"We now return from that sort-of cliffhanger," stated Link. Turning to Zelda, he continued. "So the cool thing you said to me that I'll never forget was that you...um...let's see...it was..." Zelda started tapping her foot and was about to speak up when, instead, Link interjected. "Wait!...No!" He waved a hand in front of him emphatically and plugged an ear. "Don't tell me, don't tell me! I'll think of it in a second. It's on the tip of my tongue. Let's see...it was...'Wow, you're a dreamboat'...no, it was...'I've been waiting for you all my life'...no, not that either..."
"Allow me to refresh your memory, will ya?" Zelda scolded impatiently. "It was, 'Finally! You showed up! I was starting to think you were dead!'"
"Well that's not very romantic, Zelda. We've got to keep our fans happy...there's a lot of Zelinkers out there. At the very least, be ambiguous about whether you like me or not—you know, long stares into my eyes, playing footsie under the table, letting me "accidentally" touch your boobs, the whole nine yards. After all, we make the most popular pairing by far. Malon, male Sheik and that mini-boss from the Water Temple who is nonsensically popular in comparison to the super-small role he had in OoT are only distant runners-up. And Dark Link doesn't even really count because that's kinda like selfcest. Ugh!" He shuddered as he thought about it.
"There are certainly far weirder pairings that have become even more inexplicably popular," Zelda offered. "I'm sure every person reading this can think of at least a few pairings that made them go, 'WTF?' For me personally, it was Elsa x Anna from Frozen. I feel a connection with Elsa, being a fellow sorceress, but I was disgusted to find out that there's quite a lot of sick, twisted people out there who like to imagine her getting to know her sister just a little too well. Incest is not hot, people! Eww! Cut it out, already!"
"Hey, Zelda, have you ever noticed how I'm like the only hot guy in the entire LoZ series?" Link pondered. "Every pairing almost has to involve me because of that. Hehe...I see more action than a guy watching a superhero movie trailer! Seriously, just look at almost any male NPC in the Zelda series and play the fun game of 'spot all the deformities.' Ugly mugs like that don't sell action figures, you know!"
"Not all the guys are ugly," Zelda countered.
"Oh, yeah? Name one that's not."
"Um...like...uh...that guy with glasses from Twilight Princess. The one who liked books."
"No one even knows who the hell you're talking about."
Zelda scowled at him for a comically long time. "Aren't you supposed to be mute or something?" she snapped. She decided to resume the plot before he meandered off-topic any further. "So the next thing I said to you was, 'Yadda, yadda, yadda, exposition, exposition, exposi...'"
"Now, wait a gosh-darn minute there," Link protested. "You can't just 'yadda, yadda' over all the plot exposition. There might be some readers out there who aren't aware of who this Ganondorf fella is or the fact that he's hell bent on taking over Hyrule and all that jazz."
"Pfft, yeah right. Considering how often that plot or a very similar one is used, I seriously doubt it."
"True...but humor us anyway."
"All right, all right," Zelda gave in. "So I said to you, 'I've been having visions that the governor of a neighboring territory named Ganondorf is trying to win the favor of my father so he can eventually betray him and assume control of Hyrule and oh, BT-dubs, you are the one destined to defeat him.'"
"And I remember being amazed by that and saying, 'Wow, you have visions as specific as that? Usually, I can only barely remember my dreams for more than a day and they usually just involve me falling from cliffs and stuff—nothing so special as predicting the downfall of entire nations. You must be special or something—and I don't mean in the handicapped sort of way.' And you responded with, 'Well...um...actually, what I told you is my interpretation of my vision.' So I said, 'Oh, really? Then what did you actually, y'know, see in this vision, if I may ask?' And you said..."
"Dark storm clouds, a ray of light parting the clouds, a figure wearing green clothes..." Zelda finished.
"And I remember staring at you, mouth agape, with a cute little sweatdrop forming on my face and saying, 'You're kidding me, right? You're seriously predicting that this entire territory is gonna be taken over by some random guy just from seeing that in a little dream you had?'"
"Enough with all the italics, Link!"
"And I also asked you, in no uncertain terms, if you were skipping your meds."
"...which I found to be quite the presumptuous and rude inquiry," Zelda responded, furious at finding herself overusing italics for emphasis as well. "Nevertheless, I denied your accusation emphatically and told you that I've had a prophetic ability all my life and that I've always been able to interpret my dreams accurately. But up until that time, I had never had a premonition of any significance. The visions were usually just for mundane things like what I was gonna eat the next day or whether it was gonna rain or the winning lottery numbers for the billion rupee jackpot."
"Yeah, all that stuff does sound pretty unimpor..." Link trailed off before he did a cartoon-y double-take and shouted, "Woah! Wait! Timeout! What was that last one again?!"
"Like I said, just unimportant stuff, nothing worth noting at all. Of course, being as trapped as I was in The Castle due to my overprotective dad, I had no choice but to request assistance from a virile and studly young man because, dammit, I have cliches to fulfill! No ugly guys are allowed to serve me, no siree!"
"So that's why you picked me, a noob with no previous bad-guy-eliminating experience, instead of one of countless out-of-work mercs that could undoubtedly have done a way better job than me?"
"Yep, but...huh? Hey, wait a minute! I thought you were a sheriff...?"
"I was, after you hired me for the job...but I didn't have any previous sheriff-ing experience. The only experience I had before coming to Hyrule that might be considered relevant was playing some Dungeons and Dragons and oldschool FF games."
"The ones from FF6 on down?"
"Heck no! FF5 and down. Don't you remember FF6's Vanish/X-Zone trick? The one that could kill practically any enemy in the game with zero effort?"
"Yeah, but who would actually use that? It's the same as cheating."
"No it isn't! If the game allows you to do it, it's not cheating! And once you find out about it, why wouldn't you use it? It just makes the game too damn easy. Anyway, my point is...hey, didn't you even read my resume?"
"Well..." Zelda stammered. "Your resume was written in Hylian and you can't expect me to learn how to read a language that's only spoken by characters in some fictional video game! That would make me, like, a huge nerd!"
"But Hylian is what we're all supposed to be speaking!" Link protested. "Miyamoto-sama doesn't want us to speak any real world language since our games are supposed to be high fantasy...IE, not set in 'the real world'...whatever that is...even though Tetra totally did speak Japanese in the Japan-only mini-game called Navi Trackers, no relation to everyone's fave forest sprite. Ain't that right, Tetra?"
The camera cuts quickly to Tetra eating some ramen with chopsticks at one of those low-to-the-floor tables. "Wakaranai!" she yells, furious at being interrupted. The author doesn't know exactly what that means, if anything, but it sounded Japanese enough.
"Can we please just get back on topic, already?" Zelda said, tapping a foot impatiently.
"All right, all right!" Link conceded. "So next, I asked you, 'What's this Ganondorf fellow look like? Give me the 4-1-1...or whatever the equivalent informational hotline is in Hyrule...'"
"I said, 'Well, he has dark skin, the color of pure evil, and..."
"...that's when I interrupted you, saying 'Hey now! Racist much?!'"
"And I calmly explained to you that in countless video games, dark-colored things are almost always evil. Don't blame me for starting that stereotype!"
"Then I said, 'Whatever. Just finish giving me the deets,' to which you replied, 'How about you just look over there? He's standing right behind you.'" I turned around to notice a tall, dark, exotically handsome man planted right where you were pointing. 'Oh, uh...hi!' I remember saying awkwardly, but inwardly I kinda wanted to KILL you for not telling me he was there until he was breathing right down my neck. Especially since the only one I ever want to imagine breathing that close to me is you, when we're alone in the..."
"Link!" Zelda yelled.
"Oh, right...I, uh, must've been thinking out loud again. Ed Sheeran, eat your heart out. So anyway, I asked Ganondorf, 'How much of that did you hear?' and he responded with, 'Only...about...all of it.' I felt like facepalming at that moment before crawling into the fetal position and whimpering uncontrollably, but Mr. Creepazoid assured me that he was going to leave me alone for the time being so that we could duke it out all cool-like at the end of this story. He was so secure in his badass-ery that he vowed that even if I got a bunch of kickass new powers, he would still be able to beat me solely with his little pinky finger. After that, we just sort of stood around in an awkward silence since neither of us knew what kind of small talk to make with our sworn enemy. Luckily, he eventually made the first move, turning around swiftly and sweeping his cape with him like a (literal) boss, at which time he made like a tree and leaf-ed."
"That was a tree-mendously bad pun," Zelda retorted. "It's not oak-kay to be so stupid. You should've cedar-ed when you were ahead."
"All right, all right, my bad! I'm sorry about the dumb pun. Now shut up, already!"
"...You started it," she muttered, cheeks puffed out.
Forging ahead, Link said, "I'm sure you remember, after Big G made his over-dramatic exit, that you finally explained how a weakling like me could possibly hope to stand a chance against a legendary badass like him."
"Yes, I explained that you needed to visit a number of temples scattered around Hyrule, defeat the big scary monsters within and solve the myriad puzzles that were inexplicably placed inside since whoever built them apparently had way too much free time on their hands—all so that the sages of the temples could be liberated and totally not because I wanted to get you out of my hair for a while. I also remember describing the temples to you for your convenience: the forest temple in, of all places, a forest, which contains disembodied hands that fall from the ceiling; the fire temple atop the very active volcano called Death Mountain; the water temple in a deep underwater tomb-like structure in Lake Hylia; the shadow temple in Kakariko township's creepy boot hill cemetery which contains invisible traps everywhere you look...err...well, you know what I mean; and the spirit temple in the vast, foreboding desert wasteland to the west."
"And I remember thinking at this point in the story that you clearly wanted me to die."
"Weeeeeell...maybe at the time..."
"Zelda Fitzgerald!" he said angrily. [A/N: Kudos if you get this reference]
"Don't call me that, Rinku!"
"Ahhh! You know how much I hate that!" he replied, grabbing his head in frustration and shaking it around as if he were Cloud having another one of his identity crises.
Zelda LOL'ed. "So the next thing I did was give you my family's precious heirloom, which I told you would allow you to do cool magic stuff like solve puzzles and warp around all willy-nilly and...uh...fix broken signs. I know, I know, that last one sounds lame, but hey, it's super-useful if you ever decide to become a carpenter! What's the object's name, you ask? Why, it's the—dun dun dun duuuun!—player piano of time!"
"...And this is the part where I asked you if you could give me something that was a little more...you know...portable! I know that most RPG characters have bottomless pits for pockets, but carrying around a full-sized player piano would still be stretching believability a little too much. Makes it kinda hard for the player behind the screen to continue suspending their disbelief, assuming that they were ever able to suspend their disbelief in the first place after finding out that the game is essentially about a magical land of elf, rock, and fish-people which is being terrorized by a humanoid pig."
"That's also when I decided to give you my family's other precious keepsake, the harmonica of time. Naturally, you immediately turned around and held it above your head for a long while, as if some omnipotent being who controls us all needed to see it or something..." They both stared intently at the fourth wall for a prolonged time. "...Nah!" they finally said in unison.
.
Why does everyone hate tree puns so mulch? Isn't Ed Sheeran that ginger singer? Will I ever find out that I'm just totally wasting my free time writing this fanfic?! Find out in the next exciting episode of H2W2! ...possibly.