Work Text:
After he pulled the sword that seals the darkness, everything changed. He remembered those who came before him, those bodies and people who were him. All different shades of blonde and different hues of blue. It was overwhelming, oppressive, but familiar– it was the memory of who he was, who he still is.
But throughout all of those visions, those Links, one thing remained true in each variation: He did not exist for solely himself. He was only a link in a long chain of heroes, and that was a fate he did not mind for it meant he had a purpose.
All of those people, those voices, chanted a name. An ancient, longing word, it was. The type of name a man could cherish for eternity, because he had. All of them showed pictures of their princess, and all of their princesses were different– yet the same, because they too were linked by a single name.
It has been so long since the first time he'd seen those eyes of hers.
The hero had platinum blonde hair back then and a red scarf which followed him in the wind. His eyes were icy blue, which was an uncommon combination considering his fair hair.
Hylia was a statue, then, worshiped through all of the land and depicted as a maternal nun with large wings. He thought it was wrong, though. Hylia didn't look like that, he told everyone. That she was far more beautiful than stone could ever capture.
Everyone looked at him weirdly, asking but isn't she already beautiful?
They were right. She was a great source of comfort in this harsh world. The Land of Hylia was new, with tribes and villages separated without a single government. Hylians were scattered all across the land and did not understand how to unify.
As the people developed far beyond stone carvings and wooden swords, Hylia was only a myth still. A religious icon which was passed down from word of mouth, a legend which was only heard of in bedtime stories and religious sermons.
It wasn't until the ground began crumbling, when the sun started to dim that she became more than a myth. Monsters birthed into the new world and terrorized the common people.
The first time Link truly saw her was in the forest, a forest which was only a few miles away from his little cottage. He was a boy of barely nine, but he swore he'd fallen right then and there.
She stood there, feet barely touching the ground, head tilted upwards to the shining skyline. He couldn't figure out what he was seeing, why this woman was suddenly there. She was dressed in a long white dress which waved to a wind that wasn't there. Her hair was long and curled with a cut of bangs across her temple, and her ears were the biggest and sharpest Link had ever laid his eyes on; befitting of the Goddess who had given Hylians those pointed ears herself.
Hylia was not the nun in the stone statues. She was young, divine, and kind. Radiant. But at the same time, there was no mistake where those ancient sculptures had borne their image of a maternal Hylia– for her smile was all knowing that only an eternal being could be. It was both youthful and old. Both tired and joyful. Both wise and not. The end and the beginning.
Perhaps the most unexpected thing was that the Goddess’ wings were not the white color the stories told; no, it was a lovely spectrum of hues Link had never seen before. Gold, white, copper, auburn.
And then she looked at him.
It didn't shock him, for some reason. It was as if he expected this, and she kept looking at him without a word said. He searched and searched but there were no irises in those golden eyes of hers. It was plain, breathtaking gold. It was the only part of hers that truly gave away that she was not of this world, other than her unnatural beauty. It was divine, far too bright and golden. It looked as if she didn't even have pupils, a befitting idea for the founding Goddess of Hyrule.
And yet…something in that sunlike void called to him. There was a color hidden behind her empty eyes. That other mortals could not perceive, but she let him see through it. Her lithe, giant figure, towering over him...a vulnerability so unlike the Goddess he used to dream about was hidden under that fake smile.
A flicker here and there, a hymn to pass down to the future generations. Hylia was not just a god, but a woman. She played her song on a golden lyre and it resounded through the woods. Haunting, beautiful, and ultimately immortal.
She did not need to say anything, do anything, because although Link was just a boy, his fate was sealed right then and there when he met that knowing gaze.
They said that if you saw the true form of a god, you would melt away into ashes. Perhaps that was just a euphemism for the power of worship, for Link’s ashes would follow the gusts she created for the rest of his many lives.
He would not forget the hidden kaleidoscopic color under her white irises. It was the first time she showed her humanity, and it was green. Greener than the wild of this newborn land of Hyrule. Even when his own eye was scarred, her divine gaze was a guiding light.
This one was blonde, just like her, but she was younger. Younger, shorter, pinker. Her forehead was covered with straight-cut bangs and her eyes sparkled with the innocence of a happy life which she didn't have.
Link had known that sky blue shade his entire life, and many lives after, because they were friends. They had been friends for years, from children to teenagers– perhaps the final blessing of the Goddess who loved him.
When he had an ocarina, she was a kid. Blonde, electric eyed. Though his eyes were also blue, hers was the color of a deep storm. Hair covered, but he could see the wisps of blonde. She wore a flowy pink dress, and white befitting of her godly status.
Sometimes she wouldn't have blue eyes but instead the ruby of the Sheikah, and her skin would be a few shades darker and her hair a few shades lighter– almost the same color he had in his first life. She wore a skintight suit with the crest of the Sheikah and her beautiful hair was covered by a white cloth. It was all the same to him, Zelda or Sheik. They were both Zelda, and they both bore the gaze of knowledge beyond their years.
But even if her eyes were blue, they were all different.
The next blue was darker, deeper, and icy. Her hair was darker and longer, though. She was older, more mature. Taller, leaner. She was more elegant, maturely poised. As if she knew what she was doing, which was so different from her. This one had a suffocating aura, a gloom of authority which was unfamiliar to him. His knee desired to fall on the ground and his heart desired to pledge service to her.
She was never like this. She didn't wear purple like this one, either. And of course, even in the darkness and the deeper, more midnight shade of it, this one had navy eyes. She was melancholic and beautiful but her sorrowness was clearer than the night sky. Yes, the night sky. That was the color of her eyes. Twinkling, midnight blue of a gray day.
However, she was still Zelda. The way she spoke and the way she carried herself was befitting of queen- but her kindness was there, in all of that sadness.
Link’s brevity could never explain the tug in his chest, the oppressive weight in his heart. It didn’t matter if Link only saw those steel eyes once in his life. He always remembered.
So it was a whiplash when the next one was so loud, so rowdy, and yet so similar– she, too, had the streak of leadership instilled in her nature. And she was a pirate, whose skin was as tan, and her hair as blonde as the distant Goddess’. Her eyes were the blue of a sea and riptides hid in them.
They bickered while she teased him to no end. Worship was not something he did for this ocean eyed pirate, and that was okay. She already knew his appreciation for her just from the glint in his eyes. How could she not?
Link’s sea blue was much too revealing for the world.
When Tetra became Zelda and Zelda became Tetra, they were just kids. He was born of a world covered in oceans, of tropical trees and beautiful wind instruments. It was strange, then, when her granddaughter– their granddaughter also bore her soul. She did not have hurricanes in her eyes, no edge– just charm and whimsy. Innocence and teasing, the blue of friendship. It was the opposite of her scorn, her green envy.
Then the next one called out to him to save her. She was dressed like more of a priestess than a princess with pink and white and blue robes– blue robes that matched her tentative eyes. This one’s vibrance was clear, and her determination bright, for she had called out to him with all her courage.
He would meet a girl who looked like her, but she was a redhead, not a blonde. She wasn't a princess nor a Goddess, but a girl from a simple island…her face made him miss someone, but he couldn't quite figure out who or why. Marin had the eyes of tropical oceans, and it was–
She was brunette, with curls and freckles over her cheeks. Younger, with softer features than her. Unlike her, her nose was buttoned and her jaw round. She was in another pink dress (pink? pink. she never wore pink), poofy this time, and the symbols of the Royal crest hung from her ears as earrings.
Three triangles. The Triforce. The crest of the family they began, eons ago, when she was blonde and petite.
She had dimples, this one. She was a brunette. Not blonde. No, her hair was curly, too. He looked down at his own clothes; green and brown. It was simple and resembled his boyhood clothes. He hadn't worn green since.
Green. Right. Green.
Her eyes were not emerald like hers. It was sapphire.
Again.
A baby blue that resembled a freshwater river on beautiful mornings.
It was thousands of years later, when the royal family's signature colors went from pink, blue and white to blue, red and gold. When Hyrule moved past the era of simple carriages and simple ideals, and into an industrial revolution ushered in by the Sheikah.
Hyrule had fallen and been reestablished over and over, and this time it was remade by foreign people— the Zonai, whose technology far exceeded any Hylians, and who eventually died out.
Link was one of the last ones from a forgotten tribe in Faron.
He was redheaded, and he only knew that because he could see his own long hair whipped around by the wind. Instead of toes, he had paws. His nose was something more akin to a snout, and his face wasn't entirely human. Link wasn't Hylian, not fully, and yet he bore the Master Sword still the same.
This version of her was nearly the same as her, but she was more ancient. Long, curly golden hair, and tanned skin. Just like Hylia, so long ago. Painted, maybe even tattooed on her skin, were the white symbols of Hylia's family, and the Eye of the Sheikah. She wore a wreath of golden leaves as her crown and there was a single painted tear under each of her eyes.
This time, her eyes were jade. Just like hers. It was the first time of many, and all he could remember was how it had struck him so strangely, yet so beautifully.
That life had been different. It had monsters made of metal as well as the fleshy creatures he'd been fighting for thousands of years.
Despite all of these differences, everything was also the same. He was still called Link, his eyes were as turquoise as ever, and he was still her chosen protector. He even worshiped Hylia as if she was the same as his patron goddess, Farore. He was a knight, her appointed knight, and she was the princess of the Goddess' blood and somehow also Hylia's reincarnation (Hylia, Hylia who he also loved because she was Zelda and Zelda was Hylia) at the same time just like all those Zeldas he'd met before.
And although his fur was green, Link would also wear royal blue in this life for Zelda.
So it was no surprise that thousands of years later, after eons of him not existing, of the Hero being nonexistent– that a great love stirred in his being when he saw the green of the forest, the green of the ocean, the green of the wild in her eyes.
This love betrayed logic, betrayed class and expectations. It was a part of him just like how his hair was the color of wheat and the Master Sword was his. She despised him and he did not mind because when one is in love, he will take anything she will give him, even hate.
Even if it was not blue, even if it was so different from her ancestors, Princess Zelda’s green was familiar. It was the green of the tunic he had loved for centuries, the green of the wild he traversed, and the green of life. The same color Hylia hid underneath her golden eyes.
He had loved cyan gazes for so long, and he will continue to do so. But green…it was a color he knew like the back of his mind.
Perhaps it was no coincidence that in this life, her signature color was blue like his eyes. But blue was always Zelda’s color, not his.
Yet, in this life, it was both of theirs. It was no secret that he wore blue to signify his loyalty to her. The only difference was that she wore the gold of royalty and he wore the white of a soldier.
He still wore that white lined shirt when he saw the green of her eyes on a giant, flying in the sky. How beautiful the color was, even through his grief of cerulean tears. The Light Dragon's eyes mixed with the aquamarine of so many other blues he had loved before, it was as if Hylia's eyes were before him once again even if Zelda was not.
It did not match the sky she flew in, and she did not wear blue anymore because her skin was no longer human. So Link refused to touch green anymore, because her eyes were enough for him.
It was wrong, because he had Hylia’s emerald eyes in mind when he wore green for the first time.
Because for all the changes, all the differences over the eons– physical or not, Zelda was Zelda and Link was hers, eternally.
…his tunic was green for time immemorial. Except when it wasn't.