The makeshift pen tapped on the log for a minute.
My beloved Princess.
Yes. That was a good, solid beginning.
My beloved princess,
I have recently had cause to doubt my sanity. No, to doubt my humanity.
As you know, I have recently traveled to the land of Nocturne for a
vacation. It was my intention to soothe my troubled nerves, to help
myself recover from the recent struggles.
It was not to be.
The man stopped writing for a moment, and refilled his quill. Then he
took a deep breath and continued writing for a few minutes.
It was not to be. For on my journeys through the land, I came across a
band of…a band of Gerudo engaged in raiding a village. There was nothing
for me to do, nothing I could do. My actions came without thought.
They're dead, Zelda. Every one of them. The warriors, the leaders…the
children. They're all dead. They were hunted down like animals and
slaughtered like animals. By a monster, Zelda.
By me. I killed them, Princess. I killed every one of them. And what
scares me is the knowledge that I would do it again. I have broken the
one rule I set for myself when all of this began. I swore I would never
take a human life.
And now I have. And it terrifies me how easy it was. I'm not going back
to Hyrule, Princess. Not now. Not ever. I can not, will not, place
myself in a position where I could kill again.
Though I know, even as I write these letters to you, that the promise
will not be kept. I will kill again. I can feel the darkness inside
me, Princess, and I know my true destiny.
It is the fate of all those who slay monsters to become monsters in
their turn. I will neither run nor will I hide. For if I am a monster,
what then are those that I have slain? Will slay? The question can not
be answered. Not by me, at least.
Don't come looking for me, Princess. Don't send anyone. Remember me as
I was. Remember me as the man you loved and who loved you in return, the
hero of time, the saviour of Hyrule, the slayer of Ganondorf. Remember
me as someone who died when he first killed a woman.
He paused again, and stared into the depths of the fire. Behind his
eyes, emotions warred. 'Perhaps she could help me,' he thought to
himself. 'Perhaps…' He stopped himself from thinking along those lines.
What had been done was done.
Remember Link. And let this letter be the last act of the man once
known by that name.
Your friend and lover,
Link.
He looked at the letter again. It was a good letter. There was no
argument about that. It wouldn't make sense to argue about that.
Pity Zelda would never see it. He rolled it up into a ball and threw it
into the fire, where also burned a green tunic and hat. Then he began to
write a new one.
Dear Princess Zelda,
I regret to inform you that Sir Link, a knight of Hyrule in your
service, fell in battle today against Gerudo raiders. He fought
valiantly, but in the end died of wounds both spiritual and physical.
His last words were an expression of love to you.
We are sending what few personal goods we can. We hope they will arrive
soon, though the seas have been rough lately.
Hoping this letter reaches you in good health…
Ah. What should he call himself? He could not allow himself to use his
old name anymore. It would be a disgrace and a further dishonour.
Finally, he signed himself as…
Hoping this letter reaches you in good health,
The Black Knight, Nil, of Nocturne
He folded the paper up and placed it in an envelope, grabbed the crystal
for Farore's Wind, and teleported it to the post office he had marked
earlier. Once that was done, he took the magical crystals and crushed
them to so much dust. 'The Goddesses have forsaken me. I no longer
deserve to call upon their power.'
Then Nil walked outside and looked at his black warhorse. Epona had been
exchanged for this horse a day ago, and while it should have been
painful to lose her, somehow all Nil had felt was numbness inside.
"…come on, Dragmire." Nil said, leaping onto his steed's back.
Nil paused for one more moment, then he picked something out of his
pocket. He stared at it for a moment, remembering other times, other
lives. Then with an expression of the deepest remorse, mingled with
contempt for himself, he threw it to the ground where it shattered. Then
he spurred his horse onwards, and the black knight and his steed
vanished into the shadows.
Behind them, the crystal blue shards of an ocarina stared up into the
night sky…
AN: I never intended to go this long without an update. Last year was
unusually hectic, it seems. And while this is certainly…very belated… I
hope you'll enjoy it.
As for a sequel…well, who knows? Perhaps there's room for one. I don't
know if I'll be the one to write it, though.