ZELDA SORROWS IN THE EVENING WHEN SHADOWS LIE
Through the long chamber, extravagantly furnished and high up in the tallest of towers, in which Zelda slept, there came a golden ray direct from the waking sun. She had awoken before that, and remembered at once her hero, and then afterwards: the deku child, which made her awakening more a melancholy one. It is natural to feel grief when faced with the binding travails of loss and a despairing heart, but there was also a certain abjection in the loneliness she felt, which when it was visible on her expression, could communicate Zelda's thoughts and dreams all the more easily, just as they had come from the very essence of her heart, yet was pre-eminently repressed so others might not see it; but, however it be, all those that have felt such feelings have always known these sorrows of mortal hearts to be burdensome, clearly and unmistakably.
She kept no words for her bedservants, but thought it better instantly to move her head and eyes in such a way than to reveal the matter of her very blackened heart and withered soul. So she impelled herself just to eat, and found the strength of will to dress as a princess might: both beautiful and austere to look upon, and then when there was no better thing to do, she slipped her mother's ring over her finger and bid the charlady farewell. The golden band fit perfectly; and wearing her favoured crimson shawl, took a handful of money. Of this she took but little, half a handful of rupees, to use in the castle town below; for she knew not what she was to do there but felt it well to explore to-day.
Now the town is very near to the Castle of Hyrule, of which there is no equal, perhaps even beyond the borders of the land. It stretches far, and is encircled by a great wall and dike with but only a singular drawbridge: one to allow the passage of merchants and the odd weary traveller seeking refuge. Zelda had already fled the castle when Impa came looking for her. She scaled the ivy which climbed in thick whorls up the stone walls, and then strode over the hills and fields and passed through the barrier shrouded by her crimson shawl; and the blue sky shone on her merrily as she went by the dirt pathway toward the town, and the blue was pale like the forget-me-nots by her feet when she came upon the cobblestone paths she well-remembered from her youth, for it was the time of Summer in Hyrule. She drank from her water-bottle, and greeted the passing folk with hollow grace and a false smile.
As the sun rose higher in the sky she looked at those pale-blue forget-me-nots which grew out of the cobblestone; and their splendorous colour brought forth some distant memories of the past, some distant feelings; but never a tint they took from the rising sun, whose golden colour was gliding over the tallest of watchtowers in the distance, and Zelda learned that for nothing which happens here can mend this black heart of hers.
She turned her blue eyes from the glittering rays of sunlight back to the cobblestone, seeing first the shimmering fountains of the centre market square. And then, with their gables casting a shadow deep and wide over the hedgerows leading to the temple, she saw the cottages of her people, and finally the queerest of shops: one which peddled masks. Several years had passed since its doors had closed shut, but it was now—in this very unexpected moment—when she saw it had opened for business once more. But before that, she beheld there flapping above its arching doorway a peculiar sign: one of outlandish and strange letters in gilt which she could not read.
A plum-coloured and well-dressed man of queer company came to the door when Zelda knocked, tall and bent with age, and he bent even more when Zelda named herself falsely. And the strange fellow looked upon her with an unreadable gaze before asking for her name once more. She gave the false name again, though she knew not if he discerned her untruth. And they both went into the dwelling where it was bedraggled with masks and other foreign oddities strewn about, and the queer man did honour to Zelda. He then took one of those frightening masks in his hands and placed it on the countertop. She looked at it for awhile in silence. The older man would not talk, but instead waited on her to speak with such solicitude that Zelda felt ill at ease. So thus she approached the subject of the mask.
"It is from a weird land, one beyond our borders," said Zelda.
"Yes, yes," said the merchant without any meaning in his voice, whatever he had in his mind.
"From whence does it hail?" said Zelda.
"Beyond the vales of twilight," answered her host.
"You have travelled there," said the princess.
"Ah, yes," the merchant said.
"Is it a far journey," asked Zelda, and she lowered her voice, although she knew not why, "between here and there?"
At these words the trinket peddler began to stroke the queer mask, and all comprehension faded out of the man's eyes.
"Ah," he said.
"Old man," said Zelda, "you know where this barrier lies."
"Lies?" said the old merchant.
That innocence in his voice, thought Zelda, must be real; but it would seem to her this man's mind had been lost to ruin.
"There was once a boy who journeyed beyond the barrier," said the princess, "beyond the vales of twilight."
And the old man's eyes roved back into the past, and he gazed as it were on olden days awhile, then he shook his head fierce. His motionless eye sockets opened wide, revealing terrible beads of anguish. And Zelda fixed him with her own gaze.
"You know of this boy," she exclaimed.
Still the old man did not answer.
"You know where the border lies," said Zelda.
"I have grown old," said the merchant, "and I have dwelled beyond the vales of twilight for much too long."
When he said that, Zelda knew that his mind was on that of the past, and he knew too of the boy from the woods and his journey beyond the barrier of her golden land, and standing there at that moment yet he would bear her no news of the boy: there seemed little more to say. But her black heart wished for nought but her hero, and this held her to the subject even after she knew it to be hopeless.
"Who lives to the South beyond the barrier of twilight?" she said.
"To the South?" the old merchant replied. "My lady, there are many places beyond the fields you know as Hyrule."
There was a look of entreaty in his face but Zelda did not heed it. "Who lives to the South," she asked, "past the barrier of the woods?"
"My lady, no one lives to the South," he answered. And that indeed was true in a way not to be understood.
"What used to be there?" said Zelda.
And the old merchant turned away with the queer mask in his hands, and muttered as he turned, so that she hardly heard him.
"The past," he said.
No more would the old merchant say, nor explain what he had said. So Zelda asked him if she could purchase that queer mask in his hands, though she knew not why she asked for such a thing. It was not a mask one wore for jest and games of youthful play. There he looked down at his hands where he gripped the thing: it bore a preciousness she could not understand, and then his unreadable gaze came back to her own.
And the answer came to her like hail against glass: "My lady, you already bear a mask; what need have you for another?"
The unexpectedness of the answer dazed Zelda; and when she saw that her questions and prodding brought her no further logical answers nor practical information to guide her search for the boy, she walked on out of the merchant's abode and over the cobblestone of the town once more, watching the many peoples of said town go about their day. And her black heart neither mended nor diminished, it stood still; and as the day passed over and began to give way to evening, the cobblestone glowed dully with the low rays of the sun, darkening further when it set, changing with all Hyrule's changes, but with no real enchantment she might remember. Then Zelda decided to come upon the temple.
And pondering amidst its vast and hallowed halls, where she first saw the vacant platform that served as a key to the door of time, Zelda marvelled at the beauty of this place, and yet sometimes wondered what might lay beyond this door but only one had passed through. She wondered of the boy from the forest, and how he might have appeared as the legendary hero from her dreams: strong and bearing the sword of evil's bane in his mighty grasp. And while she thought of this, evening sooner gave way to dusk, and she found herself fleeing the temple forever shut by fate. For without the instrument, the very treasured heirloom, its vaunted doors may never open again. She went on further like this, back to the castle whither she dwelt near the edges of the garden and fields she knew. When Zelda had fled from the castle yesterday, she knew not her journey would lay upon the morrow; and she might have left a note if she bore the foresight and vision of her youth.
The gardens in twilight lay august before the fullest moon of the year, the silvered grass shimmering and rippling beneath its pale light that seemed as though it twinkled like the sparkle of a snow covered ground as far as her eye could see. And far beyond that, she saw going up all silver into the air the very spires of the tallest mountain of her land that might only be spoken of in song or read in poetry. She walked in despair through this serene and beautiful landscape, alone with nought but her lonesome heart.
To those who may not have suffered a great loss or have wisely kept the very essence of their heart to themselves it is difficult for me to tell of the pain to which Zelda had felt, so that in their minds it may seem to be some trivial thing of which time can mend, and she need not worry. Yet it is for this very purpose that I must describe in such detail her greatest sorrow, and if my reader through fault of mine fails to picture things to be so, then the indelible tale of her woe might go forgotten. Know then that in Hyrule feelings such as love and duty are of a potency ten-fold than what we mortals understand to-day, and the very air there glows so vibrant with these values we hold to be cheap. And the yearning heart of Zelda, of which I despair so much to tell, may yet be told, for we still have hints of it here: in the tragedies and romances of ages bygone and past, where the tales of suffering still capture the gentle hearts of people. And while our world differs greatly to that of the one I tell of now, there is at least some greater understanding of what travails affect the Princess Zelda so. Therefore, it is my wish for the reader to keep this musing close as they go further.
So thus Zelda strode on distantly through the gardens amidst the luminous air of a cloudless and moonlight night in a land whose glimpses scarcely reflect our own world. And in this moment, she felt the greatest anguish of her twelve short years of life. For there is a loneliness in such a blackened heart wilted by a great and insurmountable loss. She paid no heed to the fountains to-night, nor the owls she loved the calls of. She paid little notice to anything but the most suffocating ache in her chest. And while she felt this great sadness and the regrets of a youthful heart, there came no further comforts to her. No boy from the forest found her wandering alone in these gardens. No deku child sprang up from the bushes to accost her in his queer way.
But Zelda heeded not these thoughts, for the guilt of her broken heart drove her further onward, and she strode away through the enchanted garden, alone and full of lament.