Legend Of Zelda Fan Fiction ❯ Four Gourds Adventure ❯ Tilapia Tail ( Chapter 3 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
Four Gourds Adventure
by AladdinAbu

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CHAPTER THREE: Tilapia Tail~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Though Link had faced many dangers in his journey from Kokiri villager to Hero Of Time, he felt himself least prepared for this particular encounter. Chancing a smile, he said, "Hey, uh... nice to see you again!"

"Nice to see me?!" The shortish, trim form of Princess Ruto stalked across the grass to stand in front of him, fin-adorned arms folded, her face turned up into his and inches away. "ABSURD! I saw what you did to both the heir to the Hylian throne and such a, a... common stable wench! You, whom I gave the Zora's Sapphire! Didn't you catch anything I tried to tell you, or were you too busy plotting to sully the name of EVERY FEMALE IN HYRULE?!"

"I didn't 'sully' anything!" he barked down at her, not quite sure if he felt as brave as he was acting. "What are you talking about, what about the Sapphire?! I have it, of course I do!"

"You had BETTER, because I think I want it back!" Blackish, filmed-over eyes blinked at him as the gills behind her ears pumped furiously at the air. "You're no fiancee of mine, not with the libido you've got!"

"Wait," he said, staring at her gills. "Can you... I mean, how can you breathe?"

"What? Shut up!" she snapped, arms unfolding from over her blue-tinted chest. His heart skipped over a beat - she wasn't wearing anything at all, and her modest bosoms, though featureless, were exposed. Wasn't she ashamed? But then again, all the Zoras were nude. They were fish-people, after all, weren't they? "I'm just fine on land, thank you very much, so you can forget about distracting me! You CHEATED on me!"

"Cheated?!" Now he was feeling angry again. "I never cheated you, not once - not ever! I've never stolen anything in my life, how can you say that?!"

Her eyes, which had been wide and terrifying, now drew narrow, which was equally ominous. "Cheated ON me, you dunce! Ooh, when my father learns what you've-"

"Now wait just a minute, here. You keep acting like because you gave me the Zora's Sapphire, I was supposed to, to... never talk to any other girls? Is that right?"

"IT IS! Wow, it really took you that long to catch on, didn't it? You are my FIANCEE - I am to be your wife, and thereby the only person you mate with! Is that crystal clear enough for you?"

"Mating?" He wished people would stop using words that weren't in his admittedly-small vocabulary. "But you mate when you produce children, and I haven't been doing any of that. What gave you that idea?"

Both eyes and mouth flew open, and for several blessed seconds, she worked hard at coming up with a response. Then, all at once, she cried, "IDIOT! COMPLETE MORONIC BUFFOON! I cannot believe you are able to string two words together, you're so stupid!"

Link threw up his arms. "All right, that's it! Whatever problem you have with me, I don't care, and I don't have time to care! I need to be making sure Zelda is safe so I can go defeat Gannondorf once and for all, so your drama will have to wait!"

Silence rang in the forest. After several long, pained seconds, Ruto's hands came to rest on her hips as she said in a low, deadly voice, "How dare you. I gave that stone to you, I- you and I belong to each other, and this is how-"

"We don't belong to anything! You told me I was 'engaged', whatever that is, and didn't bother to explain it, so you can't stand there with your hands on your hips and hold me to a promise I never made!" She didn't respond, so he let out something between a growl and a shout and stormed off along the riverbank, only hoping to put some distance between himself and the amphibious shrew.

He'd gone less than a quarter mile when he stopped and fell to his knees. This wasn't going to get him anywhere. What if Zelda had already been captured? He glanced again at her signet - it was obviously worth a small fortune, and she left it on his finger purely to convey a message. All of his hopes continued to cry out that she was alive and well. He could only be so lucky.

'Best Friend', she had called him. Ruto thought he was her 'fiancee'. Malon had called him her 'knight', among a dozen other things. What did it all mean? Where he came from, friends were friends, and there was no need to label the positions on the pecking order. All of them continually tried to apply these titles to him without helping him understand what they meant, and what was expected of him as a result of his accepting such a name. Only Zelda had tried, and even still what she described only sounded like a really important version of the same relationship. Was that what these other terms meant, too?

A beleaguered sigh escaped him as he turned to plod back to where Malon was sleeping, but he had scarcely taken two steps when he ran into something wet and slimy. "Oof!"

"Look up, stupid!" Ruto said harshly as she held him at arm's length. When he had steadied himself, she spoke before he could, arms falling back to her sides. "I apologize."

"What are- wait, you WHAT? You do?"

"You're right," she said, though he could tell admitting this caused her near-physical agony. "You'd think anybody over the age of two would know what 'engaged' means, but... if you honestly didn't, I can't fault you for breaking our vows."

He blinked. "Wow, really? You're sorry?"

"But you have to straighten up from now on," she warned him, wagging a finger in his face. "You can't run off and play with any pliable thing you take a shine to! I have to be your ONLY now, got it?"

"No, I- I can't!" This was beginning to worry him. "Damn it, Ruto, I already promised Zelda I would be her 'Best Friend' today, and she actually told me what it is! You can't expect me to back out of that now, can you?"

Her eyes went back to staring at the ground, but he saw one of the simple eyes on the back of her wide cranium was still pointed at him. "Why not? I asked first."

"Ruto-"

"Well, I did!" she burst out at him as she stamped one webbed flipper. "So you didn't know what I meant then, but... if you do now, you have to honor your commitment! You can't be telling me I EXPLAINED it too late!"

His hand was at the back of his neck again, and he laughed bitterly. "Come on, what do you want from me? If being your fiancee means I can't be Zelda's Best Friend, then I can't be your fiancee at all! Sorry, but... but that's the way it is and I won't change my mind!"

Link braced himself for the inevitable eruption. Ruto was going to kill him - or do her damndest, which was pretty formidable given how far she knocked him across the forest. After a few seconds, he dared open one of his eyes, and was shocked to see her looking out over the river, arms hugging her body tightly.

"You'd... pass me over... for her?"

"What?"

"And she has marked you, much as I have. I... have you belonged to her all along?" Only now did he see her eyes flicking occasionally to the signet on his finger. Then she shook her head, a hollow, disillusioned look coming over her features. "Zora, I- I'm so used to everyone telling me how precious and radiant I am that I never- not once- this is so-"

He frowned at her. "Radiant?"

So very fortunate for him it was that she'd been so preoccupied by her world shattering she missed his unintentionally snide comment. "Link, you're telling me I am not as... attractive to you as this Zelda? Her looks are more to your liking than mine, or perhaps it is because she is a furry pink creature such as yourself?"

Truthfully, that last one was a big 'yes', but he kept that to himself. "She's pretty, yeah, but that's not all there is to it. You and I, we are friends, but it can't- I can't be any more than that to you if you're going to demand I stay away from-"

"Then what if I don't?" she said swiftly, changing tact. Her bossy tone was back, but the haughtiness had vanished in the face of his proclaimations. "If... just SAY, for the sake of argument, I look the other way while you, er, visit your precious Zelda once in a while. Maybe then you could reconsider...?

"I, ahh... I don't know," he said uncertainly. Why did she have to make such a fuss over this - and why now, when he had extremely urgent business to tend? "What it sounds like you're asking me to do is live with the Zora and follow all your orders, but- but I don't have time for that, I can't! I have to go save this kingdom, there's a WAR brewing! Do you understand?"

The aquatic princess seemed to be mulling things over. He glanced up the hill at where he knew (or thought he knew) the girl from the ranch to be snoozing away, and tried to formulate a plan in regards to her while he waited for Ruto to respond. The best course of action, he thought, would be to make sure she awoke and got cleaned up, THEN help her back into her clothes.

"Perhaps it is not Zelda's looks, or her status," she breathed. "You milked the cowgirl for all she's worth, too, and she's no more royalty than I'm Biggoron."

"Of course I don't care about stuff like that," he admonished, offended that she thought him so shallow.

"They've done... ehrm," she paused, fidgeting. "Well, I observed plenty of your debauchery. Maybe that's the ticket to Link's heart, eh? Through his tentacle?"

One eyebrow went up. "My what?"

"What you were doing for the farmer... a few scant minutes ago." Another pause as she ran a hand along her glistening arm scales. "If I let you do something like this to- to me... what I'm asking is, would that endear you to me more? Make you more likely to accept my proposal?"

"Something like - OH!" Link's cheeks began to fill with blood as he understood what she was asking of him. "You want me to, to, TASTE you?"

"Watch what you say!" she snapped suddenly, glaring him down. "How DARE you insinuate I'm some sort of nymphomaniac, searching high and low for a good time!"

"InsinunymphoWHAAAAAT?!"

She sighed, obviously frustrated with how thick his skull was being. "It's not that I want you to 'taste' me, Link - I'm perfectly fine living on without ANYONE having sampled my wares. But if doing that will bring us closer together..." Her head tilted slightly as she looked off into the distance. "If you can take that from me, a-and it makes you think of me less harshly, then- then I wouldn't be opposed."

"Wait a minute," he said, praying the train of thought he was hopping was hers, as well. "You're asking me for some kind of... trade-off, right? I bring you the same pleasure I brought Malon, and you get to call me your fiancee from now on? I'm not hearing that all wrong, am I?"

"That's what I just said, isn't it?"

"But... will that still mean I can never see Zelda, or Malon or anyone else ever again?"

"Not NEVER," she scoffed - with far too much emphasis for his liking. "But you would be, um... mostly mine. Come on, are you really trying to say it would be that displeasing? I'm a princess, for Zora's sake!"

"Forget it." He felt himself growing more and more finished with this. Who the hell did she think she was? Just because you're the queen of an amphibious race of undersea people didn't mean you could buy and sell people, no matter what race they belonged to. "I've got a job to do, and your fate depends on it, too, I might add. Can't you find some other fiancee to boss around?"

"Boss ar- BOSS AROUND?!" Her jagged, shark-like teeth were bared now, and this made Link swallow without realizing he was doing so. "OOOH, you are such a- a- I don't want to OWN you, I want us to belong to EACH OTHER! How am I explaining this wrong?! I want you to be my betrothed, not my slave!"

"You say ta-may-to..."

Her lip began to quiver, but not in any way that suggested she was about to cry - Link was of mind that it was ill-concealed fury. "You don't like me."

"What?"

Very quickly, Link found he had been very wrong, because even though she still looked ready to rip his guts open, the water that cascaded from her eyes couldn't be leftover from a swim - there was too much. "No one has ever told me they don't like me. EVERYONE likes me - LOVES me. You can't hate me."

"Don't be stupid - I never said I hated you. Don't put words in my mouth."

"But you do, don't you?" It didn't take long for sorrow to mix in with her enraged features, and now she was swaying on the spot. "What did I do wrong? I gave you the Sapphire, and you m-met my father, and- everyone else says I'm beautiful, and I'll make a fine queen someday. I'm supposed to get whatever I want."

He laughed quietly, terrified of whatever she might do next. "Nobody gets EVERYTHING they want; most of us are lucky if we get even a third."

"You don't want me, or- or want to be with me. I sicken you." Now her blue-tinged features began to register both sadness and shock. "The only man I ever felt was worthy of being my husband, and- and HE rejects ME? I'm... not good enough? Link, tell me you- tell me it's not true, that you're just angry that I found out about you and those two mammals!"

"I can't tell you that," he said evasively. "But I don't hate you, not at all. You're overreacting."

"But you don't love me." Small blue hands pressed into her chest, and she began to sway more noticably; Link wondered if she'd pitch forward. "I... I must return to the water, I'm- I need to breathe, this, this- I'm sorry, excuse me!"

And so fast he could scarcely follow with his eyes, she leapt from the bank in a graceful dive and landed in the middle of the river, disappearing from sight.

"WHAT?!" he said aloud to the forest. This entire day had made his brain hurt, and to make matters worse, nothing seemed to be getting resolved. Was it so wrong that he thought the position of 'husband' sounded like a sinister trap Gannondorf had set up? Ruto simply refused to lay her cards on the table, and if he didn't know the score, he wasn't willing to potentially let himself be led straight into the lion's den. She was going to have to start being clearer if she wanted to be engaged to anyone anytime soon.

But he wasn't going to be the one engaged to her - he didn't have any desire, he didn't have the time! Zelda was out there, somewhere, and if she wasn't in danger she was at least waiting for him to pop his head in and say, "Hello, there - I'm not dead, either!" Determinedly, he made his way back up the bank, looking for a clear path into the forest so he didn't have to destroy any trees (or himself) in the process.

"Damn," he sighed at last. "Did I get lost? No, I've been following the same river. GAH, this is ridiculous, I have to get a move on!"

"It's only a few more feet along."

The Hero Of Time nearly jumped out of his skin as he spun to face, for the third time, Princess Ruto. "YOU! Okay, maybe you want us to be friendly and all, but if you sneak up on me one more time I'll gut you like a- well, like a fish!"

"You just didn't walk far enough," she said hollowly, and she pointed. "It's right there."

He blinked, then walked five more steps along the bank. Sure enough, a path up and in presented itself. "Huh? Wow, I- I can't believe I almost gave up and hacked my way in! Maybe we're as far in as the Lost Woods, 'cause-"

"Link, I must apologize to you," she said quietly. "You may hate me, but I-" She paused to collect her thoughts again, blank eyes staring down into the mud. "It was never my intention to control you, or trap you in a gilded cage. Your heroism and forthrightness impressed me. My father was going to give me away to the chest-thumpingest Zora in our tribe, and you seemed much more worthy than any of those jellyfish. I wasn't trying to do anything mean or cruel."

The boy squirmed, readjusting the belt holding his sheath up, then nodded. "Thanks, Ruto. I... I'm sorry if I let the other shoe drop harder than I should have."

"No, no," she sniffed. One arm was clutching her stomach while the other landed atop her sloped head. "I'm so silly - to think I could ever cage you! You're such a free spirit, and I, on the other hand am... mildewy."

"Mildewy?"

Then her hands were pulling at his tunic. "Give me another chance - you must! Let me prove to you I'm not such a horrible alevin that you have to throw me back!"

"Princess," he sighed in sheer frustration, "I don't have the time! I can't go back to your cave and talk for a while, not BEFORE I make sure Zel-"

"Yes, yes, I know," she snapped, though there was less nastiness in her tone than before. "Your precious Zelda and all-important battle with the forces of evil. Am I to put my life on hold until then?"

"Um, if by 'your life' you mean whether or not I'll be your fiancee... then YES!"

"NO!" Her mouth worked silently at the air as she struggled to come up with an argument - eyes glancing around for inspiration. Then her face snapped up to look at him dead-on again, and she urged, "Do to me what you were doing to the farmer!"

"Huh?"

"I watched as you bobbed your head in and out of her lower region," she said, now smiling in a vaguely demented fashion. "I don't have a clue why you'd wish to, but if you wanted to do it there must be SOME merit! So... bob in and out of me, as well!"

Link's breath came faster. Not only did the idea of doing that once more for another girl make him a tad weak in the knees, but he was entirely unsure he'd enjoy it as much with Princess Ruto. Kokiri and Hylians are nearly the same, but the Zoras were fish-people! She really should be doing things like that with her own kind, shouldn't she? At the same time, she had said none of her own people were good enough to be her betrothed, and she had chosen him, which must mean it wasn't an entirely uncommon practise. Either way, she was missing the point.

"Thanks for the offer and all, but Ruto, I... I have to GO, don't you understand? I don't have time to be doing these- what's the point? What will it prove?"

She looked close to either tears or shouting again, either of which was a disheartening development. "Perhaps if you find I'm as, um... 'forthcoming' as the pinkish girls of your people, you'll reconsider! Come on, let me try? And it shouldn't take that long, it only took you a few moments with the other one!"

"Maybe not, but..." She was right about how little time it had taken Malon to reach the heights of pleasure once he had placed his face into her peach. He was in no mood to do it again, especially not for this stuck-up, domineering blue beast... but she probably wasn't going to leave him alone until they came to some kind of arrangement. Every pore of his being screamed at him not to make such a huge mistake, but he said, "Okay, if I do this..."

"Yes?" she breathed excitedly.

"If I agree to, you know... 'taste' you, will you agree to let me go back to my holy crusade as soon as we're done? I won't do it if you can't promise me that!"

"Of course!" she crowed triumphantly, clapping her hands together. "Yes, you- you'll see, I'm not so awful! Please begin!"

His eyebrows hiked upward. "What? Begin, just like that?"

"Sure," she said, frowning at him. "You'll have to show me how it works, I'm not familiar with Hylian mating rituals - if indeed that's what those were."

"Okay, well... okay." Now that it was time to pay the piper, the anxiety had returned. "Then I guess you'd better sit down."

"Very well," she said in a brisk, business-like tone. "Right here, or up on the grass?"

"Up on- hey, won't you need to breathe more water soon?"

"Not really," she said with a shrug. "We Zoras do have lungs, you know - but we derive oxygen more efficiently through our gills, yes."

"Well, you may want to take a few gulps before we get started; seems to make me feel awfully winded afterward."

An impatient sigh. "Very well." She leapt backward into the water again, and for a moment, all he could see was the top of her head bobbing in the river water. A few moments later, she walked calmly onto land and past him onto the grass, but only so far as to be clear of the mud. He guessed she wanted to remain as near the river as possible. "Now then," she sighed as she sat down, back against a boulder. "You'll see - I'm no worse than they."

"Uhh... okay," he muttered hesitantly. Was she seriously asking him to leap right into it, no touching beforehand or anything else of that nature? Still, he couldn't argue, as that would delay him yet further than this entire mess had already done. Taking a few deep breaths himself, he kneeled at her flippers and placed his hands on her knees. "So... you ready?"

"Of course! Get on with it - but don't expect me to start yelping and carrying on like that top-heavy trollop."

Her knees were slick and scaly under his fingers; it wasn't a particularly horrible feeling, but it still made him feel somewhat queasy when he thought about doing what he was about to do to a fish. Intelligently, he knew she was not exactly a fish and that he shouldn't think such a thing, but when he stared up and through the legs he was now parting at her dun-colored, filmed-over eyes and the fins coming off either arm, it was hard to embrace such broad-minded thinking. After a few steadying breaths, he turned to the task at hand only to receive a shock.

"Your peach - it, it doesn't open!"

"Hmm? What are you babbling about?"

Confused, he passed his hand over the part of her body from which both Zelda and Malon's nectar had leaked, but though wet and slick from the river water, it was as smooth and uninterrupted as her chest was. Ruto did sigh pleasantly, though it was the way a peer would if you patted them on the shoulder. "Where are- I mean, is it hidden? The mouth."

She continued to stare at him in bewilderment for a few moments before the light bulb went off. "Ahhhh... the egg-maw. Of course it's sealed - I'm not going to spawn any time soon."

"What?! But... but then there's nothing I can do!"

"Oh, you will do something," she said, an edge in her tone. "You have to - otherwise, what's the point of all these negotiations?"

He laughed bemusedly; once he got past the shock of it all, it was somewhat funny. "But I can't drink what isn't there, can I? Ruto, this might not be possible."

Her eyebrows - or the formations that served as eyebrows - drew together. "You mean... do you mean to tell me you were suckling at their egg-maws?! That's so, so... silly! And wrong! Link, you- perhaps I was wrong about you being fit to be my husband after all! I've never HEARD of such a-"

"Yeah, yeah," he grunted. "One way or the other, that means I'm bending down here for nothing."

"You are?" Then she seemed to actually understand the message he'd been trying to convey. "I see. Wait, but... well, couldn't you try something anyway? As long as you're there."

Though he couldn't believe what he was doing, he pressed his tongue to Ruto's scales, lapping at the area that would have played host to the 'egg-maw', had hers been awake to enjoy it. Nothing happened; Link began to feel yet stupider, and Ruto at last conceded defeat. "All right, all right. It's not an unwelcome feeling, but nothing to swim upstream over."

"Then I'm done with my half of the bargain," he said, though he was still poking gently at where the mouth should have been with his fingers. The surface did give slightly, and Ruto winced, but there certainly wasn't going to be any grand re-opening. "Sorry, but your knothole is the only opening down here, and unless you want me to taste THAT I'd say we're done."

"A knothole?" she said curiously. "What sort of Hylian gibberish is that? I don't have any knotholes."

"Sure you do," he snorted, pointing. "Right there."

"Where?" Her neck craned in his direction, and despite her amazing agility she couldn't quite look at where he was indicating. "I see nothing."

Rolling his eyes, he prodded it briefly. "This thing. You've had it all your-"

"REAAARHHH!"

Link was instantly seven feet further back, Deku Shield out and one hand on the hilt of his sword. Ruto was crouched atop the rock she'd been leaning on, eyes wide and teeth bared. "NnnnnoOAAAHHGH!" she half-screeched.

"What are you DOING?!" he shouted at her.

With visible strain, the princess of the Zoras forced herself to calm enough to half-growl, "NO ONE... EVER... TOUCHES... THAT!"

"Are you serious?! You TOLD me to-"

"NEVER!!!" Then, after a few deep, difficult breaths, Ruto seemed to become more like herself. "That's... I'm sorry, but- I'm sorry. That place... it is only useful for getting rid of waste. It's not a good place for you to touch."

"So I see," he gusted, lowering his shield. "Did you have to ATTACK?!"

"Yes!" she snapped, sliding down the rock to stand before him, hands still out like claws. "It's... it's instinct, we can't help it. I touched my older brother there once when I was very young, thinking myself funny, and- and he nearly bit my head off. Not in a figurative sense; he was banished for his attempt on my life, even though it was my own fault."

"Your stomach, though," he said, distracted. "It's all pink now. Does that happen when you're angry?"

"My- ooh." She glanced down at her own body, and instantly all defensive stance and attitude disappeared to make way for shame. "Um, not when a Zora is, um, ANGRY. Exactly."

Link frowned, stowing his shield - the danger had passed for the moment. "Does it mean you're running out of air, or something?"

"The, ahh... oh, my father always called it the 'secret cove', but that always sounded puerile... anyway, that area is off-limits because it's very, very sensitive. TOO sensitive to let it be touched. Our undersides... glow when it is disturbed, or when we're otherwise feeling unlike ourselves."

"So... you don't want me to touch it again? Because if that would-"

"NO! A thousand times, no!"

The Hero Of Time, a small boy raised in the forest, never professed to be any kind of scholar, nor worldly wise. However, based on everything he'd experienced that day, he suspected he understood more about this so-called "cove" than the princess herself did. "Right. Well, um... then if you're okay, I think maybe I should get back to the clearing. Somebody needs to check on Malon, and then there's finding out where Zel-"

"No!" she gasped, distressed slightly. "But it isn't fair, you- I didn't get the chance to convince you I am a worthy bride!"

Link's head lolled backward as he stared into the sky, praying to the Deku Tree's spirit that he might help him out of this inane situation. "Princess-"

"It's because my egg-maw is not opened, isn't it? It shall be open in less than a month - you may try your tricks on it at that time, mightn't you? Can I ask you to come back and-"

"How am I supposed to promise you something like that?!" he burst out. "I need to GO! It is time for me to go help Zelda and her kingdom, so unless you're going to ask me to lick your flippers or something, I'm out of here!"

With that, he began stomping down the beach toward the path she had revealed into the woods, which he could already tell was going to lead him straight to (or perhaps near enough) where Malon and Epona waited. Though Zelda's plight continued to haunt him, he meant what he said about checking on the girl from the ranch; she had fainted, and was now alone and naked in the forest.

"Wait!" he heard from behind him. "Fiancee, please?!"

He ignored her cries. There was no time to spend messing about with fish when-

"Link, don't go! I wish to speak with you!"

"GO AWAY!" he yelled as he spun, causing her to nearly fall backward into a tree. "Can't you see I don't want you hanging around if you're only going to slow me down? You don't even care that I'm trying to end this whole stupid conversation because there's something really, REALLY important I have to do, and I AM the only one who can do it!"

"But I w- I need you!" she said, full of indignant rage. "You are the one I am committed to, even if you don't share my feelings! If I give up just because you're preoccupied with other girls, what sort of fiancee does that make me?!"

"One who LISTENS!" He rubbed at his temples. "You are so ANNOYING - I can't imagine ever wanting to spend another minute with you, let alone go and live with you and your father who banished your brother for trying to eat your head! Seriously, who DOES that?! I don't want ANYTHING to do with you!"

They both stared at each other for a long moment. As he watched her features slowly lose all vestiges of anger, resentment and hope, leaving only a deep hurt, regret reached up and slapped him. Maybe he'd gone a little too far with his words, but what choice did she leave him?

"So." He had to strain to catch what she was saying. "You DO hate me."

"No, but I might if you don't stop pestering me. If you want, you can come along with me to find Zelda, but you'd probably need water before long. Better just go back to the Zoras."

"B-But... you won't come to see me again. Because I'm not like your fuzzy females."

A cold, sickened smile found its way to his mouth. "I might not be alive to come back and visit if I can't figure out how to destroy Gannondorf. But maybe if I do..."

For a few seconds, they both stood, Link trying not to feel guilty for letting her leave like this, and Ruto presumably absorbing what all of his words meant. He had taken a single step away from her when she said, "Don't go."

"I have to."

"If you stay, I... I'll..." She made a funny kind of guttural noise before blurting out, "I'll let you explore my cove again!"

"Huh?" he said, even as he watched her bluish fingers reach up and touch her bottom lip as if she hadn't menat to say that. "I mean, no, I- no. Thanks, I guess, but I still have to-"

"Please, you can- just try it? Perhaps if I show you I am willing to humble myself-"

"Damn it, no! It is time to fulfil my destiny, not-"

"If I humble myself before you," she continued doggedly over him, "you would come back to me after you have defeated Gannondorf!" Tears were flowing once again, and her voice shook so badly he wasn't sure of some of the words, but he was absolutely certain she meant every one. "I HAVE been listening, I understand what sort of Hylian you are! Why do you think I gave you my Sapphire, why I asked you to be mine?! Your destiny is great, and your heart pure! Even while this princess prostrates herself before you, you can think of nothing but what you must do for the good of your people! It is that Link I want to be mine for all the seasons of my life!"

For the first time since she had met this scaly blue girl with a big head (in more ways than one), he saw not just the rudeness, status and species. What she said made her desire to become his fiancee more real than any half-formed definition she had tried to hand him before, and now it didn't sound as wholly awful as he'd considered it to be. She didn't want to add him to some collection - she honestly liked him.

"No, I- why-"

"Don't go!" she shouted again, shoving him to the ground; he braced himself with his elbows, but before he could sit back up she had landed atop his face with her backside, straddling him. "Don't shut me out before you try it, I- perhaps I can control my reactions, and y-you will approve, and- please, my Link, don't make me beg you, but I will if I must!"

"No, Ruto," he whispered, touching her thigh lightly. "I don't want that, I- but I have to- ARGH, if only this wasn't such a bad time!"

"LINK!" she sobbed, the anger creeping into her voice even though she was trying to keep it level. "What do I have to do?! Demand it of me, so I can debase myself even further like some minnow, but don't tell me there's nothing at all I can do to make you love me!"

That did it. He couldn't listen to her like that anymore; somehow, even though he had listened to a nice girl like Malon asking him to hurt her, and he had done it, the proud, haughty Princess Ruto being reduced to a bawling, quivering mass was ten times more pathetic, and he couldn't stand to hear her like that.

"RUAAAAAAAARHG!" Her scream was piercing when his tongue flicked over the entrance to her cove, and she writhed so violently that she pitched forward onto the grass. "I'll KILL you!"

"I'm so sorry," he said in hollow tones. "This shouldn't be happening at all, you- I should have just promised you I'd come back to the Zoras so you didn't have to cry, or act-"

"YOU-" one hand shot out and had just brushed his throat when Ruto regained her senses again. Then, the fingers felt up and touched the side of his face. "My fiancee, you- I'm sorry, perhaps I CAN'T control my reactions! I almost-"

"But you didn't," he said quickly, not wanting to consider what she would have done to him. "You CAN control yourself. Don't worry so much."

"I... I did," she panted, sitting back and staring off and to the left. "You're fine, you- I couldn't hurt you, anyway. Not really - at least, I shouldn't think so."

"Good." Inspiration came to him. "And, um, your allowing me to touch your cove impressed me, so I'll be sure to stop by after I restore-"

"No, no, no," she half-laughed. "You can't fool me. I know you didn't enjoy that single second of contact with my cove, you couldn't possibly. I'll... you can try it again, now, I think."

Resigned, Link did so, but the result was nearly the same; she screamed obscenities at him, then whirled to move in for the kill before seeing his face again, which seemed to clear her head. After two more attempts with only a tiny shred of improvement, he spoke up again.

"Seriously, I'll come back to visit you, I swear!" he wailed tiredly. "Can I go, now?"

"No!" she panted. As he'd expected, her normally-whitish front was pink from the cove to her collarbones. "I'm getting better, now - I don't actually reach out to hurt you anymore!"

"But if you want me to actually do something, you can't scurry out of reach every time I barely touch you! Either sit still, or let me go!"

Slowly, determinedly, she walked a short distance into the trees, then lay down on her back, hands and flippers hooked around the trunks of four small, close-together trees. "I'll brace myself. I really am sorry, Link, but... if you try this once more and I still react as unfavorably... you may go."

It was like a dream come true; she had finally set a limit on this ridiculous happening. Shrugging, he bent down to her round, clammy backside. "Okay, well... you're going to have to raise your legs up more, I can't get to it this way."

"Very w-well." As he watched, disbelieving, she managed to hook her flippers around the same trees her hands were clutching. Did she even HAVE bones?! "Better?"

"Uhh... wow, yeah." The knothole, which had been barely visible at the best of times, was now so visible he felt a little shy from crouching near it. Several deep breaths later, he said, "Okay, maybe I should start slow. How about this?"

"Mm," she said uncomfortably as he placed a hand on the back of her thigh. Then, moving so slow it was scarcely perceptable, he slid it in toward her cove. "Oh... oh, no, oh- don't!"

"Be ready," he warned. Then, as his hand came to rest right next to it, he said, "Here we go."

"ROAAWWRAR!" she screamed - but she did not move. Her teeth snapped at the air angrily, her gills beating and the fins on her thighs slapping at the ground, and her waist writhed to either side, but her limbs remained solidly in place. After the initial scream, she panted, "Ahh... haah... please, stop, I- I don't think I can take it if you did it again."

"But I'm still doing it."

"You are." It was more of a croak than a question, because his finger was resting on her cove entrance. "B-b-but I- my mind is feeling-" She fell to another scream when he pressed in slightly, though she thrashed less violently. It was so much more rigid and resistant that Malon's peach had been, and her scale-covered skin less easy to move. Eventually, Ruto found her voice, though he continually ministered to her. "No! No, d-don't push- I can't, that's so vile, you can't do that to me!"

"Let it happen," he insisted, finding that he was somehow proud of her for conquering such a dangerous animal instinct. "I'm not going to hurt you."

But Link had actually not been expecting to find his finger sliding into her cove. When did THAT happen? It was sealed so tightly he didn't think it would admit anything inside! He found himself as nervous as he'd been when Zelda began kissing his gourd stalk, and the way Ruto writhed all over did nothing to assuage his fears.

"I'LL KILL YOU! YOU AND ALL YOUR SPAWN MUST DIE!"

"Ruto!"

"LINK!" Her face curved down to look at him, hands and flippers holding fast. "Why? Wh... why must you do this to m-me?! I am your fiancee, I- do I deserve to hurt?! Have I been that awful to be around?!"

He frowned. "It really hurts? Should I pull out of you? I'm sorry, I-"

"It doesn't 'hurt', I suppose," she panted as his advance came to a stop. There was so much pink in the surface of her stomach and chest that almost all the white was gone. "But I feel so- it's so invasive, and I don't know how to feel about it, so I feel nothing but sheer terror! I don't know what's going to happen when you reach my depths, but I'm so afraid it will be bad! I'd never forgive myself if I hurt you!"

"Ruto..."

"UNNGHHG!" she screamed again, throwing her head back. "GET BACK, I AM YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE!"

He came to realize he'd moved his hand slightly when he'd felt somewhat touched by her concern for his safetly. Meanwhile, her movements were less and less like violent thrashing and more like twisting from feelings too intense to process.

"No, stay!" she flung at him as he withdrew his finger. "I... th-that is, you should be exploring more of me, I- it's what I promised you in exchange for-"

"I can't go on driving you insane," he said. "Look at you: you're about ready to kill me!"

"I am not!" she insisted, frowning as she wept silent tears. "It's difficult, but... I don't mind. But I thought you were supposed to be using your face to implement this brand of torture?"

She had him there; he hadn't put his fingers inside Malon. Then again, he hadn't put anything inside her knothole, but Ruto didn't have a peach to play with. "Oh, I... are you sure?"

"Yes, please! Do your worst- uh, I mean, continue."

Carefully, he allowed his lips to come into contact with Ruto's backside, widely spaced from the darkish cove entrance. It smelled of meat; he hadn't noticed before. Was that supposed to be that way? Shrugging and ignoring the panicked whimpers from its owner, he plunged his moist tongue into her slick, round hole.

"AUUUIIAGH! NO, YOU CAN'T, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED!"

It tasted excuisite; completely different altogether from the sickly-sweet sensation of a peach, but enjoyable all the same, rich and decadent. With great care, he placed his hands on her raised hindquarters as he wriggled his tongue further inside, feeling around every surface, teasing. Ruto continued to scream bloody murder every time he advanced, but a few moments after he'd gone as far as he could with the limited reach of his tongue, he heard what he'd suspected he would eventually.

"MMmmmmahh..."

"Hmm?" he asked without withdrawing.

"No," she wailed. "It's not right, I'm feeling- this is so improper, and I'm afraid of how I feel! This is absolutely s-sinful!"

Only now did he pull out, prompting another violent roar that subsided the moment his tonugue exited. "You like it."

"NO!" she snapped at him, letting go of the trees and jumping to her feet, fists clenched. "I do NOT, why would- it is some sick, twisted Hylian practice that my people take NO part in! All of you should be ashamed!"

He fought the urge to laugh. "But you liked it."

She folded her arms over her brilliantly-pinkened chest. "I s-suppose you think you're clever. What if I were the one doing that to you? Would you be so flippant then?"

Now he did laugh - how little she knew. "But Zelda has done it - tasted me, I mean. It was VERY enjoyable."

She blinked rapidly, head turning slightly to view him with one of her simple eyes as if she could not believe her others. "You allowed her to... use her mouth on you? Really?"

"Sure."

"And you enjoyed this? You're not lying to make me out to be a coward?"

"Why would I? No point in it." When she still looked at him as if he were trying to trick her into something, he sighed. "Come on, if you want to, I'll let you do the same - but remember, I still have to get on with my mission, so don't take any longer than I did."

Her eyebrow-ridges drew together again, considering his offer. After a few seconds, she said in a low, unsure voice, "Okay, but- but know I don't desire to perform this bizarre act, not- I am only doing it to learn for myself and hopefully prove a point, you understand?"

"Perfectly," he sighed, plopping down with his back to a tree. "Now, you could use your udders like Malon did, but I think it only worked because hers are so unnatrually large, so... yeah, you should probably use your mouth, too."

She frowned as her legs came to rest on his thighs. "I've always wondered why you pink creatures drape unecessary fabrics around your person," she said as she used her teeth to nip his tunic up, revealing his stalk. It was not erect yet, but already a tiny bit larger than usual; him sampling Ruto's cove had caused it to stir a little. Should he be concerned about that? "They only get in the way."

"I guess." Would she get on with it? He actually wasn't really looking forward to experiencing this again; it had been quite fun, but now these strange new sensations were just getting in the way of what he was supposed to be doing. "Come on, we don't have eternity."

She frowned up at him sadly. "Oh, I suppose not. Ready?"

He tried to angle his hips down more, but she was pushing them the opposite way. Whatever - if she wanted to make things more difficult on herself, she must have a reason. "Go for it."

And then the world turned inside out.

"WHOA," he gasped, bucking violently away from her. "NOT THERE!"

"Sit still!" she commanded, lowering her head once again and thrusting her tongue back into his knothole. What the hell did she think she was doing?! All his instincts told him she should not be daring to touch him in that area, that it would hurt and maybe permanently injure him if she was inside!

"Ruto, w-wait! No, ple- please, don't- NNNGGH!"

But she did not stop. It was the strangest sensation, feeling her (he was sure) MUCH longer tongue wriggle its way into his insides, feeling all around him and stroking inner walls he'd never known he had. The tight entryway burned slightly as she stretched it out, and he now felt himself sympathising with the way she'd screamed as he pushed further and further in. Her fingertips dug slightly into his backside to prevent him from escaping her grasp, and he once felt the slight nip of her sharp teeth against his cheeks, but she moved quickly to correct this. Then, even as he was trying to comprehend all these new feelings, something else entirely happened.

"OOOOOOOOAAAAAAH!"

"Hnh?" she asked vaguely as she continued to stroke a part of him that nearly exploded when she touched it. Though he had never felt its existence before, deep inside his secret cove was something round, very squishy, and more sensitive than any part of his body. The point of her tongue's exploration told him it had ridges or folds of some kind, and though he felt sick every time her tendril passed over one, it also sent a semi-painful tingle into every cell of him, and everything else he was feeling became amplified. Somehow, it felt like he had eaten some kind of hot ice, which was all he could think of even though that was ridiculous. Her tongue moved away from it, and he fell to panting hard, amazed that whatever it was had set him off like that - by now he felt as if the mouth of his cove was being ripped apart. Then, with no warning, he felt an odd sinking within his stomach as Ruto withdrew from his behind.

"Auuuahh! Oh, that's weird, that's- that's not right!"

"What WAS that?" she asked him, breathing a little harder than usual but not nearly heaving the way he was. "The pulpy mass at the back of your cove... it resisted my tongue strongly, and it pulsated, and you almost gave me a headache from screaming so loud! What is it?"

"I have NO idea! You weren't supposed to do that!"

"Hmm?" Her head cocked to one side. "Wait a damned minute, you just TOLD me to do this to you! Make up your mind, will you?!"

"No, no, no!" he ordered, closing his legs as he backed into the tree. "You were supposed to touch my gourd, not my- HUH?!"

His eyes grew wide as he stared at his nearly-hard stalk. It was not yet the rigid form he had held while Zelda was gulping at it or when Malon had surrounded it with her udders, but it was almost twice normal size by now, rising slightly over his pods. A bead of dew had formed on the spout.

"What's happening to your swordfish?" Ruto asked, puzzled and curious. Her hand drifted toward it. "I thought males didn't awaken in this way other than the mating time."

"I d-don't know why, either," he gasped, afraid of what the truth might be. Should he tell her, give voice to his own fears? "But... it might be that what you were doing in there woke it up."

"But that's terrible!" she cried as she touched it lightly, eyes turned up to him. "You will not be able to mate if your cycle is altered! Link, how will we reproduce?!"

He gulped as her hand closed around it - the prospect of making babies that are half-Zora made him boggle enough without even considering that he and Ruto would be the parents. "No, we're not like that," he laughed. "At least, I don't think so. This has happened to me twice today."

"It has?" She glanced at his knothole again, then back to the stalk she was stroking lightly, sending his head reeling. At last, she took a sharp intake of breath as she came to a possible conclusion. "Then... for Hylian beings, all you require is... stimulus?"

He nodded distractedly. Couldn't she tell he was trying to recover from her invasion? He wasn't absolutely sure why, but suddenly he felt like crying a little, or curling into a corner somewhere and hugging himself. It was only a vague sensation, though, as most of him was concentrated on the way Ruto was stroking his stalk and staring at it from all angles.

"This feels good to you, as well," she commented, glancing up at his face for confirmation. "You're enjoying what I'm doing to you down here. You are, aren't you?"

"Yeah," he said weakly.

"Then... maybe you won't think I'm a deviant if I admit that... mortifyed though I was, I didn't abhor your tongue being inside of my cove?"

Looking at her shameful, worried expression, he laughed. "Well, I'm not too sure I'd say you doing it to me was a barrel of monkeys, but I guess it wasn't so bad. So no, you're not crazy."

"Would you like me to do it again?" Her smile was so shy he had to make a quick reality check to make sure he was still talking to Princess Ruto. "I could stimulate you further."

"Or I could 'stimulate' you," he panted. "It's your call."

"Oh!" Her mouth twitched and she let out a shaky laugh. "I would rather stimulate you, I think. Yes. I will stimulate you, betrothed."

But when her mouth moved toward his knothole again, Link shouted, "WAIT! Um, I mean, can't you... you know, use your mouth on my gourd instead?"

"Gourd?"

He frowned down at his incredibly-awake stalk. "'Swordfish', then. If you take it into your mouth-"

Maybe it was his imagination, but that smile looked awfully crafty. "My Link, a coward? Don't try to fool your own fiancee! No, I know what REALLY stimulates you, and that's what I'll do."

He had no chance to protest further, because her tongue was already woming through his knothole, having to force it open afresh. Now he understood why Zelda and Malon's backs had arched so much when they were entered, because though it was only somewhat painful, the intensity of the many feelings were almost as fear-inducing as being shot through by an arrow. This time, however, she did not begin prodding the secret fruit inside his cove - instead, she went deeper and deeper, past this and into his insides. Her tongue must have been a foot long! At least, he felt it was as she continued to advance, swirling all around his insides and coaxing moan after moan from him. Eventually, he stopped noticing his own reactions and only felt her inside, filling him up and abusing the vulernability of his inner body, and the entire world was underwater, but everything was warm, and sharp at the same time. It was like he made it to nirvana, but it was an unsteady, fear-inducing place to be.

"Link!" she at last gasped, pulling out of him so suddenly that he almost fell over. "I believe I love your savory, pungent texture, I- it tingles on my palette! Maybe it's not appropriate, but I want to lick your cove clean every day!"

He glanced down to see that she did, indeed look like she had revelled in what she was doing. He had smelled the things that came out of that knothole, and they never struck him as appetizing. Rubbing his face, he said, "Will you please, PLEASE try my gourd instead? I'd m-much rather-"

"Oh, don't whine," she snorted, raising her lips to it. Now that he'd experienced it twice, and felt the atrocity of his cove being filled to bursting, having his gourd suckled no longer seemed as overpowering as before - but it was still amazing, and he purred instantly, leaning back and smiling widely.

But a few moments later, Ruto removed her lips and said, "Hmm... that does have its own flavor. Interesting... salty, yet mellow. What other parts of you have their own flavor, Link?"

"Why'd you stop?" he sighed. "And before you try to go back to my cove, I don't want you to touch anything else!"

"Right - you certainly thought so when I touched that pufferfish-like thing at the base of it while I was devouring you from the inside," she snickered. "You really spasmed then!"

It wasn't fair of her to point out things he couldn't remember. "But we have to make my stalk go away so we can move along!" He reached down to shake it in her face. "See, now that's it's hard, you have to do something to make it go away. That's how it works... I think."

"You know..."

Link noticed Ruto was acting shyly yet again. "Link, I... I think I should like you to devour me, after all. If you can allow me to put myself into you, I should be able to handle the same. I can't turn tail and swim away from my problems."

"Well, okay," he sighed. That hadn't been nearly as bad as her doing it to him, so he was more amiable. "But what about my stalk? Our knotholes aren't sticking out into the winds, so that should-"

"Well, put that in my cove instead," she said with a shrug. "It's just another tentacle, after all."

Link goggled at the aquatic princess, dumbfounded. Put his stalk into her cove? That seemed incredibly silly, and he couldn't imagine how the process would work. Besides, the positions they would have to take up would be very intimate, and awkward to boot. "I, um... I don't think so. That sounds dangerous."

"Don't be stupid," she said dismissively, lying back in the grass with her legs held up over her head. "I want you to explore me again, and your stalk needs to be stimulated, yes? Maybe this will work - and if it doesn't, I'll try eating it again, but I'm not all that excited by the prospect."

When he looked down at his stalk, then over at her taut, midnight-blue entrance, he couldn't deny it might go in; her abysmally-long tongue had gone so far into him he was surprised it didn't come out his nose. But what would it feel like? Was it safe - for both of them? Worse yet, if he managed to reach the height of pleasure like that, it would unload inside her cove, and that sounded disgusting, not to mention it would probably feel horrible for her with all that on her insides.

"Just once," she grunted, reaching up to grasp the tree trunks again. "Let's see how it goes."

The only thing keeping him from doing it at this point was fear of her own reactions - she hardly controlled herself when he moved his fingertip and tongue into her. Then again, once he'd found himself inside, she'd calmed and began enjoying it. Perhaps that was simply the way of it.

"Fiancee?"

"Okay, okay," he said, swallowing hard and moving into position over her knothole and placing his hands firmly on where her legs and backside joined. He noticed a large amount of clearish dew had formed on the spout of his gourd. "But I want to warn you now that I really, REALLY don't know about this."

"Neither do I," she whispered, though she was smiling warmly at him. "But we must trust each other. We are meant to try this, I believe."

Nodding, he took one more deep breath, stroking his finger over her little opening, watching her body spasm - but she did not lash out, nor shout vulgarities and threats at him. Unable to help himself, he stooped down and sampled her again, and this time she did cry out, snapping her sharp teeth at the air and whimpering alternately. When he stood again, she was looking at him in some surprise, but rather than answer her, he pushed his gourd against the entrance.

"OHhhh, no." Her eyes became wide as she shivered. "Perhaps it is NOT just another tentacle, it- it is so much wider around, and- and-"

"This is working," he said, watching the very tip of it slip inside a little. "I didn't think I'd be able to get it in there!"

"Don't do any more," she panted, looking up at him with misty eyes. "I'm... not ready. It's not ready for- WHUUUUAAAAAAAAAGH, NOOOO!!"

Link had exerted a tiny bit more force, to make her open more to him and admit the rest of the gourd, but he had overcompensated; once the gourd had cleared her knothole, the entire length of his stalk slid deep into her in that single motion, stopping only when his pods came to rest on her rear.

"I... wow," he half-moaned, amazed at the feeling. He was inside her cove. They were joined together in this odd, ghastly fashion, and though he almost wanted to throw up from thinking about it, he had never felt so close to anyone in his life. Though Ruto could never be his Best Friend, he couldn't help but feel that on a physical level, this was the closest you could get to another; he could never ignore her or think of her as nothing but an annoyance again. Instinctively, he knew this connection could not be undone.

"IT HURTS!" she growled, wriggling and thrashing like a wild beast, teeth bared and eyes squeezed shut. "YOU'RE HURTING ME, I CAN'T TAKE THIS, IT IS MASSIVE AND SHOULD NOT BE INSIDE MY COVE!"

Unable to explain his own actions, he fell hard on his hands and knees as he leaned in, eyes watering as he felt the sensation of his pelvis grinding flush with her backside, her scales sliding over his skin. Breathing hard, he whispered, "Ruto..."

When her eyes opened again, he saw the anger and betrayal there, but they were fading. "Link, why? Why did you- why did I think- I-"

But he was kissing her, and though at first she couldn't summon the energy to react, at last she returned it, craning her neck up to press her mouth more firmly against his. Both her eyes had closed without showing the strain they had before, and her gills fluttered. After a moment, he found out that her tongue, a little longer than his own, wasn't nearly as overgrown as it had felt when tunneling through him. Guilty though he felt, because a small part of him knew she wasn't enjoying him being inside of her, he knew they both wanted to continue melting their mouths into one beautiful, bright star among the heavens.

"Fiancee," she breathed when they parted, hands lowering from the trees to rest on the base of his neck lightly, mouth turning down in a frown of sorrow even as she spoke words of endearment. "You belong to me forever, do you not? Your... it causes me such agony, but at the same time I know it is what I want. Can you continue?"

"Continue what?" But he knew. Even as he said it, his hips begged him to move, and move he did. "Uhhn-"

"REEAAAAAAAAHRaaah!" she growled, but at the tail end of it the growl turned to more of a moan. "Link, you hate me, but I love you! Punish me more with your swordfish-stalk, defile every inch of my innards! MORE!"

A corner of his mind told him that the reason he could already feel the heights of his pleasure building was because she had been so thorough in her exploration of his cove - and because of the small treasure in the back of it that he still couldn't identify - but he couldn't bring himself to admit that. Meanwhile, he continued to pump in and out of her tight, excuisite entrance and into the cavity beyond, grunting and straining against her feeble resistance. Eventually, her violent utterings, teeth-gnashing and swearing of blood vengeance subsided, and he marvelled at how her reactions began to mirror those of Malon's - except for her choice of words.

"You horrible pink bastard!" she squealed, spine curving with his every thrust. "It's stretched out so much, I'm in so much torment and misery, I- this is my karma for trying to hide myself in Jabu-Jabu! I thought to violate him selfishly, and now I- I am the one- UHHNH!"

"Ruto!" he shouted, slamming harder and harder into her as he felt everything building, ready to explode. Utilizing every ounce of remaining power, he stopped his advances and breathed, "I'm reaching the- the- it's going to happen, but I don't know if- inside you- it might be bad, and I don't want to- to hurt-"

"Don't stop now, you twit!" she snapped, reaching up to hold his backside, forcing him down into her again. Even as she winced, she smiled and said, "You will punish my cove until you are satisfied - you must let me prove to you that I am worthy!"

Though he wanted to protest further, he was too close to the finish to form words. Moments before he reached his apex, she licked her lips and half-groaned at him, "And even if, after all this, you reject me... I will never forget how you taste inside."

The impact of these words on him pushed him far over the limits and he burst forth into her insides, screaming his heart out; Ruto did the same, arching her back so high that she was nearly standing on her head. Both eyes and mouth had flown open upon the initial spurt, and the next few caused her to grit her teeth and make a discomforted, frightened noise from deep within her throat. At last, when he was completely spent, he dropped onto her body, only now noting that her entire underbelly had turned bright scarlet. Even tiny spots of her blue scales had taken on a slight violet tint.

"Damn," he gusted into her neck. "You felt... everything felt like-"

"Link," she sobbed, and this alarmed him - was Ruto crying? Not just shedding tears as a release? "My betrothed... you released seed into me. Will I... become... with-"

"What?"

When he drew back to look at her, she was shaking her head. "Nothing. I'm sure Zoras and Hylians can't... nevermind." She winced, then whispered, "Now... I'm, um... can you take it out now? My cove burns."

"I don't... I don't have the... hang on." Gathering energy he really didn't have, he slid his wilting stalk from within her, wincing himself at her outcry and accompanying sobs. This was about all he had left, and he landed atop her again, smiling dimly when her arms came to rest on his back.

"My betrothed," she breathed weakly, words thick with emotion. "You ARE mine... ring or no r-ring, you are..."

"Hmmmh..." It wasn't in his ability to argue with her. The earth was shifting from side to side, and Ruto's body, while he had been expecting it to be frigid, was actually very warm beneath his face and pelvis. She was so comfortable. He wanted to stay there.

"I can't... breathe..."

He dimly registered her rolling him off and onto the ground, and saw her flippers receeding as her hand clutched at her posterior. She was wobbling slightly from side to side. At that moment, something thundered past and stopped near Ruto, but the sun was setting and he couldn't make out what it was. Wait - the sun wasn't due to set for several more hours. What was he supposed to be doing?

And darkness fell, leaving Link's dreams to sort it all out.

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(Watch for Chapter 4!)