The Hyrulian Valhalla Saga: Side Stories
By Queenie Z
Our Two Kingdoms
Time tilted his head. "They… they made a statue of me?"
"Uh-huh," said Wind with a nod. he reached his hand up in the air. "They put it right in the middle of the castle. It was huge!" He lowered his hand. "But it didn't really look much like you at all. The clothes were kind of the same, but not much else."
The elder Hero snickered bashfully. "Well… I didn't stick around for very long in your history. I guess they just forgot what I looked like."
"Maybe." Wind reached down to pull out a blade of grass and twirl it in his fingers. "But when I first saw it… I don't know. I felt something strange."
"Strange?" Time looked up at the clouds, thinking. "Well, sometimes, people like us will remember things from another life if we get reminded of them. Sometimes I'd look at the sky and just have this feeling that there was a whole other world up there. When I got here, I figured out it was because I was remembering Sky's life." He turned back to Wind. "Was it something like that?"
"Yeah, a little." The boy stopped fiddling with the blade of grass and frowned. "But it wasn't a feeling I liked very much. When I looked at your statue, I would always feel sad."
The Hero of Time's face dropped alongside his successor's. "…Go on."
"I just knew that, wherever you were, you were feeling - " he paused to think of the words he could use. " - disappointed. Guilty. Maybe a little bit angry, too." He finally looked Time in the face. "I mean, you - the Hero of Time had worked so hard to save Hyrule, right? You had to go through a lot, just like I did, just to see it all sink under the ocean. And thinking about how sad you must have been to watch your home be destroyed like that… it made me really sad, too."
Time swallowed, his heart sinking at how spot-on the younger Hero's feeling was. Indeed, he had watched from their heaven as his beloved country was flooded by the Goddesses - they all had watched, and they all had indeed felt those things. They felt disappointed that their efforts had seemed to be for naught - they felt guilty that they couldn't do anything to stop it - they were even angry at the Goddesses themselves for some time, for failing to send a Hero when the world had so desperately needed one. He bit his lip, remembering their time of grieving for Hyrule all too well.
"You're right," he said, "it did make me sad. It made all of us sad. None of us understood why it had to happen. But," he smiled a little, "we also knew that something good could come out of even the worst disasters."
"Something good? Like what?"
"Well, like you." Time reached over and brushed the younger Hero's bangs from his face affectionately. "We were all surprised by how much you managed to do. You sealed Ganondorf away, hopefully for good in that history. You saved the Ocean King's realm and everyone in it. You even found a brand new Hyrule with Tetra - all before you were even twenty years old!" He grinned. "And that's more than a lot of us can say about ourselves."
Wind laughed, his cheeks and nose turning pink with flattery. "Aw, it really wasn't…"
"It was, though! And that's not the only thing the flood brought." Time drew up a knee and leaned on it. "It brought your people a whole new beginning. It brought them a new kingdom; one where they could live in prosperity, without the threat of Ganondorf. And it brought another Hero to fight off the threat that was there."
"You mean Engie," he said with a proud smile, "right?"
"That's right."
"When you put it that way," mused the Hero of Winds, "I guess everything turned out all right in the end, didn't it?"
Time nodded. "Even what I did for the old Hyrule wasn't all in vain. If it meant that everyone could live in peace for a few centuries longer - for even a few days longer - I would have done my part all over again. And that goes for Sky and Mini, too."
"Mmm!" Wind answered joyfully, glad that the pain his predecessors felt had given way to hope - glad that he had played his part in giving them that hope. "I guess the only thing left to do now is watch New Hyrule and see where it goes from here."
"I'm sure things will only get better," Time assured. "The spirit of the Hero will make sure of that."
"Yeah! That's right!"
The two gave each other a knowing grin. Indeed, they both knew that, as long as the line of Heroes remained unbroken, both Hyrules - the old kingdom still existing in other histories and the new kingdom born of the Great Flood - would live on for a long, long time.