[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 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?
no subject
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.
no subject
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!
no subject
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.