GOS: Thanks for all the nice reviews everyone. I didn't know we had so many fans. It makes me so warm and fluffy on the inside. I feel so loved! –sniffle- And thanks for no more whining about their OOCness.
Shrimpy: It felt so weird, writing that last chapter….I felt like I was in a soap-opera… Still I'm glad you all enjoyed it!
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Chapter 10:
Bombs Away!
'It's so warm here…'
She scrunched her eyes…It wasn't morning yet…it was too early to be morning. Besides, the bed was so warm…It almost felt like…
And then Zelda, Princess of Hyrule, holder of the Triforce of Wisdom, sorceress-in-training, opened her eyes unto the most amazing sight.
Link.
He was…actually pretty cute, sprawled out like that, flat on his back, one hand flung wide across the off-white sheets, and the other…wrapped warmly around Zelda's shoulders. He was, needless to say, asleep, and he had a happy little smile on his face.
There was only one problem…The warm and soft sensation Zelda had been luxuriating in, was Link…More specifically, his chest, which Zelda had (at some point during the night) rolled onto during her sleep.
Zelda took a moment to ponder the situation, took a deep, calming breath…and opened her mouth to release the loudest, most annoying scream ever to be heard in Hyrule or anywhere else.
"PERVERT!"
Link jolted awake, and before even opening his eyes fully he had rolled out of bed and unsheathed his sword, ready to fight for his life if necessary.
"Where? What is it? What's wrong!" He shouted, looking around in the same threatening way that a half-wakened bear does when emerging from its winter den.
"You pervert!" Zelda replied, throwing a pillow at him (it was the only thing in reach) and clutching a blanket to her chest protectively. "You were molesting me in your sleep!"
Link blinked the sleep out of his eyes, staring dully at the screeching princess. "What the hell are you talking about now? It's too early in the morning for this…." He sheathed the Master Sword tiredly, leaning the scabbard against the wall where it had previously been.
"You…you were!" Zelda repeated, pointing an accusing finger at our hero. "You had your arm around me and everything! And I…" She broke off, blushing.
"You sure you weren't just dreaming about it? I mean, I know I'm incredibly sexy and all, but c'mon, Princess, reign in your hormones," He teased, grinning wickedly.
"Oh, please…" Navi mumbled to herself from her perch on top of Link's folded hat on the side-table. "It's too damn early for this crap…"
"I'll reign in my 'hormones' when you keep your filthy hands off me, you perv! I'm not the one who felt up her traveling partner while she was asleep!"
"Well, I'm not the one who had an erotic dream about being felt up by my traveling partner!"
Zelda was about to say something snarky in response, but thought better of it. Princesses do not stoop to petty insults. They are better than that.Grinning wickedly, Zelda snatched up Link's hat from the table in one hand, and with the other kindled a small ball of mage-fire.
Link could do nothing but gape at her.
"You'll apologize, or I'll set this thing on fire!" She told him.
"No! Not my hat!"
"Yes!" Navi cheered. "Burn it! I hate that thing!"
"Navi!" Link shouted, outraged.
"Well, it smells bad!" jingled the fairy in an explanatory tone.
Zelda cleared her throat threateningly, waving the hat. Link sighed, rolled his eyes, and then spoke.
"What do you want?"
"Gah!" Zelda cried, realizing that Link was wearing nothing but his tights. "Put on your clothes!"
Link smirked evilly "I don't know…" He drawled, stretching out luxuriously. "I always put on my hat first, then my clothes.
"No you don't!" Navi accused. "That's just stupid."
"Shut up! I'm trying to make a point here!"
"Seriously, it would just fall off," Navi continued. "Unless…you bobby-pin it."
"I told you to shut up!"
"Oh my goddesses! You do Bobby-pin it! You are such a girly man!"
"Listen you little cockroach with sparkles, you better shut your little mouth before I pull of your wings and drop you into a cucco pen!"
"Geez…" Navi grumbled. "I was just saying…"
"Eh-hem…" Zelda interrupted. "If you two lovebirds are finished..."
"Oh, yeah…" Link said, turning back to Zelda. "Gimme my hat!"
"Not until you apologize!"
"Fine, then I'll just stay half-naked until you get sick of waiting! I'm fine with it."
"Fine, then! I'll just change into a boy! Then you'll seem so gay that not only will you never get a girlfriend, you'll get hit on by men!"
Link sighed, and hung his head. "For the love of all that is good, I swear I don't know what you're talking about. I just want my hat back so we can go and save the people, okay?"
Zelda didn't reply, simply glared and dangled the hat a little closer to the flame.
"Fine. I'm sorry for whatever it is you say I've done, said or thought. Happy?"
"Good enough." Zelda agreed, tossing the hat at him. "Now seriously, get dressed!"
One sparkle-filled transformation sequence and a fresh, clean tunic later, Sheik and Link were dressed, awake and ready to face the dreary hell-hole the day was fated to be. Zelda, even through her disguise looked exhausted, having spent, like Link most of the night stiff-backed and tense, trying to pretend the other was not in their bed. Unlike Sheik, Link looked wide awake and fresh for the day, as if he had slept soundly all night long.
'Damn him!' She thought to herself. 'I bet he's only acting awake to spite me!'
"Or maybe I'm just a little more used to it than you are." Link replied.
"Gah!" Sheik flinched. "Did I say that out loud?"
"Yes." Link deadpanned.
Link slung his shield onto his back and led the way downstairs, to the place where the inn-keeper was sitting behind the bar, next to the Barkeep, who was still polishing that same glass from yesterday. The inn-keeper glanced up from his little greasy book as the two 'odd lads' came strolling over. He eyed the tight-panted one's exhausted face with bleary grey eyes.
"Eh… Enjoy yer' sleep?" he said in a falsely uncaring tone.
"Well, actually, I was up all nigh-" Sheik cut off suddenly realizing what that may imply. His-her face lit up as he flailed his arms helplessly. "Ah! I-I mean…"
The inn-keep just shook his head cutting off the flustered Sheikah. "You don't need to explain. It's none of my business."
Sheik looked down, face aflame. "I-it's… not what you think…"
Link cut her…him off with a sharp hand-motion, and dropped a small bag of rupees onto the bar in front of the man. "Here…it's the right amount, trust me."
Nodding, the Innkeeper pocketed the money. "Be seein' ya." He offered by way of a farewell.
"Sure," Link replied, then turned to leave. "C'mon."
Once outside, and out of the range of prying ears, Navi spoke up. "Oh, very smooth…I mean, honestly, you are the worst males ever."
Zelda, disguised as Sheik opened her mouth to insult the fire-bug, but was cut off by, surprisingly enough, Link.
"Hey! Shut up! You're still on thin ice from this morning!"
"Whatever you say, bobby-pin boy!"
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The town had been depressing, of course, and because of their late night they hadn't actually left the town until the sun was already high in the sky. The approach to Death Mountain was steep and fraught with danger, tall cliffs and gigantic spiders.
It was also fraught with...rows of flowers.
'So, this is the big scary Death Mountain he's been babbling about the whole way here...' Sheik thought to herself. '...but at least the flowers are pretty...'
"...and then, I went into the cave, and there were monsters and things everywhere..." Link continued, unnoticed by the disguised princess, "...and then...whew! This mountain seems a lot bigger than I remember. Let's take a break!"
Sighing, Sheik turned back to give the now-sitting hero the 'Evil Eye.' "You have got to be joking...we just started! Quit being such a baby!"
"I'm serious! It's hot...and besides, we're pretty far up the mountain," Link thumbed the view of the not-so-distant village over his shoulder. "Look how tiny it looks...a little break won't hurt."
Sheik sighed, glaring as shetapped her foot, but as Link had already sat down for a little breather, she...er...he could do nothing about it. The Sheikah looked around, andspotted one of the lovely little flowers she had seen from afar earlier. It was an odd little plant, petals perched on a bulbous blue base...though the bloom itself was bright and beautiful in fiery shades of red and orange. Sheik couldn't resist the temptation to lean down and touch it.
Link, who had been staring up at the cloud-ring around the peak and reminiscing about his childhood, glanced over at Sheik when he had leaned down, but looked away again when he only seemed to be bending down for a better look. Then, concerned, Link took a double-take.
"Uh...don't..." He began, but it was too late, the princess-Sheikah had already decided that picking the plant would be a good idea. She hefted the large and surprisingly heavy plant in both hands, and was now looking over at him curiously. "...What?"
Link gaped, stunned as the flower of the plant burst into bright, fizzing flames. "Throw it, you idiot!"
Sheik stared at our hero with a vaguely insulted look on her face. "What are you talking abou...Great Din, it's on fire!"
"Throw it, stupid!" Navi screamed, flying about erratically in her panic.
Sheik froze, staring stupidly at the flaming flower with wide, startled eyes.
"Oh, for the love of the Goddesses," Link cried, lunging towards Zelda determinedly. He hit her square in her mid-section, and she...he went down like a folding chair, all breath leaving his lungs and the bomb-flower sent flying by the force of Link's impact. The bomb bounced once, like a bowling ball, and rolled heavily down the slope. Link quickly threw himself over the stunned Zelda, and Navi darted, screaming, towards the sky, trying to get out of the blast range.
BOOM!
The ground trembled under the force of the explosion, and Link almostrelaxed when he heard it go off, certain that it had gotten far enough away to not be dangerous.
...almost.
"...What was that?" Sheik asked Link timidly.
"That," Link told her angrily, "Was a Bomb-flower...they explode...like bombs."
"Gee," Sheik drawled sarcastically, violently shoving Link off of her masculine body. "Do you really think so?"
"Yes, I do as a matter of fact, an-" Link began irritably, but was cut off by another explosion, louder than the first. He stared at Sheik with wide eyes as this second explosion was met by a third even more violent explosion, and then by a fourth... It seemed that the flames from the first blast had lit up several other bomb-flowers, and that now the 'pretty rows of flowers' were more like 'explodey rows of death' as the chain reaction traveled to effect more and more bomb-flowers.
"Oh, hell...get down!" Link pushed at Zelda-as-Sheik, not to the ground, but against a slightly concave portion of the rocky walls they had been walking along.
"What in the world are you...eep!" Sheik let out a very girly squeak, and Link braced them against the canyon wall and the explosions rained small boulders and rubble around his shoulders.
Link gritted his teeth against the shaking of the ground, and when all had seemed to be quieted down, he pulled back, squinted blearily through the sandy rock-dust that now billowed through the canyon. He sighed with relief.
"Navi! You okay?" He called, missing his constant companion, even if she was annoying as hell.
"Owww..." Navi moaned from where she was pinned under a fist-sized stone. Link pulled away from the stunned Sheik, and rushed to aid his fairy. He lifted the stone and chucked it away, leaving Navi dazed and relieved with one bent wing, but otherwise alright. Sheik came up behind Link as he was carefully straightening the offending wing.
"Oh-ow! Don't pull so hard...owowowowwwww!" The tiny creature complained as Link worked on her injury. "Ahhh...oh, that's much better...Good job, pal!"
"Sure," He replied with a sigh. "I might not like you, but hey...you an me, to the end, right."
"Don't get all mushy on me," jingled Navi.
Meanwhile, Sheik was recovering from his...her stupefied state. "Why would anyone make such a dangerous plant! I swear, none of this makes any since!"
Link turned on her with fire burning in his eyes. "The Gorons harvest these flowers to gather their food!"
She gave in a dumbfounded stare. "They eat explosions?"
"No, they eat rocks! Geez! Do you know anything!" Link said flustered.
"There are rocks everywhere...Why don't they just eat the ones on the ground?"
"Because they taste bad."
"...How...Do you know that?"
"I asked them!" Link shouted, finally running out of patience
A hurt expression spread across her... his face. "Hey, it's not my fault! I've lived behind walls for most of my life!"
"Well, the next time you don't know what something is don't touch it!" He cried, exasperated.
Just as Zelda was about to reply, there came a low, crunching, rumbling sound. As one, our two heros turned their heads to look up the slope. There, tumbling towards them was a gigantic round boulder, obviously dislodged by the mass-explosion.
Link stared at it stupidly for a moment. "Oh, perfect...I should have seen this coming."
"Oh, crap, run!" Navi shrilled, as Link snatched her up and ran to avoid the massive granite doom, Sheik trailing behind.
"Why the heck are you running that way! Shouldn't we be running away from certain death!" She cried as they ran up the hill.
"Just trust me!"
Link raced against the boulder, arriving at the fatal turn just seconds before the boulder did. The group sat on the ground, panting and giggling from relief.
"Okay...that was..." Link started, but stopped before he said anything insulting. "...Never mind. Hey, look! We're almost at the top."
"Great..." Sheik replied, gratefully. "I'll be glad to get out of this sun."
They stood and started forward again, and before long, a cavern mouth came into view. It was a nice, flat-floored thing, obviously made by intelligent minds rather than nature, and when Link spotted it, he immediately perked up.
"Look! There it is!" He shouted happily, racing ahead.
"What? The fire-temple?"
"The village!" Link yelled over his shoulder, not stopping to really look back.
"The village is at the bottom of the mountain, you idiot!" the Sheikah yelled.
"Not that village! The Goron Village!"
Link rushed into the tunnel, cheerfully ignoring his traveling companion. "I'm here! I'm back! It's me, Link!"
But he was met by nothing but echoes in the cavernous underground city of the Goron people.
"Hello? Is anybody here?" Link shouted echoingly.
Zelda and Navi came up behind him, albeit at a slower pace. "Why is it so empty?" She said, wonderingly.
But nobody replied, only the echoes of her own voice, "empty...'mpty...'pty...'ty..."
----------------To Be Continued------------
SNEAK PEEK OF CHAPTER 11!
Hammer Time!
(Do-dodo do, do-do, do-do)
"Why is this place full of GIANT ROLLING ROCKS!"
"Oh Goddesses! I'm on fire!"
"Everybody DANCE!"
"Ohh...it's sooooo shiiiiney..."
Random giant rocks, stuff catching on fire and even more explosions during the next chapter of Behind the Legend.
Navi: Will any of this crap even be in the Chapter?
Zelda: Probably not...it'll all get edited out at the end.
Link: That's stupid.
