Disclaimer: I don't own Zelda.
Hollow
Hollow, broken, and alone, he stood before her. Nothing remained of the man from the past but an empty shell covered in the never-fading marks of a long, treacherous road. He stared up at her and ghostly, deep oceans met radiant sapphire.
It took everything she had not to recoil away, turn from those empty eyes. She held her ground, shivering internally all the while.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice full of sorrow but not regret. "There was no other way."
He continued to stare, silently accusing her of her crimes. "It's your fault," his eyes seemed to say. "Your fault this happened."
And she couldn't agree more. It was her fault that he had had to wield a blade, her fault that he had had to see blood, her fault that he had had to end the existence of so many. Still, while she knew the suffering her decisions and action had caused, she knew there was no other way. What was done was done, and it had worked. She might have been able to do it better, maybe less blood could have been spilt, less youth tainted, but would it have worked?
One could not change the past; one could only work with what one had in the present and hope to create a better future. The past, as horrible as it had been, was gone, over. The future could be as cold and bloody as the past if things turned out badly. Staring at the young man before her, eyes full of misery and hatred, she knew it could be bad.
But Fate gives one the tools to carve the sculpture of life. The present was hers to dictate, and she would do all she could to stop any more harm from befalling those she watched over. The man before her, no more than a boy really, a boy trapped and tainted by adult experiences, was one she watched over. She had to neglect her duty to him in order to protect the others, and now they both paid for it.
She had power now; she could pick back up the strings that bound the two of them together and resume the job she had threw way. She could protect him and help him as she did all the others. He would never have to suffer again.
But it wouldn't work. Nothing she did could repair the damage she had allowed. There was nothing to heal his soul.
And he wouldn't let her. His anger at her, his hatred of the life he had been forced to live created an unbreakable wall. She would never be able to penetrate it. The footholds were too scarce and spikes and fire blocked the path. He was eternally lost and there was nothing she or anyone else could do to bring him back.
No, she could do nothing for him. Fate had broken him; she had broken him. He would spend the rest of his days, hollow and cold. But still, she would watch, as she had during the years that had brought this about.
She had always watched him. She had watched him lose his innocence to blood and death, watched him lose his heart to murder and betrayal, watched him lose his sanity to evil and the cold…She had watched and watched and still she had done nothing. All the losses he received, all the wounds he suffered, all the beings he killed were on her hands. His soul may have been the one crying from it, but her soul was the one bathed in blood. His blood.
But still she'd watch. That was all she was good for, all she had ever been good for. She'd watch him as he slowly fell down a spiral of no return. He'd probably bring about his own end. She wouldn't stop him. No, she'd just watch, like always.
Because that was all she deserved. To save him would ease the punishment. No, she had to watch him as he fell, for it was the only way she could atone.
So she'd atone for her sins by watching the soul she had destroyed.
Because in the end, that was all she could ever do.
