I: Ante-Mortem

When Ganondorf ascended the throne, I was forced into a world I had never known as a princess. Instead of being awakened at dawn by an attendant, I was often thrust from my dreams into reality by the roar of a fiend. When we ate (and it was not often), it was as we sprinted away from danger or (when we were lucky, and that was not often) as we rode on horseback away from one violated sanctuary to seek another. We were driven to extremes by the crippling fear of capture and the frail, hopeless hope of finding some haven or escape.

I remember little of those first dark days except for the running. We ran the horse we escaped on until the beast collapsed from exhaustion, and then my attendant dragged me from the doomed animal to continue through the grasslands on foot. When I could run no further, Impa picked me up and carried me. We didn't stop. We couldn't.

My first coherent memory from that era of my life begins in the Shadow Temple. I was lying face-up on something soft but wet and very, very cold. I was paralyzed, but trembling. Above and all around me was only abysmal darkness. I couldn't breathe. I could feel Impa's hand clasp mine, but couldn't make out her face. She slipped something into my hand. Not knowing what it was, I reluctantly ate, and immediately felt consumed by fire, then completely subdued, as if turned to stone. I couldn't know that the burning poison she had given me was an antidote that had saved my life. I didn't know how gravely I was wounded, how much I cried in hysteria, and how many soldiers were at our very heels. I didn't understand that by stilling my frantic protests, the both of us had been spared to live another day.

When I awakened and regained use of my body, I knew for the first time what danger was. I knew then that life as I had known it was over. I knew that the civility and refinement of court life would be a thing of the past.

I knew that I knew nothing of this new world.

I didn't know what it would take to survive in it. But I would learn, far too soon, that it demanded a price higher than I ever dreamed I could have paid.

"Why do you think he hasn't come yet?" I asked Impa one night, desperate to hear her voice so I could concentrate on something other than the creeping shadows of the house of the dead.

There was no change on her stony face except for a tightening of her lips. "I—couldn't say, Princess."

"You do think he will return, don't you?"

She hesitated, and that was unusual for my punctual nursemaid. "I'm sure his intentions are along those lines, Highness. But he is only a child and Ganondorf's forces…"

"What would stop him?" I cried, grasping my hair in frustration. "What could? He has the three spiritual stones! I gave him the Ocarina of Time! He has everything…everything! The Master Sword is as good as his!"

"I am aware, Zelda," she said sadly, her features softening upon seeing my distress. "Calm yourself, child, we don't know who might be listening."

I quieted, my zealous faith in the boy who had promised to aid me dulled by the knowledge of how I was hunted. Spies, Impa constantly assured me, were everywhere.

"He will come," I concluded in a whisper, wanting to have the last word. "In a week at most…this will all just be a frightful nightmare. He will beat Ganondorf!"

"Keep that faith, Zelda," Impa sighed. The way she said it wasn't very reassuring at all.

We waited in the Shadow Temple for quite some time—at least until Hyrule Castle Town had been thoroughly destroyed and the castle had been warped to suit Ganondorf's own twisted tastes. By the time we dared to emerge into the daylight, Hyrule, my Hyrule, was overrun.

Link had not come, and the golden country was black and dead.

I could not convince myself of my faith in the boy's return for long. For a month I dwelt in the Shadow Temple and waited for some sign that this terrible dream had ended, but no sign came.

And so Impa and I left the safety of the Shadow Temple and ran to the Temple of Time, seeking what had become of our hero. Looking back, it was a foolish decision, but I somehow managed to convince Impa that I could not continue in suspense.

Dressed in scant rags so I looked like any of the other young, destitute widows from the destroyed capital, I made my way to the once-radiant city. When I could, I hid myself in the small family caravans that made their way to a place that they prayed would offer security from the onslaught of the mad Gerudo king. I rushed to the Temple with renewed vigor upon meeting these brave souls. If I could hurry, if I could find Link, I thought that perhaps I might save my people from any more oppression.

I ran into the stone Temple and flung myself beyond the Door of Time.

And there, as a seven-year-old girl, I learned true despair.

The portal to the Sacred Realm was open, a sight I never thought to behold, but I could not witness in awe. It was open, yes, and it had been violated by evil. It was as open as a grievous wound, bled dry of the purity it once held, an image of death and defeat against the serenity of the sacred Temple. I could see only poison darkness where the golden paradise of legend should have been. Waves of otherworldly heat rose from the scorched earth. The Triforce of lore was gone, and I knew who its captor had been.

And worst of all, I saw the boy I had entrusted with the fate of Hyrule. Though the Blade of Evil's Bane was clasped in his small hands, he was lying on the red earth, face up, his eyes sealed closed and his body still as death. On his lips was the tiniest smile, a contented expression of the hope that must have filled him before the dreadful sleep seized him. "At last," his face seemed to say. "It is done."

And it was done.

"Impa," I cried, folding with the unbearable weight of defeat. "It really is over."

And then I fell into blackness.

When Impa and I fled back to the Shadow Temple, we found it occupied with Ganondorf's minions. When we were spotted, we were forced to take cover as soon as we could to avoid capture. The area just outside the temple was the Kakariko Graveyard, and the only sanctuary that was immediately apparent was the Royal Family's Tomb.

I didn't tell Impa that I thought the hideout quite appropriate for the both of us.

"It is not over," was the first thing Impa said. "The boy is merely sleeping. He lives still."

"Does it matter?" I moaned and tried to roll into myself to escape my relentless nursemaid, but she would not let me lose hope.

"Yes, it matters. As long as the boy lives, so does our hope. Pull yourself together, Zelda, there is no time to waste!"

She told me how the Master Sword could not have such a young master. Indeed, the blade was as tall as he was. There was no possible way that such a little body could master the weapon. "And so we wait," she said repeatedly. "He has already proven himself worthy to be the Hero of Time. The sword has called him to be its master. When he is the age of a true swordsman, he will awaken and take that role."

The words comforted me for a while, until I realized that while teen boys were prone to grow quite rapidly, this "rapid growth" still spanned several years.

It would be a long time to evade a mad king with the golden power, and even longer to watch as my people cried my name in their oppression.

It was a long time to be helpless.

The Triforce of Wisdom came to me in a dream. I knew that I had fallen asleep in the Royal Family Tomb, but I woke to find myself in a sparkling Fairy Fountain. The shallow waters lapped at my sore body, easing the ache of defeat and despair. I felt cleansed, weightless, liberated.

And all around me, shimmering in girlish innocence, the fairies danced, singing my lullaby in voices like trilling flutes. The tiny maidens flitted about, sparkling with magic and healing. In bell-like voices, they spoke to me.

"Zelda," they sang. "Princess of Hyrule, come with us!"

I couldn't deny them, and I had no reason to suspect that they would lead me to the greatest burden that would ever be placed on my shoulders. Like excited little children, they flocked around me in clouds of colored light and fluttering wings. As I stood, they reached out delicate, porcelain hands to push me in the right direction. Their impossibly small fingertips tickled my skin and left me giddy, submissive to their sweet, Siren's spell.

"You must know," they chimed together, as if they were one body instead of thousands. "Ganondorf holds only one piece of the Golden Power. Such an evil heart split the Triforce into parts, and he was left with only a single fragment in his palm."

I walked on, only half hearing.

"You must be a Keeper," they sang, and they made it sound dreamy. "You must shield the Triforce of Wisdom."

They led me into wakefulness, and the lulling calm began to fade as I understood what it was they were asking of me.

"Wise, wise Zelda. Princess of Destiny, do not despair. The power of legend lies within you now. It will keep you safe."

"No--!" I protested, trying to push the shimmering bodies from me, but they would not retreat. They enfolded me in ethereal light once more.

"Safe," the fairy voices echoed as I awakened fully at last. "Safe and warm in the arms of the shadows."

I was filled with a new light, a golden light. I could not push it away no matter how I tried. It engulfed me, swallowed me whole—I felt it in my very blood.

If Ganondorf had hunted me before, when I was merely a fugitive monarch of the kingdom he had conquered, I could only imagine the zeal he would exert to find me now that I housed the power he sought with bloodthirsty lust.

I would learn that Ganondorf was only one of the problems that came when the Triforce of Wisdom was forced upon me.