Lost the Chance

He had lost everything in the blink of an eye and a swing of his enemy's sword. He hadn't noticed that he had been hit until he felt a warm liquid flowing down his chest. Looking down, he saw that Ganondorf's blade had sliced cleanly through both his tunic and chainmail, leaving behind a deep gash diagonally across his chest.

Link looks up from his chest and glares at Ganondorf. The Dark Lord gives the defeated Hero of Twilight a sinister, mocking grin of victory. Link can no longer stand upright. The Master Sword slips out of Link's hand, hitting the dusty ground with a thud, soon followed by the Hero himself falling forwards on the ground, right beside the Blade of Evil's Bane. Ganondorf, still wearing his cocky grin on his face, looks behind Link to see Princess Zelda still mounted on Epona, aiming one of her sacred light arrows at Ganondorf.

"Ganondorf!" Her words at the Dark Lord flow through her mouth like a raging river of hurt and hatred. "Lower your barrier and fight me, you coward!" Zelda, for the first time in her life, sets aside her composed, graceful words of politics and peace and allows for her true emotions to shine through. "FACE ME!"

Even though he is on a high from defeating the reincarnated Spirit of the Hero, Ganondorf is no fool. He knows if he eliminates the barrier Zelda will let her light arrow fly. He cannot survive another hit from the sacred light. Instead of facing Zelda's wrath, Ganon uses his dark magic to create a barrier of magic around himself before disappearing in a puff of purple-hued smoke. The barrier that Ganondorf had created also vanishes, leaving Zelda both enraged that she could not finish the fight but relieved that she could run to Link.

Zelda makes the light arrow and bow disappear, slides off of Epona and runs as fast as her feet can carry her over to Link's still body, praying to all three goddesses that he would still be alive.

"LINK!" The princess quickly kneels beside him and grasps at the sight of the deep cut on his chest that is still bleeding profusely. A single tear falls from her face and lands on Lin's cheek. "Link."

"Pr-princess..." Link slightly opens his dark blue eyes. His breathing is raspy and labored as he tries to talk to Zelda.

"You're alive! Stay with me, Link." Zelda acts quickly to try to slow down the bleeding wound in Link's chest, by gently sliding Link's cap off of his dirty blond hair, folding it several times and pressing it down on Link's chest. Link doesn't even flinch. He can no longer feel the open wound on his body. He knows the inevitable is just moments away.

"I-I'm sorry."

Zelda looks into the Hero's dark blue eyes. "You listen to me, Link. You did nothing to be sorry for. All you need to do for me, right now, is relax and save your energy."

"I lost ev-everything." Tears well up in Zelda's eyes as Link whispers his words on his exhaled breaths. "I lost...my chance to defeat...Ganondorf. I've lost...Midna. Now, I'm losing my...chance to know you, Zelda." Now tears form in the Hero's dark blue eyes, blurring his sight of Zelda. He shuts his eyes and pictures Zelda clearly in his mind, wanting to see her as she truly was, as his last breath of life leaves his lifeless body.

Tear streaks stain the sides of her face as Zelda accepted Link's fate. "And I lost my chance to know you, Link." She leans down near his pale face and gently places a kiss on the Hero's stiffened lips, regretful of not giving the Hero a token of her respect, appreciation, and love before his defeat at Ganondorf's hand.

As the Princess of Hyrule kneels over her lifeless hero and cries over his death, the dark storm clouds above mourn with her, innumerable drops of rain plummet onto Hyrule, a land that had lost its courage and hope of ridding the world of the shadows that plagued it.