Chapter 4: Who are you?

***

All around her was a forest, the never ending forest. The forest was so thick that the walls of the maze were made from the forest plants, far too strong for one to break through. The princess was wearing unusual garments: a green tunic that was much larger than necessary for her size. The boots that she wore were also big, making her become clumsy to even the simplest tasks at hand. The princess walked over to a tree with plenty of apples upon it hoping to get something to eat, but as she reached out for the ripe fruit, a muscular arm wrapped itself around her waist and pushed her away from the tree. She heard crashing and wood splitting, as she felt the strong muscular arms push her onto the maze wall for protection.

When she opened her eyes, she found that she was trapped between the maze wall and the man with the pointy ears and silver earrings; the face was still a blur. She felt him breathe hard from the adrenaline just like how she was, his breath passing by her neck.

"Are you alright?" the man said.

Looking deeply to where his eyes should be, the princess nodded as the adrenaline within her increased ever so more. For a moment, neither of them spoke, neither of them moved; then, slowly, he inched his face towards her…closer and closer by the second.

***

Gasping for air, the princess woke up from her sleep, scared of what would have happened if the young man in her mind was going to do next, again. She shuddered at the thought. With the unknown man swimming in her thoughts, it reminded her of Terry, and the last thing that he said to her.

"I'm sorry; it was passion that was accidentally…rekindled…" echoed in her mind.

Automatically, the pain and the sorrows returned to her heart making the tears unstoppable. Quietly, she sat there sobbing as the internal bleeding poured out continuously. Scared that she might wake the others within the cabin, she dressed in the clothing that Saria gave her, put on the face cloth and went out walking with her stitch toy in hand for company.

Walking around, she finally decided to take a rest at a tree stump on top of a small hill that overlooked the small kokiri village. The small night breeze gently brushed along her face next to the fresh tears. Not knowing what to do, the first thing that came out of her mouth was a random melody, a quiet random melody that she hummed out loud to ease her sorrows. The song was slow and had lullaby characteristics to it, which made the song, have a soothing feeling to the rhythm.

The song carried down into the village without her knowing. The soothing lullaby caught the attention of the young man who was still awake from cleaning his weapons. Hearing the song, he put on his shield and sword onto his back and covered his face with a face cloth as he headed towards the lullaby, at the top of the little hill. Treading quietly to the top, he found the princess wiping the tears under the face cloth. Not watching his step, the young man stepped onto a branch and it stirred the princess into realizing that she wasn't alone.

Not knowing whether the young man was friend or foe, she sat on the stump still as the tree itself, waiting for him to make a move before deciding on what to do. Seeing the tears upon her hand, he slowly put his hand into his tunic. The princess thinking that it was a threat jumped up and stepped a few paces away. He pulled out a handkerchief and held it out to her. Hesitantly, she reached out and took it to wipe her tears. Accidentally, she loosened the knot on her headband and her bun of hair escaped like a river flowing downstream. They both gasped from surprise. Quickly, forgetting that the handkerchief was still in hand, the princess ran into the darkness. As the young man turned to leave for home, he saw that the princess had left behind her headband as he picks it up and looks into the darkness once more before turning back around. As one was walking while the other ran, they were both thinking the same thing:

"Who was that?!"

As the days go by, the village became more and more bustled due to the different races coming in for the Introduction. There was what they called the Gorons, rock-like race. Then there were the people of the sea, the Zoras. Time was counting down to the final night where everyone will show how much hard work they had put into their dance. The princess and the young man haven't seen each other ever since the encounter a week before. By that time, the princess had been able to understand the very basics of the Hyrulian language.

As she was getting ready for the dance, putting on a long plain silver dress and the face cloth with her hair tied up once again, but tighter this time. She checked on her silver earrings, the only things that were unharmed when she came to this world. As she smoothed out the short sleeves upon her dress, Saria came in and did a final checkup on her appearance. The dress fell past her knees, almost touching the floor, the short sleeves covered the shoulders, but the dress had a large oval dress collar, enough to show off her collar bones. Saria tied the golden waist cloth around the princess, letting the excess cloth flow down the right side of her waist. Then the long silver gloves were put on and all preparations were complete.

Moments later, they both heard the crowd outside of the cabin cause an uproar as they cheered to something that the princess couldn't understand.

"Let's go," Saria said.

Following her, the princess saw the other ten female members come out of the cabin before her in five different colors: green, red, blue, orange, and purple. Each female came out with their paired color and went to the slightly raised platform in the center of the village and broke apart from each other, meeting with their respective male dancers of the same color around the platform.

"…male dancers…?!" the princess thought, finally realizing why the young man from that night was also wearing a face cloth.

As the princess started to panic under her face mask, Saria led her up to the platform unlike the other respective couples to a man dressed in a golden tunic and pants. A silver cloth was tied to his waist as his excess cloth was hanging from his right. The princess tightened her grip upon Saria's arm and Saria put a reassuring hand upon her.

When they reached the center of the platform, where the man was waiting, Saria tapped the princess's shoulder and she leaned over to listen to Saria.

"It's okay," Saria whispered into the princess's ear as she turned to leave the platform.

Once Saria was off the stage, the music started to rumble across the village as the members around the platform had already started. Both waiting for the right music cue, the princess and the man got into their positions and danced beautifully when their cue came. As they danced, they never touched each other as they always wound round and round each other in their steps, as if they want each other but are always just slightly out of reach. The tempo of the song increased and the speed between the two increased as their waist cloths flew in the wind that they created.

When the song ended, the crowd of different races cheered and applauded as if there was no tomorrow. Seeing that the other dancers were leaving the platform area, the princess took the opportunity to run away from the man's presence to hide behind Saria once more. Unfortunately for the princess the break apart from the man wasn't long before the host for that night returned to the stage and started to announce things once again.

"Let's go," Saria said once more.

When Saria left the stage once more, the tempo started really slow this time and as the princess waited for the right tempo cue, the man had already taken three steps and a bow. After his bow, the princess heard her cue and she took three steps and a curtsy. Taking the outstretched hand, the princess danced along with the man. The song increased its tempo once more and they were forced to dance quicker, making it seem as if they were clinging to each other, not wanting to break the bond. The audience was staring in awe as the feeling that they caused seemed like as if they were lovers that were being torn apart by the unknown influences around them. The song ended with the two of them arm in arm. The crowd cheered and applauded louder than the last dance, screaming their lungs out for their performance.

That gave the princess the chance to pull away from the man to return to Saria, but Saria shook her head. The host came up and said something for a while and then turned to the princess. Confused, she turned to look at Saria and Saria motioned for the princess to take the face cloth off her face. Slowly, the princess took the cloth off her face that also held the pin to her bun and her hair flew out like how the man saw it from before.

She opened her eyes and saw that the host was frozen in surprise not only at the princess's beauty, but also at the moon crescent that was upon her forehead. Others in the crowd also started to gasp and murmur when they saw her face.

"What is your name?" the host finally stuttered still surprised.

"My…name…Lian…" the princess said slowly and brokenly, still not knowing the Hylian language.

Catching himself, the host recollected his thoughts and said something similar to the man who also slowly started to take off his face cloth. When the princess saw his face, she froze at the sight.

"Linus…!!" the princess said in a ghastly whisper that was only heard by the people around the platform.

Seeing her face turn white, the man worriedly came to her side and grabbed her arm saying something, probably asking if she was okay. However, when his bare hands touched her unclothed arm, power appeared between the two and pain erupted in the princess as something hot started to appear on her left side of the waist. The hot branding feeling started to reveal itself as a golden triangle with three smaller triangles forming its combined shape. When the golden triangle appeared, the left hand of the man also started to resonate with her waist with the same symbol. All the power and pain that had appeared between the two triangles finally became unstable and blew up around the stage.

When the smoke had cleared, the man saw that the princess was still standing there, motionless and frozen in spot with her eyes still wide from surprise. Her clothing however was shredded once more, and the golden triangle was revealed at her waist. Then she started to collapse and fall towards the floor of the platform, landing with a thud.