Back with another chapter? So soon? I've actually had this one written for a few days now, but I'm trying to space them out a bit. I'm really excited though, ya'll seem to really be enjoying this story so far, and we're only just getting started! So with that out of the way, let's go ahead and get started!

Chapter 3: Sand

"Be sure to keep my Link safe now. In every way there is."

That's what Link's grandmother had told her shortly before they set out from Outset. Tetra didn't think much of it at the time; it was just a word of caution from a concerned caregiver and little more. Only now does she realize the old woman hadn't been worrying about her grandson losing his life to the sea. She was worried about Link losing his heart to the pirate captain he was sailing it with.

How unfortunate it is, then, that he ended up losing both.

She still doesn't know how she's supposed to tell his family that, even after weeks of woeful thought. She can scarcely believe it's already been that long since it happened. It's all still so fresh, so raw, like a wound that keeps reopening no matter how many times it's tended to. The kind of wound that never really heals, no matter how much time and space might pass.

Tetra paces around her cabin, thinking through her spiel for what feels like the millionth time now. Something like this requires a gentle, delicate approach, and being gentle and delicate aren't things the pirate captain is known for. She's never had to do something like this before, to deliver such terrible news to the kindly family of a fallen friend. Part of her wants to blame Link for even putting her in such a difficult position–if she wasn't still reeling from losing him so suddenly, all because of her own bad judgment.

She knew she'd have to tell his family that too. Link's grandmother and little sister have always been warm and welcoming to her and her crew. She doubts if they'll still be singing that same tune once they find out they're the reason Link will never come home. Once they find out she's the reason they'll never see him ever again.

She sighs when a knock sounds on her cabin door. Gonzo peeks his head in, clearing his throat before delivering the news she'd been expecting all day. "Uh… Miss? We're almost to Outset. It's time."

"...Right," she nods, eyeing the satchel sitting in the corner of her room. At least she'll be able to give his family the few possessions he'd left home with. It isn't much, but it's something, she supposes. "Prepare to drop anchor, but have the men ready the lifeboats. I doubt we'll be here for very long."

"Aye," Gonzo turns to follow his captain's orders. Tetra isn't that far behind him, heading up to the main deck with Link's satchel slung over her shoulder. She almost hates to part with it, with the few things she has left to remember him by. But she's already made peace with losing her mother's scarf that sank to the bottom of the sea along with him; in time, she'll make peace with this too.

At least, she hopes she will.

She doesn't take her full crew along with her for this visit. In fact, she figures the fewer of them there are, the better. Gonzo accompanies her, of course, as do Senza and Mako. Niko had begged to come along–out of her entire crew, he's clearly the most torn up over losing his first "swabbie". Tetra quickly turned him down, however; the last thing they need is to bring along an overdramatic, sobbing wreck of a pirate to deliver such somber, solemn news.

The sun always shines so brightly on the sparkling sands of Outset Island, and even now, that hasn't changed. Tetra feels like it's teasing her as they approach the tiny house on the eastern side of the village. After all, the sun had been just as bright on that fateful day a few weeks ago too, when it all went so horribly wrong.

She forces the last of her nerves away when they finally reach the house and she knocks on the door, already anticipating who will answer it. Tetra doesn't have much respect for her elders. She'd never gotten to meet her own grandmother, though from what her mother used to tell her, she was a wicked old shrew not worth knowing. She supposes she has or had another grandmother too, on her father's side, somewhere out there on the Great Sea. But the chances of ever meeting her are just about as slim as the chances of her discovering the name of the man her mother had slept with nine months before she was born.

But Link's grandmother, something about her is different than most old folks. Her eyes are kind, her smile always sincere, as if she's incapable of being anything but. There's a sort of sweetness in her voice that Tetra's never heard from anyone else, even now, when she opens the door to a group of unexpected, uninvited guests.

"Oh! Tetra, dear!" Grandma doesn't hesitate to pull the girl into a tight hug. Tetra isn't usually the hugging type even on a good day, but given the circumstances, she doesn't dare return this one. "It's so good to see you, all of you. Come in, please! I just brewed a fresh pot of tea and there's plenty to go around."

"Um, actually," Tetra pulls back from the old woman, glancing down. "We only came to-"

"Who's there, Grandma?" A much younger voice calls out. A brand new wave of guilt strikes Tetra when Link's little sister hops into a door frame. "Tetra!" she gasps, her eyes lighting up with excitement. She rushes to hug each of the pirates she spent several months sailing alongside. "Mr. Gonzo! Mr. Senza! Mr. Mako! What are you guys doing here?"

"...Hi, Aryll," Tetra forces on a halfhearted smile. "We're, um… we're here to tell you both something. It's… w-well, it's not very good news. You see, a few weeks ago, we were-"

"Oh, wait!" Aryll suddenly interrupts. "Whatever this is, Link should hear it too!"

"Uh…" Tetra swallows hard. She might as well just come out and say it, however painful it might be for them all. "That's actually what we came to talk to you about. Link isn't… he's not-"

"Big brotherrrrr!" Aryll calls, sending a ripple of confusion through Tetra and her crew. "You'll never guess who's heeeeere!"

For a moment or two, there's only silence, filled in by the sound of approaching footsteps inside the house. Grandma and Aryll step aside to make room, and suddenly… there he is. Living and breathing, without any sort of injuries or burns, without any sign that the ghost ship incident had happened at all. Tetra hears her crew gasp in shock behind her, but she remains silent, simply trying to comprehend what she's seeing. This must be a dream, it simply has to be. She saw that ship go down in flames with him on it, she saw him lose his life before her very eyes. So how can he be standing here, smiling at her as if none of that ever happened?

How is he alive?

"Oh, hey, Tetra," he greets, far too calmly and casually for comfort. "I've been expecting a visit from you sooner or later. What took you so long?"

"...Link," Tetra finally manages to choke out. She can already feel tears building behind her eyes, but she fights them back. Just as she fights back the most obvious question in favor of a different one entirely. "W-what… are you doing here?"

"I came back, remember?" Link shrugs, still smiling. There's something off about that smile, something insincere, almost. It rubs Tetra the wrong way, just as much as everything else about this situation does. "I decided the pirates' life wasn't for me, so I sailed my way home."

"Yeah!" Aryll chimes in, hugging her brother tight. "He's been home for about a week now. We're soooo happy to have him back!"

"A week? But… that doesn't make any sense…" Mako muses, frowning.

"Yeah, what about the ghost ship?" Gonzo eyes the boy suspiciously. "We saw you go down with-"

"Ghost ship?" Link interrupts. "What ghost ship?"

"The ghost ship that we all thought killed–" Tetra quickly stops herself when she catches the confused looks Aryll and Grandma are sending their way. Link doesn't share it; instead, he stares at her intensely, almost as if he's daring her to say anything more, to frighten his family with the haunting news she came here to bring them. News that doesn't even seem to be true anymore.

"Uh… n-never mind," she shakes her head. "It's just a silly old sailor's tale."

"But Miss…" Senza whispers to her. "We-"

"Just a sailors tale," she sharply repeats. She shoots a quick glance back at her crew, sending the unspoken message that they'll have much to discuss later. A discussion they can't hope to have in front of the small family standing before them.

"Well then," Grandma steps in to clear the following beat of awkward silence. "You're all still more than welcome to come inside for that tea. Unless you came back to take my sweet Link here back out to sea," she chuckles, clearly joking. Aryll laughs along with her, while Link's smile turns a touch smug almost, his dark eyes settled on Tetra all the while. She fixes him with a wary glare, still unable to shake the feeling that something's wrong here. She just can't put her finger on what yet.

"Actually," she slips the satchel off her shoulder. "We just came to bring this back to you." She hands it over to Link, who only briefly looks through its contents, seemingly uninterested in them.

"Oh, thanks," he tosses the bag inside the house with little care. "Well, now that your, uh, 'business' is finished, you guys can be on your way. See ya-"

"Hold it," Tetra wedges her foot in front of the door when he rushes to close it. "Link, can I have a word with you? Alone?"

He hesitates, his grip on the edge of the door tightening just the slightest bit. "Sure," he says, his smile turning a touch more forced as he steps onto the porch. "I'll be right back," he tells Grandma and Aryll, who see Tetra and her crew off with waves and well-wishes. Tetra wishes she had it in her to return their fond farewells, but right now, her sole focus is on the boy strolling down to the shore alongside her.

A boy who, by all accounts, should be dead.

"Go back to the ship," she orders her men, dropping her voice down to a whisper in the hopes that Link won't hear. "Tell the others everything. I have a feeling there's more going on here than we know."

The trio nods, wasting no time rowing back to join the rest of the crew. Tetra watches as Link takes a seat in the sand, stretching out to enjoy the warm afternoon sunshine. She might have joined him, if she wasn't busy watching his every move. "So," he grins up at her. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Cut the act and start telling me the truth," she growls, glad that she doesn't have to pretend to be nice anymore. "You know what the ghost ship is, just as much as we all know we saw you go down with it when it wrecked. How did you manage to survive that? How did you find a way to get back here? And most importantly, if you made it out alive, why did you leave me and my crew to think that you died?"

Link laughs as he sits up, patting the sand beside him to encourage her to join him. She doesn't, still scowling down at him as she crosses her arms. "I didn't mean to make you worry," he says, but she doesn't believe him. Not like she would have so easily before. "If you really want to know what happened, the wreck swept me out to an abandoned island where I built a raft and sailed back here. I didn't want to tell Aryll and Grandma the truth about what happened because, well, c'mon. If they knew I'd almost died, they'd never let me out of their sight again."

Tetra scoffs, narrowing her eyes at him. "There sure are a lot of holes in that story of yours."

"Oh really?" Link smirks, cocking an eyebrow. "Like what?"

"Well, for starters, I've seen enough shipwrecks to know that the boat would have dragged you down into the depths until you drowned," Tetra begins matter-of-factly. "It wouldn't have just 'swept you out' to some far off shore."

"I don't know what else to tell you," Link's smile finally fades. "'Cause that's what happened."

"Suuuure, it did," Tetra rolls her eyes. "And what's all this about you being done with the whole pirate thing? I thought you loved sailing with us."

"I used to love it," Link stands, turning away from her. "But… I dunno, I guess I got tired of it. I was homesick. I wanted to be with my family again, so I came back. That's all there is to it."

"Well, what about the search for the next Hyrule?" Tetra asks, her already harsh tone turning even harsher.

"I'm sure you'll find it without me just fine," Link waves her concern off. "It is your kingdom after all, 'princess'."

Without warning, Tetra grabs him by the shoulder, spinning him around as she takes a fistful of his tunic and pulls him in dangerously close. "You know better than to call me that," she hisses. She's on the verge of slapping that stupid grin clean off his face, her hand already poised to do exactly that. He doesn't so much as even flinch when she finally decides to hit him squarely across the jaw.

"Wow, Tetra," he chuckles as he rubs his cheek. The sheer audacity of his reaction alone is almost enough to prompt Tetra to do it again. "That actually almost hurt."

"Oh, I can make it hurt if you want me to," she growls as she grabs a hold of him again.

"You could," Link acknowledges. "But you won't."

She'd strangle him if he wasn't exactly right in calling her bluff. So instead, she lets him go, shoving him into the sand as she glares down at him with all the anger she can possibly muster. Which, admittedly, is quite a bit. "What is going on with you? You're not acting like yourself," she studies him, trying to see if anything looks different. But as far as she can tell, he's exactly the same as he was when the ghost ship separated them. The same on the outside, but certainly not on the inside.

"What makes you say that?" The innocent look on his face is a fake one, and Tetra knows it. Even further evidence that something is wrong; Link used to be nothing if not completely sincere to an almost annoying fault.

"Oh, I don't know," Tetra sneers. "Just about everything I've seen and heard since we got here."

"Tetra," Link stands once more. "Just admit it. I know you're just having trouble accepting that I've decided to stay here."

"I'm what?" Tetra asks, baffled.

"You miss me," he laughs once again. There's a certain sort of arrogance in it that Tetra swears she's never heard from him before. It's enough to nearly make her sick. "But I'm sorry to tell you that I'm where I belong. And where I belong… isn't with you."

Hearing him say that, so plainly and so bluntly… it hurts Tetra far more than she'd ever like to admit. They may have only known each other for a few months, but as far as she's concerned, those months meant something special. Or at least, they had to her. Clearly, he doesn't feel the same way, or at least he doesn't anymore. If he ever had in the first place.

"Alright, you know what? Fine," she takes in a deep breath. She isn't one to admit defeat often, and even now, she isn't–not completely. Not that he needs to know that. "You wanna stay stuck on the same shore for the rest of your life, then be my guest. Just don't come crawling back onto my ship again, because if you ever do, we'll treat you how pirates are supposed to treat stowaways."

"Point taken," Link nods, still wearing that smooth, stupid smirk. He doesn't even try to stop her as she storms back over to the spare lifeboat to head back to the ship. "See you around, Tetra."

"You better hope that you don't," she warns, glaring back over her shoulder at him as she shoves the boat out to sea. "For your sake… and mine…"

She doesn't look back as she begins to row, paddling fiercely to get at least some of her anger out. By the time she's back on the deck of her ship, she's fuming, something her entire crew notices as soon as she arrives.

"Miss Tetra," Gonzo begins, following after her as she storms up toward the bow. "About Link… what did he-"

"He was lying to me the entire time," she says, her voice low and bitter. "I know it. He wouldn't look me in the eye."

"W-why would he lie to you, Miss?" Niko asks. He and the others who'd stayed behind had already heard most of the story, though it made just as little sense to them as it did to their perplexed young captain.

Tetra ignores the question. Instead, she steps up onto the base of the bowsprit, taking the spyglass Zuko hands to her so she can spy on Link from afar. She isn't surprised to find him still standing on that same spot on the shore, watching her and her crew with that stone-cold smile that looks so wrong on a face like his. "Something's not right here," she mutters, more to herself than the others. "The story he told me about the ghost ship, none of it added up. Luck alone wouldn't have been enough to save anyone from a wreck like that, not even him."

"Do you think something… unnatural might be afoot here, Miss?" Nudge asks, worried.

"I don't know…" Tetra returns the spyglass to Zuko. "But I'm making it our mission to find out. Let's shove off to where we found the ghost ship and see if we can find any clues."

"Y-you mean go back there?" Niko pipes up, terrified. "To where Link died–well, I mean, I guess he didn't die, really, but still-"

"Can it, Niko!" Gonzo scolds, already heading to man the helm. "You heard Miss Tetra! We're settin' sail!"

Tetra stays at her spot on the bowsprit even as the ship begins to turn away from Outset. She continues watching Link, just as he's no doubt watching her. Whether they wanted to or not, they've both just begun a dangerous game with each other, a game that Tetra is determined to win.

"I don't know how, but I'm gonna figure out what really happened to you, Link…" she whispers a vow onto the salty sea breeze. A vow meant for both of them, for the way things used to be. For the way she longs for them to be again. "No matter what it takes, or how long it takes, I will get to the bottom of this. I promise."

He doesn't hear that promise, but he can still see her standing on her boat, staring at him from across the sea. Once he's sure she's far enough away, he steps into the shallows, secure in his confidence that everything is going exactly according to plan. "You're smarter than I thought you'd be, princess," he lets out another icy laugh as his eyes flash a dark shade of red. As just a hint of his true colors slip through the cracks. "It's a shame you're nowhere near smart enough…"

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