[AN: Possible trigger warning for sexual assault in this chapter. Just sayin'.]

I rode for three days until I found Link.

He was sitting by the river, drinking water and eating wheat cakes and dried beef. His horse, Jaks, was grazing lazily on the grass by the river.

I gently nudged my horse in the sides with my feet, and she walked on. I bent low over the horse's back (her name was Marcia, by the way). Suddenly, Marcia stepped on a twig, cracking it. I saw Link sit straight up before I dove from Marcia's back and slapped her flank. She whinnied and pranced forward. Link turned and saw Marcia.

"Oh, Marcia! My dear, sweet Marcia! I didn't know you loved me this much! Following me out here. You devil!"

I crept out from behind the tree as I listened, but I stepped on a different twig. Link stood up and said, "Who goes there?"

I cringed. Link had his sword drawn and was getting nearer and nearer . . .

"AHA!"

I screamed. Link had poked his head out from in front of the tree I was hiding behind. His sword was behind his head in mid swing when he realized who I was.

"R . . . Rebecca?"

I nodded quickly. "Yes, don't kill me, I beg you! I only wanted to travel, to see Hyrule, to know the world! I just . . . Oh!" I held my head in my hands and cried.

Link dropped his sword. "Rebecca . . . I . . . well, it's too late now, you can't go back." He gave an exasperated sigh and combed his hand through his hair. "Why on earth . . ."

I gulped. "Ganondorf killed my parents."

Link's eyes widened. "He . . . he killed them?"

I nodded. "Killed them, but my father, with his dying breath, put me in an orphanage. I was never adopted. Too defiant, too independant." I sighed. I just wish . . . I could see my father again."

Link stepped forward and hugged me. I leaned my head against him and cried. He swayed gently as he had done on the night Ganondorf had set a bonfire on the above-ground trade route.

"Oh, how sweet! And how stereotypical. The hero gets the girl!"

I opened my eyes and backed away from Link, drawing my sword. I had just heard a deep, evil-sounding voice. Link seemed oblivious.

I heard the same maniacal laughter of Ganondorf and then, "Don't worry, my dear . . . you may yet see your father again!" The laughter came again, except this time it got deeper and deeper, shaking the ground. Then the ground split between Link and me. Link picked up his sword, yelling, "Stalfos!"

Moments later, a skeleton crawled out of the ground, armed with a sword and wooden shield. FIRESTORM flared to life in my hand and burned its sheild to a crisp as I slashed. The skeleton stared at its now bare arm and shrieked. I winced from the sound and slashed. The creature disintegrated into a pile of ashes.

I stood staring at the ashes, panting. Then the voice spoke again.

"Oh, so you do not want to be reunited with dear old daddy, hm?" Laughter. I realized that Ganondorf was speaking to me.

"Stop it!" I yelled. "Stop!"

"Stop what?" Link asked.

"Heh heh heh! Poor, poor Link. I suppose he can't hear me, eh?" Laughter, then "Come willingly if you want to see your father!" As he spoke, more Stalfos poured from the crack in the earth. Link struggled to kill them. I slashed at a few, killing them instantly.

"Hypocrite!" Ganondorf hissed. "I thought you loved your father!"

I slashed more Stalfos. "I'd never come with you, you . . . you pig!" I screamed. "Ever!"

Ganondorf yelled in frustration. "Get her! Kill the boy, but get the girl!"

I slashed and stabbed, getting more and more tired as more and more Stalfos came. But just as I thought that I would collapse, Ganondorf said, "Bah! It's no use! Get out of there!"

The Stalfos hesitated, then crawled back into the earth.

Link was breathing heavily. I looked down at my arm. It was bleeding. I let out an involuntary groan. I slowly pulled up my sleeve and saw a long gash. I whimpered.

"What is it?" asked Link as he stepped over the three-foot-wide ravine.

I showed him my wound. He bit his lip. "Ouch. That had to hurt. Here," he pulled out a bottle of red liquid, "It's my last one. You have it."

I took a swig, and the pain went away immediately. In fact, as I looked at my arm, it healed quickly. There was a scar, but it made me feel good. I smiled at Link. "Thank you!"

Link nodded. "You're welcome—ooh!" He winced, clutching his side. "Red potion. Works wonders. Let's bed down for the night, shall we?" Hunched over, he led me to a cave by the river. Once there, we rolled out our bedrolls and I assessed Link's condition.

He had a deep cut on his side and a broken rib. I offered him some of my Red Potion, but he refused. Said I should keep it to myself. Later, while he was making wheat cakes from some of the wheat outside, I heard him groan, then a dull THUMP. I looked over to see Link slumped over the rock on which he had been pounding wheat. I shook my head slowly. "Tsk, tsk. You waited, you paid the price.

I picked up Link from underneath his shoulders and hoisted him to the middle of the cave. I figured he needed medical attention, and fast. I pulled off his hat and thought, He looks better with his hat off. I realized what I was thinking and shuddered. I rolled my shoulders and slipped off his tunic, which I set aside to clean later. I took off his chain mail, which I knew would rust if I cleaned it, so I just threw it onto the grass outside to dry-clean it. Then I saw Link's bloodstained white shirt. I undid the ties that held the shirt together, and as they fell apart, I saw the humongous black bruise that fully indicated a broken rib. I shuddered and got my Red Potion from my pack, which I poured down Link's throat. The bruise slowly turned purple, then blue, and disappeared. I smiled. Then I realized that his wound wasn't healed. I flexed my fingers and pulled off his shirt, which I threw onto his tunic. I tried to ignore his muscular bare chest as I wiped his wound with his hat. (It was the only thing available! Cut me some slack here!) When the blood was gone, I dipped his hat in the river to get it wet. Then I came back and wiped his wound again.

Link twitched, and I backed off. He groaned and shifted, but resumed sleeping. I bit my lip and further cleaned his gash untill the gash was clean. Then I ripped some cloth from my pants and carefully started wrapping his wound.

Link stirred again and opened his eyes. He looked in surprise at me and was about to say something when I said, "Shh, Shh. Stay put. Prop yourself up; I can't properly get this behind you."

Link looked down, and his eyes widened. He opened his mouth, then shut it, and propped himself up. I half hugged him as I tied the strip of white cloth behind him. He looked down at me as I pressed my cheek to his chest in an effort to tie the cloth. He raised an eyebrow. I followed suit.

After one last pull, the cloth was tied. I tried pulling away, but Link's arms were around me. I grunted and jerked, but Link only held me tighter. With one hand, Link pulled me so that our faces were parallel. I realized the . . . ahem . . . "Danger" of the situation and jerked backwards. Link tightened his grip on me. I closed my eyes and turned my head. I felt his breath on my ear. He whispered, "Thank you," and let me go.

I crawled backwards and tried to focus only on Link's face and not on his chest and arms. "Wh . . . what?"

Link crawled over to the grindstone and pounded the wheat some more. As he worked, he said, "I noticed the empty Red Potion bottle. You don't know how much that means to me.

"You see," he continued, "when you gave that last bit to me, that was an act of sacrifice. If you get wounded, you can't use that motion. Therefore, you could die." He stopped grinding and got up, one of his hands holding the grindstone with the wheat. I averted my attention to Ganondorf's words and thought about the fact that my father was, in fact, alive. I looked at the smoldering remains of the fire we had started a few hours ago. I stood up, and as I did so, I saw Link by the river, taking some water out of said long, skinny body of water and dribbling it into the grindstone. I walked out of the cave and found a large, flat rock. I set the rock on top of the coals and helped Link pour some of the wheat cake batter onto the rock. I got some dry beef from my provisions and snapped it up and sprinkled it into the batter on the rock. Link then poured the rest of the batter and we waited for the cake to cook. As we waited, I told Link what Ganondorf had said to me, about my father. Link admitted, rather reluctantly, that he had heard Ganondorf talking to him, too, but he wouldn't tell me exactly what Ganondorf had said. All I knew was that Ganondorf had told him about my father.

Soon, the wheat cake was cooked, and we ate it. Afterwards, it was dark, so Link showed me all of the different Hylean constellations.

"Over there is Ordona, one of the Light Spirits. That's the Great Fairy, and her seven maidservants. Oh, that? That's the River in the Sky. You see, if you squint, you can see a whole lot more stars . . . yeah, you see it? Yeah." He laughed. "Hmm. The moon sure is pretty tonight, huh?" He looked over at me. We were lying on the ground by the river.

I had to agree. The moon was waxing. It cast a blue glow on the world. The sky was clear, meaning the stars shone all the brigter.

"Of course," Link began, almost tentatively, "It's not as beautiful as you."

My eyes widened. I cleared my throat. "I'm . . . flattered?" I said hesitantly.

I heard Link sigh contentedly. The river flowed gently by, its soothing sound lulling me to sleep. I dreamt I was lying in flowers, free of pain and worry.