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“She has been out on the veranda for quite a while now,” said Impa. Her wrinkle-framed eyes glinted in the flicker of the hearth behind her that Paya was cooking our dinner over. “Link, why don’t you go talk to her?”
With effort, I pulled my head away from the wall that I sat against. I had been fighting off the urge to nap ever since I sat down and would lose the battle if I sat for much longer. The Princess went out to Impa’s back porch shortly after our arrival at the Sheikah’s home, and we hadn’t spoken much since Impa’s caravan picked us up from Hyrule Field earlier that day. We were both bruised and littered with cuts, but somehow neither of us had sustained severe injuries. The final roar of Calamity Ganon as Zelda sealed him away still rang in my ears, and I suspected it wouldn’t go away any time soon.
When I pushed open the doors to the rear veranda, Zelda was facing away from me. She leaned over the guardrail, looking down at the trickling stream below. Her golden hair shone in warm hues of the sunset beyond the pine forest surrounding the village. She would stun anyone who would look upon her, despite the stains from a hundred years ago that still muddied her dress.
The Princess snapped her head around before her shoulders relaxed at the sight of me. “Oh, it’s only you, Link.”
“Were you expecting a monster?” I asked as I approached. I intended it as a joke, but the Princess turned away to look over the edge of the porch again, her mouth a hard line.
She groaned. “I’ve only had terrible monsters as my company for the last hundred years,” she mumbled.
I leaned against the guardrail beside her. What a miserable hundred years she had to have witnessed: watching the castle as it was overrun and looted as the fields beyond burned. Not to mention, she’d been holding off Calamity Ganon, the most fearsome beast of the land, the entire time. I’d had a long, lonely journey, but at least I wasn’t under a constant attack for a hundred years straight. “Hopefully my company is more pleasant than that of a monster,” I said.
She looked at me for a second, her brow raised, then returned her gaze over the side of the deck. A frog leapt from a rock and landed in the stream below with a splash. “You know, Link, you seem different,” she said.
My heart sank. I feared Zelda would think I changed a lot after losing and regaining my memories. I looked down at the planks of the deck beneath my boots. Small cracks where the wood had aged littered the edges of a few of them. “I’ve been told that by others I met on my journey who knew me before...” I said.
“It’s understandable. You had a long journey,” said Zelda. Her voice was almost a whisper, as if she could barely get words out. “I am still in disbelief that everything has been accomplished,” she said.
I nodded slowly. “It hasn’t really sunk in for me either.”
She didn’t say anything more for a few minutes. The setting sun slipped behind the cliffside and the light dimmed before she continued. “I could only watch as everything was destroyed,” She said, her voice breaking. “Waves of guardian and monster armies, fueled by calamity ganon, descended upon the land.”
She rubbed her eyes, and I realized she was crying. “Princess…”
“I will never be able to shake the guilt. If… If only I had tried a little harder at Mount Lunayru, maybe it would have awakened in time…” Tears fell down her cheeks. I felt a strange inclination to reach out and hug her, but perhaps she felt I had become too much of a stranger to offer such an act. When she shivered and rubbed her shoulders, I knew I couldn’t just stand idly beside her like the guard I once was to her. I unclasped my Hylian cloak from my shoulders and placed it over Zelda’s without a word.
“Thank you, Link,” she said through a sniffle.
“From what I remember, you worked very hard. You did all you could to save them, and it’s over now. You sealed Ganon away,” I said softly. She nodded, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands.
“I just… I have no idea how I can bring myself to face this kingdom again after having failed my people…” she said.
We stood for a bit longer in silence as the sun continued to set. A bright green light suddenly blinked from the stream below us and then another flashed in the trees surrounding us. Then another, and another emerged as a bunch of small lights illuminated around us. “Look, sunset fireflies!” I said, pointing them out to the Princess.
“Link… this isn’t the time,” she sniffed.
“Come on, Princess, look!” I said.
Zelda’s looked up at the lights. She frowned. “From the research on them we once did together, I concluded that… they don’t live long,” she said flatly.
I huffed and waved my arm towards the trees. “That doesn’t matter, just look at them! Aren’t they beautiful?”
She looked up again and sighed, giving in to my request to observe them. After a few minutes, her tears stopped. She spoke again. “You’re right, Link, they are beautiful.”
We watched the bugs as they flashed twinkling lights that resembled constellations as darkness completely enveloped the village. It was a spectacular show that always happened in Kakariko on warm, midsummer nights.
The Princess clenched a hand to her chest as she looked up at the trees. “These fireflies… they glow only when the sun sets,” she said. “I believe this may be a sign to us from Hylia. Like the fireflies, our kingdom too can emerge from darkness.”
“Very profound, Princess,” I said. “I hope they inspired you.” She turned and offered a small smile. A wave of relief fell over me with her smile.
As the sky dimmed more, Zelda wrapped the cloak around her shoulders and leaned towards me, her arm grazing against my shoulder. The move might have been subconscious and due to her tiredness, but her touch sent a quick shiver up my side. She was warm now though, and I wanted to lean in to her too.
Whatever moment we were having ended when Paya called to say dinner was ready.
Zelda began towards the door to the inside, but then reached for the clasp of the hood to return it to me. “You can keep that, if you want,” I said, nodding towards her shoulders. “It’s from a shop in Hateno Village.”
She hummed. “It is very nice, though I don’t want to take yours.” She paused, before pivoting around to me and her eyes lit up. “Perhaps I can get my own, and a whole new outfit too. I want to get rid of this old dress and never wear it again. Oh, and I want to get a haircut.”
I laughed. “Whatever you wish, Princess.”
“And you…” Zelda continued, furrowing her brow as she looked over me methodically. It was as if she were inspecting me, and my cheeks unexpectedly started to burn. “You are not dressed for the dangerous, monster infested conditions of Hyrule. That old champion tunic is simply not enough to protect you. You don’t even have proper chainmail. No wonder you fell...”
“Hey, I am old enough to dress myself now,” I said, pointing a finger at her. “I even figured out how to put on pants after I woke up in the shrine of resurrection.”
“Supposedly a hundred and eighteen years still isn’t quite old enough,” she said with a tilt of her head. She bit her lip, only for a moment, then burst into a fit of giggling. I couldn’t help but laugh too.
A second later, her arms were around my shoulders in a hug. “I was wrong. You’re different, but still the same somehow,” said Zelda. “I’ve missed you, Link.”
Her hugs were not numerous in my memories, but her hold still awakened something familiar in my heart as I wrapped my arms around her. “I’ve missed you too, Zelda.”