The Pirate and the Hero

By: Wordsworth 13

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Zelda

Chapter 6: Kings & Queens

Link was surprised. Pleasantly surprised, pleasantly, 'Oh my goddesses, holy shit, you almost gave me a heart attack' surprised, but pleasantly nonetheless. Staring back at him was the carved, red and yellow visage of a royal lion, and it was the prow of his boat. "King you're alive," he yelled in jubilation. The boat looked himself up and down. "Your right." The boat murmured before yelling up at the sky "Hey! That wasn't part of the deal."

"Something wrong?" The elfin thirteen-year old asked the talking water vehicle.

"Yes! I liked being dead, people left me alone!" King whined.

"Wow, the talking boat's talking again." Tetra mumbled in a relative lack of surprise.

"Yes, isn't it fantastic, my buddy's back!" Link cried out, wrapping his arms around the figurehead's figure-neck.

"Hey, hey, calm down, and more importantly get your filthy mitts off me!" The King instructed him. Tetra coughed

"Do we not maybe have something slightly more important than this to do, Link?" She asked sarcastically

"Oh, right!" He said, fumbling through his tunic for the Wind Waker, producing it and playing a simple tune to summon up yet another whirlwind. Within the space of two minutes he, Tetra and their carved and suddenly-back-from-the-dead companion, were sucked up and dumped somewhere off the coast of one Windfall Island.

Niko was hanging off the side of the pirate ship, slumped over the railings in a dejected boredom. It was too early to get drunk, too cloudy to sunbathe and too public to start randomly swearing in the knowledge that nobody could hear him. But, out of the blue, a vaguely familiar sound met his ears, which looked like small dinner plates stuck randomly on either side of his head. It was the wind, moving very quickly, very close by. He looked out to the sea and saw a huge grey swirl of dust that had been whisked up into the atmosphere, which gradually dissipated, leaving behind a red boat. One he'd seen before, containing Link and the miss. They were back! "Hey, hey you guys, the miss is back!" He began shouting out across the ship. It wasn't rude but at least he got to shout something.

The scarlet vessel drifted towards the pirate galleon at a leisurely pace, but soon arrived to a cheery reception, Link and Tetra being dragged jollily out of the seafaring tub. "Great to see ya back in one piece, Link!" Gonzo laughed slapping him heartily and painfully on the back. Niko meanwhile was looking at all the details of the King. "Wow, never noticed how fancy yer boat was before, Link!"

"Why thank you." The King of Red Lions said

"Aaaaagh! Possessed boat!" The blond scallywag screamed in horror

"He's not possessed, King can talk, he just stopped, for a while…" Link explained unsurely

"More'n a year." Zuko said plaintively.

"Weird." Niko said, looking into King's lacquered wooden eyes.

"Says you." The King retorted

After not a lot of explaining about the boat, the pirates wanted explaining, but not a lot, about what was wrong with the captain. Tetra fielded that one "Well, basically I've been infected with a deadly, deadly poison and if we don't gather the ingredients for the antidote within four weeks I'll die. The sickness was temporary and I'm fine now. We should be able to get the ingredients relatively quickly and we're setting off immediately, any questions!?" Before anyone had time to raise their hand or say a syllable a million times shorter that the word 'deed' she continued as thus; "No? Good, where to first, navigator?" All eyes turned to Link. He lifted the battered parchment that was the list and read the first things on there. "We should set sail for … Paw-Print Isle." He instructed them. Everyone was silent. "Why?" Someone finally asked, though Link wasn't sure who.

"Because of its high Chu population." He said, though this meant nought to the crew, most of whom didn't know the meaning of the word 'population'. "Look, just set sail." He said. No-one questioned this, all going about their duties, including Link, who was conducting a simple tune with his baton to put the wind in a correspondent southern direction to speed the journey. Once he'd done this he had little else to do unless some unusual obstruction caused a course change, so he went over to the King of Red Lions, jumping aboard and putting his feet up.

"Link?"

"Hm?"

"Do you have any idea what's going on?" King enquired

"What do you mean?" The elfish child asked back in surprise

"Well, I mean look at me, I'm talking again! Why would that happen, just ask yourself?"

"I dunno," Link said, replying as honestly as he could

"Has anything else strange happened recently?"

"Well, we found an island that was full of monsters, but what connection could there be?" King would have shrugged had he been in possession of a pair of shoulders, but instead merely stated "I don't know."

"Well, I'm glad you're back."

"I'm not." Link glared at him for a moment

"You're too cynical." He complained, before tipping his cap forwards and settling down for a nap. A boat or a crate, what difference did it make? He was going to get a sore back either way.

When he was awoken it was unexpected, sudden, painful and most of all; rude! The pirate ship thumped against the edge of Paw-Print Isle, throwing him forwards slightly and giving him a minor whiplash. Like I said: painful. It wasn't long before Tetra was looming over him like a rain cloud. "Okay, fairy-boy, get going!"

"Wha-" Link mumbled in confusion

"You're the only person on this boat who knows what to look for, so get on with it!" She hissed

"All right, all right." The pointy-eared child whispered sharply as he rose up and dusted himself off. He leapt off the side of the boat, rolling on his landing, and yelled back up. "Gimme five minutes, 'kay!?"

"Okay!" The tanned girl called back down to him. He ran off and she turned around to look at her crew. "Well," she said slowly "what now?" The crew just looked at her. "Hello? We have five minutes to wait, now what are we gonna do 'til Link gets back?"

"We could, er, play cards, cap'n." Niko suggested

"Okay." She said. It was quite possibly the best idea Niko would have in his life.

"Ah, one problem cap'n…" Senza said, raising his hand "Nudge ate our only deck." Tetra gave both the aforementioned crewmembers funny looks.

"What?" Nudge asked "I was hungry." Tetra slapped herself. How did she wind up with this bunch of imbeciles?

"Miss," Senza began again "I could make some more with a knife and some scrap wood." He finished nervously.

"Good idea, tell me when you're done." She said, laying down where Link had been about thirty seconds prior. "Niko, get the man some wood!"

"Aw, do I have to?" The buck toothed excuse for a seaman groaned. Tetra gave him a death glare. "On my way!" He announced hurriedly; when Tetra glared at someone, they really got a good glaring-at, but I suspect this was known to you already. With nothing better to do, and believe me, from her point of view there were so many better options, she got to thinking.

Why wasn't she afraid? Normal people would be afraid. Her life was at risk. Maybe it was because it wasn't an immediate risk, not life or death, well actually it was, but they had four weeks to sort it out. But still, it wasn't normal for someone to be this calm, was it? Was it that she really trusted Link to the extent where her very life is as easy a thing to watch over as a bag of shopping? She hoped not. Trusting people never got you anywhere, especially if it was with your life. Most people who did that were dead. She knew she already trusted the boy more than any of her other mismatched compliment, but not with her life. Did she? She was, after all, having him go most of this mission solo. It was a difficult conundrum. There was no way she had that much faith in Link's abilities, she just had to remember that. Then again, why not trust someone who saved the world? The world is a big responsibility after all, if Link could save a world's population, why not just one girl. No, just one pirate; that came first, she was the captain, not the maiden. She had to remember who she was.

It crossed her mind that talking about her feelings had perhaps brought to surface some of her long repressed femininity. She shuddered at the though. 'Me, being girlish…eew.'

She shook her head. Only a few moments after this Link returned with his spoils bag looking no bigger but a victorious smile on his face said the same thing as he did. "Got 'em!" He declared with glee, holding the sack up for all to admire. It wasn't really particularly splendid though.

"Good." Tetra noncommittally responded, not imbalanced by any sort of gladness at his success 'Do not let on that you're in the middle of an identity crisis.' "How are those cards coming along, Senza?"

"I'm half way through the ace o' diamonds."

"Good." The captain said again 'Only a slight one though…' "Where next?" All eyes back to Link. He scrambled back to the list, which had fitted nicely into his map pocket. "Uh, the Forest Haven…" He stammered uncertainly reading the next item on the list to be Boko Baba seeds.

"Okay." Tetra said dully. She was getting tired, it was late evening already. "Gonzo, man the wheel, Senza, have a nap and take the graveyard shift. I'm going to bed." And with that the blue-eyed thirteen year old walked off to her quarters. Being poisoned was exhausting.

It was about fifteen minutes that passed as she quietly watched each member of the crew, excluding the pair she'd left on duty, walk yawning with fatigue into the cargo hold, preparing for a painful night sleeping with a bunch of other loud, smelly pirates who acted like they didn't want to go to sleep but really did. Fifteen minutes until he walked past, looked at her and walked in, "Hey Tetra." Link said, smiling at the girl. Link smiled with an annoying frequency. How could anyone be that disgustingly happy?

"What do you want?"

"Just to talk."

"Oh? Well then start talking." Link sighed

"Tetra, is something bothering you?" She stared at him "Yes." He answered his own question

"How'd ya guess?"

"Your eyes,"

"What?"

"your eyes have lost their adventurous spark, and frankly Tetra isn't Tetra without her spark." The girl just stared at him for a bit. She looked down at her arm and said emotionlessly: "The scar's fading."

"That's good, now why don't you tell me what's wrong?" Tetra just looked down at her bed sheets.

"I guess…" she began but didn't finish. Link was not sitting on the floor, just listening intently, not saying a word. "I think, maybe… I guess it's…" She finally sighed and collected her thoughts into a single sentence, which was quite obviously easier to understand than her fragmented statement starters. "I guess sometimes it's tough being the captain, you know?" Link looked up at her and said

"I think we'd both be a lot happier if you just tried to be Tetra. That's who you are, and she just happens to be a pirate captain." Tetra said nothing. "But that's something for you to think about, not me." He rose to his feet and looked down at the blonde girl before him, almost taking the conversation as an excuse to stare at her, though not quite realising it. He quietly left the room.

'Well, that was a short lived problem' thought Tetra. Link was probably right, he usually was. And he always won arguments too; he was the only person she'd never been able to wear down. In most situations she'd keep making the same argument until the other person gave up, but Link was always determined, it was just part of who Link was. Speaking of which, she had to be getting back to who she was, and she was a fearless pirate captain with a mission. But that could wait 'til tomorrow, for now, she needed some sleep.

Well! That's that! Chappy six is over and seven will be on its merry way soon. Have I been writing OoC, if so please tell me as I haven't been on Zelda in a while… so please review as I am desperate for some readership in the same way the winner of a spontaneous prune juice and chocolate laxative ingesting competition next to a water fountain and the world's largest toilet would need to use the lavatory. Goodbye!