Link started walking in circles on the property's front porch. He just wanted to shake the uneasiness he felt, and some of the anger… not all of it of course.
"Is it my fault that you are behaving like this?"
Ziel turns to stare right at Edna standing there with a water jug in one hand, and the other offering him a glass of pineapple water.
LINK POV
Yes, it's your fault venerable and sadistic lady.
Link grabs the glass and retrieves the jug form the lady, then takes a sip from the glass "Thanks"
"The jug is not heavy at all; I can hold it perfectly boy"
"I know, but I still don't care… Move woman, and open the door so I can place YOU and the jug back where you belong"
Edna smiles rolling her eyes "You mean the kitchen?"
Perfect, she fell right into it.
Link looks at the lady widening his eyes in disgust "NO… I meant INSIDE, why would you even… " Ziel glares at her lifting an eyebrow "On top of insinuating that I could indulge in having sex with a minor, you believe me a misogynist?" Link shakes his head a little as he stars stepping back.
Edna panics and rushes to hugs him "I get it, please don't leave because of this. I am sorry" the lady starts weeping on him. Links face contorts in pain; he then finishes his juice and places the glass on a window stand.
DAMN, I failed again.
*What were you trying to do here?*
Zelda said it, she won't let go because she loves us, forcing her to back down won't work, I tried backing away myself by forcing this situation. But…
*She won't back off herself, and won't let you do it either… what is there not to love about this old hag? *
Raziel hugs the lady until her tears start subsiding. He then slowly starts separating from her, she looks at him still fearful of what his next action is going to be. Link stares at her in the eyes and starts wiggling his eyebrows at her, earning a genuine smile from Edna. The Hero then turns and starts walking back to his room whistling. He didn't dare to speak to Edna, doing so was giving the lady a chance to use his creed against himself. In other words, he wanted to avoid making promises to Edna, promises that he would not be able to keep… because he loved her too much.
Link stood in front of his door releasing a deep sigh. He then entered but his Princess was not where he had left her. He smiled noticing the empty plastic bag carelessly thrown around. He bends over to pick it up and properly dispose of it.
After getting rid of the plastic bag, he opened the door leading to the bathroom covering his eyes.
A timid female yelp is heard
"Are you decent?" Link asks.
"Yes… but you still should have knocked you know?"
The Prince looks at her, she was wearing her new cat ears headphones, he chuckles. "Did you throw away the receipt? If those don't meet your fancy, I can return them with it"
Zelda shakes her head furiously with a smile "I think these are great, they look cute" she approached him and give him a big hug "THANKYOU… I LOVE THEM" she separates from him very suddenly "But… why didn't you took me with you when you bought them?"
"I was not planning on buying them, I just happened to see a music store selling EVRYTHING at 50% discount, so I entered and those where the ones left"
"Well, you are in luck, I DO LOVE THEM. I should start reading on how to use them… or you could also teach me."
"Yes, I could" he said smiling right after.
But am I going to? Of course not.
Zelda waited a few seconds for him to continue, but Link didn't spoke again, so she sighs and asks with a grin.
"Would you show me how to use them then?"
"No"
"Why? I have been behaving; I follow your orders and I…"
"Have you? I believe I have more than implied that I won't follow a meek ruler"
"You have… that is why I followed you here. You are trying to make me a strong future Queen"
"Exactly. Right now, you needing me to tell you how to use your wireless headphones implies weakness"
Zelda looks at the floor in shame "But… I tried reading the manual, it started using words that I have no idea what they even mean"
Ziel chuckles "Meet me half way Princess, I already went and bought you the headphones, and even gave you a Cellphone, use it to search any word that confuses you." Sighs "I have given you everything you need, so show me how my Princess would do this"
ZELDA POV
Damn it, I just wanted him to teach me about my new appliance… but he refuses to help me claiming that I should be able to figure it out by myself. And I surely can, it would just take me some time… time I wanted to save by using him.
A royal is not supposed to be a know it all, we are just supposed to gather plenty of resources and manage them effectively when its demanded.
Agent Kid is a BIG resource; I thought he would help me with this. But he… I can't be angry at Ziel for this because he is right to an extent, BUT I AM ANGRY. Why does he treat me like this? is it purely to teach me, or is he trying to torture me?
[Edna's smiling face: hate is not the opposite of love] Zelda then grins.
"Do you hate me?" Zelda asks Prince Nohansen.
He turns to look right at her before walking out of the bathroom "Thought it was obvious by now" he sighs "But I am a man of my word; I would never hurt you no matter how much I wish I could" then he retreats to Farore know where.
Meaning that if he hadn't promised to keep me safe, he would actually hurt me? Then it's not simple hatred, is it? it feels like a loathing that runs really deep. Yet… it's still something that he feels for me. I may be able to work with that; I just need to play my cards correctly. Hope you are right about this Edna; I want him to like me at least.
The Princess thought as she exited the bathroom, then grabbed the headphone's box with the instructions paper inside and headed for the bedroom.
Once she got there, she noticed Link laying on one side of the bed, legs crossed and fully dressed still.
"Are we staying here tonight?"
"No, we head back to Hyrule in two hours"
"Meaning that I have two hours to learn how to use my cat ears, since I won't be able to take them with me to Hyrule… Challenge accepted"
Zelda drew the instructions from the box and dropped heavily on her side of the bed; she raised her upper torso leaning on her elbows and started reading. Link just chuckled and continued to watch the tv. After a few minutes the Princess just blurted out.
"You didn't tell me… are you all keeping the music program?"
"I don't know, they were still discussing about it when I left. Should not take them long to arrive to a conclusion" he says nothing more about it and starts changing channels.
He is not going to tell me anything, I should ask Robert or Zidane about it, I don't want to piss off Link anymore.
Zelda pulled out her cellphone and then a ding was heard coming from it. It was a message from Carla.
"You have friends now?" Link ask in fake interest.
"No, it's from Carla"
The Princess stands up from the bed and exits the room the moment she saw that Carla had send her a video and an audio.
This HAS to be the video of my brothers singing, but what is the audio?
As she was pondering about this, she received a text from Carla.
----------------message----------------
It's the video I recorded, and the audio the boys recorded themselves. Call me
------------------------------------------
All right, time to use my headphones… I hope I am able to do this right.
The Princess removed them from her ears to search for the few buttons it had, and then turned them on, after that she followed what she understood of the instructions to sync the cat ears with her mobile. And then played a random video on YouTube. She smiled and decided to hear the audio Carla send her.
Holy fuck… these things are perfect, the sound they reproduce is so clear that if I close my eyes, I can imagine I am there again recording the boys playing.
Once the audio ends, the Princess decides to call Carla.
--------------the call-----------------
-Gosh I was wrong, I thought exchanging contact with you was too much, but it was needed.
-Hello Carla, why did you wanted me to call you?
-Right, thought you wanted to know what happened here, since I am sure Kid won't tell you anything.
-How do you know he won't tell me? Did he do something?
-Hahaha, not at all, but he still won't tell you because he has always felt that he is lacking. He refuses to receive acknowledgment for his wins. And this was a BIG WIN… for all of them.
-It was? What happened? What did he do?
-SWORD's Board heard the original song and what the agents played, they refused to believe that they had played it at all. They claimed the agents were pulling a nasty prank, all of them almost got fired… Being fired from SWORD means you get a lethal injection… Seems extreme but it's not, SWORD agents are dangerous, we can't trust them to just blend back with the normal population.
-HOLY MOTHER OF...
-But Stephen suggested that before taking such drastic measures, they should make sure the agents actually played the song. My video and the Dr's audio was not prof enough; since it could have been manipulated.
-But who could have manipulated that from the 4 of them? I mean, come on.
-Robert could… did I ever tell you he is kind of a tech-savvy?
He is?… OMG, of course he is tech-savvy. He quickly read and understood the half-written instructions to open the drain when we rescued Ben and Millie.
-Thing is, Kid kind of broke, he begun to laugh maniacally. Gives me chills just remembering. He then approached the member of the board grinning and said: ¨Its obvious you need to see it and hear it yourselves to believe it, let us show you then. Give us 10 minutes to prepare¨
-They played another one? PLEASE tell me you recorded that.
-Of course I did, will send it to you at the end of this call. It's from the same band since they didn't have time to search for another. But it's a different song… a harder one if I must say, since it demanded all of them to half sing half scream without skipping a beat on the instrument they were playing. And Kid outperformed himself, he can make his voice usually sounds like a small crew speaking, but his time he managed to sound like an angry swarm.
She… SWORD think Link makes his voice sound like that. While he is actually forcing himself to sound normal all the time.
-Carla… what do I do? I feel like going back inside screaming in happiness and try to hug him.
-DON'T. He will most likely faint you. Walk… or watch something, distract yourself. By the way, I never told you anything ok?
-Ok, thanks Carla and good bye.
-See ya.
--------------end of call----------------------------
Link steps out of the room carrying both backpacks.
"Whatever you are doing stop, we must leave. Did you managed to learn how to use your headphones?"
"YES, I used them during the call I made to Carla"
"Good" he says without looking at her and heads to the stairs. Zelda suddenly grins as an idea pops up in her head.
As Link is going down the stairs, Zelda walks down two steps and dramatically yelps as she stars falling. Once the Hero notices, he moves to a side, thus allowing the Princess to continue falling and roll down the last stairs until she reached the ground.
WTF, he was supposed to have helped me… why didn't he?
LINK POV
The Hero finished going down the stairs roaring in laugher.
That fall was so majestic, I would love to have recorded it, just to watch it again and again.
Zelda stood up dusting herself and breaths slowly to calm how irate she actually was "Why didn't you help me? I could have broken my neck and died"
"Yes, you could have broken your neck, but you would not have died"
Rolling her eyes "I may be Hyrule's Princess, but I am still normal so, how can you claim that breaking my neck would not kill me?"
"Because I am here" Link pulls her towards him by her upper arm and clutches a chunk of her hair gripping it firmly. After a few seconds he released her hair opening his hand, revealing a now squeezed long legged spider smeared in his glove. "I would have corrected your neck position allowing normal breathing, strong blood flow and steady nerve communication. Then I would have called an ambulance. You would not have died… sadly" he says as he uses his other hand to slowly remove bits and pieces of the spider left in her hair.
Zelda looks down at the floor, her cheeks turning a little red, Raziel chuckles "Where you expecting me to stand in the middle of your fall, thus allowing you to hug me?"
Zelda opens her eyes wide, then grunts realizing Ziel is reading her like a book.
"YES… I was expecting you to be a gentleman, completely forgot that you are not and will never be" Zelda says fuming a little.
"Why do you want to hug me to begin with? that is like sticking your hand into a meat grinder"
Zelda looks at him directly in the eyes "Because you saved my brothers from the lethal injection…"
Carla must have told her that… what else did she told my Princess?
Zelda starts to walk away but then turns grinning wide "And just so you know, even a meat grinder needs washing and maintenance, I could do that… I just need to find a way to safely open you up and clean your blades without chopping off a finger"
Link just grunts at that, Zelda chuckles pointing to her hair "And thank you. You could just have scared the spider away, but you took vengeance on for daring to touch me" Zelda beams looking at him "you DO care"