fleets: okay guys, I'm still kinda on hiatus due to stuff going on in my real life (holy crap! the author has a life!). And because of that, I was only able to cough out this shortish chapter... but I figured that one chapter was better than no chapter.
Originally supposed to have been submitted in time for Thanksgiving, but that never happened because life got in the way.
Ah, life. Why are you so wonderful and evil at the same time?
Chapter 8: Thanksgiving
The sorcerer knew he was going to meet his end one day, even if he had gained the powers close to godhood. Even if he did not fall by the blade of the Hero, Vaati would have eventually succumbed to the power of Time. Seeing it as a weakness instead of an eternal, restful sleep, Vaati opted to study a spell that would allow his spirit to remain on mortal soil forever.
With his powerful sorcery, the Wind Mage was able to succeed in creating magic that would allow him to be reborn every time he died. Unbeknownst to him, he had trapped himself in a curse he could not escape from, for every time he died his knowledge of sorcery would be unreachable to him. He would become someone who he could not bear to be: a simple commoner without any magical powers. His dark energy would naturally repel everyone, and his reincarnations would not know why they were so avoided. His reincarnations would be eternally dissatisfied with their life for reasons unknown to them, and though ambitious, each one would not be able to find a direction in life.
The only way for his true self to reawaken is if his reincarnation were able to find some trigger to have the old memories resurface.
It will not be easy, for these kinds of dark arts that Vaati had so foolishly indulged himself in are curses more than anything.
We goddesses feel no pity for him. It is a fitting punishment for one who had been consumed with greed and malice. However…
In the light of what may happen to the world…
If you do not succeed with Skull Kid, you will most surely have to find a way to break the curse and reawaken the true Sorcerer of Winds.
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"It's nice having more than two people sitting around the turkey, eh, Gale?"
Gale huffed, leaning back in his chair rather rudely as though he couldn't care less. Grandpa Loze pretended not to notice his grandson's behavior and smiled amiably to Link who was sitting on the other side of him.
"Usually on Thanksgiving it's just me and Gale, which quickly becomes a pathetic dinner as you can imagine. Especially since Gale doesn't seem to appreciate the holiday at all."
"Gramps, we never even have a turkey. You call a plate of lame instant mash potatoes 'Thanksgiving dinner?'" Gale scoffed. He eyed the roasted bird that was sitting in the middle of the table, slightly skeptical that there was actually turkey this year.
"Nonsense! Last year we had turkey," Loze countered indignantly.
"Yeah. A turkey sandwich." The teen rolled his eyes. "Not that I care. I just resent the fact you expect me to act all gratuitous for the holiday when I don't even like the food. Besides, Thanksgiving is just a nice way to hide the fact that we basically raped North America right afterwards. Pilgrims and Indians holding hands my ass."
Loze sighed as he turned to Link. "Can you imagine what Christmas is like with this boy?" He ignored Gale sniff. "Have you ever celebrated Thanksgiving before?"
"No. I never really had the chance."
"Well that's unfortunate."
"Yeah. You really missed out."
"Gale! There's no place for sarcasm when we have guests during the holidays!"
"I wasn't being sarcastic, gramps. Geez, can we just eat and get this over with already? This is ridiculous."
"Link, I apologize but this isn't what Thanksgiving is usually like in most households," Loze shook his head.
Link laughed. "Oh no, it's all right. I'm thankful enough that you've let me stay here as it is." The old man beamed at the teen's comment while Gale glowered silently aside.
"You're such a nice lad." He snapped at Gale. "Gale! This is Thanksgiving after all – share what you're thankful for."
"Seriously?"
"Yes. You're ungrateful for too many things in the world. Take Link's example and try to appreciate your life."
"We didn't do this last yea –"
"Stop whining like a girl, you spoiled brat. One more complaint out of you and you're not eating tonight."
Gale glared at Link who was snickering with his eyes. How he wanted to punch him from across the table… but Petrov did have that nasty block. Tight lipped, he crossed his arms and muttered, "I'm thankful I still have my sanity."
"I'd question that."
Gale's head snapped towards Link who still had that plastered innocent grin. It seemed gramps hadn't noticed him say anything. Link appeared to be enjoying himself too much when he cocked his head with an expression that asked, "what?" Oblivious to the exchange, Loze interrupted Gale's glarefest.
"That's a start. I'm thankful that we have been able to have a new member in our family – it's livelier here now, compared to just me and my idiot of a grandson. But idiot or no, I'm thankful I have him with me."
Gale coughed, appearing very uncomfortable. A few minutes passed, and then Gale reached over and dragged a bowl of mashed potatoes towards him. "We're eating."
Loze grunted, and the three began to quietly pass dishes around. The only noise around the table was the soft tinkling of the silverware and the various munching from around the table. It wasn't an awkward sort of quiet, however: Link had noticed that while Gale and his grandfather managed to coexist in the household, for the most part both parties usually pretended the other didn't exist. In Loze's case, Link assumed it was because the quirky old man never realized how lacking his social skills were – gramps didn't see the silence as an issue. As for Gale, aka Vaati, well, he wasn't sociable to begin with and Link could tell his grandfather got on his nerves. Big surprise there; pretty much everyone besides the fairer sex got on the pale kid's nerves.
The feeling began as a tiny itch. Link knew that he should ignore it since the other two seemed oblivious to the silence. It's not that it's awkward, but this is a weird way to celebrate a holiday…
Link's knife on the turkey decelerated. And now that I thought "awkward," it's really awkward.
He fidgeted. He looked to his right where grandpa Loze was busy with the cranberry sauce. He looked across the table at the landscape of sheer bluish-purplish white hair from Gale bending over to eat. His awkward fidgeting was finally able to go away when Gale's uncovered left eye swiveled upwards and narrowed in a "what are you looking at," glare. Ah, finally some response from someone, even though it wasn't particularly friendly.
"Do you celebrate the holidays during winter break as well?"
The crescent scar under Gale's eye twitched as he tensed, suspicious of Link. "I'm not particularly celebrating anything at the moment." He shifted his weight to dodge a whack from Loze's direction.
"Yes we do," Loze said sternly. "Though I admit it's become something we do out of habit than anything else."
"Ah. Well, I was talking to Gale a while ago and we were wondering if we could take a trip with a friend during the winter."
The albino was now staring at Link in a "what are you doing?" expression while Loze appeared surprised. The old man turned to his grandson, bewildered.
"Really Gale?"
Gale paused. "Yeah."
"You never want to go anywhere with anybody."
Gale shrugged, poking his food.
Cocking his head, Loze looked to Link. "How did you manage to convince him? This boy's so antisocial I was afraid he didn't have any friends to go anywhere with."
"Gee thanks gramps."
This time, Link looked a little sick in the face as well. "Uh. We get along really well… yeah…" Farore knows JUST how much I want to get along with a psycho, world domination obsessed, power craving, adulterous, ego inflated wind mage. But one does what one must do to save the world, huh? Too bad I have to keep him around in case things don't go well with Skull Kid…
Ugh. Eff my life.
"I was under the impression that you two didn't like each other. Where are you planning to go?"
Gale gave a crooked smile. "Japan." He stabbed his piece of turkey with his knife. "It's going to be," stab, "fun." Stab.
"What?! I am not paying for that! Do you know just how much money a plane trip to the other side of the world cos –"
"Relax. Someone's got us covered."
"And who do you mean by someone? If you come back and we have a debt to pay…"
"Geez, I said chill out. We're going with Zelda Sterling from the local college and she's handling everything for us." Upon seeing his grandfather wasn't entirely convinced, Gale sighed and put his utensils down on the table. "She was the one who offered." He added a knowing eyebrow arch until he was sure Loze reached the conclusion he wanted him to make.
"M'boy, you know I don't like you taking advantage of girls' obsessions over you. It's not what good men do."
Gale added a sly grin now that Gramps had bought his story. "She would have been devastated if I'd refused. Not so much Link, I imagine, but she insisted she would feel bad if she excluded my ah… friend."
"Zelda doesn't lik –" Link stopped short when Gale gave him a cold look. He didn't really understand why he was getting so upset by Gale's comments about Zelda, especially since he understood this was just an excuse to get Loze to feel less suspicious about their coming trip to Japan. "Zelda doesn't like… to… exclude people," Link muttered. He shrunk down in his seat, swallowing his frustration. He told himself over and over again that Gale was just telling a story that wasn't true.
Loze sat quietly and eyed the two for a long time. Link managed to keep his good boy smile the entire time while Gale's blood red eyes were staring so intensely that they might have bored holes into his food. After a torturous minute, grandpa Loze sat back in his chair. "Well, we'll have to make sure to thank her thoroughly, won't we?"
The two boys allowed themselves to relax.
"Link, do you have a passport by the way? You can't go unless you have one."
Link immediately nodded. "I have everything figured out. Please don't worry."
"If you say so." Loze shrugged, and the table returned to its previous state of awkward silence. Meanwhile, Gale gave a questioning glance at Link who had picked up his fork and was neatly scraping his plate clean. Somehow, the white haired skater had a feeling that Link was hiding something about this trip that he wasn't aware of.
One trip. One trip and that crazy punk is gone for good.
fleets: NOTICE ON PAIRINGS -
I feel like this should be mentioned:
I have decided to include overtones of certain pairings in this story, and I am aware some people will be upset to the point they may no longer want to read any further. There will be nothing overtly fluffy, heavy, or super lovey-dovey, but there will be hints of pairing hints I can reveal so far will be (drumroll):
LinkxZelda
VaatixZelda
...wow Zelda's a slut. So there you go. Right now I think the pairings will be so slight you'll be able to pretend they're not there, but if you can't stand even the thought of those pairings, then you might want to stop. Don't like, don't read. :(
Death-Note-Zelda-Kitty: Thank you! Link is a sketchy one - I think he's enjoying everyone's reaction too much for his own good. :P Japan is coming up soon!
Astral S. Kepeire: I'm a little nervous about the Japan segment, but hopefully I can pull it off. :)
Shadow Blues: Haha, it's not too interesting or important - it's basically a bunch of squiggles. Do I ever make life easy for Vaati (I mean Gale)? XD
Midna Hytwilian: I wonder how Vaati will be, too (perplexed face). (shifty eyes) well, if he does come to his senses.
Ah! So sorry I have not been online for god knows how long. I haven't had the time to do anything...
Reily96: VxZ pairing now confirmed. ;) Of course! Dugal welcomes fans. Too bad he hasn't appeared yet... I want to have fun with his dialogue...
marium: Happy birthday! Haha, oh Link. Oh Gale. They're so disfunctional.
LinkxDarkLink: cheery yet sneaky - I think you got Link's personality down (I was looking for a good word to describe him and was having trouble, so thanks)! Thank you for your support as always, and sorry about the hiatus - I didn't expect to run so low on time.
Darkwind: :) I'm still experimenting with Petrov's personality since I've never actually played OoT. He's considerably more different than the Link I wrote about in my previous stories though (less carefree, I guess?). Wow... I'm surprised by how popular Link's jacket has become.
drydrydessert: I try. Thank you :)
Sue Axel: And VxZ is what you shall get! Well, nothing overt, but if you squint you'll see it ;)
Chocolate chip! How did you know, those are my favorite! :D