The Pirate and the Hero
By: Wordsworth 13
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Zelda
Chapter 5: Problems & Solutions
Link, as usual, woke up late, with back pains, a direct result of sleeping on a wooden crate. He almost missed the sands. Two days ago, the pirates had picked him and Tetra up from Forest Trap Island and last night he and the captain had made a decision.
He climbed up the ladder and lazily trudged up the stairs, making his way towards the door that led to the main deck. As he opened the door he spotted a familiar short man with goofy buck teeth and scruffy blonde hair hidden by a pirate bandana. "Niko," he hissed, running towards his shipmate "Where's the captain? I have to go beg for mercy."
"No worries, Swabbie!" Niko told him "You're not the only person who's late up today, no-one's seen the captain yet."
"Really?" Link asked. This was odd, Tetra, whereas not punctual or fussy, at least had more discipline than to lie in just because she felt like it. Besides, the crew were hopeless without their Captain, well almost, and they'd be utterly helpless trying to carry out the next plan to locate the new Hyrule: Explore the unexplored, as in, the uncharted waters. Now, the crew knew that the myths about monsters were merely myths from recent personal experience, but then they could barely make heads or tails of the sea if they didn't have a map.
Link sighed, "Hasn't anybody thought to even knock on her door?" He asked as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, which really, it was. Niko shook his head "Can't." He replied plainly. "Too scared." Link sighed again, every day the pirates seemed more and more pathetic, even last night Niko wouldn't go to bed because there was a spider standing next to his crate, and Link was pretty sure it had been dead anyway. The minty garbed thirteen-year-old opened the cabin door and made his way back below deck. He knocked on the red doorframe with the back of his fist, but almost forgot what he was there for when his eye caught Tetra's delicate sleeping form, her graceful yellow hair loose dangling halfway over her face. She lifted her head up and blinked once. "Link, what is it?" She murmured sleepily.
"Uh, Tetra, everyone but you is up." Link replied quietly "You should really get dressed and come up on deck." Upon this remark Tetra realised that the only thing covering her was her bed sheet. "Well, go away then she replied as sharply as she could in her semi conscious state. "Okaaaaaaaaay…" Link said, stepping away, mildly surprised by Tetra's lack of enthusiasm when yelling at him and climbed back onto the deck.
A good nine minutes of waiting by the door later Link remarked to Mako "Boy, girls sure do take a long time to get dressed. Mako simply replied "I wouldn't know, we've never had to wait on the Miss since before her mother got- uh…"
"Impaled by Moblins, I know." Link said hanging his head solemnly. Another minute passed and the door to his right was slowly pushed open and a normally dressed, but not dignified at all, pirate captain drifted through looking as awake as a lump of coal in a fire. Have you ever noticed how coal is just too lazy to run around screaming when it catches alight?
The not-so-graceful looking commander of brigands flopped herself over the railing and looked out to see. "Um… Tetra, did you sleep okay last night?" Link asked with concern.
"Yeah, I'm okay, I'm okay." Tetra assured him "Just feeling a little iffy, that's all, nothing whatsoever."
"Tetra, getting sick isn't nothing whatsoever," Link warned her "you shouldn't push yourself."
"Why not?" Tetra asked "I've been pushing myself all my life, and look at me now!"
"That's my point exactly." Link replied with nothing but cheeky humour in his tone.
"Why you…" Tetra came back, halfway between sleepily and bitingly harsh, but before she could finish her sentence turned around and threw up over the side of the boat.
"See, you're not fine!" Link practically shouted, "In fact I'd say you're violently ill!"
It was at this point that Gonzo started to panic. "Oh what do we do? Oh, what do we do?" He murmured to himself on the tone of someone who, well, doesn't know what he should do in the present situation. "Is there any medicine on board?" Link asked. Gonzo shook his head. "Nope, no-one's ever got sick before." He patted his chest "The sea air's good for ya, you see. And if people get sick from to much grog, we hang 'em over the edge 'till they hurl, and then they're fine."
"Well, that couldn't be it, she was in a meeting with me last night…" Link said uncertainly. Then his eyes widened slightly and a knowing smile lit up his face. "I know." All eyes turned on him. "I'll just take her to see Orca's brother."
"Who?" Senza asked, befuddled, as were the rest of the crew.
"Orca's brother." Link replied "Long story short he's a really, really smart guy who lives on my home island, we'll just ask him how to fix this, 'kay?"
"'Kay!" the amassed rapscallions of wherever they were said in unison.
"Which way, green kid?" Gonzo asked enthusiastically
"For you guys, no way, it's too far, I have a short cut." Everyone looked befuddled at this comment. Link patted his pocket and coughed. Everyone appeared bemused. He pulled out the Wind Waker and coughed very loudly. Everyone did not seem confused.
"Why can't you use it on us?" Niko asked
"Ship's too big; a cyclone would tear it apart." Link replied nonchalantly
"Whoa, you can make tornadoes too!?" Niko asked in surprise.
"Oh, did I not mention that?" Link murmured, hopping into the King of Red Lions, which was suspended to the side of the auburn galleon. "Can someone, put the captain in here please?" He asked as he began to untie some of the safety ropes. Gonzo tried to pick Tetra up before a sharp "Put me down, moron!" split the air. The tattooed buccaneer placed his commander back onto the deck and she stumbled towards the boat hanging precariously over the side of her ship. She made it most of the way before she collapsed, falling over the railings into Link's expecting arms. "Still think you're okay?" He asked triumphantly "Get your hands off me, pervert." was the girl's unappreciative response
"Whatever you say," he said mischievously, dropping her onto the boat's wooden flooring. "Hey what do you th-" was all Tetra had time to grumble dizzily before link untied the main rope and the pair plunged down onto the rolling waters.
Link yelled "Just go put yourselves in harbour at Windfall, I'll be back soon," up at the mariners. After he had sailed to a safe distance, Link set about waving his silver baton in a simple series of directions to summon one of the whirlwinds of Cyclose, a weird looking frog-shaped lesser god with a strange attitude to, well, everything. Before one could say something strange about odd sandwich fillings and sports utensils, Link was looking at his home once again. Sooner than he'd expected, but he was in no mood to be happy about much anything; despite his jovial façade he was deeply concerned for his friend.
He moored the boat and lifted Tetra up and stepped onto the soft, white sand. "I can walk." The pirate hissed at him. He did as was instructed, and as soon as she was on her feet she fell over again, and landed in Link's arms, again. "Now will you accept that you need some help?" He asked sternly, he was actually becoming considerably agitated.
"Fine, but none of that carrying me like we're getting married or something!" She sighed with an edge. Link didn't know you could even do that. "Okay, but you could have picked a much better phrase." He replied happily, slipping her arm over his shoulders, and carrying her like a wounded soldier, which was perhaps, far more befitting a pirate captain. If it was Tetra, that came before 'pretty girl' on her list of identities.
Somehow managing to drag her up the ladder on the side of Orca's house, he popped her up against the wall and knocked on the door. "Hello, Sturgeon!" He said eagerly as a bald man with a pair of small round spectacles covering his eyes, a long, wispy beard and a large bald dome to 'top it all off', "Link? Is that you my boy, oh, my, how you've grown."
"I haven't grown." Sturgeon thought for a moment before saying this
"Oh, my, how I've shrunk." Link paused before saying
"Um, yeah, listen I need a favour."
About ten minutes later everyone was sitting at the low coffee table in the dark orange wooded hut. "So, your girlfriend's sick then?" Sturgeon asked after hearing Link's tale of minimal woe. "She's not my girlfriend!" Link cried out in alarm, hoping Tetra hadn't been conscious or sound minded enough t hear and understand that comment. "It might have something to do with this scar on her arm." He said uncertainly.
Sturgeon took a look at the violet zigzag mark across Tetra's limb, "How did this happen?" he asked. One long story later, the hugging parts left out, Sturgeon was flipping through some dusty old books, looking for any reference to their predicament. "Ah, here, that plant that bit the young miss was a rare flower related to the Boko Baba Plant, called a Kalle Necros, and it ahm…" The old man trailed off, and then asked "Would you like sugar with your diagnosis?" Tetra shook her head vehemently; she seemed to be feeling a bit better. "In that case," he announced "you're going to die in four weeks unless you can gather the ingredients for a very particular and hard to make potion, then find someone talented enough to stir the damn thing up for you."
"Oh," Link said "well that shouldn't be too hard." Sturgeon looked surprised "Do you have some kind of list of ingredients?" Link enbquired hopefully. The elderly genius handed a piece of paper to Link who skimmed it through whispering to himself "Chu jelly, chu jelly, chu jelly, more bloody chu jelly, Boko Baba seeds, Kargaroc feathers, and some other stuff I've never heard of, okay." He looked up at the old man "I owe you one."
"Oh, by the way, that scar will heal, and you can fix her stomach with this." The man handed Link what appeared to be a bar made of weeds that had been smooshed together. "This looks like a bar of weeds that've been smooshed together."
"It is a bar of weeds that've been smooshed together."
"Oh,"
A short while later Link and Tetra were sitting in the King of Red Lions in a tucked away nook at the 'back' of the island, the female member of the pair unenthusiastically nibbling at the bar of weeds that'd been smooshed together. "What's on that list?" She asked him. It tasted like vomit, but that lump of near edible compost was doing the trick. He unrolled the parchment and recited it;
"1 Red Chu Jelly, 1 Green Chu Jelly, 1 Blue Chu Jelly, 1 Golden Feather, 1 Boko Baba Seed, 1 Dragon's Scale, 250 grams of Fairy Dust and 1 Drop of Salt Water, then the potion needs to be boiled, flash frozen and blessed by the holy light, then it has to ferment for three days."
Tetra just nodded and put her feet up, "I'm hungry." She said, "Get us something to eat."
"There's plenty of food back aboard the ship."
"Well, I want a break from pirating, get us something to eat." Link sighed,
"Fine, I'll go visit Grandma and get us some soup." He had wanted to avoid visiting his family; he'd have to disappoint them by leaving again. He climbed up the prow of the boat and hopped off onto a large stepping stone.
He visited his family and there was much ado, many questions, a few answers and after about half and hour and a lot of 'sorry but I really have to go'ing, he made it back to the King of Red Lions and back to Tetra. He would have wanted to stay lobnger, and by longer I mean for weeks, but the captain didn't like to be kept waiting, and his family's barrage of concern was giving him a migraine.
He found her asleep; he shook her shoulder to wake her up, which worked surprisingly enough. "Well that certainly took awhile." She said impatiently
"Just drink your soup." The boy responded firmly. And the two ate in silence, before their non-conversation was interrupted by one of the most shocking things that had ever happened to Link:
"Thanks." Tetra said.
"What?" He said in utter disbeleif "Thanks!? For what?"
"Thanks, if you hadn't brought me here, I wouldn't be seeing next year for certain, and for listening to me back on the island."
"Don't worry, Tetra, I'm your friend, it's what I'm here for." He told her reassuringly.
"Thanks. It's nice to have someone I can actually talk to. I can't really tell the pirates anything."
"Why not?"
"Pirate captains aren't supposed to have emotions." She whispered miserably "I didn't have anyone to turn to after mum died, they're all too stupid, or if it's Mako; too smart, so no-one really understood me. I've never had a real friend. Not one 'till you came along." Link could see tears starting to well up in her eyes. Tetra never actually started crying, in fact Link wasn't sure if he hadn't imagined the tears, but he moved closer to her and put an arm around her shoulder.
She looked up to him, smiled and took a deep breath. "But the past is the past." She declared jubilantly. Link smiled back. It was like the two friends had absolutely no problems, aside from the obvious, 'make this potion or you die' thing they had going on.
Absolutely out of the blue, then, a deep, booming and familiar voice came from seemingly nowhere and everywhere. "Would you two mind not flirting on my back!?" It demanded, the boat turning its figurehead around to glare at the two of them.
"King!?" Link gasped
Yes! Another chapter done after so, so, so, so, so long, so what did you think, have I lost my touch, is it the best yet, or is the darned thing smack bang in the middle. All reviewers will not be destroyed by my Martian brethren!