...not posting anything recently. In the past month... or maybe three. School is killer, man, and it sucks. I've almost got the next chapter written, which has also been a bit of a drag since it's kind of just filler, but... anyway... I've had time to just sort of day dream about my stories and so I came up with a sequel in which the past gets messed up and Link is sent to an alternate future (original concept, I know :P) but anyway, I just really wanted to write this scene out. So, hopefully, some people like it.
Also, if you read, there may be names which you don't recognize; they're OC's. It's okay :P
Zelda stared down to Ganondorf, now motionless and dead. Not but a few minutes before had he been up and assaulting them, terrorizing she and Link, but now, there he was, dead.
Link looked down to Ganondorf as well, not only going over the fight which had just occured but also the one from what seemed like so long ago. The fight alongside his Zelda. The fight for his country. The fight for his people. But that was a lifetime ago. Now he was here within a broken nation. Here he was with people that he did not know. Here he was with an imposter. This was not his country. This was not his Zelda. These were not his friends and family. This was not his life.
But now, more than ever, did he know that he may never have the chance to return to it.
Zelda was the first to break the silence.
"...you saved me." she said, still staring down to Ganondorf. "You saved all of Hyland." Link glanced up to her, no emotion on his face. Zelda glanced up to him as well, meeting his eyes, with hers seeming to shine. His did not. "Hero," she said looking up, "the Triforce is now also safe."
Link looked up along with Zelda and to the now large and shining set of holy triangles which floated and gleamed before them. He did not revel in this sight as Zelda did, but instead simply stared at them, an empty, unsatisfied feeling within him.
Zelda walked forth, a smile on her face, clasping her hands to her chest, staring up in awe at the set of magical relics.
"It has been so long since I have seen them united," she explained. "They bring hope to my heart, hope for another beginning. Hope for another start..." She paused, still looking up, still smiling, for an extended period of silence. Her smile faded over time as she looked up to the Triforce, a certain seriousness beginning to take her over. Her hands lowered slightly, now just above her stomach, and her pose seemed less hopeful. Quietly, she said, "...but now I know better."
Link looked to Zelda, his eyes widening a slight bit, now interested in what she had to say.
"You know better?" he asked. She turned to him, a sad frown upon her face, but that shortly turned into a small smile.
"Hmm...yes... I've learned from my mistake of ever using the Triforce. That is what brought this entire war onto our hands...and...and I am truly sorry...sorry for everything..." Zelda replied. Link looked her over as she turned away.
"Who are you apologizing to?" Link asked calmly. "To me or the rest of Hyland?" Zelda looked up to him, a hint of surprise on her features.
"Well, I... I guess to you all. It... it was my fault, after all." she said with a shrug. "After all, everyone in Hyland has had to suffer because of my faults. But never," she said with certainty and authority in her voice, "never will I allow it to happen again. Not as long as I am living will my people ever suffer once more."
Link smiled slightly at Zelda, feeling rather proud of the way she was acting and her over all demeanor now that all had happened. She was more convicted in her thinking, and much more sure of herself than the few times that they'd met before. Link looked down and away from Zelda, the ghost of a smile still present upon his features, and then looked up to the Triforce.
"So...what will happen to the Triforce then?" he asked.
Zelda looked up, a decision being made as was clearly shown within her eyes.
"I will wish for it to be sealed away within the Sacred Realm." she declared. "It will be my final wish upon it."
Link looked up to the Triforce. He felt forlorn, and a pang of longing hit his chest. He didn't know why it came to him now, why on earth it all seemed to come to his mind now how much he'd missed everything from before. How much he'd missed Zelda, Sia, Ilda, the villagers from Ordon, and the rest of the Sages and even their people. How much he'd missed his home.
Tears stung at his eyes, and he forced them back, firced them to not spill over. Not now.
"But," Zelda said, turning to him, a mischeveous smirk on her face, "I could not live with myself if I did not allow my Hero a wish upon it first."
Link's eyes went wide and his mouth fell a gape. A wish? A wish on the Triforce?
"Are-are you serious, Princess?" he addressed. "I- You're granting me a wish?!"
Zelda smiled and nervously bit her bottom lip.
"Well, I, I thought that if anybody would deserve a wish after all of this -on of free choice, mind you- that it would be you, the Hero of Hyland." she told him. "And...I think that you deserve that. For me to show you the very least of my gratitude for what you have done, a wish on the Triforce should be made." With a slight pause, she added, "And I will wish with you, to make sure that your wish is to come true."
Link smiled, pleased by her generosity. He then looked to the Triforce. The Triforce was illuminated brightly in the late evening light, glowing majestically before them. And he had a wish. He had a wish on the Triforce, and he knew exactly what he was going to wish for.
"Princess Zelda," he said happily, gleefully, with no hint of sorrow within his voice, "I know what I am going to wish for," he told her. Zelda smiled.
"Very well, then, Hero," she said. The two walked up to the Triforce, standing side by side, with Link on the right of the Sacred Relic and Zelda on the left. Zelda turned to Link and smiled again. "On your mark, Hero." she said. He nodded.
Link looked up to the Triforce and smiled, his eyes watering once more. Home. Soon he was to be home. Soon everything was to be right. To be as it should be.
He raised up his left hand, reaching out to the Triforce which had ironically been his -once long ago, once only moments before. Zelda raised her hand to her own Triforce. Looking to each other for assurance and timing, they nodded.
They pressed their hands against the Triforce. Link and Zelda both made their wishes; his for home, her's for his. He felt that magical, powerful feeling that he had once before when he'd made his first wish upon the Triforce. He felt the magic reaching deep into his heart, searching his soul for his wish, searching for any impurities within his being and mind. There, it found none.
I wish to go home, he thought. I wish for everything to be right; for the war to have gone the way that it should have before I interfered, for all of the events of the Hylian Civil War to have occurred, for the ones that I know and care about to be where they are supposed to and why and how they are supposed to be. And, for most of all, for Zelda to be the way she is supposed to. For her to be the one I had come to love.
He heard, over the sparklings and twinkling noises which the Triforce produced, a slight gasp to be emmitted from Zelda's mouth. He did not let this deter him from his wish. He was not about to let this slip through his fingers. He had to wish with all of his heart.
Hear me, Hylia. Hear me, Goddesses. Hear me, Din, Farore, and Nayru. Hear my plea and let it come true. Let my wish be granted.
The Triforce shot up into the air, a long trail of golden light following it up into the sky. Link looked up and followed it until it came to a stop far up in the air. The Triforce began to glow bold and bright. It became almost blinding to watch the more that it shinned. He watched as much as he could, until he had to turn and look away. That was when it happened. A bright flash occurred in the sky, shooting up even higher into the late dusk sky, and spreading out to the corners of the kingdom.
The light encompassed the kingdom, which still seemed to be at war. In places all over Hyland, residents were fighting and battling the demons of the land, but abruptly all seemed to come to a stop. The older Sage of Time, Link's mother, fighting alongside other villagers from Skyview were frozen into place as the golden lights reached them and stuck them to the spot. In Kakariko, where another invasion of demons as well as shadow beasts had begun, forced Impa, Ilda, and her daughter Sia to be stopped as they led the battle against the beasts. In the mountains, the Zora, the Gorons, and up in the sky to the tribe of the Rito, all battles paused in their place like a picture as the holy lights of the Triforce covered them with their golden glow, turning them into golden particles which floated off with the wind.
Link and Zelda both looked up, seeing the dome of magical golden light circling the nation of Hyland. He was awestruck, his eyes wide and mystified, and his lips apart in wonder. The same could be said for Zelda, though not for the same reason.
Zelda looked down to the ground and away from the sky, her own eyes wide with another kind of feeling or wonder, of amazement. Of shock.
"You're not from here," she uttered, causing Link to turn and look down to her, hearing what she'd said. "You're not from this time."
Link looked at her curiously.
"How did- Why would you figure such a-"
Zelda looked up to him, her brows furrowed and her emotions on a rampage. She felt several pangs within her chest, dreadful, awful pangs of those mixed and raging emotions.
"I saw your wish," she said, becoming flustered as a wash of all sorts of emotions took her over. "You wished to go home; to a different time; or at least, a different version of this one," she explained. Link stared at her incredulously, amazed and yet guilty that she knew.
The golden lights over Hyland were drawing closer.
"I did," he said, "but-"
"I should have known," she said, now making sense of it all in her mind. "There should have never been two Sages of Time at one point," she said. Link now furrowed his own brows, confused by her. "You and your mother; the Honorable Sage Addie." Link's eyes went wide. "I knew she was the Sage of Time, and I knew that she hadn't a child, and- and your being here was a mistake!" she exclaimed, her eyes going wide. "I- or rather another version of me were playing our Sage instruments together -the Harp and Ocarina."
Link caught his breath and his eyes grew wider.
"How do you know about that?" he asked.
The magical lights drew farther in towards the country.
Zelda was embarrassed to say. But she knew she had not much more time to explain. Heh, she thought, time.
"When we wished upon the Triforce," she said, her cheeks growing warm and red, "our hearts and minds were as one as the Triforce evaluated our souls." Zelda looked Link in the eyes and noticed that his own face was growing red as well. "A-And I heard your wish; you wished to go home. To your family. To your friends. To your country, and-and-" she couldn't bring herself to say it.
"-To my Zelda," he finished quietly for her.
Zelda looked up to him sadly for a long time, her lips quivering and her eyes watering. She didn't know why she felt this way, why she felt so confused and heart broken and yet happy for him all at the same time. She felt like a rugged mess, not at all like a princess.
The lights over Hyland drew nearer still.
"Y-yes," she said. "I-I saw your memories of her a-as well," she explained, twidling her fingers before her stomach. "She -you -you both loved one another." she said in a low voice. Zelda looked down and off to the ground, more than certain that her face was as red as a tomato now. "You both... you endured so much. So much that I could only comprehend in a matter of seconds. Maybe that is why I feel this way..." She uttered the last part more so to herself than to him.
The lights over Hyland were close to them now.
"Link," she said, addressing him simply as Link for the first time since they'd met, "Link I'm sorry. I'm sorry for having you endure more than your fair share. I'm sorry for ever forcing it upon you..." She paused and looked down and away, knowing not what more to tell him other than that she was sorry.
Link looked down to this version of Zelda, this daintier, more insecure, more -dare he say it- broken version of Zelda. She was not the one that he had known and loved, the one that he was going to see in only moments, maybe even seconds, but she was still Zelda. She was still his princess. He still cared about her.
Link took her hands in his own, and she looked up and met his eyes, slightly confused by his actions.
"Zelda," he said, addressing her informally for the first time since they'd met, "I'd do anything for you, no matter what incarnation, or whatever life time that it was, or whatever that you or I were. I'd do it for you because there is no other like you. You may not be the Zelda I grew up with or came to know, but you are still Zelda. You are still Zelda, and that will forever be."
Zelda's quivering lips were forced into a smile, and her eyes were watering and tearing up much more than before. She felt elated and distraught, still such conflicting emotions yet less than had been stirring around in her being than before. She saw that past Link, the lights of the Triforce were coming to a close around the spot in which they stood, and that the time that she was here would almost be up and gone with.
Zelda jumped up and hugged Link tightly around his kneck. It oddly reminded Link of something that his Zelda would do.
"Thank you," she whispered graciously into his ear. "Thank you for all that you have done; for me now, and for me then. I -in any of my forms- could never have asked for more."
She leaned in, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and timing it so that just as she pulled away from him did the lights ever begin to encompass them.
Link watched, wide eyed, as the golden light washed over her, just now standing on her own feet, hand still lightly within his. She smiled wide at him, teary eyed and forlorn, yet happy for him, as her form began to dissappear into the golden light. Her dress became millions of particles of light which blew away in the wind, trailing together in a unified fashion. The light crept up her body, up her dress, turning each an every inch of her into light. He furrowed his brows, not realizing that this would be such a sad and emotional parting.
"I'll see you soon," she whispered, just audible enough for him to hear. The light completely washed over the two, and the last thing he could see of her was her bare hand resting upon his, but that too was soon long gone.
Link looked up into the golden light and was swallowed whole, and the world around him went white.