Chapter Text
Zelda knows that she is dreaming.
She blinks, and the dark walls still waver; grainy, amorphous, and unfocused, even under her sharp gaze. The hallway she’s in seems to be made of some kind of dark stone. The light of the torches refracts strangely in a dream, bouncing in angular paths that somehow seem harsh yet soft simultaneously.
(This place, if peeled from the soft lens of unreality, looks unsettlingly similar to places that hold some of her worst memories: cells, and prisons, and helplessness.)
Zelda tilts her chin up, violet eyes flashing in the darkness.
(Dreams have always been different, for her and for Link. If she’s here, there’s something for her to communicate, to learn, or to do.)
(A small part of her hopes and dreads that it will lead her to her brother.)
The darkness parts as Zelda steps forward, and a sense of urgency tugs her forward. Walls and floor and darkness and light dance as if in the pattern of a torch, and Zelda presses forward, searching the impressions of reality, footsteps soundless in the space.
A grunt sounds in the darkness, and Zelda’s heartrate spikes as her head turns to the familiar sound.
Her feet fly.
No. No. Don’t let it be—
“—Zel—”
“Link!” she cries, but the hallway stretches or perhaps she is just slow, but it seems that time is syrup, and the flickering of the space grows more and more frantic, darkness eating at the dream’s edges—
“Zel, don’t tr—”
Zelda stumbles to a stop, clutching her head as shrieking emulates from the hallway, from the dream, from her head, cacophonous and overwhelming—
Darkness winds up her feet, holding her fast, and the cloying taste of dark magic crawls down her throat and coalesces in her lungs—
“Zelda!”
Link. Link—!
Her eyes fly open to light streaming in her window and her hand clutching at her chest.
Her pulse pounds; her throat is hoarse. Guards flood into the room. (She’s been screaming then.)
Her brother is in grave, grave danger.
Zelda had suspected since she received word of the battle.
After all, she knows that her brother would never leave behind the Tempered Sword so easily. Yet, the rest of his items were not found at the site. So as Zelda’s trembling fingers handled the bronze blade, felt the humming magic intertwine with hers underneath the strange black, acidic blood that still dripped, sizzling from its edge…
She hoped.
She prayed that her brother had been forced to abandon the site of the larger battle and his sword, and had instead relied on his items, his magic, anything, and had retreated into the woods.
The next day, when she insisted on riding out to the site of the battle and taking part in the search… she struggled to hold onto that hope.
Her fingers shook again, when she took in the blood, black and red splayed across the clearing. Ice spikes, broken ground, and charred grass told of Link’s stand. Gouges in trees and ground, the prints of many beasts, told of the force he faced.
(It was so much larger than their scouts had predicted.)
Zelda dismounted, picking her way over the battlefield to where trackers told her was the last known location of her brother. Where his bloodied sword was recovered.
(The patch of grass was innocuous. Yet, magic hung heavy in the air, even several days later.)
Zelda knelt to the grass, fingers sinking into the charred remains, and closed her eyes against tears as she felt her brother’s magic lingering, almost smothered by acrid blackness.
(That was weeks ago. And no amount of calling on allies, no amount of scouring Hyrule, has turned up any sign of her brother.)
Now, with this dream, she knows.
Link, though alive (and it’s like a weight she didn’t know was there is lifted at that realization, as if she’s finally able to take a full breath—) is hurt. He is in danger… and he cannot return to her on his own.
Zelda’s expression firms as she stalks past the throne room, her advisors chattering away beside her, telling her of her responsibilities for the day. She lets their words wash over her.
To the library? To explore possible locations and enemies? To meditate on her connection to her brother and attempt again to follow the trail of his magic?
To the armory? To outfit herself and return to the site of the battle? Perhaps this time, now that she has the memory of the darkness, the feeling of it coating her lungs so close in her mind… perhaps she could follow it—
“Your highness, Link and eight companions have—”
Zelda whirls and the soldier stumbles to a stop, mouth gaping.
“What did you say?” she demands, words clipped, power in every syllable.
“T-the hero,” he says, leaning back with wide eyes. His armor glints in the bright light of the castle corridor. The white marble almost glows, and the accents of blue and gold around portraits and decor and threading the tapestries mirror the colors of the guard’s pauldrons, his raised visor.
Zelda’s expression firms. “What about him?”
“He’s arrived, Your Highness,” the soldier says, uncertain twist to his lips. It looks like it’s taking his every resolve to stay still. “With eight companions. They request… they request an audience.”
Zelda blinks. Blinks again.
(She thinks of dungeons and helplessness and choking on darkness and—)
“Show me.”