A Stone's Love Trial

Meeting You

Now people keep saying

Don't be no fool

Don't play with love,

She's much too cruel

To win, you need a heart

Made out of stone

Hoping change is coming

Around the corner-

● ▬▬▬▬▬๑۩۩๑▬▬▬▬▬ ●

For as long as I could remember, people passing by the River of Oblivion began to call me the Stone of Deku. Thereafter, some people ignored me, some came hand-in-hand and carved on me their romances from lifetimes past, and there were even those who stood bawling in front of me.

And yet, I was just a stone by the River of Oblivion. I neither had joy nor did I have sorrow.

I sat faithfully that way by the riverside for one thousand years until I finally formed a soul one day. All living things were to be subjected to trials of fate, but I continued to sit there harmlessly for over another century until one day...

My love trial came.

Reading my fortune was a strange bespectacled priest passing by the River of Oblivion. He prophesied my coming trial with a knowing nod of his head. I thought he was just making up nonsense.

For I was a spirit born from the Deku Stone; my soul was that of a stone and my heart was that of a stone. My heart had long been forged into coldness by the perennial darkness along the River of Oblivion.

There was no pain where there was no love. If my heart hadn't ever stirred, then where would this love trial come from?

Or so I thought.

But everything always had its surprises.

● ▬▬▬▬▬๑۩۩๑▬▬▬▬▬ ●

On a gloomy afternoon in the underworld, I returned to the eternally unchanging River of Oblivion from my wandering as usual. I looked up. In that coincidental moment, as if sunlight from the land of the living had broken through the thick layers of fog, the clustered amaryllises lining the river suddenly glistened radiantly.

A man sauntered forth, one unlike any other I had ever seen before. He was approximately 190 cm tall, and had glowing tanned skin which was well matched with his ash blond spiked hair. His facial features were distinct and sharp, and his red almond-shaped eyes shone with a spark far more brilliant than any hellfire I'd ever scene. His worn and battered armor marked him as a warrior.

Looking at his overall appearance, he can most definitely be regarded as a wild-blooded beauty, but his most special trait wasn't as simple as that. Wearing a bored expression on his face, he gave off the impression of not quite being grim and unfeeling, but he couldn't be mistaken as gentle or soft either. How strange... I didn't know how else to describe him. Distant, perhaps.

I suddenly recalled the words a human woman passing by me had once whispered many, many years ago: "If I knew before today would occur, I would definitely fall in love with you at first sight. If I knew there would be a time I would love you this much, I wouldn't fail to fall in love with you at first sight..."

After a thousand years, my stony heart made a rare but subtle tremble.

He slowly approached, of course not to see me, but rather because behind me was the Kamui Bridge one must cross in order to enter the underworld. It wasn't easy to run into such a beautiful person, so I thought I should have a beautiful meeting with him.