Thanks for dropping by! This is my very first English fanfiction and I'm excited to present it to you! I want to thank GerudoSpirit a lot for beta-reading the chapter! She fixed quite a few mistakes of mine. ;P

Enjoy reading! ;)

A wretched storm. Once again. The cold wet dripped loudly against the castle windows. Sunlight hadn't existed in this place in a very long time...

Fine, a sun was there but it could never be seen in this world. It was always covered in thick, gray clouds... and darkness, which was a permanent component of this world. Darkness and hopelessness...

"Just what can I do...", a young, violet-haired woman sighed while looking out of the wet window. In her right hand she tightly held a blue staff which had four golden tetrahedrons on the upper end. These four tetrahedrons formed a new tetrahedron together and practically hovered in the air. The upper end of her staff looked like a golden upside-down pyramid.

The young woman wore a sleeveless, floor-length, violet and white dress, which was ornate with golden armor and an upside-down triangle. Her golden earrings displayed the exact same shape. She also wore long white gloves, a blue belt and something that marked her position in this land... a crown.

She was the princess of this kingdom...

A kingdom where every human gave up hope... Where many of them either joined the thieves or the monsters in order to escape the kingdom's emptiness and suffering...

And where everybody felt abandoned by their princess, or perhaps the goddesses themselves.

"Hilda!... I mean... Your Highness!... I... I brought you something to eat... since you look hungry..." The call which woke the princess from her trance came from a young man with thick black hair. Without turning around, she simply replied that she wasn't hungry. The young man became frightened and almost dropped the tray he was holding. His small birdlike companion, who always flew after him, fluttered around him nervously. "You haven't eaten anything all day! I could never endure so long without a good snack..." He chuckled a little before regaining a concerned face. "Please, my princess... you have to eat something... Or else I'm gonna be sick of worry...". The young man sounded so pleading and desperate that the princess finally turned around, despite her iron will. She looked him in the eyes. She really liked them. They looked so innocent, so lovely, so... sympathetic. And they were green, which was the color of blooming nature, peace and hope. She on the other hand had crimson eyes, which looked as mysterious and... as cold as darkness itself.

"Thank you...", she whispered as she saw some wholemeal bread, slices of cheese and a glass of water on the tray. "Please put it on my desk...".

The young man, who wore a purple floor-length robe, moved his head sideways in confusion. "But don't you usually eat in the-"

"Just put it on my desk, if that's not too much to ask for...", she interrupted him. He hastily nodded and did what he was told. Her desk, which stood in front of the huge window in her private office,had once been used to read and sign important papers, to read, to write... However, it hasn't been used for its actual purpose for a very long time already... At the most it was a decoration... or a dining table.

As she sat down in front of her desk and took a piece of bread, she saw that the young man wanted to leave her private office. "Ravio, wait! Please stay here," she said.

Ravio turned around instantly and looked at her in confusion. "I thought you wanted to be alone-"

"Ravio, please... I know that my countenance is everything but desirable but... " Hilda suddenly starred at the floor (on which a round carpet with a big symbol including the triangle figure also found on Hilda's dress and earrings lay) and whispered: "I don't want to be alone...".

This made Ravio smile as he immediately took the second chair in the room and joined her at the desk. "Come Sheerow, little buddy!", he said to his birdlike friend. "Let's eat!". During their meal, Hilda didn't speak at all. She seemed to be miles away in her thoughts. Her kingdom wasn't doing well... not at all. And even sadder, there was nothing she could do about it. Lorule was doomed to its downfall and the only people who were still by her side were Ravio and...

Somewhere in Lorule

"Oh my... These ugly gorges become bigger every day," a mysterious man with long hair remarked while on his daily ramble through the bleak kingdom. He carried a golden staff which was approximately the same height as Hilda's. A colorful flame was burning on the upper end of his wand. "And the sky loses its color... There is not much time left for us two...". He suddenly stood still as a handful of masked people marched to the east as if participating in a parade. They all wore masks representing monsters and yelled bizarre things in unison. When they discovered the mysterious man, they stood still as well and starred at him crossly.

"Hey, look who's there! One of the dull princess's slaves!" one of the eight people said. His seven companions laughed. "What are you doing here anyway? Hunting her food?" another one asked, mannerless. "So that she doesn't die off and continues defiling this already pathetic kingdom with her existence?" another one of the group asked angered and mumbled some more insults dedicated to the princess afterwards. Then they all screamed in unison: "Mumbo jumbo! Mumbo jumbo! Long live the monsters!"

The mysterious man stomped the bottom of his staff against the ground completely angered. "Who do you think you are, speaking so lowly of the princess, you disgusting pieces of filth?!".

The leader of the group couldn't and didn't want to stop himself from laughing. "You know exactly who we are: The Masked Followers! We only serve and live for the monsters... They at least, unlike your narcissistic princess, deserve our trust!". Once again the group fell into laughter. Before finally continuing their path, they starred at him for a long time again and then asked: "Are you a man or a woman? Whatever, who cares?"

A few moments later they finally left. The poor man really had to conceal his terrifying anger... Such idiots would have become his victims long ago already! Annoyed, the man gazed at his reflection in a nearby pond. It didn't take long for his anger to disappear.

"These rotten worms... They will never experience true beauty," he thought as he grinned at his reflection. He wore a golden diadem with a ruby in the middle as well as blue crystal-shaped earrings. His rather pale face featured red-painted lips, black eyes with red-blue eye shadow and a prominent nose. His ears were long as well as pointed, which was actually common among the Loruleans. His long orange hair was put up in braids and three purple triangles were painted under both eyes. His clothes were, unlike Ravio's and Hilda's, pretty striking. He wore a black wide robe with yellow triangles on the cuffs. His robe displayed the same symbol found in the castle, the Lorulean Royal Crest. His puffy pants had blue and black stripes, his elf shoes were yellow and he wore a purple cape that provided him a fashionable looking scarf in the front. This upside-down golden divided triangle found in the chest area of his robe must have played an important role in Lorule...

The only reason why he didn't use the power of his wand on them was because of the young woman he served, Princess Hilda. He admired her a lot. Well, he must have felt so because otherwise he would have left her long ago. Why serve a princess of a ruined kingdom that was going to die soon? Moreover, why serve a princess who had something to do with the reason the kingdom was ruined in the first place? He and Ravio were the only two people left who still admired her... cared about her... worshiped her.

Hilda never wanted him to use his magical powers against her people, especially not if they couldn't defend themselves. The people of Lorule meant so much to her, despite the fact that she wasn't quite popular among them. For years, he'd lived in Lorule Castle with the princess while Ravio lived in a purple house in front of it. He was really happy about being so close to the only person he admired. It was for example much easier to draw her, which he did often. Despite being a painter, he never drew for other people. His talent was reserved for himself and his princess. And as he continued gazing at his reflection in the water and thought about how incomparably beautiful he was, he remembered his princess and decided to return to the castle.