"Din's fire," Tetra swore.

The bird let out a piercing shriek, and then dove down into the tower.

They sprinted for the door, and escaped another rain of debris.

"Look what you've done!" Tetra yelled as they got through the door. "I told you to get on the ship!"

The helmaroc tore through the stone surrounding the doorway, flinging chunks of the wall into the air.

Link sprinted down the stairway, feeling his heart race, his body shake, and hearing the sound of massive destruction behind him. He glanced behind him, and saw as the whole entire tower fractured at its foundation, and then began to careen towards the ocean.

"C'mon you fletching idiot!" Tetra commanded, "You run about as fast as a dead chu chu!"

Tetra clamped her hand down on his wrist and dragged him forward faster, until Link feared he would stumble and roll down the stairs.

Tetra kept them going until they got to the bottom. Rather than going down the section of the wall straight forwards, she pulled them to a door that led into the inner part of the wall. She briefly searched the sky for the bird, but saw that they were not in its vision.

She yanked him through the door, and to relative safety.

"Din's burning blazes I'm fletching mad you got me into this mess," Tetra cursed.

Link took a moment to breathe.

"Say something gerudo!" Tetra yelled at him, "are you a fletching mute?"

"Bah," Link said, "I didn't get you into this mess, you came of your own free will!"

Tetra grunted. "Whatever. I don't have time to argue. We're going to have to do this carefully. We're not sure if the base walls of the fortress are as strong as the tower. By my estimation, the tower was shoddily built, so the walls might be able to withstand an attack if we travel through them.

"That way, we can travel through the passages in the walls to protect us until we can get close enough to the ship."

"I told you Tetra," Link frowned, "I have a duty to fulfill."

"Why do you have to do it?" she asked. "You're just some boy from an unimportant island who's had no formal combat training - "

Link grunted. "I am trained," he said. "You speak so confidently on things that you have no knowledge of."

Tetra tightened her hands into fists. She grabbed his wrist again, pulling him to go forward down the tunnel in the wall, but Link would not move.

"These are all lies," Tetra said. "Ganondorf is not back. Even if he was, what power does he have? What evidence do you have that he is going to try to rise to power again?"

"I have been among many islands," Link said, "and I've seen evidence of abnormally large monsters plaguing the land. I've seen that there are more monsters prowling at night than usual too."

"Scant evidence."

"Until you tell your secrets, I'm not going to tell mine."

Tetra didn't respond. She rested her left hand on the pommel of her sword.

"I am not leaving Tetra," Link said.

"If that is the case," she said, "then at very least... I'm going to watch your back until you try to find Ganondorf, see that you were an idiot all along, and then I wont have to suffer this nonsense anymore."

"Tetra," Link said, "the helmaroc is not going to just sit idly as I attack its master."

"Nayru's wisdom you're right," Tetra said in a patronizing tone. "Guess that means you need to just -"

"I need to kill the helmaroc," Link said.

Tetra suddenly became angry.

"Now the truth comes out! This isn't some mystical call from the fletching goddesses to destroy evil! This is foolish revenge on a witless beast, and nothing more."

Link fumed. "I am better than that."

"Revenge," Tetra said, "is fruitless. A waste of time and energy just for the thrill of stabbing someone in the back, when you could spend that time actually making a life for yourself."

The walls around them shuddered from an impact. A stream of dust drifted down from the ceiling.

The Helmaroc was here.

Tetra put a finger to her lips, and warned him with fire in her eyes. She walked towards the door.

She was going outside? She was the one who was really mad.

Tetra pulled out her pistol, and then, kicked the door open.

The sudden movement caused the bird to drop down its eye to the doorway, and Tetra unloaded a thundering shot into its eye.

"Go! go! go!" she ordered him as she ran back down the tunnel. Link decided to oblige.

"Why didn't you just stay quiet?" Link asked.

"It already knew we were here," Tetra said. "At least now I've done some damage to it. I also glimpsed, unfortunately, that its head appears to be armored, except for around the eyes."

"Brilliant," Link groaned.

Tetra yanked him up some steps rather than continuing down the hallway.

"Can't keep going in the same direction," she explained. "Gotta confuse it."

Their path, unfortunately, led them to the top of a wall, rather than a tower. They'd come to one of the places where the big searchlights were, though it was unlit.

In the dark, Link thought he could see the bird, crouched down on one of the walls. Its shrieking was almost lost in the wind.

"What now?" Link whispered to Tetra, "do you think that you blinded it in that eye?"

Tetra regarded him for a second, and shook her head dismissively. He watched her as she reloaded her weapon, working quickly but with precision.

"Okay," she said, her words accompanied by the sound of a mechanism locking into place on her gun, "what is it going to be? You going to escape like a sensible coward, or are you going to force my hand?"

"I'm not running away," Link said.

"Nayru's law you can be difficult," she said. "Okay then, help me find some way to kill this fletching bloated seagull."

"Do you think you could get it in the other eye?"

"Not unless you want to get up close to it again," she said, "which would -"

There was a sudden disturbance in the air, like a forceful wind gust. The bird had swooped down towards them, and missed.

Link breathed heavy once it passed. "That was close."

"Yeah," she said, readying her gun. "Next time it ain't gonna miss."

"What do you -"

Link was cut off as Tetra grabbed him, and they got out of the way as the helmaroc raked some stones off the part of the tower they'd been sitting on.

"Fletch I can't believe we survived that," Link said with ragged breath.

"Yes," Tetra said, "but..."

In attacking that portion of the tower, the Helmaroc had also taken out the stairs that led them there. Wonderful.

Link was going to ask for some guidance on what to do next, but the helmaroc dove down, and planted itself down on the tower. They dodged as the bird thrust its beak down to try to hit them, causing the whole tower to shake as it got its beak trapped in the stonework for a moment.

Link acted quickly as Tetra cursed at him again, and he jumped at the creature's wing with the master sword.

The feathers in the creature's wing were surprisingly dense, and while the helmaroc did wrench in pain, it didn't seem to damage it all that much. Link saw that it was starting to get loose, and tried for another strike.

He thrust his sword into the joint where the wing connected to the body, and felt a sense of revulsion and satisfaction, as he made a visible wound.

Link heard the crack of Tetra's pistol, and saw her make a dead on hit in the helmaroc's other eye.

The bird had gotten its beak out of the stone, and made a scream that would've made the goddesses cover their ears.

Link watched as it continued its cry, and then staggered off the edge of the tower. He ran to the edge, and saw it plunge into the waters below.

"Idiot!"

Tetra grabbed his arm, and tugged him into motion as more of the tower gave way. He didn't need any prodding. He set his jaw, and made the leap over the broken section of stairs. He made it to the other side, but got a bad jolt to his legs.

Tetra landed nimbly, and they watched as a good portion of the tower collapsed, adding to the debris already in the pool at the bottom of the fortress.

They heard continued screeching from the helmaroc, albeit much more pained, as the stones of the tower rained down on it, conclusively brought an end to its life.

Its screeching stopped, and, Link slumped down against the wall, recovering his breath. He felt the wind howl in the now quiet air, and the uneven texture of stone against his back.

"Huh," Tetra said nonchalantly, a bit out of breath herself. "Perhaps... perhaps you can fight a bit kid."

"I made what, two sword strikes against it?"

"Yes, but you did have the guts to run up to it," Tetra said, "I personally prefer a calculated plan, but sometimes blind stupidity can be useful - especially when someone else is doing it for you."

"How kind," Link said. His face became stern as he stood up and met her gaze. "Now, if you're finished insulting me, I have something important I need to get done."

He walked down the steps, pulling a biscuit out of his bag to chew on. The fight had been taxing, and all his bodily needs seemed apparent at once.

"I'm surprised that you're not shaking against the wall still," Tetra said.

"I'm not as inexperienced with combat as you think," Link said, swallowing his food.

"You just seem rather apathetic to the situation," Tetra said, "you don't seem at all astonished that we just defeated that monster."

Link chewed on his biscuit, and took a swig from the waterskin, also in his satchel. Fletch, this magic satchel, whatever it was, could be very useful.

"I'm not going to stay for you," Tetra said.

Link saw her glance towards the tower they were traveling to. It was not as tall as the others - well, as tall as they had once been. But there was still the glow of torchlight in the night up there.

"I have my own boat," Link said. "You want to leave, fine. I didn't expect you to be here in the first place, and I can do just fine without you."

"You would have died several times by my count," Tetra fumed, "without me there. Because I decided to intervene. Don't you realize that bird would have just tossed you out to sea again?"

"Don't you realize," he said, stopping and turning around, "that you would be dead by that same fletching bird if I hadn't saved you when you brought misery to our island? My sister has only just now come to safety, and you never once had the decency to thank me for not tossing you back to the bird that day."

Silence.

The sound of Link's heartbeat, and the feeling of hot furious blood flowing through his veins, was more pronounced than the wail of the wind, or the roar of the waves.

"I... I'm sorry."

Tetra's words briefly pierced the sounds of the night.

Link continued to stare her down. "You have caused me so, so, so much grief. I do not know what manipulation you are doing with this false apology, but it I know it's a lie."

He expected her to retaliate and deny it. She didn't do so. Perhaps she actually felt remorse. Link doubted it. Even if she did, that would not repair the pain that had been caused to Link's family. True, the helmaroc capturing Aryll had not entirely been their fault.

But she'd shown little remorse to the likely doom of his sister. They'd refused to directly help him when he tried to rescue her. Oh, and she'd nearly killed him several times.

"You're really going to do this?" Tetra asked. "Fight... fight a creature of myth and legend? And the goddesses... they've asked you to do this?"

Link's expression became fierce again. "What do you care of the goddesses and the legends? You curse by their names, but you act as though they're about as real as children's tales of the mysterious mask trader. I do not have time for you to question my actions in the most crass way you can manage. Leave me alone."

He took a last pull on his waterskin, then shoved it back in his satchel. He continued walking forward, and left Tetra behind him, standing in stunned silence.