Her subjects had rebuilt her throne room. She'd called for assistance in constructing the destroyed portion of the city, and they'd fixed her throne room before anything else. She needed the reprieve, and the semi-quiet, away from the pounding light of Lake Hylia's temple. Zelda needed to seem as though she remained the sturdy, just figure her father had been, and she had been before…
She crossed her legs over the arm of her throne, lounging as though she'd never been schooled in royal etiquette. When no one watched her, which nearly never happened, she used to abandon decorum and dance about the rooms. She used to pretend that she could fly, that she could be free. That she couldn't even imagine that anymore, she couldn't even pretend, amused her. She had no hope of ever wrenching her life away from her responsibilities.
Her blood doomed her here.
She sighed audibly, allowing herself to slide into a more acceptable position on the cushion. Her eyes flicked up, aware of movement at the door. A man stood to the side, quivering in his very boots. Perhaps he'd become deterred by the elaborate decorations that her people had set for her. Her personal favorite lavish ornament- despite it's compared lack of value- hung on the wall over the doorway. Her vision caught on the painting for a moment as she rolled her eyes, demonstrating her unrestrained conduct since her apparent freedom. After so many years of breathing in but never breathing out, letting her emotions loose felt fantastic. Several seconds passed before she addressed her company below her painting.
"Do you have it?" Her voice sounded so foreign to her. The sounds were pleasant, but somehow terribly off key. Her head had begun to throb again. Dear goddesses, she supposed, she couldn't be safe anywhere. The man at the door hadn't bothered to answer her question, still unsure of his place in the overwhelmingly beautiful room.
"… You may speak, Shad." Her headache sensitized her to the noise trickling through the ceiling. She missed the silence, even the unnatural calm, of the Twilight. The man at the doorway pressed his glasses upward, onto his nose, nervously repositioning the pack on his back, dipping into a bow, as he tried to find his words to suit royalty.
"Yes, Princess." He bowed extraneously once again, to be quite sure that his respects to the young princess were paid. "I have what you asked for." Zelda's curiosity peaked and she set forward on her seat's edge, barely aware that her blood pulsed violently within her skull. Her excitement blinded her to herself.
"Excellent." She stood and beckoned him forward, stretching out her hands to take what he took from his bag. Her hands molded around the dark stone gently, in awe. She couldn't have guessed that the thing was rock from it's feel- smooth, with sharp grooves chiseled perfectly. The craftsmanship on this … She glanced up, needing to ask the deliverer a question.
"No, Shad. Don't leave. Come. Talk with me for a moment." Zelda commanded, seating herself again on her throne. Shad stepped forward obediently, and yet again, he bowed. She couldn't quite find her purpose yet, though her headache made planning difficult.
"Ye..yes, Princess." His voice sounded extraordinarily meek, as though his stomach had dropped into his feet. She could see his knees shake noticeably- and she ignored all his nervousness and broke the dam on her thoughts.
"You spent quite a bit of time with Link, didn't you?" Zelda's fingers traced the canyons of the headpiece absentmindedly, her eyes glaring deep into the helmet as though she could see through. Shad lowered his eyes consciously, not wanting to embarrass her in her reverie.
"I suppose. Not really though. Mostly I read when he showed up with information. I never could tell how he-" Zelda sighed internally. Goddesses, he spoke quickly. At least his accent didn't have the awful drawl of so many of her more rural subjects. Her thoughts wandered internally, and throwing diplomatic caution to the wind, she cut Shad off with a wave.
"Shad, I need you to tell me about Link for a moment…" She paused hoping he would take the bait. He wouldn't talk now, not a single word; he only stared blankly at the floor. "Specifically, how did he interact with Midna?" His eyebrows ticked unexpectedly, as he attempted to process her words. Zelda started, reprimanding herself internally for thinking so horribly of her subjects. She was their princess, not their master; she should think of all her constituents in the loving, respectful way her father had taught her.
"Who?" Shad glanced up into her face, barely meeting her eyes for a moment. He couldn't keep his stare there for more than that... not against royalty. Anyone even, he hadn't been raised to dominate. He'd been raised to read.
"Midna- The shadow being that followed him everywhere?" Zelda explained- had he not known? A sliver of doubt crossed her mind as his confusion lingered… What had she done? But the Twilight Princess had abandoned the light world- her mistake couldn't bring on a veritable witch hunt against her malicious little helper. She frowned suddenly, as Shad tried to find the words to respond… If Midna hadn't closed that Mirror, that might have doomed her world. Damn responsibilities.
"Oh. Well, I vaguely remember him talking to it… or rather, 'Midona' snapped at him. Quite feisty, that thing- I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw-" Zelda's expression confused him, ripping apart all his suppositions as to how a Ruler might think. He couldn't see any logical breakdown of her features… no rhyme or reason… nothing.
"Shad, focus please." She snapped at him, jerking his rambling to a halt.
"My deepest apologies Princess," His gaze dropped immediately to the floor. She pursed her lips slightly, trying to develop a plan to keep his information flowing. Before the Twilight infestation, she'd have never so rudely interrupted a member of her own lands. She hadn't jumped on Link as Midna left, but now she'd snapped at Shad, who'd done nothing to her in the slightest. His family had never been anything but a help to her and her family.
"For now, at least, you may call me Zelda." She allotted a small token to him, and from what she knew of his family, a personable association with a Hylian ruler could top almost anything.
"Yes Pr… Errm- Zelda." Shad stammered, nearly drooling over the prospect of calling her by her name, rather than her title. He needn't seem obnoxiously eager, so he held himself back, forcing himself to replicate habitual ignorance. Zelda seemed pleased with his performance, and turned her attention back to the stone in her lap.
"Tell me about this- well, what is it?" She gestured to her lovely new piece of ornamentation, though unlike every other piece in the pre-decimation of her castle, this had not been gilded.
"I'd guess a helmet of some sort, but I've never seen anything like it. It's almost evil… No, I'm sure that it is. It's not at all like the sky being technology- more dark." He poured over the piece securely fastened by her hands to her body. He doubted sheer levitation could pry that stone from its new master.
"Mmmm… How so?" Zelda stared hard into the rock, as though trying to make it speak to her. Shad's voice had a distant, echoing quality to it as the soft sounds reached her ears. Zelda, as peculiar as it seemed, could only hear what her informer said several seconds after the words had wandered into the universe.
"Look at these markings. This mark is similar to our mark of truth, but no rays. Historically, the rays originate from the sun, which spreads truth through all things. Symbolically, this horn would represent awareness, similar to an ear might for listening." The princess's expression cut deeper into her face, as she'd seen fit to analyze what he needed to say, and design
"Perhaps secrets then?" Her royal highness suggested, insinuating an opaquely concealed joke that no one besides herself and her father would have understood. Why she insisted on making them, she hadn't quite worked through. Secrets did seem like a feasible answer in all seriousness, all jokes ignored… as usual.
"I doubt it. This particular relic shard has no mouth, alluding that its bearer must see and hear all truth, then interpret using the bearer's own wisdom. Hence the act comes from within the bearer." The whites of her eyes shone for a moment, though Shad didn't notice in the slightest, still staring modestly at her feet. Her feet- really that interesting?
"How do you know all this?" She asked in mild diplomacy. Whether interested or not, a ruler must always. Listening keeps the peasantry loyal, and loyalty keeps royalty.
"Runes. They aren't like anything I've seen before- but some of the traits are similar. Then again, Princess, I'm only guessing." Sure enough, his eyes flicked upward to hers momentarily, his breath sped up, and he baited it for her reply. Ah, she knew what she should do, what her diplomat father and his diplomat father and his diplomat father would do. Now, diplomacy didn't seem so important. Now, diplomacy seemed like a waste of her life.
"Given your previous accuracy, I'm inclined to trust your guesses." The words slipped out. She couldn't break her habits, not immediately. Shad watched her eyes subdue and her face fall. Something couldn't be right with the Princess.
"Thank you, Princess." Shad started to leave, twisting about on his feet. Zelda's voice hit him in the back like an arrow, suddenly alert again.
"Zelda." She demanded. He nodded apologetically, backing out of the throne room with as much respectful as he could muster speed. He couldn't stay, not with that tense, confused aura floating around Princess Zelda.
She watched Shad leave, taking his pack with him. Wisdom, he'd said. Could that have been a coincidence? Could everything be a coincidence?
Had there ever been any coincidence? In her life?
She held Midna's stone helmet in front of her, staring into its eye. She couldn't have possibly left it here, not without a purpose. What could that purpose be other than to accentuate…
Why was she waiting? She could feel in her gut, in her heart, that she needed to do this. She held the piece high over her head and coaxed it gently over her blonde mass of hair. The pits of her lungs bit against her chest, and suddenly, strangely, she'd paralyzed with fear. Goddesses, what she wouldn't do for a smidgen of Link's courage.
The princess ground her teeth together- after all these years of chastisement for that low-class tendency, that gave her all the gall she needed.
With one deep breath, she plunged headfirst into the Twilight relic.