Chapter 7
Malon's white marble tomb stood in the royal cemetery where it had been for more than two centuries. The caretakers of the cemetery had done their job well, Link thought, as he looked the grave site over. It was decorated with the winged triforce seal of the royal family, and had a carved image relief of the influential and powerful queen who had ruled in the place of her sister.
There were no flowers planted now, but he had been told that the gardeners placed orange, yellow, and white flowers of every kind during the late spring to honor the ancestral queen. "She would have liked that." He had mused to himself upon hearing it.
He had never seen Malon's tomb before, not like this anyways. He had, of course, seen pictures of it in school and in the history books he had studied when he was a kid. Before he knew who he was, he had always felt a kind of sadness at seeing it, and a connection he could never explain. When he finally understood and remembered the connection, he had found reasons not to visit the grave of his former wife from another lifetime. Living in a completely different province hundreds of miles away helped a lot.
His trip back to Castleton from the Sacred Grove had been a somber one, and lonely as he had been given plenty of time to think. The R.H.M.G. guardsman who drove him up the highway kept to himself, and Link had been forced to face the position he was in. "Ascend on my own, or we both cease to exist." He said to himself more than once, trying to come to terms with it.
Now he stood in front of the tomb of another woman he had loved deeply, and he knew he would never see her again. He had come here first before going to the hospital without really knowing why. All of this life for him he had wanted to leave that other life, that other family, in the past where it belonged up until now and it kept intruding in his current life whether he wanted it to or not.
He wondered what his "son" Talon thought every time he looked at his mother's two hundred plus year old grave. The man hadn't even been permitted to attend her funeral because of the punishment Zelda had inflicted on him. Ironically, it was a punishment which had eventually served to save all of them and Hyrule from an evil none of them could have anticipated. Did Talon remember his mother's soft flame colored hair? Her firm but gentle hands? Did he remember the steel in her spine? Or the warmth in her smile?
Link found himself remembering all of those things and more and he realized that he had never mourned Malon. He had never really been given the chance to come to terms with her death as a mortal man. He had died and ascended long before her, and she had died an old but fulfilled woman. Funnily enough, he remembered her death from when he was ascended. But one tended to experience those kinds of events differently when you were a being of pure energy than you did with flesh, blood, and a heart to pump it.
"I'm sorry it's taken me so long to come and see you, Malon." He said, addressing the tomb. He knew she wasn't there anymore. Whether or not there was something besides ascension after life, he didn't know. In his considerable, and unusual, life Link had encountered (and fought) many creatures and spirits that had been from beyond the grave, but he had never personally been given the chance to find out. From all of his experiences though, he knew that stranger things were possible.
"You knew it was complicated with me before, and that really hasn't ever changed. I don't know where you are now, but I hope you're happy there." A tear began to form in his eye. "You'd be proud of Talon now. He's every bit the king you hoped at one time he would be."
His thoughts went back to that lifetime, the last lifetime he had lived almost three centuries before. "You know I never said goodbye when you finally took sick and they couldn't cure you. I was always watching over you, but I never said goodbye, and I never..." The tears began to flow more readily. "I should have been there, Malon. I should have led you to ascension when I had the chance, and I didn't, and I'm sorry."
The old rancher just stood there, tears stinging his eyes as he finally let them go. They flowed freely down his cheeks as he remembered her.
"She wouldn't have wanted it at the end." Came a familiar voice, so much like Link's own.
Link didn't turn around. "Why?" He asked. "Why wouldn't she have wanted eternal life?"
"I spoke with her, shortly before she died." Came the king's response. "She came to see me, you know."
"Once a week, I remember the visits." Link told his son who was older than he was. "I was aware of them. At times I was with her when she came to visit you."
"But not for her last visit." Talon said, not as a question.
"No. I couldn't." Link told him, trying to find the words. "I couldn't watch... I mean, I had a hard time seeing her like..."
"Seeing her like that." Talon finished for him. "So did I." He said. "I told her not to attempt the journey again after that, for her own sake. She was so frail by then."
"And yet still so strong." Link added.
"Always. The ministers underestimated her at first, much to their detriment. Even in the end, she wielded her words and wisdom like you wielded your sword. She was every bit my aunt's equal on the throne. She is the reason why Hyrule's civilization exists as it does today." Talon told him.
"I know." Link told him. "I just couldn't face..." Then he gestured to the white tomb. "I couldn't face this." He said, trying to dry his eyes and face with his sleeve. "It was two hundred years before I was born, and it might as well have been yesterday for me." He then asked, "What did she say? Why wouldn't she have wanted me to lead her to ascension?"
"She said she didn't want to come between you and my Lady in the eternal realm like she had in the mortal one. In the end, she loved and believed in the both of you so strongly that she didn't want to continue if it meant coming between the Hero and the Princess for eternity." Talon said, his voice sober.
"Did Hylia try?" Link asked, finally turning to face the former sage turned sovereign.
"I don't know. I've never attempted to find out. It's matter that would be best answered by asking her." Talon responded. "Gaepora and Daphnes are with her right now. They've been asking where you are."
Link nodded in acknowledgment. "How did you find me?"
"The guardsman who drove you works for me, remember? I told him to contact me directly when you returned from Earth. When you asked to come to the palace instead of the hospital, all I had to do was ask which direction you had gone." He explained. Then he asked, "This is your first time visiting her tomb in this life, isn't it?"
"Yes." Link's voice cracked from emotion. "It's my first time in any life."
"There was another reason why she didn't want to follow you in ascension, even if it was offered to her." Talon told him.
"What was that?" Link asked.
"She had moved on." Talon told him. "She had let go of her husband, my father, who had died in that lifetime, and embraced the living man who was still there to love and care for her. She didn't want to enter the eternal realm without him."
"Oliver." The old man said. "He was a good man, I remember."
"Yes, he was. And a good father for both my brother and I." Talon told him. He could have put a great deal of emotion, and accusation for those missing years when Link hadn't been there in his voice, but he didn't. Instead, it was a statement of fact, devoid of any sentiment.
Images ran through Link's mind. They were fuzzy images, but he could remember watching the devoted military man as he played the surrogate father for his two boys, being their when Link couldn't be. Oliver always said it was a promise he had made to him, and he never once broke it.
"Because I wasn't there. Because I had to put the needs of Hyrule above the needs of my own family." Link told him. "Just like I always did."
"None of us ever faulted you for that." Talon told him. "It was..."
"The reason why I was born. Again, and again, and again..." Link's voice became harder and angrier each time he said "again." "Every time I had to lose everything which mattered to me, every time I had to face nightmare after nightmare, every time I had to risk everything and sacrifice everything..." Tears came to his eyes again. "I lost you and your brother to Oliver. He was a good man, but I should have been there for you and your mother. I should have been there... Do you know, Talon, how many families I lost like that? How many times I had a wife and children only to be called away and die so that Hyrule wouldn't be overrun? Do you know that, to this day, I still have nightmares about things which happened to me over a thousand years ago? Did you know that I could barely remember my own name, my first name from when I was first born and raised ten thousand years ago?" He had realized it, but rivers began to flow down his cheeks again. "Did you know that every time you fell and Oliver comforted you, it broke my heart that I couldn't be there to do it? I couldn't interfere in the mortal lives of my own family? And it has broken my heart hundreds of times, with hundreds of boys that I called my sons." His voice was so filled with emotion that he could barely get the words out.
Talon's own eyes were tearing up as he said, "I'm sorry, father."
"I don't want to do this any more Talon." Link told him. "I found Daniel. He removed the block from my mind, but that was all he could do. He said I was going to have to go the rest of the way on my own, and the truth is that I don't know if I want to take the risk that I'll have to go through this again. But if I don't find a way to ascend on my own, then what happens to Zelda? If I die and finally cease, I condemn Zelda to a final death as well, and I can't do that either. So, do you see my problem? I have to ascend whether I want to or not. Because if I don't, we all lose Zelda forever, and I can't do that. But the truth is, I don't want to go on like this. The truth is, the darkness within me doesn't stop when I ascend it just goes on until I reincarnate again, and again, and it doesn't end." His voice began to plead with his ancient son. "I don't know what to do, Talon. I'm so, so tired. And the truth is, when I was gone I remembered the first time I ascended." His voice lowered a bit as he confessed, "I couldn't do it on my own the first time. Hylia had to help me through it when I was dying. So, that's it then. I have to do this for Zelda's sake. But I needed her to do it to begin with, and every other time it was virtually assured to keep the "back-up plan" in place. If my mother is expecting me to do it again on my own without help, then as of right now, both Zelda and I are as good as in the tomb forever. I can't do this, Talon. I was hoping Daniel would see his way to do it for me, or at least come back with me to help out Zelda. But its come down to just me, and for so many reasons, I can't do it."
The old man just stood there, weeping as he talked. His voice become raw with all of the pent up despair, pain, frustration, and raw emotion that he had held inside for so long. It was everything he had wanted to say to someone for so long, and had been unable to verbalize to anyone because of the role he had been forced to play in Hyrule's destiny.
Talon said nothing in response. He could say nothing as the tears began to flow down his own face as well. He had been forced to spend hundreds of years in contemplation and reflection of his own sins and pain, and had finally reconciled and made peace with himself and his past decades ago, but he came to realize that his father had never been allowed to. Perhaps these last forty five years were the first time he had been allowed to just live as a normal Hylian in his entire existence. He didn't blame his father for not wanting that to end, or to not want to return to the realm of possibly running the risk of going through it all over again. He wouldn't have wanted it either. Not for anything.
His father put his hands to his face and his weeping became sobbing as the old man's body became wracked with great tremors and waves of emotion as it all burst forth. Ten thousand years of emotional trauma spilled out of him, and Talon's own heart broke as he heard his father's cries.
The king of Hyrule stepped forward and put his arms around the old man and held him close to his chest, and Link returned Talon's embrace as he continued to sob. And the two just stood there, son comforting father before the tomb of the woman that had been the connection between them both through her love for them both.
When he could speak again, Link said through a hoarse and painful voicebox, "I can't do this again, son. I just can't. But I don't have a choice. Zelda doesn't have a choice. And so I need your help, son. I can't do this on my own, but maybe with your help, we can save her together." He told him.
Talon kissed the top of his father's head and said, "You and I then, father." He hugged him close, his eyes still moist. "You and I then."
Zelda's eyes were closed, her mind relaxed and calm. It had been a very long time, but as Talon had been guiding her through some meditations, the silent rhythm of her own breathing, the beat of her heart, the ever present now became the focus of her mind as she worked on working through her own past pain, failures, and attachments. The practice, though not used by her for decades or even centuries perhaps, had come back to her willingly and naturally as she lay in her hospital bed under Talon's minor tutelage.
Her sons and their families had all come to visit with her the night before, though now it was just Gaepora who watched over her as Talon had left to check on Link she knew, and Daphnes had gone to get food for himself and his brother that afternoon. It was good for her to see them, even though it had only been a few months since the last time they had come out to the house in Ordon.
"Mother?" She heard Gaepora's voice in the void of her mind that she had retreated to. It was a place she hadn't visited in a long time, but she found it as quiet and peaceful as she always had before. His voice, however much she loved it, was a startling and unwelcome intrusion.
"Mother?" The voice called out again, and she began to lose her peaceful focus as she began to return back from the void into her conscious mind, aware of the world and her senses around her.
"I'm fine, Gaepora." She said, opening her eyes.
"Your heart rate was slowing down on the monitors. I didn't know if I should call a healer or not." He explained.
"It's supposed to slow down." She responded, a little annoyed. Gaepora had been present when Talon explained it. "And before you mention it, yes, my brain activity was supposed to change as well."
"According to the monitors your EEG frequency readings went down to one and a half hertz. I'm no doctor, but that's getting close to coma, mom." Gaepora told her, concerned.
"It's still not low enough for what I need it to be if I'm going to do this, Gaepora." She told him. "It needs to be between zero point one to zero point nine hertz for me to reach ascension."
"And how do you know that?" Gaepora asked. "I didn't hear his majesty say anything about that."
How did I know that? She wondered. She knew the fact was true, but she couldn't remember where from. But she knew she did remember it. "I remembered it from before." She finally told him.
Gaepora was silent at that, and just looked at her with concern and fear in his eyes. The look in his eyes made her feel small, helpless, and weak.
"Stop looking at me like that, Gaepora." She told him sharply. "I'm never been as frail as you seem to think I am now."
"You're dying in a hospital bed, mom." Gaepora told her. "What should I be thinking?"
"You should be thinking that the woman you're looking at led legions of Hylian soldiers into battle over a thousand years before you were born." She said matter of factly.
"If you say so, mom." Gaepora said in a humoring tone of voice. That didn't help Zelda's mood.
"Now you listen to me, boy," she said, sitting up and looking him in the eye, using the same tone of voice she would use when he was ten years old and trying to sass her, "I have lived and died over and over again for the last ten thousand years. I have faced pain and terrors the likes of which you have never imagined. I have commanded armies. I have ruled kingdoms. I have brought nations together, and I have led legions to reduce them to rubble in the name of the greater good. I have stared into the face of Demise himself and forced him to submit at the point of a sword. So don't you dare presume to sass or disrespect me because I'm lying here in this hospital bed hooked up to this damned machine! Am I clear?" Her voice became more steely and hardened, rising with each word as she wielded them like a blade against her son's condescension. Then, seeing the pained look in his own eyes, she relaxed and sweetened her voice a little and said, "My son, I love you more than you know. If you really are concerned about me, then you will let your father and I do what we have to even if you don't understand it. Okay?"
Her son, an experienced military man in his own right, backed down at the dangerous, ancient look in his mother's eyes. It was one he had only seen in flashes before, but now found himself on the direct receiving end of. "I'm sorry, mom." He said, sincerely. "I'm just worried, and," he let out an exhausted breath, "I don't understand any of this. How can I? How could I possibly understand the idea of living hundreds of lifetimes, or going through half of what you and dad have told us you've gone through? When I hear the sages or the religious priests talk about the exploits of the Hero and the Princess, it always sounds like they're talking about someone else. It always sounds like its something that happened to other people. Do you understand why Daphnes and I have always had a hard time with this?"
"I wish I could." She answered honestly. "I wish I could have had that luxury, but Demise chose not to give it to us."
"There. That's just what I'm talking about, mom. You say that as though it was some part of our family history that's within living memory. You say it like it happened only a few years ago; a decade at most. Mom, do you understand that ten thousand years ago isn't within living memory? It's not even comprehensible to my brother and I." Gaepora told her.
"It's within my living memory." Zelda told him sourly.
"I don't want to do this mom. I don't want to argue with you and dad about this. Neither does Daphnes. But you've got to understand how hard it is for us to accept it. I know it doesn't bother Malona, and our kids love yours and dad's stories, but neither Daphnes or I can come to grips with it." He told her.
"So what do you want me to do then, Gaepora? Just die here like a good little grandma because what your father and I are doing to try and save ourselves makes our history too real for you?" She snapped at him.
"No, mom, that's not what I said..." Gaepora tried to defend himself.
But she was too irritated to hold herself back. "I'm sorry if the unusual nature of our lives offends you and your brother, Gaepora. But I can't change any of it, and if we had made different decisions neither you, nor your brother, nor even Hyrule itself would exist today. No. We're not a normal family. We never have been. Get over it, boy. These last forty five years are as close to normal as your father and I have ever had it and we've been thankful for every last second. The truth is that we've been a little too thankful for it, and tried our damnedest to enjoy it for as long as we could. That's why we're both in the position we're in now. Because we ignored what we both knew was coming. That's why your father went off to another world in another reality to find help, because the only person who could have still been 'alive' who might be able and willing to help isn't even here in our world. That's why I was lying here only moments ago trying to relearn the mental practices I need to be able to escape this dying, mortal form. This is the reality we have lived with for ten thousand years! I'm sorry if it's new to you, but I don't have the luxury right now of catering to your disbelief! And neither does your father." She finished.
"Okay." He said after a deliberating pause.
"Okay?" She repeated.
"Okay." He confirmed. "Whatever you and dad need me to do, whether I understand it or not, I'll do." He told her sincerely. "I love you both, mom. And I'll be here for you. Whatever you need from me, you've got."
"Okay." She said again, accepting it. "Right now we both need your support. Meditating in order to ascend can be difficult under the best of circumstances, and your grandmothers have put some kind of an impediment in place. Without more help, I can only take this so far."
"So, if our..." he had trouble saying the word, but he got it out, "grandmothers put a block in place, what about just asking them to remove it?"
"And if it were that simple, we wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we, my son?" She asked, her voice bleeding sarcasm. "They won't answer us."
Gaepora thought for a few moments. He then asked, "Would they talk to me? Or Daphnes and I? How do we get a hold of them?"
"They are already aware of our conversation." She told him. "Being ascended means near omniscience. You're aware of almost everything going on in your world."
"What about paying a visit to their Sages?" Gaepora asked, brainstorming.
"My mother's temple is under lake Hylia. Farore's is in the Kokiri Forest. Neither destination is for the faint of heart." She told him. "Your father has been in them many times in the past. Every time they have tested him to the point of nearly killing him. You both have families, my son." She tried to impress upon him the seriousness of what he was suggesting.
"You asked for my support, mom. I don't know how else to help but to 'do' something. Daphnes is the same way. It's driving both of us crazy just sitting here unable to do anything. There's too much of dad in the both of us. At least going to the temples would give us something we could do to help." He told her.
"My boy." She said, taking her hand and stroking his hair lovingly.
"I'm going to find a way to help you, mom." He told her. "I promise. Even if I have to drag Farore back here and make her help you."