"Finish him, Link!"
Zelda's pleading cry escaped the boarish monstrosity molded by Malice and spiralled into the Hero's pointed ears. Soaring skyward on a fiery updraft, Link loaded the sacred Bow of Light, aimed for the yellow-irised core of his nemesis, and let divine punishment fly.
The holy missile plunged into the eye of the beast. Malice splattered. Ganon writhed. Agony lanced through every atom of his abominable being, poisoned by the piercing light that shriveled his incandescent power. Link glided back down onto the scorched earth, his legs trembling from the skull-splitting roar that thundered through the smoke-stained air.
The Dark Beast reared, a scintillating orb of golden light escaping from his head — the Princess! Link realized with a rush of relief — she streaked onto the grassy field, her aura rippling 'round her body like an ethereal flame, her emerald eyes dim with the weariness of a hundred years' strife. Into the blazing gaze of her imprisoner she peered. For an endless eternity, it seemed, the two beacons of light and darkness were embroiled in a ceaseless battle, the heavenly light wrestling with the wrathful malice that festered with an eternal vengeance that bled across the ages.
The time had come to end this struggle.
A shockwave of magic spiked from the scion of Hylia and ripped through the beast. His gruesome form melted into that of a serpentine shadow, one that swirled in crimson coils above the Princess, roaring in fury at his inescapable demise at the hands of the very bloodline he cursed all those eons ago. Was this to be his fate? Humiliating defeat, ad nauseum into eternity? He'd relinquished flesh and blood, ascended to this eldritch embodiment of hatred, only to succumb once more to the same insufferable Spirit of the Hero and the same wretched Goddess who sealed him away in the ancient era.
Every shred of his being revolted against this cruel kismet.
Maw agape, Calamity Ganon made a final lunge for Zelda — but her palm shot up, a burst of golden brilliance erupting from it. The light swelled and swelled, shredding his shadowy essence and engulfing it in a divine sphere. He shrieked — the light burned him like scalding lava, liquifying the last of his strength and encaging him in a holy prison that imploded.
The scarlet sky cleared.
Zelda's aura died, the power of the Goddess funneling out of her body for the first time in a century. She felt hollow, the empty sensation gnawing at the void Hylia had filled. Hollow, but free. No longer in the vile thrall of Malice, no longer pouring every drop of her energy into restraining the Calamity from rampaging the land.
Free.
And the one who freed her…
"I've...been keeping watch over you all this time," she began, a revivifying breeze ruffling through her golden locks. Link approached the Princess, who was no longer just the benevolent beacon of a voice guiding him through his perilous quest or a figment of his shattered memory. She was here, a relic of his past now in the flesh, alive.
He felt a tug at his innermost core, a feeling deeper than destiny. More than a voice inside his head...
"I've witnessed your struggles to return to us as well as your trials in battle." Link flinched. Flashes of possessed, laser-spitting mechanical menaces whirled sickeningly in his mind, along with blurred, adrenaline-fevered escapes from those blood-curdling machines. A twinge of sheepishness nipped him. He must've looked exceedingly pathetic during those early Guardian encounters. But, by the grace of Hylia herself it seemed, he'd triumphed over those formidable foes that prowled the most flourishing of fields, stormed Hyrule Castle, and dueled the Calamity until he fell weak, weak enough to be expelled to oblivion by the Princess.
"I always thought — no, I always believed — that you would find a way to defeat Ganon." Zelda turned to face him. The rising sun wreathed her in gleaming gold, a light akin to her angelic aura he watched blaze mere seconds ago. All he could do was marvel. Marvel at her zephyr-tousled hair, the smudges on her white ceremonial dress, her unbreakable resilience in the snaking clutches of Malice — all of it, all of her, was the epitome of a Goddess incarnate, the epitome of the woman he'd given his life to protect.
"I never lost faith in you over these many years." Waves of gratitude swelled in Zelda's chest, cresting as their eyes met for the first time in a hundred years. "Thank you, Link...the Hero of Hyrule." A radiant smile illuminated her weary face. Her features softened, her mind flitting back to his unfortunate demise, and his century long slumber in the Shrine of Resurrection, a sanctum that healed his wounds but inescapably wiped his memory. Though he quested to the ends of Hyrule and back to unearth those memories trapped in the deep crevasses of his mind, Zelda couldn't help but wonder, was his memory truly restored? No doubt he still harbored that heroic spirit and valorous mettle that made him the Champion of Hyrule he was, but what of the tender moments they'd shared? Their innumerable expeditions across the land together, the solace he wrapped her in at the Goddess Springs when her power refused to awaken, the tingling heat of a kiss pressed to her cheek...
"May I ask…do you really remember me?"
Reflected in her knight's visage was her own beaming expression. Joy blossomed in her heart as Link drew closer, a single word leaving his lips.
"Yes."
Slender arms enveloped her, cocooning her in a soft serenity that washed away the lingering stains of her lifelong burden. She leaned into his familiar, welcoming warmth, her arms weaving 'round his lean frame, squishing him close so as to feel his heart thundering against her chest, matching her own tempo.
"I remember." Though his memory was still misty much like the meadow they stood in, he remembered enough to know that the woman he hugged in his arms was the one he'd dance on the edge of death for, the one he'd journey through a Malice-tainted wilderness and do battle with an age-old force of evil, ad nauseum into eternity, to enfold her once again.