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The door groaned on its hinges as I pushed it open. The floorboards were cold. The house was sad. Like everyone else in this damned kingdom, this house missed its princess. Like everyone else, it seemed to blame me for her disappearance, too.
I wanted to say get in line. Tell them I had every right to miss her more than they did, but I couldn’t lie to myself, even if it wouldn’t be cruel of me to tell them off for wanting their protector back. It was my fault that she was gone. I should have been more careful. It should have been me falling into that abyss. I shouldn’t have been so arrogant to not even consider bringing another weapon. But wasn’t arrogance just becoming my style these days? Only a few minutes before, I nearly got my one good arm ripped off by a red bokoblin because I could only half-focus on the fight. My mind was lagging a second behind my eyes, and everything was starting to blur at the corners of my vision. I needed sleep. I was so fucking tired.
When I arrived in Hateno the previous morning, I hadn’t slept since I first landed off the Great Sky Island and geared up in Lookout Landing. I threw my boots off half-heartedly as I made my way upstairs, trying desperately— and failing— to ignore the burning pain in my stomach of seeing the dining table well-lit, decorated, and set for two. Maybe I was a bit hungry, too— another thing to add to the list. My body was slowing me down too much.
Laying and staring at the ceiling, still mostly dressed, mulling over the mammoth task in front of me, was unsurprisingly not conducive to restful sleep. The moon, selfishly, continued to climb its way across the sky no matter how hard I pleaded with it to just stop for a second. I had to sleep at some point tonight; that was without question. I was one stray thought away from being unceremoniously killed in an embarrassingly anticlimactic battle and plunging my kingdom— but more importantly, my princess— into eternal darkness and desolation. I had sworn, stupidly, after the calamity, that I would always protect her. It was the one fucking thing I promised her. So I guess that made me pathetic and a liar. It took until the moon had almost reached its peak for me to finally give up on this useless endeavour and follow my growing curiosity, fixated on the messy desk beside me. The first time I had done it, it was more excusable, more decent. I had wanted to learn about who she was— who I was— before everything went to shit. This time, it was just loneliness and nosiness, veiled thinly by an effort to look for clues about where I could find her.
I flipped through the pages of my evening light reading. It hurt too much to try to enunciate each word in my mind. I could hear the tones of her voice if I focused hard enough, and the thought of her being here, of her speaking to me at that moment, was probably enough to make me finally snap. Most of it was about the school, about Bolson, about Hateno, but one page made me stop still. Oh, she was still sneaky. A secret study? That, I had to see. After some prodding around the walls, poking at suspiciously new-looking wooden planks, I climbed out the window— a more direct route anyway— and peered into the well in the backyard. She was so, so sneaky.
It was dark and humid but surprisingly comfortable. How did she sneak this past me? I didn’t know whether to be proud of her cunning or embarrassed of myself, so I settled on both. I walked around for a bit before surrendering myself entirely to nosy indecency. Hero of Hyrule and Reader of Diaries. Looking over her notes, I was, admittedly, amazed. My pride dimmed to make way for amusement as I read her diary down here. The things she did for me… and I didn’t have so much as a clue. A new champion’s tunic… Would I ever get to thank her for her efforts? I immediately shut down that devastating thought and looked through the trinkets she kept on her desk. It was amazing, really, the amount of talent that girl had. How could she be this good at this many things— never mind sneaking all of it past me? Resigned to snooping, I continued sorting through all of her belongings. I stopped when I reached a latched box. What else could she be keeping here? I opened it and laughed out loud, the sound bouncing around the walls of the dimly lit cave.
I was shocked. My hair tie? I wondered where she was sourcing the accessories she liked to adorn my hair in the morning before heading to the school. Apparently, she had her secret study devoted to being my personal hair salon. I picked it up and slid the elastic onto my wrist, and quickly, the amusement I felt started to crash into utter devastation. What the fuck was I going to say to her when I found her— If I found her? My vision distorted even more as I continued to fight off sleep, and maybe even a few tears this time.
It was well past the middle of the night by the time I had returned to bed and settled in. At least I could close my eyes this time; granted, I didn’t have much of a choice. Every time I tried to stare out the window, my head ached with a burning, pounding sensation that begged me to sleep. I breathed in the still-almost-noticeable hint of her that still clung to the sheets and began to start slipping into a dream finally. She had done so much for this kingdom, for me. She devoted every second to keeping her people safe, to being the stewardess of the land and the protector of the people. She fell into that abyss for me. My Zelda was constantly clocked in as the princess of Hyrule. When could she just be my Zelda? She barely got any time for peace before everything was ripped away from her again— from us. We were always the Princess of Hyrule and her Protector. Would we ever just be Zelda and Link?