Chapter Text
This is the closest he has ever dared to go.
No matter where he travelled the castle dominated the landscape with a gravity of its own. The red wisps of malice marked it like a beacon, day and night. He got used to steering far away from it, skirting along the mountain ridges up north, and forcing his steed to her limits on the grasslands south of it. He trekked all through the land, all in an attempt to avoid what would be inevitable: finding his way through the castle and up its towers. But today…
He did not intend to make an excursion today. At the stable, there was a word about a safer entrance. A way to avoid the swarm of Guardians of the Southern gate. It is just to scout ahead, is what he tells himself when he tightens the ceramic armour around his torso and places a circlet on his head. It is to see if the rumour about the passage is true. But suddenly he is in a tunnel past the luminous stones, past broken mine carts, his eyes turned up scouting for a route forward, and a Talus comes alive under his feet.
The surprise makes his hands tremble, and a bomb arrow misses its mark. The explosion throws him against the tunnel wall. Smoke fills his eyes and throat, the stomping of stone feet clashes in his ears, and the crashing of boulders makes his ears ring. Back to his feet, back to circling the beast, it is hard to reach, he has to reach. The corridor is narrow, and the talus is strong. Next arrow hits. And the next. And with one more hit, it crumbles into dust.
Warm breeze dries the sweat from his forehead. He looks up.
The way into the castle is clear.
He never intended to clear it all the same night. Day? How long has it taken? Daylight doesn’t reach through the layer of malice. Sunlight is sickly orange, the little he sees of it through narrow windows or crumpled walls.
There is a library. First swarming with beasts, now dead quiet with just the sound of his footsteps echoing from the rotting shelves. All other life stopped here already a hundred years ago. A book is still open on the long table, frozen in time. A mention of the Princess on the page draws him in. It’s a recipe. A Princess’s favourite. An echo from a time when the castle was alive.
The old paper tears easily. He takes the page with him. And continues forward.
He clears room after room, driven by a compulsive haste. He has made it this far, he might as well take one more step. Climb one more staircase. Raid one more encampment. Old weaponry he finds is dazzling, there is too much of it, he becomes blind to it. Corridors that were full of Ganon’s creatures are left empty after his wake, creatures only remembered in the heaviness that grows in his limbs after each fight. All that matters is going up, up and up. He has made it this far. One more corridor. One more…
One more climb. Now out on the walls. Guardian’s lasers. A hit in the chest hardly adds to his exhaustion. The hard ceramic plates of his armour clink as they cool down after the blast, their surface impenetrable like the Guardians themselves. The tinkling of the ceramic, the hum of the machines, the ear shattering clash of blades against the cursed clockwork, the sounds travel deep within his memory and search for a place to land.
One more fallen tower. Forward – no. This is… this must have been…
The Princess's bedroom. It has crumbled into a mockery of what it once was.
Hairs on his neck stand up and he freezes on the spot. Guardian’s hum as they fly past the tower. But it is not the machines causing it.
Something, something here really is tickling his memory. Does he want to know, he doesn’t know if he wants to know, he has to know. Nothing in the room seems to do it. Come on…
His legs take steps for him, guiding him up and leading him away from the little safety of the fallen walls and straight into the bridge heading to another tower. The Guardian Skywatcher’s alert is immediate. He doesn’t react to it. His feet lead him to the ledge. His eyes zap to the yard beneath.
He remembers.
The alert grows stronger. His feet decide for him again, running him to the safety of the other side just before the parapet explodes. Gravel rains down around him, dust fills the air, and he doesn’t see any of it.
Right in front of him grows a Silent Princess, swaying gently in the disturbed air of the tower. He falls onto his knees, staring at the flower. He wasn’t able to protect the Princess. He stayed silent by his side, unable to do anything at the face of the King berating her. Silently enabling her suffering.
The Princess didn’t deserve any of it.
He raises his hand to caress the flower. Its petals are smooth like fine fabric. He will not pick this one. In fact – he digs up the Sheikah slate, brushes off some of the dust covering it, and aims its gaze at the flower. He has already documented a Silent Princess, but this is the one that should be saved. It feels right.
He is solemn as he captures the image. In it, the flower glows in the darkness of the tower, bathing in a soft light and surrounded by swirling dust. A dull satisfaction flickers in his weary mind. He puts the slate away and stands up. This flower will be remembered even if nothing else of this remains.
The sound of the Guardian fades into a hum as he examines the rest of the tower. Remnants of the evening sun, made sickly by the malice, slice the dusty air and land on ruined bookcases and piles of rubble. Is he in another library? No, it is a study. He remembers it now. Books, equipment, all that the Princess loved to surround herself with.
There is one book open on the desk after all these years, as if someone used the room just yesterday. Only thick dust covers its pages, like it covers everything else in the castle. He leans in and wipes the worst of it off. The page looks back at him, sentences make themselves understood, and before he knows it, he is reading the Princess's diary.
The realization creeps in like cold water down his spine. These are actual words written by her. He stares at the book like it might burn.
Just behind his back, on the crumbling bridge, the memory of the Princess stares at his back. Accusing. Demanding.
He is meant to save her. Everyone says so. And he will, he will, it’s just that… He is just him. And she is… He doesn’t know who she is. The Princess is a mystery to him, a voice in the air, a face in a memory. But these words are written by a Hylian hand. They are real, and they burn with invitation.
The fragile binding creaks as he turns to the next page.
He reads what there is to read. Laments of duty. Expressions of hope. Wishes for… companionship? There are remarks of his own silence, and the anxiety it caused. The duty is heavy on her shoulders in every line.
He remembers the anger she describes. He remembers her yelling at him. He does not understand the memory, doesn’t know what caused her anger. But her emotion was real. She did not like him. Even if she felt guilty of berating him, it does not change the fact.
But as he reads on, the tone of the writing changes. He talked to her, it says it right there. He reads the words over and over, trying to make sense of it. He does not talk to people. And yet, there it is written.
More pages turning, creaking of the ancient paper. King scolding her, right there behind him on the bridge. A dream. Her seventeenth birthday closing in.
It is the last entry.
He starts over, reads everything again. Behind him, on the broken bridge, the princess stands, stuck in a loop of his father berating her, again and again.
P.S. Tomorrow my father is assigning HIM as my appointed knight…
She didn’t choose him. The King did.
He must despise me.
Did he despise her? If he did, he doesn’t remember it. He just remembers the strong pull of duty, the need to protect her more than his own life…
He saved me. Without a thought for his own life, he protected me from the ruthless blades of the Yiga Clan.
…which proves it. This he knows to be true. He does feel glimpses of that unwavering dedication to protect her. Even if the feeling is often shadowed by the heavy weight of that same duty.
With so much at stake, and so many eyes upon him, he feels it necessary to stay strong and to silently bear any burden.
He stares at the words. His hand trembles with the urge to slam the book shut, his jaw clenches as he fights it. It doesn’t feel right to have someone describe him so accurately, without him knowing her at all, with only scrambled memories that reveal details but hide the full truth.
But this, too, will end in failure. Such is my curse.
He closes the book. The Princess is so close. On the bridge, in the writing, maybe even in the malice that surrounded the castle. She is right there, and still he can not see her clearly. Not clearly enough to understand.
Nails dig into his palms. He does not understand, not with a new memory, not even with the diaries. A dull headache has joined the chorus of his aches. Burns, cuts, strain from the battles, and now this.
Onward. That is all he is able to do. He turns back towards the bridge and walks right below the Skywatcher, which alerts immediately. He walks on, across the crumbling path back into the Princesses chambers. The alert dies behind him. He is close to her. Closer than ever before. Just one more corridor. One more staircase. One more…
Emotionless, he makes his way through the upper yard. He digs straight through the weaker beasts. Knowing his exhaustion is getting too much to bear, he dodges the more deadly ones. He never meant to get this far – what is he doing, he is not prepared, he is marching straight into Ganon’s maw, this is foolishness, but he is the Princess's fool, isn’t he, this is his task, his duty – but since he did make it this far, he will take that one more step.
The gates leading to the sanctum loom ahead of him, rising above him, guiding his steps towards the door. She is right there. Just one more path. She is waiting. Everyone is waiting.
The malice is strong here. It oozes from the very air, swirling around the sanctum, protecting its entrances. It is mesmerising, the way it coils around itself. He could watch its dance forever, even when somewhere far away an alert is rising…
A Guardian beam hits him and slams him against a pillar. Before he can stand up and recover, the next one punches through his unresisting body, tossing him to the side. Alerts are ringing everywhere, digging through his bones. The armour strains to protect him, its ceramic tinkling high-pitched even among the alerts. The air burns around him, red light pierces his eyelids, and as he cracks his eyes open, dead blue Guardian eyes are staring at him, fading in and out of the billowing smoke, unblinking and inhumane.
He pulls out a bow. He tries to pull out an arrow. He finds none.
Several of the eyes flash.
Explosions hit the ground right where he was a blink of an eye earlier. He is running before he is back to his feet, scampering away from the gates and over the parapet, explosions hitting the ground and the walls around him. Dropping down, a sharp pain in his ankle, he needs to get anywhere under a cover, there is an archway, a roof to hide under, a window to duck inside the castle walls. He does not stop there. He needs to go, right now – why did he come this far? He avoided the castle for so long, and finally it lured him inside its winding corridors, inviting him deeper and deeper. It got its claws in him and he couldn’t refuse. He followed it almost all the way up to the throne of all evil, while weary to his very soul.
He has to get out. Endless corridors, stairways, now empty after his rampage. What is the safest way out? Tunnel in the west, dodge a Guardian, climb a wall, tired, tired, tired. Malice in the air, no arrows, no answers, just a new memory he can’t place. If he had just one more…
He stops right as he is about to jump into the moat. There is one picture close by that he hasn’t got to yet, isn’t there?
Swaying on his feet, the water of the moat beckoning to him, he digs up the Sheikah Slate. There it is, some kind of a yard right in front of the castle. If he can just remember more, maybe it will all come back together.
He has come this far…
He circles the castle, running easier now that the malice isn’t clouding the air, pain in his ankle subsiding with the newfound purpose. Eyes open for Guardians, he moves from tree to tree, from shadow to shadow. Waiting for them to turn their all-seeing eyes away, he runs across a road, climbs one more wall, crosses another open road until there is safety from the woods once more. From there he can see the statue already. A fountain. From tree to tree, from shadow to shadow, he makes his way to a memory.
One last look to see there are no Guardians near, and he gets up from the safety of the trees and walks up on the pavement. Does it match the picture, it has to, the castle is there, he has been here before, hasn’t he…
He has.
And the Princess hated her.
Betrayal punches hope out of his lungs. She didn’t even want to look at him. She avoided his gaze the best she could.
He is a remainder of all her failures. That is what he is to her.
An alert rings yet again as if from far away. A blinding red dot appears in his chest, searching for the perfect spot to land, its light bright enough in its magic to shine right through his armoured chest. He turns. Between him and the looming castle stands a Guardian, its spidery legs ready to carry it forward, its eye now locked right at his heart.
No more.
His feet hit the ground like a drum, grass whipping at his ankles. No more Guardians. No more fighting. No more being all alone against the whole fucking world. He runs south, away from the castle, away from the Princess and his duty, as fast as he can with the strength he still has left.
The alert dies. The ruins give way to grassy fields.
Tears sting his eyes as the first droplets of rain hit the ground.
She hates you.
You know that’s not true.
I remember she did.
We read the diary. It is not true anymore.
Right now it is.
It is unfair. Patched memories, missing pieces, emotions he can not place. The Princess didn’t deserve any of this. But neither does he.
Out of breath, relishing the burn in his lungs, he tosses his useless bow into the grass. He didn’t ask for this, any of this. Rain hits his armour, the droplets replicating the tinkling of it cooling down after a Guardian’s hit, but the ceramic is cold now, cold and heavy and weighing him down.
Why did he go all the way up to the castle? He wasn’t ready. Will he ever be? Everyone expects so much of him. They expect everything of him. There is no room for failure, and he almost threw it all away. For what? For the Princess? The Princess, who hated him, who was grateful to him, who wanted to apologise, who he apparently told so much about himself…
The memories burn.
He grunts and runs faster, struggling to keep up the pace. But even the strain on his body isn’t enough to quiet the voices in his head.
There is a shrine in the distance. With no other destination in mind, he directs his steps towards it. A shelter from the rain, if it matters. Droplets blur his vision. Shrines, they too are just a reminder of that ugly word, destiny.
The pounding of his feet alerts darners from the grass. A frog jumps out of his way. All these things he would normally stop and diligently store away for later use. Anything could help him in the future, and he needs all the help he can get, and maybe if he had one more cricket he would be prepared enough, the odds would favour him, the anxiety would finally calm. But no. Running out of time. Not good enough. Not skilled enough. Not prepared enough...
A lighting bolt strikes and hits the ground too close to him. It feels good.
Underneath his feet, the sloshing of the wet grass turns into the familiar metallic click of the shrine. He slams the Sheikah Slate on the pedestal with no finesse, no patience. The travel gate lights up with the same piercing blue as the Guardian’s eyes earlier, and the ceramic bars guarding the shrine’s entrance begin to open. He pushes past them into the cave-like structure and draws a sword, a nice one that he just found from the castle, and with an ear-shattering clash he hits the wall of the shrine with it, hits it again and again and again and again, until the metal of the sword groans under the strain and finally shatters in pieces together with his scream.
The rain settles into a drizzle. In the shelter of the shrine, a fire is burning and cooking a skewer. Its ingredients are diligently prepared.
He sits quietly and watches the food roast, dressed in the most inconspicuous clothes he had in his pouch, a hood drawn over his head. The armour is placed carefully against the wall to dry. It protected him well today. Even after all the battering, the only damage it sustained was caused by soot and sweat. Behind the armour, the wall of the shrine is pristine and clear. Shards of a broken sword lie scattered on the floor. Ancient, like the armour, the shrine held up without getting a scratch.
He is alive. Even after the recklessness of storming the castle, he is alive, and better off now than he was before the venture. The new memories are settling in, nudging the picture of his world and his place in it. No, the Princess didn’t want him to guard her, not at first. Yes, the Princess later changed her mind. And right now she needs him more than ever.
Going forward, the memories will have to be his main priority. He rotates the skewer above the flames and soaks in the warmth. Hylian clothes feel good against his sore skin. In them, he is just a traveller. Just now, that’s all he needs to be.