Remembering the Farmgirl
The play of my life unfolded like the off-white seams of my work dress that looked just as tired as I did. I brushed my hair out of my eyes and began to walk down to the corral again. Epona would have been at my side, if I hadn't given her to Link.
It's not that I regret it or anything. He's a hero after all, and he deserves the best horse possible, who I'm sure, is Epona. Still, I can't help but still feel that prickling sensation in my chest every now and then. It's the same feeling I got when I watched my only childhood friends fade into the sunset, replacing the swell of pride in my heart when he leapt over the fence.
He always had had that sort of strength to him. It had always been evident in his eyes that were blue enough to challenge the skies that often mocked me as I went about my daily errands. I may not have been able to understand it back then, but it had always been there. A sort of glimmer that stood out from the rest of him and everyone else that had ever walked into my life...and dreams. Oh and yes I know it's terribly cliché, there's always stories of that one special person who just...makes you feel a certain way.
Well, I've never been a liar; I'm not going to start denying my heart its feelings now. So yes then, I'll admit. I was ten years old when I fell in love with the fairy boy. It was the innocent sort of love, the one that makes you giggle and go about doing chores whilst leaping around and humming ridiculously happy tunes. Though I cannot admit it without turning the same colour as my hair, those innocent feelings did not last forever. They molded into the most terrifying, nerve-wracking, wonderful thing I've ever experienced. Suddenly I couldn't look at him without my mind whisking me away into a world of fantasies that, yes, had some childishness mixed in, but yet remained somewhat mature. My heart would race when I saw that familiar flash of sapphire and strength right before my own eyes that could never seem to compare.
Dad probably knew from the start. After all, the fairy boy was the first real boy I'd ever spoken to. I'd like to add here that it was simple "meant to be". And it was, in a way. It was meant for me to fall in love with him. But not for those feelings to be returned.
I don't go to the castle market very often anymore as Ingo seems to be very easily persuaded into doing so for me. There's only one person I really have to thank for that, now if I could only get the words to stop dying in my throat, it might have actually worked...
I might have actually been able to break that stupid, storybook cliché about some farm girl being so infatuated with a young knight that she can barely speak to him without stammering out something stupid.
Like, "S-so, how's the Princess."
It wasn't his fault, really, it wasn't. I suppose one can't actually help rambling on and on about a subject of which they are so interested and, not to mention, knowledgeable, about.
He came to visit yesterday, and he actually broke a classic cliché. He's not oblivious. In fact, he's more sure of everything than I am, I'm sure. He looks at me and smiles but I can see the pity in his eyes. He knows that I'm in love with him, and that I'm hurting because of it. He tries to make it better, by not visiting, but the way I drag out my goodbyes must tell him to come up with another idea.
He's leaving again, sometime soon, I can tell because he's spent more time at the ranch than he usually does, and more time at the castle too, Ingo tells me. He dropped off Epona's bridle yesterday when he left, I almost feel like I took back a piece of a long lost friend when he did so. But then that would mean that he's losing a piece of a friend. Yes, it would, and it's true too.
I know now, wherever it is that he's going, he's leaving Epona behind. I told him that this morning, just a few minutes ago. He knows that I'm scared that by leaving her, he'll no longer think of me before. He told me that he won't forget that just because my horse is not with him, I'm with him in his heart. I snapped my eyes up to his, and he looks away and cringes because he knows that his comment just lighted a fire inside of me.
His ship leaves this evening.
I'm dressed now, in my finest clothing to bid him farewell with the rest of Hyrule. I can easily spot Princess Zelda, her hand clutching his tightly as she whispers something into his ear.
I look away.
The last seven years of my life flashes through my mind. I see the horses, all but Epona. Father. Ingo. The ranch. Myself.
...and him?
I open my eyes and frown at the ground in confusion. He was not part of those long seven years, and yet, every other slide of my life contains him. And me. Together.
Together?
My mother's melody is playing, in my heart and through my memories. I smile despite everything because it would be almost insulting not to. And then suddenly...it's ringing in my ears as well, louder and louder as the seconds pass.
My hair whips around my face as I try to find the source, when then all of a sudden, it grips my arm and the song stops.
The fairy boy. Link.
His ocarina is in his hand, not the pearly, indigo one that his Princess had given him, instead it's the smaller, ordinary one that had been a gift from a dear friend. It was the one that I recognized.
"Link," I say and smile.
It's genuine smile for the first time since...
"Link?" he replied, frowning as though he doesn't recognize his own name.
When in reality, it's just the way I'm saying it.
"Fairy Boy," I raise my hand and he catches it in his gloved one and then puts it back at my side.
Taking his glove off, he strokes my cheek with his finger and smiles. Then he turns his head to the right and nods it in that direction. A familiar whinny fills the air.
"I'm taking that horse with me."