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Zelda sighs, looking up to the statue of the Goddess, not feeling any power emanating from it. She has been sitting on her heels in prayer since the early hours of the morning, and just like every other day, she feels no effects from it.
It’s in her blood, she should feel a connection to the Goddess everywhere, but not even as she does everything to open herself to the Goddess’ influence she feels any difference. Her father keeps reminding her how important it is that she unlock her powers, that the entire kingdom depends on her, and yet nothing that she does has any effect. She feels like she’s staring at a stone statue, nothing else, no hint of the sacred power that’s supposed to be a part of her as well.
She gets up, frustrated. “What do you want from me? How can I be what you need, what my people need? What am I doing wrong?” she shouts at the statue, but still she receives no sign.
She wishes her mother was still alive. Her mother would know what to do, and maybe she could have taught her, maybe with her guidance this wouldn’t seem so impossible. But now it’s too late, and Zelda is running out of time to learn by herself. At twelve years old, she wasted half of the decade that she would have to prepare herself for the Calamity, and has no progress to show for it.
The tears sting her eyes, and she presses her eyes shut, not bothering to keep them from dropping when she’s alone. It’s no use, this isn’t helping, she has no divine powers to speak of, and if her father would only understand that and allow her to focus on the ancient technology, perhaps there would still be something that she could do. If only she could prove it to him, if only…
The idea is half-formed in her mind, but she leaves the room before she can think better of it, for once allowing her sense of adventure take over. If she’s meant to have not only a connection to Goddess Hylia, but also to the Three Golden Goddesses, then this means that courage and a sense of adventure should be a part of her as well, in honor of the Goddess Farore.
No one will interrupt her prayers until it’s time for the evening meal, so that’s the time that she has to do something and return. As guilty as she feels over interrupting her prayers, she knows that one day won’t make any difference. She doubts that there’s anything that will.
The castle is full of secret passages, and she knows them all by heart. She moves through the hallways without being seen, and under the castle rather than passing by the courtyard. She gets past the walls, and for the first time in her life, she’s outside the castle without supervision, with no protection from bandits or monsters, and yet, she’s not afraid. She just feels… free.
Zelda closes her eyes, and breaths in the fresh air. She feels the sun on her face, the wind gently brushing her skin, the grass beneath her shoes, and for a moment, she can almost feel the presence of the Goddess, but then it’s gone, and she’s all alone again, as she has been all her life.
She shakes her head, she doesn’t have time to waste.
The dig sites are sparsely guarded, as no one would be as reckless as to try to touch any of these ancient relics and risk their wrath, or even worse, the wrath of the King, so she can hide behind trees and boulders as she approaches her prize.
It’s one of the guardians, still in one piece, a huge, towering creature made of metal and completely still, without a source of power. She had never been this close to one of them, but her mother showed them to her from afar, telling her of the technology of times past that allowed for their creation.
Zelda frowns, there was something else, a power source, a smaller guardian, her mother had gotten it to work, but something happened to it. The memory is there, just beyond her grasp, but she can’t pull it forward, and she doesn’t have time for it now.
She pulls out her sketchbook, if she can understand the ancient guardian’s schematics, maybe she can see how everything connects together, and how to make them work again. It would be easier if she could work with the Sheikah, see what they already learned, but her father would never allow that.
She draws the guardian as a whole, and then some pieces isolated, looking at the details in each part so she can see how they interact. The legs seem to use some sort of complex hydraulic system to…
“What do you think you’re doing here?” her father says, pulling her up by the back of the coat to make her stand, and in the process she drops her sketchbook.
“Father, I was just trying to…” she starts, reaching for her book, but he’s faster, and he’s still holding her by the coat.
“Again with this ancient nonsense? How many times have I told you, Zelda, you need to unlock your powers, it’s our people’s only hope,” he says, ripping the sketchbook to shreds and tossing the pieces on the ground, a few of the pieces falling in the puddle around the guardian and staining in the mud.
Her cheeks burn and her eyes sting, and she takes a deep, steadying breath. “I can help people this way, I know I can. I think the ancient technology was based on a hydraulic system using a special fluid to conduct not only a power supply like some sort of electric impulse, but also information, essentially working as a brain,” she says in rapid succession, hoping to say enough to make her father understand that she would be more useful there than praying for a Goddess that does nothing but ignore her.
If she can understand all of this while not being allowed to work on it or collaborate with others and see what they discovered, she’s sure that she could get the ancient technology to work in only a year, maybe two, if she were allowed to work in conjunction with the Sheikah. This could truly be what will turn the tide in their favor when it comes to the Calamity.
He steps on a piece of one of her sketches, grinding his heel until it disappears in the ground. “This is useless, you have your function, you have your duties, you have your purpose, the blood of the Goddess Hylia runs in your veins and yours alone, you’re the only one who can use the sacred sealing power to defeat the Calamity. Now stop playing these childish games and go back to the castle, perhaps the day is not completely wasted now despite your irresponsibility,” he says, turning his back to her and gesturing to nearby guards to escort her.
She rubs her eyes to do away with any tears that she refuses to let fall, and knows that there’s no point in arguing. Her father doesn’t understand, he’ll never understand, and even if she knows that this is something that she can do to help, she has to trust that he’s right, and that unlocking her powers is more important, that perhaps others can understand these machines well enough for them to be used in the fight. With the death of her mother, Zelda is the only one who has a connection to the Goddess Hylia, she’s the only one who can access these powers, and if she has to spend every moment of her life trying to do so until the Calamity, then…
Zelda will do whatever is best for her people, she just hopes that her efforts will be enough.