A Zelda: Twilight Princess collection
Disclaimer: I don't own TP (except a copy of it), and I don't own Zelda.
Chapter Seven: Market
'Angry young man – anyone, particularly young men obviously, who rails against the establishment.'
This had to be the strangest day of her life.
Bess watched as the young fellow in green picked through the fruits displayed upon her stall, face scrunched in annoyance. She couldn't fathom why; no one had said a word to him beyond her initial greeting to a customer and the query on what he was looking for.
Nonetheless, he looked rather infuriated, and it irritated Bess. He was already holding up her business; housewives grumbled behind his back as he stalled, shifting the baskets slung over their arms as they stared heatedly at his back.
"Shut up," he mumbled under his breath, quite out of nowhere. Bess, her patience shorted by this outlandish stranger, glared at him.
"I would appreciate it if you wouldn't talk so to me in front of other customers, sir, especially when I have said nothing to you." The housewives behind his back grumbled louder; the heated stares increased ten-fold.
He jumped, as though he had forgotten where he was while staring at the apples before him. "I'm sorry," he said, looking rather contrite, "I wasn't talking to you."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Then who were you talking to?"
He shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably before opening his mouth. Before another apology could come out, though, he grimaced and muttered again, much more fiercely this time, "Shut up!"
Bess grew red in the face. "Young man, I said nothing to you! Now, if you have no intention of buying anything, I suggest you move along! I have other customers waiting."
He flushed and scratched the back of his head, stammering out apologies. He didn't move, though, and as he continued to mutter under his breath to his shadow of all things ("Would you stop that? You're getting us in trouble--! Be quiet--!") Bess unobtrusively motioned for the nearest guard. She was beginning to suspect the boy wasn't quite right in the head. The guard approached, and the young man jumped again when the gauntlet fell upon his arm.
"I'll have to ask you to come with me, sir."
The color drained slightly from his face, and he tried to take a step back.
"I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean to cause trouble—"
"You look like a pig! Was your mother fat or did she just like farm animals?"
Silence fell within the nearest six feet. The guard purpled in anger. His great girth, chain mail straining to cover him, shook with repressed fury. The boy's face, if possible, grew paler.
Bess regarded him with outrage and disgust. Really, what a thing to say to a guard!
She spoke, "You apologize right now and get away from my stall—" right on top of the guard's, "You're coming with me, brat—!"
The guard seized him by the arm, and as he began to tug the fellow in green away he shouted, "I didn't say anything, I swear, I'm sorry!" And then, barely audible even to her, being so close, "Midna…!"
The guard grumbled at him, and as they neared the edge of her sight, half disappearing among the crowd she heard the crow, "You'll never take me alive!"
There was a great jostling in the crowd, and the guard's enraged shout as the young man made a break for the nearest alley, all the while wailing that he hadn't said anything.
Bess shook her head as a housewife stepped up to examine her wares.
"What an angry young man."
A/N: Next chapter will be a brief continuation of this chapter.