:: Theme fifty,
:: Party

Parties in the castle were so much different from parties back home.

Back home, for him, was in a quaint little forest filled with children who would never age. So obviously a party in a lavish castle filled with adults all trying much too hard to impress one another would be very different indeed. He was accustomed to cool night air whispering through the woods, children laughing and screaming as they chased one another round the bonfire (that their guardian fairies had helped them build, of course).

Link much preferred the latter.

Nobles talked and laughed in quiet, overly-polite voices all around him. A myriad of torches on the walls and candles hanging from chandeliers cast a vivid orange glow across food-piled tables lining stone walls. Link swirled the wine in his glass and watched the deep red liquid flow. He hadn't yet taken a single sip. No matter how hard Princess Zelda tried to convince him to like it, he couldn't. It was too strong of a drink, and he despised the way it dulled his senses when he had too much of it.

But the princess loved it. She sat across from him, sipping her own glass of wine as she conversed with an older noblewoman practically buried in floods of blue and green cloth. She looked almost like the sea - if the sea were blindingly garish and studded with showy jewels each fatter than a pig's head. Princess Zelda, for her part, acted perfectly polite and interested in whatever the woman had to say, sky-blue eyes intent and rose lips curved into a kind smile.

Link didn't know how she could stand it. The few people that had tried to converse with him eventually gave up, because he could barely say anything more than a dull and insincere "Hmm, interesting." Admittedly, he'd never been one for much socialization.

And, no matter how attached he grew to the princess, he never could enjoy the dismal place she called home. The castle twisted and wound around itself in a series of nonsensical gray hallways and rooms, all more fancily decorated than they needed to be. Was it really necessary for them to be adorned with dozens of tapestries and portraits and suits of gleaming armor that the poor servants were forced to polish daily? And those were just the hallways!

The castle felt like a prison, he mused. Only a more decorated one.

His heart dropped when he thought of childhood. It hadn't been easy, of course - some of the Kokiri children had made fun of him, almost relentlessly. But somehow that was so much better than any of this. At least, back home, there had been Saria. In spite of all the teasing, she had been there, his best and closest friend. And there were forests, and the wind in broad trees, and the carefree innocence and fun that only childhood could bring.

Here… Here, there were stuffy nobles speaking of stuffy business inside a stuffy castle. Sometimes Link wondered how anyone could breathe, it felt so stuffy.

He couldn't return home. He knew that, but he still missed it dearly.

Slowly he turned his gaze to the window on the wall to his left. Night had fallen; a tiny sliver of the moon hung in the darkened sky, and stars twinkled all around it. Looking into the night and imagining how crisp and wonderful the air would feel against his skin made him clench his hands into fists. He could hardly take another minute of suffering through this drivel that the royalty dared to call a party.

…Perhaps no one would notice if he quietly slipped away.

"How are you doing?"

Link turned to look at the princess standing behind him, brilliant azure gown cascading like a waterfall, the color perfectly matching her eyes. Pearls traced her wrists and neck and wove all through her golden hair. She smiled. It was that perfect, gracious smile, and in that moment he honestly wondered if she saw him any differently than she saw all the other nobles - just another person to be polite to.

He shrugged his broad shoulders and turned away. "I needed a breath of fresh air."

"Yes, it is a beautiful night, isn't it?" The princess took a few steps forward, but kept a respectful distance, resting her gloved hands on the marble banister of the balcony and turning her face toward the moon.

Link merely nodded in reply.

Princess Zelda, after a moment of silence broken only by the peaceful chirping of crickets, asked him, "Why don't you come back in? I am sure the others all miss you."

"Thank you for your concern, princess, but I doubt anyone even noticed I was gone."

She looked at him for a while, searching his face, her gaze entirely inscrutable. Link turned his deep blue eyes to hers and fought back a frown. Princess Zelda did not reply, and so he continued slowly, "I'd like to stay out here in the fresh air for a while longer before I attempt to go back inside. If you wouldn't mind."

She hesitated for a beat. "Of course I don't mind."

He wondered if she did. He was always out and about, exploring anywhere but the castle - wandering the fields, the forests, the villages, following rivers until they led to massive lakes or scaling mountains until he found obscure caves… He stopped by the castle on a fairly regular basis since the princess had told him long ago that he could treat the place as his own home. Sometimes he even wondered if there would ever be anything between them.

But now he began to question. She was just as formal around him as she was anyone else. There were times he could swear he'd seen irritation or sadness flicker in her eyes for the briefest of moments, but she never expressed it. She hardly ever expressed anything to him.

The princess looked at him for a moment longer before finally saying, "I'll see you again soon, then," and she turned to leave.

Before she could take more than a step, Link blurted, "Perhaps, but just for tonight. I think in the morning I'll set off again."

She stopped. "Oh?" He could read absolutely nothing in her eyes or on her face, and somehow that made him nervous - so he looked away, down the side of the balcony to the perfectly-manicured courtyard below.

He couldn't find words. Link had never been good with conversation, and to him, it didn't seem like there was anything else to say. His habit of leaving on adventures and returning some time later was nothing new. He would come back eventually, so saying "goodbye" seemed worthless.

Princess Zelda took a deep breath, clasped her hands across her stomach, and sighed. "We live in two very different worlds, you and I."

"…We do?" he replied carefully, glancing at her from the corner of his eye.

She pressed her lips together. "I live in a world of royalty and nobles, of politics and etiquette and fine linens and foods and rigid schedules. You live in a world where there is only wind and sun and swaying grass, where dirt and wildflowers tangle in your hair and there are no walls in sight."

Link clenched his jaw. "It sounds beautiful, when you put it that way - and it is. I don't envy the way you live, princess. I don't understand how you can put up with all the things you do, day after day. But…" He leaned against the railing and gazed past the castle walls, to the rolling hills beyond bathed in silver starlight. "The heart of a wanderer can be painful. There is nowhere you feel comfortable, nowhere you feel welcomed, and anywhere feels like a prison if you stay long enough. There is no rest, no home to come back to."

Princess Zelda smiled. It wasn't one of her overly-polite smiles, and neither was it genuine. To him it looked painfully bittersweet.

"Then, you see," she spoke softly, "our two worlds cannot mix."

It was the most blunt she had ever been with him. He winced - but she was right, and he didn't know how he could have possibly missed it before. How could there be anything between them when they lived so impossibly far apart?

"I suppose they can't," he agreed.

The princess stared at him for a while longer, something painful in her eyes, something he thought might be reflected in his own. For a while it seemed neither of them could find anything to say - and then Princess Zelda uttered one last word.

"Goodbye."

Part of him knew this was for the best, that he should have expected it, that he even wanted it. She was setting him free.

But his heart dropped anyway.

"Goodbye, princess."

At the crack of pink dawn he left astride his horse, casting only a fleeting glance over his shoulder. Pastel light bathed the town behind him, and morning dew sparkled on fields stretching vast before him.

He did not know where he would wander next. But he doubted he would ever return to the stone prison walls of the castle again.

A/N: I'm not deeeaaaad
But who cares :P
I just really wanna try to finish these, I'm already halfway through... my writing is so rusty though.