Darunia: Disclaimer! Selphie Louise does not own the Legend of Zelda or any of its characters. They are the property of Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo.

Tingle: The characters she does own are Selphie, Iggy, and Jiji. The characters of Kage, Yugi, Mable, and Raven belong to Kearra. The character Ravick is the property of Selphie's friend, Patrick.

Part 2

Chapter 7

"Urk… Iggy?"

"Yeah, Jij?"

"You're breaking your promise."

"What promise?"

"The one where you said we'd never sleep outside on the ground again."

"Who's on the what now?"

"You promised we'd never sleep outside on the hard ground again."

Iggy sat up from his lying position by the small fire and looked across to where Jiji was lying. "If I recall, Jiji, your words had been, and I quote, 'Promise that once we get out of here, we'll never sleep outside with nothing but the hard ground again.'"

"Yes, exactly," Jiji replied as she also sat up. "So why are we still-?"

"Ah, ah, ah," Iggy cut her off. "You are the one that said that. I did not. Furthermore, we are not without anything but the hard ground. We have blankets." He smirked over at her and Jiji rolled her eyes, frowning slightly.

"I suppose you find our rootless existence appealing then, do you?" she asked, a hint of sarcasm in her voice, which took Iggy aback a little.

"Well… maybe not… appealing… per se… tolerable, I guess…" he trailed off uncertainly. Jiji sighed, looking slightly guilty.

"Never mind," she breathed, shaking her head. "Forget I brought it up." She lay back again and rolled over, hiding deep beneath the blankets, not wanting to face him. Iggy lay down again too, but rested on his side, watching the dying flames.

'What was that about?' he wondered. 'Are blankets not comfortable enough anymore?' He thought hard for a few minutes, orange glowing on his face. 'Does she want a house or something?' he thought suddenly. Iggy lay confused for a few minutes pensively. 'She kind of would have a point…' he admitted mentally. 'We decided a long time ago we were staying here… why didn't we find somewhere to live then?'

He gave a short laugh. "Oh, I dunno, Iggy. Maybe because we were barely sixteen," he said to himself. '…We're still only seventeen…' he thought. 'But we've been living on our own for nearly a year and a half now… not to mention all the shit we went through with the Garo…'

He frowned, the Garo were a bunch of idiots… 'Don't worry about them. You're not one of them anymore…'

The fact still remained, they needed a place to stay. Permanently. 'Maybe I can build us a house,' he supposed. He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes.

'…Yeah, and maybe we won't die when it collapses on us…'

Iggy and Jiji walked through the woods. They were heading for Kage and Selphie's house. The former had built said house all on his own, so they figured him to be a good starting point…

Iggy was no longer wearing the khaki shirt and brown pants of the Garo in training but had, for at least a year, been wearing a blue tunic with black pants, and brown belt and boots to match. He didn't care that the others hadn't noticed much when he changed, but he was a bit bothered that not even Jiji, who should have grown accustomed to the way he looked before, didn't say anything either.

The forest was fairly quiet today. Last night had been the latest in the recent cold snap. Winter was definitely coming, along with snow and all the other weather conditions. That was one of the things they'd enjoyed during the past year. Back when they were training to be Garo, they would once in a while get to throw a snowball or two, but any competition would be cut extremely short by one of the Garo masters. Here they had time to go into all out snowball wars.

Of course, it was probably a little too early to be thinking of that. It was only late fall, afterall. But Iggy did remember that when it got cold, Jiji's cheeks and nose turned a charming color pink, offsetting her generally pale complexion. He certainly didn't mention it to anyone. Either way, he thought her red cheeks and nose were cute and rather funny and decided to steal a glance at her.

There it was, the added color to show the cold. It occurred to him once more how much nicer Jiji looked ever since she had divested herself of the old Garo in training garb. Her new ensemble consisted of khaki pants, a reddish-brown belt, soft yellow shirt, a shawl/poncho with a variety of earthy mauve and maroons, and a pair of coal-colored boots.

Back when the change had first been made, Iggy had been a bit insulted when no one else noticed the difference. Kage teased him about it- "Are you sure it's not just you that likes the way she looks?"- but Iggy shrugged it off, saying it was probably because he was so used to seeing her in the trainee garments. After that for about eight years, the change was probably just a little more impressive to him.

Of course, that wasn't really true, and Iggy knew it. Males aren't generally very good with the touchy-feely stuff, and everyone liked to joke about Iggy being a bit dense. But it hadn't taken him very long to figure out why he noticed this stuff: he was in love. He loved everything about Jiji- her new clothes, her pink cheeks, her strength, her spirit, everything.

He never told anyone this, especially Jiji. He knew what she'd say, "I've known him my whole life! That would be uber weird! Like having a crush on my brother!" Truthfully, he himself had tried to shrug it off as love for one's sister at first. But once it had advanced, he knew it and began to purposefully bottle it up. She would not find out. If he couldn't have her in that way, he wouldn't risk separating from being best friends.

Jiji felt his gaze on her and turned to see him. "What's up?" she asked. Iggy shrugged.

"Not the temperature," he replied jokingly, giving her a small smile.

"Yeah, I can't wait to get into Selphie and Kage's house," Jiji agreed, returning the smile (making Iggy's spirits soar) and both returning their line of vision to the front.

Not two minutes later they arrived at Kage and Selphie's house. There was a startled yelp from inside, followed about half a minute later by an, "Oh, gods…!" from Kage. Iggy and Jiji glanced at each other before Jiji rapped lightly upon the door. Almost immediately Kage was at the door, beet red and looking extremely embarrassed. "Uh… Hi, guys," he greeted, attempting to be cheery, though his discomfiture was showing through.

"Hi?" they answered, stepping inside the door and barely glimpsing Selphie dashing up the stairs as they made their way to the couch and sat down. "What was that all about?" Iggy asked.

"What was what all about?" Kage feigned ignorance, sitting in an armchair across from them.

"That weird yelp and stuff," Iggy elaborated. "Did something happen?"

"Huh? Oh, that!" Kage answered. "Oh, I just, uh… spilled soup on Selphie. It was all down her front, and… I… uh… I tried to clean it… up… without thinking."

"Oh, gods…!" Jiji breathed, a smirk barely audible in her voice as she hid the one on her face with her hand.

"Ahg! Not a good place to touch!" Iggy said, not hiding his smirk.

"You think I don't know that?" Kage responded, burying his burning face in his hands. "Urg… It was so embarrassing…! I just wanted to help! I wasn't thinking!"

Jiji sighed, shaking her head while Iggy smirked wider. "Y'know, being Selphie's boyfriend, that area shouldn't be completely off-limits," he said.

Kage's eyes widened, and he would have flamed Iggy's rear had it not been seated upon his sofa. Fortunately, Jiji, sparks in her eyes, picked up the slack by hitting him hard in the arm. "Ow!" Iggy said, rubbing the spot lightly.

"Serves you right… pervert…" she muttered. Iggy felt his face set aflame too and he looked away ashamedly. He would've laughed had it been Kage, but it rather hurt when Jiji said it.

Kage cocked an eyebrow at him, but quickly shook his head and glanced back to Jiji. "So did you guys need something or was this just a random visit?" he asked.

"We actually have a reason this time, believe it or not," Jiji answered.

"Reason for what?" Selphie asked. She appeared at the bottom of the stairs, her clean shirt leaving no traces of the soup Kage had spilled on it.

"A reason for visiting," Iggy answered, looking up again. "I was going to ask for Kage's help with something."

"This thing being?" Kage asked as Selphie crossed to a neighboring armchair.

"Building a house."