Incarnations

by Dapper Stormtrooper

An ancient message carved into the ruins of a temple. A message across time.

I don't talk much.

It's got to do with growing up with the forest folk, the kokiri, I think. They never talked, just thought real hard and the fairy did the communication. It's not that I'm incapable of speech, I just don't have a lot to say. There's not a lot I can't communicate with action instead. They say actions speak louder than words, and if that's so then most of the time I'm the loudest one in the room. I really haven't spent that much time thinking about it though, I've got a job to do, and wasting my time in idle thought isn't really practical.

But she asked me think about it. So, I am. Although she's probably been dead for a hundred years or so by now. Not that that matters, she's alive again, I can feel it.

It wasn't always like this. I'm not a theologian of course, but even I, after all this time, know it didn't use to be like this. I dream about it sometimes, half remembered things, probably more inspired by the stories she tells than anything that actually happened. I lived on an island floating in the sky. I sailed a world covered in water with a talking boat. I was a dog and roamed the countryside with the her who was not HER; just a dark shadow, an echo, a reflection.

I was born. I lived. I died. I was born again. Occasionally I would be called upon, by whatever hand it is that sets the gameboard, to fulfil my duty. I would rise up, out of whatever normalcy I found myself in, find the SWORD, and do my duty. Then, gently, sink back into anonymity. I like to think it was peaceful, like the crashing of a waves on the beach.

I don't really remember peace anymore.

It was MY mistake. She will, or has, taken issue with that every time I say it. Of course, she thinks it's her fault, but she has the unfortunate habit of trying to be responsible for everything, everywhere, all the time. But I'm willing to be the one who takes the hit. Especially for her.

I remember standing in front of my father, the great deku tree, and watching him die. I remember him telling me not to allow the "desert man in black armor" to lay his hands on the Triforce. She tells me I was too young, to young by half, to be given such a burden. It's nice to hear her say it, even if I don't agree.

It was my duty, and I FAILED.

I remember assembling the sacred stones, although the details of how escape me. I remember running shivering through the pouring rain to the castle, only to see her being chased away by the man in black. I remember how it all seemed so… right as I walked into the temple for the first time, the ringing voices from nowhere singing of glory and promises fulfilled. I remember putting her ocarina to my lips and playing along with that invisible congregation. Even to this day, when so much of my memory is faded and blurred together, I still find that tune coming to my lips as easily a breathing. I hum it in odd moments and it seems my very bones, my very soul, vibrates in harmony.

That makes sense of course, I am a prisoner of TIME.

The doors swung open and I saw the SWORD. It, like me, doesn't change overmuch. I know that sword, better than myself, better than her even. I remember the joy that I felt, the growing sense of rightness, as I ran forward past the dais and into the chamber.

To this day, I don't know what I was supposed to have done. Where I went wrong.

I drew the SWORD, and that shimmering blue white light, that ringing screaming cacophony, stole me away for the first time.

The last thing I really remember was him, not HIM, not yet, still just "the man in black" standing at the door to the chamber, a look of triumph etched across his face like an ugly wound as he laughed.

My fault. My responsibility.

HE is one of the few constants in my life, which is odd considering how much he's changed. The man in black wasn't HIM, not yet anyway. He was just the foothold, the beachhead, the doorway that allowed HIM in. Sometimes when we fight he's a sorcerer, cackling madly. Sometimes he's a wild animal, giant and ferocious. Sometimes he's not even completely awake, just an oozing palpable miasma of soul staining filth. I think I prefer that. Sometimes, when he looks human, I think he looks as tired of this as I am.

It's always the same. Streaking blue-white, high pitched ringing, then a prolonged blink. A sort of whole body blink, if that makes sense. Then, I'm awake, in the temple. I don't sleep much anymore, but it reminds me of waking up from a dream about falling. I have that one sometimes, when I do sleep. I like it because she is in it. I think she pushed me off of a cliff. There was no malice in it, she knew that my bird (Epona?) would catch me. But it reminds me of that, dreaming of falling and that little shock you get when you suddenly wake up.

I woke up alone in the temple for the first time very confused. Well not alone, Navi was with me back then, shrieking in that high tone she had, like the ringing of bells. I was older and taller, luckily somehow my clothes had grown with me, and it took me a moment to get control of my body. You try growing two and a half feet, in what feels like no time at all, and see how you adjust to it.

I'm not always so lucky.

She was there when I woke that first time, though I didn't know it then. I like it when she's there, it means I get to see her, spent time with her. When she isn't, it usually means that HE has her. She hates that. She's the smartest girl in the world and the fact that she has to be the damsel in distress really pisses her off. From my perspective it also means that the amount of time I get with her is really limited. Sometimes all I hear is "thank you!" before the blue-white sets in. On the balance it seems I spend more time with my SWORD, and HE spends more time with her.

Doesn't seem fair really.

But I set out, to do my duty. I recall something about sages that first time. There's always something, temples, castles, shrines, ruins, something. You go in, fight a bit, maybe throw some levers or push some giant blocks around and then kill a BIG something. There are always keys of some sort. Usually there will be a relic which will become important as I continue deeper in.

Those are familiar to me now, the relics. Some are constant, vital, tools of my trade. The bow, or maybe the slingshot. The hookshot, which I recall enjoying, back before it all became so mundane. Often there will be a giant hammer, or gloves which give me the strength of a hundred men. I seem to remember picking up giant columns of black stone, hurling them into walls. I remember thinking I would love to throw one at the man in black, see him panic.

HE never panics, another thing we have in common.

Maybe it was then that I failed. I used the temple, used TIME, to make it through the dungeons. Dashing back and forth, a child playing with forces beyond his understanding. Maybe I broke something, made a mess of things. Maybe that's how it all came to this.

Eventually I found her. Again, she had been there the whole time, and I think that on some level I knew that. I remember that moment, that first time, standing back in the temple, "Sheik" lecturing me about the history of the Triforce, then vanishing in a blaze of light revealing… her.

I fell in love.

Tenses are odd things. I say things like "first" and that I "fell" in love, but that's not really correct. Not for me and her. Maybe it's better to say that, in that moment, I "remembered" being in love. As if that could describe the weight of a thousand lifetimes crashing down in a single instant, burying you. It's like that every time I find her, really the only thing worth waking up for some days.

The only thing that hurts anymore is when she doesn't remember me.

But in that moment, when it seemed like everything was good and right with the world, HE swept in, took her away. Maybe that's how I failed, I surrendered to anger. I've been told that I'm supposed to be a servant of a goddess, or sometimes goddesses, and generally religious types frown on anger as an emotion. My fury was like a living thing. Even Navi, who normally wouldn't shut up, was silenced by it. Empath that she was, she could feel it, baking off me in waves, like malignant fire.

Having something and then losing it is much worse than never having it at all.

I've been told I have anger issues. I have been told that holding onto anger is like swallowing poison and expecting your enemy to die. I'm pretty sure those people have never had the experience of seeing the woman they've loved for a thousand lifetimes, in a full state of panic, be swallowed by darkness, snatched away by the very soul of evil.

So yeah, I get angry.

Anger is a weapon. I will admit that that "first" time, I let it control me. I was young, really still just a ten-year-old, even if my body, and my hormones, were older than that. But anger is a weapon, and a weapon is just a tool. Anger makes you stronger at the expense of precision and control, sometimes anger is the right tool. It isn't always, you don't use a sword where you need a set of tweezers after all. But that is the lesson that experience taught me. I've heard people claim that they fight without anger, but for me that would be like trying to build a house without a hammer. Sure, you can do it, but is it really worth the effort?

So, I stormed the castle. One more dungeon, one more boss fight. HE gloated, she glared, I waited. We fought as he floated in the air lobbing spheres of crackling energy at me. I won. We fought as he mutated, really for the first time, into HIM. I won.

Really though when I say "I won" I mean I beat him down to a pulp and then she defeated him. It's always that way. I fight him; I weaken, wound or otherwise impair, she finishes him. I don't mind, it's not a contest. If anything, I think she needs to be the one to do it. After all the kidnappings and general feelings of helplessness she must feel, I imagine it must help, asserting control like that, facing it down. Must be very therapeutic.

And they say I'm the brave one.

Maybe it's better to say we defeat HIM together. Usually the SWORD plays a role, "sealing the darkness," or what have you. Really, it's just thematic for me at this point. Best to say that we are a team, I can't do it without her, she can't do it without me.

I remember kissing her.

We separated, breathless, from one another not more than a few yards away from where she had sealed HIM.

In that moment we were happy.

I remember that look of blissful contentment on her face, how it changed to confusion and then to horror as my vision filled with blue white light. The beginnings of her scream were buried by that unearthly ringing.

I remember waking, back in the temple.

My armor was gone. My pack was empty. My SWORD was gone. Navi was gone.

SHE was gone.

I ran outside the temple and discovered it was half buried in sand. Desert as far as the eye could see.

To say that I was confused is something of an understatement.

I have forgotten the details, except to say that I managed to claw my way out of that desert eventually. I made my way to greener lands, looking for her.

I do remember finding her however. I snuck my way through the palace gardens, past guards with blue crested helmets, and eventually found myself in her library. No matter what else changes she always loves books. She looked up at me, totally startled, and it hit me all over again. A lifetime, multiple lifetimes, of love and companionship striking my heart like lightning.

It hit me. Not her.

I remember that sense of dawning horror, the bare echoes of which I still feel even now when it happens, as I realized she did not remember me. I remember realizing that she looked different, her hair was a bit shorter, a bit darker. She was a bit taller too. But the eyes were the same, those were her eyes. Even if I hadn't already known the truth of it from my nose to my sand filled boots, I would still recognize those eyes anywhere. She started to speak, to ask what it was that I wanted, and of course HE chose that exact moment to appear.

He was a dragon.

He was a dragon and, despite my best efforts, he carried her off.

So, I got to work.

I'm sure there were trials, and dungeons, and keys and relics. I'm sure I raved in anger at the Gods or Spirits or whatever it was that I believed in back then. I know that I, that WE, defeated HIM.

WE always do.

I remembering HIM screaming in rage, vanishing from existence. I remember her turning to me, face shining in triumph and joy. I remember my heart leaping as I realized she had remembered and that she was HERSELF again. I remember dropping the SWORD and running for her, a smile on my face.

I remember not making it.

Blue-white, Ringing.

I woke up. Back in the temple.

It's always like that. I wake up, I look for her, I find her, I find HIM, I fight HIM, WE win. I get somewhere between zero and sixty seconds, then I'm gone.

I wake up, in the temple.

Things change, but really, they just serve to highlight that things really DON'T change.

Terrain changes; I've woken up to islands, deserts, mountains, glaciers, caverns, grasslands, badlands, wheat fields, and active volcanoes.

Always in the temple.

The amount of time I "sleep" changes. I've slept through whole millennia in a blink and sometimes as little as a decade.

The mission changes. Sometimes I'm greeted by priests singing hymns, my arrival heralded by prophecy and scripture, and a clear quick mission. "Stab this tree stump and we can seal HIM in there!" Sometimes I wake up and the world is in ruins, on fire, infested with dark creatures and madness. Sometimes I wake up to find the world at war, in need of a general. And while I'm not brilliant, I do know killing.

Sometimes I wake up and the language has changed. Again. And people wonder why I don't talk much. I'll give even odds that if I managed to drag someone in here, to read this they wouldn't understand it.

I haven't seen anyone yet in this… incarnation.

No one was here to great me. Judging by the ruins outside the window it looks like the Sheikah Empire had fallen into ruins… again. I get the sense this might be one of those long drawn out ones.

But even she changes. She can be tall, short, slender, curvy, dark haired or blonde. Sometimes she's just a little girl, sometimes she's ancient. Sometimes she's a princess, sometimes she's a peasant. It doesn't matter to me as long as she remembers. Only the eyes, those crystal blue eyes, are the same. I'd know those eyes anywhere.

The worst part, the absolute worst part, is how horrible, how absolutely horrible being happy is. I want to save her, stop the slaughter, bring peace. But I know, I KNOW, as soon as I do I'm gone and I'll have to start all over again.

Little bright spots stick in my mind. They're really all I have anymore, my only anchors. I pull them out on those lonely nights on the road, between one dungeon and another, when I wonder why I even bother. The highlights of the hero.

I remember best the three incarnations in one.

I woke. She was there, maybe nine years old, holding the SWORD. I took it, and went to go fight her demons for her. I… I won't say I hate it when she's a little girl, but it seems wrong somehow. Remembering kissing her, when she looks like that. It was a short mission thankfully and she didn't remember me at all.

I never force the issue when she doesn't remember me. It's not fair to her, to expect something from her just because I have expectations. I just do my duty and hope for the best. Hope that something I do jogs her memory, makes her remember how many times I've done this before.

How much I love her.

I woke up and she was there again, eyes downcast, maybe mid twenty's this time, holding out the SWORD. I sighed and slung it over my back like I always do.

She was crying.

I was confused. There weren't any threats nearby, and she is very rarely a weepy person. So, I just held her close. I don't need to understand to help. I very rarely understand, I just do.

She kept saying she was sorry. Over and over again. I couldn't for the life of me think of what she could be sorry about.

She was sorry she hadn't remembered me.

It was the same her.

I don't recall that ever having happened before. But I was struck then with a happiness I hadn't felt in… well time is odd for me, so let's just say a long time. I was here and so was she, my she, the one that remembered me.

That was the longest incarnation I can remember. One of the "world at war" scenarios. I wonder if it says something about me that those two years are the happiest of my existence. Living out of command tents, strategizing, leading, fighting losing battles. Probably not everyone's idea of a good time.

It was for me, because she was with me.

And because for the first time, I got to meet my daughter.

My Hyla. My little Hyla.

This is what I'm talking about. This is my happiest moment, and it's still mingled with the worst sort of grief, the worst misery. I never bring anything with me when I wake up, but if there was one thing I could choose, just the one, it wouldn't be weapons, or armor, or money. It would have just been a little sketch of that tiny beautiful thing that she and I made together.

Because try as I might, I can't remember my daughter's face anymore.

Finally, it was the final battle. I kissed my daughter for the last time and her mother and I went to face HIM.

WE won. And again, I lost everything.

I woke, in the temple.

She was there again, the same incarnation of her.

She was eighty, and our daughter was a queen.

It didn't stick, doesn't mesh. The image of that stern matriarch, the queen of Hyrule, with grandchildren of her own, and that little pink bundle that cooed and cried as I planned a war.

This is why I don't talk much. It leads to thinking, and if I think too long I'm pretty sure I'll go mad.

Maybe I already am.

Honestly, I don't know the point, the purpose, of anything I do anymore. It used to be about saving the world, saving her. By what does it matter when no matter what I do, how successful it seems I am, I wake up and find the world in ruins, flooded or on fire. It's like I'm not saving the world, just condemning it, to another cycle of fear and darkness.

I try not to think, I just do.

And then there's all the dying.

It doesn't happen as much anymore but I die sometimes.

I used to die a lot.

I've died in almost every way imaginable. Every way imaginable by someone with a significantly better imagination than me anyway. Every time I just wake back up, back in the temple, to run out and do it all over again.

Spears, arrows, swords, flame, falling, drowning, crushed by rocks, frozen in ice, eaten by wolves. I've seen it all. Felt it all. It hurts, but it's the kind of pain you get used to, the kind of pain that's just in the body. It's the heart pain that sticks with you, although I have to say that that's getting pretty scarred over too.

Every time she doesn't remember me it feels like I lose a little piece of myself.

I have given up. Given up trying to find a way out, given up trying to understand, given up caring about everyone and everything. Everything except her. I seem to recall a long stretch of time where I was sure that this whole thing was just a dream, that eventually I would wake up and everything would be alright again. I gave that up too.

The only time I'm happy, the only time I'm whole, are those brief seconds where she looks at me and smiles and I know, from brain to bootlaces, that she loves me. Everything else is just the same washed out greyness, the same motions over and over. Wake up, find her, save her.

I don't think, I just do.

I'd do anything for her, for my Zelda.

I don't know why I'm writing this, why I'm scratching it into the stone of the temple walls. She asked me to, but odds are good she won't remember it. At some point I won't remember it either.

I don't even remember my name any more. I'm not a person any more. I'm just a prisoner, a job, a function.

I'm just the Link between this age and the next.

But I will be DAMNED if I leave her alone to suffer. I will be damned if I let HIM win.

I will be damned if stop.

Because I'm the fucking Hero of Time, and time keeps moving forward.

And so do I.