Sakura | 桜

"I never should have trusted you." I strain against the scratchy, heavy ropes. It seems impossible that I could ever find a way to wriggle out of them. I still have to try. "I never should have let you drag me onto this stupid boat."

A gleeful cackle answers me. Out of the sloping shadows of sunset steps the captain, a wicked glint in his eyes. "You really shouldn't have. But how were you supposed to know that this ship held your final doom?"

I cry out in fear as the evil captain stalks closer. "But why were you so desperate to bring me here? I'm nothing to you. You have far bigger fish to fry."

The captain stops mere feet away from me and cocks his head. "Do you really expect me to believe that? We know exactly why I brought you and your little friends here."

I gasp, heart freezing in terror. "Not them. Please, no. You can't hurt the others."

"Not yet I haven't," the captain smirks, stepping aside to reveal Thdwee, Dweebert, and Bandanna Dee tied together to the other mast. "But I will, if you don't give me the information I want."

I snarl. "I'll never talk... Never..." I drop my head to my chest in exhaustion, but manage to draw my eyes up enough to shoot the captain a furious glare. "You'll get nothing out of me or my friends...

"...Captain Kirbeard."

The pirate captain Kirby throws his paws wide and cackles. He slowly turns around and paces around the mast that the three Waddle Dees are currently pretending to be trapped against. As he rounds the mast, he looks over at me, childish glee twinkling in his eyes. "Your courtiers have all fallen to me, Princess," he growls, in a voice that is so adorably faked. "They're trapped. And there's no one left to save you now."

I cry out in faux fear. "Whatever am I going to do now? Oh, woe is me—"

"I'll save ye, my lady!" Down from the rigging slides Sir Errant himself, though in far rounder and greener form than ever he took in the old Sir Gallant comics. "For wherever evil rears its ugly 'ead, one of the knights of Sir Gallant's band will always come to defeat it!" Forest lands on the deck with an only slightly-awkward thump. It's taken us all time, but we've all fairly gotten our sealegs underneath us at this point. After all, we have been at sea for over a week, now.

"What!" Kirby shouts in disgust at having his evil plans interrupted. "You dare try to stop me from getting my ransom money?"

"I do dare, indeed, foul creature!" Forest draws a wooden play sword from his side with a flourish. "Come at me, cur! You are no match for one of the squires of Sir Gallant himself!"

"My hero!" I coo in the sort of dramatic, goofy voice the heroines in the movies always used to use back in the River Village days.

Forest bows to me grandiosely and then turns once more on the pink pirate. "What 'ave ye to say now, beast?"

Kirby just cackles again in response, drawing his own play sword from his side. "You really think some pathetic knight of the stars can stop the feared Captain Kirbeard of the Seas?" He swings the sword around in a manner so awkward that it makes the swordswoman in me wince. He definitely isn't much for swords when he's not using an Ability. "Fight me, unless you're too scared!"

"Rah!" Forest yells back, making a run at the 'evil menace.' The two begin clacking swords together fiercely. The sight of Forest having to fight intentionally badly to avoid disarming Kirby first thing forces me to break character enough to laugh.

Kirby flips around to face me immediately in response to my slip-up.

I instantly regret it. "Oops."

"You're mocking me when I hold your life in my hands?" Kirby questions in a ridiculous shriek. He dashes over past Forest, just ducking a swing from the brave knight. One thing the kid definitely has going for him is his defensive capacity.

With a faked chop at the ropes, Kirby undoes my (imagined) entrapment and holds his sword to my throat.

"Take one step closer to me, Errant, and the Princess gets it," Kirby threatens.

I pretend to faint in terror, slapping the back of one glove to my forehead. "Oh, how could fate be so cruel?..."

Forest gasps, instantly taking a step back. "You wouldn't... You wouldn't 'urt a lady!" he sputters.

Kirby giggles in the least threatening manner I've ever heard. "Oh, but I would."

Forest scowls in disgust. "Oh, you foul, foul, wickedly foul knave."

Kirby shrugs. "What can I say? It's a gift." He begins play-tugging my 'fainted' body towards the ship's railing. "I'm going to toss her over the side, now, to a watery doom. And there's nothing you can do about it!"

Forest shakes his head in a woebegone manner, dropping his head mournfully to his chest. "You're right... I can't believe it..." Kirby begins another wicked cackle, only to be cut off. "That's right. That's why I can't believe it..." Forest stands straight back up and points his sword to the sky. "Because actually, your statement is just as wrong as your actions!"

I groan half-inwardly at just how well Forest is doing at creating campy Sir Gallant-esque dialogue right off the cuff.

"And why is that?" Kirby sneers, ignoring me.

"Hyah!" Forest throws his 'sword' like a javelin at the mast that 'holds' the three Waddle Dees hostage. They stare back at him blankly. "You're free, men! Free!" he clarifies.

It takes them a second, but then the Waddle Dees jump up and down in delight.

"Now," Forest orders, pointing at me and Kirby, "seize him, and save the fair lady!"

"Uh-oh," Kirby mutters, as three Waddle Dees—one much, much bigger than the other two—come barreling straight towards him. Dweebert reaches me last, of course, but it doesn't matter. He picks me up, sets me gently aside, and carefully 'sits down' on Kirbeard so as not to actually crush him. All that matters is that the pirate captain is now quite thoroughly dealt with.

"Drat," Kirby mutters, only really 'stuck' under a soft, yarn-y paw. "I thought I'd actually managed to win that time."

"We did it, boys!" Forest cheers. Bandanna Dee and Thdwee high five next to me. 'Sir Errant' hurries over and sweeps me up onto his shoulder. "We've saved the Princess!"

"My daring hero!" I swoon, earning a grin and a wink from Forest. Somewhere off behind me I hear a distinctly Knowledge-accented groan. Ignoring Mister Grumpbucket, I instantly switch character. I've been waiting for this all day. "Or zhould I zay... my dahling zero!"

Forest gasps dramatically, taking (yet another) plot twist in stride. "You... you don't mean..."

"Oh, yes, foolish knight..." I smirk down at him, sliding down off his shoulder and onto the deck. Pulling a wooden 'dagger' out of my cape, I aim it at the boys around me and back slowly away from them. "Ze Princess you all thought you vere zaving actually died veeks ago." I toss my head and twirl the dagger between my fingers. "Ah, but Zir Errant, you vill be glad to know ze leetle vhelp died begging for you to zave her. A peety you vere planets avay in her final hours, no?"

Forest clutches at his heart with a pained gasp. "You... you killed my darling Princess?"

"I zertainly deed," I cackle back. The three Waddle Dees and Kirby watch me, all hesitating to act until they know for sure where this particular plot twist is going, as we all wordlessly agreed sometime several days ago when we started this little soap opera of a game. "And zhen I fooled Captain Kirbeard into bringing me out to ze ocean... For I ca no longer reach it unless I am brought back to it by vun of the landwalkers' kind; not zince I vas driven from it zenturies ago."

Forest shakes his head, in what is now his turn to playact at terror. "No... It can't be..."

"But eet ees!" I shriek back. "Eet ees I, ze Ozean Vitch herzelf! And you fools have brought me straight to the heart of the zea!" The whole group shakes their heads at me in disbelieving fear. I point at the deck beneath my feet. "Zeven leagues directly below us is ze enchanted amulet zhat vill return my control of all of the zeas, and then, ze whole vorld vill be mine!"

I break out in a peal of evil laughter, while the others just stare at me. Catching my breath, I lay my free glove on my chest and flutter my eyelashes. "And just vhat are you going to try to do about it, Zir Errant?"

Forest looks back and forth between me and the boys, only to suddenly have a smirk creep across his face. "Sic 'er, Dweebert."

"Vait, no—" I yelp as Dweebert releases Kirby and lumbers towards me. If it wasn't for our agreed-upon no-flying rule, I'd take off.

But I'm not going to cheat. Even if I am disappointed to have the big Sea Witch reveal I've been working up to for two days ruined just like that.

"Not so fast, foolish ones," a new voice interrupts. We all look up in shock. None of us expected anyone else to join our game; Arthur already tried day one, but since none of us are very happy with him at present and he wouldn't follow any of the game-balancing rules, he got relegated to being a shopkeeper/innkeeper that only shows up maybe once every few days.

A maskless Dragato stalks towards us, wrapped up in his cape Meta Knight-style. "The Sea Witch does not fight alone... and even your massive bodyguard cannot withstand the evil magic of, um..." He glances at me for help.

"Wait, are you usurping me or trying to help me?" I whisper at him.

He chuckles beneath his cape and bows slightly. "I am the Sea Witch's loyal servant, my lady."

"Okay," I nod, and turn back to the group. Sinking quickly back into character, I gesture at our newcomer grandly with my dagger. "This is none othza zhan my right-hand man heemself, Master—uh–Master Zeafoam!"

"Yes, 'tis I, Master Seafoam!" Dragato declares, releasing his cape to reveal a hidden net. "And now, cower before us as I cast Power Net upon all of you but Sir Errant!"

The boys gasp and crowd together so they're all 'trapped' under the net Dragato tosses at them. "I've got them routed, my lady!" he nods at me, grinning in obvious delight. It's good to see even Dragato beginning to loosen up. "Fals—er, Sir Errant is all yours, now!"

"And to think I once trusted you as a brother," Forest mutters at him, half in character and half out. "Really?"

Dragato just shrugs back at him, still grinning.

Forest rolls his eyes, fighting back his own grin, and turns back to me. "It matters not if I stand alone. What is a dagger against a sword?" He reaches for his side, only to pale slightly as he remembers he doesn't have it anymore. "Oh." He looks morosely over at the wooden sword where it sits against the mast, which now stands behind me. "Oh, Shotzo."

I cackle at him. "Oh Zhotzo is right, you impotent idiot!" I step on the hilt of the sword, flipping it up into the air and grabbing it right after. "Oh, how zveet eet ees to know you vill die to the wery blade that Sir Gallant geefted to you all zose years ago..."

"You wicked witch," Forest sneers, backing against the main mast that I was 'tied' to just minutes ago. "And to think I just saved your life. Oh, cruel mistress of fate!"

"As eef my life even really needed zaving," I giggle. "Prepare to meet your doom, Zir Errant."

"Noooooo!" Forest hollers as I level his sword at his throat. "Nobody can save me now...!"

"Zat's right," I agree with a smirk. "Nobody, zhat ees, but Zir Gallant heemself, and ve all know zhat he is galaxies avay right now."

The whole scene freezes, with Forest trapped against the mast, Dragato leaning against his 'Power Net' full of three Waddle Dees and Kirby (who can barely fit underneath it, honestly), and me holding a wooden sword at Forest's throat.

I clear my throat and say louder, "Zhat ees, nobody but Zir Gallant!"

We are met once again with total silence. Kirby sneezes.

A moment later, a Knowledge-accented voice hollers at us from somewhere much farther down the deck. "I've told you all a hundred times at this point, I'm not joining your game. I don't care that Sir Dragato has now, too; I'm still not doing it."

"Stick-in-the-mud," I mutter with a bit of a pout.

"Now what?" Forest asks, shifting against the mast so he's more comfortable as he remains stuck there. "You can't just kill off my character. That's against the rules."

"Uh..." I mutter, trying to quickly come up with some new plot twist to keep the game moving. "Let's see, um..."

A bell suddenly begins clanging back in the wheelhouse. "Dinner! Dinner! All but current post to the mess hall!" calls a clear, jolly voice belonging to the galley cook, a rotund, shorter Hylian who looks practically nothing like the other giants that run the ship.

"I'll figure it out by tomorrow," I shrug, lowering Forest's play sword and tucking it into my cape. Reaching out a glove, I help him back into a proper standing position. "Nice save of the 'Princess,' there, though."

"Phbbbt." Forest sticks his tongue out at me, even as he fights back a smile. "Way to wound me, killing Errant's dear Princess off like that like nothing. After all they'd been through together, too."

I shrug with a bratty grin. "What can I say? Being the bad guy is just so much fun."

"That's for sure," Kirby giggles. He shimmies out from the under net as Dragato holds it up. "Although, am I, like, one of the good guys now?"

"I guess that's for us to find out tomorrow," I shrug at him. Dweebert seems to be struggling to find his way out from the net, so I go over to help Dragato tug it off of him. "And look at you, Sir Dragato. I never thought you'd join us. Not bad, mister evil sea wizard."

He shrugs, smiling in a quiet fashion per what seems to be his norm. "You've all looked to be having so much fun; I just had to join in. Plus, Forest was undoing your big Sea Witch reveal like nothing, there, so—"

"She had just killed off my love, and weeks prior apparently, at that!" Forest points out with an exaggerated pout. He throws his gloves behind his head as we go walking off towards the wheelhouse. "What else was I supposed to do?"

"Let me glory in being an evil Sea Witch for a couple minutes first?" I suggest, wrinkling my nose at him. He rolls his eyes. Grabbing Dragato's glove to me, I giggle, "Besides, evil ocean wizards make way better boyfriends than dorky knights any day; every girl knows that."

"Oh, oof," Forest winces playfully. "Tell us what you really think, Blossom."

Somewhere behind me, an annoyed voice starts muttering something in Knowledge Language.

Dragato chuckles. "I thought Master Seaform was the Sea Witch's right-hand man, anyway."

"Eh, right-hand man, boyfriend, whatever. When has this game ever really actually made sense, anyway?" I laugh. I let Dragato's glove go and spin around to look back at Meta Knight. "And you're not allowed to complain about the story quality unless you finally swallow your pride and come try to fix it yourself, Mister."

Meta Knight rolls his eyes without deigning to look at me. Since our groups has stopped moving for a moment, he has as well, pausing to stare out over the railing at the endless, calm sea that's surrounded us for days.

As sullen as Meta's been the whole time we've been at sea, something seems a bit off at the moment. "You guys go ahead," I tell the rest of the group. "I'm gonna check on Mister Grumpbucket here. Tell the cook to save a couple plates if he can."

"No promises," Forest grins at me, grabbing Kirby up onto his shoulder the way he had me a few minutes ago. "Oof, lad. You're almost too big to do this with."

"Good thing you showed up now, then, because this is fun," Kirby giggles as they disappear into the wheelhouse.

Dweebert pauses at the door behind them to check on me, but I gently wave at him to go. "I'll be fine. Really."

"Dwee," he drones in answer, and disappears into the warm light of the wheelhouse with the others.

I stroll over to the railing next to Meta Knight. It's way too tall for us, really; he barely comes halfway up it. That's true of pretty much everything on this ship; it's all built for beings much taller than any of us. Closing my gloves around a couple of the smooth, wooden bars, I lean forward against the railing and look out at the eternal sea.

"Reminds me of Orange Ocean," I murmur a moment later. "The way it's all orange now, at twilight."

He grunts noncommittally.

I roll my eyes and fight back a smile. "Still in grumpy mode, huh?"

He sighs and deigns to glance over at me. "Not grumpy. On edge. You of all people should know this by now."

I give him a sympathetic glance. "Understandable." After glancing around to make sure there aren't any Hylians too close by, I lower my voice and tell him, "Trust me, I'm scared stupid. I have no idea where we're really going, or whether we can really trust these tall... things. People. Whatever." He doesn't answer at first. I sigh, leaning once more against the wooden bars. "Sure, they're nice enough, and we obviously haven't been poisoned or anything yet, but..."

We both fall quiet. I glance over at Meta Knight to see that he's looking up at the sky now. The first stars are twinkling into view as the sun vanishes ever more beneath the unreachable horizon.

"There's too many of them," he mutters, sounding frustrated. "The stars, I mean. You can't hear ours singing anymore."

"Yeah," I agree. I exhale through pursed lips. "Nothing's been quite right for months now. And even if we really have met someone from the rest of the planet now, and supposedly learned a bit about it... It all still just feels... wrong."

He nods slowly. "In some ways... everything's felt wrong in some fashion since long before that. It just... feels like everything keeps becoming... wronger, so to speak."

I giggle despite myself. "You know the situation is dire if Sir Knight himself is bending the rules of grammar to explain it." He half rolls his eyes. "But really, Meta. Standing around being overly anxious about it isn't going to help."

He sighs. "I wish I could agree with you, Sakura." I glance over at him, not having expected even that small of an admission. "And... for what it's worth, I do appreciate your keeping the children and the others from getting too anxious and worried. I know that while the game was originally the children's doing, you're the one that's really egged it on."

I turn to fully face him, truly surprised now. "I figured you thought it was stupid or something."

He shrugs. "Silly, maybe. Stupid?" He shakes his head slightly. "Maybe once I would have joined in. Who knows."

I frown at the lack of a question in his last words. "...You would have. Once. Joined in, I mean."

He shrugs again, but says nothing.

I lean sideways against the railing, careful not to let myself slip through the bars. "We could ask one of the other guys to keep watch for you, you know. So you could join in without worrying because nobody was on guard." He shakes his head. "Really, Meta Knight. You being too on edge to function isn't gonna help anybody, either."

He snorts lightly, his eyes just the slightest shade of amused light pink around the edges. "You know how to get me to join in, if you really want me to so badly."

I blink in surprise. "Do I?"

He just shrugs again, but seems to be hiding a smirk beneath his mask. The crinkling of his eyes in their corners is a dead giveaway.

"Oh, come on," I giggle. I reach out and tug slightly at his cape. "How in Dreamland would I get you to join? You can't just say something cryptic like that and then not drop any hints."

He just smirks harder, an action that very clearly states 'I can and I will.'

Wrinkling my nose harder, I turn back to the ocean. "Stick-in-the-mud."

"You wound me," he teases, somewhat copying Forest's earlier tone. I snort despite myself.

The two of us fall silent for a long moment. It's Meta Knight who finally breaks the quiet. "You've quite taken to ship life, I've noticed. When you're not playing your little game, it seems like you're always either in the rigging or by the ship's wheel." He glances over at me. "Reminds me of... well, you, when you were much, much younger."

I smile, just a little bit. "Well, it does remind me of my Halberd-building days quite a bit." The smile fades. "And of my time with Sailor before that. Y'know, as much as I hated being a slave, I sorta miss those days sometimes."

Meta Knight sighs deeply. "Understandably so. I... know how deeply you must miss Sailor Dee. I'm so truly sorry, Sakura."

I roll my eyes and laugh, reaching over and giving him a small shove that makes his eyes widen in shock. "Then give him a vacation sometime, geez," I point out. "You're always keeping him so busy working on rebuilding that stupid deathtrap yet again. I could spend time with him if you'd just let him take a day off for once."

He blinks at me in a confusion that makes me confused, only for his eyes to light up in realization a moment later. "Oh. That's right. I do keep him dreadfully busy, don't I?"

I snort yet again. "How deeply his leader cares for him, clearly."

Meta Knight snorts in reply. "To be fair, I have a great deal on my mind of late."

"Too much, as always," I point out. Stepping away from the railing, I jerk my head in the direction of the wheelhouse and supper. "C'mon, let's go eat before Kirby makes sure nothing's left."

Meta Knight seems lost in thought, now, but nods and turns quietly to follow me. Just a few steps later, though, he whispers something so quietly I almost can't hear him.

"Why in Dreamland did I think that Sailor Dee is dead?"

The question makes my heart freeze, and I snap back to look at the masked knight. He's too lost in thought to notice, and keeps walking past me. But I am stuck where I stand, surrounded in a sudden frigid rush of fear.

Images swim through my head of Sailor drowning amidst burning pieces of sheeting and shrapnel, sinking deeper and deeper into the silent depths of Orange Ocean, a stream of bubbles rising from his waterlogged lungs.

Meta Knight never let him come to see me again, after the day Sailor Dee sent me back to the other Waddle Dees, so it was like he was dead in some sense, but...

He wasn't really. I just saw him again before we left Dreamland... Didn't I? Wasn't he there with other the Meta-Knights to see us off? Didn't he tug at my flower ribbon the way he did with my old red ribbon on my own sailor's hat so long ago?

If he didn't, then why can I remember it so clearly?

But if he did... Why would I remember his death, in some way, too? And what's more, why can I remember it so vividly when I wasn't even there?

My vision seems to black out for just a second. When it comes back, I can't remember for the life of me what I was just thinking about.

Geez. I must be hungry if I'm having blackouts like that. I haven't eaten since breakfast, I guess, but even then...

"Are you coming, Lady Dee?" Meta Knight calls from ahead of me, voice somewhat tired but still fairly good natured.

"Yeah," I laugh back. "Sorry." I hurry after him.

Beneath our feet, the giants' ship gently rocks us ever closer to our mysterious destination.