In the shadow of the Goddess, the young princess stood, water rippling in halos 'round her waist, her palms clasped in empty prayer as she tilted her moonlit face up to the stone cold heavens. Hylia's stoic smile filled her seagreen gaze. Stars peppered the night sky crowning her lofty head, the full moon bathing the spring in a silvery gleam. Burbling cascades spilled over mossy rock and into the sacred pool. Lotuses shivered in the white mist. Zelda's lips parted, a prayer trapped on the tip of her tongue.
How many times had she been here? At the feet of the towering Goddess Statue, peering up at her winged foremother who beamed with divine indifference? Pleading to her and the golden goddesses of old for her power to awaken, but feeling not even a scintilla of it stirring? Weeping Nayru, she'd lost count.
Yet, once again tonight she'd dressed in her white ceremonial robe, trekked in the company of her knight northeast to the autumnal Akkala Province, and dipped into the Spring of Power, where she now prayed to deaf divinities.
"Goddess Hylia...I come seeking help regarding this slumbering power of my bloodline." Her feathery voice echoed throughout the purling spring. "Prayer shall awaken my power to seal Calamity Ganon away...or so I've been told all my life." She winced. The phantom image of her father clouded 'neath her eyelids, his incessant reprimands swirling in her skull like a wrathful tempest.
When will you stop treating this as some sort of childish game?
Every precious moment of your time you need to dedicate to your training!
You must awaken your sealing power...the fate of your bloodline rests upon it.
Stop running away from your duty!
Her eyes snapped open. Her father evaporated. All that stared was Hylia, silent as the sky she scraped.
With quivering lips, Zelda continued. "My grandmother heard them — the voices from the spirit realm, and Mother always said her own power would bloom inside me." Tender serenity cocooned her, the sweetness of her mother's assurance ebbing fragments of her frustration away. Perhaps...perhaps she indeed possessed this bloodbound power, but it was stubborn, sleeping, not quite ready to wake. And perhaps redundant prayer was not the key to coaxing it out. But the frost of reality wilted the tiny blossom of hope budding in her heart. She was numb. To the Goddesses, to her own power. She felt no spark, no quake of a sensation that the holy forces could hear her, much less care for her plight.
Futility crashed over her like a violent tsunami, washing away the last shreds of her resolve and drowning her in desolation. "But I can't hear, or feel anything! No voices from the spirit realm, no power stirring inside me." A shiver coursed through her, and she folded her arms, head drooping. "Please, Goddess, just tell me...what is it? What's wrong with me?!"
Frigid silence answered.
"Just as I presumed…" Zelda whispered. A sob escaped her chest, wrenching free into the night air and snaking into her guardian's ears. Link turned, abandoning his silent vigil to face her. Spears of unease lanced through him at the sight of the Princess trembling in the shimmering water, her head bowed in crestfallen defeat as the tumultuous emotions she'd sealed away shattered free in a tear-soaked monsoon. To idly watch as she wept sickened his stomach. Her anguish stabbed his core, splattering pain throughout his conscience. But he was no stranger to these dispiriting devotions. Their recent voyage to the southern Spring of Courage reaped the same withered harvest — no sacred power ignited in Zelda, and she returned home to a tense castle and a displeased father. And it seemed a twin fate awaited her tonight.
Link sighed. He knew she resented him. She seethed at the sight of the holy sword he held in hand, seethed at the fact that he could hear the blade of evil's bane whisper in tongues that evaded her ears, seethed as she watched him grow into the idyllic incarnation of the Hero the land of Hylia needed to annihilate the Calamity, whilst she wilted in strife begging the Goddesses to awaken her sealing power, receiving nothing in return.
He couldn't compensate for the deities' cruel neglect of their scion. But there was one meager thing he could do.
Setting the sheathed sword that sealed the darkness down on the stone platform, Link waded into the waist-deep spring, making his way across the undulating stretch of water to Zelda. She tensed at the sloshing sounds emanating from behind her, undoubtedly the steps of her escort. The one who embodied his destiny...
She twisted around to face him, her twinging emerald eyes averting her knight's softened sapphire.
"What do you want —?" Her half-hearted mutter was sliced off by Link's lean arms enfolding her tremulous frame in a firm embrace. She froze. Her thundering pulse filled her ears, overwhelming the rush of the falls and the strangled breaths she took. Release me, her first venom-laced instinct screamed, but she found her arms gingerly wrapping 'round his slender physique, her body leaning into his, puffy eyes squeezing shut. Tears stained his cerulean tunic. Link hugged her closer, brushing a hand down the back of her golden head.
"I-it's alright," he murmured, summoning the courage to speak, banishing his own burden to ease hers, "your power will awaken, I-I know it will."
"What will it take?" She sniffled. "Prayer has proven itself fruitless, and so has rumination...I'm afraid...I'm afraid I won't be able to awaken it in time…"
"You will." His hand continued its soothing caress of her silken hair, an action that assuaged her wounded will, stitched it slowly back together. "I-I'm afraid too, of what's to come, the Calamity...but we'll face it together. You won't be alone. Me, our fellow Champions; we'll all be there at your side."
"And I vow not to fail them, or you, or the kingdom. I will harness this power, whatever it takes."
"And I believe in you." The tenderness permeating his tone, the kindling confidence of his words, they all swathed her in a serene sanctuary that revived her resolve. Hope dug its roots in her heart, sprouting in the sunshine of her knight's optimism. Her slumbering power refused to wake tonight, but she could live with that. Live with the disenchantment that would surely blaze in her father's faded grey eyes upon learning her sealing magic had yet again failed to rouse, live with the disappointment of its impermanent elusion. The time would come when she'd hear the tongues of the spirit realm, feel the surge of her power within her being, awaken in her destiny.
But alas, it wasn't tonight.
Disheartened but not dismantled, Zelda whispered, "Thank you," her fingers clinging tight to the soft blue fabric of Link's tunic. Such kindness never left her father's lips these trying days. Gratitude welled up in her chest, gratitude that in spite of bitter envy dethroning compassion for her escort, her curt dismissals of him, her festering resentment that boiled in her blood at the truth that he was the mirror to her own wretched failures — he still remained at her side, dutiful and unwavering, eager to protect her wellbeing no matter the cost to his own. And she ador— admired him for that torturous endeavor.
'Neath the night sky, in the glimmering Spring of Power, the Princess of Hyrule nestled her tear-streaked face in her knight's shoulder, savoring the sweet sanctuary their snug arms created. For an ephemeral eternity, she forgot the Calamity, her father, her kismet. The universe in all its demanding chaos melted away. The sole sensations that lingered were their palpitating hearts, their tranquil breaths, and the kindred warmth their bodies shared.