I don not own 'The Legend of Zelda' and never will.
Chapter 6: Ezlo
Even though it was called a park, Minish Woods looked pretty much unchanged. Vaati looked very uncomfortable the whole way though, but Senko was too busy searching for an entrance to notice. Vaati prayed that she never found one, that in this modern world all entrances were sealed shut.
"Hey, Vaati! I think I found one!" Crack!
"Did you hear something?" Senko asked looking around.
"Just my hopes shattering," Vaati replied in a dry tone.
"All righty then! Fire up the shrinking spell!" Senko cried, ignoring Vaati. Vaati stepped onto the log next to Senko and wrapped his arm around her waist.
"Wha-what are you doing?" Senko asked, her face slowly turning pink.
"I have to hold onto you or I'll shrink without you," the wind mage explained, too clueless to notice her blushing. Vaati began to chant, and Senko felt the effects immediately. Her bones, muscles, skin, rushing inward, compressing. And then a feeling of falling. The ground looked like it was rushing towards her. The next thing she knew she really was falling, through the hole in the stump. She landed on a mushroom boing! and then a smaller one boing! this time not as high, and then the smallest of the three mushrooms boing! this one didn't make her bounce very high at all.
Senko looked around. Vaati had disapperared from sight.
"Vaati? Vaati where are you?"
"Calm down, I'm over here." Senko turned around to see the wind mage emerging from the other side of the three mushrooms. Senko stared at him. "What?" the mage asked, feeling uncomfortable.
"It is just that, I was expecting you to become a Minish, but you still look human," she replied. Vaati was a little suprised, but he remembered the journal entry from before. She knew all about him. Strange how she seemed completely unaware that she had any relations to the hero. Then again, maybe she was completely unaware. Maybe she didn't have any relations at all and it was just a coincidence.
"Come on, let us go look around," she said, grabbing his arm and pulling. She was one weird girl.
Outside the stump seemed to tower over them. "Like the skyscrapers in the city," Vaati mused. Maybe coming here wasn't such a bad idea. It kind of reminded him of his own time. Senko was acting the way Vaati had acted in the hotel room, gawking at every little thing. It was actually kind of funny.
"Vaati! Look at that!" Vaati's eyes traveled to what Senko had been pointing at. A large gate made by woven grass blades and flowers. To Senko it looked beautiful, but to Vaati it looked like the gateway to hell.
Senko ran ahead, eager to see the tiny Minish with her own eyes, but Vaati grabbed her arm.
"What are you doing?" she hissed angrily. Vaati glared at her.
"You saw, now let's go."
"No way, we have not even gone in yet!" she complained, "If you are still afraid of Ezlo I am telling you, there is no way he could possibly be there!"
"I'm not afraid!" Vaati protested, "Ezlo just has this way of showing up when you least expect it."
Senko gave him the puppy dog look again.
"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?" Vaati stared at her for a minute. Her eyes looked exactly the same as the hero's.
"Funny how they can look so disgusting for him and yet so enchanting for her... What the hell? What am I thinking? I'm an evil mage I don't have these thoughts about girls. But still..." Finally he caved, for the second time that day, and it wasn't even noon yet! "All right, I'll go."
Senko cheered and dragged him off to the village. Well, it couldn't be that bad, right? Wrong.
When they stepped through the village gates the Minish began to gather around much to Senko's pleasure and Vaati's fear. Senko couldn't understand them, no human actually ever learned the language of the tiny Minish. The Jabber Nut did that for them. Vaati listened to the 'oohs' and 'ahs' of his people. It had been almost a thousand years since they had last seen a human, and here were two. Fortunately none of these Minish seemed to know who he was. But, there was always a small possibility...
"I see why humans began calling these guys 'Picori', " Senko stated, snapping Vaati out of his thoughts.
"The whole time they talk, that is what it sounds like they are saying."
Vaati listened, it did sound a bit like that.
"Well, Minish language is based mostly on different pitches, rather than different words," he explained.
"That is a greenhouse," Senko asked pointing to a barrel with doors and windows carved into it, "right?"
"Why?" Vaati inquired. Senko gave him a look.
"The Jabber Nut, obviously. If I eat it I can understand any language, right?" Vaati nodded.
Just then a rather young little Minish walked up and grabbed hold of Vaati's cloak. Vaati shot a look at the child. He ran back to his friends, crying. "Figures," Vaati thought "they don't even know who I am and they're terrified of me. But what does that matter? I'm evil. I'm supposed to scare little kids..."
Suddenly someone in the crowd called out, in Hylian. Vaati didn't know any Minish who spoke Hylian, so he felt a little secure. A little.
"Wassup peeps? What's goin' down?" A tall Minish wearing makeshift human clothes made his way through the Minish that were crowded around Senko. The look on Senko's face would have made anyone fall over laughing, and Vaati looked just plain confused.
"Yo wassup? I'm Festa," the tall Minish said. Senko sweatdropped and smiled.
"Hi, my name is Senko. It is nice to meet you."
"Yeah yeah," Festa said "And who's the stiff?" Senko looked back to Vaati, and then to Festa.
"Him? Oh, he is-"
"Katen," Vaati said, cutting Senko off. She stared at him, suprised.
"My name is Katen." Festa smiled.
"Well feel free to chill, home dogs." The 'priest' turned and walked away.
"What. The. Hell." Vaati muttered.
"Why did you lie about your name?" Senko asked once Festa was out of earshot.
"Just because humans have forgotten my name does not mean the Minish have. We have slightly better memories," Vaati said. "Are you ready to leave now?" Senko shook her head.
"Are you kidding? This place is incredible! I can not believe you ever left it! I am going to go get the Jabber Nut now." Before Vaati could protest Senko ran off towards a large barrel that served as a greenhouse, leaving him there alone. He thought about what she had said. I can not believe you ever left.
Vaati, or rather Katen, decided he should look around since he was here. The whole village must have come out already, and there wasn't a face he recognized. He should be safe. He stopped by a small mushroom hut that had a strange color of smoke coming out of it. It looked a little like his old master's hut. Against all better judgement he went inside.
A desk on one side of the room held many cluttered papers, two broken pencils and a half eaten sandwich. On the opposite end of the room a table held many vials filled with a rainbow of liquids. "Now we know where the smoke came from." The back wall held three over stuffed bookshelves. Vaati traced his fingers along one row of books. Most of them were books he'd read before when he was Ezlo's apprentice, so he assumed this hut belonged to some kind of magician. There was a door at the back wall that caught his attention. He knocked on the door, hoping no one would answer. When no one did, he opened the door and looked inside.
This room was an even bigger mess than the workshop. Books of all colors and sizes were stacked up in piles over the floor. Papers were sticking out of most of them and strewn across the room. A small couch that would probably fit two Minish sat facing a small fireplace. Vaati noticed a shadow moving behind one particularly large pile of books in the center of the room. He couldn't see the face, but he was able to see a familiar looking cane with the head of a bird carved at the top of it poking above the stack. Vaati recognized that staff. There was no way in hell he'd ever forget it. The wind mage tried to tiptoe away, hoping the Minish behind the books wouldn't notice him, but he accidently bumped into a large pile and caused the books to avalanche across the floor. The figure in the center of the room peered over the stack he was hidden behind and shrieked, "YOU!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Oh, shit," Vaati cursed.
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Senko picked up a red nut that had a single sprout at the top of it and had what appeared to be lips. She sniffed it. It smelled very unappetizing.
"Well, bottoms up," she muttered, popping the nut into her mouth. The taste made her want to gag, but she forced herself to swallow it.
"Oh, wow, you're right!" Senko turned around to see the source of the voice. It was a little girl Minish standing next to what Senko assumed was her older brother.
"I told you there was a human," the older one said, "and there's another one too. A funny looking purple guy." Senko laughed at the last part. She would have loved to see the look on Vaati's face if someone called him a 'funny looking purple guy'. Vaati! She'd forgotten all about him. She wasn't really worried about his safety per se, she was more worried about the Minish. After all he was and evil sorcerer who had the ability to manipulate the wind. Suddenly a scream cut across the sky.
"Idiot," Senko muttered and took off in the direction of the scream. "If he has hurt someone I am going to hurt him!" When she arrived at the source of the sound it was not at all what she was expecting.
"Take that! And that! And that! Thought ye'd come back and finish the job did ye?" Senko could only stare in shock. In front of her was a little old Minish with a long white beard and a ponytail whacking Vaati in the head with a wooden staff that wouldn't have been an adequate toothpick had Senko been her right size. She wasn't sure whether to yell at him, or to burst out laughing. She decided to do the former.
"You, you, YOU JERK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"Senko's voice kept rising until she was yelling at the top of her lungs, "I thought you were hurt of something bad had happened but you were only screaming because some little old guy is hitting you with a toothpick?!?!" Across the ahem street a mother minish whose children were watching this grabbed their hands and shooed them along.
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"So you're really Sage Ezlo? What an honor!" Senko and Vaati were now inside Ezlo's hut dinking some tea (well, not Vaati since he's afraid Ezlo might have poisoned it.) The two of them were sitting on the couch and Ezlo remained standing.
"I like this girl. Sharp mind," Ezlo said to Vaati, who rolled his eyes, "but why this fine young lass is traveling with a demon like ye I'll never know." Vaati snorted and ignored his old master.
"He is not a demon," Senko replied, "He has been a perfect angel since I released him." Vaati snorted at the 'angel' part. Ezlo, on the other hand, looked amazed.
"You broke the seal?" the sage said in astonishment, "let me get a closer look at ye." He put a hand on Senko's cheek and inspected her face closly. "Well I'll be," he said finally, "you're almost his spitting image."
"His?" Senko thought, "what... who is he talking about?"
"Although if ye changed the hair a bit ye could almost be the princess," Ezlo continued, unaware of Senko's confusion.
"Princess? Do you mean Princess Zelda?" Senko said. Ezlo beamed.
"Ah, it seems that at least one human nowadays studies up on their history," the sage cheered.
"Speaking of history," Vaati interrupted, "how the hell are you still alive after one thousand years?" A mischevious smile graced the old man's face.
"The answer is simple my dear simpleton," Vaati growled at this, "as time went on while you were trapped in that marvelous seal, human medicine improved dramatically. Mix that with a bit of Minish magic, and I won't be goin' anywhere for a while!" Ezlo burst out laughing at this, while Vaati looked about ready to die. Just then Vaati noticed Senko digging in her backpack.
"Whatcha doing?" he asked, leaning over so he could peek in.
"I am looking for- ah, here it is!" at the last part Senko pulled out her, well her grandfather's, journal. She opened it and began flipping through some pages. Ezlo eyed the small leather book.
"What is that ye have there?" he aked inqusitively.
"It is my grandfather's journal," Senko answered, finally coming to the page she was looking for. "Ah, here it is," she said smiling. Ezlo grabbed the journal, making Senko lose her page.
"Well I'll be," Ezlo muttered, flipping through the book himself.
"Hey!" Senko cried, "That is my grandfather's journal! You can not just snatch it like that!" Ezlo chuckled.
"Oh hush child," Ezlo said, reading the title page, "well I'll be a moblin's uncle." Senko and Vaati exchanged glances. Moblin's uncle? That wasn't even used when the hero was alive and well.
"What is wrong Ezlo sama?" Senko asked. The sage chuckled some more.
"Why nothing is wrong dear girl," he told her, "it seems that you are Link's great-great (I could go all day doing this) granddaughter."
Author's Note: I apoligize for my abuse of the English language in this chapter, but that's how the story goes. Poor Festa sounded like a total idiot. (No offense to Festa.) Please reveiw!