"Princess?"

My bed is so comfortable...

"Princess?"

Blankets so soft...

"Princess?"

Pillow fits my head perfectly...

"Princess!"

My eyes snap open. I squint against the bright morning light and pull the blankets over my head in a pathetic attempt to shield my eyes. Just as I begin to doze off again, I hear another annoying, "Princess?"

"What?" I say spitefully, but it sounds more like a grunt.

"It is important that you get up. Today you're traveling to Kakariko for the banquet, darling!" my handmaiden says excitedly, even though banquets are stupid. And boring. If I knew a word that meant both stupid and boring, I would use it.

I ignore her and focus again on how perfect my bed is.

"Princess, don't force me to take extreme measures!" the handmaiden says cautiously. "Extreme measures," were her carefully taking the blanket off of me herself. As lame as it was, that sounded pretty extreme to me right now.

I sigh loudly and slowly pull myself from my bed.

I know princesses are portrayed as the picture of beauty and grace, but in the morning, I'm anything but beautiful. In the mirror across the room, I can see that my hair is messy and a large pillow crease runs down my cheek. I yawn and stretch before shuffling across my marble floor, tripping as I walk. I'm not the most graceful either.

"We have to hurry!" she reminds me unhelpfully before leading me into my vanity. She sits me on the stool, and we begin to work. If her chatter didn't wake me up, her harsh tugging at my hair in an attempt to tame it did. My hair is naturally wavy, and not in the pretty ringlet way. Each time the brush ripped through my hair, I involuntarily winced and jerked my head the opposite way. After ten minutes of brute force on my scalp, we move on to my face. The crease has almost faded, and I wash and dry my face. The handmaiden reaches for the powder to begin putting makeup on me, but I glare at her and she quickly snaps her hands back to her sides.

"But Princess, you are well beyond the age most other princesses begin to wear makeup..." she says, her eyes averting my gaze.

"I'm thirteen. Any princess who wears makeup at my age is crazy, insecure, or both," I sigh, exasperated.

"It doesn't matter. We're wasting time. I was ordered to put makeup on you, whether you like it or not," the handmaiden says firmly. I know I can't argue. I scowl as the thick dust is applied to my face. I may have to comply, but I don't have to like it.

Finally, we leave to vanity and go to my dressing room. As usual, a dress and accessories are waiting for me. I think about how superficial my life must seem to the people of Hyrule. Getting ready for my day is the most eventful part of it. It gets so boring.

My dress today is a light, sandy orange to represent the climate of Kakariko. It is beaded with beautiful designs and is accented with leather at the collar and sleeves. But even though it is made to look like a Kakarikan dress, it still looks traditionally Hyrulean. The Triforce symbol is artfully incorporated all over the dress, and it's cut like the dress all of my ancestors before me wore when they were the princess of Hyrule.

I take this all in as I look at the dress, and I turn to the handmaiden and say, "Send my compliments to the designer. This dress is truly perfect." The dress alone was enough to make me want to go to this banquet a tiny bit. I know a princess is supposed to be humble, but I like to show off sometimes.

Along with the dress, there was a silken cloth that I would wear on my shoulders. It matches perfectly and has the Hyrulean crest stitched on it with red and orange thread in an intricate design.

"That sash," the handmaiden said, pointing to the cloth I was admiring. "I have specific orders that you take very good care of it. It was very expensive to make."

I nod and begin to change into the beautiful dress.

When I'm all changed, it's off to the vanity again to fix my hair so that it is at least presentable. We may have brushed it, but it is nowhere near socially acceptable.

The handmaiden was instructed to give me the most traditional style. she brushes my hair back and slicks it down. It's no use–my hair always wins. The only way I ever feel satisfied with my hair is when it has dried naturally and is flowing freely, which is, of course, the only way I'm not allowed to wear it. I lament over my lack of choice as the handmaiden works miracles on my hair. The next time I look in the mirror, my hair is straight and sleek. I scowl again. I hate it when my hair is straight because I don't think I look like myself.

Finally, finally, I am at least publicly presentable. I stand in front of my floor-length mirror. The handmaiden sighs. I look over at her, an eyebrow raised. "What?"

She sighs again and says, "You always look so pretty, even at your young age. I bet you will make a wonderful queen, just like your mother."

I wrinkle my nose. Where she sees, "pretty," I see a hot mess. "How can you see good queen material? My hair is frizzy, the sash is crooked, and there are huge bags under my eyes. Furthermore, I'm a slob, I run my mouth, and I'm very rude. I will make an atrocious queen," I scoff dismissively.

The handmaiden sighs again, but this time for a different reason. It's a sad sigh.

I avert my gaze to the ground. After a moment, I snap my head up. "Come. We will be late, as you said," I say briskly, and the matter drops as we leave the room.

• • •

As soon as the cool spring air hits my face, I feel rejuvenated and almost ready to go to this stupid banquet. What I really want to do is let my hair down and go horseback riding across Hyrule field. I want to stop in the middle of nowhere and lie down on the grass and draw pictures of the clouds as they roll by. I want to doze off and wake up to find a butterfly on my nose and have it flutter away as I get up. I want to be carefree. But I can't.

I see my carriage a ways away, and several Hyrulean knights on horseback surrounding it. My guard. I've lived with it my whole life, but I'm still shocked by how much protection I am given.

As walk up with the handmaiden, I notice that some of the knights look...smaller than usual. The head knight turns to me. I've seen him training around the courtyards of the castle, but I never learned his name. Come to think of it, I don't really know anyone's name. I keep calling my handmaiden, "the handmaiden," in my head.

I am brought back to reality when I see that the head knight's lips are moving and that he is nodding his head. When I tune back in, he is saying that the smaller knights are trainees, and they are accompanying me for experience, but not to worry, I will still be protected as well as I normally would be. Offhandedly I wonder how this man ever finishes a sentence, as he has been speaking for almost two minutes now and I haven't seen him pause or take a breath. I watch him carefully. Another thirty seconds go by, and still nothing. He stops, finally, and looks at me expectantly for a response. Oops. I nod and smile, and begin to walk towards the carriage, anxious to be alone with my thoughts─and escort, whom I can ignore.

The guard looks at me strangely, and I realize I have missed something. "Aren't you going to be introduced to the knights, as I said?" he asks.

"Ah, yes, right. Sorry," I say, not at all sorry. A scrawny blonde trainee snickers. I look daggers at him, which shuts him up to a smirk. Arrogant little—

"Right this way, your highness," the head guard says. He turns to the trainees and shouts an order, and immediately they fall into a neat line. We slowly go through each one, and I am given their name and home province. I remember none of their names, let alone provinces, except for the arrogant one. Link Densetsu. Ordona Province. That disgusting little smirk never leaves his disgusting little face. I silently resolve to make his life miserable however I can.

After what feels like all morning, I am allowed into the carriage to relax (mostly) by myself. I rest on the edge of the window and watch as Hyrule Field passes by. If I close my eyes, I can almost fool myself into thinking I am alone on a horse, carefree and riding.

For another hour, I just stare out of my window. Hills of green and flowers pass by. If I turn my head just right, I can see the smug blonde boy and his friend talking and laughing stupidly. I watch them, thinking of elaborate revenge plans that end in the blonde boy's death. I then contemplate renaming them, because revenge is me getting back at him for doing something, but he didn't do anything but smirk.

You know what? Smirking is enough. They're revenge plans if I say they're revenge plans.

I look at my escort. He is a slender man with a rat-like face and a rather unpleasant thin mustache. All he needs is a monocle. He is dozing with his mouth hanging open.

"When will we arrive?" I ask as properly as I can muster a the moment.

He starts and wakes up suddenly. He then sniffs and pulls out a pocket watch. "Um, around noon, your highness," he answers. His voice is nasally and a little high pitched, which perfectly matches his appearance. The only thing that ruins it is the greedy gleam in his eyes that betray his well-hidden intelligence. He is not someone to cross.

I pinch the velvet plush on the seat beside me, and a bit of the maroon fuzz comes up in my fingers. The escort eyes this disapprovingly.

Another fifteen minutes pass in silence. Then I hear shouts outside. Naturally curious, I crane my neck to look outside. Before I can get a good look, my escort hisses, "Get back inside. There may be trouble."

I am shocked by this. Never, in my entire life, have I heard if a carriage having, "trouble". Could we be being attacked? What would be attacking us? Monsters? Bandits? Is there a rebellion I am unaware of? Suddenly I am no longer bored, and I can feel my heart pounding. I grip the seat tightly. The noises outside sound like a fight to my fearful ears.

I had thought time passed slowly before, but the five minutes we sit in the carriage listening to the shouts outside feel like an eternity. At one point something thumped against the carriage, which caused me to jump and gasp loudly. The escort rolled his eyes, and through my fear, I made a mental note to work him into my revenge plans for the arrogant boy.

He hides it better than I do, but I can tell the escort is just as apprehensive as I am. His mustache is quivering nervously, and there tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. Greedy, rude, and cowardly.

My shoulders are tense. I feel like all hell is about to break loose. I am shocked by how sheltered my life is. I already knew that I was naïve, but this is ridiculous.

I begin to relax. The sounds outside have quieted. I open my mouth to say something, but I am cut off. An arrow whizzes through the carriage, in through the left window and out through the right. I scream, and the escort faints. The guard from earlier comes up to the window. He is panting and looks worried. "Change of plans, your highness," he says. "For your safety, you must evacuate. Go into the forest with a guard, and find the nearest town or village. Another carriage will find you and pick you up as soon as possible."

As terrible as the situation is, I can't help but feel excited. I nod at the guard. He cautiously opens the door of the carriage. He shields me and calls for a trainee to take me into the forest. My excitement drains away, along with color in my face, as the arrogant boy answers the guard's call. He must have noticed my distaste, as he adds, "Link is one of the most promising guards I've ever trained. You will be perfectly safe."

I want to shout that it isn't his lack of experience so much as his lack of common decency that bothers me, but the urgency of the situation keeps my mouth shut. I reluctantly follow the arrogant boy, Link, into the forest. I look back and see monsters attacking the guards. The reason things quieted down was that most of the guards were unconscious or...permanently unconscious. There is blood all over the ground. Link and the head guard were two of only five men left standing. Link and the friend he was laughing with earlier are the only trainees.

I watch the battle for a moment but turn away as the kind guard is stabbed through the stomach. As I run through the forest, I begin to cry for the guard and other fallen men who died for my safety. I can't dwell on it too long for fear that I break down. I try not to think about the wife and children of the guard whose father will never come home.

I wipe away my tears, determined not to look weak in front of Link. He doesn't look at me, though, which is a good thing. I can tell that he is completely focused on navigating through the forest. I'm not complaining. He does occasionally shout a warning over his shoulder, most of which are obvious and annoy me more than help me. Yes, thank you, I know I should duck when a low hanging branch blocks the path. Now, are you going to tell me what a branch is, or give me a physical demonstration of ducking just in case I didn't know how? Ugh. He's worse than I thought.

We run for a couple more minutes in silence until he says, "Do you know what poison ivy is? It has three jagged leaves and gives you an awful rash if you touch it. Oh yeah, it's a plant, not a tree, if you were wondering."

That's it. "I know what poison ivy is, thank you," I hiss, putting as much venom in my voice as I can. I hope I offended him. He absolutely deserves every poisonous word that comes out of my mouth. That big-headed jerk needs to come down a peg or two.

Even in the shade of the forest, I can see his wide eyes and red ears. It takes every ounce of decency I have─which in all honesty, isn't much─not to stick my tongue out and yell, "HA!"

Handmaidens and my father may call me intelligent or sophisticated for my age, but I am extremely immature and blunt. I just hide it well. For goddess's sake, I fantasize about butterflies in fields and plan revenge against boys I don't know for no real reason.

Now I'm the one smirking as we trek through awkwardly triumphant silence. Awkward for him, triumphant for me.

I am still enjoying my victory when I am hit in the face by the frond of a tall fern. I was so preoccupied silently gloating I completely missed it, and then, of course, I have to let out a high-pitched yelp of surprise. I hear a snort and I see Link failing to stifle guffaws of laughter into his hand. I send him my best withering stare and use a word no respectable young princess should know. He just laughs more, and I feel my face become hot. I then yell a string of curses at him that would bring tears to the eyes of a drunken soldier. His laughter stops abruptly, and he turns away. I do hear him mutter something. I clench my fists in anger.

I want to report him so bad, but if I do he'll tell everyone about my rude language and demeanor. But, if he says something about me, I can report his disrespectful behavior. I don't think either will happen, because I don't hate him enough to jeopardize his entire career and he won't gain anything by telling on me. I'm just going to keep quiet until we get out of the forest.

In the silence that follows I am able to truly look at my surroundings for the first time. I have always wanted to explore a forest, but of course, that was out of the question due to my position as princess. I do like to think that I know a good bit about plants and trees, though. I have read many books and studied various flora the in gardens around the palace, but that hardly counts. I don't think anything could have prepared me for the breathtaking beauty and complexity of the woods around me. I resent that we are in a hurry because it pains me to pass by so many things I would like to explore and research.

As much as I try to distract myself, my mind keeps going back to the carriage and the massacre we fled from like cowards. I want to go back and fight and avenge the lives lost. Rationally I know I would fail miserably. I don't know the first thing about fighting, but that doesn't stop my desire for revenge.

I realize that all day I keep returning to the idea of revenge. I've never thought of myself as a vengeful person, but I haven't really had many social situations where I could figure something like that out. I am very aware of how oblivious I am to the world and myself. Sometimes I feel like I am watching myself as the main character in a book. I know what's going to happen in the story because I am the reader, but I am still shocked when it happens because I am also the character. It is so frustrating.

Link and I stop to rest for a while. We must have traveled for an hour and a half already, but it only feels like a few minutes. Time has sped up because my brain has so much to process. While we were walking, my heart was racing and I felt cold. I hadn't really noticed this until I sat down. As we sit for a while, I notice that my heart still races. I thought it was because we were running and I was excited, but it should've calmed down by now. The early morning air was chilly, but now it is almost noon and the sun is high in the sky. Why am I so cold? My hands shake. I feel as if all of my emotions from the day were traveling just behind me as I ran through the forest, but now that I have stopped they are catching up to me. I watched a man die today. I nearly died today. I could have been hit by the arrow, and poof, no more Zelda. The thought of never opening my eyes again makes me nauseous. My hands shake so violently I have to clutch them to my chest. I didn't even realize I was crying until my brain finally registers the hot tears streaming down my face.

Finally, Link notices my condition. Through the pounding in my ears, I hear him gasp. I want him to leave. I am ashamed that he is seeing me so vulnerable like this. I can't believe that less than an hour ago I was yelling at him about poison ivy. I can't breathe through the tightness in my chest. He's just gawking at me but I feel like I am about to die. I'm about to die. I am dying. I must be dying. I am dying. I am dying.

I AM DYING.

I don't even realize that I am saying it out loud until a gentle hand on my shoulder brings me back to reality.

"No. You're living."

I look up. At first, my confused brain doesn't put together that it is Link who spoke. He is completely serious.

"Just look at me and focus on breathing."

He grabs my hands with his firm grip. In any other situation, I would be mortified. He looks directly into my eyes with his steady gaze.

His voice is even as he says, "I know you have a lot to take in, but you need to keep it together. We need to get someplace safe, okay?"

He laughed at me and I yelled at him, but now he is talking me off of a ledge. How could someone be so forgiving and selfless?

I look at him, but for the first time today I see him. There is a marked difference between simply looking at someone and actually seeing them, just like there is a difference between hearing and listening. I notice that he has messy blonde hair. I notice that his uniform is much too large for him, giving the illusion that he is scrawny when he really isn't. I notice his eyes, which look blue but upon closer inspection are closer to gray. His mouth is set in a firm line, but there are creases around his lips that show that he smiles a lot, or used to.

When I realize my entire focus was on him, I come back to myself and realize I am much calmer now. My breathing has slowed from quick rasps to slow, shaky breaths. I don't know how he did it, but I am better now. What just happened to me? I feel like my anxiety and fears took control of my body.

I look away from Link. I am embarrassed that he saw me break down, and that fact that he had to calm me down doesn't help. I feel my face redden. I mumble an apology and he gruffly says something incoherent back. I look at him, but he won't meet my eyes. I look away quickly.

It's strange. Just a minute ago, he made me look him in the eye, but now he'll do anything but. Suddenly I am acutely aware of my torn dress and hair that is curling up in the humidity. My face becomes hotter. Thankfully, Link shatters the silence.

"We should...uh...keep moving. But only if you're ready if not we can wait that's fine take all the time you need," he says awkwardly. His face is red as well. A feel a small smile on my lips, but I don't know why.

"No, I'm fine. You're right. We should go," I say, pleased by how calm my voice is. I hastily wipe away my tears and brush off my dress. The only thing that seems untouched is the intricate sash on my shoulders. I block all previous events of the day from my mind because if I don't I know I'll break again and we'll lose more time.

We keep up a brisk pace. I can't think about the trees or dead men now. I need to focus. Link no longer warns me about hazards, which is both a good and bad thing. I can keep my temper but not my balance. It doesn't bother me, though. I can tell we are past judgments now.

We travel in silence, and despite my telling myself I will focus I can't help but think about whether or not I hate Link. On one hand, he was a jerk and openly hostile. On the other hand, he helped me when I was breaking down. Hearing stories about underhanded politicians growing up has not made me a trusting person, but I don't know what would've happened if he had not helped me. I guess I'll just have to watch him to decide.

After another half an hour or so, Link pauses suddenly. "What is it?" I ask, trying not to be paranoid.

He shushes me, and I can't help but feel a little offended even though there was no hostility in his voice. I listen and hear nothing. Link must be as paranoid as I am, but out of the tiny bit of respect I have for him, I stop and listen too.

Just as I am about to say something, a twig snaps behind me. My blood runs cold. I feel as if I am being watched, and have been for a while now. I curse myself for not noticing.

I have felt more fear today than I have felt before in my life combined. The way it speeds up my breathing and makes my skin crawl almost feels familiar now. That doesn't mean its effects are dulled at all. I'm still scared out of my wits.

I wish I could say that I was ready when the quiet was obliterated by a group of goblin-like creatures as they crashed through the trees all around us. My knees give out, and I collapse into the dusty soil. The monsters seem even taller and more foreboding from the ground. Their skin is a sickly green that contrasts with the grayish rags and bits of leather they are wearing. The rags are smudged with dirt and, to my horror, blood. Some carry bows or the large horn of an animal, but most of them wield a crude looking sword. There are probably a little over a dozen that formed a circle to trap us, meaning running is not an option. There is no way Link can kill all of them while worrying about me as well. We are doomed.

I don't want to die. I may not like my life, but that doesn't mean I would give it up without a fight. There is so much I want to do. I want my life. I pray to the goddesses to spare us.

I spot a hefty looking tree branch to my left. The monsters seem to be waiting for some sort of signal to attack. I know that if Link or I make any sudden movements, they will lunge. This means I can't safely grab the branch before the attack begins. I look at Link. He may not have collapsed, but I can tell he is scared as much as I am. He's still a trainee after all.

I wish I could let him know what I am about to do, as to let him be as ready as possible when the attack begins. I can't get his attention because he's in front of me. I can't wait to grab the branch until the monsters attack, because as soon as they step forward, my only option for a weapon will be trampled.

I feel the bitter urge to laugh as I realize this situation is exactly how my life feels: unable to make a decision without completely throwing everything into chaos.

I take a silent deep breath. I know what I have to do.


I'm not very good at cliffhangers, am I? Sorry. Anyway, please review with comments, suggestions, constructive criticism, etc. I always love to hear from you. :) Thanks for reading!