Copyright disclaimer: You think I own The Legend of Zelda? I'm that attractive? Goodness, flattery will get you nowhere... On a more truthful note, I do not own The Legend of Zelda. Seriously, you think I'm hot enough to own that sexy franchise? Oh, stop it, you sly dog.

CHAPTER 9: Default

The board room was silent: everyone wanted to hear Zelda, daughter of the mayor, political tycoon, CEO and chairwoman of SkyCorp speak. She could have been considered the face of Skyloft City, but made sure to distance herself from her father's work—hence, SkyCorp was a private corporation meaning it was not affiliated with the government in any way. The top search terms in the city were as thus: "Zelda", "SkyCorp", "Mayor Gaepora," and after the bombings, "Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes" and "blank mask man" came close after.

"I want to begin by making clear the aim of this meeting. It is not to praise nor condemn you; rather, disclose the current progress of the corporation as caused by last week's incidents." She paused and Impa handed her a single piece of paper, which Zelda looked over briefly and set on the table.

"Due to the shutdown, we were not able to come to HQ and subsequently engage in extensive research on cases. Of course last week's bombings were dreadful, but that does not mean that we can stand slack-jawed and watch. There are still victims that deserve justice and the guilty that deserve persecution. Do not fall behind in your work."

Zelda stood and smiled. "Have a nice day," she said, and walked away, Impa at her tail.

Chairman Groose then moved to the head of the table and cleared his throat, taking the paper that Zelda had left behind into his hands.

"I will now read future expectations for the coming months at SkyCorp," he announced mechanically, as if he'd rehearsed the sentence.

"Floors below sixty will continue working at their... p-pace with aid from the detectives above the sixtieth floor." Groose read aloud from the paper like he was either a horrible public speaker or somewhat illiterate.

"Detectives above sixty will begin new cases with help from other detectives in their leagues. If you would like assistance from non-SkyCorp civilians, you will need to put in a request form for a background check. Any questions?"

Silence answered, so Groose continued.

"If you are working with the intelligence division... please resume your cases immediately. You will only be permitted to work on two other cases while incognito."

SkyCorp detectives were taught strict organizational skills as well as mental and emotional separation between facts and events so they could investigate multiple cases at once. The more talented one was at these skills, the more likely they were to move up in the company, though there was no shortage of detectives and if someone wanted to transfer a case, it could be done easily—though doing this excessively was cliched and frowned upon. The reason SkyCorp was considered enemies with the police force was simple: SkyCorp didn't like noncommittal people, and the police force was lazy, noncommittal, and deserters who constantly dropped their cases into the hands of the firm.

Groose continued reading the forecast for the company's next few months, not without obstacle. He stuttered often and misread many words, but eventually finished with, "If you want to know who you can request for help in the company, check the online portal and sign in..." The corporation had a very solid class system. The people on the Upper Floors could go on for years without seeing more than half of the company, and vice versa. Even when there were company outings, the Upper and Lower floors were kept separate. Now, however, that we were on a decline, we would have to begin to depend each other and the community.

The chairman then left the room, and Impa entered.

"Meeting concluded," she said. "You are dismissed." People began to stand and I overheard the detectives next to me as they spoke about chairman Groose.

"It's almost laughable how unintelligent Groose is," one said.

"You know the only reason he has the job is because Link refused the offer," replied the other with a smirk. It might've been true, but they had no need to speak of him in that way. I wanted to reprimand them and tell them that he was higher up than they were regardless of his mental capacity.

But I couldn't find it in me to say it aloud.

I went to visit Fi in her cubicle for updates on current cases. She had nothing on her desk but a slim and polished computer—she took any calls for me through her cell phone. The walls of her cubicle were bare, save for a shabby drawing I gave her when she joined the company. Welcome to SkyCorp! it said, and pictured a smiling Fi stick figure standing in front of HQ. She didn't say anything when I gave it to her, but it'd been on her wall ever since.

"Good morning, detective," she said.

"Do you have any news?"

"Your audition for the club is in three weeks," she began, scribbling it down on a paper. You will have to learn a new routine just for the audition. We've written out your resumé, please memorize it. Next week we will give you your new identity." She opened one of her desk drawers and inside were three black pens, three perfectly sharpened pencils, three rulers, three protractors, and a calculator. She reached into the very back and removed a business card case. She flipped through and removed a deep blue card with decorative gold writing. "HONEY DROP" said the header, and under it in cursive it read "Bar & nightclub". It listed its address, hours, and contact information.

"We've done a thorough background check on all pod the staff. A few of them are thought to be in league with the trade. We'll give you a list of those people, you are expected to befriend them." She turned back to her computer and I started to walk away, but not without inspecting the card more closely. On the back, in the same gold lettering, it read Fall into the sweetness.

The city was back to its old, bustling glory. My dance lessons were more frequent, and I also was given lessons on how to put on makeup by my dance instructor. First she had me apply makeup—a completely foreign subject to me—and then dance for two hours. She said that if I applied it correctly, it would stay on my face even if I sweat like a pig, or so Keet translated. I was constantly hit with the rolled up newspaper that Madame kept in her hands.

I eventually mastered the dance, but still unable to apply makeup correctly. Madame decided that we needed to spend an entire lesson on it. She took out a big, shiny box with a ton of compartments and sat me in front of a mirror.

"Je vais le faire il," she said in her native tongue.

"She's going to do it for you," said a bored Keet from the corner with a small stack of books.

Madame was about to put a foam square with something that looked like paint on my face, but she stopped.

"O mon déesse! Vous avez une belle peau. Vous n'avez pas besoin fondation." She began to pull on my cheeks and poke at my face.

"Oh my goddess! You have beautiful skin. You don't need foundation. That's what she said. Why is she addressing you formally?" He said something to her that I imagined sounded a lot like "Please talk down to him." They then had a lengthy conversation and Madame stopped at one point to pull at my cheeks again.

"Basically, you don't need makeup, but some amount of it is required for the job, so that's all she's going to teach you," Keet stated.

Madame turned to me with a black tube and something that looked like a green marker. She spoke in clumsy English.

"Mascara first." She uncapped the black tube and pointed upward. I looked up and she brushed on a strange-smelling ink that made my eyes water a bit.

"No blinking. Don't wipe." My eyes continued to water while I attempted to keep them open. She gave me the okay to blink and I did, multiple times.

"Close your eyes," she commanded as she unscrewed the green marker. "Eyeliner and shadow."

I did as I was told and she colored around my eyes, then used a thinner kind of eyeliner on the fold of my eyelid. I don't know what she did with the eye shadow.

"Open." I opened my eyes and looked at myself in the mirror. The mascara made my light-colored eyelashes look more pronounced and long. The dark green mascara looked kind of like pointy wings angling up in a curve from my eyes. Shadowy, smudged spots of forest green were on the outer crevice of my eyes. The same green was also on the lid, tracing the eyeliner. There was a bold white line on the fold of my eyelid. Madame handed me all of the materials she had used on me, as well as a tube of tinted lip balm and wipes to rid myself of the makeup.

"Oeil de chat. Cat eye," she said.

"Come here, let's take a selfie," Keet said.

"Send it to me for reference," I said. Keet took out his phone and snapped a photo. He was smiling, while I had a blank face.

"I'll just put it on the company portal," he said mischievously. I rolled my eyes and helped Madame pack up her makeup box.

"Ton cheveux?" she said to me, and I looked to Keet. He rattled off something, gesturing to my hair. Madame took a hairbrush from her purse and bobby pins. She parted my sandy blonde hair on the left side and brushed it back, then pinned it, making an X with the clips. She brushed the bangs that were on the right side into my face.

"Utilisez gel prochaine fois," she commanded.

"Use gel next time. Let me take a picture." Keet snapped another picture. "Come on, duck lip and peace sign. I could make a lot of money off of a picture like that."

"No." He laughed at how curt I was and we both thanked Madame.

"See you next week," we said to her.

On the way out, Keet nudged me with his shoulder.

"We get to pick out your clothes next week," he said.

"No pictures. I'll sue you."

"Yeah, yeah, okay."

We went our separate ways and I pulled a baseball cap low over my eyes so no one would see my face. The late summer evening was warm, and the sun gave an orange glow to the city. I arrived home and washed the makeup from my face with difficulty: I didn't have mirrors in my apartment because I almost never had the need to look at myself. I considered it very vain to have an innate need to constantly look at yourself, and I lacked the need anyway. I didn't care for how I looked, but I supposed I'd have to use my smartphone's front camera when I did my makeup for the club.

Though it was under circumstances that were borderline bizarre, I was excited to test my acting skills, and for the big change of pace.

The next week, we went to buy my costumes for the club. The madame suggested mostly monochrome colors and then something small that matched the evergreen color of the eye makeup. I'd assumed I could wear a grey t-shirt and athletic shorts.

I was tragically mistaken.

We passed by athletic stores and instead went into increasingly outlandish ones. There was a lot of spandex and sparkles—actually, I'm pretty sure we stopped by a store called Spandex N' Sparkles.

This is probably where Gear shops, I thought and chuckled to myself. We ended up buying a lot of horrendously tight clothing because we needed to spend a certain amount of money, and most of it was really cheap. When we were both tired beyond our wits and had to spend another twenty rupees to meet the base amount, Keet said,

"What about shoes?"

We almost sprinted to the nearest shoe store, shopping bags in hand. Keet went straight to the women's section, and I felt any semblance of dignity I had left begin to quiver.

"I am not wearing high heels," I said with conviction.

"Of course not, I'd never make someone do that," he said. "But I was thinking of messing with you. What size do you wear?"

"Seven and a half."

"You have tiny feet. I think that's a four and a half in women's shoes." He stopped walking when he saw a pair of plain black ballet flats. They didn't have straps, they had a stretchy material around the top so they'd stay on your feet. The soles were bendable and the insides were soft. They were ideal dancing shoes.

"Try them on," he said. I sighed and removed my shoes, then slid the flats on. I am sad to say, they fit perfectly...

We bought them (they were a convenient 30 rupees when you added in the sales tax) and left. We were done with shopping, and both somewhat traumatized.

"Keep this stuff in your apartment," Keet said. "Starting next week, you're a different person."

The next day I received my fake identity and resumé. My first name was the same, but I took on a new last name: Kani. Keet said that it meant dancer in some language I'd probably never hear in my life, and I believed him.

Fi gave me the list of accomplices probably working with the gangs. I had decided on one suspect, who was believed to be the head of Boko-West. The West was known for three things: cars, pottery, and electricity, and there were reports of drugs being smuggled across the city in handmade flower pots. Honey Drop, the club in Central I'd be working at, had sweet-smelling flower arrangements all over the building, all in original pots from different artists across West. We believed a potter that had a history with organized crime syndicates was the head of Boko-West and controlling the opium trade of the city. The other suspects could have been involved as well, but our man was the ringleader.

My resume said I received a dance certificate from the Golden School of Din, the best performing arts school in the city, and was part of an independent dancing troupe for two years. I worked in numerous clubs around the city, but couldn't find one that suited me well. Someone referred Honey Drop to me, and that's how I found it...

Link Kani was a polite, quiet, speculative person with a surprisingly warm personality. When he warmed up to people, he was very funny and easy to talk to. His favorite color was red, his hobbies included spending hours in the library and watching science documentaries. He lived in a small apartment in North with one of his friends from his old dancing troupe.

"Isn't this a little too... easy?" I asked Keet.

"Add complexity. Just don't mess with the infrastructure," he replied.

Another week passed, my last week of practice, and my time to audition was upon us.

"If you don't make this, I'm going to kill you," Keet said with a smile. He sounded very serious. I took the bus to Outset Avenue, the street in Central where Honey Drop was located. I was nervous and excited at the same time.

Honey Drop looked like a parlor of some kind. It was painted the same blue as the business card, and the name of the club was the same gold. The windows were blacked out, and the door was locked. I had emailed the head dancer to introduce myself and remembered that he'd said to come around to the back door for the audition. I walked down the alley to the back of the building. There were trash cans and litter all over the place, as well as a foul-smelling dumpster relatively close to the door. I knocked twice, and no one came. I knocked again and announced myself.

"Hello, this is Link Kani, and I'm here for an audition," I said. Right after, locks clicked out of place and the heavy metal door was pulled open. A stout man with dark red hair and a strange white tracksuit stood there.

"I'm Tott," he said, "the dance director. Come on in."

I followed him into the building.

"Like I said, my name's Tott. I'm the best dancer you'll ever meet. Link, right?"

I smiled. "Yes."

"I'll give you the grand tour, and then you can show me what you've got. All good?"

"Yessir." He began to walk, and I followed him.

"Our hours are eight PM to five AM for the club on the weekends, and the bar's open all day." The lighting in the club was very dim, but I could see well. We walked down a long hallway flanked by small side tables with artistic flower arrangements siting on them. At the end of the hallway I saw a bar with two people sitting and drinking.

It's only 3 o'clock, I thought. The bartender leaned forward and poured one of the patrons another drink. The lights were dim here as well. Next to the bar was a wide space I'd assumed was a dance floor, and next to the dance floor was a stage with three poles, standing erect from the ground to the ceiling, and behind that were booths against the wall, facing the stage.

"We call this the Floor," Tott said, gesturing to the large room. "This is where half of the action happens. We also have private parties by reservation in the back rooms." He pointed to the booths. "If you keep walking down that way, there's a hallway just like this one with V.I.P. rooms, and upstairs we have another floor with a bar and everything." Tott turned back the way we came. "This hall is where all the dressing rooms and break rooms are. My office is the closest one to the door. Any questions?" I didn't have any, so he told me that I could start my audition in the practice studio.

The music started, and the routine came naturally to me. I moved around the pole easily, as Madame's constant strikes with the newspaper beat the dance into me more than I'd needed. The pulsing music stopped, and I finished with a flair, panting tiredly. Tott looked me up and down.

"Take a seat, Mr. Kani." I sat in a plastic chair lining the wall. "It wasn't too bad," he said. "I'm the World's Charismatic Dancer Extraordinaire, so I have an eye for these things.

"I see."

"I don't know if I should hire you for dancing." I was afraid I wouldn't make it.

"But your look is fresh. You've got a good shape. If we pair that with your pretty good dancing skills, you'd be a sure breadwinner." He paused, and I felt anticipation bubbling over in my stomach.

"I'll hire you." I gave a bright smile.

"Thank you so much, sir! You won't regret your decision."

"I'll send you an email with your requirements, and I'll inform the other dancers so they can decide how you'll learn the routines." I was glad I made up a new email for the case. "Your hours will be prime time on Fridays and Saturdays... We have to flaunt the fresh new meat. You can start in a few weeks, but you'll have to start training next Monday. Good?"

"Great. Thanks again, sir," I said, and bowed my head to him.

"Goodness, you have such great manners," he said. He showed me the way out and we exchanged goodbyes. I called Fi, excitement threading its way through me.

"I made it!" I said. I made it.

A/N: Hiya! Hope you liked the new chapter. I couldn't resist the prospect of Link wearing makeup.
Exercising my crappy French! Just a note, if you say "oeil de chat" to show off to your friends, don't pronounce the T. If you pronounce the T, "chat" means "pussy." Just a heads up. "Look, guys, I've just done the perfect pussy eye!"

On another note, "kanikani" means "dancer" in Maori, a language that I didn't know existed until about twenty minutes ago. It's spoken mostly in the North Islands of New Zealand.

Anybody get the Windwaker reference, with Tott and Outset Street? Windwaker is my favorite game, next to Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. And Majora's Mask... and Spirit Tracks... and... every LoZ game? Anyway, I needed a dancer and remembered the World's Charismatic Dancer Extraordinaire.

We are coming upon the 10th chapter! A day to be reckoned! P.S., I went to my passport appointment. I had to keep retaking the picture because my head was angled so that only one of my ears was visible... And I couldn't stop smirking.