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Technically, it wasn’t a prophecy, but over time everyone in Hyrule came to treat it as such.
It was easier, of course, than comprehending the true weight of the matter, and gave some small relief to those caught in the darkest times. If evil were to rise again and again, it was a comfort to believe a hero would rise as well, a hero and a princess and with them the light to drive away the darkness. Few ever thought to question why that evil would always return, why no matter the fight and the sacrifices the forces of light could only ever win temporary peace.
It was all too easy to believe it to be a curse when you were in the middle of it, when you gave your all for your land and your people and knew with grim certainty your soul would have to do battle again. Many would wax lyrical about the soul of the hero that would never rest while evil covered the world, yet they did not take the time to consider what it meant for a soul to be denied its final slumber. For all that the hero was always a new person in each era, the same and different all at once, it wasn’t too many generations before people around them started to whisper about their gaze. Eyes too old for a child, they said, as all too often it was a child who had to shoulder the weight of destiny, burdened with things nobody ever should. Yet time and time again, they would ask these children to do so, because there was no other choice. After all, only the hero and the princess could defeat the evil.
There was a prophecy, after all.
No prophecy spoke of the grief of a boy who pushed his way through a storm only to find his only remaining family bleeding out in the sewers. No stained glass was ever commissioned in honor of the pain of the young man seeing his loved ones look at him with fear and hatred, their view shrouded by shadows he had no choice but to cloak himself in. No heroic song ever commemorated the days, years, lifetimes that only one person would ever remember, never quite sure how old he was but knowing it was more than he seemed.
Stories might mention the fights and the will, the blood spilled and paths traversed. They would not speak of the cold of a night spent shivering in the dark, of the misery of rain and wind and aching feet, of the scrape of stone and thorns and the knowledge there was no way but through more of the same. Songs told of heroes soaring on borrowed wings, yet never gave tune to the terror of falling without aid. To command the forces of nature and time was a feat worthy of legend, but such legends rarely captured the sheer horror and weight of such awful responsibility.
Once, there had been a young knight who only knew the skies, with a girl he loved and a shadow he fought. He’d had no way of knowing what would be unleashed, of how the deepest core of his very soul would have to lift the sword again and again and again. He’d certainly never imagined the line of young people — always, always so painfully young — that would come to stretch from him out into the future, each one different yet fundamentally the same.
They were perhaps cursed into a never-ending war, but in the end that did not matter. After all, for a soul that could not find rest that dark destiny was a promise.
When the evil inevitably rises again, there will always be a hero to meet it with blade and courage and unbreakable will.