"FINE." Legend stood up peeling out of his wet tunics and gear and laying them out to dry. He slipped into the water a few feet from his friend and sat brooding while they laughed.

The water did indeed feel amazing... He felt all the stressors from their journey just melting from him…all of his tension and aches just ebbing away. He looked over to his friends as he relaxed, enjoying their quiet banter. He closed his eyes and hummed softly to himself.

"Enjoying the spring?" A soft voice purred near his ear. He was surprised but not alarmed. He was too relaxed to be alarmed. She was quiet... He opened his eyes and gave the strange woman a dreamy sort of half smile. A fairy alighted upon his head and he chuckled.

"Yes, thank you for allowing us to use it. This is a rare luxury for us." She smiled warmly as the fairy now flitted over to her head and was quickly joined by a second.

"I'm glad that you're enjoying it!" She hummed "But this place is not mine to share or deny… it belongs to none but the fae who dwell here." She reached an arm up out of the water for an addition perch for their fairy friends. They landed lightly upon it briefly before flying off. "If anyone deserves thanks it is them." She drew her hand back into the water but not before legend had gotten a closer look. His eyes went wide. Impossible.

"Those symbols.. on your skin." He began, carefully "I recognize some of them.."

She pulled away slightly, the briefest flicker of mistrust flashed across her face but was quickly replace again by that same calm smile. "They…tell a story." She said evasively. "An old story... but one that I'm still apart of too." She added seeming to realize that the additional words were no more helpful than her initial ones on the matter. She lowered her eyes for a moment before giving him a big sunny smile and swimming right up close to him again. "Oh, Everyone has a story! What is yours?"

"I-uh.." Legend was immediately caught off guard both by her reversal of the question and her proximity. She was near enough that the steam from her sin was in his every breath… Her skin briefly brushed his own and suddenly he was entirely too aware of the fact that not only was he completely naked here but so was the girl before him. Only inches away… A new heat unrelated to the water flooded his body. He felt his face and ears going red as he tried to swim backwards a little, floundering when his back immediately struck the crystal wall of the pool. She moved closer once again, big eyes full of questions. His heart began to thud in his chest.

Realizing that her proximity seemed to be causing him discomfort she swam back a bit and wrinkled her nose at him in a good-natured tease. "That's ok. You don't have to say… You can keep your secrets." She laughed and dove into the water leaving him alone with his racing heart. She reappeared a little way away, nearer to his friends. She was chatting to them amicably.

Legend dunked his head under the hot water and raked his fingers through his hair in a twofold effort to wash and clear his mind. He scrubbed furiously. Thinking hard.

The tattoos... on her arm… long forgotten (to most) symbols of ancient Hyrule were etched into her skin and then there was her hand... She had what looked like a triforce on the back of her hand. But… it was different from his, theirs... the ones that he had seen in the past. Its inverted position called to mind the likeness of the triforce from kingdom of Lorule, but there was something else about it too.. that was just different… there was something more. He surfaced, still massaging his scalp, perhaps a bit too aggressively. He tried to recall some of the other symbols that he saw specifically but couldn't and was mentally cursing himself for not being more aware and letting a pretty face distract him fro-

"Hey Vet!" Wind called out from where he was on the other side of the pool. We have been invited to stay for dinner, what say you?" The girl and his companions all looked at him expectantly.

"Uh…Yeah. Sure." He managed to get out.

The other two men whooped with delight!

"Excellent." the girl chimed wringing out her hair, she perched herself once again on the rock in the middle of the spring making all three men look elsewhere in red-faced embarrassment. She seemed entirely unphased. "Stanley should be back from his hunt shortly!"

'Stanley'.. Legend thought to himself, a weird painful little throb of jealousy pulsed through his chest, and then was gone along with whatever tiny bud of hope that had sprouted there without his knowledge. What was That? He thought to himself... ridiculous. He cleared his throat and his thoughts as he went to go redress