Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Do you want some?” Link asked in a whisper. Even if the deer blinking at him with its pretty beady eyes was able to understand him, it wouldn’t have heard what he had said.

Link liked the temperate forests. He liked wading out of the hills and into the sporadic dappling of trees and then finally into the thick of them, life everywhere you turned. The experience was like a natural portal into another realm, as he had heard someone say a very long time ago. He could not remember who it was that had uttered it, however. Just that it was said.

Crouched as he was on a rocky outcrop by this small little pond for some time, a young doe had approached from a ways away. It kept padding back and forth horizontally, staring at him, and that confused Link for a while, until he realized she was trying to get a drink and he wasn’t being all that hospitable nor approachable.

He took one of the arms crossed over his legs—the one holding the tasty apple—and offered it forward to the doe. He made an effort not to move too much, only swinging his elbow so his arm was straight, still being held up by his knee.

The doe, who had been pretending to nibble on grass, raised its neck and held its head high at the sight of the fruit. Link envied the confidence and the nobility of deer. How could an animal defined by its shyness look so proud? How could an animal who lived in the woods look so groomed? He’s been living in the woods for a while and he is none of those things.

The doe hoofed its way towards Link carefully; it almost seemed like his growing smile soothed the animal, but he knew that was wishful thinking. He’d like that, though. In about as long as it takes to bring a small amount of water to a boil, she was by him sniffing his hand. Link loosened his grip and overall area he had on the apple to make it easier for her to take from him, which she did, and then quickly padded away.

She disappeared behind some underbrush and a far clump of trees like he's seen fairies do. He was a bit melancholic to see her go, and this was a bit odd for him. Link didn’t yearn for sociability the way others did. In fact, the memories of the people he met after he woke up from his Long Nap could fuel him for the next two decades. And they would have to. He was not long for civilization, anyhow. There was a part of him that felt guilty for wisping out of existence like a ghost without saying goodbye, but he didn’t like goodbyes. Real ones, at least. The Golden Goddesses must have rewarded him for his loyalty—despite their cultural dethronement and outlawing—with never having to say one.

The real reason he came out to this specific woods was for the last shrine of Farore. The other two Sisters’ places of worship were destroyed over millennia ago, their idols and how the places looked lost to time. Farore is different; there are no idols, emblems, or man-made materials at her shrines. Just a beautiful place and a slab of rock for an altar. Everything natural around you is her idol. Before everything had happened, his folks in Hylian Lanayru were sure there were others in Hyrule, they just didn’t know where.

He’s working with half remembered snippets of memory from a century ago, but he’s sure he’s close. Before he returned the Sheikah Slate to Purah, a lot of his time exploring was spent cataloging flora into the compendium. Cross referencing the ones he remembered from his dusty old memory with all the different species he’d discovered proved difficult but eventually worth it. There was indeed an ache being severed from your religion so long, even if you couldn’t remember how to properly worship.

Link stood up from his crouch and checked his compass. (Compasses were important to not getting lost and dying of starvation. If you asked him what survivalist tools to procure first, he’d show you his.) A little more east, Link was sure. So that’s where he started towards.

In this specific region, temperature, and altitude, a little flower called the Pink Princess could be found. A gaudier name compared to its sister flower the Silent Princess, its beauty could not be understated. Every shade, hue, and brightness of pink could be found in the petals. Memories of it were the most explicit and easiest to conjure. In Farore’s shrine he remembered tens of dozens of them everywhere; he had begged his father to let him take some home, but he forbade it, for if anybody who knew of the place saw the pretty pink flowers, they would have known where they’d been.

This time he would take them. Or never leave, a part of him said.

***

One month ago, the Hero with the Sword that Seals the Darkness destroyed Calamity Ganon, rescued the princess, and restored peace to Hyrule. Since then, nobody has seen him.

Besides the popular gossip magazine nobody with a sense of propriety would mention, it seemed the world had moved on from him and onto far more important matters, such as the place Princess Zelda would have in the world now that she stood on her long dead dynasty’s corpse of a birthright: Hyrule. Quite the ironic name now, some have said. It is neither high in the world compared to other realms nor is it ruled.

For now, no leader of the four corners of the country are particularly threatened by the girl who shares its name, but they are not keen on giving up their freedom if it does indeed come to that.

Impa of Kakariko has been providing residence for Zelda ever since the Hero dropped her off there in the middle of that glorious night. He stayed until dawn under the fear that somehow he had been followed. When he realized he was not, he took off with his horse. Zelda had been sleeping.

Chapter Text

Zelda still wasn’t used to her hair between her fingers. It was thick air, slippery and unsolid. Logically, she knew that hair just felt like that; it was skinny and brittle compared to anything else on the body. But it just felt wrong. So, so wrong.

And she knew she had disturbed that sweet girl, Paya. So sheltered and so sweet, no doubt disillusioned from the picture of a princess she grew up on due to Zelda’s agitations. It was only terrible in the beginning, and she so hoped the girl saw her normally now. She’s gotten much better.

Zelda had begged her to cut off her hair. It was violent, her begging, if the blots of dead space bubbling over her short-term memory were out of the way enough to tell. The way Zelda had asked for it sounded like she was asking Paya to kill her, and it felt that way too. All she wanted was to stop feeling that thick air on her shoulders and neck. It was worse than death. It truly was.

Oh, Hylia, how her eyes were filled with terror. Or was it pity? She posited it unwise to dwell upon. The soft breeze drafting up through the stairwell from the main hall made her turn her head. It—the draft—slithered up her recently uncovered neck, but Zelda didn’t mind; shivering made her feel alive. Someone had entered the house and fall was coming. Zelda hated fall. But why were the doors staying open so long? And why was fall coming now?

“Just give the girl time!” Impa’s voice demanded from downstairs. Such a timeworn voice. It made her feel sick.

Someone is doubting her, Zelda thought. Impa hated to be doubted still, but Impa was also very old now. Zelda had stayed away from her ever since she arrived. She wouldn’t dare look at her face, terrified of what she might see. She couldn’t bear beholding the outcome of all that lost time.

When Link was taking her to Kakariko on horseback after everything had happened, Zelda asked what would be there for her—what would be there for anyone like themselves. Perhaps she had built up the young man too much in her head during past century, for when she was expecting some philosophical truth only he, the Hero, could ascertain, all he told her was that Impa was in Kakariko. Just that. ‘Impa is in Kakariko,’ he told her. She told him that she shouldn’t be.

His voice was strained, and he hesitated before speaking like he hadn’t spoken in a long time, but it was still as youthful as she remembered, and in that puddle of remembrance, she realized after all this time that he was still a boy. A boy who had done a heroic act, no doubt, but a boy nonetheless. And in that moment, she felt abandoned. Like a knife that kept twisting, twisting, twisting to no avail, the pain didn’t come in waves; it just sat there, like horrific red eyes with a single-mindedness akin to The Calamity, hurting her without relent, staring her down all the while. There was nobody who knew better about her situation. No wise man, patriarch, or father. And it felt personal. She kept expecting there to be somebody to blame for plunging her life into the utter unknown; Ganon was an option, but it was an animal. It made its choice to abandon humanity long before antiquity. So there was no one. No Wisdom to pull from, either.

Zelda remembered how Link didn’t move as she sobbed into his back. He didn’t say a word. Not until her sobs turned into screams, and he decided they had to dismount his horse. She collapsed under her own weight when she touched the ground, Link having to carry her to an oak tree, not unlike the ones she spent her youth napping under in the courtyard, which they both sat under for a while until she calmed down. This all made one thing egregiously clear: he did not remember her. Link looked at her like a neurotic girl he had never met, if Zelda still remembered how to read him.

A courtly-sounding man cleared his throat above her. “Your Highness.” He sounded kind, but he whispered.

‘Your Highness’ eyes were still lazily on the floor. In fact, she was on the floor, too. Had she been staring at the wooden floorboards the entire time?

“Your Highness, if I may.” An incredibly large, clawed, and scaly hand let itself into her gaze. An open palm. A polite invitation. 

Most definitely out of half-dead habit, she took his hand. Zelda’s looked small and scrawny in his. It made her feel a bit bad, she supposed. 

“Up you go.” The scaly man placed his other hand under her elbow and helped Zelda onto her feet. “My, you are still just as beautiful!”

The man in front of her was a Zora—Zora royalty judging by his jewelry. An adult, as well. She must have met him at some point in the past, which meant—it couldn’t be. 

“Sidon,” she blurted.

The Zora prince gave the same wide-as-the-Gerudo-desert, sharp grin he was notorious for as a child.

“I was never supposed to see you like this. All grown up.” Zelda was—oddly enough—smiling the words out of her trembling mouth. It was becoming increasingly frustrating, her body not being able to choose any one emotion. Bittersweet is what they call it? It felt more like bittersweettangycitrus. Yes. She’d have to write that one down, that was genius.

“Nonsense, Hylians can live quite long on a good diet.” Sidon began walking her over to the plush Central Hyrulean style chair in the corner of the room. “Sweet princess, how have you been? It is wonderful to see you again.”

“I am a princess no longer,” Zelda reminded him shakily as she struggled to walk, half in awe of how much he’d grown. “It would serve you well to get familiar with that, lest you—“ She huffed. “—kindle the fires of a likely long dead power vacuum.”

Sidon sighed at that as Zelda settled on the chair, acknowledging her lucidity returned, but still speaking carefully as if she was some violent madwoman. But what she had said reminded him of something. “They insisted I call you Lady Zelda.”

“Whom?”

“I do not wish to overwhelm you with names.”

Zelda shook her head dismissively. “But you did not listen.”

“Hm, more than that. I argued that we should all call you by your, well, previous title and address you as such.”

Zelda leaned back. “You argued for the cushioning of my ego?”

He seemed taken aback. “Never. I argued not to be cruel. For respect for you.”

The girl stayed silent.

Sidon’s gaze began covering the room, seeing how the anachronistic Zelda has lived since her so-called liberation from the Fight. “My father did not intend this to be the nature our meeting you, but Muzu has his ways.” He trailed off a bit. “Lady Impa only allowed me to come to see you because of my friendship with the Hero and, by proxy, you. I feel she is hesitant to disclose your condition on a regional scale. I truly do not believe they will see you as a threat either way, but they still need to see you.”

King Dorephan… Zelda’s feeble state being called her condition definitely stung a bit. He could have said her current condition. And what’s this about being a threat? And he was friends with Link?

Sidon took her hands into his. “It will pass, Zelda. Not a soul knows what you are going through right now, but I know it will pass. You have a friend.”

From his perspective, seeing the little girl from his childhood perfectly preserved must be a wonderful sight. Zelda wondered if he feels the same tenderness that she felt for him when he was small.

“I think Link might know a little,” she theorized. Out loud. Goddess above, why do her thoughts slip through her teeth like water? She didn’t mind saying it, but this trend is proving to be most annoying.

All the gray seriousness dropped from Sidon’s face like a curtain. “Link! Have you seen him? Nobody has heard from him for a while.” Even though he was mentioned seconds ago by Sidon himself, his name was the trigger for him to get excitable.

Her skin crawled. “Not since he brought me here. After.”

“You must tell me how he was back in the day sometime soon—over tea, perhaps! How different is he? My memories from that time are quite cloudy.” Sidon was wildly gesturing with his arms that just so happen to have an insane wingspan. Zelda sank down more to avoid any chance at being hit.

Her throat pulsed in anxiety. She struggled to get the sounds out right. “I didn’t talk with him long,” she explained, eyes beginning to burn.

“Still, you must have been overjoyed to see him!”

“Yes, of course.” Zelda could not see anymore. Tears had taken root and spread over her eyes and she was pretty sure her jaw was trembling like a branch in a storm.

The natural place for Sidon to respond passed, and his blurry form shifted to the side. He placed his hand on her own. “I apologize for my…” Sidon paused, his voice Zelda didn’t know how many octaves lower. Clearly, he did not understand what he had done to make her react this way. Neither did she. “…untimely excitement. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Zelda soaked the pool of tears in her eyes with the sleeves of her chemise before they let loose down her face. Seeing Sidon again was like looking at a sad puppy; the Zora are a very expressive people, she recalled. “It is quite alright. I apologize for my terribly inconvenient bursts of emotion. They are on the flux lately.” She laughed a small, weak thing.

Sidon grinned again before looking back at the stairs. “I should head back down. I was most unfortunately only allowed a short visit.” He bowed his head slightly and got up.

Zelda also tried to stand just as quick but just fell into the chair again. “What will you tell them?”

“That you are well.” He ruffled her hair, she didn’t think anyone had done that before, but his face was solemn.

As he descended the steps, empty loneliness crept up her neck again. He left her with much to think about but nothing to which she could act. She was stuck. Everyone around her treated her like an infirm, even those who called her friend. The walls around her seemed to shrink.

And where was Link? What did Sidon say—nobody had seen him? Where did that boy run off to? If anything, he should be hidden away like her. He acted nothing like himself when he saved her. But then again, he still had his fine motor skills.

Zelda sighed so long she got a flashback of a similar one directed at her by her father, which she quickly buried. Goddess above, what a mess. If only she had uncovered her powers earlier. If only, if only.

Some time passed as she remained in her head and on the chair. Zelda hadn’t use or a want for moving. There was no moving when you were nowhere. Looking was enough for her, to Impa and Paya’s dismay. But she wasn’t nowhere anymore. They were right, though; she needed to regain her strength soon. Zelda reminded herself that the reason she needed to was self-fulfilling: maintaining the body. It needed to be done because it needed to be done. She was tactile again. Existence was odd. She should write a philosophy book; no philosopher could eclipse the things she had learned about living—being alive, rather. Was living not the act of being alive? Why are they so different when said standing alone? Language was indeed limited. Limitedness was new—an old acquaintance.

“Zelda.” Paya was in front of her. That didn’t seem right. She should be able to see people coming.

“Hello,” Zelda greeted meekly. “I never see you until you speak. I think I delve far too deep into thought.”

“Yes, grandmother and I were talking about that,” Paya explained slowly. She talked so quietly that Zelda needed to focus to understand her. It was quite fun. Focusing seemed as complicated as the time she was made to learn goldwork embroidery but just as rewarding. 

“You were?” Zelda said probingly, leaning forward.

“Ah—um, yes. Not in a bad way, though. I promise. We thought that being cooped up in my old room might be a bit dull for you. Maybe it was causing you to have your, um, dissociative episodes more frequently.”

“This was your room?” she asked, sounding incredibly distraught, a tone she was not expecting nor intending. She sounded like a family member had just passed away. Zelda echoed what she said in her mind’s eye as she tried to process if that was really what came out of her mouth.

Paya looked like a spooked deer. She shook and Zelda’s heart dropped. “Yes—It. It was, but don’t worry at all, it’s fine, I promise!”

But Zelda wasn’t worrying. She didn’t even know why it came out like that. It’s not like she was happy she took her room, but—Goddess, this was all so frustrating. Ripping her own hair out was becoming more and more desirable. 

Paya took a deep breath and crouched down to Zelda’s level. “Let me… maybe change the subject.”

“No. Don’t.” Zelda raised her hand slightly as if she were still in the castle and had the authority to stop people on a whim. To Paya, she still did. This entire village is still loyal to her dead authority. More for her blood, now. Zelda sat back against the backrest emptily. “Continue, please.”

Paya’s face told Zelda she was surprised by her ability to reel in her frustration, but she didn’t know if that made her feel accomplished or offended. 

“Of course,” Paya began. “Going outside might be a bit much for right now, though I’m sure you’ll be able to do it very soon. And I know you’re frightened to see my grandmother, but, maybe you could talk to her through a screen. You told me before how you miss her very much, so I thought this could work as a solution. For now. Until you are ready! …Unless you decide you never are, and in that case you’d never have to.” Paya’s hedging trailed off, and the cringe growing on her face plateaued.

“I think that I want to try.” Zelda smiled at her empathetically. In truth, she didn’t want to try at all. What a strange thing she was afraid of. It was just all the lost time. That image she had in her head of her old friend, the one she had clung to for decades, tainted—such a difficult thing to articulate. But she couldn’t remember Impa’s voice from one hundred years ago, so did it really matter? Zelda wished she could journal like she used to. She also wished she could feel the sun on her face again.

“I will inform grandmother,” Paya said with a happy lilt in her voice. Zelda would have to ask Impa who she ended up having children with to become a grandmother in the first place. This train of thought amused her as Paya daintily descended the steps once more.

A golden tapestry of a divider screen had been set up in her room. There were three panels and all had a complementing color: red, blue, and green in their detailing. The three virtues, perhaps? It was stunning. Zelda had been playing with the fringe on the pillow she sat on for the past couple of minutes. The forceful annihilation of her nervous ticks one hundred years ago had stayed strong, but apparently, this one hadn’t. It felt oddly liberating.

“Princess.” Impa was already on the other side, startling Zelda so much she almost fell on her back, if not for her skillful catching herself on her arms. Impa had addressed her In the exact same tone she used to, but her voice was rough and timeworn.

“How did you—“ Zelda paused. “I did not hear you enter,” she stated as coolly as possible, re-settling back into her pillow. All the fear had subsided somehow, and the old but familiar feeling of the company of a good friend rolled right back in. Her heart still beat against her chest like a warning, however.

“I am a Sheikah for Hylia’s sake!” It is their first time speaking to each other, and Impa is laughing at her—really laughing at her. Time did not rip away her spirit. It almost made Zelda want to laugh, too. 

After her guffaw subsided, Impa spoke again. “You’re a girl out of time, Zelda. Tell me, were you truly conscious every second of it?”

The hard questions first. Of course. Her directness had not changed, either. Yet, she is not questioning why Zelda had refused to look or talk to her for an entire month. Perhaps Paya told her and that is enough for her. Perhaps she wanted to spare Zelda the awkwardness. Perhaps she just knew already.

Zelda shifted her legs. “I don’t know. I don’t think I could have been. It is… It is difficult to explain. However, I am glad you survived. Paya has been wondrous company, but I think I would prefer some variety in the long term.”

Impa hummed thoughtfully. “You are in a better place than when you first arrived here with Link.”

That memory was far too painful for right now. A subject change was in order. “Who is—was Paya’s grandfather?” Zelda asked mirthfully.

Her friend chucked in an old woman’s way. “He was an idiot I knew as a girl and grew close with after The Calamity. You never met him, but don’t wish you had. You would have despised him; he was an idiot bard.”

“You had children. Where are they now?”

“Call me a hypocrite all you’d like, but I’d rather not talk about that now.”

Zelda’s skin prickled with shame, even if Impa was valiantly casual about shutting the topic down. “Of course. Um, at the rate I am recovering, I believe I should be able to leave in about another month.”

Some moments passed. The silence made Zelda wonder if someone was still behind the screen.

“What?” Impa finally said.

Zelda blinked at the divider. “Well, I decided after I had recovered, I would travel alone. I wish to visit Hateno Village. Paya had informed me it was relatively untouched by The Calamity due to Fort Hateno, and I thought it would be the least jarring destination to visit first.”

“You cannot.”

“What?” Zelda echoed.

"It is regrettable, Princess, but these are perilous times, and it would be far too dangerous for you to wander alone. Hyrule is a lawless land now. Banditry is common for someone traveling solo, especially a young woman like yourself—monsters, as well. And beyond that, you carry the weight of being the symbol of the last regime—your safety must be my foremost concern." 

 Impa couldn’t be serious. Zelda’s brain was scrambling. And she felt angry. “I held off evil for an entire century, and you think I am scared of petty thieves? Nobody in their right mind would even presume I am a dead princess!”

Impa began to say something that sounded like disagreement, but she stopped. “Perhaps we could discuss this later once you’ve cooled down.”

Zelda’s lungs shrank shriveled and weak along with her throat. It felt like the whisper of a promise of being trapped again. “No. No, we must discuss it now!” She wanted to sound angry but she thought she just sounded scared.

Impa thought her weak. Impa thought her a fool. Just like everyone did back then. Zelda was tired of this room. Tired of this house. Tired of Paya walking on eggshells around her and Impa talking to her like nothing had ever happened. She wasn’t fragile. She wasn’t, but she knew how it looked. She wasn’t even crying yet! She only cried once today! Zelda knew how it sounded. She sounded like a nutcase even in her head. But nobody had gone through this before like she had. It was absolutely miserable in this place. She couldn’t read nor write yet and was far too prideful to attempt to play children’s games or get read to, even if it would significantly improve her cognitive functions. All she had was her pride at this point, and if she were to play cards one more time, she might lose it right then and there. 

Leaving was her only option. Zelda would rather die than stay here, now. Now that she knew she didn’t have a choice. She simply refused to live imprisoned again. Not even if it were to last just a day longer.

Impa sighed and Zelda couldn’t tell where her friend ended and a century of living without her started. “Dearest Zelda, know that I only want what is best for you, above all else. It has been… exceedingly difficult to manage your happiness and safety. This is no fault of your own, of course, but if you think me uncaring, I swear to you that I am not.”

A tear fell onto Zelda’s thumb in her lap. “I understand.”

“You do?”

“Yes. You may go, I would like to prepare for bed.”

“…Very well. You had a long day. We will talk more in the morning. Happier things.”

Perhaps an older version of her would have kept arguing. Zelda did not know if she was thinking of Impa or herself.

Time passed for a long while. There was no sound of Impa’s coming or going, so Zelda wanted to wait until she was sure she was gone so she could get rid of the screen, but suddenly, the screen folded up on its own. A careful hand on the panel closest to Zelda pushed the divider into itself and Paya’s face popped out from behind it, looking for Zelda. 

“So, how did it go?” Paya asked as she focused back on putting away the colorful screen.

“Not as I imagined it would.” Zelda hoped she didn’t sound too solemn. “Paya.”

“Yes, Princess?” Paya was turned away, tucking the thing into a corner.

Tired of the floor, Zelda picked herself up and stumbled over to the bedside, sitting down on the edge. She chose her words carefully. “I want to get fresh air.”

It almost looked like Paya’s ears twitched and she turned back around to look at Zelda. “Oh? I will tell grandmother right away!”

“Wait.”

Paya straightened up.

Zelda had two choices—she wasn’t leaving here without help—she could deceive Paya and convince her to let her out unattended so she could make her escape, or somehow, someway, persuade her to let Zelda run free. The latter was borderline impossible and the former cruel. How was she going to play this?

“I heard you up here. You wanted to leave.” The shadows falling in sharp lines across Paya’s face almost seemed sinister; she wasn’t a sinister girl, though, she just was standing in the wrong place.

Zelda stared at her. “I do.” Not necessarily an admittance of a plot, but not a denial either.

Paya had this steely, serious expression Zelda had never seen before. After a moment of what looked like contemplation, she glided over and sat beside the former princess, folding her hands in her lap. Zelda looked down at them. Paya’s hands twitched; she held them down so she wouldn’t wring them.

“Please, don’t run away,” Paya pleaded.

What she would say next came to her easily. “Have you ever been endless?” Zelda asked. It wasn’t a leading question, nor a setup to attack Paya’s point of view. It was genuine, somehow, even if Zelda already knew the answer was no.

“…No, I haven’t.”

“It puts things deeply into perspective.” It was funny, how casual talking about it was. All familiarity turns mundane. “I want to be endless again.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Princess.”

Paya was beginning to think Zelda had gone mad again. At least, that is what it felt like. “I cannot claim I know the ins and outs of it, and this probably isn’t a reflection of how it changed me, but I am not a girl anymore. Not after that. There is another need I have now.”

“What is it?”

“Freedom.”

Paya nodded ever so slowly, eyes staring at the ground to the side of the endless girl. What the nodding meant, Zelda did not know. There are a million reasons why people do things, and when you’re complicated, the number triples.

“I was endless for such a long time. I was only tied to the earth for seventeen years compared to my one hundred; that is just over a four to twenty-five ratio. Sometimes, I wonder if that is what it feels like to be a Goddess.”

Zelda watched Paya’s face. It gave nothing away. 

“My point is, I can’t go back. I need to be free. I’ve never been free, not truly, not even when I was free from this body, not even before that—in a more literal sense.”

“Something inside me…” Paya began. “Something inside me tells me you shouldn’t be here.” She smiled bashfully as a thought appeared on her tongue.

“Well, go on,” Zelda said.

“Sometimes I think you and the Hero are fairies. You never seem to work the same way we do. You’re like forces of nature.” Paya’s eyes seemed to glitter. “It feels wrong to cage a fairy, even if that fairy looks like she can’t handle the world on her own.”

Zelda took Paya’s hands and held them. “I’m confident I can scare off any bandit with my powers. I’ll just need a walking stick.” She smiled a laugh.

“I don’t think you need to run like a fugitive. The Sheikah, at least the people in power here, are still loyal to the crown, no matter how rusted and decayed it might become. Take your freedom by your own hand,” Paya urged.

The girl’s loyalty is just as unyielding; perhaps she is describing herself as well, Zelda thought. “How uncharacteristically determined you are being,” she remarked light heartedly. “But how would you presume I accomplish this?”

Paya made a conflicted expression, totally abandoning her daring.

“Please, if you have an idea, I must know.”

Paya swallowed her apprehension. “Question my grandmother’s loyalty. It’s the only thing in the world you could ever take advantage of.”

“That will end up with me accusing her of disloyalty. She will find every way to prove her loyalty, and she’d be right about it. Whilst I find the idea intriguing, I still have my integrity to think about; I’d like to keep that intact. It seems a bit cruel as well, which is why I assume you hesitated even bringing it up.”

“I hesitated because I will betray my grandmother by helping you,” Paya stated fiercely. “But I don’t care. The crown is both of our priority. She will see reason.”

Zelda tried to hide the awe that grew on her face. Impa had raised her with a strong will, even if her eyes shifted from others that matched it. She will make a fine chieftain.

Paya looked away. “Anyway, that is why there will be an audience to pressure her. Well, a small one,” she said quickly, “but large enough. However, you will need to look her in the eye.” She seemed to realize the irony of saying that while unable to herself and swiftly returned her gaze to the young woman beside her.

Zelda shakily stood up from the bed, exhilarated. “How will we find this audience?”

Morning came and Zelda was sure it was beautiful, even if she could not see it and the leaves were changing into ugly brown. She would see it soon, no doubt. There was no anxiety bubbling under her skin, which surprised her. A long time ago there would have been.

Zelda had taken the liberty of dressing herself (with Paya's help tying the things that needed tied). She found no reason to change into presentable dress in a room with no windows and a house inhabited by women, but today was different.

 Today, as she picked out her bodice and boots, she remembered why she enjoyed clothing. No matter what people believed you to be, what they saw informed half of their opinion. Even if one thought you to be terrible and craven, they’d at least acknowledge your ability to dress well. A terrible craven who dressed well is a different sort of person than one with plain clothes. It was the only thing she had control of in that castle back then, and it was a good thing she liked blue. She thought she still might like it.

Zelda was a free woman today. There would be no shackles to hold her down ever again. Never again.

The steps down to the main hall plunged before her feet. Her hand gripped the railing with about as much force as a laboring soon-to-be-mother would her husband—husbands—oh, how glad she was that she was the firstborn daughter. Not that it mattered anymore. She stuffed the hickory walking stick Paya provided under her arm.

She went the first step. Her leg wobbled under her like a newborn foal. How symbolic—the poets would love it. Then the second, then the third, until she had a teetering rhythm of step decension. 

On the third to last step, Impa called. “Is that you, Princess? Wonderful!”

Zelda did not waste time, stumbling on the last three in favor of swiftness and shooting towards Impa’s voice—Impa—Zelda stopped halfway there, in front of Paya who was waiting for her. Impa was old. She was sitting on a tower of pillows, hunched and weak, nothing like the woman she once knew. Her face was wrinkled and sagged with the gravity of age and she almost thought it wasn’t her until she spoke again.

“Don’t look at me like that, girl. I just shrunk,” Impa joked, a little less enthusiastic than usual.

Zelda took a shaky intake of breath. “I’m leaving, Impa.”

The Sheikah’s mild face changed into gravitas. “We talked about this, Zelda.”

“Frankly, I do not care. I am going.” Her eyes were still pinpointed on Impa. Zelda’s mouth was speaking words of defiance, but her mind was still. Was that truly her?

“You will not.”

Zelda took this as a chance to rip her eyes away from Impa and march towards the door.

“Do not make me call for aid, Princess.” 

Zelda stopped in place. One second, two seconds, and then slowly began to walk again.

Impa grunted in frustration. “Dorian, Cado!”

Zelda looked back at Paya for a second. The girl’s hands were in tight fists, her face intense like fire. She nodded at Zelda sharply.

Zelda looked forward at the double doors again and started towards them once more. When she approached, she placed two shaky hands on the door handles. A new sensation washed over her as her palm and fingers enveloped them: coldness.

Suddenly, the doors flung open with the force of what seemed like one thousand horses, throwing her to the wooden floor, with a spinning ceiling above her, and a feeling like a hammer was brought to her spine as Paya gasped from behind her. Zelda pushed down on her elbows to raise her torso and to alleviate the shooting pain in her back. Goddess, she had forgotten how painful non-emotional pain was.

Two armed Sheikah men manifested into her spinning world, looking down at her from above. “Who are you?” one asked roughly, hand on his hilt.

The other man began to answer, but Impa interrupted, “The Princess, you fool!”

Shock colored his features as he unsheathed his sword and dropped to one knee, putting the blade’s end to the ground and two hands on its hilt. “Your Highness, please forgive me. I didn’t know it was you. I wasn’t there when you arrived.”

Zelda was in shock herself, trying to still her dizzying gaze while attempting to get up.

“Cado, help her, and Dorian, get her stick,” Impa commanded exasperatedly.

The kneeling man Impa called Cado sprang up from the ground and offered a hand to Zelda, which she graciously took. She had been on the floor a lot lately. He brought her up by both arms, and she had to keep hold of him as the man called Dorian ran to the far right of the hall to retrieve her walking stick, which had rolled over there.

He came rushing back and handed it to her. Impa’s house was as silent as a crypt as she found her balance, aside from Impa muttering ‘you idiots’ under her breath and Zelda’s labored breathing.

Still panting like a dog, Zelda turned to Impa again, leaning on the walking stick with both hands like a wounded mage. “I am still leaving,” she snarled. She, again, did not mean it to come out that way.

“You two, do not let her leave,” Impa sighed, irritated. 

“I am—“ She huffed. “—the blood of the Goddess, the last Hyrule alive. You cannot keep me here.”

“You being those things are exactly why we must keep you here,” Impa retorted with a raised voice.

Zelda shifted her gaze to Paya, who looked nervous again, and back at Impa. “So, you are going against the wishes of the crown?” she asked slowly.

Impa gaped a little before quickly returning to irritation. "Leave, the both of you, but take her back inside if she runs out.” She pointed at Dorian and Cado.

They bowed their heads and went for the door before Zelda whipped around and called out. “No, stay,” she ordered.

The two guards turned around and looked between Impa and Zelda, and then between themselves.

Zelda, with a newfound feeling of Power, straightened up as best she could as she regarded them. “Who are the Sheikah loyal to? Themselves, or the Royal Family?”

Cado looked to Dorian, who shook his head and sighed. “You,” Dorian said. The finality of how he said it sent a shiver down her neck. She wondered what he meant by that.

When Zelda turned back around, she was expecting the face of an old woman with a century’s worth of rage, but she was met with a century’s worth of disappointment curled over every wrinkle on the old woman’s face.

“At least take food and a horse,” Impa said quietly, the most dejected she’d ever heard. “Did you hear me? Food and a horse!”

The two guards rushed out the doors from behind Zelda as Impa looked at the ground. Paya then came shuffling over.

“You did it!” she whispered excitedly.

“I ended up accusing her anyway,” Zelda said solemnly, never removing her eyes from Impa.

“It could have gone better, I—” Paya took a breath. “I admit.”

Zelda nodded at Paya and stumbled over to Impa. She couldn’t see her face from under her headdress. There was so much Zelda wanted to say but could not transform into words. “I’m sorry.”

Impa chuckled. “I was a fool for thinking I could keep you here long. I remember now, all you wanted to do was research the ancient Sheikah tech.”

Zelda hadn’t even thought of it seriously in weeks.

“That was all. And you defied your father at every turn to do so. I just—” Impa choked up. “I just couldn’t bear to lose you again.”

Zelda dropped to her knees as gracefully as she could manage and brought Impa into a hug—the first one she’s had in a century. They stayed like that for a while.

“Please visit me again.”

“I will, I promise.”

Dorian and Cado returned with supplies, and Paya sobbed as they helped her get onto her horse. Apparently, the steed’s name was Joni. She liked that name. Impa insisted she’d take a knife, so she also had to get a belt. She ended up leaving with a lot more than was initially said.

And there it was, freedom.

As Zelda passed the threshold of Kakariko town into the wilds, she could only smile. It really was being cooped up in that room. She hoped. 

The morning sun was rising, so all of Kakariko was still in shadow. Once those mountainous walls fell behind her, the warm sun played with her skin, and Joni seemed happy, and she was happy, too.

But lonely.

And then it was all terrible again. She had nothing. Zelda didn’t want to return, but what would she do now? What does anyone do without ties to duty? Without holding back evil incarnate?

Joni snorted from under her. She looked up. The last time she was here was with him. Kakariko Bridge was coming up.

Zelda would find him. That is her new goal. Find Link. The only true tie to duty she has left. She wasn’t crazy, this was entirely achievable.

How do girls find runaway knights? Zelda guessed she would have to find out.