[This is a dream. Link cannot pinpoint exactly what makes him realize it is a dream -- he just seems to know, instinctively, the same way he knows that the Master Sword will let him draw it from its pedestal, waking it from its long rest.
He stands before the castle for only an instant, dwarfed by it, a child decked in green and brown. The Master Sword feels heavy and huge against his small back, the strap holding it digs uncomfortably into his shoulder. This, too, is not real, and has not been real for some time. Still, he finds himself beholden to those mannerisms of his younger self, swallowing a nameless lump in his throat and moving through the dream, clutching onto the strap on his chest in an almost nervous fidgety way.
The sight within the castle is grisly and chaotic, more horrible and horrifying than anything his young eyes have laid eyes on. He sees this from the shadows of a nearby corridor: a dead body, a gray-haired woman, a sinister grin...and a young girl -- younger than he by far, no more than nine or ten.
The first time Link ever fought a monster, he was ten. They weren't nearly so common, then, but a blue Chuchu --towering over his small stature-- had ambushed his sister while she was gardening. What no one tells you about bravery is how scary it is. He remembers his heart pounding, his throat burning. He remembers the feel of his little wooden sword as it sliced clean through the gelatinous creature. How fast it all was...and how terrifying it felt. As he got older, it began to feel a little less frightening with each moment of practice, but the fear never really leaves you -- not completely. Even now, he fears a well-timed blow, a fatal mistake. Perhaps because, as an adult, he knows just how much he has to lose...
Link cannot pinpoint the moment when things change; when he moves from child to adult, from past to present, from vague dreaminess to real memories. His eyes linger on the girl for a long, long time, watching her unblinking stare, his heart wrenching in sympathy and in a nameless urge to reach out, to protect her. But he knows that man -- the look on his face, the grin. He's seen it in his dreams. It's haunted his steps, his thoughts, his every move...
At last he emerges from the shadows, clad now in the Champion's leathers that have been his most trusted companion armor for years. Impossible as it is, he draws the Master Sword, feeling the familiar hum of recognition in its hilt.
And then he steps between the Demon King and the child.]
[Link steps forward, his footfalls echoing impossibly loudly through the ancient hall, an intruder within this scene that destiny has staged. It breaks the girl of her traumatizing trace, though her eyes are no less wide as she looks up to the young man placing himself between her and almost certain death. Her gasp is a high, squeaking thing, the broken shards of her voice struggling to scrape their way out of her throat.]
You... You're not--
[--supposed to be here. A statement that is true in more than one respect, and the dream strains around the edges to account for this apparent contradiction. The walls of the throne room flicker between standing tall and lying in ruins, sometimes replaced by large glass windows and consumed by pitch black clouds at others. In one moment, the Demon King's hair is cut short, and in the next it is a blazing mane, billowing behind him alongside a blood-red cape. Even Link himself is not entirely immune to the dream's attempts to make sense of past, present, and future descending all at once, the Royal blue of his tunic briefly blending into forest green and back again, a tiny ball of light hovering about his head before vanishing into the ether once more.
Of course, the Master Sword's shine remains steadfast, eternal, regardless of the scenery surrounding it.
... As does the woman, who claps her hand over her charge's mouth, quieting her as she assesses this change in the situation, slowly and silently pulling the child back and away from the two men as Ganondorf's attention turns to Link.]
... Heh. You've got guts, kid.
[Ganondorf smirks, amused, as he flicks the blood from his blade, his confident stride as he steps over the king's corpse that of a man who has never truly experienced the kind of fear that courage is born from. He looks down at Link and his sword as one might view a toy some troublesome child left out somewhere-- a tripping hazard, perhaps, but not a true danger in any sense of the word.
Beyond his condescension, however, Link will see a mad ambition burning in his eyes, a greed so great as to be insatiable, but will be indulged in nonetheless.]
But this is not your fight. Step aside, while I'm still feeling generous.
[For a moment, just an instant, he forgets himself, giving into the dream, a small child with a wooden sword and an ocarina dwarfed before an all-consuming evil in its infancy. Is this what the hero of this era felt? Small, helpless, desperately wanting to make things right and unable to do so... The world feels so dauntingly, overwhelmingly big. How in the world could he ever win against something like this? Shouldn't he just run-- the way he ran from Saria in Kokiri Forest? The way he runs from so many things?
... ... ...
A fairy beats her wings, just at the edges of his vision. He reaches out to catch her, and realizes-- no, this is not real. It's still the dream, and he's no longer a child looking up at a world too big for him. He looks into the eye of evil and remembers--
I've fought your kind before, and I'll do it again.
The Master Sword once again solid in his hands, he plants his feet firmly, chin lifting a bit. There's something difficult to read in his expression. Stubbornness, yes, but recognition as well, and even beyond that...a pale shade of loathing, perhaps uncharacteristic of Link when he first faced Calamity Ganon.
But things are different, now. His fight has become personal.
You don't know me, says his expression, but you will.]
No. [He raises the sword that seals the darkness, that legendary blade of evil's bane, against the Demon King.] You'll go no further.
[The corner of the man's smirking mouth twitches, and then he tilts his head back and laughs, loud and echoing, and it sounds like the ocean crashing down around them, like the sharp pealing of blades clashing at twilight. Seized by panic, the girl scrambles within her guardian's grip, pulling desperately at the hand silencing her so she might cry out--]
No...! You can't--!!
[But she is only a child, and she remains only a child, powerless and helpless, incapable of stopping anyone-- incapable of saving anyone. Her guardian pulls down an arm of a candelabra upon the wall and sweeps the girl up in her arms as stone grinds upon stone to reveal a dark passage previously hidden. The pair disappear into the shadows a moment later, followed only by Ganondorf's eyes as his laughter subsides. A silent promise held within them, just as true as the one in Link's.
He will find her.]
A shame. [He responds, finally regarding the swordsman once more.] I like that look in your eyes, boy.
[Not enough to spare him, of course, as he raises a hand to the air. Foul magic swirls and coalesces around it, burning with a sickly glow that almost makes a mockery of the gods' divine light. It's not gloom, not quite, but it rings a similar chord.]
... But a king takes orders from no one!
[The arm comes down, and the energy with it, but, perhaps surprisingly, Link is not its target. Ganondorf slams it into the floor beneath them, and the whole world seems to rumble with the impact. Ancient dust falls from the creaking rafters above as dark magic crackles through the castle walls, and the stained glass windows shatter into thousands of tiny pieces as stones are shaken out of place. Bits of the ceiling crumble and fall through as the screams surrounding the scene reach a horrifying crescendo, rain falling through the cracks as the storm rages above them. The entirety of Hyrule Castle rattles, threatening its fall.
... Link didn't think the Demon King would play fair, now, did he?]
[The Triforce of Power releases its blast, shaking the castle, shaking the very earth beneath their feet, and it's as if the Upheaval is happening all over again. Great fissures crack the ground, rubble lifting impossibly into the air, shards of glass levitating as if torn between the pull of gravity and the pull of something else, something from another version of Hyrule, coaxing them skyward.
Up. Down. Nothing really makes sense.
Link's eyes remain on the Demon King, unmoving, every inch of his soul tugging him onward to his destiny. To fight, to win, to save Hyrule. To save everyone. His battle has always been with the Demon King, and the spirit of the hero urges him to face it head-on, to embrace the clash of this moment. Maybe, just maybe, if he can destroy Ganondorf now... Maybe his own future will be different.
Link...
Zelda's voice in his ear stops him. His Zelda, speaking to his future from a long-distant past. You must find me.
And it's his heart that protests, suddenly, feeling the pull between his destiny and his duty. He's bound to save Hyrule, his fate tied to that task like twin flames. But his duty is to her. Zelda. The Princess of Hyrule, and even if this is not his Zelda, even if she already has her own gray-haired guardian...his heart knows what his head and his soul are conflicted to acknowledge. She is the one he must find. She's the one he must protect at all costs.
He grits his teeth a moment. As the Demon King becomes lost in the chaos of the moment, losing himself in his own power, Link turns on his heel and follows after the young princess and her Sheikah guardian.]
[Compared to the grand throne room, the secret passage Link races down is downright claustrophobic, narrow and dimly lit by the occasional flickering sconce. The darkness within the passage seems to stretch on endlessly as it twists and descends beneath the castle, but the shadows are... comforting, somehow. Certainly more so than that foul light the Demon King had wielded, or the flashes of lightning streaking overhead. Even if those shadows cause Link to occasionally lose sight of the pair he follows after, they offer some small sense of safety as the muffled sounds of battle rage above them.
Nothing stops him from hearing them, though, their voices echoing within the hall.]
The Ocarina-- you have it? [The woman asks, urgent and grave as the circumstances demand, but not unkind.
The girl's words, in contrast, are quieter, hollowed out and small.] ... yes, I do.
And the boy?
I'll... leave a message for him.
[There's a twinkle near the girl's heart, then, a tiny star seemingly caught between her clutched fingers, and gradually all the noise of the violence and destruction happening overhead fade away into nothing with its presence. For a moment, there is only the echoing sound of their racing footfalls and breathing, and then--
Her lips don't move, yet the girl's voice cuts through the silence... but it's not just her voice.]
... Lend us the last of your power!
Please, help me...
Link... can you hear me? It's me... Ź̵͈e̸̳̐l̴̡̍ḏ̶͂a̷̛̗.
We must return to the world above!
... will you come to wake me up?
[The fond cheerfulness of a childhood friend. The stoic gentility of a queen not yet crowned. The command of a pirate captain, brash and free. The child's voice is joined by seemingly a dozen others resonating within Link's skull, calling out faintly across the void of time to the soul they all recognize, coming together in unison to speak the name passed down among them like an heirloom. And yet... something within the dream ripples with revulsion at those two syllables, distorting them as the source stirs with an almost instinctual need to draw back from that name. The already crumbling castle falls further with the dream's instability, and the child's guardian grits her teeth as she shields her charge from debris that can't decide whether to rise or fall.
The girl continues, her words heavy with the weight of destiny and regret in equal measure.]
Link, when you hold this Ocarina in your hand... ... I won't be around anymore. ... I wanted to wait for you, but I couldn't delay any longer... At least... I could leave you the Ocarina and this melody--
[Perhaps, for a moment, her voice ceases being that of a child. Perhaps, as the Song of Time rings within Link's ears and she speaks of leaving something behind for one who must finish what she started, he'll hear her words spoken in a far more familiar tone, the one that is his above the sea of others. Perhaps the flickers of the Temple of Time that he sees are of the one far above the clouds instead of the one from which he drew the Master Sword within this dream.
Perhaps, her final plea as they finally reach a heavy wooden door and the sounds of rushing knights and horses beyond it, sounds like something he's heard before.]
[It is her, and her, and her, and it has always been her, and it always will be her--the golden light of divine provenance, a smile like the sun, a wise mind and a warm heart and a cruel destiny repeating itself over and over, again and again and again endlessly throughout all of time. Princess Zelda. Voices ringing in his ear in unison, overlaid like a chorus. You must save Princess Zelda.
And he, too, is many hands reaching for her: a young boy, a farmhand, a child with eyes on the ocean, a lackadaisical friend. Because this is not the first time he's lost her, and it will not be the last. It will never be the last.
Princess Zelda is your...
He has been chasing her throughout all of history, through the skies and the seas, pursuing through time and tribulations, from this world to any other. His hand, reaching for her, not just in history but right now as well.
Link reaches, again, as he always does and always will. He touches the breadcrumbs left by her to follow. The ocarina is smooth beneath his rough hand, the message blazing brightly in his mind, shining like a divine light that banishes all evil. But that evil cannot be banished, because it dwells within him, the corruption of the Demon King dormant but far from gone within his body. He charges forward because he must get to her, because find Princess Zelda is the charge written into the very fiber of his soul, because that has always been and will always be the answer. Because they must be together, the Hero and the Princess, because he cannot face it all alone and neither can she.
The corruption stirs. His own terrible present twists the dream.
Doors open onto a dark cavern. Torchlight creates dancing shadows along the walls and dims the surroundings. The earth beneath begins to shake, great fissures causing it to crumble around them.
Save her. Find me. Protect the Triforce. Save them all!
His heart seizes in his chest. He leaps, desperate, determined, his burnt and broken arm outstretched and reaching for her as the ground gives way beneath their feet.]
[The dream distorts. The girl's memory falls away. This is no longer her story.
And yet, as the earth opens up beneath her like some great primordial maw, all black scales and sharp teeth, a storm of curses upon curses swirling around around her, and she falls, slipping away into the dark... she knows this is always her story. It is the story she has seen in her dreams for as long as she can remember and beyond. She will always disappear and she will never be saved.
... That's fine, she thinks. Eons ago, a goddess put her own divinity upon the scales and found it to be an acceptable sacrifice, so how could one of her descent consider themselves any differently? If these events are a result of her failures, then it is only right that she bear the consequences.
But then there's the boy. Leaping after her without a single regard for his own well being. Already broken himself - as much of a chipped blade as the sword he wields - but directing all of his desperation at her. Doesn't he know he deserves better than this? That he deserves to be saved just as much-- no, far more than she does? If he doesn't, then... she'll just have to...
The girl reaches back, her hand so much smaller in comparison. But her eyes speak to a wisdom at odds with her childish appearance, and Wisdom in turn appears upon her outstretched hand, golden and shining.
And in that moment, the Seventh Sage wills for time to flow less cruelly, however briefly.]
[They're both swallowed by that darkness, something swirling and ancient and enraged, something that sits at the heart of all things. The heart of all legends. The hero and the princess, racing forward, fighting desperately against their own demise.
He reaches.
Her hand is so much smaller than he's expecting, for some reason, but time seems to slow, and slow, and slow. Shattered fragments scatter around them: time, power, the fragile force that makes their reality, all splintering into pieces within the jaws of that great beast that forms the cycle. The snake eating its own tail.
He reaches.
This is always his story, and it is always going to be his story. The courage to try, to chase, to push forward even when there seems to be no path to follow. The Master Sword chose him for a reason, chose all of those other heroes throughout history for a reason. Long ago, he wondered if perhaps it was the name that chained them all to this fate, that if he had been given any other name...maybe he would have been different. But not everyone born to that name bears their destiny, those chosen few. Not everyone is called to grasp that fate. So he embraces it, that call to courage and impossibility.
He reaches.
He reaches out, not because it's his fate, or his duty -- not even because it is the right thing to do, though he knows it is that as well. He reaches because this time, this time, he refuses to let her slip through his fingers. This time, he desperately wills himself to move forward, closer, faster, because in this moment, it is his greatest want and his greatest need to save her.
Not again. Never again. He reaches.
His fingers grasp hers and he pulls her closer, his hand going protectively around her head as they fall.
And there is something in his heart that feels as though it is stitching together as they fall, some small, impossible wound that is now being tended and bandaged. It is not enough. He does not know if it will ever be enough. But it is a start. It is something.]
[He reaches, despite the impossibility of that task. Despite the eternity existing in the space between their fingers. Despite the howling curses battering and buffeting him, damning him and everyone that comes after him for the attempt.
He reaches.
And he catches her.
The girl gasps as his hand envelops hers, as though she hadn't expected it despite her own intervention, and that too-wise look in her eyes falls away as she's pulled close and held like something precious. So too does the abyss that threatens to swallow them give way in the face of that miracle wrested from the gods' own hands, the darkness shattering around them to reveal a boundless blue sky. White clouds soften their descent, rendering the desperate plunge into a more gentle drift, like a feather shed from a great bird in flight.
It's warm, the hand on her head.
... It burns, almost, like antiseptic poured on a wound left to fester. The girl's eyes sting with it, her tears catching on his tunic before they can fall, but she doesn't draw away. Her hands clutch at the fabric instead, wrinkling it within tiny fists.]
I... I'm sorry... [She shudders, and sounds very much like a child trying to sound far too grown up while under distress.] This isn't-- I didn't mean for any of this to happen...
[She's so small, there in his arms, something tiny and precious, something to be protected. Something that deserves better than what she's seen and experienced -- than the future that awaits her. She is small, and despite the age in her eyes, he wants to be that protector for her. To be a shield against the world, against destiny, against time and evil and all of it.
... In the morning, when he wakes, he'll think first of his sister. Her small hands, her big eyes, and how horribly different Hyrule feels with his memories of her and a grave he'll never find.
The clouds part, and for a moment, he feels home. The warm sun shines, the wind gently reaching out to brush against them. It's a dream -- he knows that as solidly as he knows his name. But it still feels good, and for a moment, he lets the familiar feeling of freedom and sky envelop him like an old friend.
Her voice is small against his chest, and with the wind, he almost doesn't hear her. When he does,] it's alright, [...is the first thing he can think to say. Not because it is --everything is clearly not alright and she is in distress-- but because that is what you say to a child who is scared and distressed. Who is crying into your shirt.
You tell them it's going to be alright because you so desperately want it to be true. For them.]
You have nothing to be sorry for.
[That much, however, is true, and honesty rings through his voice as clear as a bell. Whatever she's sorry for, it's not her fault. His destiny is to protect her, to save her, and he meets that destiny with a ready heart no matter what version of her it is.
In his own time, in the waking world, he failed to do so. Zelda's hand slipped through his fingers, and her fate was sealed in those moments -- a fate that weighs heavily on him at every moment. The dream has been something of a balm, for him, though, stitching a rift in his heart left by his own failings.]
[He does, and she knows he does, can hear his sincerity like a fundamental truth to the world, as real and true as the sun's rise and the stars' turn in the heavens. She doesn't mean to doubt him, but... she's scared. She's been scared for such a long time, and it's so hard to trust even the one who has gone through so much to reach her.
Perhaps precisely because he has gone through so much to reach her.
Her head turns, peering up at him from her place buried in his tunic, the singular blue eye she regards him with red-rimmed and watery but seeking nonetheless.]
You aren't... mad at me? You won't— [She swallows, her throat sticky with the words a higher part of her tries to keep her from speaking.] ... You won't hate me, afterwards?
[There's a fear in her voice that twists his heart into knots, and the blue of her eye is so like the look on Zelda's face --his Zelda-- as she fell into the abyss...he nearly breaks apart right there, holding onto her with a newfound desperation as he tries to keep himself together.
You failed her. His first thought. You've lost her. The second. And a third, a small flickering flame beneath the burden of the others-- You wish to find her.
He exhales.]
Never. [His voice is soft, but strong. It's hard to say now which Link he is, whether he is himself, that lost boy who fell through the sky, or a child of the forest. Whether he may be all of them or none of them, instead embodying the first, the very spirit they all share.
It may be all of them, but when he speaks again, it is this Link, this particular soul with long hair and a borrowed arm, confessing something he has only just come to realize about a different Princess. Sorry, Zelda. Please forgive him for putting you in her place for a moment.] You're everything to me.
[Her hand, reaching out to him as she falls. The terror in her eyes, as shown to him through her memories. The devastating realization of what he's lost.
Watching the young girl disappear on horseback. The carefree young goddess as she falls beneath the clouds. The stalwart woman who fights to keep her home. All chained to the same fate, the same burden. They all whisper the same plea, and he rises to the challenge again and again.]
[Each of them is speaking through the other, lost and lonely souls seeking out familiar reflections in fractured mirrors. The girl recognizes this, at least in part; for all that their melodies repeat in an endless refrain, those words of ardent devotion are sung in a different key from her own. Still, that does not mean they aren't beautiful. She's soothed by them, just the same, tension gradually fading even as he holds onto her with such fervent desperation.
She sniffles a bit, still, but she loosens her grip on his tunic to wrap her little arms about his shoulders to return his embrace.]
Mmm. If that's what you want, then... I know you can.
[She's not the one those words were meant for, but if it's for the sake of returning a bit of the comfort she's taken from them, she can pretend, just a little. Because all of them make the same plea, because all of them believe the same thing.]
I'll always have faith in you. [Finally, a smile, girlish and true.] You can do anything!
[He touches a hand to her cheek; it's so much smaller than he expected, even through his memories. Was his sister this young, or older? Is there a world where he returned to find her safe and sound? The pain is brief and dull, an old wound aching before a rainstorm. He weathers the feeling as he always does, but one calloused thumb brushes away the tears beneath her eye.
He is not the one those words are meant for, he thinks; some other Zelda waiting for some other Link, some other peril, some other triumph waiting for them...
And yet they are the same. Interlocking destinies.
Something about the childlike honesty of her words twists in his chest, a knife between the ribs, and she doesn't mean it at all, but her faith in him seems oddly misplaced, for a moment. It feels disingenuous to accept it.]
I'm sorry. I failed. [--failed her. failed you. His voice is small, and there's a gentleness to the sad tenor of his words. It's not depreciation or admonishment if it's true, and he is nothing if not blunt with his honesty in his moment. Because this is what happened, and despite their unusual relationship with time, he-- he cannot change it.
... He wonders, for a moment, if other Links throughout time have had this same relationship with failure. If they, too, have had to lose everything just for the chance to fight for it.
The dream begins to thin, just a bit, in a way that he can only recognize because he has seen so many of them by now. The light is just a little paler, their voices just a little more hollow. And at the same time, countless voices crowd his mind, other heroes, other farmboys and children and knights with a heavy burden upon their shoulders. Tied together by their destiny. Wait for me. I'm coming. I'm going to--]
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no subject
He stands before the castle for only an instant, dwarfed by it, a child decked in green and brown. The Master Sword feels heavy and huge against his small back, the strap holding it digs uncomfortably into his shoulder. This, too, is not real, and has not been real for some time. Still, he finds himself beholden to those mannerisms of his younger self, swallowing a nameless lump in his throat and moving through the dream, clutching onto the strap on his chest in an almost nervous fidgety way.
The sight within the castle is grisly and chaotic, more horrible and horrifying than anything his young eyes have laid eyes on. He sees this from the shadows of a nearby corridor: a dead body, a gray-haired woman, a sinister grin...and a young girl -- younger than he by far, no more than nine or ten.
The first time Link ever fought a monster, he was ten. They weren't nearly so common, then, but a blue Chuchu --towering over his small stature-- had ambushed his sister while she was gardening. What no one tells you about bravery is how scary it is. He remembers his heart pounding, his throat burning. He remembers the feel of his little wooden sword as it sliced clean through the gelatinous creature. How fast it all was...and how terrifying it felt. As he got older, it began to feel a little less frightening with each moment of practice, but the fear never really leaves you -- not completely. Even now, he fears a well-timed blow, a fatal mistake. Perhaps because, as an adult, he knows just how much he has to lose...
Link cannot pinpoint the moment when things change; when he moves from child to adult, from past to present, from vague dreaminess to real memories. His eyes linger on the girl for a long, long time, watching her unblinking stare, his heart wrenching in sympathy and in a nameless urge to reach out, to protect her. But he knows that man -- the look on his face, the grin. He's seen it in his dreams. It's haunted his steps, his thoughts, his every move...
At last he emerges from the shadows, clad now in the Champion's leathers that have been his most trusted companion armor for years. Impossible as it is, he draws the Master Sword, feeling the familiar hum of recognition in its hilt.
And then he steps between the Demon King and the child.]
no subject
You... You're not--
[--supposed to be here. A statement that is true in more than one respect, and the dream strains around the edges to account for this apparent contradiction. The walls of the throne room flicker between standing tall and lying in ruins, sometimes replaced by large glass windows and consumed by pitch black clouds at others. In one moment, the Demon King's hair is cut short, and in the next it is a blazing mane, billowing behind him alongside a blood-red cape. Even Link himself is not entirely immune to the dream's attempts to make sense of past, present, and future descending all at once, the Royal blue of his tunic briefly blending into forest green and back again, a tiny ball of light hovering about his head before vanishing into the ether once more.
Of course, the Master Sword's shine remains steadfast, eternal, regardless of the scenery surrounding it.
... As does the woman, who claps her hand over her charge's mouth, quieting her as she assesses this change in the situation, slowly and silently pulling the child back and away from the two men as Ganondorf's attention turns to Link.]
... Heh. You've got guts, kid.
[Ganondorf smirks, amused, as he flicks the blood from his blade, his confident stride as he steps over the king's corpse that of a man who has never truly experienced the kind of fear that courage is born from. He looks down at Link and his sword as one might view a toy some troublesome child left out somewhere-- a tripping hazard, perhaps, but not a true danger in any sense of the word.
Beyond his condescension, however, Link will see a mad ambition burning in his eyes, a greed so great as to be insatiable, but will be indulged in nonetheless.]
But this is not your fight. Step aside, while I'm still feeling generous.
no subject
... ... ...
A fairy beats her wings, just at the edges of his vision. He reaches out to catch her, and realizes-- no, this is not real. It's still the dream, and he's no longer a child looking up at a world too big for him. He looks into the eye of evil and remembers--
I've fought your kind before, and I'll do it again.
The Master Sword once again solid in his hands, he plants his feet firmly, chin lifting a bit. There's something difficult to read in his expression. Stubbornness, yes, but recognition as well, and even beyond that...a pale shade of loathing, perhaps uncharacteristic of Link when he first faced Calamity Ganon.
But things are different, now. His fight has become personal.
You don't know me, says his expression, but you will.]
No. [He raises the sword that seals the darkness, that legendary blade of evil's bane, against the Demon King.] You'll go no further.
no subject
No...! You can't--!!
[But she is only a child, and she remains only a child, powerless and helpless, incapable of stopping anyone-- incapable of saving anyone. Her guardian pulls down an arm of a candelabra upon the wall and sweeps the girl up in her arms as stone grinds upon stone to reveal a dark passage previously hidden. The pair disappear into the shadows a moment later, followed only by Ganondorf's eyes as his laughter subsides. A silent promise held within them, just as true as the one in Link's.
He will find her.]
A shame. [He responds, finally regarding the swordsman once more.] I like that look in your eyes, boy.
[Not enough to spare him, of course, as he raises a hand to the air. Foul magic swirls and coalesces around it, burning with a sickly glow that almost makes a mockery of the gods' divine light. It's not gloom, not quite, but it rings a similar chord.]
... But a king takes orders from no one!
[The arm comes down, and the energy with it, but, perhaps surprisingly, Link is not its target. Ganondorf slams it into the floor beneath them, and the whole world seems to rumble with the impact. Ancient dust falls from the creaking rafters above as dark magic crackles through the castle walls, and the stained glass windows shatter into thousands of tiny pieces as stones are shaken out of place. Bits of the ceiling crumble and fall through as the screams surrounding the scene reach a horrifying crescendo, rain falling through the cracks as the storm rages above them. The entirety of Hyrule Castle rattles, threatening its fall.
... Link didn't think the Demon King would play fair, now, did he?]
no subject
Up. Down. Nothing really makes sense.
Link's eyes remain on the Demon King, unmoving, every inch of his soul tugging him onward to his destiny. To fight, to win, to save Hyrule. To save everyone. His battle has always been with the Demon King, and the spirit of the hero urges him to face it head-on, to embrace the clash of this moment. Maybe, just maybe, if he can destroy Ganondorf now... Maybe his own future will be different.
Link...
Zelda's voice in his ear stops him. His Zelda, speaking to his future from a long-distant past. You must find me.
And it's his heart that protests, suddenly, feeling the pull between his destiny and his duty. He's bound to save Hyrule, his fate tied to that task like twin flames. But his duty is to her. Zelda. The Princess of Hyrule, and even if this is not his Zelda, even if she already has her own gray-haired guardian...his heart knows what his head and his soul are conflicted to acknowledge. She is the one he must find. She's the one he must protect at all costs.
He grits his teeth a moment. As the Demon King becomes lost in the chaos of the moment, losing himself in his own power, Link turns on his heel and follows after the young princess and her Sheikah guardian.]
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Nothing stops him from hearing them, though, their voices echoing within the hall.]
The Ocarina-- you have it? [The woman asks, urgent and grave as the circumstances demand, but not unkind.
The girl's words, in contrast, are quieter, hollowed out and small.] ... yes, I do.
And the boy?
I'll... leave a message for him.
[There's a twinkle near the girl's heart, then, a tiny star seemingly caught between her clutched fingers, and gradually all the noise of the violence and destruction happening overhead fade away into nothing with its presence. For a moment, there is only the echoing sound of their racing footfalls and breathing, and then--
Her lips don't move, yet the girl's voice cuts through the silence... but it's not just her voice.]
It's me... Ź̵͈e̸̳̐l̴̡̍ḏ̶͂a̷̛̗.
[The fond cheerfulness of a childhood friend. The stoic gentility of a queen not yet crowned. The command of a pirate captain, brash and free. The child's voice is joined by seemingly a dozen others resonating within Link's skull, calling out faintly across the void of time to the soul they all recognize, coming together in unison to speak the name passed down among them like an heirloom. And yet... something within the dream ripples with revulsion at those two syllables, distorting them as the source stirs with an almost instinctual need to draw back from that name. The already crumbling castle falls further with the dream's instability, and the child's guardian grits her teeth as she shields her charge from debris that can't decide whether to rise or fall.
The girl continues, her words heavy with the weight of destiny and regret in equal measure.]
... I won't be around anymore.
...
I wanted to wait for you, but I couldn't delay any longer...
At least... I could leave you the Ocarina and this melody--
[Perhaps, for a moment, her voice ceases being that of a child. Perhaps, as the Song of Time rings within Link's ears and she speaks of leaving something behind for one who must finish what she started, he'll hear her words spoken in a far more familiar tone, the one that is his above the sea of others. Perhaps the flickers of the Temple of Time that he sees are of the one far above the clouds instead of the one from which he drew the Master Sword within this dream.
Perhaps, her final plea as they finally reach a heavy wooden door and the sounds of rushing knights and horses beyond it, sounds like something he's heard before.]
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And he, too, is many hands reaching for her: a young boy, a farmhand, a child with eyes on the ocean, a lackadaisical friend. Because this is not the first time he's lost her, and it will not be the last. It will never be the last.
Princess Zelda is your...
He has been chasing her throughout all of history, through the skies and the seas, pursuing through time and tribulations, from this world to any other. His hand, reaching for her, not just in history but right now as well.
Link reaches, again, as he always does and always will. He touches the breadcrumbs left by her to follow. The ocarina is smooth beneath his rough hand, the message blazing brightly in his mind, shining like a divine light that banishes all evil. But that evil cannot be banished, because it dwells within him, the corruption of the Demon King dormant but far from gone within his body. He charges forward because he must get to her, because find Princess Zelda is the charge written into the very fiber of his soul, because that has always been and will always be the answer. Because they must be together, the Hero and the Princess, because he cannot face it all alone and neither can she.
The corruption stirs. His own terrible present twists the dream.
Doors open onto a dark cavern. Torchlight creates dancing shadows along the walls and dims the surroundings. The earth beneath begins to shake, great fissures causing it to crumble around them.
Save her.
Find me.
Protect the Triforce.
Save them all!
His heart seizes in his chest. He leaps, desperate, determined, his burnt and broken arm outstretched and reaching for her as the ground gives way beneath their feet.]
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And yet, as the earth opens up beneath her like some great primordial maw, all black scales and sharp teeth, a storm of curses upon curses swirling around around her, and she falls, slipping away into the dark... she knows this is always her story. It is the story she has seen in her dreams for as long as she can remember and beyond. She will always disappear and she will never be saved.
... That's fine, she thinks. Eons ago, a goddess put her own divinity upon the scales and found it to be an acceptable sacrifice, so how could one of her descent consider themselves any differently? If these events are a result of her failures, then it is only right that she bear the consequences.
But then there's the boy. Leaping after her without a single regard for his own well being. Already broken himself - as much of a chipped blade as the sword he wields - but directing all of his desperation at her. Doesn't he know he deserves better than this? That he deserves to be saved just as much-- no, far more than she does? If he doesn't, then... she'll just have to...
The girl reaches back, her hand so much smaller in comparison. But her eyes speak to a wisdom at odds with her childish appearance, and Wisdom in turn appears upon her outstretched hand, golden and shining.
And in that moment, the Seventh Sage wills for time to flow less cruelly, however briefly.]
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He reaches.
Her hand is so much smaller than he's expecting, for some reason, but time seems to slow, and slow, and slow. Shattered fragments scatter around them: time, power, the fragile force that makes their reality, all splintering into pieces within the jaws of that great beast that forms the cycle. The snake eating its own tail.
He reaches.
This is always his story, and it is always going to be his story. The courage to try, to chase, to push forward even when there seems to be no path to follow. The Master Sword chose him for a reason, chose all of those other heroes throughout history for a reason. Long ago, he wondered if perhaps it was the name that chained them all to this fate, that if he had been given any other name...maybe he would have been different. But not everyone born to that name bears their destiny, those chosen few. Not everyone is called to grasp that fate. So he embraces it, that call to courage and impossibility.
He reaches.
He reaches out, not because it's his fate, or his duty -- not even because it is the right thing to do, though he knows it is that as well. He reaches because this time, this time, he refuses to let her slip through his fingers. This time, he desperately wills himself to move forward, closer, faster, because in this moment, it is his greatest want and his greatest need to save her.
Not again. Never again. He reaches.
His fingers grasp hers and he pulls her closer, his hand going protectively around her head as they fall.
And there is something in his heart that feels as though it is stitching together as they fall, some small, impossible wound that is now being tended and bandaged. It is not enough. He does not know if it will ever be enough. But it is a start. It is something.]
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He reaches.
And he catches her.
The girl gasps as his hand envelops hers, as though she hadn't expected it despite her own intervention, and that too-wise look in her eyes falls away as she's pulled close and held like something precious. So too does the abyss that threatens to swallow them give way in the face of that miracle wrested from the gods' own hands, the darkness shattering around them to reveal a boundless blue sky. White clouds soften their descent, rendering the desperate plunge into a more gentle drift, like a feather shed from a great bird in flight.
It's warm, the hand on her head.
... It burns, almost, like antiseptic poured on a wound left to fester. The girl's eyes sting with it, her tears catching on his tunic before they can fall, but she doesn't draw away. Her hands clutch at the fabric instead, wrinkling it within tiny fists.]
I... I'm sorry... [She shudders, and sounds very much like a child trying to sound far too grown up while under distress.] This isn't-- I didn't mean for any of this to happen...
[What specifically "this" is, who can say?]
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... In the morning, when he wakes, he'll think first of his sister. Her small hands, her big eyes, and how horribly different Hyrule feels with his memories of her and a grave he'll never find.
The clouds part, and for a moment, he feels home. The warm sun shines, the wind gently reaching out to brush against them. It's a dream -- he knows that as solidly as he knows his name. But it still feels good, and for a moment, he lets the familiar feeling of freedom and sky envelop him like an old friend.
Her voice is small against his chest, and with the wind, he almost doesn't hear her. When he does,] it's alright, [...is the first thing he can think to say. Not because it is --everything is clearly not alright and she is in distress-- but because that is what you say to a child who is scared and distressed. Who is crying into your shirt.
You tell them it's going to be alright because you so desperately want it to be true. For them.]
You have nothing to be sorry for.
[That much, however, is true, and honesty rings through his voice as clear as a bell. Whatever she's sorry for, it's not her fault. His destiny is to protect her, to save her, and he meets that destiny with a ready heart no matter what version of her it is.
In his own time, in the waking world, he failed to do so. Zelda's hand slipped through his fingers, and her fate was sealed in those moments -- a fate that weighs heavily on him at every moment. The dream has been something of a balm, for him, though, stitching a rift in his heart left by his own failings.]
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[He does, and she knows he does, can hear his sincerity like a fundamental truth to the world, as real and true as the sun's rise and the stars' turn in the heavens. She doesn't mean to doubt him, but... she's scared. She's been scared for such a long time, and it's so hard to trust even the one who has gone through so much to reach her.
Perhaps precisely because he has gone through so much to reach her.
Her head turns, peering up at him from her place buried in his tunic, the singular blue eye she regards him with red-rimmed and watery but seeking nonetheless.]
You aren't... mad at me? You won't— [She swallows, her throat sticky with the words a higher part of her tries to keep her from speaking.] ... You won't hate me, afterwards?
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You failed her. His first thought.
You've lost her. The second.
And a third, a small flickering flame beneath the burden of the others-- You wish to find her.
He exhales.]
Never. [His voice is soft, but strong. It's hard to say now which Link he is, whether he is himself, that lost boy who fell through the sky, or a child of the forest. Whether he may be all of them or none of them, instead embodying the first, the very spirit they all share.
It may be all of them, but when he speaks again, it is this Link, this particular soul with long hair and a borrowed arm, confessing something he has only just come to realize about a different Princess. Sorry, Zelda. Please forgive him for putting you in her place for a moment.] You're everything to me.
[Her hand, reaching out to him as she falls. The terror in her eyes, as shown to him through her memories. The devastating realization of what he's lost.
Watching the young girl disappear on horseback. The carefree young goddess as she falls beneath the clouds. The stalwart woman who fights to keep her home. All chained to the same fate, the same burden. They all whisper the same plea, and he rises to the challenge again and again.]
And I'll always find you.
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She sniffles a bit, still, but she loosens her grip on his tunic to wrap her little arms about his shoulders to return his embrace.]
Mmm. If that's what you want, then... I know you can.
[She's not the one those words were meant for, but if it's for the sake of returning a bit of the comfort she's taken from them, she can pretend, just a little. Because all of them make the same plea, because all of them believe the same thing.]
I'll always have faith in you. [Finally, a smile, girlish and true.] You can do anything!
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He is not the one those words are meant for, he thinks; some other Zelda waiting for some other Link, some other peril, some other triumph waiting for them...
And yet they are the same. Interlocking destinies.
Something about the childlike honesty of her words twists in his chest, a knife between the ribs, and she doesn't mean it at all, but her faith in him seems oddly misplaced, for a moment. It feels disingenuous to accept it.]
I'm sorry. I failed. [--failed her. failed you. His voice is small, and there's a gentleness to the sad tenor of his words. It's not depreciation or admonishment if it's true, and he is nothing if not blunt with his honesty in his moment. Because this is what happened, and despite their unusual relationship with time, he-- he cannot change it.
... He wonders, for a moment, if other Links throughout time have had this same relationship with failure. If they, too, have had to lose everything just for the chance to fight for it.
The dream begins to thin, just a bit, in a way that he can only recognize because he has seen so many of them by now. The light is just a little paler, their voices just a little more hollow. And at the same time, countless voices crowd his mind, other heroes, other farmboys and children and knights with a heavy burden upon their shoulders. Tied together by their destiny. Wait for me. I'm coming. I'm going to--]
I'm going to make it right.