A/N- So I actually wrote this at the tail end of 2015. I kinda needed to, but I discouraged myself hard from posting it. Then I reread it and like kinda liked it? At the very least I want to post it. There's a lot to edit but it was a very important thinly veiled metaphor for a very important time in my life so it's important to me.

I tried to go for a sort of old-style character novel. Like, a lot of those novels sort of meander a lot around character's thoughts, and I wanted to provide that sort of perspective while also doing it... right? Haha. The character is the most important part of any story but especially this one.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, regret nothing, and let them forget nothing (that's how you know this is retro haha)

Close your eyes, cover your ears, strip yourself naked, lie motionless, and who are you?

When the world around you is a non-factor, you're floating on air, you've stripped yourself of your senses and you are completely disconnected, who are you?

Feel yourself, not physically but spiritually. From the inside. Who are you when you don't hold yourself back? In your core, I suppose you could call it your soul, who are you? What do you want? What are you willing to do to get it? When you meditate there, a veil of nothingness devoid of the masks the world gives you and the cultures you fall into, what does your mind fall into?

Desire.

I have lain alone for countless nights, not out of choice or loss. It's not angst that drives me to strip my layers away, sexuality that drives me to seek the comfort of my own skin, or jealousy that leads to me moving heaven and earth to be alone, falling into myself, eyes closed on silk sheets, motionless, door locked, hands dutifully at the edges of my bed, alone, feeling nothing but the heart in the center of my chest, connected to every vein that carries my body in ways bones and skin cannot do alone.

Nothing provokes me but a simple desire to find myself.

I've spent those countless nights trying to find myself, what I want, who I am, what I can do. When I let myself go, when I release the meditation, I release my mind and its thoughts. The moment I do so, it runs to what I desire most, clear as a bell after being restrained, a prisoner seeking sunlight that dared not seep through the bars.

Desires, however, are nothing if not coupled with action.

This is a story about such action.

If my calculations are correct, it has been one-hundred-and-seventeen days since my twenty-sixth year of nativity. In those times, I have grown as any human should. As a child, I started on my mother's breast until I became capable of eating solid food. Spiritually, I was the same, guided as a child through easy decisions until I was released, given a leash to make my own decisions. However, while physically I became capable of digesting more than food- knowledge, understanding, wisdom, courage, the spirit of the goddesses- my decisions have never reached the point of difficulty.

I've been told such a state of life is called a luxury. I'd never imagined luxury to be a life as a marionette doll.

A concept like a doll, how loaded it is. It is a child's plaything, a pretty little canvas devoid of meaning, personality, humanity, until people project their own visions of perfection, desire, and acceptability onto it. The doll is never its own entity. The doll is whatever others make of it.

The strings on my arms and legs became more and more noticeable when what I consumed began to overpower what I was made capable of. The strings are subtle, for they do not control everything I am. I can walk on my own, act on my own, make my own decisions based off of what I have. However, the second I stray too far, risk something further, let myself go, the strings stop me, freezing me in place and slowly pulling me back to center stage where I belong.

The princess is a kingdom's headline act, after all.

The star act needs a scene set for her. The set piece was the castle, from which the fate of quiet Hylia was controlled. The puppeteer was a well-meaning, loving father that was the nation's king, a man I respected and loved regardless of what being his daughter meant for me. The story was that of minor decisions and the training of a princess to eventually transform from a bored girl with nothing important about her to a bored woman with nothing important about her. The co-star, for a far too short time in my life, was the only unique person I'd ever met in the castle.

"Impa!" 10 year old Zelda shrieked, running through the halls, her head covering flowing in her own breeze. There was no fear for this girl, not yet. Children are fearless, because children are stupid, and I was a stupid, fearless child. It's no coincidence that being a child was often the most fun I had in my life, although I'm not sure Impa would say the same.

My Sheikah guardian angel Impa found me by a cellar door, pointing in excitement. It was a cold day, so around her neck was a white scarf. It was the only soft thing about her; strong, well-tested muscles, solid metal suit around her chest with bold blue garments around it, pointy Hylian ears, and decorative war paint over a cold, unamused glare that her charge, a mischievous 10 year old, had screamed across the castle just to play with her.

"So you're not dying," she confirmed.

"Nope!" Fearless, stupid me confirmed with a smile.

"And you are not in danger."

Slowly, I got it. "Oh. Uhm, no."

"Yet you feel the need to shriek bloody murder for me across the castle halls."

"Ohhhh."

Impa smirked, used to theatrics from the star doll of the show. "I shall remember to recap the story of the Princess Who Cried Wolf when it comes time to put you to bed tonight." Finally seeing that I was humbled enough, skin blushed red and eyes downturned, she eased into a smile. "What would her majesty like today?"

"Well…" Still feeling like my request was stupid to ask of my guard, I choke it out. "I really wanted to go down into the cellar. But I didn't want to go alone."

"Why would that be?" As usual, not content to do anything without a few probing questions.

"Well... " As usual, not content to answer without stammering like a stupid kid. "I'm just really bored, and I wanted to try something new."

Impa held her chin in her hand, just above her scarf. "Where is your father?"

"In a meeting."

"The other officials and workers?"

"There too."

Impa smirked, that devious smirk that informed me that my harebrained childish stunt was a go. "I see no reason why not."

Before I could even cheer, she kicked the cellar door open. "Stay close to me," she instructed, as I looked in awe at the darkness and dimming light.

I grabbed her hand and oohed in interest. What was such a simple wine cellar to her was to a child an underground labyrinth. I remember as I reached up for her, a fond, if not envious, smile from Impa. "After you, my liege," she said, in a familiar sarcastic manner that still had a twinge of parental admiration I'd not heard from a woman in my father's eight years as a widower, and never since.

Slowly, we walked in. The dark was hard to see through, even with the occasional torchlights highlighting wine racks and empty shelves. Being so small made the world around me so large, and in many ways I was unprepared for it, yet electrified at the same time. I shivered from the cold, and Impa wrapped her scarf around my neck without fail, too powerful to be bothered by the temperature. I never thanked her, but I should have. I'd occasional hear the skittering of small animals and jump straight into Impa, who always caught me.

"Are you afraid?" she asked.

"Yes," I responded, "but I like it."

Impa hmmed in a way I'd later realize was placing a bookmark in a scary story from her mental library come bedtime, and squeezed my hand. As I explored the world around me, I imagined that it made me stronger, like the woman who guided me through this meaningless expedition. Turns out, it was only a shadow of bigger self-imposed challenges.

After all, how does the star act rebel?

Secrets.

They can give you your lines, your duties, your purpose. They can set the boundaries, give you the props, and tell you what you are supposed to do. They can dress you up in whatever they want and make you a character.

However, the actress in center stage still has a working human mind, and a thousand lost treasures could be discovered before a secret could be found in a strong mind. Twenty-six years of putting on a show can make a mind stronger than gold. It's important to separate yourself from a character, after all.

Let's say someday you go against the plan. Part of it is deliberate. Impa's rebellion was to create her own little side stories with the charge she was supposed to stay detached from, teaching her about her culture as a Sheikah despite the child having the attention span of a gnat, using those techniques to give her a one-time escape plan from danger, and nearly giving her life for the little girl who all too often took her for granted, before helping a young stranger in a green cap with a dinky sword become the hero she couldn't be to save her.

Even as a princess I know how sweet rebellion is, the alluring feeling of stealing power from those who hoard it. Part of it, however, is the acceptance that you are not fit for the role, never will be, and accepting that, because once you rebel you can never return to stage.

Myself as an example, what character am I? A princess. A princess' story has been told countless times before to little girls who themselves crave the power and luxury I should in theory have. In many of those stories, of course a theme is true love. There is something to be said about the story of a princess too often being boiled down to finding a desirable mate, but to complain about that would be hypocritical. Of course, in these stories, there are always the suitors, auditioners to the role of a prince for later adaptations. I never minded the suitors. Nice enough people. I'd suppose they were attractive. However, there was an obstacle, something that kept myself from obtaining a king to transform into a wise queen.

That is my secret to keep, though, although not for long. Allow me to keep it for as long as I can manage; it's the one thing I have left and I'd like to hold onto it until the perfect time to release.

If you've followed through the pretentious ramblings of a woman who finds herself far more clever than she likely is, hopefully you've prepared for a tale worth telling rather than the blase, normal episodic drama of a princess too long left undeveloped. There have been more exciting tales involving me, but less so of those about me. This tale I hope is one you enjoy. One of secrets, of romance, of scandals, in a lovely winter setting during a frenetic high-stakes competition where two lovers will… we'll go with the term "meet", but it's a term used quite loosely. I hope it is a story you enjoy, for it is the last I will perform before I cut my strings and end the play permanently.

It starts, of all places, at a fighting tournament.