Arc 1: First Life (and First Death)

Chapter 4: Magic, and other careless endeavors

Two years passed fairly uneventfully, aside from the beginning of my royal education. When I turned two my parents told me over dinner that I would start on the easier lessons, like etiquette, dancing, singing, one of the many instruments that they eventually planned to teach me, and some history and geography. Those last two were more for the purpose of continued repetition from a young age so that the knowledge would be thoroughly ingrained in my mind. I was honestly surprised that they were starting my education so young, I thought they would wait until I was at least five before they started my formal education. However my mom quickly put any concerns that it was because I'd progressed so quickly as a baby to rest when she casually mentioned that I would be following the same schedule that my parents had when they were young. Which meant that it was in fact normal for royalty in Hyrule to start their education at two years old.

With the beginning of lessons came a bunch of new faces and names that I needed to learn as my tutors moved into the castle. All of my tutors. Even the ones that wouldn't start teaching me for a few years yet. My father had pet my head lovingly when I'd questioned why they were all moving in right now, and not just the ones that I would be having lessons with. He explained that this way all of my tutors had time to settle in the castle, and that I wouldn't be unfamiliar with them when they started teaching. I suppose they were attempting to mitigate any favoritism I might develop towards the tutors that I'd had lessons with for years, versus the ones that started teaching me later? I guess it was a reasonable strategy, I was just concerned because I'd never been very good with names in my past life. Actually I guess you could reasonably say that I still wasn't very good with names, considering that I still couldn't remember the names of my new parents. To be fair, they refer to themselves exclusively as my mother and father (technically mommy and daddy), but they are royalty, the maids and guards occasionally refer to them as King or Queen followed by their name. I find it rather embarrassing that I still don't remember their names despite this fact.

Regardless of my future struggle to remember all the names of the tutors, their faces, AND what they taught, there were a few that jumped out to me. Either because they had unusual appearances or names (my etiquette tutor was a ZORA, how fucking awesome is that?!), or because I was excited or curious about the subject that they'll teach. The subjects that I'll be learning over the course of my life are: etiquette, dancing, singing, instrumental music, history, geography, politics, math, horse riding, swordsmanship, magic, diplomacy, tactics, reading and writing, and relations. That last one is a class about managing my relationship with the citizens, ensuring I remain popular and that I know how to find out what's troubling the people. Each class will be taught by a different tutor, that's fifteen tutors!

The classes that I was excited for should be fairly obvious from that list. Magic, swordsmanship, horse riding, and tactics? Those sound incredible! Unfortunately, when the tutors introduced themselves and their subjects, they also said how old I would be when they started teaching me. Horse riding starts at five, which is the earliest of the classes I was interested in. Swordsmanship will start at eight, disappointing but doable. Tactics at thirteen, that's quite a long way from now. And most disappointingly, magic at sixteen. SIXTEEN?! That's so not fair! Why do I have to wait fourteen years before I can start learning magic?! When I found out that I was Zelda a year ago I was so excited to be able to use magic, but now I'm hearing that I have to wait until I'm sixteen? Surely Zelda in most games wasn't much older than sixteen (this is excluding the games in which she is clearly younger than sixteen). At most she couldn't be any older than twenty! Do they expect me to face Ganon with only a few months to four years of magic study? Absolutely not! I will find some way to push that class up, no matter what I have to do!

For the next year I would hound my parents and my magic tutor (he was a scholarly looking man named Mr. Alvion. He wore robes, usually in a dark blue, had short black hair and blue eyes. He was tall, with a lean build, I placed his age at somewhere in his early twenties. He was brisk, polite but no-nonsense.), alternately begging, pleading, demanding, and convincing them to let me start magic class earlier. Each time the answer was the same, I would start magic class when I turned sixteen, just as scheduled. It was discouraging how set they were on this fact, but I was determined that I'd get them to cave one way or the other, even if it was only to bring the date down by a single year.

Which is why, approximately nine months after my third birthday, I was sitting on the stone floor in Mr. Alvion's classroom with one of his magic books open in front of me. Let me make this clear, I wasn't in my current position because I'd managed to convince either my parents or Mr. Alvion. No, I was here because I hadn't, so I decided that the best course of action from now on was to teach myself how to use magic in secret, then demonstrate my abilities so they thought I was a genius, then they would be clamoring to start my lessons early. I didn't normally do such selfish things because it made me feel bad, and even now I'm tense with guilt for breaking into Mr. Alvion's classroom and reading his books without permission, but I was determined to do this. They simply didn't understand what was at stake. My being here, as Princess Zelda, meant that Ganondorf had to be close to revival/return (whatever it was that actually happened). I had the lives of all of Hyrule weighing on my shoulders, maybe not as heavily as Link did, but he'd done this before -even if he didn't know it- and he'd do it again. I wasn't the real Zelda, I hadn't done this before, I wasn't supposed to be here, and for all I know that could throw everything out of balance. So I had to be stronger, smarter, faster, more capable, because my presence could mean that things that would've happened to strengthen Link or Zelda, or weaken Ganon, or smooth things out, might just… not happen. Which means that if we fail, it will inarguably be because of me.

I have to tide things over, make sure this cycle ended correctly, until Zelda returned. I was sure that she would return. I was here because of some cosmic mistake, and I'm sure that the Goddess (there was a Goddess in Zelda lore right?) had already noticed the mistake, but she had to wait until I died in order to reincarnate Zelda. After all it must be easier to reincarnate a soul in place of another, than it is to yank a soul from its body and place a new one inside it. Especially since Zelda doesn't keep her memories of her past lives, she's a noble soul so she would probably agree to save Hyrule if the Goddess asks her to, but she hasn't experienced the past three years of my life. She doesn't know our parents, doesn't know the servants, or the tutors, and she hasn't experienced the significant events that have occurred in this life. People would be able to tell that something was wrong with her. And while it would probably be possible to orchestrate an accident, then switch our souls, and claim that Zelda simply had memory loss from the accident to explain her lacking memories and even her different personality. That would be way too complicated, it would cause unnecessary stress in the royal family, and something could go wrong with the accident. It was simply easier to let me run this cycle than to potentially mess it up by trying to switch us.

Because of this, I had to do a good job, for the country, for Zelda, for Link, for the Goddess, and for me. I don't know how this mistake came to be, but I would be super ashamed if the Goddess, Zelda, and Link, were disappointed in my performance. I could live (haha live) with it if they thought 'that was good but Zelda would've done better,' because Zelda would have. But I couldn't stand it if they thought I'd done a terrible job, that I ruined everything, so I had to learn magic as soon as possible so that I could get as much experience with it as I could, in order to make up the difference.

So I turned my attention back to the book in front of me, I'd already read the thick tome, spent two months making sure I completely understood everything and memorising as much of it as possible. It had been tedious and boring, but I was determined to succeed. And I began following the steps it had outlined. The book claimed that fire magic was the easiest for beginners to conjure, so today I was going to try to create a flame. I turned my concentration inside me, to try to find my magical core. The book said that it can sometimes take many tries in order to find it, so I was prepared to fail today, just like I had the last three times that I'd done this exact thing. Therefore I was quite surprised when I actually found it this time. There sitting under my heart was a flickering, blazing, crackling, ball of warmth and power. I smiled to myself in joy, careful not to release my concentration though. I calmly cupped my hands in my lap and calmly and slowly pulled on the energy in my chest, at first nothing happened so I gradually increased the strength of my pull until sweat broke out on my brow and my head started to throb from the pressure, but finally the magic began moving slowly. I carefully directed the power to flow down my arms and into my hands, the magic tingled and felt warm as it traveled. I pooled a small amount of magic into my hands as I concentrated on the concept of fire. I picture the crackling flame, the smell of smoke, the heat that comes off it in waves, all while picturing a small tongue of flame about the size that adorns a birthday candle. 'Keep it small, no need to exhaust myself or risk losing control, I only need to summon a tiny amount of fire today.'

I feel the magic flow out my hands, settling just an inch or two above the skin of my palms, before my hands feel a warmth radiating against them. I feel my heart soar, 'I did it! I summoned fire!' The flame flickers in my hands in response to my faltering concentration and I quickly turn my attention back to maintaining the flame. The magic fire stabilizes, and I spend a moment just concentrating on the flow and making sure I can keep it steady before I finally open my eyes. I open them slowly, worried that if I move too fast I'll lose focus again and the flames will go out. Once my eyes are fully open, they settle on the tiny flame flickering and twisting in my hands. I just sit there, silently staring at it in awe for several minutes, allowing myself to really soak in the fact that I just performed a feat of magic.

However the moment is abruptly shattered when I hear my mother call "Zelda! Dear, where are you? You're going to be late for your next lesson!" from down the hall. My heart lurches with surprise and guilt, 'if she catches me in here she's going to be so upset and disappointed!' I think frantically. In that moment my concentration on the flame in my hands had been completely shattered, and my surge of emotion had caused my magic to flood forward. All of the sudden the flame surged in size and strength and I had a powerful blaze rushing towards my face. With a shriek I shoved the flame away, my palms angling away from me and out toward the room, the fire increased in size again as my shove accidentally poured more magic into it. The inferno rushed out of my hands and engulfed both the book on the floor, and the wooden bookshelves, laden with tomes on magic. The books being made of paper served as very efficient fuel for the fire and within seconds the whole room was ablaze.

I was frozen to my spot in a mixture of soul crushing terror, and extreme mental and physical exhaustion from accidentally draining my magic by fueling the fire. The inferno ROARED in front of and on either side of me, the heat blasting at me in oppressive waves, and the smoke curling thick and dark in the air above me, further sapping my strength and making me feel sleepy. 'I'm going to die.' I realize numbly, unable to move so much as a finger in an attempt to save myself. 'Oh, Mr. Alvion I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to destroy your books.' I think faintly before there's a crash as the door slams against the stone wall, "ZELDA!" my mother's voice shrieks hysterically as she sees me sitting amidst the flames. 'She must have heard me shriek and come running.' I watch from where I've fallen on the floor, my vision swimming in and out of focus, as my mother rushes fearlessly through the roaring flames to my side. "Oh my poor baby! Don't worry dear, mother's got you!" My mother wails as she pulls me into her arms, her voice wavering with fear and pain as she speaks, her tears evaporating off her face even as she cries them.

"Mom," I gasp weakly, feeling my own eyes brimming with tears, "I'm sorry." I whisper hoarsely at her, completely sure that we are both going to die in this fire that I've created. 'I was a fool, an arrogant fool. Of course practicing magic without a supervisor is dangerous. And now my mother is going to die because of me.'

"Shhh," my mother soothes, as she cradles me against her chest, her smile pained and sad. "We'll be okay, darling. Everything's okay. Just look at mommy, only at mommy." She whispers, her voice cracking with emotion as she holds me close. I don't know how long we stayed there, huddled together in the middle of a burning room, my mother attempting to shield me from the fire with her own body. Before she slumps over onto me, unconscious, her clothes on fire.

"Mom! Mom!" I tried to cry out to her, but I was so weak I wasn't sure I even managed to get the words out. My vision darkened around the edges, and I realized that I couldn't breathe. 'I'm sorry…' I think faintly as my consciousness slips.

Suddenly, I hear a noise that isn't the crackling of fire. Mr. Alvion steps into the room and raises his hands. I feel his magic rush over me as it sweeps through the room, extinguishing the fire. He sways and staggers backwards from the drain, and my father catches him and briskly hands him off to one of the many men standing behind him, with a quick but heartfelt, "thank you." Before he's rushing into the still hot, smoky, and charred room, "SHIANDRA! ZELDA!" he shouts desperately as he runs over to where my mother and I lay. He kneels down next to us and carefully lifts my mother off of me, he quickly checks her heartbeat, and breathes a visible sigh of relief before he's passing her off to the castle doctor who followed him in, "take care of her." He says firmly to the doctor, before he's tenderly picking me up to check me over. "You're okay, princess. You're okay." He held me close to his body, I could feel his body shaking as he cried into my hair, "I was so scared that I would lose you and Shiandra. I'm so glad that you're okay."

I feel weak and tired, and my skin feels too tight, and everything hurts but I clutch to my father and cry, though no tears come out, "I'm sorry, it's all my fault. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." I whisper weakly. I want to scream it to the heavens but I can't muster the energy and my voice rasps nearly inaudibly with the smoothness of nails being scrapped against sand paper.

My father clutches me tighter to his chest as he stands, "shhh, its okay. You're safe now. You and your mother are safe now. You won't have to go through anything as scary ever again. Your daddy will protect you." He carries me out of the room that I never thought I would leave alive, whispering reassurances and petting my head as he carries me to the hospital wing. He keeps his eyes on the men transporting my mother and the doctor who's checking on her, as we move quickly through the hallways, all the while I murmur apologies and he tries to reassure me.