The sun stared unblinkingly down at the land below, looking entirely out of place on a day that was otherwise so dark. Zelda patted the horse underneath her when it shifted uncomfortably. A Guardian Stalker clambered over a hill on the horizon, its head spinning a full rotation as it went.
"I know, little one, just a moment more..." the princess murmured, still soothing the horse. A wry smile pulled at her lips; Link would have been proud. She kept an eye on the Guardian as it clambered across the countryside. It would kill somebody. Her jaw clenched tight around the thought. She could, probably, stop it using her newfound powers, but… She twisted her hand in the horse's mane. But she didn't have the time.
The Guardian disappeared from sight, and she prodded the horse into a trot. She had to get back to the Castle. All the Guardians had been there, it had been where Ganon rose. There wouldn't be anyone there but monsters.
She was almost there, too, the once familiar walls broken down and her home shrouded in an oily, roiling cloud. "He's still here, huh?" She had gotten so used to filling the silence between Link and herself that she could almost forget he wasn't right behind her, that he wouldn't come with one of his quiet comments or a small laugh. "That makes it easier, I suppose. I'm not entirely sure he would have come if I called." That wasn't strictly true. That big ball of destruction wanted her dead and in pain so badly all she would have to do was whistle at it and it'd come running like some horrendous mockery of a dog.
Sidling up close to a mostly intact portion of wall, Zelda slid off the horse after looking about to make sure it'd be safe for a moment. She pulled the bridle off its head and pushed the saddle off its back, startling the horse into trotting a few metres away. It wasn't as far as she'd hoped it'd run, but she couldn't really make enough of a spectacle to scare it off further without attracting attention she didn't want. It'd have to be enough. The Guardians weren't interested in animals, anyway.
She peered through the hole in the wall and into what had been the biggest, busiest town in Hyrule, what had been reduced to field of rubble. Rubble and blood.
She ducked back behind the wall, collapsing against it, covering her mouth with her hands and squeezing her eyes shut.
She had known. She should have been prepared. But the remnants of people and the feasting vultures were a shock. Guilt hit her like a kick from a horse and she had to swallow hard to keep from throwing up. So many people had died. So so many people never even got out of their homes before –
It was all her fault. Oh, Hylia, if only she could have…
Shuddering breaths. She didn't have the time to be sitting here feeling bad for things that she had tried to prevent and let things get worse. "This is my fault, so I have to keep it from getting worse," she reminded herself quietly. Breathing in deeply and opening her eyes she steeled herself. Once again she looked through the gap in the wall, then walked through.
A few Guardians of various types tried to stop her, but she could deal with them. She had decided to go to the Sanctuary, it was the heart of Hyrule, right in the centre of the land, and where Ganon would be the most contained. It also seemed, somehow, like an appropriate place for Link to come defeat him.
Hadn't the Chosen Hero done that before? Defeated Ganon in Hyrule Castle? Food for thought, maybe they should rebuild the castle to so that it was the perfect battleground against the Calamity.
Ganon had had the same thought she had had, apparently, as the monster waited for her in the Sanctuary, something like an evil grin on its caricature of a human face.
Ha! Anti-climactic ending avoids the climax. Well, the point of this was never to be dramatic or climactic, but to be written. And to be a guess at Zelda's state when she went to go restrain Ganon for a century. She'd have totally blamed herself.
On another note, why do Hylians refer to those horses as "little one"? They're big! They're bloody proper destriers, like the heavier end of Friesian horses. Very versatile, but not small. Do they say something else in Japanese that has the same connotations but a very different phrasing? What do they say in Japanese?