Parry, roll, duck. Shield, jump, slash.
Every evasion, ever near-fatal blow averted was just another flex of muscle memory, another few seconds of survival ticked onto the fading clock. There was no thought, only action: if his mind wondered, if he made the mistake of remembering, of feeling… that was the end. Not for Hyrule, no; praise, if Fate ever deigned to allow Her pretty fields to burn in a final, magnificent end, or slip bindings with Her ill-favored Three evermore. For him, though, it would end as it had for so many fallen Heroes unsung in the histories. Countless daring young lads in green had failed their quests over the millennia and died in anonymity along the Goddesses' path or in a glorious blaze of titanic battle against their greatest rivals. All of them unnumbered and forgotten for their failed courses. He would join them. He would join them, another skewered, blood-soaked skeleton on the rotting piles of Time immemorial. Hyrule would suffer… but only until another little lad, bright-eyed and golden-haired, stumbled into Fate's damning web and raised Her black banner.
"Fight harder, Hero! The Goddesses gave you one of their best toys, didn't they? Use it!"
'How long are you going to swing that thing around like an oversized toy before you learn to fight, kid? Come on! I know you're made of stronger stuff than that!'
Crack.
Down smashed his foe's blade and it was all the hero could do to lift his shield arm above his skull. His wrist compressed and ached and the impact bowed the protective iron, but it held. Surely a few heavy hits more would shatter his bones given the freakish strength—the Power—of his rival. You think, you die. You think, you die.The mantra filled the young hero's brain. If he slipped up again, if he remembered, the horror and bloodshed would fade to rosy watercolor. There would rise a twinkling scene of horses and campfires, of spinning desert myths, and a warm, rumbling laugh accompanied by the indulgent ruffling of blond hair from a mentor's callused hand. A small and selfish part of him yearned for so hazy and distracted an end, a death the likes freezing. Like falling asleep.
When had it all fallen apart? Who was this monster, this lunatic the Hero of Courage faced upon the battlefield? Here in the stretching green of Hyrule field away from the remains of a subjugated Castle Town, the Hero and the Villain warred in Fate's destined roles as little more than marionettes enacting a battle that had been—and would be—fought for centuries without number. The Goddesses' Chosen Hero, clad in tunic and mail, would wield the Sword of Evil's Bane and with it smite the Demon King. 'But why like this? Why me, why him?'
The golden mark of the Goddesses blazed to life upon both battlers' hands as if in answer to the Hero's silent plea. A smirk curled the Demon King's lips and he paused his unending assault. The madman made a flourish of examining the spark of divinity upon his hand. "Those shining bitches are getting bored with us, eh? Not a good enough show, ladies?" His laugh was a rusty, decaying wheeze, an ancient and ugly thing. He turned on his heels and the Demon King's tattered cloak and wild flaming hair tossed in the stirring winds. Eyes alight with madness locked on the lithe hero as he circled closer, towering in his height and choking the clean air with oily black magic thick as a miasma. In a sickly conversational tone he drawled, "It's not my fault if your little Hero isn't man enough to fight back—oh, did I strike a nerve? Played enough pretend, little girl?" The hero gripped his sword and grit his teeth and willed the damning tears away.
'If anybody ever puts you down, makes you feel any less than the strong lad you are… you kill that bastard, kid. You run 'em through. You show those fucks how much greater you are than they'll ever be.'
'Everything's gone so wrong.'
When had it all fallen apart, he wondered?
Their lives had been little more than splintered glass to begin with: a single tap at the fractures and everything had shattered.
'We're on the outside, kid, and nothing we do is ever going to change that. To all those self-important Hylian bastards I'll always be a gypsy, and you'll always be a a freak. Who cares what they think? You always be you, I'll always be me, and we'll be stronger together no matter what happens. We can be kings and heroes without their fancy tales, eh, little brother? We don't need songs to sing of the dragons we slay.'
What, then, when their kingdoms lay in ash, and dragons stood in the guise of men?
"…But… what if I don't want… t-to fight?"
It was imprinted on the hero's memory how his teacher's eyes had dimmed from sparking gold to a worn, rusty amber. There were times, back then, when he had seemed so tired. Times when distant ages not his own would settle in the furrow of his crimson brow and deepen the lines marring his dark countenance.
'Sometimes… we don't have a choice. Sometimes it's already been made for us. Aye, never mind me—it's cold, I'm missing home. You're a good lad. Come, let's have a nice fire.'
Staring down the monster that strut in his long-ago mentor's skin, this demon of rage and hate that dared to foul the memory of his rich voice with empty words of poison, the hero thought—and remembered. He felt the weight of their destinies like a pack of lead across his narrow shoulders and he sighed. 'I feel so tired, Sir. Is this how you felt too?'
"Maybe… maybe you didn't really want to fight either, Gan." His voice so soft and numb with sorrow carried over the windswept plains nonetheless. Everything hurtand there was nothing to say; no one listened and no one would listen ever again.
'I hear you, little warrior. I hear you.' He had been the only one, even more than Zelda… but now he was gone.
"Your dragon is waiting, little girl!" Oily black magic sparked in the Demon King's hands as he prepared another attack.
'Slay you dragons, my boy. Have courage. I believe in you.'
"G…goodbye, teacher."
The Hero lifted his blade and spoke no more.