Chapter Text
“May I ask… do you really remember me?”
Once again, Zelda told herself that she needed to leave the bed she was given at Impa’s house and start the day, the first one after defeating Ganon. She had to stand up, go downstairs and speak with Impa again, then meet with the sheikah to come up with a plan to rebuild the kingdom and fix all the things that had gone wrong. She needed to do all that while facing the truth: Link was not who he used to be.
She had blurted the critical question almost as soon as Ganon had dissolved into oblivion. Link had nodded with a spark of familiarity in his tired eyes, with a little smile in his dry lips, covered in dirt as his whole body was, and she had feel relieved, oh, so relieved after one hundred years of fighting. But then, he gave her the old sheikah slate and said “Lady Impa is waiting for you”. The next thing she knew, she was in front of a sheikah shrine next to Kakariko Village.
The people from the village had spotted her because she had screamed in rage. They took her, shaking and feeling betrayed, to Impa’s presence, who had then explained the situation: everything was alright, Link was on his way to the village and Zelda had been transported via fast-travel, a property of the sheikah slate that Purah had developed during her absence. Everything was made to ensure Zelda’s safety, Impa declared.
Zelda knew what fast-travel was. She had followed Link’s perils through the land and could see him using it frequently. What she didn’t understand was why Link had sent her alone, just like that, after all they had gone through. The old Link would have never done such a thing. A Link who really remembered her, would know that the right thing was to leave the castle together.
“He wasn’t sure you could endure riding a horse”, explained Impa while Zelda sobbed, “we had no way to know in which state you were inside the castle, if the one hundred years you were enclosed fighting Calamity Ganon had passed through your body or not”. She said that Link refused to rely on food or medicines, for he wasn’t a healer and wasn’t sure he could react appropriately to any given scenario. They had thought on using the sheikah slate to transport them both, but it didn’t work when they tried it, so they agreed on sending Zelda first.
“But I am perfectly fine!”, Zelda complained, “it is evident, isn’t it? He could see me with his own two eyes, he could have made a different choice!”. Impa had no answers to her fury. They decided to wait for Link to arrive and explain himself, but the way from the castle to Kakariko wasn’t precisely short, so at the end, Zelda had said she wanted to sleep, even if she felt more awake than ever, just to let Impa rest.
Zelda left the bed and peeked from the nearest window. It seemed to be very early. They had won the battle at dusk the day before, but it seemed so far ago, so unreal that, for a moment, she feared it was all a dream from which she would wake up to find the viscous, dirty snout of Ganon in front of her. The world was peaceful and quiet, indifferent of the events that had occurred. It brought a sad smile to her face.
“Your Majesty, you are awake!”
Zelda turned to the stairs, where a blushing sheikah girl was standing. She had seen her briefly the day before, but hadn’t had a word with her yet.
“I am Pa, Pay... Paya!”, said the girl, blushing ever more, “I am Impa’s granddaughter. Le, let me know if you need anything, please”.
“Has Link arrived?”, asked Zelda, too impatient to be polite.
“Master Link is not here yet”. Paya seemed flustered by the mere mention of Link, which Zelda found oddly amusing. “Do you… do Your Majesty wish to take breakfast?”
“Not yet, thank you”, she answered. “Rather tell me, how is the clothes store called? When will they open? I wish to acquire new garments”.
“The store is called Enchanted Boutique and it will open in an hour, but I think I saw Claree in the street just now, I am sure she will let you in earlier”, said Paya, a little more confidently, and obviously relieved to be of help. “Claree is the owner of the shop; let me look for her, I will be back as fast as I can!”
Paya bowed awkwardly and then ran downstairs without making any noise. Sheikah people were very stealthy by nature, Zelda remembered how the officials would startle her when approaching in total silence, back in the days when they were figuring out how to control guardians. Those cursed machines. Zelda hoped all of them would be already deactivated; in the future, she could try to use their parts to build brand new mechanisms instead of trusting their rusty wiring again.
Paya came after a while and took her to the main room at the first floor, where they greeted Impa. She seemed to find troubling that Zelda wanted to buy new clothes.
“I am sure Claree has some fine attires on sale, but I am afraid your favorite shade of blue is not fashionable anymore, princess”, said the old lady, fixing her enormous hat, and she pointed at a chest in the corner of the room “why don’t you try what is in there to see if it still fits you, instead?”
Zelda frowned, not sure if she was being made fun of, but then decided to check the chest. Inside, she found one of her royal garments: a white long dress, white fingerless gloves that would cover her whole arms, a blue and gold upper-dress with sleeves so long they almost touched the floor and a heavy golden sash.
“Where did you find this?”, asked Zelda, sure that an outfit like that shouldn’t be so far from her home.
“Some treasure hunters stole it from the castle, among other things”, explained Impa, very upset. “We found out and proceeded to seize all they had taken to keep it until you came back”.
Zelda felt sick. The last thing she needed was to learn that people had been stealing stuff from the castle the whole time she had been fighting Ganon. What a beautiful way of showing their appreciation for her sacrifice, she thought.
“I have seen Master Link carrying royal weapons”, said Paya, looking the floor, “I think he has been rescuing things of the royal family too, he may be storing them in Hateno. When he arrives, we can ask him if there are more of your clothes among his findings”.
“I don’t think he considers his looting of the castle a way to rescue the royal patrimony”, said Zelda, not without resentment in her voice, “he just needed the best possible weapons to confront Ganon”. Paya blushed yet again, which brought a little smile to Zelda’s lips. “Thanks a lot for keeping this one for me, Impa”, she said, and the old lady nodded, “I will reserve it to my meetings with the authorities of the other races, since it is a very elegant attire.”
“It is lacking several pieces of jewelry, though” said Impa. “Why don’t you ask Claree to modify it, so it fits the needs of a traveler?”
“It would go to waste”, replied Zelda, checking thoroughly the state of the golden embroidery. “it is strange to renounce at the emblematic color of my house, but it is not a thing to die for”. Zelda tried a smile to soften the situation, but Impa didn’t seem comforted.
Zelda felt as she understood everything that passed through Impa’s mind and nothing at the same time. The old lady was one of the very few people that was alive before the Calamity and remembered her, so she probably was anxious to see how much Zelda had changed, which made a matter as trivial as the color of Zelda’s clothes become distressing. Zelda could not blame her, she felt the same way about Link.
“I will take this garment to Claree to ask for casual clothes of the same color”, declared Zelda, folding the over-dress, “I certainly love this shade of blue”.
Impa softened a bit and told Paya to guide Zelda to the shop. Claree was ecstatic to help. She took out all the blue clothes she had and spoke wonders of the special properties and enhancements that each piece had, suggesting several outfits on the way. She declared multiple times that Zelda could take as many clothes as she wanted for free because she had saved Hyrule, praising her for her courage and strength. It felt weird to be regarded in those terms, as if she was a knight or a warrior, but at the same time, seeing that people cared cheered her up.
Zelda chose some clothes, fit to walk as well as ride, and changed inside the boutique. When she left the place, she was welcomed with a round of applause by a small crowd of sheikah people. They congratulated her for her victory and safe return, wishing her the best and offering themselves for assistance. All the negativity flew away from Zelda’s heart while she thanked everybody and learned their names: Nanna, Olkin, Mellie, and old couple of farmers called Steen and Trissa, Ollie, Rola, whose black hair stood out among the white heads of everyone else, Cado and Dorian, who worked as guards of Impa’s house, and Dorian’s two little daughters, Koko and Cottla. Some of them told her that they were kids before the Calamity and had seen her from the distance, during their visits to castle town’s market. What a peculiar situation, to be there, hearing those words coming from wrinkled faces while she still looked and felt like she was seventeen.
Zelda thanked everybody, promised to attend the dinner they were going to offer in her honor that night and headed back to Impa’s house. She stopped for a while to see the frog statues that went along the edge of the building’s fence. They stayed exactly as she remembered them, with a sheikah eye painted in their bellies and a peaceful gesture in their faces. Each one had one plate to receive offerings, most of which were filled with apples and other fruits. Zelda bent a bit to take a leaf off a frog’s head, but as soon as she touched it, a korok appeared and gave her a good scare.
“Yahaha! You found me!” said the korok with a high-pitched voice, holding a branch with two leaves that rotated to keep their owner afloat. “Oh, you are not Mister Hero!” the it added, amazed, “you see me and you are not Mister Hero, so more people can see us now, yahahey!”
“Is everything all right, Your Majesty?” asked Cado, who had approached to start his guard shift. “Do you intend to make an offering, should I look for some apples?”
“I, uh, I am ok, thank you”, answered Zelda, looking at the korok while it giggled and shook its mask, a leaf cut to look like an angry face. “Do you know about the koroks, the children of the forest?”, she asked.
“I have heard of them, yes”, replied Cado and stroked his beard. “Legends say that they come from the Lost Woods, but that they can be found anywhere the land is healthy. I think they like to pull jokes, too. Why do you ask?”.
Zelda smiled. “Nothing in particular, I just remembered them”, she replied and said goodbye before taking the stairs to the main door.
Impa greeted her and approved her clothing choices with a smile. Paya brought some food and left them alone to take breakfast and talk. Despite Zelda had had the ability to oversee the land from the castle, there were so many things she had missed that soon enough she wished Link didn’t arrive and the conversation never ended. Impa told her about the dispute between the sheikah and the other races over the failure of the ancient technology, she described the struggles to build their lives again, the danger of the roads and how they had overcome them, the population recovery, the long grief for the lost ones and the weight of the wait.
“We felt powerless here, constrained to this small refuge, scared of the monsters and the guardians roaming outside”, said Impa with a very sad voice. “We desperately wanted to help you both, but we could not do much. We could not approach the castle because we were not strong enough, and none of us dared to intervene the system of the Shrine of Resurrection to help Link recover faster, because we feared to damage any part of it and cause his death”. Impa took a moment to breath and hold a tear. “I am very sorry, princess”.
“Don’t be, don’t worry, you did the best you could”, said Zelda, moved, and took one of Impa’s hands. “We all did the best we could, if it took us this much, it was because Ganon was too powerful and nothing else”. She smiled at Impa to reassure her. “You all have been resilient and brave, you have done everything but fail me and I am thankful for your efforts and your faith”.
“My dear child”, said Impa and put her other hand over Zelda’s. “You are truly a blessing from the Goddess”.
“We will make it right, Impa. Now that Ganon has been defeated, we can rebuild what he took away from us, and we will make it even greater”.
Zelda noticed a shade of sadness on Impa’s eyes, as if she knew something that doomed their dreams to fail. Maybe it was the pessimism that came naturally after so many years of frustration and danger. Confronted by the deep sorrow on that old face, Zelda promised herself to make it up for Impa, so she could feel safe and relieved in a healed world, where koroks played everywhere and nobody had to worry about monsters on the road. She owed that to all her people.
“Your Majesty, grandma”, called then Paya, opening the main door. “Master Link has arrived”.