[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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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.