The Princess sighted deeply. She was tired, but now she was finally done cooking the Water Buffalo that Link had managed to hunt early in the morning. Meaning there was nothing else to distract her from her thoughts.
Link was sitting on the ground, using his knees for support as he wrote on the blank pages of a notebook. He had been doing that in his spare time since they got here. Yet, Zelda couldn't find the courage to ask him about it.
ZELDA POV
I wonder what he is writing about. The level of focus he implements whenever he writes is big. He even ceases to pay attention to uncommon sounds… as long as the sound is not loud, he dismisses it. This means that whatever it is, must be important.
He is so focused on what he is writing that he doesn't even speak to me… unless absolutely necessary. This attitude of his kind of scares me, hence why I have not even dared to ask him anything. Besides… since he came back there is something off with him. I am sure he would not hurt me, but the way he stares at me really scares me.
It's been silent for too long, and it's also noon. I will break the silence and ask him why are my brothers and my father not here yet? Not that I expect him to know… but any input from him on the matter is a win.
"Ziel, it's almost noon, and no sign of my brothers or my father yet. Do you think they are ok?"
Link answered the Princess, without raising his head and while he continued to write "All of them are fine, they will get here"
Zelda pressed her lips shut while squinting and spoke again "How can you be so sure of that? Maybe the boat my father was using sank. Well scratch that one, it's impossible for that to have happened since the King would never be allowed to use a faulty boat that has not been previously tested"
The Princess gathers courage to express her actual fear "But what if maybe my brothers had an accident, or are secretly afraid of this procedure so they just decided to ghost on us"
Ziel sighs, puts down the notebook and pencil and stares directly at Zelda "Do you trust me?"
The Princess glares at Link taken back by his question "Of course I do, with my life. But what does that have to do with anything?"
"Why blindly trust ME and not THEM if they are basically me? Your words, not mine. Both of them are as courageous, as capable and as tenacious as me. After all, they are 98 and 95 percent me according to science" he sighs and stands up "They didn't forget, and no accident or sudden catastrophe will be able to keep them from showing up today" he says with finality.
Well, I did say that they were basically him; they kind of look alike and smell alike. And they also share personality characteristics, like being brave, tenacious and capable. Link is right, I should not worry that much. It's been 2 years since the last time I saw them, and the only thing that could have happened is that they have grown stronger and smarter. There is no way anything is going to stop them from getting here today.
"You are right, I will just breathe deeply and wait for them" Zelda declares.
Link chuckles and turns to her smirking "Like any good an obedient woman should"
Zelda picks up a rock and throws it at Link's head irate "You fucking misogynist, how dare-"
Link lifts a finger to his lips to shush the Princess, a few seconds later he smiles "The King is here" He runs past the Princess heading towards the shore.
Princess Zelda followed after him without running, since she was not as steady on her walk in this terrain. As she approached the shore, she saw Link enter the water up to his waist, and pushed the boat to run it aground on the shore. He then helped a nurse, 3 nobles and the King out of the boat.
What? Only 3 nobles came? I thought 5 had signed for this… oh well, 3 is enough to validate this.
Zelda quickened her pace to reach her father; she really wanted to jump on him and maybe end up throwing him to the sand while hugging him. But as she started to approach, she heard the nobles complaining about having been framed into coming here by the King. Those allegations irked the Princess, she really wanted to hug Derrick, and roll with him in the sand a little. But she wanted to strangle the nobles even more. So, she stopped in front of her King, blew a kiss at him and turned 180 to speak directly at the nobles.
"Gentlemen, you belong to the most influential families of all Hyrule. Would it be too farfetched to expect proper verbal expression from you? You just accused the most important man on the land of deceiving you. But did he?"
The Princess starts walking while staring at her own finger nails "I remember that last year, you signed an agreement to participate in this event. That means you are not being deceived or abducted. So, grow a pair and follow me, so you can comply with what you signed and maybe recover your dignity"
Zelda walks through them with steady steps and noticing Raciel, she grabs his fore arm and pulls him with her.
LINK POV
Very fucking well said Princess
The Prince was grinning remembering what he had just witnessed, but then worry etched across his face noticing that Zelda hadn't let go of him yet. In fact, her hand had somehow traveled down his arm to his hand, which she was holding way too strongly.
Something is wrong
The Hero held tightly to Zelda's hand and stopped dead on his track, causing the Princess to be pulled back and almost fall on her butt. She looked up at him, her eyes shining with unshed tears. Then she spoke.
"Prince… you cannot allow me to make any more mistakes. If you notice I am about to make another one, please faint me"
Raziel half smiles "Would gladly do so Princess. But so far you have given me no reason to take you out of the game"
Zelda started crying "I just implied to those nobles that they are man on paper only, because they lacked testicles. I can't be saying shit like that. We… My brother's need them"
Link chuckled "Yes, you were a little harsh, but you never used insults or offensive language. You scolded them for the deviate perception they had on the King's actions, and you order them to stop and to follow you… all that is Princess behavior on my book" Link clears his throat "The only bad thing you have said today, is calling me a misogynist. I am sure my 2 self-sufficient female friends could attest in my favor"
Zelda closed her eyes, breathed in deeply and smiled little. Then the King and the rest breached through the foliage catching up.
"Is it here? Or how far are we still from the portal son?" ask Daphnes.
Link half smiles "It's not far from here; we just need to walk for a minute longer. We stopped to allow you all to catch up and not get lost" Ziel stars walking, he didn't ask them to follow him, but the nobles and the nurse immediately moved behind him. Zelda rolled her eyes exasperated. The King smiled.
"It's his air of confidence. But you are not so bad yourself. The nobles may have hesitated, but ended up following you. I was not expecting that... good job girl" says King Derrick ruffling Zelda's head.
The Princess glares at the King pissed. She then starts walking behind King Derrick while she untied her braid. Zelda quickly redoes it fixing the wild mess the King had left her in.
"This is the portal area; I didn't bother to make many chairs, knowing you would feel too anxious to sit down" Link sighs "How much longer do we have to wait for them to arrive, my King?"
Daphnes looks up at the sky "Any minute now I believe, I called SWORD before getting on the boat, and told them to send the lads at noon"
The nurse walks directly towards the table and places her medical bag on it; she opens it drawing a small jar with beeswax.
"Excuse me ahm…" she looks around and finds Link's deep stare gazing back "We are going to need this heated, for the transfusions my Prince. Where could I…"
"I will light the bonfire" Zelda offers as she grabs some logs and tinder.
"Put the jar next to the bonfire the Princess is making" Link tells the nurse.
The King lets his hand fall on Raciel's shoulder, he was about to ask Ziel to stop the Princess. But Link smiles and whispers "Just watch her"
Zelda was kneeling on the ground, fixing the logs and adding some tinder. She then pulled out Link's Swiss knife, opens it to withdraw the ferro rod and with one quick swing of the dagger on it, sparks come out flying landing on the tinder. The princes lowers herself to blow on it, and in seconds a big flame started eating on the logs, and what was left of the tinder.
The nobles open their eyes wide at the flame Zelda just produced. Daphnes produces a boisterous laughter as he helps Zelda up. The King then puts both of his hands on her shoulders.
"And this is your Princess gentlemen" the King says proudly.
Zelda hugs her father closing her eyes. It was not the image she had pictured of them happily rolling in the sand. That outcome had harshly been erased, but it had been replaced by her father bragging about her to the nobles, men she had previously insulted. But they were also smiling at her in admiration for setting aflame the fire pit in record time.
This was not as joyous as her previous mental image, but this new outcome made her feel so much more accomplished… better about herself.
Then a few gasps are heard coming from the nobles. The Princess opens her eyes to stares at the frightened expressions. She releases the King from the hug realizing he is also staring ahead in shock. So, she turns around with a smile. And there, in front of all of them, was a brunette clone of Prince Raziel smiling, he lifts his hands in surrender once he notices the fear he was causing on the people present.
The Prince slowly approaches the Quantum boy "Hello there, how have you been?" the brothers share a brief hug paired with a loud pat on the back, which caused them to laughing a little.
Zelda yelps in happiness and was about to run to greet Robert, but Derrick stops her by grabbing her hand. The Princess turns to look at him, and notices his hesitancy due to fear. She squeezes Daphnes hand and smiles at him. The King looks at her, and then at the newcomer, sighs and releases Zelda's hand.
The Princess runs and pulls Ziel away to hug Robert "Hello handsome" she says already latched to him.
Rob chuckles as he delicately hugs her "Hello beautiful"
A few seconds later Robert is harshly being dragged away from her. The culprit was Zidane. The Princess stands still just staring at him up and down. He had put on some weight in muscle, so he didn't look as delicate and unhealthy anymore. Now he looked strong and fierce as his brothers.
"What? Am I still not good enough to deserve a proper greeting from my sis?" Zid asks frowning.
Zelda smiles "Sorry, I was just admiring your current frame. You are looking good" she throwing her arms around the Pirate.
Zid hugs back with force squeezing the air out of Zelda, she yells while he cackles loudly. But the Pirate slowly goes silent and turns Zelda around using her to shield himself from the monster staring at him threateningly.
Link is slowly approaching them with a scheming grin "You will not be receiving a welcome hug from me. And if you think the Princess will be able to stop me from breaking every fucking bone in your hands..."
Zidane immediately starts talking "What I wanted was to force you to speak, even if just to threaten me. If you are willing to speak, you are willing to listen, so hear me out. I did not technically steal anything from Carla" the Prate pauses.
"Keep talking moron, tell him everything" Li scolds the monkey boy, then chuckles "Link, you are going to love this"
"Look, since you recovered the missing half of Epstein's list, SWORD quickly got hold of the whereabouts of one of them, they assigned Kunai. I wanted to follow him, but the General wouldn't allow it since the objective is too important to screw things. We discussed a little, turns out, I must prove that I can be cunny, sneaky, and skillful with my hands. Shit you know I can do because I am a thief. So, I took Carla's beauty bag and hid it to prove it. DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT, the General challenged me to steal Carla's bag, blame him."
Link turns to look at Li, who chuckles and nods.
*Dude, I know you promised Carla to never speak about this, but you need to tell them, and may the goddesses protect you of her wrath*
"I am… not going to break your hands, but you must pay somehow. That beauty bag is very important for Carla; she uses a special concealer to hide the tattoos in her face. Do you realize how long she has been without taking a proper bath just to keep on hiding them?"
Zid's eyes shoot open "Holy fuck, 3 days. How do you know she has tattoos and William doesn't? And if she suspected it had been me, why didn't she accuse me?"
Link rolls his eyes "She didn't suspected you specifically; she just gave me a list of people that had been around her before the bag disappeared. When I saw your name, I just knew" Link sighs "You need to let her know where to find her beauty products as soon as possible. And also tell her it was William's idea… Then we can be at peace"
Zid stares at Link realizing his mistake "So, you weren't even completely sure it had been me? FUCK YOU… William is going to kill me; he warned me not to rat him out to Carla"
"That… may happen. But he deserves hell from her too, and I am sure you will deal with this just fine" Link says wiggling his eyebrows making Zid growl annoyed.
"Well, let's not waste time" Link turns his head to the nurse "Is the wax ready to start Miss. Keaton?"
The nurse produces a small gasp in shock, she had not introduced herself to him, or to anyone here, how does he know her last name? Link kind of realizes her predicament and taps on his right pectoral. The nurse looks down at herself and sighs; she had her name badge on. Meaning, the Prince was not a mind reader or wizard of any kind, he was a good-looking young man with incredible eyes, both in color and in visual acuity.
"I believe the wax is ready, and please call me Mabel my Prince" Mabel directs her attention to the Quantum world visitors. "So, who is going first?"