's table, scarfing down freshly made waffles and breakfast pies into their empty bellies, while the adults enjoyed breakfast the civil way, eating only what the could chew.

Which, thankfully, was less than what the kids were stuffing greedily down their throats. Despite Saria's weekly lessons, Adah and Cole still had poor table manners when they were hungry. And boy were they hungry this morning.

For the record, this had been one of the best meals Zelda ever had. Malon was a talented cook and received much praise for it.

Before all the food could even drop to their stomachs, the kids, except for Trinity, were bundled up and out the door to engage in some winter wonderland fun. No time could be wasted on such a beautiful day.

"Sean, could you please go outside to watch them?", Malon asked, bringing out a kettle of tea and placing it down on the table.

"Sure.", Sean replied, not too enthusiastic about it. Taking a cup of tea, he walked outside to keep an eye on the munchkins as they threw snowballs at one another and chased each other until the point of pure exhaustion.

Adah and Ruby decided that playing snowball fight was stupid, since Adah had just gotten hit in the face and was temporarily mad at Quentin for doing so.

Quentin was the trouble maker of the guys. He was always the one to be playing pranks or bothering the girls. Today had been no exception.

"Sean.", Adah cried, walking up to the young man. "Quentin hit me."

Sean stooped down, inspecting the spot Adah got hit at. "He hit you?", Sean asked with a raised eyebrow.

"With the snow.", Adah said softly, acting like it hurt. "It was really hard snow."

Sean laughed lightly, seeing as it wasn't serious. "Well, what can I do to make it better?", he asked.

"Kiss to make it better!", piped Ruby, beaming from the idea.

Sean laughed again, saying, "Sorry, I'm taken, but-"

He grabbed Adah up, twirling her around in his arms and tickling her stomach, making her giggle with delight.

"I think a little tickle torture will do the trick.", he said, making the girls scream and run away, only daring him to chase them. And as always, Sean took on that dare, making sure to stay behind enough to make them think they were wining.

"You can't catch me.", Ruby taunted, hiding behind a tree for protection.

After a while of pretend chasing, Sean got to business, catching the two girls, making them laugh so hard they could cry.

"Okay, okay.", screamed Ruby between laughs. "Stop it Sean."

"I don't know.", said Sean. "You sure about that?"

"Yes!", blurted Adah, who was lying right next to Ruby.

"Okay.", said Sean, rolling over and leaning back, letting the two girls get to their feet.

Adah smiled mischievously, looking down at Sean.

"Beat up Sean!", she called out, jumping on the young man, followed by Ruby.

The rest of the kids looked up from what they had been doing and ran over to the three, adding themselves to the pile, yelling loudly as they toppled on each other.

It was evident, with the addition of the two twins, that the seventeen year old was going nowhere soon. "Get off me you guys.", he managed to say, attempting to push them off. "Come on. I'm serious. Get off or else"

"Or else what?", Paul, the twelve year old twin, taunted.

Sean was not the guy to threat these kids and scare them. It was a well known fact already that Sean would never lay a hand on any of them, and his warning meant nothing.

"Now what are you guys doing beating up my boyfriend?", said a voice behind them.

All the kids stopped what they were doing and looked up, seeing a beautiful Gerudo woman, sitting on her chestnut horse with her hands on her hips, amused.

Her skin was well tanned and her hair, that was a deep blood red, dark enough to look black, was held back up in a tight pony tail. She wore exotic looking clothes that consisted of the colors red, pink, and black, showing her navel and long legs. It was Emerald.

She jumped down from the horse, unfazed by the cold temperatures, looking down at the man crushed by a pile of kids with a sly smile.

The kids jumped up. "Emma!", they called, running over to her to give her a hug.

"Hey!", she exclaimed, returning their hugs. "How are my little monsters?"

"Just fine, thank you.", said Ruby with a grin.

"That's my girl.", replied Emerald.

"Let's leave them alone.", Adah whispered to the boy next to her, who was Tyler. Tyler nodded, knowingly, and passed on the message to the rest of them.

"By Emma!", they all said with a smile, turning to leave. Adah walked in with Ruby and Tyler at her sides.

Tyler was a year older then Ruby and Adah. He had short, brown hair and amazing green eyes. Out of all the boys in the group, he was the one who was the nicest to the girls.

Whenever one would fall or cry, he would come over to comfort them. Tyler was known to be playing with Ruby and Adah, ratherthan rough housing with the boys, and he was always the one to yell at Quentin for bothering Adah.

As the boys went into the family room to wrestle each other, Adah, Ruby, and Tyler had there way up the stairs, into Ruby's room.

"Let's play house.", suggested Ruby, plopping down on her bed.

"No.", whined Tyler. "That's a stupid game. We should play tag."

"Let's vote.", said Ruby. "Raise your hand if you want to play house."

Both girls raised their hand, leaving Tyler as the minority.

"Fine.", he grumbled. "But I'm not doing anything."

"Okay, well, I can be the baby.", said Ruby. "And Adah and Ty can be the mommy and daddy."

"No.", Adah cried. "I want to be the baby."

"But I can't be the mommy.", explained Ruby. "Ty is my brother."

True. Things could just not work in a relationship like that. But having your sister as your child didn't really work out either.

"Then we both can be the baby and Ty can be the dad.", said Adah, working out the situation.

"I'll play if you be the mom.", said Tyler.

Adah considered it, thinking it might be a better plan if Tyler did actually participate. "Fine.", she said, giving in.

The game was fun for a while, but things started to get boring whenRubystopped doing tricks that her "parents' were requesting.

Ruby stomped her foot to the ground, having enough of being the jester. "Okay, mommies and daddies don't ask the baby to go get them food.", Ruby argued. "Do something that they really do."

"Like what?", Adah asked, leaning against the bed lazily.

Ruby stood there for moment, thinking about what they do. "Well my dad always kisses my mom hello when he comes home from work. Pretend that your coming home from work Ty."

Ty stood up with his arms crossed, shaking his head. "I'm not kissing any girls.", he said flatly.

"Please Ty.", Ruby pleaded. "Or I'll tell mom that you broke that vase."

Ty's ears suddenly got red and his expression changed to scared. "You promised you wouldn't.", he said weakly.

"I will if you don't play.", said Ruby, menacingly.

"Fine.", Ty mumbled, walking over to the door.

Ruby squeaked with joy, jumping back on her bed, sitting down. "Okay start."

"Adah, I'm home.", Ty said, pretending as if he had a long day.

"Oh, hi Ty.", she said, standing up in front of him.

There was a long silence when they just stared at each other, then over to Ruby.

"Come on.", Ruby urged. "Kiss her."

Adah stood there, feeling quite embarrassed. Sure, it was okay if Sean could kiss her boo boo and make things better, but Ty? Plus, Adah did not hurt anywhere, not needing a kiss. So she just pretended.

"Ty, I hurt my lips today.", said Adah, puckering them up.

"Where?", he asked.

"Right here.", said Adah, pointing to her lower lip. "Can you kiss it and make it better?"

"Okay." said Ty cautiously, leaning in to give her a kiss.

Just as the two children's lips met, the door swung open, with Zelda and Malon, ready to serve lunch.

A drop of the tray was heard, making the kids look up at their mothers.

"Oh my.", said Zelda, with a hand to her mouth.

Malon was behind her, trying not to laugh.

"Well there's something you don't see everyday."

sakume: thank you. :D … I appreciate your review.

LadyAkki45: haha…. Torturing is so much fun. :P …wow your right, Trinity is loaded…

Forlorn Rain: thank you. I try to pick the names wisely.

Hao : lol

Doodle-Pen: woot. (takes Christmas cookie and gobbles it down.) yum

????? :…uh…sure…. Okay…

Hyrule Master: glad to hear I made you feel better! Hopefully this one had the same effect.

Getfuzzyfan04: haha… I know how you feel. Ahhh…biting? That IS evil1 I have a freakin scar because of my brother.

dan heron: well, here you go. A nice big gathering. : ) ..o don't worry bout Adah, she seems to be doing just fine ;)