Link wanted it all to end. He was tired of the Surface; he was tired of fighting the monsters. He wanted to be home again. He turned his head to look at his sword where it sat innocently in its sheath. "Fi?"
"Yes Master?" Came her monotone chime.
Link looked down at the ground and closed his eyes. "Take me home."
"Yes Master. I will call your Guardian Bird."
As soon as Link set foot in Skyloft, he knew where he needed to go. The Knight Academy. That was the first home he had.
That was where he had met Zelda.
The front doors of the Academy creaked slightly upon opening. Link walked down the empty hallway, trying not to draw attention to himself. He tiptoed up the stairs and down the hall, passed the ornate double doors of the headmaster's office, passed Karane's room, then he came to a stop in front of the door next to Karane's.
Zelda's room.
He twisted the doorknob and walked inside.
Link closed the door softly behind him. A small gasp left him as he looked around the room. Everything within it held some sort of memory of his best friend. The amount of nostalgia in the room was overwhelming. It seemed to seep through the dorm's very walls.
He looked at the painting of Zelda and her father, hanging on the wall. Zelda was sitting beside her father with her hands laced in her lap. A smile played on his lips without him even thinking about it. She was hardly ever that serious. She was wild, free. She was just… Zelda.
There were pink curtains hanging on the walls. He chuckled softly upon remembering the day when they had set those up together. He had gotten himself completely entangled in them like a straightjacket and Zelda had to get him back out again. But not before she found his all his ticklish spots and brushed them with the blue tassels at the end of the drapes until he cried out for mercy.
He looked down and saw her diary lying open on her desk. He sighed and reached out, taking the small book in hand, looking at her handwriting. He smiled sadly, remembering how she always stuck her tongue out when she wrote. Or how she tickled his nose with the end of her pencil to keep him from falling asleep next to her in class. He closed the book quickly; they were her secrets, and they were hers to keep.
He looked to her bureau and saw the basket of yarn and knitting needles on it. There was a little hand-knit doll of a little green man over to the side. He remembered how she would always be knitting under the trees. He used to watch her do that through his own window while he whittled and carved statues of out of wood for her to admire.
To his surprise, he started to feel heat building up in his eyes. He brushed the sensation away with the side of his hand, trying to get rid of the feeling.
Then his eyes came to rest on her bed. He remembered how she would sit down on the end of her bed with him and read aloud to him until the sun went down in the evening. Most times, he would fall asleep on one of the flowered pillows before she would finish. He shook his head with a small chuckle. He was always so lazy. It wasn't like that now.
Being a hero was demanding; every second was a ticking timer and every second he spent away from Zelda, the farther away she would get. His eyes dropped to the floor sadly before flicking up to her bedside table. His breath caught in his chest.
There was a single small photograph. He and Zelda were standing together, laughing at the camera. Zelda's hand was in his hair, probably caught mid-ruffle. He looked down at the photo version of himself.
He looked so… free.
Without the weight of the world on his shoulders, no battle scars, no worry lines, just a carefree, naïve, young boy, arm in arm with his most favorite person in all the world.
Link's eyes filled with tears as he traced a single finger across Zelda's beaming face.
She looked so happy.
"I remember… when we were down by the lake together…" He whispered, "She jumped right in without a second thought, but I stood and watched. I was scared that the water would be too cold." He felt a strange sound escape him, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "She told me to jump in and that it was fine, but I refused." He smiled as he felt warmth cascade down his cheek, "She wouldn't hear a word of it. She just jumped out, grabbed my by the chest, and threw me right in." Another warm presence, this time on his left cheek. "Our clothes were ruined from the salt of the lake, but we didn't care." He could almost hear their young laugher in his ears as he sat down on the edge of Zelda's bed, his eyes never leaving the photograph.
A far off look crossed his face as he remembered the look on her face as she fell to the twister, then rushing after her only to be tossed away. "She was always the one to throw me into things. Wherever she went, I followed." He smiled down at the pictured Zelda, remembering the real Zelda trapped in the crystal. "I guess you pulled me in again Zel. You'll never be able to get rid of me…"
He wanted it to be the way it used to be. He wanted to be a child again.
But he was no longer a child.
None of them were.
They had both lost their innocence down there on the Surface. Link had killed thousands of monsters and become a seasoned war hero. But that wasn't what he wanted to be.
Zelda was the reincarnation of the Goddess Hylia. She had all the wisdom in the world. But he didn't want that. Ever since Hylia had surfaced in her, the real Zelda had fallen into the shadows. He wanted the old Zelda back.
He wanted to just hang out in Skyloft with his best friend like he used to do.
But that was no longer possible.
She was stuck in that crystal.
She was a Goddess, he was mortal.
And she was gone.
Link clutched the frame in his hands so tightly that it hurt and pressed it to his chest over his heart, letting himself fall backwards onto Zelda's bed, staring forlornly up at the ceiling. The blankets smelled like her. He could smell the perfume that she always wore; like lavender. The memories put a sad smile on his face.
He shut his eyes tightly, wrapping his arms around the precious photograph like a lifeline. He let the tears fall, silently sobbing as he was surrounded by memories of the girl who had slipped right through his fingers. All because he couldn't reach her in time.
They had been best friends for so long that he could hardly remember what his life had been like without her. They spent every day together. Before, the longest they had been apart was for a few hours; now, he was torn apart from her. When he had caught that mere glimpse of her in the Earth Temple, that was the first he had seen of her in two weeks, three days and seven hours. Yes, he had counted. And those two weeks three days and seven hours had stretched out into eternity. A wracking sob, louder than the others, ripped through him at the memory of all the pain he'd felt. What was he going to do if she was going to sleep in that crystal for a thousand years? If he didn't have a mission he was supposed to be focusing on, he might've gone insane by now. He closed his eyes, trying to let himself fall asleep so as to stop feeling the pain if at least for a few hours.
Just before his mind was gone from the world and drifted into unconsciousness, he could have sworn he heard her tinkling laugh echo in his ears once more.