Chapter 13 Watch out world! Here comes Zelda!

"JIRO JIRO JIRO JIRO JIRO!" I body slammed Jiro with my full weight directly to the back of his knee sending him sprawling face first onto the floor. "Whyyyyyy" he moaned, ignoring the startled laughter of dottie who was trailing behind me and the other boys (probably fellow squires) Jiro was walking with.

"I have great news and I need your help." i chirped happily from my position flopped over on his back grinning stupidly into his shirt.

"And this couldn't wait till, i don't know after i got off work" he complained muffled face still pressed firmly into the stone floor.

"Nope!" I grinned smugly from my position of dominance. "Ugghhhhhhh." He groaned before rudely flipping over sliding me off his back and startling a surprised Yelp from me. How the turn tables! Now it was my turn to be sprawled painfully on the floor.

"Mean" I pouted, staring at the stone ceiling torches casting cheerfully dancing shadows.

"Ok so what's this news that's so important that you had to tell me on shift." he stood up brushing his pants off before offering me a hand.

"Mommys going to be taking me out to the town!" I squealed, bouncing to my feet, vibrating with excitement. "I've never really left home before! I'm so excited!"

"That's great zelda! I'm so excited for you!" Jiro grinned ruffling my hair ignoring the surprised dobble takes his friends were making when they realized he was ruffling the princess hair instead of some random little girl.

"Hey, leave her hair alone! I spent like twenty minutes on it this morning." dottie complained mildly, indicating that she wasn't all that upset about Jiro ruining her work.

"Oh uh sorry dahlia!" Jiro pulled his hand back like my head was hot, a light blush rising on his cheek. I raised my brows. Oh? what's this?

"Anyway, what is it that you needed my help with?" Jiro redirected turning the conversation back to my upcoming adventure.

"How do I people?"

"What?"

"How do i people? I literally know you, Dahlia, my parents and granny, I'm not exactly experienced in social interactions."

"Oh, huh, you know now that I think about it that's a bit of a complicated subject, theirs not exactly a book out there listing social taboos and how to properly interact with people without being rude." Jiro scratched his head a look of bemused concentration on his face.

A thought hit me like lightning out of the blue, how had I not thought of this before!

"Jiro you're a genius! Thank you so much!" I lunged forward hugging him tightly before turning to sprint toward the library.

"what?"

"Zelda, wait for me! Don't run!"

There were literally hundreds of books on manners and social edict in the library! How could I forget! Mother had literally pointed out the section to me and mentioned that when I started taking lessons social edict and manners was going to be one of my subjects!

To the library!

I was prepared for battle.

I had spent the last week almost obsessively studying the various edict and manner guides in the library, much to the respective worry and resigned amusement of Dottie and granny. I had carefully created my own mini packet on the different running themes and most important rules of decorum and manners from several different books on manners.

Who knows how different the social structure here is to the social structure in my old world! Something innocuous in one culture could be unimaginably rude in another. Who knows how different things are across worlds!

While many things seemed to be similar one can never be too careful!

I had studied, I had prepared, I had carefully selected my most normal outfit with Dottie so that I wouldn't stand out all that much and could interact with the people normally.

I was finally ready for my debut into the normal world!

I had unfortunately forgotten to calculate some things into my plans.

First of all I had forgotten horses would be part of the occasion. I liked horses, I did really! But right now I was entirely too small to be completely comfortable around them. I might be just a little, just a smidge, irrationally terrified of horses right now.

Just a little bit.

I might know rationally that the horses are unlikely to harm me but a four year old brain dose not exactly fit the gold standard of rationality. And again horses are huge. My hide brain is screaming at me to run and hide behind my safe people.

There just so… big.

And on top of the… horse issue I had SOMEHOW completely forgotten about the whole being royalty therefor important enough that I couldn't go anywhere without a guard thing.

I needed to alter some of my plans-

This would need all of my persuasive rhetoric skills.

—-—

Ok that was way easier then I expected.

My plan was originally to ask mother if we could go incognito and only bring Dottie or granny with us and then when she inevitability rejected that plan because of the danger in that plan I would suggest that maybe we could bring a soldier or two in plane clothes so we could still go incognito but at the same time still be protected.

Present an extreme suggestion and then when that is rejected suggest your real plan to make it seem more reasonable and moderate slowing for the illusion of compromise and willingness to give in on serious issues.

A basic rhetorical scheme.

(Thanks sophomore English)

…that did not happen.

As soon as I suggested to my mother that we go to town in disguise with only granny and or Dottie she lit up in excitement and immediately agreed. Apparently my moms a bit of a daredevil.

The more you know.

So off we went dressed In plain civilian clothes with ply granny at our side circling around and reentering the city from the outside to further disguise ourselves our distinctive golden carefully tucked away behind scarves or hoods to prevent anyone from recognizing their queen or princess at first glance.

I was so freaking excited.

I was practically vibrating where I sat as we dismounted a plain unadorned horse.

Now that I had a better chance to study my new home I was even more impressed. Beyond the fact that castle town was obviously a bustling trade center with peoples of all walks of life and races making up its residents, I was astounded by how happy everyone I saw looked. While we were obviously in a well off part of town I was still astonished at the sheer contentment and joy that seem to radiate all throughout the market square. Even though this was obviously a feudal society with a ruling monarchy and a lack of technology, no one seemed discontent or downtrodden. (On the technology thing I am so glad that someone had figured out the basics of plumbing.)

Castle town was frankly not standing up to the reputation of miserable short and frankly painful lives that the medieval and renaissance periods had for there average citizen outside of the nobility.

Everyone just seemed so happy to be alive and to be where they were now In the center of Hyrule.

From the merchants hawking there wears to the wandering peoples gossiping or cheerfully haggling with the shop keeps everyone seemed to radiating a happy contentment. Sure there was the occasional disagreement or unhappy person but even then it didn't seem to weigh as heavily upon there shoulders as one would expect. Here in the market on a bright sunny day in Hyrule joy seemed to be infectious.

"Mommy is everywhere like this?"

I couldn't help but ask. unable to tear my eyes away from the vibrant gleeful life of the marketplace.

"What do you mean my little songbird?"

I spun around in a circle arms wide gesturing to the entire market a joyful smile growing on my face to mirror the ones across the marketplace. "Everyone here is so happy! Even the people who are upset are a little happy!"

My mother smiled at me a soft look in her eyes. "Your very insightful my songbird, but no not everywhere is as happy as castle town, but-" she picked me up to prop on her hip, smiling down at me eyes sparkling. "Me, your dad, Ila, and a lot of other people work very hard every single day to try and make everyone and everywhere as happy as we can." Gazing around she grinned at granny haggling with a stable hand on the price to tie our horse to there water and feed.

"And I say we did a pretty good job here."

"How did you and everyone else make castle town so happy?" I question eyes locked on a group of kids playing an improvised game of some sort, Groudo, Goron, Rito, Zora, and Hylian children all playing happy cheerfully heckling each other as there parents sold or bought various things in the market.

"Well you're never too young to start learning how to be a good queen"

Wat

"People are happier when there healthy so the health of our people is important. Your not happy when your sick or feel icky right"

I nod absently, thanks for metaphorically sucker punching me with the reminder that someday I might be queen mom. I don't know if i could be responsible for all of these people.

"To help people not feel icky or sick I built a bath house here in castle town but that's a small thing in the scope of the country"

No wonder everyone seemed happier. I'd be miserable if I was dirty all the time and on top of that everyone will be healthier because everyone is cleaner. Even if everyone believes that sickness is created by foul smells or something the fact that there clean will remove body odor encouraging them to keep clean!

That's a major improvement for the standard of living for everyone in the city even if only by proxy because less people are getting sick and spreading it!

Even if it was unintentionally mother had improved the lives of everyone in the city and prevented many deaths.

"I also worked with your father and my fellow leaders to improve Hyrules road ways by having them maintained and regularly patrolled by guards to protect everyone traveling from monsters! That's actually how I met and fell in love with your father, he approached me when he was still just a general about creating a patrol around the main roads leading from castle town. I had been working on a bill preposing a move for road restoration and before we knew it our plans had expanded to all of Hyrule we were in talks with the four kingdoms." Her voice had drifted of to wistful recollection and I was once again awed by my mother.

I don't really believe in hereditary monarch but darn it I don't think you could find a better queen then my mom.

My mom had let me off her hip and was holding my hand tightly as we perused the market stalls granny quietly whispering in mother's ears and steering her away from the low quality goods and toward the stalls of higher quality.

My head was on a swivel watching all the bustle around me from a new angle.

"Well aren't you cute! first time in the city dear?" The cheerful voice of an older woman selling confectionery caught my attention as she spoke to me.

"Yes mam." I replied politely, drawing to a stop, automatically dropping into a little curtsy forgetting the fact that we were supposed to be undercover.

"Oh! What a polite little lady! You're doing a wonderful job with her dearie!" The woman chuckled, turning to my mother. Her eyes scanned across my mother's face pausing momentarily before continuing on.

"Would you like to buy some sweets for your sweet little thing? I certainly wouldn't mind throwing a discount for the little princess!" She smiled charmingly and my heart stopped.

She knew? How did she know! We're in disguise! My mind was racing a mile a minute but my mother just laughed.

"What do you think baby? Are you hungry enough for a small snack?" I nodded shakily answering "yes mama." On autopilot.

right, princess is also a nickname for little girls. It was ok we hadn't been discovered just yet.

"I'll take a hmmm… I'll take a slice of nut cake please. Little songbird, what would you like?"

I scanned over the confection and my eyes froze on a pumpkin pie.

Suddenly I was struck with an agonizing wave of homesickness. The pumpkin pie reminded me of baking for my family before thanksgiving.

happily baking far too much pie and a surprise pumpkin cheesecake just because I could and I wanted to contribute. Driving the long hours to my grandparents chatting with my brother and then laughing about the squished edges of the cheesecake when we arrived.

Snarking with my beloved little brother, rolling my eyes and laughing at my grandfather's silly jokes, cooking with my grandmother, gossiping and taking photos with my cousin, jealously listening about my aunt's latest vacation and committing to memory her occasional moments of important life advice.

Watching tv documentaries with my dad, reading and cuddling with my mom in companionable silence, talking tech with my uncle, and listening to my great grandmother snark.

I missed my family.

The scar on my soul in the shapes of their smiles ached and burned. Causing my eyes to start to water.

"Can I have a slice of pumpkin pie please"

"Of course! Are you ok dear?"

"Yes mam! I just have something in my eye and it itches." I lied as I rubbed my eyes trying to stop my tears

"Ok little princess, what color string do you want me to tie your box with? I have white black , tan, grey, and brown."

"I'll have black please. Thank you for letting me choose which color!"

"Of course dearie! You have the sweetest little girl mam you're very lucky to have her."

My mother smiled bending down to wipe away the lingering tears before picking me back up and propping me on her hip.

"I'm very aware, my little princess is a great gift from Hylia, and I'm very thankful for her"

God she's going to make me cry again.

"Here you go, miss! I added an extra little surprise for the little princess!"

"Miss you didn't need to do that!"

"Oh hush it's just a little something to reward you for being so polite and listening to your mama."

"Thank you mam" I replied as my mother graciously accepted the prettily tied box in the hand which wasnt holding me.

"Come on sweetheart i see ila setting up a spot for us to sit by the fountain!"

I took my first bit of my slice of pie and closed my eyes. She had not used as much spice as i would and the crust was different but it was pumpkin pie.

And as I sat with a part of my new family and took bites of nostalgia and looked fondly at the little honey candies the woman at the stall had snuck into our box I reaffirmed my goal. I wouldn't lose this new family, and I would make sure no one else had to lose their families either.

I'm not dead!

I'm not going to lie, this chapter kicked my ass.

Also full time jobs are hard but I'm back to school so I have a little more time now!

SpicyArbiter: my first thought was 'that's terrifying' but i googled it and horses are herbivores, i mean technically all herbivores are omnivores of opportunity like a deer would totally eat a bird if it could but horses are herbivores.

Heitor: sorry this took me so long! Also don't worry the cover will get more relevant as the story goes on! ;) (yaaay sadness!) thinking about it hugging gannon would probably be physically corrosive so theres that. And don't worry the existential crisis are coming! I dont think theres going to be one about that though simply due to zeldas psychological make up and the fact that her imposter syndrome is one of the most relevant parts, but i did seriously consider putting that somewhere in the out line. Treason is everywhere. And the sheika kids did figure out who zelda was there was a lot of panic on their part about accidentally disrespecting their future monarch. Link will definitely have a character. ALSO i really appreciate your understanding about update time especially in the wake of my summer long hiatus. I adore you and wish you the best of days!

With love! Desolate R0se!

ThatBlueStrawberry: yes granny is a shika! I imagine zeldas mom and dad to be somewhere in there 20 - 30s and granny is 40 - 50. Being royalty can lead to a bit of a disconnect :p

Cheddar: welcome! I dont know if `im ever going to reveal that zelda remembers her past life in this book but that is something i DO have in the plotting for book 3. (yes i have like 4 of these suckers planned i know im insane.)