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Tetra didn’t get a chance to really talk to the stranger who rescued her until after she coped with the fact that he’d apparently, at no point in his entire life, handled a boat. To be fair, doing it in the stupid sudden darkness that had overtaken Windfall not long before Link showed up and left again wasn’t making this any easier, but as they finally got settled in with a decent wind to take them away from the Forsaken Fortress she stared at the man again until he pulled his pale eyes back her way.
She was pretty sure he had irises and pupils. It had to be a trick of the light he didn’t seem to.
She was also pretty sure he was glowing very slightly in the perpetual night, and that was unnerving at best.
“So I never got your name,” she said.
He visibly winced. “It’s not important.”
Tetra glowered. “Well we’re stuck on this boat together for at least three days if the wind holds, so why don’t you give it a shot?”
“Just call me The Sword,” the man said and he settled all his long limbs against the seat again. He was wearing a pale turquoise tunic in light fabric that covered more of his skin than most islanders, but she supposed with how pale he was he must turn bright red immediately in the sun. Long dark pants tucked into heavy boots, and his white hair was braided and draped down his chest. The only other point of interest were the tattoos on his face (were they tattoos? Or something else?) of a blue chevron on his forehead and sweeping red marks on each cheek.
“The Sword’s a funny name,” Tetra said, but shrugged it off. She’d heard weirder in her time. “Call me Tetra.”
The Sword raised an eyebrow her way. “I thought your name was Zelda?”
“Why the fuck would my name be Zelda?” Tetra snapped. Her shoulders bristled. “Is this about that fucking bird that grabbed me? I was minding my own damn business on Windfall and this is the second time it’s tried—”
“What changed that this time it succeeded?”
Tetra grimaced and shrugged. “I didn’t have my things on me, we were at fucking Windfall Island and trying to figure out this blasted darkness before we went out again. I'm sure somehow this is Link's fault. Why were you there at the Fortress?”
The Sword looked almost regretfully past her, to the Fortress behind them. “Because some years ago I saved his life.”
“What, Ganondorf’s?” Tetra stared at him like he must have lost his mind, but those pale eyes stared right back at her as calm as if there were nothing strange happening on this boat at all. She really couldn't see any definition to his eyes like this. She didn't like it. “You saved that ungrateful son of a bitch? Why in the name of all the floodwaters would you do that?”
The Sword dropped his head back, his hair nearly sliding off his shoulder over the side of the boat before he caught it. “Because he’s human. Just like you are and all the other girls there who need someone to look out for them.”
Tetra immediately hissed something vile at him. The tall man looked up at her then, pale eyes narrowed and waved at the sail overhead and her seated in her place at the controls.
“Please,” he said, before she could speak. “Tell me how exactly I was supposed to save them alone?”
Given how easy getting the boat was, that made a little sense. “How have you been living on the Great Sea and never learned to sail? Most of us learn that as children!”
“I have not been living on the Great Sea; I’ve only been in this time and alive again for a few years, actually.”
Tetra opened her mouth, then closed it. She stared at him a few minutes longer, appreciating for a brief while just how large a man he was. He’d been a little terrifying when he found her in the halls, walking under guard and the Helmaroc King’s baleful glare; he’d then simply declared he was leaving with her, and of course the great fuck-off bird had tried to argue. It was a massive thing, hard to face down on a good day but him?
He’d simply seized its mask and slammed it into the floor and pinned it, as if somehow a man—even one of his great height—was able to win a battle of sheer power against a bird ten times his size.
She remembered. He’d simply said to tell Ganondorf he was leaving and asked if she could sail and that was it. It certainly hadn’t been the rescue she’d imagined, but it had been plenty effective. And now…
“Are the girls in danger with you gone?”
“I don’t think so,” The Sword said, and he looked tired as he said it. “Ganondorf has some morals. He has no intention to kill them or mistreat them aside from removing them from their home, and we were discussing how best to restore them to their family once he knew for sure if he'd found you or not."
The pale giant of a man paused then, and he smiled at her with that razor's edge of a smile.
Tetra simply raised one eyebrow in return, unwilling to give in. Unwilling to give him the satisfaction of looking as unnerved as she felt. He was strange; she was pretty sure by this point he wasn't as human as he claimed but if he wanted to play this game...
"He knows I said I could identify the daughter of Hylia on sight. He asked me to, and I agreed that I would let him know."
Tetra stiffened, grateful a little for the oppressive darkness all around them: it would make it harder for the damn bird to catch up. Her hackles stung. "So you were working with him?"
But The Sword simply shook his head. "You misunderstand me. I saved his life and stayed with him because I knew he was going to try this. I agreed I'd let him know who you were."
And that knife-edge smile came back again, and Tetra suddenly realized what he'd say next as the wind tried to yank her hair from its knot at the back of her head. She suddenly found herself grinning to match him, and the stranger laughed, bright as the stars.
"Well," Tetra said, and laughter edged her own voice. "That's right. He knows which one of the girls I was now, yeah, doesn't he?"