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The fight isn't particularly difficult for a group of eight experienced swordsmen. They could recognize from the moment it started that their opponents wouldn't stand much of a chance; they'd all come out on top in much more challenging battles. That being said, that certainty was probably what allowed this situation to happen in the first place.
"Drop your weapons," she says, voice sharp as the blade she's holding against Time's jugular, "and surrender."
In the end, they don't really have much of a choice.
Glancing around first to see everyone else's decision in their eyes, as a unit, they drop their weapons and surrender.
—
While some among their ragtag group might've figured that surrendering to a group of pirates would involve getting murdered somewhere along the line, this particular pirate crew doesn't seem to be quite that bloodthirsty. Nobody calls for them to walk the plank or anything like that. Not yet, anyway.
Instead, the girl—obviously the captain—calls for her crew to tie them all up, which they do quite admirably; as much as they all try with their considerable collective skill to work the ropes binding their hands and feet, the knotwork is excellent. If any of them are going to work out any slack, it'll take some time—time they don't have before these pirates finally decide what to do with them.
Even if it's not actually murder, none of them particularly want to find out.
After they're all fully bound, the captain has her crew pull them upright and lead them into an uncomfortable shuffle down into the ship's cabin. Twilight, being manhandled right next to a still decently shaken Time, leans over and whispers, more dazed than anything, "How did you let a kid get the jump on you?"
Time doesn't visibly react save for a slight raise of his shoulders. "Don't underestimate kids," he says quietly, eyes staring straight forward.
Warriors gives Time's statement a solemn nod. "Kid or not, she's clearly experienced. The way she kept herself out of the fight and went directly to sneak up on the old man... she must have figured just from watching us that he was the one calling most of the shots, so he'd be the most valuable hostage. Those are good tactics."
"Most valuable hostage...?" Sky looks a bit scandalized by the idea. "A hostage is a hostage. Why would it make any difference who she threatened?"
Hyrule leans into the conversation. "Yeah, I agree. Time might be in charge for the most part, but we all do our part in a fight! If Time went down, we could've kept going. Uh... no offense."
"None taken."
"That's not what I..." Sky splutters, before giving up with a defeated sigh.
Warriors' eyes tiredly wander off to the side. "Yes, but we're all trained in fighting individually, not with each other. She must have noticed that he was the one keeping us on the same page, so if he was taken out, we'd be at an extreme disadvantage. An army without a leader is easy pickings."
Four rolls his eyes. "It's not like that matters anyway," he mutters, resigned. "Sky's right. We would've surrendered no matter who she took hostage. We're heroes, aren't we?"
And if that isn't the whole problem in a nutshell.
Twilight still looks a bit stunned. "I just can't believe someone so young was able to take us out so easily..." he mumbles to himself.
The pirate holding Twilight gives him a harsh jostle. "'Ey, bub! You can talk all you want about how awesome and intimidatin' we are, but disrespectin' the captain is definitely not allowed!"
The one holding Time chimes in, "Yeah! Just because the captain's young, it don't mean nothin'! She's the toughest pirate on the Great Sea!"
Legend lets out a defiant scoff. "Tougher than the rest of you, that's for sure."
He gets a whack to the head for his trouble.
The first pirate laughs. "Buddy, you don't even know the sorts a' unsavory stuff we do! We're as tough as they come, and don't you forget it! The captain was nice enough to take you prisoner instead a' killin' you outright, but if the swabbie had been there, you'da been mincemeat!"
He takes a moment to laugh triumphantly some more, pauses, lets out one last guffaw to make a point, then pauses again. "...Say, actually, where is the swabbie?"
"Probably still asleep. You know him," the second pirate answers.
Another from near the back of the pack joins the conversation. "Definitely still asleep—I saw him stargazing in the nest late last night."
The one holding Legend tuts. "I worry about that kid..."
All the crew around mumbles in agreement.
"I'll go check on 'im," the first one decides. "Let 'im know what he missed out on!"
The hallway dissolves back into silence, save for the creaks of footsteps and awkward staggering on wood.
They pass several doors and down two flights of stairs before finally arriving at what seems to be their destination: an empty room with a sizable lock on the outside.
A jail cell.
As they're marched inside, the captain sits down heavily on a barrel placed near the doorway, eyes narrowed at them with single-minded concentration. It's only after they're all shoved onto the hardwood floor of the room and the crew members that escorted them there have left that she speaks.
"So. Would one of you nice fellows care to explain why you decided to board my ship armed to the teeth?"
No one quite knows how to respond.
She hums in consideration. "I thought at first that you could be part of some rival group stupid enough to try to get the jump on us, but taking a closer look at you, you don't look much like pirates." She eyes them up and down. "...Not quite sure what you do look like, with the fight you put up back there, but you all seem a bit too confused for this to have been part of an organized attack. At least, I certainly hope it wasn't. If I'm wrong, honestly, I'm more sorry for you than anything else."
She ignores the glares leveled at her with practiced ease.
Acting as the de facto group leader he's been shaping up to be, Time is the first to speak up. "We didn't board your ship intentionally," he says firmly. "We are travelers. While on our journey, we came across a magic portal that seems to have led us here, but we didn't know where it would go when we used it."
Surprisingly, she doesn't seem too put off by the explanation. She raises an eyebrow. "A magic portal, huh? That'd explain how you got here in the first place, I guess. We would have seen an approaching vessel long before you'd have had a chance to board. That being said... " Her voice rings with disbelief, "You mean to tell me that a group of travelers like yourselves decided to enter a random magic portal you saw in the middle of who-knows-where, despite having no idea where it would spit you out?"
The group shares some looks amongst themselves. When put like that... yeah, maybe it isn't the most flattering of excuses.
"...Yes." To Time's credit, he manages to look less embarrassed than the rest of them.
She sighs. "With an explanation like that, you lot must be either lying or completely stupid, and if you are lying, you'd still have to be pretty stupid for that to be the best you could come up with. So, let me give you the benefit of the doubt here." She hops off her barrel to look down at them with an imposing stance. "I don't care if you're telling the truth or not; all I want to know is whether you—"
Suddenly, the door to the room bursts open.
"Tetra, what happened?! Niko said something about rival pirates, I just woke up, where are they, what's going on?!"
The boy doesn't stop to breathe at any point during his panicked barrage of questions, so he finishes his piece by taking in a few labored wheezes.
It's obvious from one look at his frenzied state, complete with messy hair and rumpled pajamas, that he did indeed just wake up. The kid looks to be a similar age to the captain; he comes up to around the same height and shares her blond hair, though his leans more golden than the captain's pale shade. Overall, the effect of his appearance combined with his reddened face and genuinely concerned expression appear to indicate a person one would definitely not expect to see on a pirate ship.
The impressive-looking sword held with a strong, practiced grip in his left hand, decorated with an hourglass embedded in the hilt, stands out as a bit incongruous against the rest of the image.
The captain—Tetra, evidently—initially looks a bit annoyed at having been interrupted, before she rolls her eyes in the newcomer's direction. "Yeah, I can tell," she says, "and they're right here."
He looks up and his eyes go wide as he notices the group. Wild smiles at him in greeting.
He carefully moves to return his sword to its place in the scabbard on his back. "...Oh. Uh, sorry to interrupt, then."
"Mm."
The boy's gaze flickers toward her to acknowledge her response, before doubling down on the group and narrowing his eyes, clearly in deep thought. Finally, after a couple seconds of loaded silence, he looks back at Captain Tetra. "...They don't look like rival pirates. These guys boarded the ship?"
"No, they didn't, and that's why I don't think they are, either. They just... appeared. They say they're travelers who were transported here by a magic portal."
His face lights up in sudden understanding. "That'd make sense! I'm glad it was a false alarm, then. If it was a group of rival pirates, that could've been bad."
He starts moving towards the group, hands outstretched as if to grab something. Their... ropes? Is he going to untie them?
Before he can get more than a few steps into the room, though, Captain Tetra grabs his arm to stop him. "Woah, there," she warns, face drawn in distrust. "Just because they're not pirates doesn't mean they're not trouble. One of 'em nearly took Gonzo's head off back there."
"They what?!" The boy startles, then stands back and looks at them all with new suspicion.
"Yup. The one with the dumb hat."
"Hey!" Legend can't help but squawk in protest at the jab as the boy zeroes in on him. He's about to say more when a harsh elbow from Twilight stops him; he glares daggers at the floor instead.
Captain Tetra snorts lightly at the interruption before continuing. "Point is, I was just about to figure that out myself before you came in. Maybe they're perfectly peaceful travelers with good survival instincts, or maybe they're a less savory sort of bunch. Honestly, I couldn't care less." She turns her attention back to them, serious as the grave. "All that matters to me is whether you have any intentions of causing trouble on my ship. Answer wisely."
She quickly glances at the boy and dips her head toward the door before turning her full attention back to the group, waiting for someone to speak. After a beat, the boy's brows raise in understanding; he closes the door and moves to stand at her side, attempting to mirror her stony gaze in their direction and, to the group's surprise, mostly succeeding. In contrast to the ditzy impression he gave off on his entrance, the boy now looks resolute and in control—maybe he really is a pirate after all.
Once again, Time is the one to speak up.
"We hold no ill intentions toward you or your crew. We fought you initially only because you appeared to be hostile; we didn't know at the time that we were the ones intruding, and we apologize. It will not happen again."
Captain Tetra seems to mull over the statement, eyes closed in thought.
Eventually, she cracks one eye open and scans over the rest of their group, eventually landing on Legend. "Hey, you, with the dumb hat. Is he telling the truth?"
After the brief shock of getting called out in this tense atmosphere and a flash of indignation at the repeat of the hat comment, Legend breathes out slowly through his nose, looks up, and responds, voice a bit strained but clear. "We're not here to cause trouble. Everything he said was true."
The rest of the group nods in agreement with varying levels of insistence.
Taking in everyone's affirmations, Captain Tetra raises a hand to her chin before looking over to the boy standing next to her. "Well? What do you think?"
The boy's eyes have softened from the cold look he had on previously, eyebrows knit with hesitance. He blinks, shakes his head, and looks back at his captain with a much more certain gaze. "I think I trust them. They're not dangerous."
"Yeah? Of course you do, you'd trust anyone," she teases with a smirk, tone light. "You've gotta learn to be more discerning one of these days."
His resolute air crumples into annoyance. "Hey, you asked me!" he shoots back. "And besides, I'm plenty discerning, thank you very much."
"Alright, let me rephrase. You'd trust some pirate you just met to grant you safe and free passage across the Great Sea."
A pause.
"...Well, okay, sure," the boy concedes, chin tucked in embarrassment, "But that doesn't mean I trust too easily! After all, you did grant me safe and free passage across the Great Sea. I was right to trust you, so if anything, that means I'm a great judge of character!"
Captain Tetra looks up, considering this. "Hm. Maybe you have a point. Who knows?" She shakes her head and turns her attention back to the group. "Anyway, I agree with you. They aren't hostile."
They all collectively sigh in relief.
"Hey, now!" she snaps, annoyed. "That doesn't mean you're off the hook!"
They tense back up.
She stalks menacingly towards them. "You may not have done anything wrong and we're not going to hurt you, but that fight you started did a number on my crew, not to mention the deck!" Here, she jabs at Wild's chest, who flinches back. "Who exactly do you think is going to need to fix the damage those bombs of yours caused? Who even uses that many bombs in a swordfight?!"
He gives her a self-conscious chuckle.
She steps back abruptly and straightens to her full height, carrying a level of authority belying her face's age. "Here's what's going to happen. We are going to grant you food and quarter until we touch land on Windfall in about a week's time. Until then, you idiots," she sweeps her arms towards the whole group to make sure they know she means all of them, "Will earn your keep by doing anything I tell you to, and I do mean anything. It's the least you can do after all the trouble you've caused. Are we understood?"
Time looks a little miffed, but replies for the group anyway. "...Perfectly."
She nods, finally looking satisfied. "Wonderful. My name's Tetra, though I guess you would've already gathered that much. You may call me Miss Tetra or Captain. You can introduce yourself to the rest of the crew later."
The boy speaks up again, sounding much more excited now that it's been established they aren't enemies. "Oh, oh, I can give you a tour!"
"You think you could untie us first?" Legend deadpans, nodding to the restraints on his limbs.
"Oh, yeah," Miss Tetra mumbles, as if it were an afterthought. She waves toward the boy. "Link, untie them."
The room fills with choked gasps of surprise and all eyes turn to the boy—Link—as he responds with a clumsy salute and chirps "Sure thing!"
He trots over to a gaping-mouthed Wild first and starts working on loosening his hand restraints. He leans in, mischievous sparkle in his eye, and says, "So... Tetra said something about bombs...?"