ambiguity // open!

[Princess Zelda]

your face-saving promises whispered like prayers

i don't need them, no, i don't need them

The person was tall, but not too tall; they had a feminine grace to their step, but that could be attributed to their Sheikah heritage. Their shoulders were a tad broader than the norm, but their hips were also slightly fuller, their waist slightly slimmer. The skin-tight bodysuit they wore betrayed no sign of a truly female physique, but many women were flat-chested or flattened themselves with bandages, just as this person had concealed the lower half of their tanned face with pure white gauze.

To most, the Sheikah looked a man -- as he ought -- but even the best of magics were imperfect. His -- or her, shall we say -- true body shone through in minor ways, leaving many to think that she was merely a feminine-looking man.

But the best part of the woman-turned-man's guise wasn't the ambiguity, no. The very best part was that no one truly cared.

Sheik was just a quiet -- some would even say sullen -- young man laying back on the shore of Lake Hylia, bothering no one; and no one was around to bother him.

It was good, to escape the confines of the castle without suspicion or guards. She appreciated Abraham's company, but she enjoyed her alone time; whenever she had just a moment to breathe, she allowed herself these small whims that carried her outside the gates of Castle Town. She never ventured far, as she would be missed, but the gorgeous scenery of her kingdom -- the kingdom she never got to see -- was something that relaxed her.

If only she could see it as Zelda, and not Sheik.

[Merik Dragmire]

Merik walked along the bridge, far above the lake, heading towards a secret path back into his desert homeland. About halfway across he stopped to look at the serene waters beneath him. Business with some of his contacts had brought him away from the fortress and after more than a week away he was glad to be returning home. Looking down now he marveled, not for the first time, at the simple peace of the area and how nice the water would feel compared to the blistering heat of his home.

It has been a while since I've spent time on the Lake...I suppose another day away won't hurt... he thought as he began looking for the path down from the bridge before his gaze drifted back to the water right below him and a mischievous grin spread across his face.

He was too high up to see the person on the shore but even if he had seen it wouldn't have stopped him as he climbed onto the bridge's side and hopped over. For what could have been seconds or hours he seemed to hang in the air before plummeting into the waters with an enormous splash.

[Princess Zelda]

your face-saving promises whispered like prayers

i don't need them, no, i don't need them

And, of course, the wave created by the splash cascaded all over Sheik.

She pushed herself to her feet, vaguely considering unwrapping the bandages that covered various limbs, then decided against it. Her skintight suit could not possibly get any clingier, and although the white cloth was dripping wet, she supposed it would dry even if she left it on. She did not want to risk anyone seeing her full face, in case there was a gap in her magic that would allow someone to recognize her. Her body was easy enough to disguise; she could do it even without magic. Her face was something else entirely.

So Sheik just wrung what water she could out of her long braid, placed a hand on her slightly-too-full hip, and stared at the source of the offending wave.

She considered saying something, then decided against it; the look in her crimson eyes would be enough.

[Merik Dragmire]

As Merik surfaced and wiped the water from his face, he couldn't help but smirk as gold eyes locked with crimson.

"You're welcome for that important lesson: don't hide near the waterline if you don't want to get wet." he said with a laugh as he walked towards the shore, suddenly turning serious. "Though I'll admit that I'm curious as to what one of the Princess' pet Shadows is doing so far from the Castle, I was under the impression your people never stray far from the royals."

Not unless they've been sent to deal with someone...and I'm probably the only person important enough to warrant an assassination out in the area... he thought as he mentally prepared himself for an attack.

[titania]

Titania had decided, before she went back home, that she was going to take a quick trip to the Lake. Get some sun, have a nice swim, visit the Lanayru shrine, Lake Hylia was a nice place. However, before long her eyes found their way to a young male figure relaxing by the lake. Inconspicuously, she retreated into her ball form and fluttered closer to get a good look. However, that was interrupted by an enormous splash that came from a man jumping up from the bridge. What an interesting sight, a sight that only became even more interesting when she realized who it was. Merik flipping Dragmire, it had been far too long since she saw him. No doubt causing a ruckus outside of his desert fortress.

Having previously taken refuge in a nearby tree, Titania flew down to the two of them, landing on the shoulder of the svelte Sheikah. Merik was busy talking about how the Sheikah are a rarity. That they were. Their line had almost all but vanished, unlike Merik's people, who were seemingly prospering, despite harsh desert winds.

Before long, Titania flew off of the Sheikah's shoulder and over to Merik. Dripping wet, Merik seemed to be a bit out of his element. Landing next to his ear, on his shoulder, she began to whisper to him.

"You know, he's cute. Great body. Might give you a run for your rupees, hmm?" She remained stationery, grinning if she had a discernible face.

[Caramon Zero]

Giving my crew the day off, I decided to head for the Lake, the place where all my troubles seem to fade away thanks to all the moisture in the air above.

After landing near the edge of the cliffs surrounding the Lake, I look across the other side to see if there is anything of interest here this time of year.
I spot something going on, but I can't make it out from here, so I lean over the edge just a bit too far and I fall into the water, causing a large splash as I hit the surface.
I resurface some feet from where the other people are.

Oh, man... this is just not my day...[/b][/color]

I look at Merik, and then stand up.

Oh, I'm sorry, am I interrupting something again?[/i][/b]

[Princess Zelda]

your face-saving promises whispered like prayers

i don't need them, no, i don't need them

Oh dear. Not a minute ago she had been all by herself, and now there was a group of four. The first man who had surfaced from the water was a Gerudo -- most definitely the Gerudo King, she realized. King Merik Dragmire. She couldn't identify the fairy that had flown from her shoulder to King Dragmire's, but that was to be expected; the fairy was in light form, after all, and Sheik's eyesight was rather good, but not quite that good. The fourth member of the group she didn't recognize; if she didn't know better, she would say he was a Gerudo as well, but there was only one male Gerudo at any given time -- and that particular Gerudo was King Dragmire.

So much for her alone time.

An eyebrow lifted at the King's comment. She certainly wasn't aware that people referred to her caretakers as her 'pet shadows'; that was rather discriminatory, in her opinion.

"Not all Sheikah serve the royal family," she said softly, brushing her bangs out of her eyes.

Her gaze darted from the Gerudo king to the fairy to the newcomer -- whom she assumed was a hybrid -- and she sighed, finding no way to politely extract herself from the situation. She only hoped that it wouldn't take too long; she wanted to get out of her wet clothing before she caught a chill, and she didn't want to be missed at the castle.

"I am Sheik," she eventually said, giving a slight bow.

[Merik Dragmire]

Merik shook his head at Titania's words seconds before Caramon dropped into the lake in a mimicry of his own entrance to the area.

"When aren't you interrupting something Caramon?" he asked with a smirk, clearly joking his friend before turning back to the Sheikah.

"I suppose your words are true enough, I do know a few of your people with loyalties away from the Royal Family." he said with a dark chuckle before the Shadow introduced himself, the King inclined his head in a slight bow. "Merik Dragmire, King of the Gerudo."

[titania]

Titania quickly hopped off of his shoulder. From behind, she switched back to her humanoid form, quickly wrapping her arms around Merik so he was giving her a piggyback ride. Of course, another had already joined them, just as drenched as the other two. She was relatively dry, though she was sure that would change soon.

"Woo. It's a party now." She rested her head on his shoulder, looking over at the relative newcomer. "You know him?" She didn't recognize the man. Then again, she wasn't sure if Merik kept companies of men. Not in that way of course, she knew what he liked.

She decided to address the crowd before her as only a leader could. "Don't worry. He looks kind of threatening, but he's really a big softy." She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and giggling. Pinching his cheek after, she was greatly enjoying messing with him. "Isn't that right?" The grin on her face was unparalleled.

[Caramon Zero]

I laugh at Merik's answer to my rhetorical question, and take off my helmet so the others can see my face more clearly.

Well, I suppose that's true, but I don't interrupt you when I know what's going on... unless I'm bored.[/b][/color]

I turn to Sheik and apologize.

Sorry for dropping in like this...
I'm Caramon Zero, Captain of the Lucky XIII, but I doubt you've heard much of the "Robin Hood Pirates" from the people of Castle Town have you?

Anyways, it's a pleasure to meet you Sheik.[/i][/b]

I look at the fairy woman on Merik's back, then back to Merik, and laugh.

Well Merik, she's right.
I've known you for years, so I know more about you than you realize my friend, especially since I've been regaining my memories of back then.

But I'm just glad you ended up being like this Brother, otherwise I'd've been dead a long time ago...[/i][/b]

[Elohim]

Normally, the King of Heroes didn't take such side trips from his destinations, but there seemed to be a lot of noise coming from the lake and it was beginning to irritate him. In his ghostly form, he remained untouchable and undetectable, but he could still make out sensations of the earthly world. There were some noisy, unruly mutts at the shore of the lake, and he decided to take it upon himself to teach them some discipline. After all, sooner or later, they'd be his subjects, and they'd have to know proper behavior if they wished to remain in this world in any sense. Thus, with an ethereal sigh, his ghostly body drifted down towards the group to see just what he had to deal with.

The first that caught his attention was a woman with crimson eyes. A member of the Sheikah tribe, it seemed, who was not affiliated with the Royal Family. While he did not think of the Sheikah as his kind anymore, he did feel a small bit of kinship with her. Not much though, as he did view that flesh body of Sheikah blood as a handicap to him in the long run. The second was a male, dark complexion, and he declared himself king of the gerudo. Well well, it seems a new king of the desert wenches has emerged, this will serve as a good opportunity to instill some rules, Elohim thought to himself, deciding he could inform the king of wenches about his policy while he was here.

The third was a woman, who seemed to be a fairy, and very familiar with the king of wenches. Perhaps a mistress of some kind, or simply an open woman who treated all men with such...familiarity. It didn't matter; she was of no consequence to him. The last was a mutt of the greatest variety, claiming himself leader of a group of 'pirates' in Castle Town. He was most likely the least interesting of the group, and was not even worthy of his attention. So, with apprehension, Elohim's body materialized a good six feet or so away from the group, his black casual attire in place and his pure crimson eyes glared viciously at all four of them.

"It seems this so-called 'king' is far from home. Since you're here, I shall inform you now; tell all of your desert wenches that upon their death, should they not pay me proper tribute, then their lives are forfeit and I shall have them eliminated for eternity. As the King of Heroes, and ruler of the realm of the dead, I do not take kindly to those that do not know their place," he spoke without any kind of restraint, the arrogance in his tone only superseded by the commanding nature of his words. This trip wouldn't be wasted if his words sank into the man's head, as he was on his way to Hyrule to bring the matter to the current head of the Royal Family as well. In the end, he'd have informed all leaders of this, so it was simply a matter of where and when he would tell them.

[/size]

[Link]

Just another ordinary day for Link, well for now anyways. Working at the ranch all the time can be rather tiresome, especially working everyday like he did. Sometimes he would take a day or two off and enjoy some quality relaxing time. On this particular day, Link decided to go down to the lake and enjoy the scene. The blonde-haired warrior made his way down the half-grass half-dirt trail that had already been made from other travelers and such, looking for a decent spot to sit and relax. That's when he noticed the lake was pretty occupied. There were five other adventurers, if you will, already enjoying themselves by Lake Hylia. Well, that's what it seemed to Link anyways.

The green tunic wearing boy started to make his way down to the group. He made sure he would keep a solid distance from them because he didn't want to interrupt anything of importance, if something of that nature was taking place. Link eyed each of the other people that he saw gathered at the lake, trying to figure out what they were doing without barging in on their little...get-together. He saw that there were two females and three males, four if he included himself. Though at the time, Link didn't want to include himself, because he was kind of shy anyways. The first female he observed had her face almost completely covered by bandages and sported a skintight suit. The next one was a fairy, and that was pretty obvious. Two of the three males had dark skin, so this automatically deemed them Gerudo, more often than not. Although, one of them seemed to have a royal-like presence of some sort, perhaps he was the King of the Gerudos.

His blue eyes fixated on the last male. This one in particular had an eerie feel radiating off him. Link couldn't tell what made him like that, but maybe he was a Poe. They also gave off the same eerie feeling that he did. Trying not to become one with the group, Link stayed put and peeked from behind a small rock that separated him from the other people. He didn't want to be spotted just yet and wanted to see what would unfold between such a wide variety of gatherers.

[Nightmare Darklight]

(OOC: I think we might want to forego posting order at this point and just use the TAGGED: name system, let's let Toast decide)

And then the Monster Emperor decided to make things more confusing.

Why? Because he can.

"You know, I have heard some pretty stupid things in the last thirty or so seconds." A voice called out. If people looked up, they would notice the big man himself, the sexy Emperor of the Ainur, standing on top of the cliffs, dressed in his casual attire. Why was he there exactly? Well, it seemed that everyone else was there, so why not throw himself into the fray as well? Plus the fact that there were quite a few people that he recognized, so he figured that he should probably figure out what the hell is going on. Merik and apparently the Undertaker were there, so it couldn't have been a conspiracy.

Plus not to mention he had heard some garbage.

Gracefully leaping off the cliff, Nightmare caught onto some protruding rocks before he hit the surface of the water. From there, he climbed down, keeping an eye on the water, making sure that he wouldn't get wet. Lowering himself, he managed to get onto the beach before sauntering on over to the group that was making itself rather important. Each step carried a flamboyant flair to it. One could say that at the moment, he was walking like a certain pirate captain with an addiction to rum, and the ability to play everyone else. And with an awesome beard. That too. His eyes took notice of the skintight suit wearing male, and his eyes softened for but a moment before turning back to the others.

As he approached them, he first targeted the hybrid. The freak of nature that had wings and four different races to his name. "So let me get this straight. You're a bunch of 'Robin Hood Pirates' that rob pirates and return their crap to their rightful owners? And you have a ship called the Lucky XIII?" Nightmare inquired. He was going to have a field day with this. Putting an arm around Caramon's shoulder, he decided to make two things very, very clear. "First off, you're not a group of 'Robin Hood Pirates', you're doing what is called 'vigilantism', you're vigilantes, not pirates, get it right. Second of all, Lucky XIII is hilariously contradictory. You're either lucky due to 'lucky' or unlucky due to 'XIII', which is it?"

Releasing his grasp from Caramon, the Emperor turned over to the others, specifically pointing to Merik. "And you! What kind of dumbass goes around announcing to the world that they're Ganondorf's descendant?! I mean, God forbid that one of the leaders actually hear you and report it to Zelda. I'm sure the royal family would be thrilled to hear his line survived." Nightmare motioned again at Merik, this time pointing at the Fairy Queen to further emphasize the leader. He was the Emperor after all, he needed to know crap like this for his own survival. "She, and everyone else here, have some very good blackmail material on you now. I mean, yeah, Zelda finding out would be bad, but can you imagine someone alerting the Hero of Time's Descendant?! What if they found out?!"

Little did he know that the Hero of Time's descendant was nearby, and likely heard the news. Irony also struck in that Sheik, being Zelda, also undoubtedly heard.

"Most of all you!" Nightmare cried to the other blond, pointing a dramatic finger of objection. He sidestepped away from the crowd, targeting the Undertaker specifically. "I am sure as hell not paying tribute to a fruity, arrogant, gold overdosed asshat." Nightmare glared at the Undertaker.

"Also you're fat." He took one quick jab.

[/justify]

[Merik Dragmire]

And suddenly people were everywhere, most of them rulers of their respective races no less...Merik was more than a little shocked.

"Soooooooooooo......what is Lake Hylia going to be the new 'leaders retreat' because damn this place filled up fast." he said before shaking his head and glaring at the first annoyance he had to deal with, the rather full of himself Poe.

"You, King-Of-The-Cowards-To-Afraid-To-Move-On-After-Death, as one of the living I would really appreciate it if you would go bother the dead who probably still don't give a damn. Also if any Gerudo were to become one of the restless dead they were never a true Gerudo to begin with so your welcome to'em. And I second Nightmare's sentiment, if any of us actually ended up in your realm you'd be out of a job in about 30 seconds so don't bother trying to extort the people who'd beat you down."

"Nightmare, I'm quite proud of my heritage and I've had to deal with external assassins since I was a child, call it a hunch but I'm pretty sure that people outside the desert have known that I was around before I was out and about. So I don't care if Zelda knows I'm alive and active. Also nice to see you again, how is life treating you behind your not-so-little wall?"

Finally he reached up and unwrapped Titania's arms from him, easing her to the ground. He had nothing to say to her that could be said in front of the others so that would have to wait for another time.

[Caramon Zero]

{OOC: Tagged: Elohim, Nightmare, Merik, Link}

I lay against a large rock near me and look towards the ethereal being.

How can one using the title of the Hero King be so snobby?
Heroes aren't just people that're more powerful than the regular populace, they're there to protect them.

How can the "Dark Hero" be "King"?

Besides, Heroes have no "King", we're here for the people, and no matter if they hate us, as long as we're able to help, we should be satisfied.
Heroes do things out of the goodness in their hearts, not for wealth or gain.

I'd never be able to be a ghost, since I never live with regrets, and even if I did, I'd have no reason to bow to you.

You know what, forget it, if I piss you off anymore I might cause trouble for the others here.[/i][/b]

I turn to the Nightmare.

That's what I'd expect to hear from the Dragon King.

I'm a Pirate who robs from those I label as "false pirates" who give us "real ones" a bad name.

They steal from the people until they start to break down and lose hope, when we, as in my crew, on the other hand, only steal from them, give most of the money back to the people, and extract a 10% "redistribution fee" for our "services".

So, in truth, we're "Robbin Hood Pirates", but we still keep some of the money for ourselves.
How else do you think we'll be able to make a living?
Also, it allows the other Pirates a reason to revisit towns more than once a year, so it helps out my Family even more.

I always have the best interests of my Family at heart whenever I do things like this, even though I think it might also have to do with allowing some of the people who still hate Pirates to be able to know that they can help as much as harm, while still being able to be Pirates.

Oh, about my ship's name, XIII's always been my Lucky Number.[/i][/b]

I look at Merik after he finishes speaking and laugh my boisterous laugh.

Well Brother, it seems you always steal all the best lines before I get a chance to say them, but I admit, they sound much more profound coming from you than from me.

Anyway, I may just take a nap and wait for some of this to blow over, since I'm on my day off and I wanted to come here to relax and not bicker with dead people.
Besides, all this royal presence is making me feel as though I'm interrupting something.

If you guys need me, I'll be taking a nap over... there.[/i][/b]

I walk over to another rock laying near the bank a decent distance from the group and lay down.
After I get situated, I tilt my head back and notice a man in odd green clothes.

Oh, hello, I'm Caramon, it's nice to meet you.
Why don't you join the others for a quick chat, or would just talking to me suffice?

I wasn't planning on taking a nap, but if you don't wish to talk to me, then I guess I could go ahead and take one.
All you have to do is tell me "yes" or "no".
I won't tell the others you're here either way, so No Worries, alright?

If you feel so inclined to speak, I'll be willing to chat with you, unless you'd rather speak to that lot over there, but in the end, it's your decision, so I won't force you to talk to me.[/i][/b]

I lay my head back on the rock and close my eyes as I wait for a reply.