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The last remnants of dawn’s light beckoned through the curtains of a canopy bed. It fell upon the face of Princess Zelda, just along the bags beneath her eyes. Just under the distant tolls of Rauru’s church bells, birdsong rang in her ears. The echoes sang of a new sun and tranquil skies, but their voices served only to taunt her! They meant she'd have to pry herself out of bed. She muttered a curse of her own making under her breath.
For most, such a long rest would be welcome— perhaps even refreshing— but her body was left sore and tired. Her hand felt past the curtains to take hold of a staff that had been propped up against the frame.
The red orb at the top of the quartz rod bounced the morning rays back at her, and that was certainly enough to wake up her mind. She just had to hope the rest of her body would follow suit.
When Zelda squinted her eyes to see past the glare, she could make out a bush-like silhouette atop her desk. It was outlined in the gold that shone from the window, marking the contours of various petals. It was a bouquet paired with tea that no longer showed any trace of steam— the chances were, it had been there for some time.
Typically, on days she overslept, an attendant would quietly come through to leave tea and whatever else waiting for her when she awakened. Bouquets weren’t exactly new, either. After she had been rescued from a much more permanent accursed sleep, the people of Hyrule— especially suitors— left them at the castle doorsteps at any given opportunity. They rarely made it all the way to her room, however.
Zelda peered over her shoulder. The door to her room was left slightly ajar, as if whoever passed through was afraid to wake her up as they left. (Careful, yet just a little sloppy)...
A knowing smirk lightly poked across her face. With a low grunt, she rose. The staff supported her weight as she stretched to one side, then the other, and strolled to the desk to get a closer look.
The princess raised one of the flower buds to take in the sweet scent. “Oh, how lovely these are! Impa doesn’t tend to bring me flowers with my breakfast… She must have sent quite the gentleman in her stead.” In an over-exaggerated, wistful voice Zelda continued. “I’m certain they can’t have gone far… I wonder where they could be now?”
Though, much to her surprise, there wasn’t really an answer. Not even a sign! Her expression flattened. Aw.
Disappointed that her teasing went unheard, she instead parted the flora to look for a note or letter to lift her spirits.
Between the stems was nestled a little light, somewhere between pink and red. From it sprouted a set of transparent wings brought together by intricate, thin patterns. They folded open and closed like a butterfly's.
A fairy?
Perhaps Spryte? But what was she doing in there?
The closer she looked, the more she found herself to be proven wrong. Zelda swore she caught a glimpse of long, messy strands of brown hair from this fairy. That couldn't be Spryte, or any fairy she recognized for that matter!
Then, it zipped upward. She had to back up to give it room.
Her hands extended outward for them to land on. Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the light and the shape of the fairy became more clear. She blinked.
“Link?”
The faint silhouette of a head nodded enthusiastically. He began to pace around on her hands, showing off its wings and his little dress of leaves and petals.
“When did you learn to do that? While you were looking for the Triforce of Courage?” Zelda wracked her brain for the vague visions of him that made up her consciousness not long ago. When she had been cursed into such a long slumber, she saw glimpses into the great stakes he faced for her sake. Somehow, this detail had entirely slipped her mind!
“Uh-huh.” Link finally spoke. His voice was somewhat higher— Zelda stifled a soft chuckle from the unexpected change. The boy continued nonetheless, “One of the wise sages taught it to me.”
“How long can you stay like this?” Her breath nearly stopped in her awe.
The fairy paused. It pursed its lips and narrowed its eyes. “Not… very long. I’m not magic.”
“Yet here you are, with changed form! Doesn’t it leave you tired? Do you gain any of a fairy’s own abilities? Did someone have to teach you how to fly? Do the fairies at the springs recognize you?” She shut her mouth once she saw him get dizzy. “Oh, I'm sorry, I have so many questions! Though most of them must be hard to answer… Unless—”
She sat but kept her hands careful and steady for him, even when the excessive number of cushions made them bounce.
Link leaned his body to one side inquisitively.
“Unless I were to experience it myself! Link— do you think you could teach the spell to me? Please?”
Judging by the enthusiastic step the fairy took, he was quite ready to. Just as soon, however, he retracted it. His obscured face scrunched up in deep thought for a while… Until he simply shrugged. “I wouldn't know how to teach a spell like that… the wise folk just kind of… bestowed them to me.” His gaze shot upward. “You're really asking me? To teach you? Since when is there a spell you don't know?”
“Since now! Come on, Link!” Zelda pleaded.
“Okay, okay! I didn't mean I wouldn't try… So… How would I teach it to you?”
“Well… Hm. Let's start with the basics. Magic is more than an additional sense. It's like a second body— the ability to change the soul and let its will flow externally as a force. A power. When you cast Fire, it is the strength of your heart causing the world to bend and embody the burning feeling inside of it. Even if that ability was given a head start by someone else.” A pause. “Tell me what it’s like.” The princess adjusted how she sat. With her hands neatly folded in her lap, she closed her eyes and waited.
“Huh?”
“You know,” Zelda nudged, temporarily opening an eye. “When you change.”
“Oh— Right.” Link stopped his pacing and cleared his throat. He thought on it again— perhaps a little too long— before he voiced it as eloquently as possible. “I guess Hyrule doesn't feel so small. Like I could go forever and always find something new— there's a lot of things I missed until I was so little I had to see it. It’s cool.”
“So, a new perspective.”
“A useful one.”
Zelda nodded. She brought her rod before her and prompted Link back into the air, using her other freed hand to draw little golden sparkles along her arm and through the orb. With each deep, intentional breath she pictured a painless reality: one where she would be free to know every crevice of her lowly kingdom.
She spun tapestries of freedom, weightlessness, and pure connection to magic and nature and light… Her body was made of sunbeams and reflected them in warm red and pink hues.
The princess envisioned a transformation into this other self, beyond the artificial confines that held her own life just out of reach.
Through her eyelids she saw the flash; when she opened them, her daydream was so. She saw Link land just in front of her and heard her staff clatter against the floor. While her friend seemed regular size, the fallen rod sounded like a thunderstorm.
Link swiftly paced over to her and brought his hands gently over her ears once he saw her flinch. He waited a moment before helping her into a stand, instead.
“You picked that up fast! I didn't really have to do anything at all!” He quietly exclaimed, his voice returned to normal pitch.
Magic was one of Zelda’s few fortunes, and she knew it well. Her transformation didn’t take nearly as much energy as she had feared, but there was something else that most certainly would…
“I still need to fly.”
“Yeah.” His feet slowly drifted away from the bed sheets, but his hands in Zelda's kept him grounded. His wings fluttered to ease her up into the air with him, but he was careful not to do all the work. Another fortune of hers was his respect.
Zelda let herself become aware of the new appendages that sprouted from her back, thin and lightweight. She copied Link until her wings became an afterthought, and the two ascended together. A soft chuckle escaped her lips.
All it took was a mutual glance for Link to understand what she wanted. He slowly released her hands and flew back, leaving her to hold herself in the air.
Though the labor of keeping up her wings would perhaps drain her usual body, this one did not rely on worn muscles and bones restructured by spell after spell. Its blood was magic itself— something she had an abundance of. For a moment, it felt too good to be true.
She swayed from left to right, then took it a “step” further. She fluttered up, then down, and then she spun. It was almost frightening how much control she had— she soon veered right into Link.
The two bobbed backward in the collision, but Link was able to catch her and bring them both into a halt. He stared with big, awe-filled eyes. “That's it! Keep going!”
He gave Zelda an encouraging prod back into the air. It caught her slightly by surprise, but it was hard to “stumble” where there was no floor beneath her feet.
She zipped in every direction at every whim, her route like the gales of the mountains. Her swirling pattern soon came to a stop, however. She hovered in the air, still— until she peered back down at him through her wings. “Link? I'd hate to trouble you, but… may I ask for one more thing?”
“Anything, Zelda.”
As the two came together again, the princess took her beloved hero's hands. “I'd like to fly somewhere far with you. As far as we can go. …Though, as small as we are, I suppose it wouldn't be too far… As long as it's out of this castle!”
“Sounds great to me!”
So, out into the hall they went. Link instinctively pulled Zelda along by the hand, though he remembered to part once they reached a creaked-open window. The day was pleasantly sunny, without so much as a breeze to hinder them.
Zelda took the lead. She flew against the view of the horizon in wonder; the world truly felt new.
But where to go?
The nearest spring came first to mind. Zelda often visited the place to offer gifts to the fairies in exchange for sitting beside their healing waters for a while. It must be like a grand waterfall to them, she thought.
She peeked back at Link. He watched her with such care and attention, it almost made her face warm. Though she was quite used to his stare, and their feelings for one another, something was different …
Zelda quickly dove into her new path to brush it off. Link, of course, followed effortlessly. They wove around the stone parapets and came over the bridges that connected the furthest towers— where Zelda's brother, the Prince of Hyrule, passed below.
He looked huffy about something. Zelda pursed her lips. She felt deep sympathy for her brother in most things— to a fault, as Link had said once— but boy, was she glad she wouldn't have to hear it!
From the corner of her eye, she caught Link dart past her. He swooped down right past her brother's face and created a short breeze that undid one of his princely, tight curls. Just the mere glimpse of her dearest friend's smirk made her snort.
Then she heard her brother's cape whip around. She swiftly took Link's hand and yanked him down beneath the bridge with her, her other hand over her own mouth to contain her persistent laughter.
Link's laughter, beside her, had no need to be silenced. It was quiet as always, only defined by the unsteady rise and fall of his shoulders and that enchanting, smug expression of his.
If they wanted things to stay so lighthearted, however, Zelda figured they should keep lower to the ground until the castle was behind them. They cut through the garden, between hedges and branches.
Though, at a certain point, Zelda’s attention was caught from a distance away. She heard the tones of familiar humming from a window they passed, much more pleasant than the prince’s constant complaints— yet it did not come from a place of peace.
She peered through the glass. The old woman whose voice she heard was cleaning. When she reached the end of her melody, she turned to instruct some younger folks nearby.
“...Impa’s never stops working.” Zelda muttered. Her gaze shifted to Link, who stood along the windowsill too, and the seeds of an idea began to sprout in her head.
She lowered into the bush just beneath them and snuck between the thorns. Wrapping her arms around a stem, she tugged. There were certainly some downsides to this new form; such an effortless task as picking a flower had become laborious.
When Link noticed she was gone, he soon came into the bush as well. He looked on curiously, at first, until understanding finally flashed across his face. The boy nodded, like a wordless, “That's a great idea!” and took a hold of the stem as well. Together, they plucked the blossom from the bush and balanced it all the way back to the sill (where they rested it).
Link marched up to the glass and decisively struck it with his hand. Upon their ears it was quite loud, though the glass did not sustain so much as a handprint. If anything, it probably sounded more like a bug splatting. Still, it made Impa's head turn. The two fled from sight as soon as they could— there was more flight to be done yet.
As they departed, Zelda had to hope her guardian would find it. Something told her that Impa was wise enough to know a gift when she saw one, even if no one was there to see her receive it… And, even if not, it was good for them to try. Impa was cherished to them both.
Perhaps they'd find out when they returned. But, for the time being, the castle faded into a mere silhouette behind them. The highest obstacles became the trees, though they opted to stay within their shade.
The sound of rushing water led them to the secret spring, where about a dozen other fairies— those who once almost looked like orbs of light themselves— gathered.
It wasn't until the pair sat upon a smooth stone that Zelda realized she was worn out. Between the views they saw and the thrill of flying, she hadn’t noticed. She let out a soft exhale and eased herself onto her back— it felt a bit awkward on her wings before she adjusted them.
Link sat beside her and leaned his weight onto his palms. “So…?”
“I'm having fun.” She sat up. “Thank you for teaching the spell to me, Link.”
He grinned proudly (almost boastfully). “No problem, Princess. Maybe we could try another spell sometime, if all I gotta do is describe it.”
“I think I'd like that.” Zelda's smile beamed, piercing even through the soft lights that illuminated her. The aurora’s color shifted with it.
Her smile faded, and it receded. She blinked.
“Wh— how'd you do that!?” Link scooted closer, waving his hand through her light. It flickered.
“I… have no idea!” Zelda snickered. “But maybe I could teach you.”