~~Zelda~~

When I feel a brief light from the window hitting my face, I open my eyes.

"Impa?"

As I sit up, slowly pushing the blanket off myself and stretching, I look towards the ever impassive Sheikah.

She nods, but when she doesn't turn to face me I sigh loudly and slowly lower myself back onto the pew. I'm prepared to fall back asleep when my companion clears her throat.

"Good morning, your Grace. How did you sleep?"

I grimace, knowing what she's really asking.

With another sigh, I turn my head and mutter, "No dream or visions. I still haven't figured out exactly what I'm supposed to do now." As frustration sweeps over me, I push the blanket off the pew and onto the floor, kicking at it petulantly.

"I've been meditating and praying for the last three days we've been here," I complain, feeling discouraged, "and I still haven't had a vision or clarification since we arrived. I thought you said everything would be clear after we stepped through."

When Impa continues to silently watch the gate entry, I can't help but sigh one last time before finally standing up. As I walk towards the small room at the very back of the temple, I grab an apple and head up the stairs for more prayer.

It's peaceful in this solitary room, and despite the knowledge that the outside is still ravaged from war I feel somewhat calm.

Taking in the sunlight that streams in from the ceiling, I close my eyes and ask the same question I've constantly been asking.

What is it?

What could it be that I'm still missing?

I've traveled through time just to get here, just to follow the designs of a goddess. Even if they are technically my own plans, couldn't I have left something here, at the very end?

With a frown, I open my eyes and stare at the ground in front of my tracing my finger on the stone patterns before me. I'm ready to give up and take a break when my finger suddenly lands on the same symbol I saw before; the three triangles.

I stare down at the design, and slowly I begin to trace over it with my finger. Methodically, I trace and trace, digging my fingertip into the stone etching roughly.

And then, suddenly, I feel it.

This is it.

This pattern, this symbol, this is what I've been looking for this whole time!
But what is it?

I continue to trace, staring harder and harder as if the stone carving will give me the answers I seek.

"Come on," I breathe in frustration. "Come on….come on!"

My tracing grows more agitated by the second, my curiosity overwhelming and burning.

The energy in the room seems to shift, and it tugs on the corners of my mind in such an agonizing way.

Remember!

Remember what you forgot!

I struggle more and more, scrambling to my knees as I dig harder and harder at the ground like a crazed animal.

Are you ready to remember?

Hylia's voice returns, jarring me for a moment.

Are you truly ready to face this? Have you let go of what is holding you back?

I can't answer with words, but the enormity of the feeling suddenly takes over and I desperately claw at the symbol, fighting for something-for anything to happen.

So be it.

It's time to face your destiny, Zelda.

Something seems off about Hylia's voice on the last sentence, and as my vision begins to warp a sharp pain stabs at my head. I gasp, growing dizzier and dizzier as the voice speaks again.

Hylia.

You are the goddess Hylia.

The voice splits into three, and it echoes in my head painfully. Clutching at my head, I sink to the ground and try to make sense through the pain when the voices speak again.

Hylia….

Hylia…..

Hylia….goddess…..

You are the goddess Hylia, and it is your duty to watch over these mortals.

These are your people, Hylia.

Do you understand?

I understand.

Good.

We leave this world in your hands as we return to the heavens.

Wait!

Why are you leaving? Didn't you create them? Didn't you create me?

This world is theirs. What they make of it is theirs.

Why did you create me if this world is theirs?

Why did you create me to watch but never be one of them?

My fate...what is it?

Time is ever flowing.

It knows no end and no beginning.

It knows no sorrow or joy.

I know no sorrow or joy.

I am the Goddess Hylia.

I am the one created by the old gods and left to watch over the mortal realm.

It is my fate to watch.

There is no change, no question, to this fate. It is the only one I have ever known since I first became aware.

And yet….

Yet.

I have watched the passage of time and seen what has happened.

My people, ever changing, are forgetting me.

I am the Goddess Hylia-forgotten to time and dust, a relic and myth to the mortals.

They are struggling, growing weaker and weaker.

If only they could remember!

They were given so much possibility and power for reasons that even I do not know.

The Triforce.

They left it when They left me, departing for the heavens in a flash of light.

That sacred relic to grant the wishes of the human who possess it.

It holds power to be envied, and power to heal. Power to destroy, power to bring happiness.

Either way, in the end my people have left it to be forgotten alongside me, their guardian.

Except.

I follow him, despite not knowing what intrigues me so much about this one human in particular.

My eyes watch his life, seeing his hardships and his joys, watching his isolation from those he cares most about. And in the end, both of us are questioning our fate.

We're similar, he and I.

If we could meet, just for a moment, what would it be like?

Is it even possible for us to meet?

It's an exciting thought, the first jolt of feeling I've truly had since my creation.

Is this what it is to be human?

I know this could bring about the demise of everything, leaving this sacred place to join the mortals.

I know my duty is to watch.

I will not abandon my duty-I will watch to the end.

But I can no longer stay this way.

Something must change.

I must change.

He must change.

We must change together.

Fate or not, I want to meet him.