The Lonely Little Girl

"One...two...three...four...five...six...seven! Tee hee! I counted to seven, Tetra! I counted to seven!" Aryll squealed happily from her cell.

Tetra, who was seated at a wooden table just outside the younger girl's prison, stared at the wall miserably.

"Look, this is the seventeenth time you've counted to seven. Could you at least count to nine or another different number?"

"Tee hee! Of course not, silly-willy-walnut-head!"

"Jeez, Aryll, you're such a little bitch... I like...don't even feel sorry for you anymore. Now the fact that you're caged seems more funny than anything else," Tetra snorted.

Aryll did not seem to hear the comment.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven!"

"God dammit, Aryll! IF YOU DO THAT ONE MORE TIME, THEN I'M GONNA --"

The sound of the room's oaken doors opening and shutting was heard, and in stepped Darunia and Saria. Saria let out a sob and threw herself down on a wooden stool near Tetra's.

"I want to get out of here! I want my Komali!" she wailed.

Darunia stared off into space.

Tetra patted Saria's arm with a look of annoyance and disgust, as though Saria were a particulatly ugly bug. Tetra's eyes widened as Saria flung her arms around the pirate's neck and cried harder.

"Dammit, Saria, GET A GRIP!" Tetra spat, shoving the forest sage away roughly.

"Hey, Darunia, do you want to hear me count to seven?" Aryll said.

"...No. WHY, DO YOU WANT TO FIGHT ABOUT IT?" Darunia bellowed, dashing to Aryll's cell and shaking the bars. Aryll let out a shriek.

"HEY! Stop it, both of ya! Do you want to get beaten again?" Tetra snapped at Darunia and Aryll.

But it was too late. Once again, the sound of the doors opening and shutting filled the room, followed by heavy silence.

"What's going on here?" a dangerously calm voice questioned. Its owner was a boy who uncannily resembled Link. The only difference was that this boy had gleaming red eyes and jet black hair. The same boy that Link had run into at the Water Temple, the same boy that had roughly escorted Tetra back to her gloomy prison after her meeting with her boyfriend.

"How wonderful of you to have dropped by, Dark Link," said Tetra icily.

Gazing at Tetra coldly and slowly for a mere second, Dark gazed around at the other occupants of the room, and repeated, "I said...what's going on?"

Saria's tears had stopped. Her face was blank.

"Nothing," she answered emotionlessly.

Dark Link sighed and strutted the perimeter of the room, investigating while maintaining a calm and intimidating demeanor.

After a few seconds of deadly silence punctured only by his footsteps, Dark Link stopped and said, "Lucky for you, nothing is amiss to the eye... But I can't ignore what I heard."

Glowering, her eyes on Link's opposite reflection, Tetra asked coolly, "And what was it you believed you heard, Dark Link?"

"It was my assumption that you lot were causing some sort of mishap...again."

"We never do anything wrong!" Saria piped up.

"Maybe not you, you idiot, but certainly this one." Dark jerked his head in Tetra's direction, and continued, "Always causing trouble, she is... Bambi is constantly annoyed with her for some reason or other, and with good reason. This bitch shows no respect whatsoever."

Tetra smirked.

"I expected you to say something like that. Those words don't surprise me, since they come from Bambi's little pet... I don't see why she likes you so much, however. I mean, you aren't a lot of fun. I've never seen such a sexual wallflower in my life! Ha! How pitiful. Come to think of it, I've never even heard 'sex' and 'Dark Link' in the same sentence. You must have to masturbate a lot."

Tetra, Darunia, and Saria chuckled.

"Huh? I don't get it!" Aryll said.

"Shut up," Tetra snorted, selecting a lone rock from the stone floor and throwing it at the little girl's head.

"I don't appreciate that comment, Tetra. Bambi will most certainly hear about this," Dark said quietly and dangerously as he made his way to the door.

"I figured you'd tattle. Just make sure you pull that stick out of your ass before talking to her," Tetra mocked.

With one last glare at the pirate, Dark left the room.

"Tee hee hee! I bet he has a ferret up his bum!" Aryll giggled stupidly.

Tetra sighed exasperatedly.

"God dammit, Aryll, that's completely stupid!"

Bambi laid on her favorite red plush couch on her stomach, eyes closed. Thoroughly relaxed, she listened to the rain outside her window. She smiled to herself.

Rain...that's a good sign. It shows that this land is slowly becoming an equal to the world above. It grows more and more normal each day...thanks to me. Ah, I am so wonderful. I rawk the house, she thought.

The loud sound of the large double doors opening and closing filled the room.

"Could you open and close the doors any louder?" Bambi asked, her eyes remaining closed.

"Oh...sorry..." said Dark Link. "Did I disturb you?"

Bambi sighed and opened her eyes.

"No, you didn't. Don't worry."

Dark walked over to the couch too and sat down near Bambi's head.

"I don't mean to critisize, but I don't think you should be keeping Tetra around. She shows nothing but disrespect, and alone or with her friends, she is fairly useless. She poses little threat to anyone."

Bambi sat up.

"I disagree. She seems like she lacks productivity, but that's false. I can sense it. She owns the Triforce of Wisdom, and that can't be ignored. It has tremendous power. I wouldn't underestimate Tetra's abilities."

"...I see your point. But, if you don't mind my asking, why didn't you abduct Link instead? You know, with him being the true wielder of the Master Sword and all..."

"...I don't know..."

There was a moment of awkward silence and sexual tension. The state was broken when Dark shifted uncomfortably as a ferret poked its head out of a hole in his tights. He quickly pushed it back up his ass.

"Oh my God, what was that that just came out of your ass?" Bambi gasped.

"Ummm...nothing."

"Was that a ferret!"

"...Maybe..."

Bambi looked sympathetic.

"Oh, Dark Link, I didn't know you had Bum Ferrets... That is terrible..."

Dark looked down.

"You learn to cope with it after a while..."

Bambi put a hand on Dark's shoulder.

"I'm so sorry..."

Dark Link smiled weakly at her, but suddenly, a newcomer materialized before them out of thin air. There stood Daphness Nohansen Hyrule!

Bambi glared at him.

"I knew you were coming, I could feel it..." She turned to Dark and said, "Dark, could you be a dear and give our guest and I a moment alone?"

Blushing, Dark Link murmured, "Of course..." He left the room.

Bambi once more looked at Daphness with as much confidence as she could muster. She had been waiting for this, planning to look more corageous around him...

"So, what brings you here, your highness? Come to pry into my thoughts again?" she inquired nastily.

"Ah, there you go, hiding behind a wall of fake confidence as usual... Hm. How pathetic. I know you're scared of me, so why hide it? You were always such a pathetic villainess. You plan things so poorly and hastily," the king said.

"Maybe it seems that way to you, but I have achieved much despite your accusations. Look at the rain." Bambi gestured towards the window. "I have returned weather to Hyrule. It shows that this land that used to be yours is becoming normal. Soon it will rise to the surface of the ocean... It is a sign that evil is triumphing over good. Face it, king: Link is losing."

"I don't know what sort of sick fantasy you're living, but Link is not going to lose."

"Oh? And how can you be so sure?" Bambi grinned.

"I feel it in my bones. And after I discover your weakness, we will defeat you!" Daphness closed his eyes, and as before, began to read Bambi's mind.

This time was different. He saw, not mere images, but an entire flashback...

"LEAVE ME ALONE, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS! YOU THINK YOU'RE FUNNY?" screamed a seemingly normal Bambi. Her eyes were their original silver/grey color, but were flooded with tears. She was...crying?

It appeared that she was standing in a house, in a kitchen. She picked up a cup and threw it at someone... Daphness noticed that while her right hand bore the mark of the Triforce of Power, the other one did not have the eye mark as she did now.

The king tried to see who is was that she had started throwing silverware at. There was a masculine figure standing before her, but he was blurred for some reason or other. Daphness could not tell who he was.

"I'll go easy on you if you come quietly..." the man said with a chuckle.

"NO! GO AWAY!" sobbed Bambi, grabbing a plate and chucking it at her attacker.

The plate made its target, but he did not seem to feel it. The man laughed coldly.

The flashback ended, and were replaced with images, just like before...but these were different pictures, all of them about Bambi herself.

The first one was of a very young Bambi, hardly five years old, walking into a house and discovering the bloodied bodies of a man and a woman; a slightly older Bambi, getting screamed at by a short, balding man; another one of her and another girl running down the streets of Windfall; a brief image of her and the girl from the previous memory getting dragged into a dark room by another girl with dark skin and red hair who wore a cloak... And that was it. Daphness was blocked from seeing any more memories, and opened his eyes to a present-day Bambi, who looked disheveled and was obviously fuming. Daphness guessed she had tried to stop him from seeing her memories without much success.

"What was that about?" the king asked.

"HA! Like I'd tell you!" Bambi said wildly, standing up. "You think you're pretty slick, don't you? Well, all you saw were random bits of memory that will serve as no use to you. You will NEVER find out my secret!"

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't. But still, I have found out more about you than you know. Your life previously was lonely, pitiful, and dysfunctional. In a way, it seems, it still is. But now, it is clear to me that the seemingly innocent, lonely girl that came into this world still rests inside a part of your soul, and prevents you from doing your worse. It weakens you."

"Don't make such crude assumptions! You can't possibly find out things like that from simply and RUDELY prying into my mind!"

"Oh, well, I'm SO sorry!" Daphness snapped nastily.

"Oh, well, you're SO fat!" Bambi mocked angrily in reply. This set Daphness off.

"DAMMIT! I'M NOT FAT, I'M BIG-BONED!" he yelled, pulling a decorative (Or was it?) dagger off the wall and throwing it at Bambi. It planted itself deeply in her forhead. It had most certainly pierced her skull, if not broken through it all the way. A deadly silence followed.

Bambi merely stood there. Then a disgustingly maniacal grin spread across her face, and she yanked the dagger out of her head, showing no sign of pain or shock. Daphness gagged as black blood oozed down her face, flowing fast and plentiful from the hideous wound.

"Thought you could kill me with mortal weapons, did you?" Bambi said with a giggle.

"...Eeeeww!" Daphness squealed. "That's not a normal color for blood!"

Looking strangely victorious, Bambi commanded coolly with a grin, "Now...get out."

Daphness didn't need to be told twice. He disappeared immediately, eager to report his findings to Link and Komali.

Bambi, meanwhile, realized something: things aren't quite so scary once you learn more about them...