What's off the Road. [COMPLETE]

[Henhen]

“Hey, hey…this place is a lot bigger than I expected. I don’t even know where I am.”

Hyrule, that’s where, about two weeks out of castle town. The fact that it was merely the start of Spring did nothing to lessen the beating heat of the afternoon sun, which was bound to burn if not properly avoided.

“Eh? I just can’t avoid the sun.” Henhen looked up to the sky as he sat in the tall grass, his slouching form all but completely hidden. His eyes squinted as he tried to look at the sun man-to-man, but he couldn’t seem to completely manage it.

“Hey, hey, Sun—why can’t I look at you?” He pointed at it accusingly. “…and my finger can cover you up. See?” With that, he proceeded to create the illusion for himself of covering the sun, which he found amusing enough to laugh out loud. Unfortunately, this didn’t stop the sun from shining, or dissipate the heat.

“Well, that’s troublesome,” Henhen said, then closed his eyes. He’d been gone from home for weeks already, and hadn’t discovered anything of interest or anyone to talk to. To top that off, he’d been attacked by what appeared to be…ducks.

“Ahh…” Henhen rubbed his head at the memory. He opened his eyes and got to his feet, picking the stray grass from his hair and clothes.

“Hey, hey! This is no time to be sitting the day away in the grass! I’m an explorer! So I must explore!”

That’s the spirit. However, as he started to walk forward, he tripped over himself and landed face first back in the grass.

“Ow tuh tuh…that hurt my face. Grass in my mouth…”

With the rustling of the grass, however, it seems he may have disturbed some small wildlife that had been too, resting in the grass. It fluttered past his face with a golden sparkle, shocking Henhen to his feet.

“Eh? It sparkled! Amazing! I’ve never seen a bug that sparkled befo—hey, hey! Where are you going?”

Away, it would seem. Henhen gathered his balance and ran after the sparkly bug, stumbling numerous times in the process, but somehow managing to keep on his feet.

“A sparkly bug—amazing! I’ve never heard of such a thing before. Eh…got you!” He lunged forward to where the bug had rested, inevitably missing, and knocking his head against a tree.

“Ah, no way…where did it go?”

Maybe it didn’t exist in the first place.

“I’m not crazy, I swear that bug was shiny. Ah well…it’s gone now.” Henhen steadied himself and brushed himself off. “It was exciting though!”

He rubbed his head, and began walking. He had lost the road in this little adventure of his, and was pretty exhausted to discover this fact.

“Eh…I guess this is what an explorer does, right? They explore away from the road!” Henhen grinned at this new mindset, his face lighting up for no one to see. As he walked, however, revelling in his own head, he tripped on a ridiculously non-trip-able rock and fell forward. As he fell, however, he couldn’t help but notice that he wasn’t falling into grass. Or rocks, or water. In fact, it seemed as though he was falling into…nothing. A black pit, as it were.

Eh? Why is there nothing there? Oh no!

Henhen screamed out and frantically flailed his limbs. It was by some strange happenstance that his flailing foot managed to get caught in a tree root, which saved him from the fall. However, now. Henhen hung by his foot over the seemingly random chasm that was situated in this part of Hyrule field. He was white with fear, and couldn’t think straight—as it would be with a coward.

“Hey, hey! Somebody! Ah…why is there no one around? Help me! Hey, hey, Papa! If I yell louder, he’s sure to hear.”

No. That doesn’t make sense.

[Zelda]

The midday sun was blazing, but it was still only a taste of the summer to come. The open expanses of Hyrule Field offered little shade for the wandering person, but the rolling landscape didn't fail to disappoint. Lush green grass covered everything but the dirt worn road, budding blossoms spotted the ground and small puddles formed in ditches where the recent spring rains had left them. It was in this field and on this day that none other than the lands princess could be found mounted atop a white horse and followed by two discretely dressed guards.

She wore a heave dark cloak, a hood pulled up to cover her face from any outlaw how might recognize her and wish her harm. Personally Zelda felt this was a bit odd as any outlaw, should he intend to attack, would do so regardless of her hood. But she conceded to the demands of her guards and at the least was glad to be out of the castle for the day. She had no grand business to attend to, no special meeting that was of the utmost importance, today she was free to relax if only for a minute.

It was on this day, with the soft chirping of baby birds and the lulling sound of the wind, she heard another sound. It was that of a screaming individual, a boy it sounded like, howling for assistance. Zelda gave a brief look back at her guards and they nodded, following her off the road and into a small glen. She dismounted, her figure poised and regal as she moved from her place towards a hole in the ground. She heard her guards unsheathe their swords, she felt it wholly unnecessary, but she knew better then to argue her safety precautions with them.

"Hello?" Over the sound of the childs howls Zelda spoke, soft, but audible. Carefully she bent next to the earth, her cloak bunching about her on the ground, "Can you hear me?" She looked up at the two men behind her, holding her hand out for a length of rope that one of them had removed from his satchel. The younger man bowed his head but tied the rope around his own forearm and lowered the other end into the hole. She should have know he wouldn't let her drag up who ever was down there, it was probably for the best though, she wasn't know for being excessively strong in any physical manner.

"If you can hear me, grab hold of the rope and we'll pull you up. No worries, we are here to help you," With that she waited, listening for any response within the depths of the small chasm.

[Henhen]

Henhen crossed his arms as he hung upside down over the I-guess-it’s-an-endless-pit-why-is-it-even-here. He didn’t seem likely to fall anymore—his foot was firmly tangled up in the tree root.

“Eh…I wonder if there’s anything interesting at the bottom of an endless pit?” He squinted his eyes, and strained to see into the endless darkness. “…no, I can’t see an end.”

…that’s why it’s called an endless pit. After a moment of what appeared to be thought but really wasn’t, Henhen began calling out again, surprised when he actually heard a response.

“Hello?…Can you hear me?”

Excited to gain a response, Henhen began to flail his arms as if the person could see them.

“Hey, hey!” He called out, but stopped when a rope went past his upside-down face. Thinking it was a snake, he immediately screamed in exaggerated fear, covering his face with his hands.

“If you can hear me, grab hold of the rope and we’ll pull you up. No worries, we are here to help you.”

Henhen moved a few fingers from his face to peek through at the snake. It was, indeed, a rope.

“Eh? Of course it’s a rope,” Henhen giggled to himself. “I knew that.”

…you sure did. Henhen reached out for the rope—which took more effort than he would have liked—until his clumsy hands grasped onto it. His face beamed with pride as he held the rope, and he waited.

What was he supposed to do now?

“They’ll pull me up now!” Henhen said to himself, happily. Then, he remembered his foot.

“Eh? Oh…my foot.”

Henhen tried to sit up to get a better look at it. He wasn’t in pain…he was just ridiculously stuck. How would they be able to pull him up if he was stuck like that?

“Eh? Ah! They’ll break my leg! Hey, hey!” He called up to his both un-named and un-seen saviours. “I’m all tangled up in a root, though! Eh, how can I be pulled up? Hey, hey, I’m upside down too and it feels all funny, like everything inside me is falling down to my head. Hey, hey! What if my head gets too heavy?” Henhen’s voice began to whimper, as he continued ranting on obnoxiously. “What if my head gets too heavy and it makes the tree root and the rope break and I fall?”

That doesn’t make sense.

“Hey, hey! What if I can’t ever get up? It’s all dark down in here and it’s just going to get darker if I fall, I checked because I can’t see down there and I really don’t want to have an upside down head forever and…”

…and he continued. The important thing, though, is that he grabbed the rope.

[Zelda]

Zelda looked up at her guard with something of a puzzled expression, but after a moment they both shrugged, the unseen individual rambling on below. The man moved slightly, gripping the rope with both hands and giving a slight tug. It seemed stuck, Zelda could only imagine the mess such a loud character had gotten themselves into.

"Can you untangle yourself at all? We don't want to hurt you," She was worried for the things safety, though she could easily heal any broken limb it had once he was free of the hole she didn't really want to have to put such a delicate sounding individual through that kind of pain if she didn't have to.

[Henhen]

“…and that’s when I promised that I wouldn’t ever pull the tail of a cat again, and so I need to—eh?”

“Can you untangle yourself at all? We don’t want to hurt you.”

“Untangle…my…” Henhen sat up to look at his foot again, then sighed in childish exhaustion.

“Hey, hey…there’s no way I can pull myself out of that,” He said to himself. Letting himself fall back upside down. He still held onto the rope.

“Eh…even if I do get myself untangled I’ll just fall. What if I’m already too heavy for the rope?” He pondered this over to himself, his face contorted in an expression of distress.

“…it’d be nice if I could fly.”

Yes. Yes it would.

“But I can’t fly.”

Nope. Henhen tried to sit up again, then fell back down in exhaustion.

“Eh, I’m already too heavy to lift myself!”

No, you’re just out of shape.

“What will I do…? Hey, hey!” He called up, “I can’t untangle myself. Does this mean I’m stuck here forever?”

[Zelda]

The guard beside Zelda rolled his eyes, he seemed ready and willing to leave the little gabber mouth to die, but Zelda only gave a sigh and a wave of her hand. If the tugging hurt the boy she could patch him up, the most important thing at the moment was to get him out of the hole. The second guard dismounted and moved forward to help pull, not that the boy was heavy, not in the least, but the roots had him good and it took a little persuading to pop him free.

What was clearly a human boy, blond, fair skinned and absolutely covered in dirt came out of the tiny chasms mouth. Zelda stayed knelling, prepared to heal whatever injury the child or man, it was oddly hard to tell, complained of. Her guards stood back, hands on weapons lest the little one become some kind of horrible demon that would try and kill her.

"Are you all right?" She held out her white gloved hand, slowly to reassure the boy she meant no harm.

[Henhen]

Henhen hung upside down contemplating his fate, when he suddenly felt the rope move. He gasped out loud in panic and held it tighter, than realized that it was just his rescuers trying to pull him up. He's slow at realizing these things.

The pulling of the rope bent him upwards into a sitting position, but other than that, he wasn't going anywhere. He looked up, then he looked down. When he looked down, he gasped in fear and closed his eyes.

Then, by some strange miracle, he had the idea to tie the rope around his waist. It wasn't courage that made him do this, but instead, complete fear at the possibility of him letting go and falling into nothingness. He tied it as tight as he could, into what he'd call a five-tuple-knot, and then looked back at his leg that was all caught up in the tree root. Being quite comfortably situated in a seated position due to the rope, he decided to try and be helpful and work away at untangling his leg.

It was clear that some Goddess or other wanted him out of that chasm, for by some other miracle, he managed to untangle himself. As soon as he did, Henhen was shot up through the darkness towards the surface, so fast that he couldn't help but cry out in fear and cover his face with his hands.

He didn't think to uncover his face again until he felt the ground sturdy beneath his bottom. For a moment, his eyes were pained by the sunlight, but he adjusted quick enough. Henhen blinked his light green eyes as they looked curiously up at the three individuals. His face was blotched with dirt and his hair needed a good shake--he looked comparable to young child who had been out playing in the dirt all day.

"Are you all right?"

Henhen rubbed his eyes with his dirty hands, and felt a sharp pain go through his nose and forehead from when he was chasing the bug. He looked up at the young woman who looked down on his reassuringly, then glanced over to the men behind.

When he saw their hands on their weapons, it frightened him, and he instinctively crawled backwards away from them.

"Wah!!" He exclaimed, and then cried out again when he noticed how close he had come to crawling backwards into the pit. He didn't consider this to be exactly fair, going from one lot of trouble into another. He managed to crawl up to his feet and grabbed onto the dress of the notably-clean woman, not quite predicting what ruckus this would cause. He stood only a few inches shorter than the woman, and what might have seemed like a brave act to shield the woman from two men with weapons, became clearly an attempt for him to hide himself behind the one person near him that looked friendly.

As should be clear by now, Henhen had never had encounters with the royalty of Hyrule, let alone the princess. He may, if he had paid attention, noticed the guards before--but he wouldn't have noticed such things, and therefore didn't recognize these men as being his protectors.

[Zelda]

Zelda was a bit startled by the mans sudden outburst when he saw her guards. She moved back only slightly when he clung to her dress, gently petting his hair, plumes of dust coming off it. She gave her guards a look that in and of it self said 'don't be ridiculous, he's just a child'. The two men looked at eachother before sighing in unison and moving back towards the horses.

"It's okay, they helped you out of the hole, She pulled back a bit to give the boy a good once over, she couldn't for the life of her determine how old this boy was, "What's your name?" She gave him a soft smile, her clear blue eyes sparkling slightly under her dark hood which still covered most of her head.

[Henhen]

Henhen watched as the armed men walked away. He let go of her dress quite quickly when he realized that they weren’t going to hurt him, and he rubbed his dirty face. Really, all he accomplished was making himself more dirty, getting more dirt in his eye than he would have if he had just left it alone. Being thus irritated and distracted, Henhen began rubbing at his left eye quite fiercely.

”It’s okay, they helped you out of the hole.”

“Eh?” Henhen looked at the men again, who had reached the horses. “Ah! No wonder it was all so rough about down there! They don’t quite look like the gentle sort. A bit mean, even—hey, hey, I should thank them though, hm? That’s what Papa would say I should do…but can they hear me from there…?” His voice trailed off as he pondered this to himself.

He turned back to the woman as she asked him his name, and he took a break from rubbing his eye. He looked up into the darkness that would be her face, and made no attempt at trying to hide himself trying to make out her features.

“Hey, hey! My name is Henhen! What’s your name?” He stopped for a moment, a look of confusion washing over his filthy face. His green eyes twinkled with curiosity.

“Hey, hey…isn’t it sort of stupid to be wearing something like that today?” He pointed at her heavy cloak and hood, which was similar to the one he only used in the cold. He laughed. “You look like an idiot! Unless…” he thought for a moment. “…do you burn in the sun easily too?”

[Zelda]

The boy certainly did chatter a lot, rambling on and on about nothing in particular, but Zelda was a patient person and far to polite to interrupt him. She let him go on about the guards, asking his name when he took two seconds to breath only to be met with his own inquiries and what could be considered rude proclamations on her outer wear.

She brushed off her clothes from the dirt he'd left behind, before looking at the boy, Henhen, directly, "My name is Zelda," She spoke in a much softer and slower tone then Henhen, but she paused before moving on to explain the cloak. Saying that it was so people wouldn't recognize her would defeat the purpose of people not being able to recognize her, so she went along with the boys speculation instead.

"Ah, yes, I burn very easily, so this cloak is the only way I can go out in the day," she felt a small twang of guilt for lying to the boy, but she knew her guards would highly disapprove of revealing who she was, especially if Henhen hadn't figured it out by now.

[Henhen]

"Eh? So that's what it is..." Henhen sat in the grass, becoming distracted by a new-found gash on his right elbow, which now irritated him. "I never thought about hiding myself up like that, but that's because I thought it would be too hot under there."

He looked up at her and smiled, then began rubbing his eye again.

"When the sun burns me, then I get all peely and it really itches. But that's okay, because I like being out in the day so its worth it. Hey, hey! It's better than being out at night because everything gets a whole lot scarier during the night-time, and it's really hard to keep a fire going sometimes."

Henhen got to his feet again and looked back at the guards, who seemed to be waiting. Then, by some odd happening, an intelligent thought went through the young man's head, and his smile left his face as it was replaced by an expression of contemplation. He looked around his surroundings in a less than subtle manner, his face lighting up again as he spotted a tiny patch of early spring flowers, that had yet to actually blossom. He scurried over to them, and picked one from the ground to bring back.

Henhen held the flower bud out to the woman Zelda by the stalk, his head tilted as he grinned.

"Hey, hey! This is for you! I was always told that in thanks for getting something I should give something in return. This is for helping me! Though I'm not sure if it will become a flower now that I've picked it, but you can use your imagination, I'm sure!"

[Zelda]

Zelda watched as the boy scamped around, sit then stand, while he did so she notice a bit of a cut on his elbow, nothing that wouldn't heal easily on its own, but she liked to help where she could. She gave Henhen a small smile when he handed her the bud, and she gently took his hand.

"Here, let me heal that," she reached out her other hand, pinking the flower stem carefully between her thumb and forefinger, a faint white light playing on the tips of the other three. In seconds the scratch had healed and, while the area was still covered in a bit of blood, he was as good as new.

"Princess, we should be returning to the palace now," She looked up at the older man who was leading her horse toward her, but then looked back at Hen.

"Will you be all right on your own?" She had definite hesitations about leaving the man alone out in the fields, especially one who seemed to scatter brained and accident prone.

[Henhen]

Henhen's face went red as she took his hand. Only his mother had ever held his hand, but Zelda's hand was a great deal smaller and softer. Being distracted by this fact, he hardly noticed when she healed his elbow until the other man walked over to them, at which point he pulled his hand away quickly, as if embarrassed. He ran his hand through his straw-like hair, as if pretending that that's where it had been the whole time.

"Princess, we should be returning to the palace now."

"Princess...?" Henhen muttered to himself, his expression turning thoughtful. He had heard his parents refer to the Princess of Hyrule many times before, but he hadn't really heard much about her. He looked from the man to the woman, who's face was still shadowed by her hood. He had heard that she was beautiful...but he couldn't tell for himself.

"Will you be all right on your own?" She had said, snapping him from his thoughts. Henhen blinked, then shook his head quickly, grinning. His foolish grin lit up his face like a lantern.

"Hey, hey! I'll be okay! I'm an explorer after all. I've been out here for weeks already, and I'm as fresh as a chicken's egg!"

...he said, while covered in a layer of dirt. His eyes darkened.

"Though...it does get lonely sometimes...but I can just make conversation with myself." He lit up again, smiling at her kindly, his face for the first time looking more like his age.

"A Princess belongs in her palace, eh?"

[Zelda]

Zelda still worried about leaving him out here alone, but if he said he'd be okay, then she couldn't argue. She took the reigns of her horse, turning slightly to answer the boys last question.

"Yes, that's correct, but lucky for you I made my way out to the fields today," She gave a very small and soft giggle before mounting the white horse, though as she moved her hood flipped back. She was pale and elegant with her long Hylian ears, a golden circlet about her head and her deep blond hair perfectly in place. She situated herself atop her mount, holding the edge of the hood to move it back into placed, but before she did so she smiled down at the boy, "Be careful, young explorer, perhaps well meet again some day," She flipped the hood back into place and turned her horse about. Her guards did likewise and the three began their trip back to the castle.

[EXIT]

((ooc: if you'd like to post your exit thread just put fin at the end in brackets and I'll archieve it~ ^-^))

[Henhen]

Henhen blinked when her hood came down, and he smiled. She wasn't as beautiful as he had envisioned, but his definition of beautiful was no doubt lacking, as he hadn't experienced it many times before. He laughed happily to himself as she spoke to him, and nodded.

"Hey, hey! I'll be careful!"

Sure you will.

Henhen waved to their backs childishly, continuing to watch them until they were out of his sight. He wasn't sure if he'd ever actually meet her again, and it was more than likely that he wouldn't, so he was glad that he had this opportunity now. He was thrilled to think of how pleased his parents would be.

Turning around, he spotted the road that he had foolishly strayed from, then smiled to himself, putting his hands on his hips.

"It's more interesting off the road, eh?" He said to himself, then looked at his hands. "Hey, hey...I need to somehow get clean, don't I?"

A new mission on his tiny mind, Henhen began to walk in the random direction before him, ignoring the road. Even though it was scary, he liked it this way much better.