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The snow covered their footprints as quickly as they left them. And their footprints were left quickly, as the princess pushed forward with characteristic determination and impatience. Every part the researcher, failed options were mourned over little, pushed away and discarded, as she pursued the next promise of an answer.
Or so it had seemed. No matter his suggestions to save her strength, to rest, Zelda moved with a quiet desperation, an anxiousness that trembled in her tightened fists and spilled over her chewed lip. Then and again, his gaze strayed to the sword on his back. Now that he knew the pain it caused her, he wanted to take it off and hurl it into a ravine, except for the fact the goddess might curse him for it.
And so he followed dutifully, through the snow that sank under his feet and pulled the energy from his limbs. She must have been tiring too, for she leaned as she walked and muttered something under her breath that vanished in a puff of white air. But her pace did not slow. She would keep going until she succeeded or was forced to admit the answer was not here. Or until she collapsed. It was likely that he would be carrying her back.
It gave him a strange mixture of feelings, a tangled ball that jostled in his chest. Frustration at her stubbornness, worry for her safety. Admiration of her tenacity, sorrow at her disappointments. Resentment of the powers that refused to recognize her, fear of the future. When he thought of carrying her, he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms, and yet feared it. Dread weighed on his heart at the thought of her, small and curled, frozen fingers looped around his neck, murmuring into his tunic that she’d find it next time, that she had to. It hurt more than he had words for.
Why had he been gifted this sword to protect her, if he couldn’t fight what pained her?
She stopped at the crest of a hill, and pulled a map from within her satchel, comparing it to the landscape. The scenery around them had been rendered even more featureless than the map by the blanket of snow. She lifted her head, tracking the watery dot of the sun through the clouds, then continued on, veering slightly to the right. He said nothing, but committed the arrangement of rocks and trees to memory, charting their path on the landscape itself. It at least gave his churning mind something to do.
As they descended the slope, one of those muddy brown landmarks turned, raising the branches of its antlers, and bolted within the time it took for him to recognize it as a deer. Snowy pigeons soared overhead, barely visible against the cloud cover. At the base of a grey cliff shimmered a patch of impossible blue, pale where the water lapped at the edges of the icy basin, dark as the ocean further in. A half-ring of standing stones surrounded it, each about knee-height, and carved with worn glyphs. Zelda took a deep breath and approached.
It was only when she began to remove her rabbit-pelt boots that he realized what she was about to do. He struggled with words, more so when she was near, and so there was a moment before he managed to force them out, dull and blunt.
“You’ll die.”
He bit his lip, fingernails digging into the leather of his gloves. She gave him a hard look.
“Next spring,” she spoke slowly, removing her coat and folding it, “when I am seventeen, I will be expected to pray at the Spring of Wisdom on Mount Lanaryu. I hardly expect it to be warmer there.” She placed the folded coat on a boulder. “But that is more than half a year away. This is the best I can do.” She removed her earmuffs and tossed her hair, giving him a sidelong glance full of something that tangled his insides further. “And my knight is here. To make sure I do not die.”
He clenched his teeth.
“At least let me start a fire first.”
She paused, then her voice cracked with barely subdued hope.
“Can you?”
And he was not entirely sure about that, but at least she put her coat and boots back on, and perched on the boulder while he scratched out a patch of clear earth from under the snow, and scraped together enough twigs and grass to start a fire, albeit one that smoked and stuttered. There was a dead tree a hundred yards away, which he clambered up and swung from until a wind-desiccated branch cracked under his weight. He dragged it back, propped it against the boulder, and kicked it in two, then fed the resulting portions to the fire. She watched him.
“Are you ready?”
He nodded. She drew closer, warming her hands, then began to strip down again. He turned and stood guard, looking back the way they came, willing his attention into the distance and the sounds of the landscape, and not the princess changing behind him, or the icy breeze that must be drawing gooseflesh from her bare skin. When she cleared her throat, he turned back to see her clad in her prayer gown, arms wrapped around herself, golden hair falling over bare shoulders. He jerked his gaze away, taking a stick and feeding the tip into the fire, then jabbing it into the earth so it stood upright. He pointed to a knot in the wood.
“Until it burns down to here,” he muttered, and she nodded. “Then I’m coming to get you. You fall in, I’m coming to get you. You go quiet, I’m coming to get you.”
“Of course,” she answered, then, “You don’t have a change of clothing though. Call out to me first?”
He looked down at her toes, which were already blotched red, and she took that as a nod, striding toward the pond with a haste that pushed the upper limits of what could be called graceful. She didn’t cry out when she reached the water, but she did slow, choking back a gasp. The dress billowed in the water behind her, a snowy island in the glacier melt. She pushed it down, clenched her hands at her sides, then clasped them in prayer.
Great Goddess Hylia, Queen of All,
Here in your kingdom, your children call…
Her voice was thin in the air as the wind stole away the puff of her breath. The syllables blurred, though he knew the hymns, and could probably catch her words if he pricked up his ears, it felt like listening in on a private conversation. Instead, he stared into the fire, watching the agonizing downward crawl of the flame, and letting the rhythm of her voice lull him in his trance. He did prick up his ears, when she fell silent, but soon enough she took a deep breath and began the next chant in the cycle. The firewood popped and crackled.
The flame began to lick at the upper edge of the knot, and he watched it with such intensity his eyeballs began to dry out, waiting for the edge of the charred black to creep over it. As much as he wanted to call for her, he knew she would check, and knew the disappointment he’d see in her eyes if he went back on their agreement.
“All I want is a chance,” she’d said once, curled in a stable after a day of fruitless praying.
The time was unquestionably up. He rose to his feet and called across the lake, “Princess!” and she flinched, then turned in grim silence. Her hands clenched at her sides once more, but she began— slowly— making her way back toward him. A few steps from the shore, she stumbled woodenly, catching herself with one hand, wincing at the splash of frigid water, then righting herself.
His relief as she made her way ashore was short-lived, when he saw her footprints in the snow. Blood from her left foot painted the heel and arch. Her footsteps were slow and clumsy.
“Princess!” he shouted again, and she followed his gaze, jerking with obvious surprise when she turned to see the bloody trail. He was at her side already, sweeping her up in a bridal carry and ferrying her back to the campfire.
“My feet have gone numb… I didn’t even notice…” she murmured, like an apology. He replied with a noise intended to soothe her, adjusting his grip to gather up the hanging folds of her dress, sodden and heavy. The shift in position caused her to clutch at the back of his neck, and he tried not to yelp at her icy touch.
He set her down on a stone near the fire, and fetched her coat, wrapping it around her shoulders. She shivered, and pulled it closed at the neckline with ivory-pale fingers. The ends of her hair were damp and bedraggled from where she had stumbled.
“Can you stand?” he asked. “You need to get out of that dress.”
He handed over her folded clothing and turned away. Behind him, there was a quiet gasp as she stood, a pause, perhaps as she pulled on her chemise and buttoned her coat over the top, and a wet thud as her dress hit the ground. She exhaled again as she sat, and made a quiet noise of effort when she pulled her tights on. Eventually she spoke.
“You can turn around.”
The only skin left exposed was her face, her hands, and one foot, which continued to leak blood into the snow, albeit more slowly. He approached, knelt, and looked up at her to ask permission.
When he took her foot in his hand and tilted it, she winced, and he saw the gash torn across the arch, as though by a sharp rock. It required the work of a doctor, he thought, but what she had was a boy with a sword. Still, he carried some supplies for times like these, reaching into his tunic for a bundle of fabric and the herbal salve wrapped in it. He tore off a strip of the fabric and patted away the blood as best he could, then smeared the salve over the wound, smoothing it over and into the gash to staunch the trickle of blood. She flinched, reflexively jerking away, but he kept his grip even as she bit back a whimper. He wiped his greasy fingers on the dirtied strip of cloth, then tore a clean strip to begin wrapping the wound.
It took several strips to cover the arch of her foot, and she bit her lip when he pulled them tight, eyes fixed somewhere on the horizon, blinking away tears. He hated the smear of her blood on his hands, and the way she winced at his touch. The buckle holding his sword in place bit into his shoulder as he leaned forward. Perhaps someday, the duty that brought them together would weigh less, and then his touch would be welcome, wanted. He tied off the last bandage, and looked up at her. Her smile was thin, but she didn’t pull away.
He resisted the urge to rest a gentle hand on her, to reassure. Even touching her bare ankle seemed like a transgression, when such a thing was unnecessary. He watched a flake of snow melt and run down, soaking into the cloth bandage.
He backed away, watching as she pulled her boot on over the bandages with some effort, and thought how best to phrase the question. Or perhaps it was better to not make it a question at all.
“Let me carry you,” he said.
Her brows pinched and she bit her lip.
“I know you can manage,” he said quickly, almost tripping over the words with the haste at which they spilled, “but I’m worried we won’t make it out of the mountains before nightfall. There’s a wind that blows along the valleys and slopes that’ll freeze your ears off.”
Her expression remained tense.
“I’ll put you down when we're within sight of the village.”
“Alright,” she answered at last, giving her boots and gloves a final adjustment. She looked up at him with an honesty that was almost painful.
“I do appreciate it, you know.”
From someone who loathed the fact that they needed accompaniment and assistance in the first place, it was a profound statement. He knelt before her, offering his back, and she climbed on, giving an idle pat to his shoulder that he was determined not to read into. He scooped his hands under her thighs and shifted her weight until it was comfortable, then began the long trek back to civilization.
Her breath tickled his ears, with the occasional murmur of her voice as she pointed out a plant or bird native to the area, ones she had only seen before in books.
“I hear the feathers are used in the finest Rito quilts,” she told him, and he listened, though he could tell her heart wasn’t in it.
The sun dipped behind the mountains, casting long shadows, and the wind picked up, slicing through the gullies and biting at exposed skin. He forced his tired legs onward at the fastest pace he could keep up over a distance. The princess’s breathing turned slow and deep— sleep had taken her. He endeavored not to wake her. Twilight fell in earnest before he could quite reach the village, and a huddled pool of lantern lights rose before his eyes. He recalled agreeing that she could walk the last of the distance on her own, but while he was pondering how close he could approach before waking her, one of the lantern lights broke away from the rest and drew close— a Sheikah braving the rough-cut mountain path on horseback, leading the royal mount behind him. He nudged her awake for long enough to climb into the saddle. Fortunately, her white mare was well-trained enough to walk the path without guidance as the princess nodded.
It was after he had tied the horse up at the stable that he went to check on her bedroll, separated only slightly from the stable’s common sleeping area, a hazard of small settlements that the princess didn’t seem to mind. He knelt beside her, watching the rise and fall of her breathing, and blinking back his own sleep as he steeled himself for the first watch of the night. A hand slipped from under the covers, grasping at his wrist as her eyes opened. His breath caught in his chest.
“I have another idea,” she spoke, voice slightly blurred with sleep, “A lost temple, to the south… Will you accompany me?”
He lifted her hand, thumb brushing over her fingers for a held moment, before placing it back on her bedroll. Another place, another hope, another danger. He could not pull the goddess from the heavens for her, and so together they must search the earth.
“Always,” he agreed, and she smiled before turning over and falling asleep once more.