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:: Bridge The Ocean ::
A Legend of Zelda Vignette
By LauraCeleste

Special thanks to the LOZFFML (http://lozffml.dreamhost.com/) scribes
for their honesty, respect, and overall coolness.

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:: Foreword ::
The setting is a short time before the events of "Link's Awakening." I wanted to do a fic
exploring the confusion and irrationality of youth from the POV of an older, more seasoned person.
This is the result. I'm considering a sequel that deals with a resolution of the irrationality; in other words,
making them grow up and get over it! I hope you (the reader) will consider the conflict of emotions
and question Zelda's youthful rationale. I also hope you'll enjoy the fic.

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I have the great honor of attending to my queen twice daily; once when she wakes, and then when she retires. I am the maidservant who folds down her sheets, brings her breakfast, and occasionally provides a word of advice, when requested to do so. In such a position, I am uniquely able to see what few others know; that our royal highness has been stricken with a terrible case of melancholy, a serious loss of spirit.

Her demeanor appears in its truest form when she wakes; a beautiful face so terribly drawn and pale that I barely recognize her. After a cocktail of concealing creams and colors to brighten eyes and falsify smiles, she marches proudly off to govern. She holds her head high, bless her, with years of regal breeding; I'm sure her father, one year gone this spring, would have been proud. But then at night, once she washes off the layers, her true face returns stronger than before. It is a face of weariness, of sorrow, of missed chances, and of consuming regret.

It seems that everyone ignores the way she often stands at east-bound windows, watching the road trailing from the ocean with a wistful expression, or the way tired skin crinkles at the edges of her sparkless eyes. Her advisors are heartless men who make fun when her mind drifts away and comment harshly on her worn appearance. I am thankful she is a stubborn girl, for she gets them back to their business quickly. She is trying so very hard to be a good queen, despite it all. Still, in all my forty years, I have never witnessed such a pitiful sight as that evening transformation. In mere minutes she slips from stunning to miserable, pining for something she can hold no longer, her youthful aspirations dampened by an ascension that came too early.

I know what brought on her melancholy; the source is not hard to see. Four months ago the ocean stole something very precious to her. Its churning waves carried away a dear friend with an irrepressible spirit, one who longed to voyage past the bounds of Hylian authority, into the wild world beyond our shores. I like to believe she begged him to stay, but he could not be chained.

Tonight, as I turn back her bedsheets and fluff her pillows, she is staring blankly into her mirror and applying her nightly lotions. Her face holds a strange expression, and I am pleased to note that there is some color in her cheeks today. Then I realize the face in the mirror is watching me.

"Thank you, Luila," she says as I finish, her voice meek and gentle. She smiles weakly at my reflection in her mirror.

"Welcome, Milady. I see your smile has returned?"

Her highness seems amused. "I have word from the kingdom of Aurtan. Someone has spoken with Link," Zelda breathlessly says, her fingers smoothing a sheet of parchment. "I am so very relieved. He is alive, at least. Glory be."

"It must be a great relief to you," I admit, thrilled to hear the news.

"Oh, it is! It is." She fingers her necklace absently as she rereads the parchment, reassuring herself with the words written there and smiling inwardly.

"Did he include a note or word of greeting?" I wonder aloud. I did not expect her face to darken, nor her eyes to lose their glittering happiness. "He won't," she speaks resolutely, placing the letter face down on her bureau and standing. She postures strongly before the mirror and violently straightens the bodice of her gown. "We parted angrily."

"That's so very sad," I say ruefully, feeling low.

"I...I didn't want him to go!" There is an edge of indignance in her voice that I'm sure is not directed toward me. "I wanted him to stay here, to...he wasn't supposed to go!" Angry tears, unbridled, fall toward her chin, and no amount of breeding keeps her from stomping her foot. I suddenly see my queen as the young girl she is, growing into emotions she has not yet learned to grasp.

"Is there no chance that he might...."

"No!" she cries. "He has a wandering soul, too far removed from here." Zelda looks away and clenches her fists. "Curse his wanderlust!"

I regret seeing her so terribly upset, but I know it to be cathartic. As she drifts past me to the balcony, her tearstained face glistening in the moonlight, I try to remember how love felt at fifteen; the desperation, innocent passion, misinterpretation, and confusion. As her balcony doors open, I realize that it is raining, and my instant reaction is to call her back inside, lest she catch cold.

"Oh, curse his wanderlust!" she repeats as the rain soaks through her. "Curse his pride! Is the ocean so vast that he cannot cross it once more...." But now she falls silent, bracing herself stiff-armed on the balcony and staring off at the horizon again.

"No, curse my pride instead," she whispers, bowing her head. "It was my pride that sent him away; my pride, not his."

"Milady, surely...." I stand in the doorway and prepare to draw her back inside. She brushes wild dripping curls from her face and wipes wetness from her cheeks.

"If I could bridge the ocean," she says shakily, "or span the wild seas, I would not hesitate to do so, if only it would show him the way home." A swift breeze pushes her back, and I see her grip on the balcony railing tighten. The rain will soon be gusting into a full-blown thunderstorm, but it does not deter her from speaking her mind. "I have cried enough tears," she shouts against the wind, "to fill up every valley and sighed enough sighs to fill his sails. I would command the land itself to send him back to me, if only to explain that I was scared, I was desperate, I never meant to say those things...he wasn't supposed to go!"

The princess suddenly doubles over into wracking sobs. I start when she begins coughing, bending herself over the dripping railing with their severity as flashes of lightning begin to spark in the distance. It is a frightening sight. I try to take her arm, to lead her away from the edge in fear that she will slip and fall over, but she resists. She requests that I leave for the night, so I turn and obey her wishes. I have not yet reached her door before I hear her speak again, though the words were not to me.

"How long must I wait here, Link, grounded like a child?" Then, angrily, "Why couldn't I have come with you?"

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I expect to see her sullenness return in full by the morning, but I am surprised to find her strangely apathetic. She smiles at my entrance, eats her breakfast silently, and dresses while humming to herself, though I do not know the tune.

"Did you sleep well, Luila?" she asks me, finishing off a piece of toasted bread while waiting for her curling stick to heat up in the coals of her fireplace.

"Yes, quite. Are you feeling well today? No cold?"

"For the time being, no." She smiles sheepishly at me. "That was silly of me, wasn't it? Standing in the rain like that, a thunderstorm, no less."

"I did fear for your health, Milady."

After wiping her mouth daintily with a napkin, she stands from her breakfast table and I clear away her dishes while she puts on the top layers of her gown before her bureau mirror.

"I had an epiphany last night," she says, attempting to fasten the buttons of her dress's tight bodice. Once the dishes are cleared away, I finish the buttons she could not reach. "I have decided that I will not let his absence deter me from my duty another day. I will smile, I will laugh, and I will make everyone see that I am strong! I am!" She tests a confident smile in the mirror, and I chuckle at her eagerness.

"...But it is a rather nice concept, is it not? To bridge the ocean, to bring all those other worlds closer to us? So we could learn of their cultures, and visit their lands. It's fascinating, I think."

"Perhaps there is a touch of wanderlust in you, also," I muse.

"Perhaps." She is thoughtful for a moment. "But my spirit is chained."

"How so?" I ask, moving on to straighten the bustle in her skirt. In response she reaches to the velvet-covered pillow and lifts her tiara, then waves it in the air at me.

"This restrains me. It is like an iron leash." She regards the golden crown with disgust.

"I'm sure the kingdom would have no problem with you doing a little traveling...."

"...but not with him," she says solemnly, and I understand everything.

"Was that why...," I start, but do not know how to finish.

"Link wanted to see the world...and wanted me to share it with him." She smiles sadly. "It was a spontaneous thing, and I promised I would go, but papa wasn't pleased. After papa...after that, I was faced with so many new responsibilities. I begged Link to wait for me, but he knew our trip would never come. He knew I would never find the opportunity to go again."

"And so he left without you?" I say incredulously, reaching for her curl-stick from the coals with a thick cloth to protect my fingers.

"He left bearing a hundred lashes from my tongue," she regrets. "I was furious, I was upset, I was tired. I honestly believed he was in the wrong. And believe me, I wasted no time in telling him so."

"How did he respond?"

"He said I was being irrational."

"And were you?" I ask honestly, curling a lock of hair. She is silent for a long moment.

"I think I was."

I do not agree, but no other answer is needed; she is quite determined to place the blame on herself. I finish her hair in silence, unwilling to anger my Queen by offering my own assessment of the situation.

"He said he might return, someday," she murmurs thoughtfully. "But I don't think he will...."

All I can do is pat her shoulders and smile encouragingly, then send her off to face another day of governing. Perhaps some day she will bridge the ocean and unite peoples from around the world. Perhaps some day I will know the whole story, and will better understand what was said to create such resentment between herself and that boy. Perhaps some day she will build her bridge to span the sea and bring him home. But truth be told, if that bridge is built, I believe she will have to build it alone.

~FINIS~

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Thank you for reading! Reviews are appreciated but not demanded.

~~@~~LauraCeleste~~@~~
the_lone_gungirl@yahoo.com
IE Browsers: http://celestial.faeriewings.net