"Mom! Mom!" Karena poked her head over the counter, sliding her tattered copy of Hyrule: An Abridged Compendium open to another faded page. Like every other in the book she had looped entire sentences in red pencil, underlined passages and marked big, sloppy stars in the margins. When you star every page, they stop being special, she'd tried to patiently explain to the 9-year-old girl. But it was no use. To Karena, everything was special.
Her mother Cara paused, letting the soapy rag rest in a sticky track of last night's ale. "Yes, darling?"
"Do you know what a hookshot is?"
"I can't say that I do."
"Look, it's this," she said, pointing to a faded picture of a hooked chain grappling through the middle of a forest. "You can use it to pull yourself up from one place to another. See? Like you can jump from tree to tree without letting your feet touch the ground. That way you don't have to touch lava."
"I don't think there are many trees around lava," Cara pointed out.
"They say the Hero had one, way back," she said. "That's how he was able to get through enchanted woods and places like that."
"Hylians say a lot of things," Cara muttered, picking at a lodged lump of gunk with her fingernail.
"You don't think it was his?"
She smiled in spite of herself. "I'm just saying. If the olde Hero of Tyme really had everything they keep in that museum, how would it all fit it in his knapsack?"
Karena blinked back, unmoved. "There were lots of Heroes, you know. If you spread all that stuff out over a hundred thousand years, it can fit in a knapsack."
"Of course, darling."
"Are you almost done?" The child pressed, closing the book back up and hugging it against her chest. "We can still go today, right?"
"Yes, I promised you as soon as I'm finished cleaning up, we'll go."
"It's just that there's usually a line already before they open it up in the morning," she continued, unfazed by the length of last night's celebration stretching before her mother. Uninterested in the fact that no one would want an after-work pint in last night's mess, and that after almost a decade of living in rubble, she wasn't about to let the glimmer of success they'd had slide away.
The pub door swung open, and in waltzed her older daughter, Ellie. She'd sent her out hours ago to get some Swift Violets for freshening up the tables, and now she carried the woven basket brimming with bread, mushrooms, scarcely glowing Blue Nightshade…and Voltfruit? Where in all the goddamn Great Plateau had she been getting Voltfruit!? Ellie was carefree and charming, the kind of girl who ended up with thank-you gifts for simply existing. A completely different breed from her mother and sister, who couldn't help but wonder at whether she was related at all. Perhaps a stray, like a rogue sunflower seed whisked to the neighbor's garden on last summer's breeze. Her presence was the reason, her mother had to admit, that the bar was packed night after night. The Mt. Hebra Stout was only ever going to take them so far.
"Mom, you won't believe what I just heard!" She sang, arranging herbs and Warm Saffina together in a vase. "Do you know yet? Everyone's talking about it. Link and Zelda are back here!"
"Back where, in the castle?" Karena cut in.
"Yes, the castle," Ellie said shortly. If there was one case where her charms ceased, it was with her little sister. "They're not going to be caught dead in this hole, that's for sure."
"Ellie," Cara warned.
"What do you think it means?" She pressed, leaning her elbows on the counter and cradling her chin in both hands. "Are they going to have a Royal Wedding? Or a Coronation? Oh my god, can you imagine what Cece would design? Maybe they've just been waiting for New Castle Town to get this nice again, so the party could be perfect."
"That's not happening," her mother said, returning her focus to the rag and the cooling suds.
"Why not?" Ellie pouted. "There has to be something to look forward to in this boring old village. Here we are, living next to the world's most incredible castle, and we don't even get royalty sightings."
"Because Zelda doesn't want to be Queen," the small voice of Karena rose up from above her book.
"Oh you're one of those people," Ellie rolled her eyes, dramatically draping herself against the barstool. "Why would Princess Zelda spend all these years restoring the castle, filling it with treasures, and living out the most incredible romance of our lifetimes to just…not be Queen, ever?"
Her sister's voice dropped even softer, cut down by the effervescent confidence sucking all the air. "She didn't do any of those things for that. She–"
A silhouette cut into the doorway's light, leaning their body into the entrance. "I'm sorry, we're closed," barked Cara. "We'll be open at twilight."
The blue beret and sharp cloak easily marked him as a Royal Guard, a rare sight in the daylight. There were so few now, she normally only saw them after-shift, when they were making a fresh mess of her counter. "I apologize for the interruption, ma'am," he said with a nod of a bow, "but you may have heard that the Princess and her Knight have returned to Hyrule Castle. They have asked their citizens to gather at the gates this afternoon, if you can possibly spare the time."
Ellie lit up like a fire fruit, while Karena drew herself further behind the stools. "Why, is there something special happening?" Ellie prodded, twirling a Silent Princess stem between her fingertips.
"I'm afraid I have no more information than that," he said, immune to the girl's charms. And yet, he hovered, staring back at the trio expectantly..
"You will be there, won't you?" He asked after a strange, lingering beat.
"Of course we will!" Ellie gushed.
"That's good. I would impress that it's important," he said. "And that I'd highly recommend that you make the time." With one final nod, he was gone.
"It's a proposal! Link's actually doing it! Of course he's doing it," Ellie squealed, bounding up from the stool in a burst of bouncing red hair and tossed flower petals. "We have to get everyone! We have to dress up! Do you think the shops are already out of everything Cece? Oh god. I have to hurry!" She grabbed the half-empty basket, floating out the door with glee.
"Well that's downright odd," Cara murmured before noticing that her small child's eyes were welling up with tears. "Oh Karena. I'm sorry. I'm sure that means the Entrance Hall is closed today, but…"
"They don't want to be here, Mom," she whispered. "Something isn't right."
Cara chewed her lower lip, not sure which daughter's resolution to believe. There had been dire warnings, evacuations, unspeakable chaos almost a decade ago when she forced her heavily pregnant body to keep running out of Castle Town in The Upheaval, not looking back for any sound no matter how horrible or desperate, not resting until she was safe underground in Lookout Landing. She could remember the drills and protocols developed more out of a need for some semblance of control in their tiny refuge than any effective protection against the monsters and Gloom forcing them undercover. Over the years she'd tried to keep these memories from her youngest, while indulging her oldest out of guilt for her endurance of them. And still the worry seeped, as if in the water.
"Hey, come on. We have no reason to think that this is anything but good news, right? Maybe today you'll get to be part of history instead of just visiting it." She tossed the rag in the bucket and squeezed Karena's elbow. "Let's go follow your sister's lead a little and find something halfway-decent to wear. It's not every day the pub gets a personal invitation to the castle."