Chapter Text
TWELVE YEARS LEFT
Hilda was seven years old the first time her father summoned her to his study. It was raining, and the torches on the wall cast flickering shadows in the far edges of the room. Various papers were scattered on the round inky-black carpet. When she looked closer, the handwriting looked…angry, almost, like fire had scorched the words onto the letters. Her father stood at the arched window behind the wooden desk with his hands positioned neatly behind his back.
Why wouldn’t her father look at her?
“Hilda, my daughter, come here,” he said wearily. Maybe in better light, she would have noticed the bags under his eyes, or the unsteadiness of his posture, or the slight waver in his voice. Instead, she trotted over and looked up at him expectantly.
Putting a hand on Hilda’s back, her father turned her towards the view of Lorule. “Look out the window and tell me what you see.”
Through the rain, Hilda could see the distant shapes of monsters roaming the land beyond the castle walls. She could see the yawning chasms stretching out in front of her, hungrily devouring the homes and livelihoods of her people. She could make out crumbling cliffsides and waves of dead trees, lying in wait with their barren branches to be sent back into the earth.
“It is your kingdom,” Hilda finally said, unsure how else to respond. What was she supposed to be seeing?
“And someday, it will be yours. It is a burden I would not wish on anyone, but it is bound to you. I will not be around forever.” Taking a breath, he kneeled down to Hilda’s eye level and put a hand on her shoulder. “Lorule has been walking the path of death for a long time now. Despite all this, you must put aside all other things for the good of this kingdom. You must carry on trying to find a way to fix the damage; there is no other option. Nothing can stand in your way. Do you understand? You are in a position doomed to fail.”
Hilda frowned. “But Elona always says that we’ll find a way. She told me that there is always hope.”
The ghost of a smile appeared on her father’s face through his beard as he ruffled her hair. “And I dearly hope that your nursemaid is right. Now off with you. I have some business to attend to.”
And so Hilda pushed open the heavy wooden door and rejoined Elona, who stood dutifully outside with her veil neatly in place over her long, green locks like she always did. She was ready and waiting with a smile, but it fell as soon as she saw Hilda’s face.
“What’s wrong, love?” she asked, taking Hilda’s hand and guiding her though the winding corridors back to her chambers.
Hilda looked down at her feet as they walked, unsure what to make of it. Well, of course Lorule was going to be hers one day. Why did her father make that sound like such a bad thing? He had always told her stories of the days before the Triforce had gone away, and how the royal family had a sacred duty to bring those days back. She looked forward to the day when she would be old enough to really do something. She didn’t understand this at all.
“Elona, do you think that we can fix Lorule?” Hilda sat down on her bed and folded her hands in her lap. “Father made being queen sound bad. Scary.” She scrunched up her nose. “It isn’t so, is it?”
Elona sighed and settled down next to her. “One day, you will fully understand the mantle that will be passed on to you. King Mahro is right that it won’t be easy to be queen. But, my dear, hope is never too far behind you. Our lives are a trial, but have faith that the goddesses will bring Lorule out of the darkness. There is always some good in every evil, and you would do well to remember that.”
“Then I will.” Hilda nodded and resolved to put the matter out of her mind. After all, Elona was always right.
That night, she quietly opened her door and padded downstairs to the grand foyer of the castle. Torchlight illuminated the five tapestries hanging on the wall under the balcony, and Hilda stood in the center of the purple rug to look upon them. She had always thought they were beautiful.
The Goddesses’ Gift. The War of the Triforce. The Rise of the Hero. The Fall of the Hero. The Destruction of the Triforce.
Hilda ran her fingertips over the delicate threads of The Rise of the Hero. The tapestry depicted the Lorulean Hero of Legend in his rightful place beside the ancient princess. Underneath the Triforce, they stood back-to-back, ready to take on the world, even in such a simplified design—the Hero with his magic, the princess with her sword. She often wondered about the life of that princess. How they could have ever failed to stop the war. Good was always meant to triumph, wasn’t it?
“You’re supposed to be in bed,” came Elona’s stern voice behind her, and Hilda swiveled around to see Elona in her nightclothes with her arms crossed.
“Oh! Elona! I was just…”
“I’m not angry. They’re exquisite works of art, aren’t they?” Elona strode forward to stand beside Hilda. “This is our history. Our legacy. Despite everything, we the people of Lorule survive. And so, this is a testament to our strength. Lorule will live on.”
When Elona tucked her in and planted a kiss on her forehead, Hilda dreamed of a world of magic and light.
***
ELEVEN YEARS LEFT
Hilda was eight years old when the plague came. Maybe her father didn’t think that Hilda knew what was happening, but she did. She may have been young, but she wasn’t stupid. She noticed when someone else started making her meals and when maids suddenly left and when her father stopped granting audiences to his subjects. She saw how their faces became like skeletons before they disappeared. The maids’ conversations always died when she drew near and her father was too busy to deal with her.
It was too late by the time Hilda worked up the courage to ask about it. “Are we going to get sick too, Elona?” she asked one day as the nursemaid gently combed her hair at the old vanity.
Elona paused, sunlight reflecting off the mirror onto her face. “I pray every day that you do not. Lorule will one day need you. But if you do, then I will stay by your side until you are well again. Even if others have fallen away from the right path, I believe that the royal bloodline will care for us.”
“How can you be sure that we will succeed?”
Setting down the comb, Elona put her hands on Hilda’s shoulders. “Look in the mirror, love.” Hilda’s red eyes stared back at her. “If you learn nothing else from me, then I bid you remember this: one day, you will be the best queen Lorule has ever seen. If anyone can restore this kingdom, I have no doubt in my mind that it will be you. Your spirit is strong, even if you don’t yet realize it.”
It wasn’t too long before Elona began to cough. One cough became two, two coughs became four, four coughs became eight. Her hands became stained with blood.
Then Hilda wasn’t allowed to see her anymore.
***
On her ninth birthday, Hilda held her father’s hand tight as she watched them bury her behind the castle.
She didn’t cry until everyone else had left. Only then did she allow herself to fall to her knees and beg the goddesses to bring her back. To dig her ungloved fingers into the damp soil and hold on to that last link to Elona. To let the hot tears fall onto a stone put down much too early. There was no good in this. How could there be good in such an evil?
“It’s cold out here,” Hilda choked out, her voice barely a whisper. “You—you always kept me warm. Now this will keep you warm.” She shrugged off her black mourning cloak and laid it over the grave like a shroud. “Don’t worry about me anymore, okay? I will be fine. So just…sleep well. For me.”
As she tore herself away from the grave, Hilda could almost feel a familiar hand stroke her hair fondly.
Almost.
***
NINE YEARS LEFT
"This is a harsh lesson in reality,” her father told her when Elona never came back. “I wish that I had the power to stop this plague, but I can do nothing as the kings who came before me could do nothing for the crises of their times.”
Hilda did try. She gave her meals to the goddess temple built into the left wing of the castle. She prayed every day. Elona always told her to put her faith in the goddesses, and so she did. It did not stop the plague. It did not stop her ringing for a nursemaid who wasn’t there. It did not stop her from desperately wishing there was anything she could do.
The sickness did finally die, but the fallen could not be brought back to life. Would it always be like this? Damaged irreparably?
“We are helpless,” Hilda’s father said one day as they passed the tapestries. “How could we ever mend that which has been torn in two? Our history, these tapestries—it is a testament to our failures.”
Hilda believed him.