Falling Worlds; Zelink, Modern Magic AU (The Legend Of Zelda)

Games and Stories (27)

9/23/16

Zelda hit the pile of cards and grinned. "Winner!" she said happily.

He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Only you could be so excited from a lucky win like that."

"Luck? Excuse me, but that was far more than luck."

"Sure."

She puffed out her cheeks and let out a 'hmph.'

He took the cards and sloppily shuffled them; still learning.

"What game now?"

"Go fish."

She raised an eyebrow.

"What? That was the first one you taught me."

"Yeah, cause it's a little kids game; easy to learn."

"Easy to play too."

With a shrug, she agreed to play it. Link dealt out the cards out, and then she started first.

"Got any ones?"

"Go fish."

She drew a card as he asked for some nines, which she handed over with a scowl.

"So, what did Telthati tell Z about the islands?"

Zelda smiled as they fell back into their storytelling. "When Z woke up she was tied to the bed." She shot Link a look. "Not the first time she'd woken up tied to something. After a little talking, Tel took her out of the fortress..." Her mind took her back to the amazing first sight. "Where she saw the sky below, and above, and everywhere around her. She saw the floating islands and was struck dumb with the view of it all. Her whole mind was blown by the realization that her father had been right all along. That the islands were real..."

"I'd bet that was quite the revelation."

Zelda laughed. "Yes, quite," she said with a roll of her eyes. "She thought she had to be dreaming... but with all the weird stuff that had already happened to her, it was just one more crazy thing on a pile of insanity."

Link picked up a card and then laid down four threes. "When L got back to the motel and realized Z had gotten kidnapped, the Guard with him took him back to Hyrule where he was..." He hesitated. "...disciplined."

Zelda looked up, the cards curling in her hands. She knew what that meant. It made her want to punch something.

"He hadn't taken the initiative to take her away from Kae and back to the kingdom. He was 'graciously allowed' back into the Guard for the storming of the Remnant's base. Not that he had a rank anymore," he sighed. "He didn't have anything left there to believe in, so he took Kae's insistence and his own interactions with Z, and he resolved to leave the Guard."

"Z just about had a heart attack when she saw all those Guard swirling in the sky. Got any nines?" she asked.

He let out a frustrated growl as he gave her three of them.

She put a pile of four on the seat beside her. "And nearly had another one when she realized that one of the knights that had caught up to her was actually L."

"Falling off the cliff kinda told me that."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Told L that. This is stupid," he said, but he was trying not to laugh.

"How else can we talk about it without worrying about people around us?"

He shrugged and then held out his hands and said, "Ones."

"Dang it!" she said as she threw the three of them at him. "I was just going to ask you again next turn."

---

Zelda leaned back against the seat as she watched the sun set outside the window. "You think the story is going to have a happy ending?" she asked.

"I think so."

Her eyes widened a little as she looked over at him. "Really?"

"Yeah. L is determined.... and Z is wise and strong. It doesn't hurt that she's a goddess twice removed or something like that."

She chuckled. "I guess that's right..." After watching the sun proceed closer and closer to the horizon, she said, "I'm worried about what would happen to Z if she lost L though..."

He looked up at her. "Why?"

"He's all that she has now... They may not really know each other well or have known each other long, and it may be stupid, but... she trusts him."

Link leaned against the window, resting his chin on his palm. "She won't lose him... He won't let that happen."

"Mmm... and just how can you promise that?"

"We're the writers of this story. We decide what happens."

"Well, sometimes characters do whatever the heck they want, no matter what the author wants them to do."

---

As a precaution, they got off the train three stops before their ticket said they would. It was dark when they entered a taxi to take them to a hotel, and even darker when they finally sat down on the hotel beds.

"Long day..." Zelda said as she laid down and stretched.

"Figuring out that way to talk about things was smart... and funny."

"I figured no one would pay any attention if they thought that we were just talking about a fictional world."

"Except I slipped up a few times, sorry about that..."

She shook her head. "I doubt anyone was listening to us."

"If we talk like that again I'll try to be more careful," he said.

"Where should we go tomorrow? We were heading west before and went pretty far. Should we go north now?"

He frowned. "Wouldn't that take us into the mountains?"

She nodded. "I was actually thinking it would be a good place to hide, in case these powers that are supposed to manifest are hard to control..." she stopped and pressed her lips together. "Also I figured that the Guard wouldn't think to look for us there... Wouldn't they expect us to stay in a heavily populated area where they can't expose themselves?"

"It's a good idea..." he said. "In theory. That same reasoning makes it more dangerous because they could show up and attack us without any warning."

"But how would they even find us?"

"I don't know... but you can never be too careful."

"You can be too paranoid," she said.

"True... but that's different."

Zelda yawned and sat up. She didn't want to argue about it when she was so tired. "We can figure it out in the morning..."