Fields of Gold

Safehaven

Sleep came easily that night. Zelda, plunged back into the cold, dank Twilight, found that her life was somewhere more bearable. The sunlight and warmth, now seeming like a distant memory, had indeed renewed her strength, mentally and physically. So she rested, truly rested, for the first time since her imprisonment.

Zelda awoke to the soft sound of rain falling gently on her balcony. Normally, Zelda loved stormy days. She loved seeing monstrous, gray rainclouds in the sky. They were a promise of a wickedly strong storm ahead. Yet as she crawled out of her tangled blankets to don her cloak, she felt that this rain was an unnatural as the Twilight. The raindrops seemed to fall from the sky more slowly than normal, and each drop falling on the stone floor of the balcony echoed eerily. The chill of Twilight deepened with the coming of the rain. Zelda pulled her cloak more closely to her body and wished that she were in the field instead of her tower room.

She closed her eyes and pretended that she was standing in the middle of the field, the stalks of barley swaying with each breath of wind. The sky above her would be filled from end to end with dark gray clouds. Glorious thunder would roar in the distance and the wind would whip into a frenzy. Zelda imagined tipping her face to the sky, letting the gentle rain fall onto her skin. How she longed to be in that field right now.

As she thought, something sparked her memory.

That field...Ganondorf...their hands...

A new sense of dread slowly seeped through her body like black ink spilled on pristine parchment. She stood as still as a statue, staring unblinking into the shadowy downpour. Her body felt numb, though her thoughts were a violent storm. Zelda's heart thudded wildly within her unmoving body. She willed her mind away from what happened in the field. Try as she might, she could not clean her mind of him. The memory of his touch burned her skin. She rubbed her hands together, as if trying to wipe away his essence. His eyes would not leave her. Her thoughts were haunted by the compassion that his golden irises betrayed. How could he be so familiar, so acquainted with her? They were enemies! He was not supposed to hold her hands and gaze into her soul with concern. How dare he? Yet as much as she wanted to, she could not force herself into real indignation. She was utterly lonely and even that small moment of familiarity with the enemy was almost a comfort. That realization alone deeply terrified her.

She recalled Ganondorf's face. He had the typical features of a Gerudo, red hair and yellow eyes to match. Zelda found that the face of her enemy was not the very picture of evil as she once thought. Maybe in a different world, she could have thought him handsome; very handsome...with the dusky light of the sunset glowing on his tanned skin and his strong jaw line. Perhaps if he ridded himself of his armor and stripped down to only a loose fitting peasant shirt and breeches, took out his crown and let his hair flow free, then what would he look like? He would be undeniably handsome, no doubt. What would it be like to run her fingers through those fiery locks? She wondered idly if the hair on his head matched the hair on his chest. She imagined letting her fingers trail down his neck, over his collarbone to the imaginary, fine red hair that grew over his broad chest.

As soon as that thought crossed the threshold of her mind, her heart stopped. Her mind snatched those images of Ganondorf's chest and shoved them deep into the depths of her consciousness. Was that really where her mind wanted to go? With Ganondorf?

Zelda dropped her head into her hand. "What is wrong with me," she whispered to the rain. Her response was the chilly drops falling rhythmically from the sky. Maybe she was just lonely; lonely and trapped in a world that she did not belong. She was just going a little mad, that was all. Zelda sighed heavily and walked over to the windows and began her daily vigil of the outside world shrouded in Twilight. She needed to purge her mind of the Gerudo.