Tiny?

OMFG I'm looking at the prefixes and thinking WTF?!?!?!?! What are these for?!?!?!?!

'cause I never seen anything so complkicated, so like, when someone replies, feel free to say what they are. I'm too dumb to work 'em out...

Anyways, I've only got one chapter of this HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, WILL-BURN-YOUR EYES OUT Story, called Tiny...

...BUT I IMPLORE YOU TO READ IT!

Seriously, it's not THAT bad. I just want some opinions. And Tiny is a working title, so don't critique me on that YET...

...I'll just get on with it...and there's no italics here, though there are on the real copy.

Tiny

Well, I was only thirteen. And that’s young, by my standards. In Hyrule, no-one comes of age until they’re twenty-one, so excuse me for saying that I still was obsessed with childish fantasies.

Oh, come on! We all have them every now and again. Back then, I was a table-top gamer, a boy infatuated with stories of grand castles, epic sieges, heroic knights and, most importantly, beautiful princesses. The worlds I loved were bound by rules of “how many centimetres this unit moves” or “what hit dice you roll in order to attack”, that kind of thing.

Did I mention I liked games? I mean, games besides the ones I mentioned already? Racing, fighting, adventure, I did it all—on my trusty Playcube, of course. We were never a moment apart—straight after school, I’d be there, finding my way through the next level, fighting the next boss.

But, apart from that, the name “Link Forrester” wasn’t really associated with anything, well...anything besides gaming. I didn’t do sports—I was very mediocre in athletics, and never tried during the sports carnivals, nor did I put any specific effort into my club activities or studies.

You might say “Link Forrester was boring”. And I’d wholeheartedly agree, thank you.

So, anyway, where am I going with this? Well, like I said, I was only thirteen...

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...and I was doing the vacuuming, helping mom with the weekend chores. Not like I wanted to—it was the last thing on my mind. In all actuality, I wished I was testing out Ominusha: Nightmares, a new game from Termina that I’d managed to get a hold of a few days before. Cleaning, or anything that required manual exertion, was the last thing on my mind.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, I was sweeping through the dust underneath my bed, when I hear a cry of “Heeelp!” Actually, it didn’t really bother me the first time, and it was so soft, I initially didn’t believe my ears.

“Help!” Again, and a little louder. I was a bit more curious, so I stuck my head underneath the bed, and was greeted with a chinful of dust. Yes, I don’t sweep underneath my bed often, and how I ever heard her crying over the churn of the vacuum, I don’t know, but clinging onto one of my bedposts, seemingly for her dear life, was a small, tiny girl. The scene, to my eyes, was quite hilarious—she was hanging on for dear life, arms wrapped across the pole, legs being lifted off the ground by the force of the vacuum.

First thing I thought? Ew! Girl germs! and then Most girls aren’t this small, are they...Hey! What can I say? I wasn’t very social...

Of course, being a nice person, I switched off the vacuum, and she collapsed into the thick layer of dust coating the floor.

“That,” she said petulantly, “was not fun.”

Well, it looked like fun, and I certainly wanted to try it, but I wasn’t too keen on being as small as she was, either.

“Who’re you?” she said, wrinkling her nose. I suddenly realised that my recent breakout of acne, combined with the dirt covering my face hadn’t exactly given me the best introduction.

Sheepishly, I replied, “I’m Link. More importantly, who’re you? What are you doing in my house? And how did you get so small?”

She raised her face defiantly, looking me square in the eyes. Well, in the eye. I think her field of vision wouldn’t have been big enough to see both of mine.

“Why should I tell you? How do I know you aren’t one of Ganondorf’s agents?”

Ganondorf? Wasn’t he the villain in the game Legend of Malon: Bassoon of Space? (Despite the title, it was actually pretty good...)

“Ganondorf? Who’s he?” I feigned ignorance of the name—no way anyone in the real world would know anything about a game character, and as much as I wanted to exist solely in a 2-D environment, I’d better sought out this shrunken little maiden as soon as possible...

“Ganondorf? You don’t know Ganondorf?”

“I don’t know Ganondorf.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not!”

“You’re bigger than me, so you’re lying.”

“That’s not a reason to say I’m lying!”

“I can see the muscles in your face contorting, clear as day,” she said, backing away from me. “And they tell me that you’re lying. Besides, you already tried to kill me once!”

“Huh?”

She pointed at the vacuum.

“Oh! Oh, that! It’s just a thing I use to clean my room...”

“It’s a weapon of mass destruction!” she cried, arms waving up and down. She stormed up to me and grabbed my nose, began shaking my head side to side (she was awful strong for a mini-person). “It’s a weapon, a weapon I say! And you turned it against me!”

I felt my nose being close to wrenched off and gingerly, as gently as possible, tried to push her away. She smacked my head against the bed post, and I stifled an “Ow!”—I didn’t want my mother here to see this.

“Hey! Stop it!” I whispered. She finally relented, and, now that she was so close to my face, I got a better look at her almost microscopic features.
She was really, really pretty. Like, hmm...probably the best analogy to use is that she was exactly like the “beautiful princesses” from my games. She had long blonde hair, a cute button nose, dark, royal blue eyes and a curvaceous build. Well, now that I’m older I’d probably appreciate that part a little more, but being the kid that I was, I just thought—she’s pretty.

“Look, I’m sorry about the vacuum. Sorry, understand?” I wasn’t sure how she’d react, and was rather glad when she folded her arms and nodded curtly.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re a servant of Ganon,” she added, arching an eyebrow. “I’m not going out there, so you can go now, unless you wish to eject me by force from my hiding place.”

I was inclined to leave her there, and forget about her, but some niggling feeling in the back of my head refused to let me rise from my position underneath the bed. The rather uncomfortable position underneath my bed, I’ll add...

“I need to clean the rest of my room, and if you’re down there, I can’t clean that part properly,” I said, thinking up random reasons to try and move her.

“Not moving.”

“I’ll get some ice-cream out for you?”

“Not moving.”

“Do you even know what ice-cream is?”

“Not—no.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh.”

Long silence. I kid you not. I didn’t really know what to say. The two things that I’d tried were the only two things that had come to my head—they came from some random dating sim my classmate had lent me (he was crazy about those things) and they’d worked fine then!

Finally...

“Listen, will you help me get big again?”

“Hmm?”

I was still sticking my head underneath the bed, and the little woman grabbed my nose to focus my attention back upon her.

“I need to get big again. Around your size. Can you help me?”

“What, like big as in—” I glanced upward, intending to say “growing quickly” and instead—BANG!—knocked my head against the bottom of my bed—“Ow!”

“Yes,” she said, ignoring my plight. “I need to get bigger. It’s my only chance of stopping Ganondorf.”

“Why do you suddenly trust me?” I asked, rubbing my forehead where I’d smacked it.

“Well, you don’t look ugly enough to be one of Ganon’s servants,” she said nonchalantly, and a small ray of warmth bubbled in me momentarily at her supposed compliment.

“Don’t get me wrong, you’re not much of a handsome man,” she added, matter-of-factly; I felt that small ray of warmth die as quickly as it’d sparked, “but Ganon’s agents usually have hair and tusks, and all manner of other things growing out of who knows where.”

“You mean out of their—”

“Enough said.”

Long silence. Again. Don’t ask.

“So you trust me?” Finally, my mouth worked again, to confirm what’d already been said. “And you want me to help you get big?”

“Yes, and yes. Come, help me get up.”

Obligingly, I offered a hand; she stepped onto it delicately, real lady-like and graceful, and I ended up marvelling that she was so pretty, so dainty, so—

“Geez, you’re heavy,” I muttered, feeling her weight drag my arm down a bit.

“No, you’re just really weak,” she countered, unmoved. Yes, I probably was weak, but it still was a struggle to lift her out of there. Especially considering that it’s such an awkward position to lift something from underneath a bed. Well...anyway, I set her down on my bed, gently, and suddenly realised she, along with her white and blue dress, was coated with a thin layer of dust that was dirtying my bed.

My thoughts after miraculously managing to convince a woman to do something other than what her stubbornness told her to do? Damn. More cleaning.

So anyway, I told her to wait while I finished vacuuming the room, put my clothes in the laundry, cleaned up the massive stack of unfinished or lazily completed homework for the weekend, then, after removing the dust from my bed (and her), plonked down on the bed next to her.

“Now, in order to help me get back—”

“Hold on—”

“—to my original size—”

“—before we talk about making you big again—”

“—we’ll need three key things.”

“—what’s your name?”

...

That was a nice conversation, wasn’t it?

In summary: my name’s Link Forrester. I was vacuuming under my bed, when lo and behold, I found a miniature person! Well, to cap it all, she said...

“My name is Princess Zelda Harkinian the fourteenth, the true ruler of Hyrule.”

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Oh yes. That definitely was a big shock. I think I remember my mouth hanging open in shock—she promptly clambered up to my chin and slammed my jaw shut (she was awful strong, remember?).

“Ow!” I said, withdrawing my tongue, which had become the unfortunate victim of being clamped between rows of teeth and sitting up from my reclining position on the bed. “That hurt!”

“Yes, and your mouth isn’t a pleasant sight to bewilder my tinyness,” she replied primly. “Besides, if you’re going to help me, at least don’t be so rude...”

“Rude? How?”

“You had your mouth hanging open! It’s—it’s unbecoming!”

I grimaced sourly, unsure of how to respond to her irritation. It’s weird, being confronted with teenage girls for the first time.

I think she was a teenager, anyway...

“Anyway,” she said briskly, “getting back on how to help me grow bigger—”

“Yes, about that,” I interrupted. “How did you get so small?”

“Ganondorf cast a spell on me,” she said simply, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Made me miniature. Happens every day, though I don’t think you’d find many spells as powerful as this one...”

She trailed off, noticing my quizzical expression. “What?”

Silence. Not that long, this time. (I know, I know—you’re getting tired of them, but everyone says that “gaps and silences are important in writing...”)

“Magic?” I finally stuttered in response, incredulous at the idea. “As in like fireballs, and explosions, and potions that make your skin turn green?”

“Don’t mention that one,” she said, wincing, “I tried it when I was seven and the results were far from fantastic...”

“Magic?” I repeat. Well, anyone get a sense of déjà vu? “Magic?” Oh yes, I sounded real silly now.

“Can you stop saying that? Yes, it’s magic.”

“Magic doesn’t exist.”

She looked me square in the eyes—eye, sorry; she can’t see both of mine—and asked bluntly, “You don’t believe in magic?”

“Magic’s for fairytales,” I countered. “It’s just imagination,” I said, struggling to believe myself, with living proof in front of me, and a childish yearning to have faith in my eyes, “and magic can never, ever exist in this world...”

“Let me give you a demonstration,” she said, slightly peeved, “of magic.” She turned away from me, and started chanting softly; her speech was full of undecipherable words that made no sense whatsoever.

Whatever they were, they sounded weird, wacky and wonderful—exactly the kind’ve words you’d want when you say “I’m doing spell casting; watch this!”

Anyway, there was some art homework that I’d left on my desk from the day before. It was a stupid assignment, about furniture and other stuff around the home, and I’d been forced to sketch beds, sofas, and all manner of stupid furnishings.

One of the sketches began to glow, and, a moment later, something seemed to force its way out from the paper.

“There,” Zelda said, sounding very superior indeed. “I used magic to change your sketch of a bed into reality...”

She trailed off, eyeing the bed with a supreme distaste.

“You call this a bed?” she muttered, incredulous. “I should’ve chosen a different sketch...”

“Hey, c’mon!” I countered, feeling my artistic pride shrivel and die underneath her criticism. “So what if I’m not Picasso?”
“Who’s Picasso?” she asked bluntly. “An idiot?”

“Never mind,” I grit out, looking away. The bed’s misshapen and deformed shape looked extremely uncomfortable to sleep in. I found myself asking how someone could have drawn something so bizarre, and passed it off as a bed...

“I guess I’ll sleep here,” Zelda said miserably, climbing up the desk and approaching the mutated furniture like it was a dangerous animal. “Din, is it even possible to sleep in that thing?”

“Ok, ok, I get the point,” I said, exasperated. “My drawing is really, really bad...”

“Yes.”

“And magic exists.”

“Correct.”

“That bed’s real, right? Not some kind of special effect?”

“See for yourself.”

Needless to say, it felt just as I imagined a real bed would—a plush, soft mattress on top of a sturdy wooden frame. Regardless of its distorted design, I decided, it probably was possible to sleep on it.

“Fine,” I conceded ruefully, “it’s a real bed. So, what are the three things that you’ll need to get back to normal size?”

She paused, seemingly uncertain for a moment, then nimbly dashed off the side of the desk, landing on the floor and running under the bed. Seconds later, she’d produced a scrunched up piece of paper, and threw it at me.

Now, I was nestled quite comfortably upon my bed, and having paper balls thrown at me was the last thing on my mind. Needless to say, it smacked me in the eye, and I spent the next minute or so cursing and whining under my breath.

“What was that for?” I hissed angrily.

“Thought you’d catch it,” she said petulantly. “Lie down, and close your eyes,” she commanded.

Much to my chagrin, I found myself obeying her commands.

“Hold still,” she added—a second later, I felt a tingling sensation in my eye, and voila!—no more eye-pain.

“Magic?” I asked, surprised.

“Yep.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh. It’s good to see you finally believe me.”

Am I that transparent? Damn...

She climbed back onto my bed and unfurled the piece of paper, where, in surprisingly neat handwriting, the words “Reverse-spell potion” were scrawled. Underneath it, in tinier font, were the three ingredients.

“As I was saying,” Zelda was saying—sorry, Zelda said (writers aren’t supposed to repeat the same phrase...), “you need three things to make this potion. They are—”

I raised my hand gloomily, pausing her speech. As much as I felt as though I was an absolute noob! in the middle of a massive, epic, fully-awesome quest, well...

“How the heck are we supposed to get an “Essence of Courage, Wisdom, or Power”?” I asked, incredulous.

“Simple,” she said, as though the answer was staring me straight in the
face. “We—”

What I expected her to say was “—fight fifteen evil monsters, each of them representing a different part of the space-time continuum, taking a token of victory from each one and using those to form a key to unlock the sixteen-thousand strong army of Mirukalunia, then ride into Ganondorf’s castle and steal the three essences, and then ride off into the sunset, having defeated Ganondorf in the process!”

Well, she didn’t say anything that fanciful...

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Yeah. Pretty bad, huh?

...

Okay, so I'm emo and I spend half of my time wallowing in self pity. My psychiatrist says that social interaction helps so FOR GOD(DESSES) sakes PLEASE REVIEW.

...

I sound desperate, don't I.

Okay. I'll rephrase that.

Please? Review? Please?

...nope. Still desperate.

Cheers
Read

Out of curiosity...are you english?
I suppose internet protocol states that you don't have to answer that...
To the point, I think it's a delightful and witty start. Straight to the point, clear beginning with a nice little cliffhanger. All around not bad for so many words. If you end up posting more I'll probably comment again.

I like it. At first, and based on the title, I thought she'd be a Minish, but this is cool. But you should throw the Mininsh in at some point. It's a good story, keep writing.

the butthole surfers said

it's better to regret something you did

than something, you didn't do

Originally Posted by Sir Psycho Sexy

it's better to regret something you did

than something, you didn't do

So true

Ahh...Minish...

Unfortunately, I don't think they'd fit in with the universe I imagined, but it was a nice thought. Thank you that you thought it was decent! ^_^'

Sir Psycho, I shall take that either as a comment, or as a "thanks for trying". In fact, since I can't take it both ways I'll opt for the former.

Koulatio, I do agree, but on what?

Hero - no, I'm not English, unfortunately, but feel free to treat me that way, if that's what my writing reminds you of!

And...it gets progressively worse (in my head) as it goes! Egads, I love being a pessimist, it gives me scope to be an emo too! I shall now await for more replies...so I can get an idea of what people think.

-Read

^^^ What he said "it's better to regret something you did than something, you didn't do"
Just a true statement. I'm not too sure why he said it, but...

I didn't say anything about you being English, I said Minish. You sure you can't work them in somehow? Maybe they could think Zelda is some Minish god because of her magic and height issues. Just a thought.

Oh, sorry. That other English post was addressed to HeroofGeeks. That was an embarassing mixup...

^_^'...

...hmm...I shall consider your proposal seriously, but there's not much scope for Minish, like I said. What a shame. I forgot entirely about the little people and focussed on imaginary persons...*sighs*

Well, no harm no foul. I forgot I wasn't the only hero on this thread. That was my fault, so I'm sorry. And I respect your axing the Minish, I'm just saying, it could work. But it's your story, so I'll butt out.

Well, maybe you could-oh, wait, butting out, I forgot. Dang ADD.

Lol don't worry. It's always nice to hear other's ideas. It's great that you like it, though!

It sucks that I have uni and my writing time has been obliterated. Kinda. I'm lazy...

Yeah, that stinks...what's uni?

University. =D The path of the engineer is long and tedious, and involves 6:30am starts every morning.

Originally Posted by The Readeemer

University. =D The path of the engineer is long and tedious, and involves 6:30am starts every morning.

Seriously? That's what I'm tryin to be, and I'd have to be up by then every day? Or is that just your school?...What's it matter, I'm up by then anyway.

congrats. read is knackered,writing is not goin too well...^_^'

[QUOTE=The Readeemer;2704603]congrats. read is knackered,writing is not goin too well...^_^'[QUOTE]

Thanks...what's knackered?