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The boy stands at the ready, defiance holding him steady against the fear and confusion in his eyes. His hold on the sword is not that of a full-fledged warrior, not yet, but an inherited instinct puts the makings of it in his bearing and demeanor, in eyes so familiar they’d steal your breath if you had any left. Your memory is fractured, faded, as hollow as you have become, but it begins to burn in your mind’s eye, stronger and stronger the longer you look at him.
You remember that blue, so striking against the pale mist of the ghostly ether and against the haze of the ages you’ve lingered, and you remember that green, too. You remember the way it fit you like it was meant to, the same way it fits the boy who stands before you, shining against the ether.
His hair is darker than yours was, and he has both eyes and no scars, but beyond that, he’s the spitting image of what you used to be.
What’s your name, child? you ask, even though you already know what the answer will be. Your voice resonates through the ether - not spoken, but projected, into the air and into his mind
The answer doesn’t come – not through words, at least. The boy watches you cautiously, and when you merely stare at him in return, waiting, he relaxes somewhat. Fingers that are not wrapped around the hilt of a sword leave their shield-ready position and flex in instinctive movement, before the boy’s features contort in frustration, and he stops mid-movement, uncertain of your ability to understand. But a connection flows between the two of you, pulsing through the boy’s veins and soul, and you do not need words to understand, to hear the name that blazes brightly in the boy’s mind and blood and spirit but cannot leave his mouth.
You can't speak. You gaze at him through your remaining eye and see that you have arrived at the truth quicker than he thought you would. Another thing he inherited from you. My apologies. You don’t know what kind of sign the boy uses to communicate. Language is always changing across ages and distances, but such communication isn't necessary right now. The soul you share requires no translation, and even though the boy cannot command the ether like you and does not yet know how to utilize your connection to speak mind-to-mind, fragments of his thoughts and feelings reach you, impressions that give you a rough picture.
He does not need to speak in order to learn what you have to teach him.
You do not introduce yourself. Something stops you, some epoch-deep ache that halts the name before it can leave your nonexistent lungs. That name belongs to him now. He does not need to know the true reach of the cycle he is caught in, not yet. Let him have his innocence – the kind that was taken from you – for just a little longer. It is the only other thing you can give him.
Instead, as the boy continues to regard you warily, his gaze harder now that some of the fear has left it, you draw yourself up into the just-remembered stance of a knight, a silent answer to the silent questions evident in his eyes and posture.
The connection you share with him is not one-sided; the two of you carry the same spirit, after all. He arrives at understanding of his own from things not said with all of the speed of a quick-learning pupil, grasping and raising his shield in readiness as he looks askance at you. You can feel the determination he wields, always at his fingertips, and you are careful to mitigate anticipatory pride. It would not do to show him favor just because he is yours. That will not protect him from the horrors of the world or bear him up under the weight of the perennial burden written in his blood.
You nod, and the boy attacks. You deflect with experience and strength not dulled by centuries of waiting and send him sprawling.
A sword wields no strength unless the hand that holds it has courage, you say as he gets to his feet. The words are cautiously chosen, stilted. Even now, long dead and lacking the mute throat of your living form, speaking is not a preferred activity. You may be destined to become the hero of legend, but your current power would disgrace the proud green of the hero's tunic you wear.
For a moment, you wonder if that is the right approach. (You remember your knight's training, unforgiving and strict, and that is all you know of teaching, but perhaps it is not appropriate for this one.)
However, the boy's eyes flash, and you feel his determination double as he scowls at you. He takes it as a challenge. Good, you think to yourself approvingly. That attitude alone will carry him far.
You must use your courage to seek power, you say, your projected voice softer than before, and find it you must. Some part of you withers even more at the words. The boy is young - not as young as you were, and on the threshold of adulthood, but a youth still. It tears at your already torn soul to place that on his shoulders. But for all that it is the birthright you've left him, your hands alone are not responsible for it. The cycle of fate has already come for him, and you, too, will do what you must. For his sake. For Hyrule's sake. Only then will you become the hero for whom this world despairs.
The boy is watching you intently, caution giving way to curiosity. You can see something of his other form in his eyes, too - the form you took to find him in the world of the living. (You remember how it hurt to change shape again and again, and you remember having eyes that reflected something different than what flesh presented, and you pray that it will not be as hard on him as it was on you. You don't remember the last time you prayed.)
If you do find true courage, and you wish to save Hyrule from the horrors it now faces, you tell him, as if there is any other possibility, then you will be worthy to receive the secrets I hold. You have little doubt of that. It's in his blood, after all.
You fall silent and still, and the boy stares at you for a few long moments before he nods. You know that he still does not fully understand where he is or your sudden presence or the connection you share with him, but once again, you find the words locked within you. You wouldn't even know how to begin voicing them. So you don't. Instead, you raise your sword in salute and challenge. I have a lot to teach you. Those words are easier, less formal, and they light something in you that has long been cold. You would smile if you could. Shall we begin?
The boy raises his own sword in answer without hesitation, and this time, you let momentary pride pulse between your empty ribs, where your heart would be.
He returns again and again, steadfast in his pursuit of what you can offer him, and each time, he looks a little older than his years. It breaks your vanished heart, and perhaps that is why you push him all the harder, relentless in your criticism until he moves less like a Hylian and more like a god, shaped into a hero before your remaining eye. You know that it is not entirely your doing and not entirely his, either. He was meant for this, and through each encounter, you see awareness of fate's design dawning on him with greater clarity. Each time, you wish there was some way to lift it from his shoulders. You would gladly take up flesh and shield and Master Sword again if it meant that he didn't have to.
But you cannot protect him from his destiny any more than you could have protected yourself, and so all you can offer is the experience that the ordeal and its aftermath taught you, finally given the chance that you were robbed of so long ago. You teach him so that he may survive this, perhaps more intact than you did, and the connection between the two of you strengthens, individual spirits attuning themselves more closely to shared soul. You even begin to learn parts of his sign language, gleaned from flashes of insight into his mind and from the way he slips into it as naturally as breathing.
Each time, you have the chance to tell him who you are, and each time, you do not.
Perhaps you are afraid that it will hurt him. So much of what is his was yours, once. He has your name and face and garments and weapon. He even has your horse. (You remember her and a ranch, a place and people you left too soon, and you think, I'm sorry, Malon.)
The boy is caught up in a greater cycle that he does not yet comprehend. You had not known the extent of the cycle until death came for you, and you want to spare him that knowledge. It has weighed on you for too long now, the knowledge that everything you'd done would be overturned.
The boy will be remembered. The innocence he gives up, the pain he endures... they will have meaning outside of himself. He will never have to carry it alone. He has family and friends that time and distance will not prematurely steal from him. (You remember yours, and you wonder if they are waiting for you in the beyond, if some of them will remember a version of you they never met, if other versions of you and a princess are waiting, too.)
But all of it, all that the boy does is only a temporary fix. It will come undone, in one way or another, just as all you did came undone and fate chose him to fix it once again. It has been this way for longer than any living being can comprehend, and even in death, the knowledge is almost too heavy to bear. He doesn't deserve to carry that. You hadn't deserved it, either, but that is the hand you were dealt. You'd accepted that a long time ago.
So you remain silent, speaking only to criticize or praise, and you watch a child become an adult in a blink of time's eye. (You remember closing the eyes of a child and opening the eyes of an almost-adult, and closing the eyes of an almost-adult and opening the eyes of a child, and you don't think you came back quite right from that.)
He finds you for the last time, holding himself with a warrior's bearing and absorbing the last of your teachings with unparalleled skill. You want to tell him that he deserves so much more from you than that. But it is the best you can offer, more than anything you were given the chance to offer to your daughters, and you tell him as much. (You remember them, painfully brief memories that have been one of your strongest tethers to this world, and you wonder if your legacy cursed them to grow up under the shadow of loss, too.)
You look on the boy with pride, and this time, you let it bleed through every part of you, every word, so that he knows. His face shines up at you, and still, he does not know what he is to you. You suspect that he may have an idea, but you say nothing, even as you bid him farewell. The words crowd in your mind as he turns to go, the mist of the ether gathering around him to open the way back, but you swallow them.
Perhaps it is better for him to be free of that knowledge. He has enough of your cyclical legacy as it is. You know that he will carry it well, perhaps better than you ever did, but he doesn't deserve the burden of knowing that history repeats itself infinitely in his very blood and in the soul you share. He does not need to know who you are. You are content to know that not everything you did was in vain and forgotten; it lives on in him now, whether he knows the truth or not.
And yet something in you bursts with the drive to say anything at all before it is too late.
Go and do not falter, my child, is all you tell him in the last moment before he returns to the world of the living.
It is calculated to give him no time to respond in kind before the ether returns him to where he belongs.
Something stops you from leaving. You try and you try, and the ether pushes back. You feel colder than you have in all your years of waiting, as fear such as you have not experienced in a long time settles in your bones. Did you wait too long? Is it no longer possible to move on? Creaking fingers scrape uselessly through thin air that will not respond to you, and you would cry if you could. You are so tired. You want rest, and for a moment, you fear that you are doomed to never find it.
Then a warmth envelops you, as a soft many-layered voice makes itself known in your mind. You are not done yet, it says - a melodic whisper, like wind cascading through the greenest of trees. Wait for him one more time.
You have struggled with bitterness towards the goddesses for a long time, and yet they speak to you gently, and you trust them. You cease fighting, and you wait.
You are no stranger to the bending of time. Here, in the ether, a minute is a second or a day in the world of the living, and you know that time is passing in great quantities outside of this still place. For you, however, it is not long before you feel something tugging you in that direction. You follow the familiar pull, and the mist of the ether is burned away by sunlight. The ghostly ruins of the ether are replaced by the solid ruins of an ancient temple sheltered within a forest.
You blink one eye, and it feels different. You look down, and instead of bones and decay, you see hands as youthful as the day you died, though far less solid.
Across from you, in front of the ruins of the Temple of Time, the boys stands, looking at your scarred face in awe. A few moments pass in which neither of you speak.
I didn't know if you'd come, the boy says at last, reaching tentatively across his connection to you, in communication that is as much feelings and impressions as it is silent words. It's accompanied by a few gestures that you've come to understand by now, to fill in the gaps left by his still unpracticed grasp of communication across a shared soul. Skull Kid said that I should try calling you here, at the temple. The boy smiles. It's Malon's smile, you think, with a sudden, longing ache. We're friends now.
It was your Skull Kid guarding the sword that you once wielded, but you see no sign of him, and something in you sinks. Your old friend had always been a bit shy around you when you became an adult, but at least he has someone else now. You look back at the boy, and your gaze softens. It would not have worked if I had moved on. You cannot project your voice here, but you do not need to; the pathway between your two minds blazes, fully open.
You didn't, the boy says. Why?
The answer is in front of you, staring at you in open-mouthed recognition. The boy knows who you are now. You look just like him, after all. I didn't tell you who I was. I suppose that was a mistake. You are not so sure that it was, but the ether had closed itself and prevented you from reaching the beyond. The boy's desire to know had kept you from rest and called you, in this form no less, and the goddesses had seen fit to allow it.
The boy knows, now, that he is far from the first. He knows what lineage he comes from. He can feel it calling to his blood across your joint soul. What's your name? he asks, though you can already see it in his eyes - he knows that, too.
Link, you tell him.
You had not known the extent of the cycle until death came for you. The Link standing before you has an inkling, and he smiles up at you as he takes a step forward, closing the distance between the two of you. There is courage in that smile, and as you watch him, you come to the abrupt realization that this one has been spared much of what you underwent. Pain and age beyond his years are still etched into his face, and you sense that he has lost at least one friend to distance, but the knowledge that he is you, after a fashion, brings joy to the boy's face. He has never been subjected to the cruel cycles of time like you have, and so he looks with different eyes on his fate and on you. He looks at you not with dread or sorrow, but with happiness, with wonder, and you feel something ancient shift within you and settle.
You'd forgotten what peace felt like.
Link throws his arms around you in an embrace, heedless of the armor you died in, and you become solid in his hold. Hesitantly, you return the gesture. You don't remember the last time anything felt this real or warm, and you tighten your grip, closing your eye and drawing the boy closer. You are suddenly grateful that his curiosity stayed your final passing, more than you can express in words.
Thank you, Link signs, pulling back just a little as his fingers flare out from his closed mouth, and then, because he has never used the sign for the next word with you before, the impression of it flows into your mind, a call across the ages, Grandfather.
It is you who should be thanking him, but you hug him even tighter and say, You're welcome, my son.
When you lift your eye and look out over the ruins, you think you see a familiar mischievous grin peeking out from branches overhead, and a smile tugs at the corners of your mouth in answer.
Link hugs you like he is trying to put a lifetime's worth into it, and he stays that way for some time. You don't stir, unwilling to break the contact yourself, and at last, the boy pulls away reluctantly. He looks up at you now with the sadness you feared, but it doesn't hurt like you'd thought it would. It's a different hurt instead. I won't see you again, will I?
You know that you aren't the first to leave him. If you didn't know that so many others were waiting for you beyond, others you left too early against your will, it would be enough to make you stay. Some part of you still wants to, but you are old and tired, and he must make his own way in the world, as much as he is able to. No, you say. But I will always be with you, Link.
He nods, and there are tears shining in his eyes as he smiles bravely once more. In some ways, he is still a youth, and you feel that realization releasing you at long last.
The two of you say nothing further, the true farewell passing between you in feelings rather than words and in the way Link's fingers spell out a goodbye in his own language. You've picked up that much by now, and you smile down at Link and mimic the gesture as another call pulls at you, gentle and warm and insistent. You hear familiar voices, meant for you and you alone, and your heart turns towards them. The sunlight of the Sacred Grove grows brighter around you, and you keep your eye fixed on Link as your ghostly form dissolves in the light.
He is the last thing you see in the world of the living.