Work Text:
It seemed like an eternity had passed since they had met. She hadn’t liked that silent boy. She felt as though fate had dealt unfairly, had handed him his destiny on a silver pedestal. What had he done to earn that favor, to deserve such ease? What had she not done?? Wherever she went, he was always there, five steps behind, his footsteps echoing hers, serving as a reminder of her own failures.
Time passed. She learned the hardships and trials that had brought him to the place he now was- hard won battles against loneliness and despair. She learned his ears heard her hopes and plans and dreamed along with her. The eyes that watched her every movement did so not to judge but to protect. She learned he would give his very life in protection of hers...
“There is nothing wrong with you,” His gentle voice had said, hand of comfort resting on her shaking shoulder. But now… how could she believe that was true?
Walking through the empty halls of her once bustling castle home, her shoes clicked the floor, reverberating along with her voiced plans to destroy Ganon, to repair what damage had been done, to secure the kingdom … just like it had done before.
Only this time, no footsteps echoed behind hers… no listening ears heard her plans. She couldn’t bear to turn around, because she knew there would be no one there. Tears rolled unbidden down her cheeks. There was no one to see. No hand gently touching her shoulder, no words of comfort or encouragement… he was gone.
A couple months Purah had said- might have been a hundred years.
As months turned to years, and years to decades, the corrosive destroyer of all heroes gnawed at her heart- Despair. The scientist’s estimates kept changing, more and more time. Would her plan even work? Everything they had done- was it all just a mistake?
Oh, Link, when will you return to us??
You are Hyrule’s last hope . . .
And mine.