30. The mountain goes to Muhammad

TUDD! A pellet was heard as it completely missed the target hitting on the wall. Zelda stares exasperated at Link, whom is chuckling a little at her.

ZELDA POV

"I can't believe it; I SWEAR last time I was able to hit at least 2 targets" she says pleading Link to believe her

"Maybe if you tried AIMING'" Link suggest sincerely

Well now that is just disrespectful, what does he think I have been doing all this time? All right let's breathe and think, what is different? His presence, he could be making me nervous and that is why I am failing all my shots so far, why is he here to begin with?

[[[REMEMBRANCE]]]

Zelda hurries to open the door to her room, behind her were all those times she was sure she heard a tap on the door, and the frustration she felt once she opened it to find the corridor empty, she had even promised herself to wait for a second tap before opening the door next time. But right now she completely forgot about all that and just opened the door. Finally Link stood there, unkempt and with a few scrapes on the arms, but otherwise he looks perfectly fine.

"Well, no obvious gash and you still have all your fingers… such a disappointment" the Princess says sarcastically as she pulls him inside.

"I was being extra careful, I thought you would not appreciate me staining your floor with blood" Link says as he pulls out the royal seal and tosses it at her

Zelda catches it and squeals in happiness, meanwhile Link grabs some cotton and alcohol to rub it on his scraped arms

"THANK YOU VERY MUCH, you have no idea how much I appreciate this… you should come with me tomorrow you know"

[[[END OF REMEMBRANCE]]]

Oh yeah… hehehe I asked him

"Show me, because obviously I am not doing it right" Zelda says obviously bothered by her admission.

Link approaches her and grabs her shoulders to move her from facing directly at the targets to a side posture towards the them, he uses his foot to position her legs in a wider stance, Link circles her and ends up right behind her, he then places both his hands on top of hers, almost like hugging her from behind.

"You do not want to stumble since that could deviate your shot, so you widen your stance to root yourself firm to the ground. Then you take your aim, the perfect shot is NOT aiming through the forks, you rotate the slight, and you should see the target right on top the fork, like this" Link carefully explains

He rotates the slingshot and takes aim not letting go of the princess's hands, to introduce her to the pull pressure she should exert on the slingshot

FOR FARORE'S SHAKE, THIS IS TOO MUCH. He is too fucking close, talking directly to my ear, and smelling so damn good. WAY TOO DISTRACTING, I am not sure I gathered everything he just said. Why am I feeling like this? I hate him don't i?
No… I don't really hate him, not anymore. That does not mean he is on the market girl, wait HE IS, he just turned 13, didn't he? But YOU are not on the market, get a grip Zelda, breathe… NO DON'T BREATHE, IT'S A TRAP.

"I think the target is in place taking your angle in consideration, but you need to confirm it, is it in place" Link ask her almost whispering on her ear.

Zelda just nods, fearing to speak and lose the little air she had left in her lungs.

"The pellet should travel in perfect horizontal line, when you pull the sling avoid lifting your elbow, you should draw your arm and elbow back as horizontal as possible, then you release the pellet" Link says and backs away to let her have her first shot.

Zelda breaths in hungrily, and releases her shot… the pellet struck the target right in the center, shattering it to pieces.

Zelda opens he eyes wide, not sure she just did that, so she readies another shot, adjusts her stance, bents the slingshot to aim just like Link told her, and hits another target. She grins widely, rushes to Link and hugs him jumping, then gets back to shooting the rest of the targets.

LINK POV

Well, she seems happy. I wonder how long is this going to last. My Queen is not stupid… she will find out about what I did, if not today, tomorrow. DAMN! She missed that shot, and that one… being fair those last 2 where moving targets, she still did good though, hit 8 from 10.

"Well, that is a better score than just 2, right?" Zelda asks the shop owner smiling

"Of course it is my Princess, I will write it immediately… would you like to try the game too my Prince"

Link widens his eyes and starts shaking his head but notices Zelda nodding at him that he should play

"If I play, I am going to set the bar high, to make it difficult for your usual customers to reach me, set the shooting range on your expert level please" Link asks

The shop owner smiles evilly and rubs his hands in anticipation and excitement. All targets are now moving and he has a time limit, the owner draws a new score chart.

"Excuse me but what is all this?" Zelda asks puzzled

"The expert level, I only use it on Saturdays at 12pm, it was made for older customers… by that I mean the castle guards, they always come to drink and spend time competing here"

Then they both turn when they star hearing the shattering of the targets one after another, the owner slowly begins to beam, his eyes glistening with hope and greed, a GOOD score by the Prince means the guards are going to spend a lot of coin trying to surpass it, or reach it at least. Zelda was left with her mouth wide open seeing Link hit EVERY TARGET with ease.

I was NOT expecting to feel this level of pain on my arms and hands, I thought climbing would be easy, I have plenty of memories from my past and future self climbing all the time. I mean I CAN climb too, but I need to build more stamina and arm strength, I need to train, I hate the idea if being the weakest link. Though it may not have been the climb what is causing the soreness now that I think about it

[[[REMEMBRANCE]]]

The moon is full and on its highest point in the sky, the King and the Queen lay on their bed asleep, Link slowly pushes the window from outside to open it wider. He enters slowly trying to avoid making any type of noise, but smiles once he realizes he may not need to be so careful, Daphnes was snoring loudly.

Just in case he reaches the door that connects the Queen's office with the bedroom and closes it, that on itself kind of muffled the snores, and I should hide any sound he makes. Link moves more freely around the office opening drawers, then he finds a very decorated small box… and it was closed. He draws his Swiss army knife and manages to open it without damaging the box, and there it was, along with the King and Queen's royal seal too. Link takes Zelda's puts the box back when he hears the door handle turn.

The Queen enters her office, she yawns stretching her arms and walking around, she quickly looks everywhere… everywhere but the ceiling, where Link is currently struggling to maintain his hidden position, he requires to remain flat on the ceiling, that in itself demands to much from his already tiered arms and still healing core. The Queen notices the open window.

"Stupid wind, but I guess that is what I heard" the Queen half closes the window and returns to the bedroom

[[[END OF REMEMBRANCE]]]

I am sure the scare Claire gave me it's what fucked me, but at least now I know my Queen is a selective listener, she wakes up when she hears a sound out of the ordinary… that is a hardcore survival mechanism, I wonder what where the circumstances that forced her to develop this skill.

ANYWAY… Saria raised no quitter; I am finishing this game with perfect score even if it hurts. I have heard the guards boasting about their performance in this game, this is the perfect opportunity to show them how pathetic they truly are, and hopefully motivate them to get better.

They both exit the shooting gallery, Zelda is feeling good about everything so far, she was able to see her name stamped with her royal seal on the chart score. That filled her with pride even though it was not the best score so far. Link was quiet the whole way, dreading their arrival.

Once they arrived Cormac came rushing at them, he began asking what took them so long, and without waiting for an answer he tells them they were summoned to the throne room.

Wow. I was expecting my Queen to find out about the missing seal today, but not THIS early in the day.

Zelda's smile fades, she turns to Link and nods at him with conviction

"We are in this together, right?"she asks him

Link nods at her with a smile "like conjoined twins" he assures her

The carriage leaves and the pair decide to just enter already and be done with all this. As they entered Link notices new decorations placed on the walls, flower paintings. Zelda giggles, Link looks at her believing she lost her mind when he hears, Ivanna is yelling at Pepe and demanding answers. He begins to laugh; glad they are not dealing with Nana right now. Cormac opens the double doors for them and steps away.

Inside you can see the King and Queen on their respective thrones, but there are also 3 other well-dressed men.

"Good evening majesties, may I inquire as to the reason we were summoned today?" Link asks

"Good evening, I wanted you to meet these renown tailors, since you wanted to replace the clothes that got destroyed due to… circumstances" answers the Queen

Link frowns, he starts negating with his head and opens his arms a fraction showing his palms.

"But we specifically asked for Martin mom" Zelda reminds the Queen

"He will not come"

"Why is that my queen?" asks Link a little angry

"I don't know… he gave me lots of excuses, but I noticed he is ashamed to show his face here, and afraid of seeing YOU" the Queen points at Link

What the… why?... he is blaming himself; he thinks I got hurt because his suits were not good enough. THIS SON OF A

Zelda was about to reprimand the Queen on her lack of insistence when she heard a suppressed laughter, she slowly turns back to witness Link chuckling with an evil grin on his face.

"So… the fag was too much of a pansy to show face here" Link says cynically

"Language…" said the Queen without conviction, she was currently more scared of what he was going to do than his poor choice of words, she turns to Daphnes but he is just staring supporting his head on a hand.

"Whatever… you all are dismissed" Link says directly at the tailor and turns walking out of the throne room

"If Muhammad does not go to the mountain" Link says as he leaves

Everyone stares in complete silence; Zelda recovers fast and yells at the King as she starts running to catch up with Link.

"WHO THE FUCK IS MUHAMMAD?" the King looks at her shaking his head and raising his shoulders

Zelda exits the throne room, all that is heard now is the sound of her steps, then a yell "DON'T GO KILLING MARTIN, he still has to do something for me" "I AM NOT GOING TO KILL HIM, but I am going to make him wish I had" "LINK!" the King laughs a little.

The tailors started to leave the premises too, one of them was giggling and the other two whispering in discontent. The Queen was fiddling her hands, once they left the throne room, she exhales and asks her King

"Darling, have you ever lied to me? I understand that getting used to me was a chore at first, and Zelda's attitude was not making it easier… if you have, I won't hold it against you"

The King stares at his Queen with a stoic expression and suddenly understands, he answers

"He is not mine, only the goddesses know how much I have wished he was… I adopted him so he is mine now, but there is not a drop of me in his blood, any resemblance to me, including THAT short fuse of his, is just a happy coincidence" Daphnes clarifies with a small grin

"Thought so… I just needed your reassurance, it's just that it's could be possible, you could have met a woman before me, have sex with her and later married me. We know you are sterile now but maybe before me you weren't" Claire tries to explain her reasoning to justify her insecurities… she then giggles a little. "Too bad things did not go according to plan"

"You had a plan?"

"YES, I was going to expose them as thieves for stealing Zelda's royal seal, don't look at me weird, IT WAS THEM, I am sure of that, don't know how and I don't care, but I was going to tell you about it in front of the tailors, to kind of shame them"

The King slowly raises both his eyebrows "that was a cruel plan, why so much hate? No, it's not hated, its distrust" Daphnes runs a hand through his hair "could you please put a hold on your revenge? Zelda has changed… I believe she maturing, I want to support her self-growth, let's have faith on her, maybe that is all she needs from us right now"

The Queen looks at him with curiosity "did something happened between you two that I should know?"