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“It’s just you and I now, you know? In this future,” said Zelda as she looked upon him with imploring eyes. “It’s taken a hundred years, but we’ve made it back to where we were. It was a long time…”
Sometimes, Link remembered things he did not want to. Or rather, he remembered things he did not quite understand. There was a notion of course, that he was part of something far larger than he was himself. Before he lost it to malice, the sword on his back had told him as such, and it told those around him who he was. A royal guard. A swordsman. A champion.
The Chosen Hero.
The soft, mechanical voice at his back reminded him that there were things he could do that others could not. Impossible things, great things. He was not one to believe in the trivialities of conjecture. Yet, still, the sword’s spirit whispered to him as a thrumming echo inside his head: “Master, there is still more to come. Master, you must prepare. You have done this before.”
Though Link often had the feeling that the spirit in the sword spoke of other, far more impossible circumstances—those dreams with glimpses of inexplainable eras he sometimes had filled with more than one Temple of Time, of himself as a wolf, of seas flooding the land—he knew at least that he had done this before.
He had failed to save her. He had even lost the very weapon that could protect her the most.
Whatever legends had been whispered in his ear, he could not have been one of them. He was not powerful enough.
First, from the Calamity. Now, this…this thing that had caused her to fall into the depths of the castle far below him until she vanished in a flash of yellow light. It had been days since then, and the ends of his fingers tingled from the loss of her.
He had reached out to no avail, a mere brush of fingertips as she fell, and he was caught by Rauru’s mysterious hand.
He took a deep breath, screwing his eyes shut for a second before continuing his trudging through the heaps of snow.
He could see it…the one-of-a-kind golden horse. He had trekked through Hebra’s tundra intent on following a meandering trail of clues that he was sure led to Rito Village. There was an incredible, monstrous snowstorm like no one had ever seen before, encapsulating the Rito people in their village with no way to trade.
He had followed the clues and came upon his first mysterious glyph sundered into Hyrule’s land in the shape of Rauru. But the pieces did not fit. Not quite.
Zelda had met Rauru and Sonia. But where was she?
All these terrible things had begun once the castle had risen from the ground and the Sky Islands exploded into the heavens above the continent. Perhaps he would find more clues if he traversed to each catastrophe.
Still, Link could not resist pulling on whatever threads he could.
“Princess Zelda’s horse!” the stable hand had exclaimed with an excited little twirl. “She left it with us for safekeeping. I thought I saw her just the other day…”
Winds sliced hoarfrost across his cheeks. He tugged the parka he wore closer to his middle, wary of any missteps. He looked just behind him. Peeking above some rolling hills, he saw the triple heads of the Frost Gleeok roiling with ice and sheer power.
Link shook his head, steadying himself. No, in the state he was in, he was not strong enough to fight a dragon like that.
He clutched the elixir in his hand, uncorking it with a swift motion and gulping it down. He felt a thrum through his body, a great burst of stamina he did not have before. Then, with a last careful step, he latched onto the golden horse’s flank. He swung his legs over until he was riding it.
The muscles in his legs flamed. The chill of the air dissipated so suddenly that it was almost as if the breath had been snatched from his lungs.
“Woah!” he called, begging the horse to calm down. “Woah, woah!”
Unexpectedly, the air spiked. The horse nearly bucked him off and the ground rumbled.
Then, he grabbed onto the horse’s mane for dear life, bounding across the tundra and away from Lizaflos and Chuchus and the great gaping maw of the Gleeok whose space had been invaded by a mere speck like him.
“Woah!” Link shouted louder. He held on tighter. The horse’s legs sprinted on the snow, kicking it up as they went.
He urged the horse to zig-zag across the plain, narrowly avoiding spurts of frost he knew were from the very Gleeok he knew he had to avoid—
“Woah there!” yelled a man from the stable, sticking his head out of the window. “No need to fly off like that, sir!”
Link yanked on the mane, and they skidded to a stop. He blinked. The warm lights from the stable engulfed him. Somehow, he had made it to safety.
The man tilted his head and his obnoxious mustache ruffled in the wind. “Is that…it can’t be?”
Link trotted over to the stable’s window. He gestured to the horse.
The man nodded. “Well, I’ll be!” he exclaimed. “This can’t be Princess Zelda’s golden horse! But there is only one as gold as this one is. It seems you’ve found this beauty again.” He tapped his chin. “Well, sir, you wanna register her?”
Link nodded. He thought that if he procured the horse, he’d find a clue.
The man sighed. “Sorry sir, I know you were looking for the princess, but it seems that even after finding her rare horse, we don’t have any other information for ya.”
Link patted the horse’s mane. He opened his mouth in surprise. There was a neat line of ponytails braided into it with orange string. The horse looked quite comfortable with them. An invisible something pulled at his heart.
“Ah, sir, if you’d please just write the horse’s name you’d like on this line. The princess didn’t get around to naming her see…”
His hand trembled, the realization that Zelda was not there seeped into his skin like poison on a battlefield.
Sonia, he wrote.
The image of Hyrule’s first queen somehow comforted him. She reminded him of Zelda.
“Link,” Zelda said, her eyes a softer hue than that of the powder blue of sunrise, “Before, I asked you if you’d have chosen a different path if all that you were ever told was that you should follow your family’s footsteps and become part of the royal guard. You did not have an answer back then.”
Link could feel her gaze on him. So pure, so unwavering. Through the sunbeams that broke through the wooden stable walls next to their home in Hateno Village, she was the clarity of the light itself.
She smiled, pressing her hand into Epona’s mane. The ponytails he had instructed her to make after she begged for him to teach her rested lightly against the horse’s neck. He was sure it would be a while before they came undone. “So, what is your answer now?”
Weeks passed, and so had Link’s hope. It dwindled, a tired thing, a flickering flame about to go out.
He had gone to the Rito, to the Zora, even the Gerudo. He had resolved their grievances as he had when the Calamity was still ravaging the earth. He gathered memory after memory. But now, a single, terrifying inkling surfaced in his mind as the geoglyphs slowly started to make sense. They were images of significant items, or sometimes of people. Somehow, someway, they were all linked to Zelda.
Could she be somewhere he could not reach her? Link would never call himself wise, but he was a resolute fool. The scenes from the distant past he had seen at each geoglyph were alarming.
“Mister swordsman!” called a child. “Will you come back tomorrow?”
He glanced behind him, startled that one of the students from the class he had helped teach had run after him.
“I learned so much about the Calamity and Ganon from you! You brought all these interesting artifacts too…” The child bit her lip, swaying from side to side. “I just…you seem…”
He placed a gentle hand on her head. Her hair was soft beneath his touch, downy and light. He turned to walk away.
“You seem sad!” cried the child.
Link stopped in his tracks. The makeshift spear at his back clanged on his leathers and against his Zonai shield.
“Is it because you haven’t seen the princess? We all miss her, too.”
He balled his hands into fists at his side.
“Next time when you come,” continued the child, unperturbed, “Will you bring us flowers?”
He did not turn around. He kept on, his boots sinking into the damp soil. The afternoon’s storm had been a wonder for the crops. He was sure the people of Hateno would enjoy a full harvest.
He willed himself into the main town, his steps click-clacking onto the partially paved roads. Behind him, he could almost feel the child watching him from the crest of the hill. The schoolhouse bells had rung at the end of the day minutes ago.
The bustling town sprawled before him. People milled about in ridiculous mushroom-themed hats and outfits that he knew Zelda would find peculiar yet fascinating. A farmer plucked at his carrots with a sour look on his face, and he thought how funny it would be to steal some of his wares just to cook Zelda a stew that evening.
Across the rickety wooden bridge, he spotted their home. The same one he had repaired and furnished so many years ago when he thought he was alone. Without memories, without anyone to rely on.
How things had changed.
How he had changed.
Zelda stood in the field of blooming flowers, blue and white petals waving in the breeze. In her hands, she held the bunch of Silent Princesses she had picked.
Link had one more in his own hands. Without a word, he offered the flower to her.
Her face seemed to glow when she accepted it. He knew Silent Princesses were her favorite, but this bouquet was for the empty vase in the schoolhouse. The students would love them more.
But this particular flower was for her.
“Link, I swear…” Her face was pink, but she did not look away from him. “I swear that I’ll always want you by my side.”
Link stood on the Light Dragon’s head, his legs steady and sure, yet his whole body was quaking. The great beast’s scales bristled along the soles of his feet, white and perfect with a tinge of gold. The brilliant cerulean spines across its back pulsed with peaceful energy.
When he reached the crown of its head, he released a shivering breath.
He should have known.
The Great Deku Tree’s words resounded in his head: “In the sky…I feel the Master Sword’s presence strongly in this area.”
The dark periwinkle hilt stood out amongst the sea of white. The wings of the ancient Loftwing that were carved to create the cross guard were alive with magic and newfound strength.
He could hear the sword’s spirit calling out to him, muffled beneath a barrier he could not fathom.
But oh, he knew without a doubt that there was only one other person the Master Sword would cooperate with. Her magic strummed like a harp through him.
So, when he stepped on either side of the Master Sword, now wrapped for what had been eons in the tresses of the Light Dragon, riddled with gold and strengthened with everything she had—
He thought of the final memory pool, revealed now to be one of the Light Dragon’s bitter tears. He thought of the way Silent Princesses sprouted with haste in the center of the Rist Peninsula after he had watched it. The flowers were a magnificent, otherworldly tapestry blanketing the grass like glistening dew drops after a summer’s rain.
How he felt every part of her crying out to him. How she knew this was the only way. How she sacrificed herself—her sense of being, her humanity—to help him.
The dragon spiraled now, moaning with displeasure as he stood his ground.
He grunted with purpose, unrelenting.
And so, when the Master Sword was in his hands, the silvery gold blade shining in the morning sunlight, the memory of her smiled at last.
“Finally.” He could almost hear Zelda sigh. “I have been waiting.”
He collapsed in a heap on the dragon’s head, the sword resting between his pale hands, and he did not stop the tears that fell.
“Once it was you and I,” whispered Zelda as she fixed his crooked leather pauldron. “When we make our journey down that chasm, I am happy that you will be there with me like always. But now, we have so many more people to look after. It’s not so lonely anymore.”
Link walked through the ruins of the Forgotten Temple, eyes red-rimmed and throat dry. He did not know what he must have looked like to the monsters there. They shied away from him, hesitating in their steps as they skirted along the borders of the pathways. Whether they feared his prowess, for he could surely defeat them, or whether they saw something else in him, he did not know.
He bore no mind. After all, he was used to being alone.
He did not stop to pray at the fallen Goddess Statue. He did not admire the small shrine that Rauru had built for him to solve.
He had already done what he needed to here.
Still, when he opened the smooth, stone doors that led to the abandoned rear of the temple, he closed his mind off from anything that could distract him.
“Master, you must have courage,” the sword’s spirit murmured.
He marched forward, through the concentric circles and into the sand. The expansive map of the Kingdom of Hyrule was laid out on the floor just as he remembered it. On the other side, Impa stared at him, her eyes fierce and somehow knowing.
He supposed being an elder with knowledge spanning more than a century would give anyone that kind of look. But Impa was different. She knew her.
“You have discovered something,” Impa said. Her voice was gravelly with age. She tipped her conical hat at him, the metal ornaments clinging against each other along the rim. “I see that whatever it is, is not to your liking. If it is not, then I would be inclined to agree.”
Words never came easy to him. The people who understood him also understood his way of speaking. He gestured, he wrote, and he made the odd noise.
He hated himself as he sat on the ground, carving letters into the sand. The lines were wobbling, just as he was. Impa observed him with that sharp gaze of hers and read.
When she was finished, she dropped next to him, for once not complaining about the creaking of her knees or the ache of her back.
“Love is a strong thing. Instead of being trapped in a time long past, the princess transformed herself into the Light Dragon to reach your future. To repair and return the sword you had lost, she put her faith in you,” she said after a long pause. She placed a hand on his shoulder. “That is how much, even now, she has grown to treasure you.”
Link did not move. It took everything in him to not look at Impa. He knew what would happen if he did.
“You love her,” said Impa. There was no question in her voice, no doubt nor uncertainty. She touched his chin and turned his head to her. Link’s eyes burned. She stared at him with all the confidence of a woman who had lived as long as she.
He had not been able to put his feelings for Zelda into words. He rarely put anything into words at all.
But now, as the truth of it was laid bare in front of him, the words he had wanted to say to Zelda bloomed like a field of Silent Princesses reaching toward the heavens.
For once he wanted to answer.