Vaati wasn't talking. Normally, Link would call that a good thing. It meant Vaati wasn't goading. But the look on Vaati's face as they sped across the tracks promised a mounting explosion, and he would much rather see him shout out his temper than tamper it all down and build on himself further. If Link didn't know any better, he would think Vaati was mad that the dean had stayed behind.

Since Link did know better, he found himself at a loss for why the dean bothered Vaati so much. Did his name really matter? The old coot insisted he be recognized by his title anyway.

"He's probably alive," Link offered. When that earned him no response, he added, "Risen is only after you, so as soon as we left, he probably lost interest in the train entirely."

Vaati glanced Link's way before he resumed glaring sullenly at the ocean.

"I'm sure you're worried, but-"

"If Risen stayed behind to kill him, that would buy us more time."

What was Link supposed to say to that?

Their cart was gradually loosing speed, so he shot it with more magic to propel it further.

"Let me know if you see the place where the shard is."

Vaati gave no response, and Link was fine with that.

-o-

"Hey. I said we passed it up."

Link gave a nod of affirmation.

"What? Don't tell me there are more places that look like this. The shard should be back there. I left it in the rocks back there."

"And I'll spend hours scanning the area for metal at my leisure," Link assured Vaati, "Where's Risen now? Still following?"

Vaati scowled, going silent for a long moment before at last telling Link, "It doesn't feel like he's moved."

"Do you think the dean is restraining him?"

Vaati leaned back in the cart, looking as though he would rather not answer. "Well... If Risen ate them all, he ought to be done by now. So unfortunately, Ez... he must still be at it. I'm not sure we have hours to search, but the old coot's one stubborn son of a-"

"Where did you learn that phrase?"

"School."

Figured. Link shook his head in disappointment. "I will have hours to search. You I intend to tuck away somewhere safe. My great grandfather once went to a dungeon out here in the ocean. It should meet all the same criteria as the dungeon where we hid from Risen before. I'm taking you there."

Link expected Vaati to protest. To demand that he not be left on the sidelines while others did all the work. Instead, Vaati made a vague noise to confirm he heard and said nothing in reply.

Right. Vaati was an evil sorcerer. The kind who kidnapped princesses and ran off to sit on his evil throne while his evil minions did his bidding. (That was how it went in all the legends, anyway.) It probably pleased him to have someone else handle everything.

The silence that followed was blissful, and Link missed it when, half an hour later, Vaati said, "Okay. He's moving. I hope your dungeon's about to rise out of the ocean because we're moving slower than the deathtrap did, and all I see for miles is water, water, and more water. Except for over that way. That way's got water instead."

"You can't sense the dungeon nearby?" Link asked, unconcerned about their ability to reach it in time. He'd studied the region maps plenty while reading up on his great grandfather's exploits. Or his past self's exploits. He could see the place where the track disappeared not far off.

"Vaguely. Maybe. There's something closer to the ocean floor, but-" Vaati saw where the tracks sank into the water as well. "Are you serious?"

Link, in reply, swung his sword upward and let the excess earth of the cart they drove form airtight walls and ceiling before they plunged beneath the surface.

There was no relying on sight the final minutes of the trip. Sound was similarly useless with all of Vaati's screaming. Link had to focus entirely on his magic senses to tell where the tracks were, when they passed through an underwater entrance, and when the surrounding mud began to shed rather than absorb water.

Nifty thing, magic. He definitely liked swords more, but his grandfather might have been onto something insisting he put his other talents to use.

"Why can't there be one dungeon above ground?" Vaati whined as they reached the end of the tracks. "Just one. You know what I did the last time I was free? I built as palace in the sky. If you have to dump me somewhere, you could at least have the courtesy to pick somewhere with windows."

"I think an underwater dungeon is harder for Risen to get to than one in the sky," Link said. That it immediately shut Vaati up didn't stop him from adding, "It's not like he has no idea where you are. He has to be able to know where he last detected the Light Force."

Vaati made some sort of noise that might have been a grumbled affirmative, and Link stepped back onto his earthen cart.

"If I don't find it by the days end, I'll come back this evening with more supplies, and we can camp out here for the night. How does that sound?"

"Please camp out somewhere away from me."

Link threw his hands up in surrender and jumped back into the cart.

"Wait. Do you have money for supplies?"

"Of course I..." Link pated where his purse should have been and found nothing. "Ah... It must have fallen off when you teleported us into water."

"Blaming me for your negligence? Rude."

Vaati produced three silver rupees from his pocket and deposited them in Link's hand. They glistened even in the dim dungeon lighting. Except...

"Hold on."

Snatching back the one that looked duller than its brethren, Vaati ran a finger across its rim while mouthing words that Link couldn't decipher. The rupee glinted, glowing, and then settled to shine like a regular rupee.

"I Forgot to finish that one." Vaati dropped it back into Link's hand. "I don't have much practice buying my own things, but that should be enough, right? That one was almost finished anyway, but if you need more, it will take me a while starting from scratch."

"I... no. This will definitely cover everything."

"Will it? Good. If you have the chance, but some fabric too. It would be a hassle if I had to hold all our money, so I'll make you a new purse."

A joke about Vaati not looking like the arts and crafts type couldn't make it past the lump in Link's throat. It was wrong. To use forged money was wrong. The entire reason rupees were the favored currency of Hylians was that there was no known way to forge them. Gemstones were worth more in the first place, and any attempts made to enchant glass to pass as rupees couldn't capture their essence. Leave it to Vaati to find a way around that with all his shady history. How many of those rupees he'd dropped at random in the past weeks had been forgeries?

But they would need supplies, and Link had lost all of their legitimate money. He could endure one night of unscrupulous purchases.

-o-

The temptation to go back and check on the dean was strong, but Link refused to succumb. Healing was advanced light magic, and well beyond his capabilities. There was nothing he could do that wouldn't be done faster by people on the scene, or by another passing train that might see the wreckage. He had to count on the dean having survived, and to focus on finding the Four Sword shards so they could seal Risen before there could be more attacks and more potential for casualties.

First thing upon reaching the island that Vaati had pointed out as where the shard ought to be, Link cast Farore's Wind. If he had to search for multiple nights, he wanted it to be a short trip back to the region he was supposed to search. And between being able to warp to the island and then having to make a new cart to ride to that dungeon, or being able to warp to the dungeon and praying he found enough dirt to make a cart that could carry him through the underwater tracks and back to dry land, it made more sense to set the return point of Farore's Wind to somewhere outside.

From there, Link held out the Beast Blade like a dowsing rod and extended his senses through it, trying to differentiate dirt around him from metal. What he learned, first off, was that there was a surprising amount of iron mixed into the ground, too fine for him to see at a glance, yet potentially harvestable for some future smith. There was also a surprisingly large number of old, rusted coins and other such baubles buried in the earth. He collected them as he went, noting that while they varied slightly in size and came in a few different colors, there was a pattern in their design. An old currency from some weird, lost culture that used metal for their money. Had the Lokomo used currencies? Link never paid much attention to anything in history class that didn't have to do with any of the heroes he shared a name with.

The heroes who were his past lives. Nayru, did that make him vain?

He tried to push that thought aside and refocus on his search, but it was no easy feat. The hunt for metal was mind-numbing, and for all the coins he found, he sensed no metal objects that could have been a part of a sword, nor did he sense objects that could have been imbued with magic. Link had the sneaking suspicion that Vaati might not have even properly remembered where the sword shard was (or, equally likely but less generous, that he still didn't want the Four Sword fixed and lied about where he left the shards.) As much as he appreciated Vaati thinking outside the box and discarding the pieces of a powerful weapon randomly in different parts of the wilderness, he would have been ten times as appreciative if Vaati crafted a handful of dungeons to force Link to conquer to collect the shards. Not only did that sound like a more traditional hero's quest, but dungeons were way easier to locate than a random scrap of metal tossed somewhere in probably this or that general area.

The sun hovered low on the horizon by the time Link decided to call it quits for the night. He had enough rupees on hand to buy food in Papuchia Village, and if he didn't hurry, he wouldn't get back to the dungeon with that food until it was dark out.

Not that he necessarily wanted to return. Nevermind Vaati's attitude. While Link searched, he'd noticed Risen circling over the general location of the dungeon for a good hour before flying off to the Sand Realm.

Although it was definitely mostly Vaati's attitude that made returning unpleasant. Risen likely didn't have a good idea of what Link looked like, given that he'd been a Dodongo in all their memorable interaction. Because he failed to face Risen as himself despite knowing the Beast Blade was bad. Because he was a disgrace to the Spirit of the Hero.

Link stifled a sigh as he made himself a new cart to travel along the rails with. Vaati needed him, at least. So long as they had Risen to contend with, whatever headache Vaati might supply, he couldn't do much worse than that. And once Risen was defeated...

Link looked down his arm at the thin white band engraved onto his wrist. The noble and heroic thing to do would be to stop evil, even if it came at great cost to himself. He prayed to Hylia that Vaati, once free of Risen and able to control the Light Force properly, would continue to act like a pest rather than some great villain. Attacking Zelda, hopefully, had been an outlier.

Ha. As if.

Link stood in front of his cart, contemplating the odds that a train might run into him while he was on the tracks and whether or not that would be a bad thing, when a voice calling out in the distance caught his attention.

To his left, a little ways off, a blimp was landing for the night. The sign hanging from its basket read Beedle's Shop. Link stared, torn as to what to do. If Beedle had enough supplies for the night, then he could be safely in the dungeon with Vaati before nightfall. On the other hand, that meant spending more hours with Vaati.

If Risen returned after dark, Link would be hard pressed to see those black scales on the night sky, and he was only assuming that he wasn't a target of the dragon's. He resigned himself to checking the blimp.

"Welcome!" the enthusiastic merchant cried as Link approached. "Come. Take a look."

With a fluid, practiced movement, Beedle flipped a board over to create a makeshift counter and deposited an armful of wears into neat piles. Link had to pause seeing it.

"Do you drop out of the sky to sell things often?"

Beedle nudged a stack of arrows a little closer to Link to pick from as he said, "There's plenty of chances in a day to drop in wherever trains stop for sightseeing. You look like the adventurous type. I recommend these."

It occurred to Link that he forgot to pack a bow.

"I just need food. Sorry you came all the way down here and I'm not buying more."

"I'm setting up camp for the night," Beedle assured him while rearranging wares to put dried fruit and cured meat at the front of his counter. "There's all kinds of good things to find on this island. It used to house a village back before Malladus first appeared. The trading post pays a lot for any old Lokomo coins you can find."

Link would certainly feel more comfortable using rupees obtained from the coins he found rather than Vaati's forgeries. It was too late in the day to justify that kind of a detour, so he put down a rupee and picked up food while hoping Beedle wouldn't look too closely

Come to think of it...

"You wouldn't happen to have any fabric, would you?"

"Not at the moment, but I saw something at the trade post when I was there this morning that might be what you're looking for."

"Did you? You must go often."

Link would definitely visit the trade post come morning. He wasn't in such urgent need of a wallet as to go that night.

"The trader there has an eye for value in things that I can't sell, and a knack for finding people interested in them. I don't know how he does it, but he's confident in whatever he takes. The other day he paid through the roof for a mere scrap of metal. It was so rusted that I can't imagine anyone could really use it. I only picked it up because its shape caught my eye. It looked like it used to be the hilt of a nice sword."

-o-

Amazingly, the trade post was open in the dead of night.

Link had never been to the trade post before. He rarely left the Forest Realm at all, really. He'd only visited the Fire Realm once. And his annual vacation to the Ocean Realm didn't include any stops that his grandfather considered to be shady. Going by what Link heard from others who'd been to the trade post, the business itself was perfectly legitimate. In fact, it was the best possible place to find odds and ends that you didn't know you wanted. Although there was a catch that you often had to purchase them with something other than rupees, everyone agreed that the trades requested were generally fair. The only negative comment Link heard about the post was that the trader himself was weird.

With that in mind, he expected as he let himself inside to find some mad-eyed eccentric sitting at the desk, suspicious contraption in hand and a deranged grin on his face. Instead, while the room was lit, the shop seemed to have been left completely unattended.

Link looked, taking stock of the building's interior. For an unmonitored store front, a surprising number of valuables sat open on shelves. Fine vases and a glass statue depicting the crest of Hyrule glittered in the candle light, making the trade post look more like an art dealers. At least so long as you looked at the wall closest the door. On the opposite side of the room sat items that looked more like rubbish. A worn stone statue that had lost almost all shape. A wooden fishing rod with no line. Beedle claimed the trader could relieve himself of any wares, but why would anyone trade for a broken rod when you could buy a functional one at the next stop on the train line?

The only reason that came to mind was if you were afraid of trains, like Vaati, and planned to survive by foraging on the far side of the island.

No sign of an ancient sword hilt, though.

Failing to spot anything in an initial scan of the room, Link tilted a pot to peek inside.

"And just what are you doing!?"

Dropping the pot in alarm, Link spun to face the man who had appeared from a back room, then winced when he heard shattering behind him.

The man who loomed over him could be described a number of ways. Lanky. Unkempt. Smelling faintly of alcohol. Just tall enough to not be called average. Noting how the smell of alcohol could be detected in his clothes but not his breath, Link judged him to be a high-functioning alcoholic. Someone who was sober in the moment, but likely wasn't at some point each day.

"Do you have any idea how much that pot was worth? I could have sold it for two-hundred rupees!"

Link reluctantly fished one of the silver rupees that Vaati forged from his pocket and handed it to the man before saying, "I can try and fix it for you, but I don't know if it will look as nice as it did before."

"Hmph." The man pocketed the rupee. "It's paid for now, so do what you want with it."

Since it was paid for in fake tender, Link bent down to find two shards of the vase that lined up, and held them together before running the pommel of his sword over the crack. It sealed so that they held together, but a hairline crack remained in the glaze.

"A sorcerer, are you?" the man asked. "What brings you here? If I get my hands on a magic item, I take it straight to you people's academy to trade. No sense in keeping something that might put a curse on me."

"Oh." So the whole trip had been a waste. "Sorry. I just thought... I guess the dean, er... I guess the academy already has that hilt then."

The man stiffened for a moment before leaning over to ask, "Hilt?"

"For the sealing sword that was broken a few weeks ago. I was told it had already been brought to you, but I guess it's been returned. That's a relief. We can move on to looking for the next piece then."

Although instead of moving on, Link found another shard to merge back with the vase he was slowly piecing back together. Sure, stopping the dragon was a high priority, but he couldn't just break an expensive vase, hand over a fake rupee, and leave like nothing happened. Maybe Vaati would think that was acceptable, but some people had morals.

"It's not part of some cursed blade then?"

"No," Link grumbled. "The evil it was sealing already got out. That's kind of what we need it for." Kind of.

The man straightened, stroking his stubble as he pondered this information. Link had three more pieces of the vase merged back together before it occurred to him why the trade post owner might care to ask and then contemplate the news that the sword wasn't cursed, rather than bemoan that he'd gotten rid of a valuable item over an unfounded fear.

"You... haven't returned it to the academy yet, have you?"

"The school? Is it the academy's possession? I, Linebeck VI, believe I bought that hilt fair and square. It wasn't cheap either. So it's part of one of those swords to repel evil, hm? It might even be a good luck to keep it here and ward off any nearby monsters."

"We kind of need it to stop the evil dragon, though," Link said, too stunned by the sudden bravado with which Linebeck spoke with to offer a stronger protest.

"Has the dragon attacked my little trade post? No? Then what does it have to do with me? This business has been my family's for generations. You expect me to leave it defenseless? Even if I could afford to give up the safety it grants me, I can't afford it financially. I paid a good deal for this item, you know. But you want it badly, don't you? Don't you?"

With a sigh heavier than any Vaati had yet to elicit, Link pulled out the other silver rupee and all his change from the purchases he made with Beedle. He no longer felt quite so bad about paying with forged money. "Will this cover what you paid for it?"

Linebeck took every rupee before telling Link, "No,"

It was too much effort to ask for his money back when Vaati could just magic more into existence anyway. "The hilt won't even do anything without the rest of the blade, and it still needs to be repaired."

"But this isn't what I paid for it," Linebeck pressed. "I can't imagine a kid like you could cough up enough."

Link could see where this was going, and contemplated for just a second too long if he was really annoyed enough with Linebeck to ask a price and have Vaati forge that. Before he could make the offer, another was thrown at his feet.

"You're some sort of magic knight, aren't you? Using magic and running around with a sword. Don't think you can fool me. If you give me something of equal value, I suppose can spare you this hilt. Alongside what I paid for it, of course. I'll need another two-thousand rupees."

"Sure. Fine. And?"

"That's it? You can pay so much with ease? Even the academy would barter-I mean... Good. So we've agreed on a fair trade. Now, let's discuss this other item I want. It's as broken as this sword hilt, so you can't complain that you're giving away something more valuable than you're getting in return, can you?"

Under the current circumstances, the Four Sword shards seemed of higher value to Link than any other magical item in the world, but he knew better than to tell Linebeck as much. He'd probably triple the price if he heard. As it was, he no doubt planned to sell this other broken item for as much as he was already going to make off of selling Link the hilt. "Yeah. Sure. It's fair."

"Good. What I need is part of a mirror. Rumor has it that it's hidden away on an island not far from here. A relic of Old Hyrule. A piece of a broken mirror in exchange for a piece of a broken sword. No one could object to a trade like that."

"What does the mirror do?"

"Details." Linebeck waved Link away. "Run along now. You want this sword, don't you? Hurry up and find me this treasure."

Link had only pieced the vase halfway back together again, but had long since given up on any sense of obligation to Linebeck to make up for the damage he caused. Without bothering to at least gather the remaining shards so they wouldn't be stepped on, Link rose to his feet, bowed, and left the trade post.

At least it seemed he would get his heroic dungeon quest after all.

-x-

STA: Felt inspired.

I'm prone to excessive swearing, although I can kinda tamp it down when I put my mind to it. Doesn't come up in my fics too much, but I'm sure it shows in my authors notes, and it sure as fuck shows whenever I comment on anything on tumblr. Sometimes I think people mistake me for being more emotionally invested than I am cuzz of it. Been trying not to project that onto Vaati, but while I was writing this chapter I was also working on a tendershipping fic (that got scrapped) and decided it would be easier to write Bakura's speech as crass in the vein of his Japanese dialogue rather than try to emulate his dub mannerisms, and it messed me up a little to go between Vaati and Bakura and have one use "shit" as a synonym for "items" and "fucking" as a way of saying "I'm about to use a verb" and the other not swear at all. Especially because there are a few mannerisms I've given them that line up more neatly. Gotta keep the two from blurring.

Sadly I got over 10 chapters into that fic before hitting a wall. I had a lot of later development character arc stuff I wanted to do, but no concrete conclusion that satisfied me. Now my interest in YuGiOh is waning a little and I really want to write a Rave romance instead, so who knows if I'll ever finish that one? Especially with my current schedule.

lordvaatithewindmage: It might or might not have been an accident on Vaati's part, but Ezlo's being left behind was deliberate on someone else's.

TyrantChimera: Well... I mean... Ezlo's not the nicest guy, but I mean, imagine having VAATI as your apprentice. He wasn't the best student either.

Guest: Thank you! Enjoy~

Tiger spy: Will do.

ArificialRangerLiuria: (There is no way I can respond to literally everything omg thank you for all the reviews.) Um... Um... What parts to reply to? Uh... Vaati's speach getting less and less bad is supposed to be a mix of him being smart and the language not having changed TOO much for him to pick up on it quickly. Like, words are different but the sentence structure is pretty similar and you can spot root words easily and stuff. Sorry to give you sad Zelda headcanons, but not sorry to ruin your mental image of Vaati. (And Naryru's Wind was me being tired I need to go back and fix a lot of little typos.)