"Karzad!" Nayru screamed, "Karzad!" She thought fast, and saw Zarij and her mother coming up behind her. "He's dying!" she cried quickly, opening his shirt and examining the wound. She looked down at his chest. There was something there. She looked closer and saw a pendant on a thin silver chain. Nayru lifted it up. There was a triforce with little sketches and designs around it. "Why, where did he get that?" Gasped Zarij, "That is the Hyrulian Royal Family's Crest!" Nayru gasped inwardly at these words, but realized that there was no time to lose. She opened up Karzad's bag and found bandages. She wrapped the wound clumsily, trying desperately to slow the bleeding. It was useless, Karzad was fading fast and Nayru began to look through the compartments of her belt. "What are you doing now?" Zarij cried in anguish, not knowing what to do. "I need to go find help, I'll be back I promise! I'll be back for you mother" She cried and then pulled out the fairy ocarina. She played the minuet of the forest and vanished from sight.
****
She appeared a second later in the forest, laying Karzad down on the stone with the triforce engraved on the surface. "Saria!" She screamed "Saria! Saria, help! Help! It's Nayru, help!" she screamed until she was hoarse when suddenly Saria appeared in a flash of green light out of nowhere. She dropped the basket of fruit she was carrying. "Nayru, is that you?! Why do you look like a Gerudo? What on earth are you doing here?" "Saria, Saria, It's Karzad! Look, he's hurt, what can I do? What can I do?" Nayru cried "what can you do?" "Here, he is dying, I need to take him to the castle, wait here." She said striding over to Karzad and grabbing his hand. "I will return!" She said and then disappeared. Nayru walked to the stone. Karzad's blood was spilled out over it. It ran into the triforce's cracks, dribbling through like little streams. She sat on the cold stone, curling up and putting her cheek onto the surface of the rock. She cried little, shock had consumed her mind. Karzad was dying. He was the prince. Zelda's son. Why hadn't he told her? Thoughts spun through her mind and she soon sank into dreamless sleep in exhaustion.
***
She woke later wrenching her cheek up from the cold rock. She put her hand on her cheek. Something was crusted there. She picked some off and it fell onto her hand. Dried blood. Karzad's blood. It all came flooding back to her now. He was her son. She looked down at the triforce carved there on the stone. She flashed back to Karzad in the chambers of the dungeon. His crest, he was her son. She suddenly realized that there were tears streaming down her face. She wiped her hands over them and drew it back. The skin dye that had colored her face came off on her hand. She stood up and walked out into the little maze-like area behind the temple. She found a pool of water and undressed quickly. She leapt in and a cloud of orange billowed out around her. She washed her hair thoroughly and then her skin. She lay in the cool water wondering how all of this had happened to her. She dove under the water and sat at the bottom. Using her gills she breathed deeply, relaxing as best she could and listening to the deep silence at the bottom of the pool. She rested there, allowing her mind to calm itself and after a long while she at last climbed out. She wrapped herself in her cloak and then came back to where she had cast aside her belongings by the temple. She dressed in her old regular attire and then sat on Saria's usual stump. She breathed deeply, and closed her eyes, listening to the music of the forest around her. A cricket chirped nearby, a slight breeze rustled through the trees. The stars were fading fast and dawn was approaching, greying the horizon in it's dull, new, light, a few early spring birds chirped. She rested there, trying to stay calm. The worst was over. He was dead or alive, simple as that. She felt a deep connection with the ground and the sky and the air as she sat there, in meditation. She heard a voice then. "Nayru." It said in soft echoing tones. Her eyes sprung open and she saw a bright light. "Nayru, do not fear, it is I, your namesake and the goddess of sky, water, and most important, of love." The light faded and a tall woman stood in its place. She wore a shimmering robe and her skin was ivory pale. Long blue hair fell to her feet, crowned with a circlet of purest silver, and her eyes were a wide pale blue, almost white. She walked forward slowly. "Nayru, you have suffered much pain, I feel for you in your suffering. I feel the same suffering myself, the darkness, it has taken away the ones I love as well. My people, the ones I love so much, they die, they give themselves up to the shadow. It gives me so much pain to see them, to see you, suffering." "Nayru, I love them …will he be alright, will they all be alright?" the girl asked in fear "If your love is true." Nayru said in her echoing voice. "If your love is true it will act as a lifeline to those who you love. If you give in, the lifeline will fail, and darkness will overpower all. Love cannot fail Nayru, you must not allow it to." "It is so hard." Nayru said, "So hard to keep all my promises, to keep my love true and strong." "You must keep it true Nayru, you must keep the love true. It is the only light in this sea of darkness that is left. It is the only thing keeping spirits alive, the only fire left kindled in a vast night. You must keep the fire burning. You must keep your love true. You have doubted your love Nayru, and it is the only thing keeping him going now, but his lifeline is weakening. You must not blame him. You must not doubt him, or doubt your love for him, you must never let it fail. The fate of Hyrule, I fear, must rest upon your shoulders, if you keep your love pure, if you keep it true, then the darkness will never truly win. Never. Nayru, as your namesake, as your goddess, as a fellow being, I beg you, keep it true." With a flash of blinding white light she vanished, leaving something behind on the grass, glittering in the dawn's light. She stood slowly, and walked over to it. She bent down and with shaking fingers lifted it up to her eyes. It was a ring. It was pure silver, shimmering with an unearthly glow. A deep blue stone embedded in the surface with unreadable runes on the surface. If she had been able to read it she would know that it said "True love shall never fail, fair Nayru." She slipped it onto her finger and she suddenly felt a warmth glow inside of her. It felt as though she had swallowed a whole bowl something warm and sweet and nourishing all in one gulp. It ran down through her, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and she almost cried out with laughter, tears springing to her eyes. It radiated through her. It was love. It was Goddess' own love, inside of her. She held her hands over her heart and closed her eyes to savor it. She was loved, and she loved. She would not let it fail. She could not, not now.