Well, I do have a bit of a tendency to be late with everything, so at least I'm sticking to the status quo. Merry belated Christmas/ thanks for sticking around, Norkix. Hope you at least aren't totally repulsed by this fic, as I tried to write something you'd like and I'm pretty sure I failed. Regardless, (try) to enjoy!

(There are some Christmas-y themes in here because, as I've mentioned previously, this was meant to be uploaded as a Christmas gift. Oops.)

"CREMIAAAA! I'M HOOOOME!"

A door slammed somewhere downstairs and the entire building shook. As a result, a very startled Cremia dropped her knitting, which caused her to stand up irritably and hoist open the bedroom door, poking her head out into the drafty stairwell.

"Romani, is that you?!"

"Of course it is, who else would it be?!" Cremia's younger sister answered, and there was a thud as something was dropped on the floor.

"What was that noise?!" Cremia asked.

"Nothing! Nothing."

Cremia let out a very long, very exasperated sigh before dragging her bedroom door shut and beginning her descent into the cottage's large kitchen. Having reached the bottom stair, she caught sight of Romani stamping the snow off of her boots.

"Not in the middle of the kitchen!" Cremia gasped, but it was too late. A puddle was surrounding the younger girl, and Cremia let out a long groan.

"Romaniiiiii…"

"What?!"

"Where have you even been?!" Cremia snapped as Romani shrugged off her coat and threw it over a chair.

"Outside."

"Yes. Obviously. I meant besides that."

Romani bit her lip. "I've been- um- hunting-"

"Hunting?! In the middle of winter?" Cremia grumbled something to herself, eyes scanning the room, but she couldn't find what she was looking for. "If you've been hunting, then where's your bow?"

Silence.

"Upstairs," Romani admitted.

"Aha! So you haven't been out hunting! Come on, Romani, spit it out. Have you been off with that- that Link boy again?"

"Nooo, Cremia, he's spending the New Year in Hyrule- didn't he tell you that?"

"No," Cremia answered. "You kids never tell me anything."

"We're fifteen, Cremia, we're not exactly kids."

Cremia rolled her eyes in surrender. "You know what? Fine. Fine. You don't need to tell me a word. Keep all your little secrets if you like. See if I care." And with this, she withdrew to her room.

Romani watched her stomp all the way upstairs before whirling around and staring directly at the tablecloth.

"You can come out, now!" she whispered, and there was a large thump as someone hit their head on the underside of the table. Seconds later, a green-clad boy emerged from underneath the furniture. His clothes were still sopping wet from the snow.

"Where'd you put it?" he asked immediately, and matching grins crossed the two friends' faces.

"In the corner," Romani answered, and she scampered over to the corner of the room, dragging a canvas off of a sopping wet fir tree.

"You say you've done this before?" Romani asked with no degree of uncertainty.

"Kokiri do it every New Year," Link answered pridefully, getting dizzily to his feet. His head was still hurting. "It's a tradition."

"And where'd that tradition start?"

"Don't ask me. Hey, why'd you tell her I was in Hyrule, anyway?"

Romani rolled her eyes. "Because she always suspects trouble when you're around," she replied with an undertone of isn't it obvious? "I wanted her to get off of my case for a few minutes."

Link merely raised an eyebrow. "Oh."

"So what do we do now?" Romani asked. "Stand it up? Decorate it? Put lights in the branches?"

She turned to look at Link, whose only response was a scowl. "No. Where'd you get a stupid idea like that?!" he asked, and smirked. "We're going to saw off the branches and make it into a totem pole!"

"Okay- what?!" Romani snapped. "No way! No- sorry, no. I don't even have a saw! The one you used to fell the tree is still at the mountain base, with that yeti guy-"

"I've got a sword-"

"It doesn't work like that, Link-"

"Hey, I'm the one who's done it before," Link cut in. "Now, where is it…?" He reached for his sword, which was still in its scabbard across his back. "Aha!" He withdrew it, aimed, prepared to strike a very specific spot-

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!"

Cremia had appeared at the bottom of the staircase.

"AAAAHHH!" Link screamed. His sword clattered the floor and he ducked for cover, throwing his arms over his head. When nothing happened, he peered between his fingers. "Are you going to kill me or not?"

Cremia seemed more bewildered than she did angry. "What on earth…"

Link lowered his arms. "Happy New Year," he said hollowly, and stood up. Cremia glanced between Link and Romani, stuttering as she tried to understand what was going on, and then threw her arms up in surrender and stormed back upstairs.

"Quick, now's our chance-"

They were interrupted as the door flew open and wind gusted into the cottage.

"What the-"

A wild buzzing caught them off guard and suddenly a swarm of plump bees, their exoskeletons their armor, came swarming into the cottage. Romani let out a scream and stumbled backwards, tripping over a chair and falling to the ground. A shadow fell over her as one of the bees hovered overhead, but with a spurt of green liquid the insect was sawed in half. Link stood over her, his eyes wide open in a state of panic.

"What-"

"DID YOU STEAL THEIR HOUSE?!" Romani screeched. Link turned to bat away another insect just as a look of recognition came over his face.

"The hive," he realized, and whipped his head around to see the bees crawling over the fir tree. Sure enough, they were beginning to cluster around a brown, waxy lump. Link's palm came up to slap his forehead. "How did we not realize…?"

Romani scrambled to her feet, treading upstairs in her socks and sliding across her bedroom. She yanked her bow down from the wall, nocking an arrow in the process.

"What's going on now?!" thundered a very annoyed Cremia, but it was too late. Romani had fled the room, slamming the door shut behind her.

When she returned downstairs, Link was caught in a storm of bees, flailing his arms as he tried to fell each one.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY FOLLOWED US ALL THE WAY BACK HERE!" he shouted. "I FEEL LIKE TELEPORTING SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN RID OF THEM!"

A bee swooped down to nail him in the back, but Romani's arrow pinned it to the wall just in time. She winced a little at the gory sight, but there was no time to lose. Nocking another arrow, she stationed herself on the stairs- her perch- and shot several more insects. They were almost all gone, now.

Only one left-

"OW!" Link cried as a stinger was lodged into his shoulder. His sword clattered to the ground, and the final bee, having been split from the stinger, fluttered weakly to the ground and perished.

The room fell quiet.

"LINK!" Romani cried, her bow clattering to the ground. She scrambled across the kitchen, kneeling at Link's side and eyeing the stinger in terror. It was protruding from his shoulder and drawing quite a bit of blood.

At a complete loss for what to do, Romani gathered up her breath and shouted, "CREMIA! HELP!"

The upstairs door was thrown open and Cremia appeared at the bottom of the staircase a split-second later, white faced and shocked.

"What happened?!"

"Wasps- never mind, they're gone, now, but he's hurt! Link's hurt! Help us!"

Her face drawn in discomfort, Cremia wandered over to Romani's side, kneeling down beside the injured boy and taking his hand absently as she examined the wound.

"Oh, you idiot," she breathed, and caught his eye. "Are you allergic?"

"No," Link grunted, wincing- it must have hurt just to speak. "They've stung me before." He attempted to sit up, but Romani forced him back down.

"Rest," she commanded, and Link's muscles slackened. Biting her lip, Romani faced her sister. "What do we do?" she asked nervously, and Cremia mulled over their options.

"Get me my gloves. Then I need soap and water," she commanded. "We need to wash the wound. And get some ice."

Romani jumped to her feet to retrieve the required supplies, stumbling around the kitchen, tearing open cabinets and drawers as Link watched her weakly.

"Thank you," he said. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Cremia mumbled as Romani handed her her gloves. She pulled them on and very carefully removed the stinger from Link's shoulder, speaking to him as she proceeded to wash and bandage the red welt on his shoulder. Once she had finished, she helped Link up and dumped him on the sofa. Romani treaded over to his side and sat gingerly beside him.

"Put some ice on it," Cremia said, and Romani obliged by resting a bag of ice on Link's shoulder. He looked suddenly tired, and he smiled up at Cremia weakly.

"Sorry about your kitchen," he said.

"Stop apologizing," Cremia said. "You know what? You two idiots go upstairs. Get some rest. Seriously."

Link and Romani obliged wearily, trudging upstairs and leaving Cremia alone in the kitchen.

She approached the lopsided tree gingerly, examining the hive and realizing that it was empty.

That was when she made up her mind.

…

When Link and Romani descended the staircase later that night, they noticed that none of the lamps in the kitchen had been lit, yet something was glowing. Curious, they peered around the edge of the staircase-

-and saw it.

The tree had been propped up in the corner, decorated with ribbon, candles and a series of glass baubles that Romani hadn't seen in a long, long time. When Link glanced over at her, he saw a massive smile consume her face.

"She did it," she whispered in awe. "I told you we should decorate it. Mother always used to decorate fir trees." She smiled dreamily. "Oh, Cremia," she voiced aloud, "it's beautiful!"

Cremia glanced over her shoulder and smiled bashfully. "Oh- well-"

Romani just skidded across the floor in her socks and threw her arms around her older sister, whom she had surpassed in height at this point. A little shocked but pleased at the expression of adoration, Cremia returned the embrace and caught Link's eye.

Thank you, she mouthed, and Link's jaw dropped at the scene. He groaned internally.

All he'd wanted to do was have some fun. Not this family-reunion nonsense. He wasn't even supposed to be here, for crying out loud! Argh…

Sisters, he harrumphed, and sat down on the bottom step with a sigh.

And to think they'd ruined a perfectly good totem pole just for this.

Norkix is an awesome, awesome writer who I encourage you all to support even though he updates his stories even slower than I do. (THAT'S YOUR CUE, NORKIX)

Majora's Revenge is the awesome tale which inspired this piece, definitely one of the better fanfics in the Legend of Zelda archives, along with a series of Majora's Mask themed one-shots on which I'm sure he'd appreciate your feedback.

His fanfic, Ocarina of Time, is co-written (sort of) by me (on occasion), and it is absolutely fantastic. I urge you all to read & review.