Link looked closely at the huge bear sitting in front of him. He grinned. "A nice stuffed bear you got there, your Majesty!" he said to King Zora.
He was surprised when suddenly, the 'stuffed' bear moved towards him, squinted his eyes and produced a wooden sign out of nowhere that read: 'Show your elders a little more respect, boy!'
Link giggled as he backed off. "Nice trick! How did you teach him to do that?"
"Please, we don't have time for that, Link," Akane said.
King Zora, who was still sitting upon his throne, nodded. "Yes, indeed. While I am glad that Princess Zelda has sent me two brave youngsters to assist us in our plight, I fear that it won't be easy to do much against the wicked plan of the Gerudo. If Lord Jabu-Jabu doesn't turn back into the gentle soul he once was, we'll lose the control over the water's flow."
Akane coughed. "Um, that's all pretty sad, I'm sure... But actually, we've been sent to fetch the Spiritual Stone that is supposed to be in your realm."
"I see..." The rotund Zora stroked his flabby chin. "Honey, didn't you carry the stone with you...?"
Nodoka sighed. "I'm afraid I gave it to Ruto before I left... you know, to search for help. You know what the stone is a symbol for in our kingdom, right, dear?"
"Um, I read a little bit about it," Akane said and grimaced. Damn, if she only had paid more attention when her Mother had tried to teach her about the different cultures of Hyrule...
Nodoka looked around the throne room, but her daughter has already left the room. "It looks like Ruto is outside... I guess she's with his Lordship again. I'll try and see if I can find her."
And while his wife was leaving the room, the king continued to stroke his chin. "Well, even if you may be just messengers and are here only because of the Spiritual Stone, perhaps you can still do us a favor."
"What kind of favor?" Link asked curiously.
King Zora sighed. "Well, perhaps... Would you know about a way how we could Lord Jabu-Jabu make regain his senses?"
Akane scratched her head. "Um, a good clonk on the head with a mallet?"
Navi groaned. "I don't believe that is going to help, Akane..." the fairy muttered.
All of a sudden, their conversation was being interrupted by a deafening bellow coming from outside, followed by a startled yelp and a scream of terror.
"Now what's going on there?" the king asked while he turned around his massive body as best as he could.
"That was the queen," Navi shouted in alarm. "Something must have happened at the spring."
"Let's help them, quick!" Link shouted, and the two kids hurried out of the throne room.
King Zora tried to follow them, but gave up after making a few steps. "Oooooh..." he groaned. "A thick tummy may be a protection against heat, coldness and hard floors, but it can still be a bother sometimes..."
----
Link and Akane ran out of the cave and onto the platform that was in front of Lord Jabu-Jabu. The enormous whale was once again thrashing around in the water and growled at them through his teeth. Queen Nodoka was crouching on the floor, her face buried in her hands, and sobbed. Princess Ruto was nowhere to be seen.
"What happened here?" Akane wanted to know. "Where's the princess?"
"I... I just came out of the cave, when I saw how my daughter wanted to feed his Lordship a fresh fish. I was expecting him to scoop it up with his tongue, as he does always. But... but instead, he... he simply opened his mouth and inhaled... and both the fish and (sob) my daughter got... got sucked inside. Oh, why did this have to happen?"
Akane paled. "In... inside the whale?"
Link gulped. "That can't be healthy..." That much, he already knew about giant whales.
Nodoka sniffed. "Would I be as strong as my... my older daughter, and my ex-husband, I would go after her immediately and try to get her out of there."
"Out of the whale's belly?" Link asked in astonishment. "Wouldn't that be, ahem, too late by now?"
"Not entirely," the queen explained, finally getting a hold of herself. She stood up. "You see, the innards of Lord Jabu-Jabu are like a giant maze of tunnels, not entirely hazardous for anyone who gets inside. The main part of his stomach, where he's digesting all of the food he has swallowed, is on a much lower level than his mouth."
"A maze of tunnels?" Akane repeated. "I don't believe you..."
"It is true," Nodoka claimed. "Whenever His Lordship is ill, going inside of his belly makes finding a cure for his sickness much less challenging than it would be with a normal, living creature."
"But if that maze is so big like you said, it wouldn't even FIT inside his body," Akane shouted.
"Well, Lord Jabu-Jabu is a deity, a magical being of great power... So who says that he can't defy the laws of nature a little bit, when he's a direct servant of the goddesses?"
Akane slowly understood that this whale was indeed a real, living DEITY, not some big animal that had some special status in the Zora's culture. So maybe all the talk about how it controlled the kingdom's water flow wasn't that far-fetched either...
"But... if Zoras had entered his belly before, why can't just someone go in and get her out of there?" Link asked.
"It's not that easy," Nodoka sighed. "Recently, there have been sightings of evil, parasitic creatures in the innards of Jabu-Jabus belly. They hinder everyone who wants to go on further than the throat, to proceed. We tried fighting those monsters, but... every times we hit them with any weapon, they gave off some strange sort of magical, electric energy, and our warriors get badly shocked. Besides, it's not as if it would be easy to enter His Lordships mouth when he's as agitated like this."
"I see..." Link murmured. "Now this is really some problem..." He then snapped his fingers. "I know! Since your daughter has the Spiritual Stone, we need to bring it to Princess Zelda, and you need someone to clean up the innards of your whale anyway, why don't we do us all a favor and go after the princess ourselves?"
"What?" Akane asked in disbelief. "Just the two of us?"
"The three of us, you mean. I'm still here, you know?" Navi said, a little bit offended.
"Why not?" Link asked. "I beat the parasitic Gohma, I can still beat some parasites, elcerticitity or whatsitcalled, or not."
Akane stared at the massive mouth of the whale, and at the two rows of sharp teeth in-between the two powerful jaws.
"You want me to go into a whale's belly?"
"Yeah, why not?" Link shrugged.
Akane sighed. "Okay, whatever. My Mom already told me the day would come where I had to dive into a beast's jaws in the service of the kingdom... but I never assumed she would mean it LITERALLY!"
----
A little while later, the two young kids stood in front of the whale. Navi was nervously crouching on Link's shoulder, while the blonde boy raised a bottle that was filled with some water and a fresh fish.
"Heeeere, Jabby-Jabby... I got some yummy lunch for ya!" And he waved the bottle around in the air.
The whale looked directly at the bottle, and would he have some legs, he would have crawled up the platform and scooped the bottle right out of the boy's hands.
Link grinned as he uncorked the bottle, turned it around... and let the fish inside of it slide out.
With a wet 'FLOP', the still floundering fish landed on the hard stone floor.
By now, Jabu-Jabu wasn't able to control his greed. He opened his mouth widely... and Akane shuddered as she saw the big, black hole in front of her.
And then, they could feel the suction. Jabu-Jabu inhaled with all his might. The tiny little fish instantly vanished in the depths of his muzzle. Link and Akane had started running towards the 'entrance', but only seconds later would the suction pull them off their feet and suck them inside.
Satisfied, the enormous whale closed his mouth behind his latest 'meal'.
Nodoka was standing in the entrance of the Zora cavern and sighed. "I hope you find my daughter and come back safe and sound..."
She then threw her ursine ex-husband a glare. "You could have joined them, you know?"
'Hey, I'm no fool,' the winged bear signed. Nodoka raised a scaly eyebrow. 'Okay, maybe I am, but I'm still not weary of my life.'
"You are a coward, Genma," Nodoka huffed. "If you were the man I always thought you to be, you would be out there, looking for our child. I know that Ruto told us that he wants to think about things first, but... Still, you are one lousy father."
Genma knew of nothing he could reply to that.
See other episodes by Shritistrang
(Posted Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:04)
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