Well whaddya know it's chapter twelve weeeeeeeeee.

So...I don't really know what to say about this chapter...not a lot of action, I guess...a lot of talking...character development (I hope?)...

Apparently, I am now fluent in Ancient Hylian.

Just kidding, I make everything up as I go.

(Ancient Hylian isn't even a real language, for anybody who was wondering.)

It's really late and I'm really tired and I am rambling a lot...

Well, I'll stop rambling now and let you read.

Enjoy!

(AND EID MUBARAK!)

-falls asleep on laptop-

Chapter Twelve: Charmer of the Mind

The silence in which Link and Tara walked, from Kakariko Village to their next destination (whatever it was), was a different silence than before. It was much colder, much denser, as if there were an entire wall between them that neither could climb. When he looked over at her, she was always staring straight ahead with such a hard glint in her eyes. And sometimes, he could feel her eyes on him—sneaking a glance at this strange man who had for some reason elicited her help. But he could never bring himself to look back at her. He was afraid that if he did, something would snap and she would jump at his throat for one reason or another. The thought of dying before he could save Zelda made his heart thump.

But somehow, the silence made them move faster. They cut across Hyrule's landscapes faster than even he had been anticipating. They passed travelers, on foot and in caravans, merchants, scholars. Everyone was absorbed in his or her own agenda, but Link couldn't help examining each face with irrational scrutiny. These were going to be his people, after all; although deep inside, he hoped that they would never be his people. At least not his people alone.

The one thing that Link couldn't stop thinking of was the hand. As soon as he had left Kakariko Village, the presence had appeared once again, like a man (maybe a young boy?) walking beside him (sometimes behind him). At times holding his hands, at times rubbing his shoulders, at times simply there. Always like a ghost, always like an aura. He couldn't go a single moment without feeling the chills on his skin.

And he couldn't shake the feeling that Tara could see—or sense—his discomfort. He couldn't shake the feeling that that was why she refused to look at him, speak to him, even acknowledge his existence. Something seemed very off. She had always struck him as strange, but this was different. Something seemed very, very off.

When the sun was beginning to set, he decided to say something.

"Tara," he began. She didn't react initially. "I...I don't know very much about you."

She paused, and he was afraid that she would just ignore him.

"I don't know much about you, either."

"Well, you can ask anybody about me and you'll get my entire life story."

"I find that hard to believe."

"What does Tara mean?"

"Why do you care?"

"Does it matter?"

She stared at him with narrowed eyes. He considered saying that if he was going to trust her, if he was going to put the fate of his entire sanity in the hands of this girl, he wanted to know at least a little bit about her. He figured she wouldn't buy that anyway. And luckily, she conceded and decided to answer.

"My full name is Taralisse. In Ancient Hylian, it means 'Charmer of the Mind.'"

"Taralisse..." he repeated. It sounded oddly nice. "How fitting. Why did you shorten it?"

"It just happened, I guess," she shrugged. "Taralisse is apparently a mouthful."

"I like Taralisse. I think I'll call you Taralisse."

She turned away, as if his comment made her nervous.

"What does Link mean?" she finally said.

"Maybe you could tell me?" he suggested. "I don't know Ancient Hylian."

"It might not be based on Ancient Hylian."

"Well, tell me what Link means in Ancient Hylian."

"Link...let's see...In Ancient Hylian, Link means 'Asshole.'"

"I'm serious."

"Fine, fine. It means 'Hero.'"

He was fairly disappointed with that result.

"That's so predictable."

When Tara smiled, he saw a little crack in the wall between them. Perhaps there was hope of some kind of amicable relationship after all.

"Can I ask you another question, Charmer of the Mind?"

"Even if I said no, Mr. Hero, you would still ask. So go for it."

"Why do you keep looking at me like that?"

"Like what."

"Like I said something to make you dislike me even more than before. Ever since this morning."

"You do say a lot of frustrating things. I might not remember specific statements."

"No, you know what I mean."

She glared at him again, and the wall went up even higher. And then he noticed that the look on her face was the exact expression he had seen a couple days ago, when he had confronted her about the Pedestal of Time. She was nervous, hiding something locked away deep inside of her. And that, in turn, made him nervous.

"No," she said bluntly. "I don't know what you mean."

"Then let me ask this."

"I have a right not to answer."

"Why are you so interested in time?"

Tara paused and looked straight ahead again. Then she crossed her arms and Link knew that he wasn't going to get anywhere.

"Why are you?"

He suddenly thought that maybe if he were honest with her, she would be honest with him.

"Because I'm in love."

He could tell his answer caught her off guard, because she looked straight at him with a different expression. An unexpectedly sad one.

"What does that have to do with time?"

"Lots of things," he replied. "Like you said. Emotions are one of the few things that survive time. And love is the strongest emotion of all."

"Yeah? Well I think rage is the strongest emotion."

"Rage?"

"Yup. It motivates people to do some crazy shit."

"So does love."

"My turn to ask you a question, pretty boy," she smirked. "How do you know it's love and not rage motivating you? Right now at this very moment?"

"You can't ask me that. You don't know anything about my motivations."

"Perhaps."

Then she fell silent, and Link was grateful. Because, ironically enough, his rage had begun surfacing. But he managed to suppress it, all while wondering if maybe she were right. It wouldn't have been the first time. But even when she was quiet, he felt a strange desire to keep talking. A need to keep talking. Because even with her snide remarks and her cold glares, something about the way she listened made him want to talk. It was strikingly similar to the way Zelda had always drawn out his secrets, and he had always given them so willingly. They had similar manners of listening—even when they weren't really listening, they made you feel like they were just by the way they looked at you. The way they reacted (or pretended to react). So Link kept talking.

"It feels strange. I've spent so much time—no, wasted so much time being upset. Now the possibility that it all could finally come to a close is...it's overwhelming. It's like when I used to hear stories of the castle, or the desert, or the mountains. But when I finally saw them with my own eyes, something changed. Everything became even less believable, as strange as that sounds. The more I saw, the less I believed that it actually existed. So now, when I think about going back to the Temple of Time, I'm afraid I won't even believe it's there. That everything I've read or dreamt about is just fantasy. That time doesn't even exist."

"The temple is real. Don't you worry about that. Although I'm not so sure about time."

"I get chills thinking about it."

And then, Tara said something that gave him even more chills.

She looked straight into his eyes with one of the most grave expressions he had ever seen. And for a split second, he thought she looked past him—at the presence walking beside him. As if she could see it.

"I don't think the temple is what's giving you chills."

He wanted to stop, grab her shoulders, and shake her until the answers he was searching for flowed from her sassy lips. To scream until she finally told him what she meant. By everything, by anything. Ask her why she had said that, why she knew so much about him. Walking beside her, not knowing a single thing about her and at the same time feeling undeniably watched and judged by her, was one of the most uncomfortable situations in which he'd ever found himself.

Link opened his mouth to confront her. To try and convince her to open up even a little bit. But the only words that came out were: "Who are you?"

Taralisse just smiled, and the rest of the world was drowned out by the chiming of her golden jewelry.

"A simple charmer of the mind, Mr. Hero."

By the time the sun set, they had found a small caravan—a travelling inn near the entrance to Faron Woods—in which they decided to sleep that night. The two sat beside each other on a cot inside the caravan, while stars sparkled directly outside in the dewy night air. Tara didn't mind. At that point in her life, at a ripe 21 years old, she was so accustomed to travelling and sleeping with only the stars above her that it was almost funny. Of course, she knew that it had to be the same for Link. Perhaps worse. She almost found herself feeling sorry for him (at the very least she was undeniably curious) when she thought about how many nights he had to have slept in the grass, struggling to stay warm, cradling his head with only his arms. She thought that maybe she would ask him about it later.

But, obviously, she was not going to ask him anything until she got over her immense distrust and discomfort with him. Not until her questions were answered.

Not until she figured out why the boy was following Link.

She wanted chocolate more than anything, but she had to be content with only her pipe. As Link spread himself out on the cot they were going to sleep on, taking a bite of an apple that looked much too red, Tara sat beside him and lit her pipe. She felt him trying not to look at her, just as she was trying not to look at him.

Tara had never felt like this around anybody before. The problem was, essentially, that she didn't know how she felt. The conversations they had were always so strange, their interactions tense and awkward. There was something about him that kept her on edge—and she knew that there was something about her that kept him on edge.

Until the evening before, Tara had had so much trouble trying to figure out what it was about him that made her so uncomfortable. But after hearing him speaking with Renado, when they both thought she was asleep, she understood. And that understanding was what made her want chocolate and what made her inhale the smoke of her pipe so deeply.

History was repeating itself. Everything that Tara was afraid of, everything that she had tried to bury, was resurfacing in the form of Link. She understood exactly what he was going through, she understood his thought process, she understood why he always had those chills on his skin and why he was always looking backward—as if there were somebody walking behind him. She knew everything. And it made her terribly, terribly nervous.

He was going through the worst kind of pain a human being can go through: carrying the burden of life itself.

His thought process concerned only the need to reverse time.

He had chills on his skin because of the dreams.

He was always looking backward, as if there were somebody walking behind him, because there was somebody walking behind him.

And yet, she couldn't help but smile at the irony of it all. Tara was uncomfortable because she understood Link better than she wanted to; Link was uncomfortable, she knew, because he understood absolutely nothing about her. Each time he tried, she shut herself off. It was like a habit for her. Not to mention that Link had not left the best impression on her. He was handsome and valiant and he had beautiful eyes, but...something about him made her cringe.

"You smoke so much," he said, breaking the silence. He was lying on his back while she sat, cross-legged, beside him. He said it absentmindedly, as if he were falling asleep.

"Yeah?"

She turned and blew smoke right into his face. He closed his eyes and did something very strange, something unexpected; Tara had always been good at predicting things from a scientific perspective, which had gradually translated into her ability to predict things in people. But she could not have predicted Link's smile at that moment. He simply closed his eyes, breathed in the smoke, and smiled.

"What are you smiling about?" she demanded.

"How hopeless it is."

"Then why are you even here if it's hopeless?"

"I don't mean the time," he chuckled. Then he began shaking his head. "I mean you."

"Me?"

"You're so hopeless."

"Excuse you."

"We all have our talents, right?"

"Sure. Mine is smoking, yours is wonderfully rare stupidity."

"No, mine is reading people."

"...Reading people. You're serious."

"Yes. I can look into somebody's eyes and read them like a book."

"Yeah, okay."

"I wasn't born with that talent. I don't think I was born with any talents, really. But...here, I'll try to explain it this way. When I was first handed a sword and they said to me, 'Fight,' I had no idea what I was doing. I wasn't strong. I didn't know how to fight."

"It's a wonder you're alive, huh?"

"When I fought enemies, I knew I wasn't strong enough to win with force. So I used strategy. I read my enemies. Their strengths, their weaknesses, their fighting patterns. It became a way for me to survive. If I couldn't read an enemy right, I was going to die. In a way, I was forced to develop this talent. But as I read my enemies, I learned how to read people, too."

"Hmm. All right. If I'm a book, what genre am I?" she asked.

He opened his eyes. Then she realized why they struck her as so beautiful: they looked exactly like a wolf's eyes. She had always believed wolves to be beautiful.

"I have no idea," he answered.

"Pretty useless talent, if you ask me."

"Sometimes I catch glimpses. And I think, maybe she's a comedy. Other times I think, maybe she's a tragedy. But then the glimpse is gone and I have no idea."

"You catch glimpses? You are so full of shit."

"I'm serious," he continued. But his voice was soft, distracted. He wasn't even looking at her. She figured he must have been thinking of at least a million things at once. "Like today. Or a couple days ago, when I asked you about the Pedestal of Time. Your eyes gleamed in a certain way. I knew exactly what was going on in your head."

"Oh, did you, now?"

"Yes. I knew right away that you were hiding something."

"I mean...I think I made that pretty obvious."

He was starting to make her nervous, and her smoking was getting faster and deeper.

"No, no, I don't mean like that," he said. "It's not that you were hiding something, actually. It's that something was hidden inside you."

"I don't—"

"That's the only thing I can get from you," he chuckled again. "That there is something dark locked inside of you."

Tara wanted to smack him as hard as she could for having the nerve to say something like that to her. But instead, she turned away with rage in her eyes and bit down on the end of her pipe. Because, in the end, he was right.

"Well...that, and your insanity," he added.

"Don't try to tell me you're not just as insane as I am, Mr. Hero."

"Oh, I am. But I'm definitely not as brilliant."

"A mad genius, if you will."

"Maybe," he shrugged. "Maybe not. Like I said. It's hopeless understanding you."

"Yes. Well. You're right."

"I'm going to ask you another question."

"Here we go."

"Why are you so opposed to me?"

"You asked me this question this morning."

"No I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"I'm trying to understand you better, that's all."

"I thought you said I was hopeless."

"Don't you want to be understood?" he whispered. "At least by someone?"

Tara opened her mouth to answer, but she couldn't find the words. Her mouth suddenly tasted like ash.

Too much smoking?

"Why do you want to understand me?" she finally managed.

Link turned on his side and curled up like a child, and she could see him falling asleep. She could also see his calloused hand wrapped around the necklace hanging around his neck, one that she hadn't noticed before.

"I can't trust someone I don't understand," he yawned. "And I hate not trusting people."

It was then, as Link fell asleep beside her, that Tara understood why she was so irritated by him.

He was too pure.

Too innocent.

Too virtuous.

Too selfless.

Too moral.

Too goddamn kind.

Too much of everything that Tara simply wasn't.

"Good night, Taralisse."

It took every ounce of willpower in her body to keep from leaning down and emptying her pipe on his face.

Nobody had called her Taralisse since her sister died.

Link had the dream again that night. The one in which he drowned in a lake of fire while the silhouette of a man stood saying, over and over as the flames burned Link's skin, "Time. Time. Time is alive." It started out the same way, with his absolute contentment. And then it progressed in the same way, with the fire getting with each swing of that terrible green pocket watch in the shadow's hand.

"Time."

Even in his dreams, Link was starting to hate that word and wonder if time existed at all. Perhaps it was his insanity directing his thoughts, but he couldn't help but wonder. This time, the dream was a little bit different, because he decided to voice those thoughts out loud.

"Is time real?" he asked, struggling through the burn.

"Time is alive," responded the shadow, in the same smooth, yet thunderous voice as always. Then Link realized that when the shadow spoke, he felt the same warmth that he did while he walked, with the presence following him.

Again, in the middle of the night, Link sat up screaming and in a sweat. He held his face in his hands for a few moments to try to erase the images, but in the end he knew it was useless. So he just sat and trembled, disoriented and frightened and paranoid about the pain that he thought might attack him at any moment.

Suddenly, he realized that Tara was sitting beside him. Not sleeping, not laying, but sitting up. Staring at him as messy strands of her deep purple hair fell across her face and around her bloodshot eyes. But in the darkness of the caravan, on that single cot on which they slept, as Link shook with the remains of an all-too-real nightmare, Tara did something strange. Slowly, she began shaking her head. Her lips slightly parted, her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes glistening with...sympathy?

No, he realized. It wasn't sympathy.

It was something even stranger.

Tara's eyes were glistening with tears.

"Why are you crying?" he murmured. He couldn't believe that was his voice.

"You kept saying it, over and over," she replied. The expression on her face frightened him. It was like she had fallen into a trance of sorrow, of grief, of vacancy. Like she was possessed. Her voice was stagnant and still and hollow. "You kept saying, 'Time is alive.'"

He repeated what he had said in the dream.

"I don't even know if time is real."

"Me neither." Her strange little smile trembled. "But it is alive."

And then she said something that made Link's heart drop all the way to his feet.

"Time is alive, and time is like a tempest."

Then she lay down, turned her back to him, and fell asleep within moments.