It all happened so fast, Zelda didn't know what to process first: Link's collapse or his disappearance. She tried to recall his face as she last saw it. Her memory was far from perfect and she had only seen his face for a split moment before he vanished into streams of light, but she could recall the bags under his eyes, the constricted pupils, brows drawn together, and… and a hand grasping at his chest. Oh, how could she have been so ignorant? He was-

Panic brewed in the crowd, voices raised and pulling her from her thoughts. People began to ask her all manner of questions, concern evident on their faces for their Hero that collapsed and vanished before their eyes. She wanted to join them but knew they were looking to her for answers.

"Princess?" a young girl asked her, tugging at Zelda's hand to get her attention. "What happened to Link? Is Link okay?"

"I… I'm sure he's fine. I think he was simply overwhelmed." She looked out at the people around her. No one was still kneeling at this point. Not that she minded. It was easier to converse with people when they were eye level.

"I've never seen him react like that before," a man pointed out, his face just barely visible behind the person who stood in front. "He's always been so… even keeled."

A murmur of agreement ran through the crowd.

"I… I don't think he's used to the attention. Before Ganon's return, he rarely entered the spotlight," she told the villagers. It wasn't completely true, what she said. People looked up to him so much that the pressure of it made him shut himself off, trying to look and act the part the people expected him to be: the fearless Hero, the one who would save them all. Still, he had privilege to a childhood with more privacy than she, less accustomed to the life of a public figure.

Her answer seemed to sway the people just enough.

"I'm sure he'll return as soon as he can. In the meantime, I'm pleased to meet all of you. Is there a place we can talk until Link returns? I had a few things I wished to discuss with Hateno village."

The man who began the whole ordeal, Nack, nodded and led her towards the inn. The people followed behind, and she became aware of the possibility that she would have to give a speech. Again, something she should have prepared ahead of time. She had been too focused on the Shrine, then Ora, and now her thoughts were consumed with her worry for Link.

The way he looked at her that moment before he disappeared, she knew he was in pain. Not the kind of pain one would be left with after a fight but one that ghosted over healed scars. She had seen him briefly recoil in a similar way on the beach and she had allowed him to convince her it was nothing. She should've been more insistent, but at the same time, what could she even do to help him? Her thoughts turned to the Great Deku tree and the advice it gave her.

"Princess?" Nack asked her as they approached the entrance of the inn.

And once again, she was drawn from her thoughts back to the present.

"I apologize. There's a lot on my mind," she explained. It earned her a nod from Nack, one she took as a sign of understanding. Though she had told the girl not to worry, that did not mean that she herself didn't.

She made a note in her mind to return to her musings on Link's pain and how it connected to his memories with what the Deku tree told her so she could stay focused on what she was doing in the present.

They all gathered on the deck around tables and chairs pulled from other areas. They didn't have one central figure to guide their town, she soon learned. The village, though much larger than that of Lurelin, was small enough that they voted on issues that affected their community as a whole. Most of the issues were on how much game could be hunted without affecting the next season too badly or what changes needed to be made to the volunteer guard system.

A small blessing but one Zelda was forever grateful for was the lack of expectation placed on her to make a speech. It was likely due to their system of lax governing, but a blessing was a blessing still. Instead, she brought up the same proposal she had to Lurelin: re-establishing a larger government, rebuilding bridges, and so on.

Their main concern was in eliminating local monsters in order to bring in more travelers and traders without the risk of being attacked in the forest. A small thought passed in her mind, imagining Link there by her side and simply standing up to go fight off the local monsters right away. The thought passed, leaving her lonely within the group.

"Where are you planning on staying?" someone asked. "I've heard the old castle is little more now than ruins."

"That's true," she said, the image of the floor giving out in the middle of the throne room flashing before her. "At the moment, I have no plans. As the Sheikah people have been guarding the royal family for generations, I suppose staying at Kakariko village would be the safest place, though perhaps not the best location to conduct business from."

A man in the back of the crowd stood up. He was balding on the top of his head and wore a twisted pink cloth tied around his forehead.

"Bolson, from Bolson Construction Company," he introduced himself. "I would consider it an honor to aid in the rebuilding of Hyrule Castle, if I'm so permitted." A pause. "And adequately funded."

"A castle is too big a space for one Princess. It's meant to house the guard, the servants, the scholars, and so on. Until it can be properly used, I believe there are better places to use your talents." She smiled as best she could despite herself. "But I thank you generously for the offer."

He nodded and sat back down, but she could spot a hint of disappointment as he did so. Still, the offer did stick in her mind as the rest of the meeting went on. It made sense to restore one of Hyrule's most notable landmarks as a sign of returned prosperity, but that would take supplies, effort, and funding she didn't have at her disposal. On top of that, she couldn't imagine most of the people in Hyrule being too happy about being taxed just to rebuild a large, ostentatious building when there were roads to tend to and outposts to be build.

By the end of the meeting which had gone until the afternoon, those that were at the deck-based meeting enthusiastically agreed to support her return to the throne. As the meeting dispersed, her ears perked at the sound of Link's name on the lips of the people. She heard their amazement that the Link that ran around and helped them turned out to be that Link. Some talked about how they were worried for him, disappearing like he had. Others were excited for his return, planning possible feasts in his honor. From how he reacted earlier, she wasn't sure that would be a great idea, but she couldn't bring herself to tell them so.

Despite offers to show her around or to walk her back to Link's home, she elected to take herself back. It was a fairly simple route, she told them, and she had a lot to mull over. But rather than going into the house right away, she walked to the Shrine. Her hand went to her hip, wanting to test the Shrine's response to her again and to see the inner workings of this one, but then she remembered how Link disappeared and what he took with him. So she sat down on the floor of the Shrine, leaning against the interface.

There, Zelda let herself fall back on her earlier thoughts. What had the Deku tree told her again? Link had no memories of his own. She had concluded that meant the things Link remembered, he remembered through her. Her photos, her perspective, her memories. Even when she thought she was helping him, telling him about Link's past, that was through her words, her rendition of them.

But that didn't mean he would never remember anything of his own by himself. What had happened in the morning proved that a strong enough trigger could bring back a memory. She wished she had come to that conclusion before. She could've prevented it. Well, maybe not, but she could've been there for him better. She could have-

"Princess?"

Zelda nearly jumped out of her clothes as she was startled from her thoughts. Next to her was Ora, the Yiga she had used her power on. The older woman managed to have sneaked up on her, accidentally, in all likelihood. Zelda still remembered her younger years in the Castle, having a Sheikah guard following behind her unseen and often scaring her half to death whenever they had to make an appearance. Obviously, she had gotten used to it then, but times had changed. She was no longer as young as she was when she roamed the halls of the castle without a worry.

"Ora! It's… it's good to see you. I meant to meet with you once the meeting with the villagers was through, but I must've been lost in my thoughts. I apologize," Zelda said. She was about to stand to be at eye level (or near it, anyhow, as Ora seemed to have more than a few inches on Zelda) when Ora waved her down and took a seat opposite from her, her legs crossed and her body nearly impossibly still.

Ora waved away Zelda's concern and took a seat next to her, folding her legs under her. She looked out towards the horizon, the peaks and valleys of the distant mountains cresting the colorful sky. "You managed to lift a fog that I've known since I was a young girl. It was oppressive and crushing and… attractive to fall in step with, but you took it away. I know by blood that I am Sheikah and sworn to the Royal Family, but I wish to pledge an oath to you that I will never raise a blade against you."

Zelda lingered on Ora's words, rolling them over in her head as if it was code to decipher, a language to translate. Still, her mind lingered on Link. She was worried. Goddess, she was so worried, she was sure it showed, but right behind those worries were her previous musings, lifting that same fog that Ora described away from the affected clansmen. If she wanted to help them - really help them so that they would be able to join the rest of the Sheikah once more, allowing Ora to reconfirm the sacred Sheikah duty that she had reneged due to Ganon's influence…

But making this decision without Link by her side made her uneasy. He was always a voice of reason, whenever she was too quick to trust or too focused an issue to consider all sides. The way he originally regarded Ora after the fight, Zelda was positive that Link would advise her to deal with Ora with caution. And without that buffer, that extra layer of protection where she knew no matter what she did, suddenly her convictions faltered.

"I wish to accept, Ora, but I believe it is a decision to be made by the Sheikah." One glance spared at Ora showed the older woman's disappointment. "But you will go with my recommendation. I will vouch I felt Calamity Ganon's influence on you and that I banished its remaining influence."

It didn't seem to be the answer Ora was hoping for, but she accepted it nonetheless. Ora didn't say another word, keeping the Princess company through the silence as the sun set, shrouding them in the relative darkness of town.

"I'm waiting for him," Zelda told her. "The Sheikah Slate lets him travel to Shrines, and this is the only one here so… I'm waiting."

Ora ended up staying by Zelda's side until she decided to head back to Link's home to rest for the next day, Ora stopping at the entrance, bidding Zelda good night, and making herself at home beside the fire pit next to the house.

Returning to his home without him felt intrusive and seeing the remains of his temporary bedding without him in them made her feel alone beyond belief. For a hundred years she fought against Calamity Ganon but that was done innately, coming in an out of active consciousness only to check on the state of things - never long enough to remember she fought alone. Even before that, she had Link and the Champions. Though, before then… yes, in that moment, she felt just as alone as she had before Link came into her life.

There was a small parcel package just behind the door, topped with a few scratches that told her it was a welcoming gift from some of the villagers. Inside were clothes, some preserved goods, and a note. The clothes included a night gown, two dresses, a pair of slacks, and two blouses. The note said that a pair of shoes were on their way, but they needed her to stop by for a fitting in order to do so. She might've considered refusing the additional gift if her sandals – which she used to wear solely for ritual purposes – weren't starting to chafe the surrounding skin after so much use.

She readied herself for bed, replacing her day clothes with the night gown gifted and climbed into bed, wrapping herself tightly in the blankets and trying to find the peace needed to drift to sleep.

The house creaked.

It creaked the night before, she remembered that now, but suddenly it was unsettling and disturbing. She wasn't defenseless. She kept Calamity Ganon partially sealed for a hundred years. She saved Link's life with her power. And just the previous day, she not only defended herself against the Yiga now known as Ora but saved her. She didn't need Link by her side to be safe but she needed him there to make her feel safe.

Eventually, sleep found her. She dreamt of the Shrine and the strings of light that carried Link away.

Link didn't return that morning. Or the one after that. Zelda busied her body and mind by working with the villagers at Hateno village. She came about a journal and began documenting the specific needs the villagers expressed to her as well as her thoughts and plans. Part of her wished she could delegate this task to someone else, but the problem was that there was no one else.

Ora shadowed Zelda as she made her way through the village, keenly reminding her of her time in the Castle. Briefly, she wondered if she could play the same games she used to but decided against it. She wasn't a child anymore who could get away with messing with her guards. It was one of the many things she learned from Link when she had him by her side.

She met with Purah and Symin at the end of the third day of her stay, the second day without Link. Purah's new appearance was… surprising to say the least, but her personality remained the same even after all this time. In a weird way, she was glad Purah was suddenly younger. Obviously, Zelda wanted to see her notes on it, but Purah's regressed age meant that Zelda had someone other than Link who might stay with her as time went on.

The fourth day, after spending more time with the villagers and obtaining a pair of replacement shoes, Zelda spent the last half of the day comparing and sharing notes. It nearly felt like old times – surrounded by books, loose papers, and research notes – as they discussed the Guardian technology and other forms of advancement.

"I want to disable the remaining Guardians," Zelda said. The sudden statement brought such an extreme reaction from Purah that she nearly fell out of her seat.

"But they're safe now! The Calamity is gone and I still have all the research on how to control them. Besides, Ganon isn't returning for another ten thousand years! What's the worry?" Purah asked.

"I still remember quite clearly the way that the Guardians tore through Castle Town and the attack on Fort Hateno. I wish to continue our research, but we have no need for machines that have killed our own people so terribly. And can people ever trust them anymore? When was the last time you faced a Guardian? I watched as Link - Link - Hero of Hyrule skirted the edges of Guardians. I watched as he faced the possibility of death again, Purah, and this time without the support of us being able to get him somewhere safe." Zelda took a breath, realizing she had raised her voice and felt her hands shake at her own memories. She sunk back into her chair.

"The Guardians were meant for war with a younger enemy. They'll be useless against future returns of Ganon and too powerful to use against anyone else. What happens if a tyrant takes the throne an asserts control through the Guardians? Purah, we can still study and use the ancient technology. I went into a Shrine with Link, and it had this floating platform as an entrance. If we can make something that everyone can use and benefit from, I think we should start there."

Purah nodded, seemingly subsided by Zelda's answer, not that she looked particularly happy either. Zelda watched as Purah tapped at her own chin, staring down at the research notes before them, as if she was trying to find a proper project to pursue.

"Snap!" Purah said aloud while also snapping her fingers. "The Shrine of Resurrection! I haven't been there in… well, in a century, but we could go back and try to figure out how it works now that the Shrines all have power."

Zelda nodded, the cogs in her mind already spinning. "Yes! Obviously, it took a hundred years to bring Link back from the brink of death while on low power. I'm sure the original users meant for it to be much more efficient, but how long would it take to heal a broken bone? Can it treat ailments or disease? Does it only work on the Hero, as all the other Shrines do?"

"We'd need to bring in an expert on Hylian and Sheikah medicine – or perhaps someone with a penchant for healing powers. We have no indication that the Zora contributed at all to the Shrine, since they were all very much Sheikah in writing, design… well, you know, but maybe this one was made through a partnership," Purah added on.

"But it would make sense seeing as it uses healing waters to place its subject in suspended animation as it heals," Zelda said in agreement. "Perhaps my next stop should be Zora's Domain. Of course, I should go there anyways to greet the King and ask for his and his people's aid in helping rebuild Hyrule, but while I'm there…"

Her thoughts trailed off once they hit the roadblock of traveling to Zora's Domain. She would need Link to escort her, but she had no idea of where he was or how to contact him. Unless…

Zelda stood up, a surge of energy and determination flowing through her with her latest idea. How had she not thought to try this earlier?

"I apologize for cutting our time together short, Purah, but I need to return to Link's house," Zelda said as she quickly gathered her things and bolted out the door. A light rain began as she ran down the hill, and she heard the steps of Ora behind her though she paid little mind to them.

She kept running until her body made it too uncomfortable to continue, barely making it to the bridge before Link's house. Her steps slowed but didn't stop as she tried to catch her breath, feeling the cold air stinging in her lungs. She pushed open the door, leaving it open partially, too lost in her own thoughts and partially to let Ora know she could come inside with her.

Zelda took a seat on the floor, crossing her legs and straightening her back as she closed her eyes and tried to focus. The only sign Ora had come in was the sound of the door closing, as the older woman otherwise made no sound unless needed. At some point, Zelda felt a blanket draped over her shoulders, holding in her warmth that had been slowly drained from her wet clothes.

But all of that, too, she tried to block out in order to focus. In her mind, she thought a single word: Link.

It was different from the time she had been trapped within the Calamity – her being more ethereal than tangible and her mind more in tune with her powers – where she now had to actually to reach for her power to send out her thoughts or to find Link. She reached deep, trying to remember every detail of his face, his eyes, his hair, his stature, his… no, his voice still eluded her.

Zelda sent out the thought again. Link.

She thought of their time together a century ago: the embarrassment she felt when Mipha told her Link mainly spoke through sign language; the rapturous look Link had when she prattled on about her research with Purah, Impa, and Robbie, even though she was sure he only understood half of what she was saying; and the warmth that flowed through her when she saw him rest soundly, glad he was even temporarily relieved of the same pressure of destiny that weighed her down slipping from his composure as he slept.

Link.

She thought about his public face and his private one, how she used to only know his public one, the stoic, silent face of the Hero. She thought on the times they opened up to each other. Their mutual fears of not being enough, not being the people that prophecy foretold was needed to save Hyrule. Her fear that the reason she couldn't access her powers was because she was too technical minded, that maybe her mother was the one everyone needed and not herself. His fear of dark forests and being unable to help those he cared for.

Link.

How he smiled at the sight of a big meal. How he laughed that one time she fell asleep on her desk and woke with a paper sticking to her forehead. How his fingers twitched when he spoke out loud. How he-

-rolled to the side, barely dodging a large, falling rock. No, not a rock. An arm of a Stone Talus.

Link, he heard.

He froze at the sound of her voice, clearly not expecting it. He looked around, looking for a source as if she might've been there with him, but in his distraction, he was unable to see and dodge the returning attack that knocked him back. He flew some ways, the breath knocked out of him, and rolled to a stop.

Link quickly got back up on his feet and notched another arrow, taking careful aim, and firing at the ore deposit on the monster's back. It shattered and the Stone Talus fell, now forever dead without the Blood Moon to resurrect it.

Link.

He sighed and shook his head, walking up to the remains of the beast. He kicked aside rock to find gems, putting them in his pack. He sat on the ground, resting his head in his hands for just a moment – long enough to take a deep breath – before reaching for the Sheikah Slate.

He knew he had been away for too long. He was sorry.

Zelda's eyes shot open. Link was home.