Zelda stood in front of her throne, her hands delicately positioned on the hilt of her ceremonial sword. Above her head, the marble statue of the Triforce was perched precariously over the royal dais. It had never fallen even in the most catastrophic assaults on Hyrule Castle, and it would not fall today. When she was a young girl, the threat of the cold stone looming overhead had filled Zelda with fear whenever she was called to attend the king at the head of the Great Hall. Her father's throne was now hers. Soon she would no longer be a princess, but a queen.
Zelda gripped the hilt of her sword tighter, pulling the fabric of her gloves against her knuckles. The slight movement of her muscles caused her ornamental pauldrons to shift and rub uncomfortably against the delicate skin of her clavicles. The pins holding her crown in place bit into her scalp, and there was a slight itch at her hairline from the irritation caused by the metal plating. She worried that the heavy bronze metalwork at the waist of her gown was pulling her bodice out of place, but it was beneath her dignity to glance down and check.
She held her back straight and glared down the bridge of her nose at the crowd before her. Representatives from every tribe and province of Hyrule had come to witness her address at the conclusion of the long siege of the usurper king Zant. The kingdom's nobility had finally emerged from hiding, donning finery that had somehow escaped the ravages of war. Commoners of high standing stood shoulder to shoulder with the members of her court who would once have haughtily shunned their company. These were a people still recovering from the shock of the enormous blow that had been dealt to them, the peace of their lives shattered when the very sky cracked open and Twilight poured down onto their homes.
As she waited for the last few murmurs to fall silent, Zelda's thoughts turned to Link, the hero who had delivered them from despair. By all rights he should have been here too, but she was grateful that she did not have to face him as she announced the decision she had made. When she first looked into his eyes as a wolf and saw the human heart that animated his spirit, Zelda knew that she had finally found someone she could trust, and now, only months later, she felt as if she were betraying that trust. She thought of Midna, twin of her heart and sharer of her secrets, and wondered how the princess of the Twilight Realm would handle this situation.
Scanning her eyes over the faces in the assembly, Zelda could make out the members of her personal guard, the men and women who had called themselves "the Resistance." Proud Ashei, bookish Shad, kindly Rusl, forbidding Auru, and mighty Telma – they had not given up on her, even when all hope seemed lost. More than anyone else in the crowd, they seemed apprehensive, each of them positioned close to the entrances to the Great Hall, armed and prepared to fight should something unexpected occur. As for everyone else in the immense room, there was no struggle left in their eyes, merely exhaustion. Hyrule had seen dark times, and the people were too weak to do anything except to hope for a brighter future.
As their princess, Zelda understood that it was her role to embody that hope. They expected her to promise that the difficult days were in the past, and that the kingdom would soon enter a new age of prosperity. Earlier that morning, when the first rays of sunlight had barely crossed the castle's outer walls, she instructed her maidservants to apply a light dusting of powder to her face, asking them to mix finely ground minerals into the pigment. After having spent so much time in the shrouded realm between life and death, her skin had lost its natural luster. Perhaps it would return eventually, but she could not wait. She needed to shine today, to radiate a light bright enough to drive back the shadows that surrounded her.
As we have sown, so have we reaped, she thought, gritting her teeth and raising her chin. This was her fate, to have been born a princess of Hyrule, a crumbling kingdom slowly slouching its way into obscurity. Not all of the castle staff had returned after the Bulblins removed themselves from the corridors and courtyards, which were still littered with broken blades and the remains of campfires. The floors and pillars of the Great Hall bore traces of the battles that had raged here, and no one had bothered to conceal the dusty piles of fallen masonry. People would surely speak of these things later, these small manifestations of the disorder that had plagued the monarchy long before the war. How difficult it was to move forward with the weight of the past dragging behind her every step.
Another flash of anxiety raced through Zelda's mind. Would the chips in the gold foil on her crown be visible? Was the patched hem on the train of her gown properly concealed? How noticeable were the dark crescents under her eyes? Not that it mattered; she knew that she was not the object of the piercing gazes cast in the direction of the towering throne.
Zelda raised her hand to silence the crowd, which quieted immediately in anticipation of her words. She steeled herself and took a deep breath.
"Gentlemen and peers of Hyrule, noble lords and ladies. I thank you all for gathering here today. I have called you to my castle, this magnificent symbol of our kingdom's glorious history, to deliver a pronouncement that will affect us all as we move bravely forward into a new golden age of lasting peace. I hereby announce to you, my subjects and my friends, that a week from today I will marry the man standing beside me, the Gerudo lord Ganondorf Dragmire."