Chapter 10
"The Spiritual Stone of Water"
After a very late night of working for the third time, Arlimand, Link, and I all got up as soon as we could. My muscles were sore from showing off to the customers who enjoyed watching me climb up and down walls to grab their merchandise. My knuckles hurt from breaking Mr. Drooly's face, but that was a minor irritant in comparison to the ache in my shoulders and hips.
"Man, I hurt!" I said, stretching from my place on the floor; I must've fallen off the chair I'd been sleeping on.
"And I don't think the blood on my knuckles will bever/b come out, let alone the smell of alcohol on my clothes," Arli agreed from over next to the wash basin.
"I still can't get my ankle to pop," Link said, twisting his foot in strange positions, "I think I sprained it tripping over that rock."
"Or jarred it," I suggested.
My voice echoed hollowly in the large Inn room, leaving an eerie, empty feeling to our words. It was like our lips were talking, but our minds and bodies couldn't feel what we were saying. I knew mine did, but the sound of my words was so hollow... Arlimand popped his shoulders, and even that echoed in the spacious, sparingly-furnished room.
"If it's dislocated I could help, but as for sprained..." he let the sentence trail off.
"Well, let me see it, Link," I offered, sitting up.
He scooted over to where I was and rested his ankle on my lap. Even from looking at it, I could tell that it wasn't sprained.
"Oh it's not that bad. It's either stiff or slightly dislocated," I said, "Does it hurt when I do this?"
I pointed his toes as far to the direction of his leg as I could without hurting him.
"A little, no more than usual," he said.
"So it's probably stiff," I finished.
"Hello?" a voice called from just outside our room, "I'm looking for a Mr. Link, Mr. Arlimand, and Mrs. Hylia."
"In here!" Arlimand called from the basin where he was still trying to clean his hands.
A tall Zora man stepped into the room and looked around. His eyes landed on us and he bent over to speak to us.
"Are Mr. Link, Mr. Arlimand, and Mrs. Hylia here?" he asked in a patronizing tone.
"Don't patronize us," I said, "We're the ones you're looking for. Although, I'm MISS Hylia."
"But, you're children," he said shocked.
"Yes," Arli said, "Children on a mission from Princess Zelda."
"The case may be that we're children, but we've probably got one of the most important jobs in Hyrule," Link clarified, "What have you.."
"In any case, your request to see King Zora has been approved," He interrupted hurriedly.
"Good!" I said, "We'll be there."
The man, looking embarrassed, nodded and retreated from the room. We could hear his footsteps faintly as he hurried down the hallway. We then looked at each other and laughed joyously. The sound of laughter was much less hollow in this room, but it still had an eerie ring to it.
"Well, we'd better look our best for the King, shouldn't we?" I suggested, giving Link back his foot and standing up with a stretch.
"In that case, I'm going to need some new clothes," Arli said looking down at his beer-and-vomit stained tunic, "Luckily, I was upset enough about it to get this!" He held up a small pouch of rupees, enough for all three of us to get some nice looking clothing.
He got enough for me maybe to even take a shower!
"All right, Arlimand!" I cheered, "Looks like you've done some good with that talent!"
Link stood and nodded, "Though I don't really approve of it, good job."
Arli gave a light roll of his eyes and laughed, "Yeah, I'll apologize as soon as his hangover is gone, but seeing how much he drank, that could be like, a week."
"Sounds like he drank like a fish," I joked.
"Worse, more like a humanoid alcoholic whale!" He chuckled.
I let out a low whistle and smiled.
"Well," Link began, "before we go we ought to tell our new friend."
"I think I should shower," I said, "Before anything else."
"What are your sizes and preferred color? I'll grab the clothes," Arli said.
"I'm a size ten in children's," I said, "and my favorite color is blue. Anything with sleeves would be nice. Maybe some leggings. I can live with my boots."
"I'm the same size, and the only color I've ever worn is green," Link said, "I'm going to go tell our new friend."
Link and Arli left, and I went to take a well deserved shower. Too bad they didn't have hot water to bathe in... The shower room was down the hall and to the left. I almost walked into the men's bath-room but noticed a sign that said, in clear Hylian, 'men only'. Well, at least they wrote bath signs in Hylian.
I hoisted the bucket up to the hook it stood on, and slid the bottom out so I could drench myself in the water. It was cold, and goosebumps appeared on my arms and legs. I was surprised to see how tan I'd gotten in the short time Link and I had traveled. I was even more surprised to see that I didn't have any hair on my legs at all, and a small burn near my navel. I wondered where that came from a moment before the bucket ran out of water. I closed the bottom and ran it through the stream again.
Once my shower was finished, I got back into my dirty clothes and undergarments and walked out of the bath-room with my hair still wet. Arli and Link were waiting for me.
"You have a bcrap/b singing voice," Link joked, smiling.
"I got the clothes, the only problem was the leggings only came in adult sizes, sorry," Arli said pointing to a bag on the chair where I had slept.
"Brilliant," I said, "Did you get undergarments?"
"Yeah, thought about it just before I left, I just guessed same size, they're in there."
"Awesome, I'm going to go get changed, okay?" I said, rooting through the bag until I found my clothes, "These look great."
"Good, we'll go wait for you in the lobby," Arli replied leaving the room with Link right behind him, "Don't forget to grab the bag, it may be useful later."
"Got it," I said, taking the whole thing into the shower room with me, I figured I might as well rinse myself off after putting my dirty old clothes back on.
The three-quarters sleeved tunic was brilliant. It was a deep shade of blue with diamond patterns sewn into the hems and seams. It was made of a soft fabric that felt just as sturdy as leather.
After I changed, I found Link and Arli, standing in the lobby, talking to the Zora that "hired" us.
"Aah, here's Hylia," He said, "So I guess you three'll be going?"
"Yes sir," Arlimand replied politely, "I'm sorry to leave you to this alone, but we have to continue our journey."
"It's all right, I've been managing this shop alone for twelve years. I'll be retiring soon so it shouldn't be too hard to take care of things on my own," The shop owner confided.
"We'll be back, we promise," Said Link, "Maybe even before you retire!"
"I wouldn't put it past us to make it in time," I said, "I swear we'll all be late to our own funerals. We need to get going to see King Zora."
Arli laughed at this and mumbled something about that only being if we were lucky, which so far, we weren't doing too bad, and then something about it being better than being early to our funeral.
"Come on," I said to Link and Arli, "We should go. Thank you for letting us work for our rooms," I said to the kindly Zora.
"It's not a problem," he replied, "come back and work sometime if you need to make some money later." he said then handed a small bag to Arli and said "Take this, consider it a gift for your quest," he leaned closer before he spoke the next sentence, "Get the spiritual stone, and take Ganondorf down." He then stood up and turned to a Zora who had just stepped up to the counter.
This was the first thing that actually shut me up. In fact, it even shut Navi up. How did he know? Link, Arli, and I all stood silently, staring at the old Zora who knew our quest.
He looked at us and said one last thing, "get going, or you'll be late for your audience with King Zora, then you will have an even longer wait." He tapped the side of his pale, scaly nose, and we knew.
"Do you think Zoras have a Santa Clause?" I finally asked halfway to King Zora's cambers.
"A what?" Link replied, confused.
"Maybe, but what makes you ask that?" Arli said.
"Did you see the way he tapped the side of his nose and winked? Isn't that just like the tales of Old Saint Nick?"
"Who?" Link asked again.
"Ah, yes the Jolly Old Elf, now that you mention it, it kind of does, but why would he work at the Zora's Inn?" Arli replied.
Link looked at us with a mixture of amusement and confusion on his face.
"Don't the Kokiri have Christmas?" I asked to Link's confused stare, "Besides, you know that Inn has a giftshop, right? So..."
"I don't know if they did," Link interrupted, "I wasn't exactly popular with them."
"Did you ever get presents somewhere in the middle of winter?" I clarified.
"No, not really."
"Well that's why you don't know!" I sighed.
"With us it was in the season of 'Still Freaking Summer" Arli laughed, "But the tales always had him giving gifts for free, directly in peoples houses, so how does that correlate?"
I had to laugh out loud at 'still freaking summer'.
"Think about it, technically, he let us stay for three days at the Inn, itechnically/i for free. That's the best gift we ever could have been given!" I said.
"I have to agree," Link nodded.
"While that is true, what you seem to be saying is we have our own ipersonal/i Saint Nicholas," Arli said.
We stopped just short of King Zora's chambers.
"Well, what else would describe it? Is he a guardian angel? Is he a psychic? A saint? Could he be a daemon? What else would describe how he knew?"
Arlimand opened his mouth, closed it, then shrugged, "I don't know, but he knew somehow, and I'm content to leave it at that."
"Not willing to delve to far into the occult?" I asked.
"More like I don't want to appear ungrateful for what he did, somehow he knew, maybe a drunk Hyrulian castle guard, but..." He let the sentence trail off as he raised his hand to eye level and opened it revealing the pouch that the Zora gave him earlier.
"What is it, anyway?" asked Link.
"I'm not sure," Arlimand said handing it to me to open.
I pulled the drawstrings on the little pouch to find them a little more than stuck.
"What the hell?" I asked it.
"I hope you don't expect it to talk back" Arli laughed at his own joke.
Arlimand took it and untied the knot that kept it from opening.
"I knew that," I said as he handed it back.
I opened the pouch to find a large silver rupee, which was worth just over 100 rupees, a small note of encouragement, and a small bottle of something pink with wings.
Arli looked up to see someone at the entrance to the chamber. He stepped up to him and spoke.
"I am Arlimand, this is Link, and Hylia," he pointed to each of us in turn, "and we are here for our audience with King Zora."
The man nodded to him and stepped to the side, "You're five minutes late," he warned slightly.
"Our apologies, we were held up at the Inn," He replied, then turning to us, "We best not keep his Majesty waiting any longer."
We followed Arlimand into the large chamber.
The chamber was large enough for a small Royal Family party to fit comfortably into, plus band, and there was a raised platform up a flight of stairs where you could gaze upon the large essence of King Zora. When I say "large", I mean "LARGE". Let's just say that he dwarfed a lot of the drunks in Hyrule Castle Town. You know the ones, the fat, lazy, smelly ones that stop conversations when they step into a room. Yeah, and he was fat, I doubt he ever stood, and he smelled like fish. Oh, wait.
'Hylia...' I heard Link mentally warn.
Be careful what you say...
"What have you come here for?" King Zora asked.
"We need the Spiritual Stone of Water," I said, "Can we have it?"
Well, that was one way of putting it I suppose. I sounded more like I'd asked for a toy, or maybe a glass of water. I felt like an idiot. The Spiritual Stone of Water, aka Zora's Sapphire, was a treasure of the Zora Royalty, not something to just be given away arbitrarily.
'No kidding?' Arli's voice sounded, 'Do you want me to do the talking?'
'That might be better I think,' I said in my mind.
Arli nodded, thought for a moment and then began.
"What my companion meant to say, I believe, is that there is a great danger threatening all of Hyrule, and The treasure the Zoras hold is needed to protect the land."
"No need to show off.." I muttered.
"She's not the most eloquent, Milord, but she means well," Link said with a bow.
'Did I explain and express it correctly?' Arli asked in his mind, looking for our approval.
'Hell, it was better than flat asking for it,' I thought back.
"Yes..." The King said with a thoughtful nod, "but if you want the Zora's Sapphire, save my daughter. She has disappeared after feeding lord Jabu-Jabu, our god. There is only one explanation, and that is..." He didn't finish his sentence.
He didn't have to.
'More Royalty?' Arli thought.
'Pretty much,' Link and I thought in oblivious-to-the-joke unison.
Beautiful, now we have some more work to do.
King Zora scooted away from his usual place on a waterfall created by a big rock in the middle of a river that created his throne. He took forever, but when he finished, there was a hole leading to the outside, where he motioned for us to go after handing us a fish.
"If you offer this to him, maybe he'll release my beautiful daughter," He sad, concern filling his voice.
"Maybe" I said, not believing at all what he said as he tossed a fish to Link.
We left the dungeon-like room and found ourselves outside after going through the passage King Zora opened up for us. What we found shocked us beyond reason.