Forbidden flame: A Zelink story

Chapter 13

"This dress is a little tight at the back," I told Olivia as I felt her hands work around the ribbons tying the back up. 

"It's meant to be. It's meant to show off your curves, Princess."

"Hah!" I burst out. "Curves of which I have none."

"Respectfully, that is not true, your majesty." I felt Olivia's fingers stop with the ribbons and trail over a spot on the back of my right shoulder. "Er...Princess, is this..."

I looked in the mirror and turned enough to see an obvious hickey on the back of my shoulder. I practically froze in fear.

"Um, we might have to...You know, cover that up, a little.." Olivia murmured.

I turned towards Olivia. "Don't tell my father, Please?" I began. "He cannot know."

"Um, yes princess. I won't tell him." Olivia finished up the ribbons on my dress and sat me down on the stool of my dresser. She managed to cleverly cover up the marking with foundation, then silently began on my hair. 

"It was the knight, wasn't it?" She said after about twenty minutes. 

"I- what? No. You forget yourself."

"Oh, please! I was a teenage girl once too, you know. I'm not that dumb."

I chuckled. "It's been scary. Hiding it from from everyone, I mean. He's a very good actor, but me, not so much."

"I overhear broken pieces of gossip sometimes. About the two of you. About how good you would look together."

I winced a tiny bit as my hair was being pulled. "Do you think people know?"

"No." Olivia reassured. "And even if people put two and two together, they'd be too scared to confront you, of course. You're safe."

"I hope we are. He's the only real freedom I have." I confessed. 

"That must make for a nice change, Princess." Olivia started on another section of hair. "And I have to say, I'm impressed that you've managed to sneak him into your room so well. Isn't this hallway well protected?"

"It should be, but the guards are mainly positioned at the end of the hallways, and my room is in the middle."

"Right."

"And they tend to fall asleep."

"I see." Olivia quickly asked me to turn around and fiddled with the front pieces of my hair. She brought out a brush and some hair product and, after getting my permission, some scissors. I trusted Olivia and knew that whatever she would do would look just right. Before long, she announced that she was finished.

I stood up and turned myself around to see the final product in the mirror.

My dress was a light blue-ish green, dotted with little embroidered pink flowers and made from silk. The cropped cape matched the colour and was gold rimmed, the whole dress itself made from very thick material allowing the puffy skirt to align into neat ripples.

My hair was down, but seemed to be more shiny and shaped than before. It was parted to the side, and a long and chunky braid ran down the smaller half. I now had side bangs, and they had been swooped to one side. The back was raised up in a beehive.

"Oh, Olivia..." I began to smile. "I really feel like a princess."

I began to walk downstairs, the whole place adorned with flowers and lanterns. I looked out the window on my way down, and it seemed that the whole kingdom was right outside my home. It was evening time now, tthe sun was just setting, and music emulated throughout the whole of the castle. I could hear thousands of voices; It seemed that the whole ground floor of the castle had been taken up by people from all over hyrule. I thought it was happening in the ballroom, but clearly I was mistaken.