Chapter 3 - The Notably Un-Great Escape of Two Little Hyrulian Sovereignlets
"Don't forget... We really can't stay long..."
"Yeah, yeah," Zed replied distractedly, not having really heard her.
The normally long-haired, blue-eyed boy had chosen to make himself a handsome young Sheikah, who, to her exasperation, didn't really look too different from his normal self. 'Who's looking for a prince?' he said. He had the same slender, pointed nose and thin pink lips- he was even the same 5'10 height. She, however, had chosen the guise of a small, brown-eyed blonde with shoulder-length pigtails and a blue, flower-print dress.
"Wowwwwwwwwww," he murmured lowly under his breath, spinning slowly in the square with an idiotically huge grin.
"You've seen this all before," she pointed out flatly.
"But not like this!" he cried.
"Hey, look a store!" the boy said suddenly, pointing at a Deku Dollar that looked a little lost among all the much larger, nicer buildings.
"That's a convenience store -"
"Let's go in!"
He yanked her by the wrist towards the Deku Dollar and pushed on the door.
It didn't budge.
"Is it locked?" he asked quizzically, peeking into the glass. "It looks open."
Zelda's shoulders slumped in exasperation as he pushed the door again.
Push.
Pushpushpushpushpush -
She grabbed his shoulder hard.
"What?" he asked innocently, blinking.
She pointed to the PULL sign on the glass, then yanked it open.
"Oh."
After which Zed quickly discovered he was a terrible germaphobe and Zelda nearly had to carry him out of the store.
After a while, even Zelda had to admit that the city was a wondrous place. She had never seen regular Zoras up close before, but there they were, just wandering around. She wondered if they should go see the nearby Zora's Domain, but she knew their people weren't very accomodating to visitors and they would have had to brought a bathing suit.
A huge Goron lumbered past them like a living boulder - larger than any man she had ever seen. His great footsteps shook the sidewalk as he passed, sending a little thrill through the twins, and they clung to each other with tight little grins and bitten lower lips.
Zed coaxed his sister into Keaton's Games, where he trounced her and a few others at DDR a couple times. Zelda wandered off a little miffed and discovered a talent for the claw game and ski ball. They made a quest out of winning plushies of themselves and left the arcade with their new friends Mini Zed and Mini Zel- as well as a fluffy Keaton doll that they still hadn't settled ownership over.
They went to a pizza buffet with their prizes and Zelda discovered an unstoppable love for pizza. She demanded more 'exquisite' commoner food and they ran around from street vendor to street vendor trying everything they had to offer. She discovered cheeseburgers and cheesesteaks and hotdogs (also corndogs, but she decided to repress that memory) and gyros and roasted nuts and popcorn and french fries and sodas and ketchup and mustard, and milkshakes and ice cream and snow cones and sherbet and more ice cream and more ice cream - she was surprised at the sheer amount of ice cream flavors - and they ate until she thought her stomach might pop.
The latter half of the day they mostly spent at Lake Hylia National Park, and, more specifically, on a bench at Lake Hylia National Park where Zelda was recovering from the worst stomach ache she could remember with her head in her brother's lap. Zed, however, was discovering the wonders of popsicles and occasionally dripping on her hair, but she didn't notice so he didn't say anything.
"I feel sick," she groaned.
"It'll pass Zellyboo," he assured off-handedly.
She groaned again, closing her eyes and listening to bird song and goose squawk.
"You know, it's funny..." she mused with a note of ramble-inducing exhaustion. "We visit these places plenty often... I mean, heck, we're staying at a cottage not a quarter of a mile from here. But, somehow, it all feels different and new."
"Cuz we're doing it like normal people do it. Like people should do it."
She sighed happily despite the raging war in her intestines.
"This- this has been nice, Zed."
"Mm-hmm."
He smacked noisily on the popsicle.
"We should do it more often," he suggested.
"Well I never said that."
"You just said it was nice," the boy pointed out dryly.
They then got into a squabble over logic and semantics versus implications, which Zelda settled by punching him in the stomach.
"OOF! Okay."
"Good."
She went back to using him as a pillow and closed her eyes again.
"You know, if you wanna do more," he said suddenly, "we're gonna have to get movin'. It's almost three and we need to be back before dark."
"Yeah."
"You feelin' better enough to get goin'?"
"I think so. You ready?"
"Whenever you are."
She stood and rubbed her stomach a little, which somehow soothed it. Then they wandered back to the edge of the city, although there wasn't much they could do with what time they had. So they simply walked and people watched in silence, plushies in hand.
"Oooh, can we ride the subway!" he asked suddenly, grabbing her elbow.
"What!" she squeaked. "You've heard all the stories of the terrible things that happen on subways!"
"Aryll, come on. You and me- we're noble Hyrule blood. I don't think anybody could do anything bad to us if they tried," he said with a sly laugh, holding up one hand and conjuring just the tiniest little flame in his palm.
She sighed, and supposed that he was right enough for her to not feel like making an argument out of it. But it when they got far enough through the crowd to see the turnstiles and the people swiping cards before passing, it then occurred to them that they had no idea how one went about riding the subway.
"Uh oh," Zelda muttered, though she had to admit she felt a little vindicated.
"Uhhh -"
Zed held his sister's arm again, staring warily at their formidable turnstile opponents.
"Hey, no worries! We'll just ask someone! Look over there! He looks nice."
Crap.
"You can't even see his face Zed. You just like redheads and blonds-"
But he was already marching away to the small, red-haired man holding hands with a tall blond woman. The woman didn't look particularly savory, but someone who was holding hands was probably in a good mood at least. He tugged on the red-haired man's shirt sleeve.
"Hi!" he chirped. "I was wondering - see, I'm not from around here - could you tell me how to get past these turnstiles?"
When the young man turned to look at him, Zed hiccupped with shock at his sightless blue eyes.
"No, I'm afraid I've never learned how," he replied a bit coldly.
"Then how do you -" Then he realized that, being blind, someone had always done it for him, and that he would have to talk to the very same unsavory blond that he had been glad to get around. "Okay, well, thanks anyway! Uh... M-miss?"
He grinned a huge grin at her. She looked back from the little machine she was handling, spotted him, and glared hard.
"Could you - tell me how you ride this subway?"
"First you have to get a card from this machine," she began surprisingly civilly for the nasty look on her face, "and then pop it through the slot in the turnstile."
Now see, in a world of politics and figureheadism, what Zed thought was appropriate to do next would have been right. But in the real world - the world of normal people - smiling and holding your hand out for a congenial shake was not really what most people would consider placating.
"Alright. Thank you ma'am!"
He stood with his hand out, grinning his practiced butter-melting grin.
Station bells. Bustling. Clattering. A teenage girl talked on her cellphone too loudly. A female recording came on over the intercom.
"Oookay..." the blond woman said slowly.
She maneuvered herself and her blind charge away from him. A third one, a thin girl with black hair in a neat bun, gave him him a confused look and tailed nervously after the other too.
A thick cloud settled over Zed. He watched her, his smile slowly falling into a shattered frown. Zelda came up next to him.
"W-...Wha'd I do?" he squeaked.
She patted his shoulder comfortingly.
"You made a fool of yourself, that's what you did."
"Bwuh?"
Lloyd gave Agatha's hand a squeeze of request and curiosity.
"Did something happen?"
"The Sheikah kid like tried to shake my hand and stuff... Weird." Agatha screwed up her nose. "Like almost Quill-level weird. Not quite, but damn close."
"Who's Quill?" Kali interjected.
"You'll find out soon enough and regret it, don't worry."
"Well," Lloyd chipped in, "he said he wasn't from around here... But he didn't have an accent... Hmm... Ah, well. Hyrule's a big place... With magical things...which never helps..."
He shrugged, deciding he didn't really care, and let Agatha lead him through the gate and onto the muffled train car. In the back of his head, he was tracking the two signatures through the crowd. How odd. They had asked how to get on the subway, as if they had needed to get somewhere. But now they were leaving again.
Oh well. This was Hyrule, and anything was possible.
He sat on one of the sparsely cushioned seats, still holding Agatha's hand. The young man yawned and let his head sink onto her shoulder. Now was as good a time as any to catch a little catnap, he supposed.