---Chapter Three---Evil Wears Yellow---
The beautiful, clear water of the Arroz River was no more as it fed into the swampy gunk of Muck Lake. There the water was a nasty green color, thick and even bubbling sometimes, like a horrible caldruon of vile muck in which the lake got its name. Looking at it, and not getting a reflection back because of all the slime, Zelda wondered if any fish lived in it. It didn't seem likely, unless they were mutant fish. At the far side of this lake was the Witch's house. It appeared to be more of a tower type-thing than a house, but not a tall tower, only about three stories high. Strangely enough though, it wasn't covered in thorny vines or looming evilly or threatning a magicked doom. In fact, it didn't look forbidding at all. It was just a straight, grey stone tower, and it looked a lot nicer than the lake in front of it did. The witch resided there and most likely had a Gate key with her. Zelda approached it slowly, slowly because she didn't have a plan yet.
What would Link do?
Zelda was asking herself this a lot lately. She was even thinking of getting 'WWLD?' put on a bracelet, make it her new motto. But seriously, what would Link do? Would he storm the building, battle the evil witch, and claim the Gate Key in his victory? Would he wait until nightfall, sneak in from the roof, and steal it right from under the witch's nose? Would he go up to the front door, knock politely, and just straight-out ask the witch for it, like Zelda was doing now because she couldn't think of anything else?
Probably not that last one. She made a note to ask him later.
There was a shuffling of feet as the knock reverberated through the tower-house and an annoyed voice called from behind the wooden door, "I don't want any! Go away now or join your pals in the lake!" A little daunted by this, Zelda hesitated before knocking again. The witch threw the door open. "That's it! I warned you and now you are going to-" She paused, examined Zelda, then said in a much kinder tone, "Why, you aren't a Gal Ranger, are you? I'm terribly sorry. It's just that those little girls have been trying to sell me chocolate all week, and it's gotten on my nerves. I do love Gal Ranger Chocolate but it's so high in calories, not good for my figure at all."
Zelda was speechless. Not because Gal Ranger Chocolate was high in calories, she already knew that of course, but because the witch was so...beautiful. She looked the exact oppisite of a witch. Wasn't old, wasn't ugly, wasn't green! No, this woman was gorgeous. Drop-dead gorgeous. Movie star gorgeous, if Hyrule had movie stars to make that comparison with. Zelda was completely caught off guard; she had been expecting some evil hag. And not only wasn't this woman a hag, she didn't appear evil either. Perhaps it's just hard to appear evil when you're dressed head to toe in bright yellow. A slick yellow dress with shiny yellow squeins, a yellow boa draped over her shouldes, yellow necklaces, yellow gloves, yellow high heeled shoes, yellow fish-net stockings, yellow earings, yellow fingernails, even yellow eyeshadow and yellow lipstick applied to her face. Her full, lucious hair wasn't yellow; it was fire-truck red, but she had it pinned up with yellow hairpins to make up for it. On anyone else, this overload of yellow would make them look like a gaint banana, but the witch could somehow pull it off and look wonderful.
"Well, are you just going to stand there?"
"Huh?" Zelda blinked.
"I invited you in, hon. For some tea?"
"Oh. Right. Um, thank you." She nodded and followed the gorgeous, yellow witch into the tower-house. For the second time that day, Zelda was surprised by the un-witchiness of the situation. The place looked like any middle class house would look; snug chair by the fireplace, pictures on the walls, books neatly organized on shelves, cute little coffe table with matching chairs ontop a large rug decorated with flowers...where were the strange concoctions, the hissing black cats, the flying broomsticks, the eyes of newt and lizzard gizzards?
"Something wrong, dearie?" asked the witch, sounding worried, not offended.
"Oh, no, not all at." she lied, and not convincingly. The witch cocked her head and waited. "Well, it's just- this isn't what I was expecting," Zelda admitted.
"Which was what?"
"I dunno. You wear a lot of yellow, not black..."
"Ah, so stero-typical. Not all us witches are like that, sweetie," she sniffed, "And besides, yellow is in."
She motioned for Zelda to take a seat and began pouring tea -low fat tea- using Fine China cups and saucers. She took a chair across from Zelda and offered her a cup. "There you go, Miss Zelda." Zelda, who had just taken a sip (and without checking to see if it was posion or not), nearly choked as she swallowed.
"Agh...uh, h-how," she coughed, then cleared her throat, "how do you know my name?"
"Why Lord Ganendorf told me, of course. A young, blonde hero dressed in pink, called Zelda, searching for the Gate Keys. It's quite obivous who you are, hon. Oh my, I haven't introduced myself yet, have I? How awful of me. My name is Reeli Eveille."
"Really evil?" Zelda asked, dumbfounded and confused. Her mind was going at an unusally slow pace right now, still sending the message to her that she was sitting there having tea with an enemy.
"Yes, Reeli Eveille. Such a pleasure to finally meet you, dearie."
"M'hm." Zelda took another sip of her tea and stared down at her cup, thinking. She ran through everything she knew so far: Reeli Eveille, witch, works for Ganendorf, has Gate Key, has manners, wears blinding yellow, foe not friend, but man, this tea is sooo good... She shook her head, put the tempting tea on the table, and stood up.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Ms. Eveille," she said, "But I'm on a mission here and I'm going to have to ask you to hand over the Gate Key, or else."
Ms. Eveille just went on sipping her tea, and as if they were discussing the weather, asked, "Or else what?"
"Or else-" Zelda faltered, "Or else I'll take it from you by force?" She finished lamely. The witch now stopped drinking her tea now and stood up too, only she took the time to push her chair in first.
"Now, now, I just can't give it to you. What will you give me in return?"
This was unexpected, which seemed to be right, since everything else about this encounter with the witch was unexpected. A trade-off sounded way better than a battle, Zelda mused, but what could she possibly give her? Her voice? No, she didn't have much of a singing voice. Her beauty? Pfft, compared to the witch, Zelda was about as pretty as troll. Her youth? Now that one was feasible, since weren't witches always stealing the youth of other to live longer or something? She shuddered at the thought; Zelda liked being young!
"-simply marvelous, I must say. So how about it? You don't really need it, honestly, and it will-"
"NOOO!" Zelda cried, jumping back a step and drawing her sword, "You can't have my youth! I don't want to be old yet! I don't want wrinkles and back pains and-"
"Calm down, child!" Eveille shouted, and Zelda instantly shut up. "I do not want your youth," Zelda let out a sigh of relief, "I just want all your beautiful, golden yellow hair." Zelda sucked her sigh back in and stiffened.
"NOOO!" She cried, "Not my hair! I don't want to be bald!"
"It will grow back!" argued the witch, "Besides, you have your hat to cover it until then!"
"But do you know how hard it was to grow it this long? It will take years to get it like this again!" She crossed her arms in defience. "No deal. You can't have it."
But the witch wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer. She already had out a pair of clippers (from where or when she got them, Zelda didn't know), and was stepping closer and closer, no longer so gorgeous but more crazy looking.
"Look here, how 'bout I let you have a few inches off the bottom? Hm?" With each step forward from the witch, Zelda took a step back.
"That won't do, sweetie, I want it all! All that brillant yellow! I must have it all!"
What a lunatic! Zelda thought. Something hard and solid was at her back now and she realized with horror that it was the wall. She was trapped. "It's not really a b-brillant yellow," she stammered, "In fact, I'm actually a brunette! Yeah, see, I j-just dyed my hair so really it's not yellow at all!" It was no use. Reeli Eveille was right in front of her now, the clippers held high on the climax of executing the poor, blonde locks of Zelda's hair. In a last attempt to save herself, she closed her eyes and flung up her sword, hoping to knock the sharp things out of the witch's hand. She shouldn't have closed her eyes though. There was a sickening slash, a shriek from Eveille, then a loud thud. Zelda got a horrible sinking feeling that she missed. She cracked open an eye and nearly fainted, for on the wooden floorboards lay a left arm, the limp hand still clutching the clippers.
As she was about to turn away and lose the contents of her stomach, she noticed something odd about the arm she accidently severed off. There was no blood, no hint of a bone, and it almost seemed hollow. Like it wasn't a real arm. With more curiousty than actual courage, Zelda turned to look at the witch.
Where her left arm used to be was now what appeared to be a hole. And once again, there was no blood or bone. Just the hole. Except now, something was wiggling out from it. It was...a tentacle! Zelda's eyes bulged while the witch just merely fumed, waiting impatiently for the rest of her real arm -the tentacle- to show. "Well, there's no need for false pretenses anymore." She grumbled, and before Zelda could ask her what she meant, the witch's green tentacle coiled around her right arm and ripped it off. Apparently also fake, and another green tentacle appeared.
"Happy now?" She barked at Zelda, who stared blankly in return, "I'm part octopous, alright? Green and yellow clash, so I used magic to make fake human arms for myself."
"Ooookay," Zelda shrugged, not knowing what she was supposed to do, "Sorry to hear that. I guess."
"Oh, you will be sorry! Because now I'm going to have your hair and keep the Gate Key! Actually, I wasn't going to give to the Key in the first place, even if you did give me your hair, but that's not the point!" Holding a pair of huge hedge clippers this time (Zelda still didn't know where they came from, all of a sudden) with both tentacles, the witch rushed at her. "Come to me, my pretty! I will have that yellow hair, even if I have to kill you for it!"
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Three mysterious figures stood looking into a large, round glass that hung like a window in front of them. Only instead of seeing through it to whatever lay outside, they saw Zelda and the witch battling it out, every sight, sound, and detail perfectly reflected to them. This magical looking glass acted like a TV so they could keep tabs on Zelda's adventure.
The tallest figure rolled its eyes and said, "First goblin lumberjacks, now this? A crazy octopus-witch obessed with all things yellow and will kill for hair? Really, this sounds like a cheesy horror story you'd tell around a campfire. Couldn't you've come up with something better?"
"Hey, it's not my fault," said the figure at the right of the tall one, "The witch started out normal but our princess here has an overactive imagination. Nothing I can do about it."
The figure in between the other two laughed. "Come on, this is some good stuff. Better than cable!"
"Stop doing that!" snapped the tall one, "Cable doesn't exsist in this world and you very well know that. And this," she pointed to the scene in the glass, where Zelda was trying to ward off magical yellow fireballs and flying hedge clippers from the witch, "This is not "good stuff". This is awful! So I get to make the next boss for her to battle, got it? You two will just screw it up."
"Too late! I already called dibs on the next one," said the figure on the right.
"Fine then, I get the one after that!"
"Whaaat-ever," replied the other figure. All three of them stopped bickering long enough to return to the matter at hand. On the looking glass, they watched as the witch grabbed Zelda with her tentacles and flung her right through the wall.
"Ouch," the figures said in unison.
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Zelda choose to ignore the fact that she had just been thrown through a solid stone wall and survived. She should had hit it, broke every bone in her body, then crumple to floor like a ragdoll. Instead she left a Zelda-sized hole in the wall, flew outside, and luckily landed in Muck Lake. (Or maybe not so luckily, considering that it was Muck Lake.) Her backside ached a little bit and she felt terrible, like she had, well, like she had been thrown through a stone wall. But nothing was broken and she was still in one piece, despite the fact that she shouldn't be.
As she sank under the gross water, worrying about losing her sword (which she dropped right before going through the wall) amoung all things, something poked into her sore back. She reached behind her, grabbed the unknown object, and pushed her feet against the lake's bottom. She zoomed upwards and broke though the grimey surface, gasping for the air. The witch was peering down at her in disgust, her tentacles at her hips. "Ugh, now your hair is covered in green slime. I hope I'll be able to wash it all out."
Zelda was at a loss. She weaponless and didn't have a clue on how to defeat Reeli Eveille. Where was the little sidekick to drop her hints when she needed one? Remembering the thing in her hand, she gave a quick glance at it. It was a round, good sized rock, plain and normal as far as rocks go. She glanced back at the witch, who was nearing with the hedge clippers. Well, it wouldn't hurt to try, she thought, and with all the might she could currently muster, she threw the rock at the witch.
It hit her square on the forehead, then bounced off to the side. She blinked once, shrugged, and went ahead with the hedge clippers. But only for about a second or so, because she came to a sudden halt and dropped them, her body turning smokey and translucent.
"Nooooo," she screamed, "I'm evaporating! I'm evapooorating! Ahhughhh!"
And then she was gone, very literally vanished into thin air.
Zelda gaped. It actually worked! Throwing a single rock at a witch made that witch evaporate, according to this story she once heard at a campfire, and it had actually worked! It was a shame she had to celebrate her victory covered in gunk, but much to her surprise, the lake wasn't gunky, slimey, swampy, or gross anymore. All the muck drained away at the defeat of the witch and was now crystal clear! Zelda washed all the muck off, watched as it was purified into clean water in the new and improved lake, and then hoisted herself out to dry in the sunshine.
Laying in the spot where the witch last stood, next to the dreadful hedge clippers, was a Gate Key. Black and twisted, it was a bit big for a door key, but it wasn't a door key, it was a Gate Key, so what did size matter? Zelda looked at it for only minute before shoving it into her pouch. She proceeded back into the tower-house to reclaim her sword. She found a box of Gal Ranger Chocolate there, probably uncovered during the struggle with the witch. Despite the calories, she helped herself to what chocolate was left, grabbed her sword, then left the house and the lake without so much as a backwards glance. She almost felt sorry for Reeli Eveille, the yellow-loving, pyscho witch who was now dead -or maybe not dead, per say, but a bunch of gas molecules at the least- because of her.
"But she was really evil," Zelda reminded herself, and couldn't be bothered with guilt any longer. She lived, she won, and she finally had a Gate Key!
One down, three more to go.
A/N: That was weird, wasn't it? Woo, that's what happens when you're full of sugar and caffeine, yup-yup!
Have a Happy New Year everyone, and please excuse the stupidity of my story! Yay, go 2006!