GOS: I would just like to say to those of you still whining about the romance, it is coming but like the Sims if you move too fast...
Evil Ranting Beta Shrimpy: You're going to get smacked. Besides, it's been a total of what? Three days? Don't be stupid. This is being posted FF. net,on not Pornofanfiction. com or some random nonsense like that.
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Chapter 7:
The New Spectator Sport
It was torture, pure and simple. The world was throbbing, pain-filled example on the worthlessness of living. Bright lights blinded her atevery movement, and every sound grated upon her tender ears like iron nails across the blackboards of her eardrums. And the very worst sound was this:
"Keep up, Zelda! Geez, you'd think we were walking all day the way you whine," Link sighed exasperatedly from atop Epona. "We've barely gone ten feet! Look, you can still see where the campfire was."
Zelda glared at him through the fluffy, frizzed out puff that had once been her elegantly styled hair. "Maybe if I was riding a horse I would be so tired! Or maybe, if somebody had let me have the second watch, then I would have gotten a decent amount of sleep!"
"Look, you're the one who volunteered for-" Link began, but was cut off by an irate Zelda, yelling and waving her arms wildly.
"But, no! I had to stay up aaaaaall night, fighting those stupid skull-thingies!" She shouted at him.
"I feel forced to tell you," Link said, primly. "That they are not 'thingies,' they are Stalchilds."
"I don't care what they were!" She screamed. "I'm tired and filthy, and if I don't get a nap and a bath, your going to wish you'd never been born!"
Link jumped back from her as if stung, eyes wide and frightened "I...uh...Yes Ma'am! You want to ride Epona to get there faster?"
Zelda turned around, eyes an angry demonic red. "I don't want to ride anything with you!" She told him, gritting her teeth. "I'm walking."
"Gah! Okay, okay! Please don't kill me!"
With that, Zelda stomped off, grouching under her breath about the stupidity of men in general and country-bumpkin-kappas in specific.
"Geez," Navi muttered, just a little too loudly. "What a bitch. Maybe we should let her get her get her beauty sleep from now on. Goddesses know she needs it."
"What was that?" Zelda asked, and and Link jumped back, hiding behind Epona's neck.
"Nothing! Nobody said anything! Beautiful weather, isn't it?" He smiled in what he hoped was a winsome manner until she turned away and continued walking. Sighing, he pulled off his hat and glared down into it at his fairy. "Shut the fuck up, Navi! You're going to get us both killed."
"But it's true!" She told him. "She really is a B-" Link hurriedly slapped a hand over the hat before Zelda could hear.
They walked in complete silence until the sun was high in the afternoon sky. Off in the distance was a fluffy green stand of trees. They waved in some slight breeze as if greeting the travelers. As they came nearer, Zelda froze, transfixed by some strange sensation fathomable to neither Link nor Navi.
"Uh...Zelda?" Link said, hoping that she wasn't going to explode in a crazy blast of homicidal magic. "...Is...something wrong?" 'please let nothing be wrong! Please let nothing be wrong! Please please please!'
"Do you hear that?" Zelda snapped, voice full of a strange hope. "...That glorious sound?"
"Uh..." Link strained his ears, trying to hear something, but utterly failing. "Sure, I hear that...uh...whatever it is you want me to hear!" He smiled, trying not to let his thoughts show on his face. 'Oh, Goddesses! She's gone completely nuts!'
"Water!" Zelda cried out, running ahead towards the tree-line. "Water, glorious water, cool and clear and clean and oh, wait for me my darling water! I'll love you forever and ever and..."
It was at this point that Zelda went out of hearing range, and her loud proclamations of crazed bathing faded, leaving behind a shellshocked Link and Navi.
"Okay... that was a little weird..." tingled the fairy.
"A little weird?" Link snorted.
When they caught up to her she was standing in front of a calm flowing river with wide and teary eyes. "Have you seen anything so beautiful in your life?" Sheasked him, her voice filled with emotion. "It's so..."
"...Watery, yeah." Link finished for her. "Are you gonna get a bath or just look at it?"
Zelda turned her head to look at him in a slow and menacing way that was somehow more frightening than anything she had done up until now. Link suddenly regretted his previous words.
"If you even think about peeking, I'll find you when you're sleeping and cut 'it' off." She deadpanned, completely serious. Link gulped and nodded, and Zelda pointed towards a row of trees not too far away. "If you let anyone else peek, I'll still get you, because you're also my guard, got it?"
"Yes, ma'am." Link said, and began walking towards the tiny forested area.
"Move it!" Zelda cried, and he broke into a run.
It was a surprisingly short few moments before Zelda had undressed and was up to her waist in clean river-water. "Ahhhhhh! So nice," She sighed, dunking her frazzled hair under the water. "I don't understand how that kappa can stand himself, staying up like that...and no bath...that reminds me...NO PEEKING, KAPPA!"
From his post in the stand of trees, Link snorted to himself derisively. "I'M NOT!" He shouted back over his shoulder annoyedly. "...As if anyone would want to!"
"That's not what you said last night..." Navi jangled irritatingly.
"That was before," Link protested. "She threatened to cut off my...y'know...thingy."
Meanwhile, Zelda was gently massaging the tangles out of her hair. Mindlessly she hummed a tuneless tune, all the while thinking to herself; 'It's so peaceful and nice...If it weren't for these little breaks, I think I might end up killing somebody...' From beneath the water, a shadowy shape emerged. Glowing yellow eyes surveyed the princess' tender flesh from the murky depths.
Back with Link, the young hero had pulled out an arrow and was using it the scrape the bark from a twig.
"Stupid girl...What is it with girls anyway? They whine and whine about being dirty, and then they take so long," He grumped.
"Yeaaaah," Navi sighed musically, rolling her eyes. "How rude."
"Yeah! Then it's all; 'don't look at my naked self or I'll cut off your thingy,' " He groused "What's up with that? The girl's a psycho. I mean, if it were me, I'd be done by now. It doesn't take that long to get clean."
"Not that you would know..." Navi rang.
"What do you mean?" Link asked, innocently.
"Have you smelled the inside of your hat lately?"
At just that moment there came a frighteningly loud shriek. Whether the scream was out of anger or fear, Link couldn't tell, but he wasn't waiting to find out.
"Shit!" He shouted, snatching his sword from its' scabbard, and dashed into the actual basin of the river itself, preparing to charge at whatever had threatened Zelda. 'Psycho-girl told me to protect her! She's gonna fucking kill me!'
He stopped, wide-eyed and shocked, as soon as he saw her however, and immediately began making plans for a silent and speedy escape. The scene that greeted him was this: Zelda, completely nude, save thankfully for her long hair that hid two of her most important features, was beating the living daylights out of a rather...dead-looking octoroc that was twice her size with a large, flat rock. There was a patch of brown mud at the edge of the river, where rock had apparently come from.
"Take this you foul beast!" She cried, outraged. "How dare you disturb my bath! This is the only time when I can relax!"
Link twitched fearfully, and a drop of blood dripped from his nose. 'holycrapholycrapholycrapholycrap!' He swallowed, and began to slowly back away, sheathing his sword in the process. He had nearly escaped when Zelda sighed happily, put down the rock and let the very squished octoroc wash away downstream.
"Don't think I don't see you, there, Link!"
'Shit!' Link grimaced, covering his eyes with one hand and turning around. "Uh...I...Uh..."
"I told you what would happen if you peeped!"
Thud!
...And for several hours after that, Link knew nothing but blackness. When he came to the sky was dark and both Navi and Zelda were standing...or fluttering...over him.
"Damn!" Jingled the fairy. "That was some rock! Good shot, Zelda."
"Shut up..." Link moaned at Navi, but fell silent when he saw how angrily Zelda was glaring at him.
The princess crossed her arms furiously over chest and smiled in a way that was not at all happy. "See anything you like, kappa?"
"Uh..no!" Link cried, defensively. "I didn't..." He trailed off, decided that he was only digging himself deeper, and decided to change tactics. "Hey! Zelda, why don't you let me take first watch?"
The princess only glared down at him, one eyebrow raised as if to say 'is that all?'
"Uh...In fact, how about I take all the watches, and you get a nice, long, peaceful nights sleep, okay?"
"Good," Zelda said, and turned away, skirts swirling.
And so, the sun set once again on Hyrule, and another day ended for Link, the hero of legend.
------------To Be Continued---------
