The thing Zelda had learned to hate first was the sound of her own breathing. It echoed in the small chamber incessantly. For that, she was both grateful and wished that she could just stop.
The second thing she learned to hate were her legs. She felt an immense wave of empathy and admiration for Link, who had stood up for longer than she had and hadn't verbally complained to her. But her legs caused her to whimper, and her head scraped the stone each time they gave out and sent her crashing against one of the walls. There wasn't enough room for her to collapse all the way down, and she was caught by the room's tightness around her. But sleeping and pain had her crashing all too often, and she almost wished for a chain to hold her upright as Link had.
She'd taken to humming when she could. She thought of every song that had ever been sung to her and filled her ears with a noise that wasn't her breath. If she could manage, her voice would occasionally squeak out the words to the songs. Often, they were peaceful lullabies that she could almost imagine being sung in her mother's voice. Or they were the playful songs she'd run through the courtyard singing with her sister and her father.
Each time the door from the room above opened, she looked up immediately. She had learned far too late that it often meant something was about to be sent down to her. At first, it was a steady stream of water that she had to catch in her mouth through the darkness, but it was at least two days since someone had offered her that.
She'd had just enough room to catch the one piece of bread in her hands before it hit the floor and was out of her reach. She had barely enough room to bring her hands all the way to her mouth, nibbling on the bread sparingly to last her a few days. But that too was gone now.
She always looked up now, since the one time she'd been just late enough to feel something land on her head. Something… alive. Though she'd managed to maintain her dignity, her refusal to beg or scream, that had caused her to panic. She'd thrashed her head against the wall with a high-pitched scream, banging it harshly into the stone. When the creature fell off her head, she felt its long, hairy legs against her own ankle, she managed to brush it off with her other foot and step down on every space she could. She hadn't felt it since, and assured herself that it was dead and not resting on top of her skirt.
The guards would also kick some of the rubble from the room down into the small cell. Little rocks pelted her, and she imagined that her hair had to be layered with dust, dirt, and debris.
Her stomach had given up growling, begging her for food. Her dry mouth only offered her the comfort of song through sheer will. There wasn't enough water or saliva in her to allow her to sing or hum without burning her raw throat. Her throbbing head was the evidence of the beating it had taken, but the guards and by herself.
And the only escape she had left was the one in her mind.
In the safest corners she had left, she imagined her cousin could be close to the castle any day. His forces were great, however, so too had been Hyrule's. But no, he would succeed. Ganondorf would be killed or captured for execution. She'd be found and would be given the time to grieve her losses, to hold a proper funeral for the family that she could only imagine was displayed outside the castle walls as a warning.
She imagined that Link had made it to her cousin, Prince Daltus, and told them that the Princess was somewhere in the castle, as he'd told her the day they'd met. Her cousin would be riding out to find her now, to avenge his family, to take back her kingdom.
It gave her comfort to think of these possibilities. She'd rather not think of any others. She'd rather not think that Link had dropped the key she'd handed to him, or not been killed immediately. She'd like to think that her cousin would win, not that he could be just as easily slaughtered as her family had been. She didn't want to think that she could die in this hole, surrounded by nothing but four walls and her drowned thoughts.
The door opened in the room above, and she looked up, waiting. Mostly, she hoped it was water, but she couldn't see too well in the darkness that engulfed the room and her hole.
There were footsteps that wandered around for a few moments, heightening her anxiety, before they stopped above her head and a shadow overtook the hole.
If the figure was talking, she couldn't hear it, but they moved the grate aside, disappearing for a moment, and she instinctively pressed herself as far back against the wall as she could, lest they drop something massive down the hole again. And they did drop something.
A rope.
She shimmied to get her arms in front of her and let her fingertips graze the twine. Looking up again, she could see the familiar hat that the figure wore. It was a soldier's helmet. But not the kind her cousin's men wore, the kind Ganondorf's did.
Hesitating, she wondered briefly what kind of trap this could be. But then, she realized that no matter if it was or wasn't, this was her only shot to get out of here.
She was incredibly weak, her head still screaming at her with every move she made. Wrapping the rope around her wrist for a better grip, she held on with every ounce of strength she could manage. The soldier pulled the rope up, grunting with effort, his foot inside the hole to push against the wall, giving him an extra boost of strength as he pulled.
When she was high enough, he kept the rope in only one hand and hoisted her up with the other, pulling her from the hole and onto the hard metal armor of his lap.
She whimpered as she moved her legs for the first time and stretched her arms only far enough to cradle her throbbing head. She couldn't look at the soldier; even the dark room was too bright after the nothingness of that hole.
She had to focus, focus on something. Though she tried to sit up, she didn't realize just how much lying down would cause her back to scream out in pain. She hissed and didn't try to move. The soldier hadn't stabbed her yet, so this had to be something akin to a rescue. Either that, or Ganondorf was collecting her for an execution.
A hand rested on her head and she gasped, jerking away and rolling off the soldier. She didn't realize just how close she came to rolling back into the hole until the soldier caught her and pulled her back.
She still couldn't… her throat, her head, her legs, her spine… it all burned.
Eyes flickering around the room, her sights landed on a bucket that had the reflective glow of having water in it. She crawled off the soldier and toward the water, cupping it into her hands and slurping it a few times. The action hurt all parts of her body, but she drank greedily.
There was a soft thud, and her eyes slowly crept back to the soldier. First, she saw the helmet on the ground, and then, she let her eyes continue until they rested on the face of her rescuer. Her heart both leapt and sank all at once.
"Link?"