Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

 He’s missing again.  

 It’s not uncommon, not unexpected really these days. It’s a thing she ought to have expected when she sent out her people to see where her brother had gone, but even so, it still sends a lurch of panic through her when the word reaches her.  

 “Link is nowhere to be found.”  

 Zelda doesn’t react to the information; she knew it already. If she could not reach him, there was nothing to reach. If her mind could not find his across the expanses of Hyrule, then there was no way that the sheikah could hope to do so. All she expects is the knowledge they have gathered of where he was last seen, what he was lasting doing, what’s become of him.  

 Hurt will come later, or at least the grief if his life truly is lost at long last. Grief for who he was haunts her daily, but if his final breath has been drawn, she has no doubt that pain will color itself anew with agonies previously unknown. That is not what she must turn her mind to now though. No, there’s still a kingdom requiring her care. There’s still all he’s given her with his bloody hands; the lives hanging heavy on his shoulders, the weight of which he still bears even if titles say their burden should be hers; the buildings erected on his blood sweat and tears; the land itself that pulses with the same breath as brought back his own.  

  The world around is steeped in his essence, built on pieces of him lost with every foe that tears him asunder. There is his innocence, there his bright smile. It’s poured here and about and leaving him without, leaving her to see the gaping holes left in its wake even as he tears further at his own form to provide and protect this kingdom he calls blessed. And blessed it is , she supposes, to be graced with his favor. Whatever gods there might be, they’ve long since abandoned this world, and it’s only he who still shows this land the favor they might once have. He who they claim is blessed by the heavens, yet has yet to see any such proof of blessing when curses and burdens drag him down from the proud young figure she once used to behold.  

 “Your majesty?”  

 “Continue the search,” she answers, not lifting her gaze from the window through which she can see the work his hands have wrought. “Find any sign of what’s become of him and report it directly.”  

 The sheikah salutes, head bowed, and sounds his agreement before flickering away in the way that his people do.  

 It’s only when he leaves that she drags herself from her place at the glass, back to her duties and to papers that promise things that mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. This subject requests an audience that she denies, knowing full well her words and presence will be no comfort or kindness to them, that a trusted advisor would handle the matter well enough. That one needs relief from monsters plaguing their farm, but sending soldiers will bring no aid and there is no hero she can send to offer what they seek. Here is another lord offering his daughter’s hand to the hero, here a lord seeking aid from him.  

 Even with him absent, missing, he haunts her every day in the words of their people and the wants of the kingdom.  

 Days pass into weeks, and weeks to months. Her temper is shorter, her words colder. ‘The Ice Queen of Hyrule is a raging storm’ the people will whisper, but she is as cold and unfeeling as she’s always been, only now without sunshine to stand beside her and melt back her sharp edges, they now see it in truth. There’s a word of advice repeated near constant by her advisors, by even Hilda herself, worry shining in those crimson eyes, but what good does kindness do when she’s seen how it is so easily trampled over and taken advantage of, tearing down and apart until all that is left are dull eyes and shoulders too weak to bear the burdens that build themselves ever higher?  

 She turns her full focus on the one thing she can do in his wake, to in some ways attempt to fill the gaping chasm left in Hyrule in his absence. Without his hands to hold them together, she must train new, unscarred ones to do what his accomplish alone. She must train up new soldiers who have never known the touch of the demon’s magic, must drive home in their heads that their duty is to their kingdom and people. It’s hard without his charm, without the genuine care that comes so easily to him. He left plans for it though, left pages upon pages of plans and methods and strategies that she follows. He said to take the men from common places, not noble houses. Offer them the chance to protect their own from that which has burdened them so long. Promise them chances of a better life for those they love even at the cost of themselves.  

 It’s shocking how many of the common people surge to her side with the promise of being able to protect themselves from what should have been their guardians, and with a new army of nearly all men and women of low birth, the nobles and knights are quieter, wary. It’s satisfying in a way he wouldn’t see it, but which makes her own lips curl up despite herself as she stands to watch them train under an old knight, the last untouched, called from retirement, the one that helped teach up their hero and who was long since absent, gone home, when Ganon made his mark on the once protectors of Hyrule.   

 She’s watching his efforts when a sheikah comes to her side again, this time with something glittering in their dark eyes as they fall before her, head low in respect and await her word to speak.  

 “Report.”  

 “Sir Link approaches the keep, your majesty.”  

 Any interest in the soldiers below her is gone as she turns to the woman, staring.  

 Red eyes glint back up, genuinely joyful. Of course they are. Of course, even the sheikah love him, Impa has nothing but fond words for the boy she remembers, nothing but warmth that she must have shared and passed on to her clan-mates. Zelda would expect nothing less, in all truth.  

 “Grant him entrance.” As though ever there would be a day she would deny it.  

 The woman bows low, lower than she had been already, and darts away, steps light.  

 As for herself, Zelda moves for the castle’s keep. There’s no need to dress herself in finery to greet him, nor would he expect it, but she will not have him find her here among soldiers when her wish so long has been to distance him from them. She will greet him with the reverence he deserves, as a hero returning, a man to whom she owes all. There is no time to have much done save word spoken to the chef in regards to dinner, to serve simple foods of the sort a common man may enjoy but not be made ill with.  

 Because much as she would wish to take him into her world, to keep him in the castle where no danger lurks outside his door and where not a ringed finger must lift to acquire what he would want, this man insists on continuing his life as a commoner, among them and eating and sleeping and living as they do. At least, that is, until trouble next arises. Even so, however, it means he is unaccustomed to the rich foods and soft beds to which she was raised. If it means his comfort though, she would sacrifice anything, fine food or even her own sanity.  

 With all he does, it’s only right she seeks to give something back, even if all she offers will never amount to what he has lost for the sakes of herself and those like her.

 The staff all stands in the courtyard, every one of her new knights still weary from their training but eager, all the same, to stand in ceremony for the man on whose shoulders all of Hyrule rests. When the gates are opened, she stands in the midst of the castle people, determined to be the first who will greet him, to show him the honor due.  

 Behind her though, only waiting, is the best doctor in all Hyrule. She knows Link. This is not a precaution, but a necessity.  

 It was one she was prudent to take, it seems, for the men that come through her gates are bloodied and worn, some less than others. Not so much that they hasten past greetings to plead for help, but the voices that raise, respectful and wary, are still pained when they speak.  

 It’s not Link though, who leads them, and it is not he who speaks first, so she leaves it for a servant to hear. Her intent is not on the nameless man in plate armor, but the figure behind him. The figure who has the arm of a fellow draped over his shoulders even as she can feel his magic twist in agony as he supports the weight of another on legs ready themselves to collapse.  

 Brushing past the strangers, their voices rise to speak to her, confused, worried, asking her attention, but they are but a buzz when dark skies lift to meet her gaze, shattered violet all too familiar with the boundlessness of their nature, the pain in their depths and the weariness that has long since become common place where once, so long ago, for only a moment, she’d glimpsed nothing but light.  

 “Your Majesty.” His voice is as weary as his face, cracked like the gaze that meets hers. “Apologies for the blood.”  

 He’s covered in it. Not all his, she has no doubt, but it’s there all the same, dried into his clothes and matting his hair. It recalls of a time long past, when first they’d met. He'd been covered in blood then too; that of a foe and a fallen man who’d been all he had in this cruel world. Now, it’s that of foes and a companion who hangs off of him with shuddering breathes and eyes that blow wide with panic that sounds in harsh breathing against her hero’s neck.  

 “Link,” is her greeting, even as she motions for a soldier, for anyone, to come and relieve a small part of the burden hanging of this man’s shoulders. He doesn’t release his grip on the man beside himself though, hold tightening and steps taking him back, wary, out of their reach even as the dark-haired stranger’s eyes glint with further fear.  

 “We have need of your medical bay,” a voice sounds, very close now, and when she manages to tear her gaze away, it’s to meet earnest blue eyes in the face of one of his companions, a man she doesn’t know, but who’s dressed in what might be some imitation of a hero’s garb. “Your highness, our brothers are-”  

“Take them in,” she turns before letting him finish, eyes meeting those of her doctor who already has his bay prepared, expecting something of this nature, although only for one and not for the nine who they greet instead.  

 The man only nods though, gesturing for her guests to follow him, which they do. She, meanwhile, turns back to her own hero, offeirng her arms for teh one he holds. “You’re pushing yourself.”  

 Pain glints, not for himself, but regretful instead, in his gaze as he better shoulders his companion. “I’ll explain it later.”  

 He doesn't take the help she offers to him, instead shouldering on and shouldering the suffering of another as he drags both of their bloodied forms into the castle, leaving her standing with the staff, hands and gloves irritatingly white and pristine in comparison to his bloodied own.  

 Not that she lingers there. She’s doesn’t follow, knows better when that guarded gaze had all but whispered warning. Her mind reaches out where her hands cannot, and in answer his thoughts call back, telling her of souls near as untrusting as his own and how the boy in his hold carries a curse that will not allow him to seek aid from a stranger, born of Hylia’s blood though she might be. He will linger, she knows, until fears are abated and wounds are tended, and in the meantime, she must see to it that preparations are made for those here in the place called her home.  

 Baths are prepared, clothes laid out, chambers made ready for guests she did not know she would be hosting, even as her people hurry to ensure all is ready when they at last emerge from the medical ward. In that time though, she does not retract her reach over him, letting instead his thoughts run through her own mind as she waits and prepares. He must not realize that she’s there, too worried for figures she has no names to know them by.  

 It’s soothing, in a way she won’t admit; the constant stream of his thought, the way it floods her over and makes her own mind pause, unable to track all that he thinks, feels, the worry she can’t understand and the determination he won’t let waver. The ever-present line of thought he no doubt has no way to actually speak, has no manner with which to express. He is not a man of many words, and those that do emerge are so accustomed to being understood before they’re spoken, accustomed to her prodding at his thoughts for their real meaning.  

 She’s done him no favors to allow him to become so. There was a time he spoke freely, but the seas left him silent and in reclaiming his tongue, his body, all that he once was and yet so much less- there’s been so much lost to the cursed waves which she has no doubt will never return. She should have taken him at face value in the wake, but the pain of his own inability to express himself as he’d had to learn to speak again has weighed on her like even that of her people cannot.  

 She does not disrupt his thoughts, however, with her own. Her mind holds its guards even as it reaches out to hear his own. She only listens until, at last, it quiets from worry to instead focus on anything but what she would assume is his own pain, now so much more real without that of others to distract him. It’s only then that she offers her own words across the distance of the palace; assurance, asking questions, anything that might distract him, although knowing full well how weakly she conveys sympathy, how pathetic her attempts are to offer comfort. He doesn’t seem to mind though, warm against her cold, appreciative in answer to the one thing that makes her stumble.  

 She hopes to offer better when they meet at dinner, but when she sits in the main hall, his companions entering with a servant to guide them, she’s told that he’s passed out, the silence that took over earlier now explained as him having fallen into slumber that, much as she wants to, she will not disturb.  

 “It’s been a long while since any of us have been able to rest,” the soldier in the party informs her once they are seated, grace said and food set before them. “I’m sure Le- Link will be alright, your grace.” He’d been going to call him something else, but she doesn’t ask after it.  

 She doesn’t particularly care to know more about this new set of strangers. Link goes through traveling companions like some people go through shoes, and it won’t be long at all before these too have moved on to continue their lives again. They'll leave him to face the path alone yet again, or to seek out a new set to keep him company for a short while. Their lives will move on without him and he will become just a story to them, as he has to so many others already. She sees no point in keeping conversation or seeking understanding of them with this in mind. Instead, she just nods and continues her meal.  

 If Link is going to rest, they she will let him, but she will not entertain the frivolous chatter of his companions or their laughter at his expense, warm but unwittingly cruel as they talk about him with his back turned. It’s nothing remotely intended as harsh, she’s sure. They seem genuine enough in their belief that he is a sharp-tongued person, particular and picky and harsh at his edges. They seem fond of their image of him, false as she knows it to be, so she excuses their ignorance, although she makes no attempt to mend it.  

 Again, what is the point of arguing the nature of a man they will only leave behind come the end of their venture?  

 Not that their words do not linger with her, even after they have departed for the night, thanking her for her hospitality before moving to rooms made ready for their slumber. As she works at her desk, night falling around her but sleep a distant thought, the laughter and warmth in their ignorance lingers. She scoffs at it as she sits, working at pages of work that’s fallen behind without the aid of a hero who’s understanding of matters as lay at her fingers far escapes her.  

 He knows their kingdom. He knows this land of theirs, the people in it, better than any. They are cut into his flesh and seared into his mind in ways she will never understand, memories and experiences that no other could ever hope to comprehend. Nor would they wish to, she muses, thinking of the bright-eyed so-called heroes that had sat in her hall. None before nor none after will likely understand what burdens her Link, and considering the pain she sees whisper in his gaze, she doesn’t suppose she would wish any would.  

 She wishes he wouldn’t. Ignorance, they say, is bliss, and remembering the sweet face that has long since become drawn, she supposes that she agrees. She’d rather have that bright eyed youngling have grown into a carefree young man then have sat back, as she did, and watched the claws of the world mold him into the paragon Hyrule looks to now.  

Chapter Text

  Even with him asleep, Zelda keeps a strain of her magic, a part of her mind, focused on Link. It’s an assurance, for herself she supposes, that he's still alive, still there, no longer lost, yet again, out there in the world. He’s here in her castle, where it is she protecting him for once, so that he may find rest and peace as so often she’s asked him to let her.  

  When that magic stirs though, when his mind flickers with thoughts rather than the lull of dreams that she is not privy to, even with their thoughts free between them, she pauses her pen. 

  He’s awake. 

  She doesn’t reach out, call and ask what wakes him. He’s a restless one, her Link. He never slumbers long, be it pain, panic or simply a restless mind that wakens him and has him up and about. Castles too, she knows, are not places of peace to him. Try as he might for her sake, he cannot continue within them without memories presisng in close and driving him mad. 

  He’s a free thing, Impa once observed. A breeze not meant to be caught, a wave that lingers only a moment. He’s Hryule’s shining light; a star in their darkness; but come dawn he has flickered away, gone to wherever he will, restless soul seeking things she cannot understand. 

  He doesn’t leave the castle tonight though. She knows he is up, moving about, as his presence, his magic, seems to wander about, interacting with her own lain heavy in the halls. Like a butterfly in the web of her power, he flickers about, as though unknowing (although she knows he does) of the power she has set throughout her castle, ready should a foe try ever again to take and use it for themselves. 

  She considers letting him wander, but already he’s been gone so long, longer than she’d intended, even if the plan had been for him to go out and rest. She wants to see him, to speak with him. 

  She needs to talk to him. 

  Not just to see how he is, because anyone with eyes can see. Not to worry for him, because she is not one as is free to express such things, the concept of them foreign to her. She needs to talk with him, to know what in the name of all sanity has possessed him to undertake yet another adventure. 

  Leaving her study, it’s no wonder her senses send her wandering after his into the Hall of Ages. To follow him, she follows his magic, but she ought to have known to where it was that he would go. 

  The faces of long dead queens of Hyrule surround her as she enters the hall, their gazes heavy on her shoulders, as though full of disappointment even as some of them smile from their lofty, golden thrones. The knights at their sides, the husbands, the heroes, the loyal guardians of the crown, watch her too, blades in hand be they drawn or held ready, as though prepared to strike down any who look and are found wanting. 

  Interspersed here are memories of times long passed, great battles, festivals, coronations, weddings. They stand in great frames beside the queen who lived through them, opulent and grand save a single woman. A single figure who sits alone, no hero, husband, or knight to bolster her image and strength. 

  She ignores the Princess from Hyrule's downfall, passing past the blank space that ought to hold memory of greatness, but which only reminds of the blight on history left to fall on her own shoulders. Hers and Link’s. 

  That blight is bettered when she reaches the part of the hall made for them. Hyrule’s redemption shines in the eyes of the man who, even now, stands there in the darkness of the chamber, taking in the additions he was not present to see be placed upon the stone. For a moment, just one, she lets her eyes sweep over the images. 

  The artists vary, but there had been many who’d come with memory put to paint to share with those yet to come the conquests and greatness of the hero now beholding their work. The pictures are not strictly truthful, but show, all the same, the perceptions of their people, and for that, she had them hung. 

  What holds a shattered stare though is the one done most recently. It depicts herself, robed in icy blue, cold and frosty in pose, posture, and palette, with her hero knelt before her, blood still painting face and form, the kingdom supported on his shoulders as he offers her a crown bathed in blood both his own and that of fallen foes that form the shadows behind him. She wonders, glancing over it, if he can see the way he is painted, Hyrule’s weight cut into his form, see how his people behold him; a martyr bleeding out while giving all glory to a cold-hearted queen. She wonders if he realizes how beaten down that figure looks, eyes shining with determination but cheeks sunken and hands naught but skin and bone as they hold fast the crown for her taking. 

  She wonders if he sees the truth in it all. 

  The truth written on the walls around them. Turning her eyes out over it all, the space around them is full as much as it can be with space still left for those who come after. Here is a victory at the Tower of Ambi, her Link standing as that shining star in the center of a flood of men and woman fighting for freedom from under the corrupted and possessed queen. He’s the centerpiece; the flood of raised fists and shouting faces following his lead as he stands before them, the tower, near completed, at his back. The presence of Ganon’s face in the clouds and the spidery demon that is Veran, legs entangling the tower, are inaccurate to what would have been, but paint the weight of the moment in ways that going without would have not. 

  There he stands, in another, bathed in the light of the triforce and sword raised against a darkness that, yet again, bears the demon’s face. He's but a child in that one, but a boy, eight years old as when she first knew him. The artist had chosen to paint his eyes in the same glittering violet of the hilt of the sword in his hands, the brazen blade glittering with light in eyes worthy of the same descriptor. He looks small there, looks small in all of them, be it stature of pose, as though to highlight how great a foe he’d faced, or how humble he stands in the presence of others. 

  Here beside her now is him with flames dancing around as he dodges a blow from Onyx, a fight seen by none but which is depicted as best as could be, overwhelming bright with oranges and reds that seek to envelope the flicker of green in their midst. There to his own eyes he stands in the brink of two worlds, darkness and light in war and he betwixt to mend them. 

  “These are new.” His gaze is troubled, makes no effort to hide so. 

  “They are,” she answers, now taking the final steps to close the distance between them, leaving only what she must as he gives notice to her presence. 

  He’s frowning, fingers hovering just short of the stark contrast of purple against gold, gaze glinting oddly. “This is meant to be a place of honor for Hyrule’s nobles,” and violet lift to meet her own, the blazing blue that his blade once would have been. “Why is there nothing here of your achievements?” 

  “Because there would be nothing to place here,” she answers. The words are a pain, not for her pride, but for the guilt that rises with their sounding. There is nothing that she has done for this kingdom that she calls her own, because it is he who ever bears the burden. “I’ve done nothing worthy of honor as of yet.” 

  His frown deepens, a heavy furrow over his eyes that darkens them as they turn back to that set on the walls. He doesn’t speak further though, likely aware how little good it would do him, else ways unwilling to contest the word of his queen. 

  “Link,” she waits until that gaze flickers back to her before continuing, the single word echoing against the room that holds nothing but memories and faces of those long dead, the only witness to the words she will speak to him. Her tone is as icy as her people see her, as harsh as she will be remembered. “I told you to rest.” 

  “I couldn’t sleep,” his gaze flickers off back to the stone, but his ears shift, wary. He knows full well that is not what she means. 

  “I sent you away to rest,” she says this time, “I told you to recover and yet you come back here bleeding.” Even now, there is linen peaking past the collar of his tunic, from beneath the sleeves that fall just too short of his wrists. There are bandages that hide wounds that will scar to add to the web of shattered lines etched into his skin. 

  His gaze lingers, not fleeing hers, but not reaching back in turn for it as she watches him. 

  For a moment, she holds. For a moment, she is Hyrule’s Ice Queen, faced with a flicker of spring she waits to see whither before her, to obey and fall. And then that moment is over and she’s the one who drops her gaze, hand lifting to touch at her brow and sigh billowing past hair that falls in her face. “Link, please, when will you listen when I tell you to leave matters alone and just turn your back, for once?” To just once not walk into Fate’s cruel hand and dance as she leads him. Just once, stand back and leave the matter alone, let another take what blow falls, rather than catch it where he’s caught so many already. 

 He snorts, a soft little thing as he glances up at her, up through heavy lashes that do nothing to veil the weight of an even heavier stare. “What sort of a hero would I be if I did that?” 

  And therein lies the fault. “Have you ever considered,” she sighs, gaze meeting his, full ready to face that endless, fading cosmos, “not being the hero? Tried being just a person? A man? A mortal being aware of the fact you could very well die?” Has come so close already has knocked so desperately on Death’s door only to be pulled back at the last of seconds. 

  “That’s not an option, Zelda.” 

  “And why not?” She challenges, not missing the way his hands fist at his sides but not caring about it. He'd never lift them to her; he’d sooner plunge his sword through his own heart than bring harm to her or let another cause it. “Hyrule is rebuilt, our army is growing, our people have tasted peace, is now not the perfect time to return the sword to its home and hang up your shield? What foes come now need not be a matter you attend!” 

  “And what would you propose I do instead?” He’s not shouting yet, this is not the first time they have spoken of this and already ire is building. He does gesture widely to the hall around them. “Sit back and watch? Hide away in a castle and let someone else face the demons when they come to knock down our doors?” 

  “Do you suppose you could actually defeat the next foe that rises?” She challenges in return, stiff-backed and cold, as all know her- even he- as she stands before him. “Tell me truly, Link, do you really suppose that after all you have faced, your body will hold out against the next monster that arises? Your spirit might push you onwards, but the longer you fight, the further you’ll falter.” It’s there behind him, in paintings that take a sweet-faced child through the years to become what stands now before her, what her people painted for her coronation; a mere whisper of the hero that was, weakened and wasted, but still resolute and determined. “Look back at the beginning of this hall,” she tells him, “you'll find your reflection staring back at you.” 

  Staring back will be the First Hero, gaunt and broken, breathing his last in the arms of what some claim was a goddess. That was a hero who’d been pushed by his people, driven past his limits after all had been taken and wrung from him in years spent their prisoner, yet when trouble arose it was still he who was pushed to their front to face it. He had only faced the demon but one time though. The man standing before her has faced Ganon more than either of them bother any longer to count. 

  “Without a hero, Hyrule falls.” Returns, she hears ring in his mind, to what had fallen to them when they were but children. His eyes flicker to the space beside the Princess from Hyrule's downfall; an empty hole in the wall, an absence of a presence at her side in memory of a hero fallen and dead, leaving behind what was theirs to inherit. “If I turn my back, what will I be leaving for those who come after?” 

  “You are not the only one capable of protecting this kingdom!” 

  “But I am the only hero we have, and respectfully speaking, your highness,” his voice trembles, eyes desperate, pleading, not cold as one would think by his words, “history would show your words to be false. If there is no hero, there is no hope, and poor light that I am, it’s still better than leaving our world in darkness!” His tone trails firmer towards the end, eyes giving a flash like a weak flame stirred up, if only briefly. There’s so little left to stir up in his soul though. How he’s survived the dousing of that flame by Fate, time and again, she has no clue, but it won’t hold forever, and it seems he forgets that. 

  “And how much longer will your light last,” she pushes, not just verbally but straying closer, near enough to touch, enough that her skirts come to brush at his ankles, faces but inches apart and eyes level enough to meet and hold, nothing able to draw focus away, “before it burns out with nothing left of you to feed it from?” 

  He doesn’t answer. Indeed, his gaze holds hers, but the light even within it falters at her words. His breath is hot as it gusts across her front, escaping with a small hitch. 

  Her own hands are the ones that fist now, in her skirts. She’d rather reach for him, reach and touch, but knowing full well what damage that has done before. After all, he’d never have become as he is if she hadn’t reached out for him that first time. “All Hyrule praises your name. Even were you to hang your shield up now, their praises and songs would continue far past the time we lie still in our graves,” She finds herself searching, yet there’s no satisfaction to be found in that endless abyss, no contentment with the words that she speaks. “How much more must you give before you are content? How many more battles must you win before you see it?” And then, slower, hesitant like she never is, like she’s never known herself to be, can’t comprehend even as she says it, she asks “will there be anything left of you when that day comes? Or will ‘Link’ have long been lost to the legend you’ve become?” 

  His voice is a whisper, one that gusts so close to her own lips, but not something she’d dare let drop from them. “That’s not why I do it, Zel.” 

  Because he’s not as she, nor as others she has met. He does as he does for the same reason the sword lets him hold her. 

  “I do it because it’s got to be done,” violet pierce and hold, searching her depths even as, in turn, she’s lost in his. “Because if I don’t, who will? A kid? A little boy and a little girl forced to grow up too fast? A little wanderer stumbling into Hyrule from heaven knows where?” The crease of his brows is so pleading, the tears that glitter, unshed, enough to lurch at the coldness within her own breast. “I’ve faced it already; I know what to do. We’ve done this time and again, and we can keep doing it. Why make someone else know this pain when we can save them from It?" 

  “And where will that lead?" She steps back, tears her gaze away and turns it out, begging he follow and look to where she does, to see the faces of those long dead, those whose names are forgotten, whose legacies are nothing more than the sharp stares leveled upon them. “What does that do in the long run?” There are so many paintings here, so many queens and heroes and knights. One day, they will be but another duo among them all. 

  Somehow, stars blaze in answer, drawing on a strength she can never conceive the source of. “Less a burden for those who follow us, maybe? What we leave them won’t be the hell left to us, isn’t that enough?” 

  And there it is, there he is. There in all that frustrating faith in the future and the hope that he spreads and she can’t even hate him for it. The fact that there, glittering in that endlessness, is still even a flicker of the boy who’d wrapped her in his own cloak to stave off the rain as they’d fled the castle together, assured her all would be well even as his uncle’s own blood stained his hands, his first kill still fresh on the blade at his back. He’s still there, buried deep down behind all the aches and pains suffered on her behalf, for a kingdom that sought his blood and for people he owed nothing. Somehow, he’s still there. 

  Boundless faith, he’s always had it. A promise that all would be well with enough effort, that heroes win and won’t fall, even when history was a scar on his skin dealt by those who are proof otherwise. So many faces surrounding them now are those who’s lives had come by the hand of a foe, yet somehow he still stands assured, and she can’t even excuse it as ignorance! He, more than any, has seen the proof of the past, the pains suffered by their forebearers and predecessors. He’s seen how they became, yet somehow, against all odds, continues to believe that with enough effort, enough hope, enough trying and fighting and strain, he can create something better. 

  What’s shocking though is the proof that he’s right. Already, he’s a beacon to not only their own people but to countries she’d never seen. His life is a promise to so many of what is possible, of what strength is, of faith, or courage, 

  Despite that though, there’s no lie in the strain it puts him through to be that. Even for the bright burn that his life has been, there’s no promise how long that light, or his life itself, will last if he continues as he does. She knows this, but no matter how many times they have stood in this castle and screamed these words, he forever turns her mind to what will be, rather than hear her say what will become of him if he continues this path. 

  What he doesn’t seem to understand is that she could care less for the future. They've been long since forsaken by whatever it is that made this world. It’s ending is only so far with that in mind, with no power to keep it back save this man before her. A singular man who, when it does end, will have only victories and pains to speak of, no joys or passions or memories that are made separate of the path he’d been forced to take. 

  Offered as a sacrifice, pure and sweet, he’s been made but a tool in the fate of this world, a blade himself even as he wields one; the sword of the queen of Hyrule, who fights at her behest and to protect her from pain. 

  Is there even a bit of humanity left in what the fates have forged him to be? Even a small part of him that has wishes beyond this path? Or has that too been burned away by Life’s forge? 

  “Zelda,” his voice is soft, pained as his eyes level her own, challenging even if their gentleness, “if you could spare me this pain, what lengths would you go to?” 

  “Anything,” she needn’t hesitate to say it, she knows it in a heartbeat. 

  His smile is a thousand shades of pain, yet fond as it fixes on her, hand catching her own. “And I would suffer them for Hyrule, be it the country or the hero after me. It’s not as though I’m losing anything to do it anyways.” 

  “Because there’s nothing left to lose!” 

  “All the more reason to keep going; there’s nothing left to go back to if I did stop.” And there’s regret, and pain, and agony in those words, in the singular tear that escapes beside them. “Better me than another, Zelda. Better us than adding to the number of faces in these halls.” 

  For all the faces here though, her eyes will only stray to one, to hold it and watch that impossible light stay bright in eyes flooded over with darkness. 

  He turns away, turns back to looking at the paintings, well aware of her lingering gaze but no longer able to meet it. Still, she watches him, watches and, for the first time since she knelt in that church, hiding with this man, the both of them but children at the time, a prayer whispers at her mind. 

  If there is a goddess, or a god, or anything which cares any longer for this world, she prays it will act and stop the sufferings thrown at Hyrule, thrown at it’s hero. he won’t take peace for himself, she pleads to the sky, so let it come to him instead. Let him, instead, be given something to return to, someone to love him in the wake, someone untouched by this world they have had built up around them, crafted on battlefields stained with his blood. Let him find peace, let it come quick. Let it come before the body that hasn’t stopped running and fighting for others fails entirely. Let it come and give him what he so desperately seeks to provide for others, be they born or not. 

  She doesn’t care how, and she doesn’t care why, just let it come, before the man before her becomes like the one he resembles more each day; the first hero upon who’s death this all was built, whose picture even now hangs over them in this bloodstained hall.