Link wakes slowly. He comes to to the cold stone beneath his back, cold, cold, ice sunk down into his bones, through his skin through his heart, so deep that the air has frozen in his lungs, and he wonders if he can even breathe for a moment before he gasps to life.
And then Zelda's voice echoes in his ears, and he wonders how he even knows to assign a name to that voice, to call it Zelda, as if he knows the person behind it when he barely knows who he even is. And, for an instant, as his lungs rise and fall he feels lighter than air, like helium that disperses with the breeze but is always rising, rising up higher.
He stands, he places wobbly frozen legs on the ground and the hard stone there grounds him takes the excess charge dancing across his body and roots him in place, it leaves him weary and the casket he just climbed out of never looked so inviting before this moment. But Zelda is already continuing, already explaining the Sheikah slate across the room so he walks over, legs shaking to take it from the pedestal where its lain for so long.
Nothing makes any sense, the glowing room and the spire that pulses in time to his heartbeat and the casket he just crawled out of, and he can't think of anything at all, can't remember what Zelda looked like or even who she was to him, but he trusts her, somehow, so he'll keep listening. Still, as the door slides open and sunlight filters in, he feels light, so light, even though his limbs are frozen as if hes floated up high enough that the air grows too cold to breathe in without burning your throat.
But as Zelda speaks to him, as she tells him of his duty to the people of Hyrule, a weight falls on his chest like it never left. The cold leaves him in a rush of bright sunlight, and his breath leaves him like it never was there and his lungs have been crushed. But then he inhales and somehow the weight is comfortable, like it should have been there the whole time and he was just missing it.
He'd felt so light and free for a moment, frozen as he was, and somehow this was heavier than all the ice and the cold in the world. And he has to hurry, he has to be quick, because Zelda needs him and he can't let her down, not again, even if he can't remember the last time he feels as if he's already let her down too many times before.
So he runs everywhere, why walk when you have a kingdom to save, and he doesn't talk on the way.
He finds a horse as soon as he's able, and day and night he fights and fights and fights, monsters and the ghosts of monsters he's already killed, Zelda's voice in the back of his head urging him forwards, soothing him at night, and he wonders why he cares so much if he doesn't remember anything at all.
He comes to care, in a way. He loves the land, he loves the people, but there isn't time to go photograph the leviathans or tend flowers or catch cuckoos when he has a country to save, a calamity to prevent. There isn't time to fall in love with it again, especially when he already loves it, even if he doesn't know why he tears up when he saw that village in the North or why his gaze lingers on every silent princess he sees. Hyrule castle is ominous in the distance, always there, always. North, South, East, West-- even when he can't see the castle he can feel it, an oil spill in the sky at night and a roiling mass in the day, smoking, bubbling, sputtering up, reflecting rainbow hues of fire like tar but far darker.
So he burns the candle at both ends, he claims the master sword, he fights and sneaks his way into the castle, holding back tears the whole time even though he doesn't really know why, and when he reaches the door to the inner sanctum and throws it wide open.
Ganon is a tough fight. He scorches all he touches he is a plague, he is a calamity. He is monstrous, and though he heard rumors in Gerudo town of Ganon having once been a tribesman, they're harder to believe now than ever before, when he sees jaws that spit fire and too many eyes. And when the beast form appears in front of the castle Link wins, barely, and though the castle may never recover, though the grounds may be scorched for all eternity, it is, blessedly, over.
And there Zelda is before him, and he loves her but he doesn't know why, can't separate the feelings of the him-before from the him of now, and sometimes it's so frustrating that he wants to cry too, because seeing Zelda cry breaks his heart and he doesn't know why.
She says he doesn't remember her, and it's true, its true, but if she'd just give him a chance, he'd prove to her…
He'd prove something, but he can't because he doesn't remember either.
He leaves the hilltop. She does not want to talk to him, because being face to face is far different from warnings and advice, because this is no longer the dead of night with Ganon's influence poisoning the air and the moon itself, and there is no monster for them to defeat together, nothing between them, no shared purpose to distract them from the fact that they truly are strangers and that there is no changing that.
For all he wants to return to her, for all that he wishes he could become the him of the past, he won't, because he won't let history repeat again. He wants to speak. He wants to be free of the shackles that bound him, that tore him apart.
The Link of before was not weak. He was not sad, nor was he angry or violent.
But he wasn't happy. He was burdened, and he was bitter, deep down, and he knows because he feels that sometimes, late at night, an aching hollow so deep in his chest it pierces his heart and goes down deeper than the center of the earth, a well of gravity that draw everything around him in until there's nothing left. Duty crushed Link, and loneliness buried him. He doesn't know how he knows, but he knows all the same, and he won't let it happen again.
So he leaves her, and he sets off to become his own person.
The world is happier, without Ganon. But corruption still slinks in the shadows, travelers still go missing in the dead of night, monsters still roam the earth because they've always been there, and they will always be there, with or without their dark master.
There is still duty, duty will always be there. It is a rock that he carries it with him. It is a heavy burden to bear, but it keeps him present, keeps him anchored when he needs it most. There has been duty since his birth, and he will only be free of it in death.
But loneliness doesn't have to be his anymore, he an overcome it, he can bring it up to the light and destroy it.
He has time now, and he spends it lying on hills with the flowers looking up at the sky. He traces pictures in clouds, he spends time cooking and eating and travelling and meeting new people, and he decides that if this is what life is like, he loves it.
He stops thinking of Castle Town and stops staring at the silent princesses and starts sleeping more, starts eating more, and before he knows it the tug in his heart towards Hyrule castle has faded, and the Master Sword stops speaking to him but he's fine with that, he doesn't need it anyways now that Ganon is gone.
So he wanders, and wherever he goes he doesn't look back. He sees fire and brimstone and dragons and ice. He looks, and finally he can see.
He sees the green-gold of midday forests and the red-gold of the desert sunset. The glowing Lord of the Mountain takes his breath away one day, and the next he catches sight of a horse so large and beautiful he doesn't dare come any closer.
And now he finds races and competitions and friendly travelers willing to stop for a minute to talk or trade a bit of food for some rupees. He climbs mountains and swims and visits Sidon and walks the path to Kakariko village, and when rumours of the strange girl living in Hyrule Castle reach his ears he journeys farther, faster, longer, heading in any direction that suits his fancy because he's seen it all before but he really hasn't, has he, so what's wrong with wandering around?
And one day in the northern mountains he grows tired of the cold and decides to go south, but then he climbs to the top of a hill and suddenly sees Hyrule Castle in the distance, not green and not gold but its not a scorched black any longer, not oil on water or a menacing beacon in the sky.
He wants to say he's not ready, but he is. He walks down to castle town, and the people there are rebuilding, the ash is being swept away and the bones buried. He tries not to cry, because that isn't him, those emotions are someone else's, and these things need to stop.
The castles gates are off their hinges, and the path is scorched barren. Nothing will grow there for at least a hundred years, because despite the presence of the goddess's priestess the malice has sunk so far into the ground that it may never come out, a dark oil-stain on the earth.
The banners are torn and fading in the sun without Ganon's presence to block it out.
In a way, it's fitting. In another, it's beautiful.
Zelda is not in the keep, so he wanders the castle. She isn't there, and the castle rings, ancient and hollow with his footsteps.
He waits for the night, and in the morning, he leaves.
It's a year before he sees her again. She corners him in Kakariko village, and he should be surprised when he sees her, but really, he isn't because he's heard rumors of a girl claiming to be the lost princess roaming the countryside in search of the legendary hero.
He sees her across the village square when he's returning to sell the parts of the bokoblins he'd been hunting nearby. It's strange, how he instantly recognizes her, but somehow he can tell, and when she calls to him his certainty is only further cemented.
"Link," she says, and it's a strange hour in the morning where the sky isn't light yet, but its not entirely dark, and her voice echoes across the square as if she'd shouted. "If you wish to talk, please, meet me up at the overlook." He nods, because what else can he do, and when she turns to the path up, he follows.
"Link," she turns to him on the top of the bluff and pulls off her hood, and he's met with wide eyes, green like the grass and the trees in the forest, and for a half-second, he sees flecks of gold deep in the irises. She has a few freckles, from her time in the sun, and her hair is braided all the way down her back rather than sitting in a crown over her forehead. She wears travelers clothes, rough but sturdy, and carries a short sword at her hip. She's changed from the last time he saw her, glowing in that white dress with the light of the goddess shining from within. He feels like, somehow, she's different from the Zelda of Past Link as well.
For a minute, she's utterly silent as she looks at him, traces her eyes down his cheeks, and somehow he's aware he's doing the same, categorizing every detail.
Then her face crumples up and tears well up in her eyes, and Link suddenly doesn't know what to do.
"Link, I'm so sorry," she says, and bows her head, and he watches a tear land on a piece of grass and make its way down, slowly, too slowly, until touches earth and disappears. "I...I've been stuck in the past this whole time. Hyrule has changed, and so have you, and I know you don't remember anything about me, but I've come to terms that now… now I don't know anything about you either." Her hands grip the cloth on her pants, knuckles white on the dark fabric.
"I think… I think we should start over again," she wipes her eyes, and looks up. "I miss the Link of the past, the one that I used to know, but…" and she takes a soft, shuddering breath, "I think I would like to get to know you, the Link of the present." She keeps her gaze directed at his feet, and when he takes a step forwards she flinches back as if he'd burned her.
In this moment, this instant of utter silence when a breeze curls around their feet, rustling the grass as it goes sweeping out, she looks so frighteningly hopeful he can't breathe. And somehow he knows what to do, not because he must but because he should, because he wants this as much as she does. And swimming in his head are thoughts and feelings and maybe even a hint of duty, but when the words leave his mouth there isn't a hint of loneliness to be found because there's no reason to be alone anymore, no crushing duty, just the here and now and all that comes with it.
"Hello Zelda," he says, and his voice is too soft and rubs harsh and scratchy on his throat, but it's there. "My name is Link. It's nice to meet you."
And she's crying, heavy tears rolling down her cheeks, but she's still beaming like the sun, all gold and green like the forest, and she holds out her shaking hand, and she speaks.
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Link." And now Link knows he's smiling too, when she looks up at him and gives him a smile, and its wobbly and sincere and heartrending all at once. "My name is Zelda."