Chapter 44: Home
"Give them more water. Sop up that blood before it gets on the new yoke. Shut that horse up, will you Ingo? Step back, back. Too many confounded people around here. How're these two supposed to recover with all this commotion?"
Link woke to the barnyard racket of chickens squawking, horses neighing, cows mooing, and Talon and Malon yelling at anyone within earshot. He heard Navi buzzing at his side, and the scrape of boots against pine assured him that he and Zelda were surrounded.
The first thing he actually saw was Malon, on her knees, bending over Zelda with a cold rag and an assortment of herbs and poultices.
"Hey," he said.
Malon pretended to ignore him. Most of the others had backed away to give them room, but Talon leaned in and poked at a bandage on Link's chest. "That was a close one, son."
"I'm glad you're okay, Link," Navi said.
He peered around the barn. The two of them—he and Princess Zelda, who was still unconscious—were lying in a stall filled with hay and stained with their blood. The air smelled of manure and wounds.
"How is she?" He swallowed.
Malon still refused to look at him, but she did mutter a response, and that was enough to tell him Zelda would live.
He glanced at Talon. "How did we get here?"
The farmer snapped the left strap of his overalls against the shoulder. "Malon was watching the battle from a distance, I think to see if she could spot you. When y'all moved into the town, she followed, and when it was over, she told them to carry you here."
"The young lady was adamant." Arswaine smiled from the doorway. "She seemed confident of her skills and insisted this would be a better place to serve your needs than any other we might reach in time. She has saved your lives."
Link nodded. "Thank you, Malon." The girl grunted an acknowledgment and continued her work. A delicate cough from beneath her alerted him to Zelda's wakening.
"Princess." Arswaine bowed deeply as soon as Zelda had noticed him. "We have prayed to Din for your recovery."
Though dazed from her injuries and the sudden change of environment, Zelda dipped her head to show she had understood. "Once more, I thank all of you. We owe you everything."
A Goron with a scarred face stepped into view. "If that is all you say, you are unfair to yourselves. It is we who owe you everything."
Link listened to the exchange of pleasantries with half an ear, focusing most of his attention on Zelda's expression. Everything about her—her reserved smile, the stately bow of her head, each turn of phrase—bespoke royalty, but he thought he detected some discomfort beneath the surface.
"I said, you think you're up for a little ruckus tonight?" Talon nudged him in the ribs, bringing him back to the conversation. "They're throwing a party out in Hyrule Field after dark."
"What of the dead?" he asked.
"A burial mound is prepared," said Arswaine. "They will be interred at dusk. After that, we are to celebrate Hyrule's liberation."
Link tried to let that sink in. Hyrule's liberation. Ganon gone. Dead. He shook his head. No, not dead. But he can't get to us where he's at.
He allowed himself a smile while Navi chattered about how glad she was that he was okay and how she wished she could have done more to help during the battle and how, and how, and how…
At twilight, Zelda gave a speech to honor those who had fallen in the battle and those who had lost their lives to the cataclysm seven years ago. All those in attendance paused for a moment of silence while a troupe of Gorons, Knights, Zoras, and Gerudos placed the bodies in a mound on Hyrule Field.
"It is by honoring what they believed in that we honor the dead best…"
She meant that speech. Every word of it. Later on, when the food and drink and revelry had begun to spill over at Lon Lon Ranch and the field surrounding it, she toasted all the people of Hyrule and bade them rejoice in their newfound unity.
"It is also through our joy that we honor the dead. They would not have us behave as if the darkness they fought to destroy still covered the land!"
She had meant that, too. The problem was, she whispered to herself, I can never rejoice with the rest while the past weighs on my heart.
She slipped away during the height of the celebration, back into the barn where they had recovered from their wounds.
They. She and Link.
She had hoped for solitude, but as the door closed behind her and her eyes adjusted to the lamplight from the rafters, she saw a red-haired figure watching her from the shadows.
"Oh, I'm sorry." She wiped her eyes and turned to depart.
"No. Stay." Malon spoke this quietly, but her tone brooked no refusal. "I wanted to talk to you, anyway. I'm going to ask you some questions, and I want you to answer them."
"I'm sorry?"
"We have something to settle between us."
The uneasiness that had been growing in Zelda's heart during the past few hours closed around her with icy forcefulness. "We have never met until today. What could we have against each other?"
"It was you Link was looking for, wasn't it?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"When he came to rescue me. He was distracted. He told me once he was doing something important for Hyrule, and I thought that was why he was in a hurry to leave at first. But why was he doing it in the first place when he could have stayed in the forest? You know what I think? I think he was doing it for you. That's why he was distracted. I'll bet it was you who started him on this whole thing in the first place."
This touched so near to Zelda's distress that the color rose in her cheeks.
"What's the matter?" Malon put her hands on her hips. "Too royal to say what you're really thinking?"
When it finally came, Zelda's reply was almost too weak to hear. "You speak of things you know nothing of."
Malon stamped her feet, becoming more shrill by the minute. "Is that the best you can do?" She bit her cheek hard enough to draw tears. "You're smart enough to know he did it for you. But why would he care so much about the person who stole his life?"
"No." A sob escaped the princess' throat. "It isn't true. He did it because he knew it was necessary for all our sakes."
Malon smirked. "You think that's how they'll tell it when we're dead and can't tell the story ourselves? 'The Hero who saved Hyrule.' His own courage was enough to keep him going the whole time. He did it all because he wanted to, for people he never knew. I wouldn't believe that for a minute."
Zelda was shaking now. "Link has many friends…and he would have done it for any of them. He is as unselfish a person as I have ever known."
Malon calmed slightly. "Maybe. You and I both know everyone in Hyrule will talk about what's happened here. It won't be the kind of story that just goes away. But if they name the one person in his life who made more of a difference than all the others, who made him want to save the world, you think it'll be me? 'The Legend of Malon.' Even if it had been me, they'd love the idea of Hyrule's Hero and the Princess so much that the truth wouldn't matter."
Zelda had lapsed into silence, but Malon thought she could hear the princess weeping in the dark. Both of them stared at the floor, unwilling to look the other in the face.
"If I could change the past…" Malon sighed, folding her arms. "But I'm just a farmer's daughter. I suppose you'll be queen someday, and we'll still be delivering milk to your castle so you can keep holding feasts and inviting important people from all over Hyrule."
Again, there was no response. For the first time, a twinge of guilt passed through Malon as she considered the impact of her words. They had been coming for a long time, but that didn't mean she couldn't have stopped them.
"I…I'm sorry," she said suddenly, looking up. "It's just that—"
But there was no one there.
It took everything she had to make it through the crowds that danced and laughed and made easy conversation around Lon Lon Ranch. Many greeted her, and she bowed to each one with as straight a face and as kind a word as she could muster, but the flood could not be held back for long. Is this what it's like to be queen? To hide your true self from everyone around you? All adoring you, yet so alone.
She finally slipped away over the hill south of the ranch and broke into a run, sometimes covering her face with her hands, sometimes letting the tears run freely down her cheeks onto her dress. No one called after her; that, at least, was something to be grateful for. For nearly a mile, she ran uninterrupted, not a sight or sound of life around her except from the distant celebration.
But then something—or someone—snagged her right arm, spinning her around to face the way she had come.
"What do you think you're doing?"
She tried desperately to soak up the tears with the sleeves of her dress, but there was no disguising herself from him. The very attempt to conceal her passions made them more obvious.
"I'm sorry," Link said. "I didn't mean to grab so hard, but I don't understand…" Why you're running away, he had been about to say. He paused when he saw her tears. "What is it?"
When Zelda could gather her wits to answer, she spoke quietly, in between sobs, holding the back of her hand—the Triforce of Wisdom—to her left cheek. "I don't deserve to celebrate."
Link shook his head. "That's ridiculous. You're the Seventh Sage, a Princess of Hyrule, a Sheikah warrior…you've guided and protected me since I first met you. If anyone deserves to celebrate—" He stopped as she held up a hand.
"None of that matters," she said. "Thanks to you, Ganondorf has been sealed inside the Evil Realm. Peace will reign again…for a time. But all the tragedy that has befallen Hyrule was my doing!"
He took her right arm, gently this time. "You don't believe that, and neither do I."
"I was so young. Had I studied the knowledge of the Sacred Realm more closely, I might have anticipated what would happen when you removed the Master Sword. At the least, I should have known that Ganondorf would follow you."
Link frowned. "What could you have done differently? Had you kept the Ocarina of Time, he would have followed you instead. I couldn't have entered the Sacred Realm without it. That was our only hope."
Zelda closed her eyes and hung her head to the side as if she would dwindle away like a rose under too much sun. "Do you remember the dream I told you about when we spoke in the courtyard seven years ago?"
He nodded. "You said clouds had covered Hyrule, and a light came from the forest, with a figure holding a green and shining stone. And there was a fairy."
"Yes." She opened her eyes again. "My mother once explained that the goddesses had given me the ability to communicate thoughts and images with others over long distances. When I began to understand what my dream meant, I knew I had to help it come true if I could."
"I don't see the problem."
"Please allow me to finish," she said, the strength in her voice returning. "Not everyone can receive my messages, but I had heard of the guardian of the forest. I knew that if there was one person who could help me, it was the Great Deku Tree."
"So you told him your dream?" Navi danced in the air excitedly. "And that's why he summoned Link and asked him to look for you?"
Instead of rebuking her for the interruption, Zelda smiled for a moment. "Yes, Navi. I told him the dream, assuming that no one else would find out about it. But someone did."
"Ganondorf." Link said it without hesitation.
"Somehow, he was watching, and he saw the dream as I shared it with the Great Deku Tree. That was how he discovered the location of the Spiritual Stone. After he imprisoned me, he told me I had helped him find it; I had never guessed it until then. So you see, the loss the Kokiri suffered is partly my responsibility. The dream had made me anxious for my people and for Hyrule, and I was careless."
Link bit his cheek, but that was all he showed of his grief. "He would have found the Stone anyway."
"Perhaps. Perhaps the Great Deku Tree had already planned on sending you to Hyrule Castle Town with the Stone. We will never know, and it will do little good to ponder over what might have been."
"What you just said explains a lot," Navi said, "but that's not why you're upset, is it?"
Zelda took both of Link's hands in hers. "It is time for me to make up for my mistakes. You must lay the Master Sword to rest and close the Door of Time. But first, I will play a final melody on the Ocarina, the most important of all."
Fear crowded Link's stomach. "What will happen?"
"As a Sage, I can use it to return you to the past. With Ganon sealed in the Evil Realm, you can live the life you should have lived, the life I helped to take from you."
Link shrugged himself away from her and stood back. "Why do you feel so guilty about it? I didn't know what was going to happen any more than you did, but I gave myself for Hyrule because I chose to, not because anyone made me! Don't you see? Zelda, I lov—"
"Please." Her hand came up again. "Do not make this any harder than it is. I must be allowed to give you this chance. Go back, Link. Regain your lost time. Home. Where you are supposed to be, the way you are supposed to be."
"If you send me to the past..." He gestured at Hyrule Field, but it was as if he had encompassed the entire adventure of the last seven years. "Will we remember what happened? Or will Link forget Zelda and Zelda Link?"
Zelda sighed. "It may be that we will both remember…or, like the rest of Hyrule, we will live in ignorance of the price we paid to secure peace from Ganondorf."
He closed his eyes. "I'll do whatever you ask."
She extended her right hand, palm upwards. "Give me the Ocarina of Time."
He swallowed but obeyed her without protest, saying nothing. She allowed her hands to linger in his one more time as he returned the great instrument to her. He trembled.
The song she played was her lullaby, the same lullaby Impa had played to her as a child. Link willed it to last forever, even if it meant giving up the chance to start over. What mattered were the things he had around him now. Navi. Zelda. The endless span of Hyrule Field.
"Goodbye, Link. Goodbye, Navi," she said when she had finished. "And thank you…"