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At twelve, Zelda is Princess Regent.
The Desert Man took a dear price before he was felled; only Impa remains of her family. Impa, and the fairy boy in whom she put all her trust. The fairy boy who she somehow loves like a brother, like a comrade in arms, in ways older and more sage than her years and experience understand.
For a long time, she waited for a hero to save her. For a very short time she had one, until the day that Link left for another adventure and never returned. She holds on to her hope, though she knows, in the secret place in her heart where her dreams live, that she will be hoping for a lifetime.
When he leaves, she is very lonely. The throne is hard and cold and her watchful governess-in-arms is powerless in the ways of soft touches and comfort.
The nights carry whispers on the wind, memories of another her, pictures of the future, the past, and the never-were. In some dreams she sees the forests, greater and deeper than any in Hyrule. The sprawling seaside and great stone towers flicker through her mind; the face of a moon hovering above her nightmares.
Whenever sleep takes her to this bigger other world, a place she thinks of as her warped mirror, she finds a dark boy who feels as lonely as she. In her dreams they dance.
***
At fifteen, Zelda is Queen.
Three weeks after the coronation, she is able to escape the endless congratulatory luncheons, introductory counsels and ministerial briefings. She will be a grand Queen, she will rule benevolently, she will guide Hyrule to growth, unity, and prosperity.
Queen Hyrule is not Zelda, and after three weeks Zelda needs to be let out.
Running bare-foot in the stream feels like a breath of life; cold fresh water and tiny minnows darting amongst her toes. Impa has gracefully vanished, no more than a whistle away but out of sight and mind. Zelda is thankful for this little freedom allotted to her. So close to Zora's Domain nothing stronger than an octorock would dare raise blade or claw against her, and octorock have long ceased to be a threat to her. The way of the Shiekah has made her fleet-footed, augmented her natural grace and sharpened her like a knife.
There is music here, secret far-off music from the forest. It reminds Zelda of things she can't remember, undreamt dreams that are all too real. From the woods. She hears it every time she visits. It is a healing song, she feels in her bones, and it soothes the worry knitting her brow.
Once, she sees a boy at the tree line, standing and watching. Two shimmering fairy orbs hover about, dancing to the woodwind song he plays.
Her heart leaps, then stumbles, falls; she does not hear her old ocarina, but pan flutes; the boy is too small, ungrown, shaded and dark in his forest-wrought clothes. He can not be her Link.
Unlike her Link, he stays. He watches. He plays for her. Zelda smiles to him, shares the barest fraction of herself with this forest boy. She does not dance, but returns his gaze. He wears no mask, which is strange for his kind; his eyes and smile are like a wood-carved facade, barely seen in the unnaturally thick shadow below his hat. He carries a hint of madness, and she knows he is from the woods that seduce and ensnare. It is the familiarity that pulls her, roots her as his audience. She does not know him, but they have danced together under the rising moon. She remembers, more than him, the time without friends where he seemed to fit like a missing puzzle piece.
A song of healing. Zelda listens.
***
At seventeen, Zelda is betrothed.
She wants none of it. The prince will be a perfect consort; he is blond and noble and bright, but never overpowering. Never above her. He is bland, sand in her mouth, reminding her of nothing more than a slobbering puppy.
Her outbursts are branded youthful and impetuous by the dithering fools who shadow-puppet her kingdom for her, and with the announcement of her engagement she is fed up with it.
No one can hold a Shiekah, least of all those in her command, and Zelda brazenly vanishes from the castle in the night without a word. She will be back before panic spreads beyond it's walls; she hates her keepers, but loves her kingdom. Impa, the only person who she cares not to worry, had taught her the very means to her escape, and would doubtlessly be proud of her stealth.
She chooses the forest and tells herself it is arbitrary. It is a good place to hide for a night, from the castle and it's obligations and from her own loud mind. She hums an old song that can not quite calm the swallowed butterflies inside.
In the deep woods, she sits heavily on a mossy wet patch. She pulls the bandages from her face to feel the cold brisk air, drink it deep and heave sobs into the night.
A jingling bell and splash of light flutter from the bushes, and her sob is choked off into a surprised gasp as the forest boy of straw, old flute in hand, barrels out of nowhere and snatches the fairy from the sky.
“Tag! Got you!” he laughs, tossing it lightly into the air where it gives an indignant chime before flickering up into the canopy. “Count to a hundred this time!” he calls after it, and his voice is laced with mania and unbridled glee.
Jarringly, as if he knew she was there before arriving, he turns to look at her.
“Hide with me, quick!” he runs to her and grasps her hand, pulling her to her feet. He is a head shorter, the size and shape of a child, unchanging for more years than she can count. Zelda lets herself run with him, counting along, “fifty-two, fifty-one, fifty, let's go!” and is shocked by her own laughter.
They play through the night, and Zelda is a child again, able to out-last two young fairies who sleep with the pre-morning dew. She chases her friend through the forest until the last moment of pre-dawn, before the first rays of light awaken the trees.
When it is time to go she feels the same old pull, familiarity and longing and loneliness like heavy sand burying her feet, locking her knees. Defiant of everything, Zelda leans close to her friend and presses her lips to his. If he is surprised, he does not show it, but neither can he return the press, only accepting her offer. His lips are like cool straw, rough and dry, not unwelcoming but not quite alive.
For the briefest moment, the world bends and could spiral in two directions. Still young, she feels the shatter point, sees the moment of struggle between darkest nature and the tiny bright soul before her. She has made a folly that could be ruin, but in the moment between a hummingbird's wingbeats the pale is gone and her friendly friend remains. He has earned a soul, and the darkest pull of the lost woods will not take such a thing from him. She, seat of the kingdom, chooses to be vulnerable not to the woods, but to her friend.
She pulls back, stands up, and smiles, which he returns. Clutching her hand, he shows her the safe ways out of the woods, and falters in his happiness only when the reach the treeline.
“You'll come back to see me again?” It is a smaller voice than before, closer to a whisper untouched by the mad quiver of his laugh.
She will never kiss him again. She has now tried that mask on, and knows it to be ill-fit for the person she is. Perhaps in another life, a life with no Link, no castles, no duty, the forest would be welcome into her.
As it stands, she takes the hand of her friend, pulls him closer to her, and squeezes him tightly.
“I'll always be here”
The next morning she meets her betrothed, and he is everything she expected. She is able to smile for him, to welcome him and even to enjoy his company and affections, safe with the knowledge that her heart is not wholly on a pedestal in the castle, but also imprinted and free in the wild woods.
***
At twenty three, Zelda is pregnant.
Her dreams warned her. A boy first, then a girl. Hyrule and Zelda as tradition dictates, but in private they will be Link and Impa. A gift she can give them, a gift of self that will be a shelter in the storm of duty and obligation. Carried together, the boy will come first, the girl spared from office by luck. Zelda sees it all. Her dreams are strong now, her greatest asset and most steady consul.
There will only be two children. Her husband died in the desert in the spring. The Gerudo kowtow in words, but their wild bands live a free life outside her reach in the farthest sands; her loyal husband was never one to allow insult to her crown, though too unseasoned to survive the campaign of suppression. Even in death, his rigor mortis smile felt warm. She mourned the appropriate amount of time, took the needed heads by her own sword, and returned victorious and just beginning to show the signs of successful ascension. She savored the collective sigh of relief from her privy council at the news; she had put them through hell arranging her first marriage. A second would be a terror on the poor wizened elders.
She is granted a rest, lest the stresses of the castle harm her unborn children. She can't but laugh to herself; the stresses of the castle will crush her born children, shape and bend and make them, but unborn at least they will know freedom.
The forest is warm and bright with autumn’s falling leaves, red and gold peppering the ground. The spirits are all there, as she remembers and loves them, calling and singing. Their pull is so much stronger now, with the youngest of children stirring in her belly, like savory morsels to the lost woods who devour youth. Two Kokiri guardsmen, young boys playing soldier insist on escorting her. She condescends and allows them the pride of service, escorting her to her favorite glade in the shades of the crumbling forest temple before sending them away. It is not the Kokiri who she is here to see.
He hides in the shadows, but with the leaves in fall, beads of light slip past the canopy and betray him in his curiosity. She knew he would come; he could not stay away from a friend.
“I have something to show you,” she calls to him, and he surrenders, caught. Her belly is bulging, heavy, prominent. She feels his attention, his eyes deep under the shade of his brim looking, wondering, amazed. She walks to him, takes his hand, and places it on her belly. His wonder is satisfying and infections, as always.
Watching him watching her, Zelda could almost feel herself again. He was amazed by Zelda, not the Queen.
Skullkid smiled broadly at her, drawing his pan-pipe flute, and Zelda is ready to dance with him when instead he plays eleven slow notes that have been with her all her life.
“My lullaby” she breaths. He nods vigorously, pleased, and plays it again, this time to the belly. She feels a stir and a kick; her children are dancing. Zelda clutches herself, feels them, listens and gapes as her world shrinks and contorts, the uncomfortable discovery of ignorance and unknown pasts digesting sourly in her chest. “When did you meet him?”
Skullkid pauses, mid-note.
“He helped me when I had forgotten my friends, and they I.” His boyish voice always sounds strange when somber. He is a child with ever-present laughter, but in moments of sobriety and wisdom Zelda is reminded of his eternal age.
“Play it for me again?” and he begins, and as he plays the lullaby sounds lighter than it ever has before. He plays with a jauntiness and joy, and she feels promise and future and freedom like a message just for her. For her children.
She sings with him the next time, adding harmony and flourish, and he adds a dance and a twirl, and together they create until they collapse in the leaves laughing and tired and content.
***
At seventy two, Zelda is dying.
As with so much of her life, she knew before. Her dreams were a blessing she wished she had passed on to her children. Hyrule, at least, would be prepared when the time came. Her daughter, now head of the Royal Guard, needed no such coddling. They would be all right, and knowing that let Zelda take her last days to herself, absent herself from her duties to say her goodbyes to the realm that she loved.
Too soon, the warm welcoming Hylia lake and the tall majestic diving falls at the edge of the desert and the Kakariko rooftops where the sun set over the mountain were bid adeau. Too soon Zelda would slip back into the castle, make herself presentable to be found in the morning, and savor a last deep sleep in her childhood bedroom.
Her last stop before slumber would be the forest, of course. In her heart she still held futile hope for the return of her first, truest friend. She knew better, she knew he was gone, but she had discovered over the years that an old woman's heart could be even more stubborn than a young woman's.
He is as young as he will always be when he finds him, dancing alone to an old Kokiri song in a clearing. He feels her entrance before he sees it, and stumbles midsong into and excited flourish. Leaping from his stump, he runs to her.
They visit, as they always do, singing songs without words and living for an hour outside of time as only they may.
Despite her bold spirit, Zelda's body begins to fail her, and she feels her ever-shortening time running out. It is time to let go.
“I will miss you very much” she says to him, after their last song fades into nightsounds. Skullkid shivers, shakes his head, scoffs. Since the giants, he has told her, he has become better at goodbyes, but still they haunt him.
“The forest will keep you always” he says in half-pout, half-threat, and Zelda is far past any fear of his words. He does not hide his petulance and fear well.
“I am not all of the forest, my dear, we know this. We've always known, it's the way of my kind to end.”
“You could be?” he offers, but no, they both know this isn't so and his eyes drop to the ground. This time she reaches out for his hand, tips his chin up to meet her eye, offers a comfortable, peaceful smile.
The glimmer in his eye, the laughter in his song, and the warmth of his hand in hers peel back years from her, lighten her and let her dance again. Time bends further, for just a moment, and in the corner of her eye blond hair catches in the forest lights. She does not look, the ghost in her heart, and instead saves her last smiles for the friend who has been with her her whole life. The eternal child, Skullkid, plays his song, and together they dance.