A/N: Breath of the Wild is an INCREDIBLE game. So I was so inspired... I have to say, I liked this iteration of her, a lovable little nerd. Good on them for giving her some great character development! Legend of Zelda isn't mine.

Zelda

The second time I lived a life, all that I could think about…was you.

It sounds foolish, I know. My kingdom crumbling around my ears and my thoughts consumed by a young man who slept on endlessly, a hero for once untroubled by another's plight.

That day…it was my all my fault, not yours. You must understand that. You did your job to the last…you faded in my arms only when you couldn't protect me anymore.

How I resented you when my father appointed you to me! How I disliked your curious, silent, maddening gaze…

While I donned a dress that I hated, and prayed relentlessly to silent statues with cold, remorseless eyes, you stood behind me, sacred sword in hand and face averted. I was sure you thought me a failure—that I could be of no use to you or Hyrule as I was. An heir to nothing.

So I tried to abandon your constant presence, never realizing that the one thing I couldn't run from was my own poisonous thoughts. You never hated me, did you? I hated myself.

I misjudged you, hero. I took your silence and gave it my own ideas so that I could give it a name. And it never could have worked , for once I gave you a chance, my soul recognized yours. And the coldness of being alone gave way to that recognition. Thousands of years of history utterly buried any ill feeling I could muster.

It may have seemed like I saved you that horrible day. And in the technical sense, I cannot deny that my powers developed at a most convenient time (though I would have preferred sooner, in all honesty). But why then?

The why was you, Link. I couldn't bear to see your body broken, forever shielding mine. The barrier broke at last! And even then, I couldn't revel in it. I thought it was too late. And as I wept on your bruised, cold chest, I lamented that cursed power. What good was it if it didn't give me the power to save you? What was this world without you? I would have been alone again, a stranger within it.

You can't imagine my joy when your weary sword touched my mind and told me that my power hadn't been too late. You could still be saved. And thus, so could Hyrule.

But in that moment, I was no princess or queen thinking of my country. I was just a girl…a girl that still had a friend in this world.

I'm sorry that you have to come find me one last time. It was a necessity I could not ignore.

But I hope you'll believe me when I say…I'd fight a hundred years if you would just open your eyes.

Link

The second time I lived… all that I remembered, I saw through your eyes.

At first, the truth of you was lost…throughout a century you protected them and who you were to the world was as lost as I was. At first, when people spoke of "Zelda", I received tales of a goddess I didn't recognize—a woman who walked into the darkness and sealed herself there in all her power, waiting for me to drive it away. I ran into a traveler who made a journey through the fabled Princess' divine footsteps. I fought and bled to the echo of her mysterious voice.

At first, I couldn't see this ethereal being that they all supposed you to be—secure and confident and never as lost as I was, never as powerless as I.

But I was not wrong. The people that lived in this ravaged land didn't know any better than I without your pictures—that once upon a time, a princess who couldn't speak to the heavens could speak to a flower and understand it. A princess who never had her trembling prayers answered, could still puzzle out any ancient riddle. A princess who couldn't prod a smile out of her father could pull more than a word from me.

That girl, the frustrated and sad and wonderful princess, I remembered.

It was only once I saw through your eyes that I saw how you resented me and I finally understood it. If I had known the extent of your pain, I could have spoken sooner. I could have told you that I was as unsure and burdened with fate as you were. And perhaps we could have taken hands before the night we died a first time and you came apart in my arms, desperation and despair raining down too fast for either of us to catch our breath. The last thing I truly remember is the light bursting forth from your hand.

I wish I could have told you—we were never that different. We had to save each other. There is no one else in this land that is doomed the way we are, to repeat a battle and face an evil that will not die. To lose time and life and limb. That weight is not easy for either of us, and even with the support of the Champions (who died because we seemingly failed) we are the only ones who carry it over lifetimes. The only thing that holds us to this earth is each other, and even then…you floated far from my reach a hundred years ago.

I fight Ganon and I remember the fallen, dirty princess weeping in my arms. I fight for her. And perhaps that is my only purpose: to fight for you—my partner in soul.

And perhaps that is all that I need.

Perhaps you will open my eyes again.