Chapter Text
.
.
.
The traitor didn’t look like much. Thin, slouching, grizzled—just like any other guard, except he stood on the wrong side of the cell door. The cool damp of the dungeons came as a strange relief; aboveground, Zelda had been sweltering in her black mourning dress. Owen looked equally rumpled and weary at her side.
“Why did you do it?” Zelda asked finally.
The traitor stared at his feet. “You had me guarding the Shadow Temple.”
She frowned. Sheikah wards blocked off the worst of the temple, but even so, it wasn’t for the faint of heart. That was why Impa had assigned the best of the best—and why it came as such a shock that this man had leaked Ganondorf’s location to Kotake and Koume.
“My brother was interrogated there at the hands of the Sheikah,” he elaborated eventually, eyes still downcast. “I don’t blame you, Princess. You were only a child during the war. But your father…”
“Do you understand what you unleashed? What it cost Hyrule? How much worse it could have been?”
“I do, Princess. And…for your sake, I’m sorry.”
Zelda curled her fingers into fists, wanting to fling his pity back in his face. But her father’s killer rotted in Gerudo Fortress, waiting for someone to decide his fate; this was only a man with a justifiable grudge. She turned and stalked upstairs into the summer heat.
Owen stumbled to catch up. “Are you all right?”
“Fine. What do you think?”
“The Council will probably want him executed. I don’t really see the point, though.”
“I don’t either. He’s no Ganondorf; he won’t be a threat from prison. We would gain nothing from his death.” She brought her knuckles up to massage her aching temples. “What’s next?”
“Er…lunch with the wedding planner.”
Restraining a groan, Zelda drifted down the hallway, trying to ignore the itch of the healing wound in her side. She did want to be here. She’d fought Ganondorf not just to preserve Hyrule’s future, but to secure her birthright. It was just that she never had a moment to catch her breath, to mourn her father, to come to terms with the wedding. Sometimes she wanted to use the Ocarina and buy herself a week, even a day. Sleep until noon. Go riding with Malon. Float around Zora’s Domain with Ruto.
But she would be queen of Hyrule even then. Only Link had allowed her to be Zelda, just Zelda. The world had been so much easier to bear when he was here to share its weight.
“Pr—um, Zelda.” Owen smiled at her sheepishly. She stopped to listen, the same way he always did for her. “I just wanted to say…it’s not too late to reconsider.”
“Are you having second thoughts?”
“No. We work well together, don’t we? I just…I won’t hold you to a pact we made hours after your father was killed.”
She forced a smile. “I appreciate that, but…”
“Would you consider it? I want you to be sure.”
Breaking off their betrothal would cost him dearly. There was so much kindness in the offer, and it twisted through Zelda like a knife. She could not have survived the past week without Owen picking up the slack every time she stared off into space during a meeting. There were no illusions of romance between them—no time for it, either—but he’d proved himself a friend. That was better than many people could hope for when entering a political marriage.
If only she could silence the voice that kept screaming, I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready. He could ride over the drawbridge any minute.
For Owen’s sake, she spent the rest of the afternoon trying to gather her thoughts—but they just circled restlessly until she found herself in the courtyard garden. The flowers stirred in her wake as she sat down on the bottom step of the dais and pulled off her circlet, turning it around in her hands.
Zelda remembered everything about the day she’d met Link. The flowers in early bloom. Her small hands, shaky with days of sleeplessness, clutching the windowsill. The view through the glass of Ganondorf leading her father towards doom. The mark of divine gold that shone on her skin when the strange boy crept forth, clutching the Kokiri’s Emerald in a white-knuckled grip.
Do you remember me? he’d asked, his fierce blue eyes scouring her up and down.
Part of her did. He had walked straight out of her dreams to reach that moment. His name had been etched into her heart long before she’d heard it aloud. But to answer his question honestly, her only choice was to dash his hopes against the ground.
Maybe their chance died there and then. Link had known and loved another version of her, but she could not reach across time to claim that woman’s memories. It was probably better that way. The other Zelda had been broken alongside her kingdom, which made her the best person to pick up its pieces—just the same, this Zelda was meant to build bridges and soothe tempers and plant trees in her own Hyrule. She couldn’t symbolize peace if she was weighed down by someone else’s bloody future.
But logic always ended where Link began. She’d loved him since the moment he pried her white-knuckled grip from the windowsill and said, I believe you. It’s going to be okay. She’d loved him whether he showed her the sunlight or retreated into those dark places she couldn’t reach. And she loved him even now, half a decade into his absence with no sign of his return.
“You look like you’re feeling very sorry for yourself,” Impa greeted dryly.
“How did you find me?”
“Because this is where you come when you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”
She scowled. Impa settled down beside her and let the wind rustle through the flowers, let the shadows deepen. Silence, Zelda realized, was a trait her favorite people had in common.
“Owen is giving me the chance to back out,” she admitted finally.
“And?”
“And there’s no practical reason why I should. The politics make sense. He’s a good man; he’ll be a good king.”
“But?”
Zelda surveyed the garden bleakly, her fingers plucking idly at the grass near her shoes.
Impa sighed. “Zelda. Link may never return, and even if he does…puppy love doesn’t always work out.”
“If it was puppy love, it would be long gone.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you’re clinging to an ideal.” Impa waited for Zelda to meet her wine-red eyes. “I won’t lecture you of duty. If you want to turn Owen down, do so—but not for the sake of someone you haven’t seen in five years. I know you’re tired of waiting.”
But I feel him, she thought, listening to the wind sweep through the garden. He’s alive. He’s still in my dreams.
“You could certainly do worse than Owen,” Impa added.
“I could do worse,” Zelda agreed quietly. “And I can’t do any better.”
She took one last look at the stone dais behind her, where two children once gripped each other’s hands and vowed to save the world together. Right there in Link’s eyes, she had found the confluence of everything she was and everything she would become—but he was gone now, perhaps forever, and Hyrule remained. Zelda slid the circlet back into place with a silent farewell to all the hope those children had harbored for their future.
Then she got to her feet and went to find Owen.
.
.
.
