Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda, because that belongs to Nintendo. If I did, people wouldn't like what I'd do with it. And Nintendo would send people to kill me in my sleep.
FOR IT IS NEVER FORGOTTEN
PROLOGUE: A TALE FROM ANCIENT LEGEND AND LIVING MEMORY
In an age long after the stories of legend had quieted, a great Calamity willed itself into the world to continue the designs sought by its progenitor, bringing about the demise of any foolish enough to stand in its way. Just like in ages past, a Hero and a Princess rose up and combined their strengths to seal away the Calamity. Unlike many of their long-dead previous incarnations, however, they did not rise to the occasion alone. Allying with the ancient Sheikah, they raised an army of technologic drones and a series of beast-like constructs, which they used to great effect while subduing the Calamity.
And so it was sealed away, left to bide its time and regain its power to try and break free once again. Ten thousand years passed, and the Hero and Princess both passed on. The land where the Calamity was sealed came to be inhabited by settlers of far away lands, who would go on to meet a people who hailed from the heavens; the Zonai. Together, they would establish the kingdom of Hyrule. Generations would pass, and the exploits of the Zonai and ancient Hylians would fade away into obscurity.
Eventually, the Hyrule Royal Family would rediscover the ancient tale of the Calamity and its sealing. The monarch, King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule, would order that the guardians of the land and the massive divine beasts depicted in the tales be located and excavated. Additionally, he decreed that his daughter Zelda, as the descendant of the Princess of legend, would devote her time to unlocking the sealing power passed through her bloodline.
After some time, both the Guardians and Divine Beasts were rediscovered and excavated by the modern-day Sheikah. Zelda was enraptured by the intricacies of these machines, and often wished to spend her time examining and researching the Sheikah artifacts rather than having her prayers to the Goddess fall on deaf ears. She often wished her mother were still alive to offer her guidance, but it could not be.
Some more years passed, and the Divine Beasts were restored to working order. The King sent word to each of the tribes of Hyrule: he called upon a representative of each to send one of their own to be appointed as a Champion to pilot one of the four Divine Beasts in the event of the Calamity returning. One by one, a representative arrived and completed the tamer's trial, earning the right to be called a Champion: Daruk of the Gorons, Revali of the Rito, Mipha of the Zora, and Urbosa of the Gerudo. Each of them swore their lives to the kingdom, promising to do their best to protect it when the Calamity returned.
Zelda grew old enough to start venturing to the holy springs nestled in the wild depths of the kingdom, and her father wished to send a knight to travel by her side. The search was not easy, but then word reached the king of one of his knights drawing the sword that sealed the darkness during an expedition to the Deku Tree's forest in the north. The knight, going by the name of Link, was unmatched by his peers with a sword, despite being the youngest of the royal knights, by far. The only thing more impressive than his skill with the blade was his stoic silence. Almost none of the knights in Link's platoon had known the boy to ever speak a word. They all knew one thing for sure, the fact that he'd effortlessly drawn that holy blade from the stone meant that the quiet boy was the next descendant of the Hero from the legends.
The King was thrilled and immediately appointed Link to his daughter's side. Zelda was not nearly as thrilled, and only saw Link as everything she was not. He had simply drawn a sword, and they called him "Hero." He didn't have to work as tirelessly to earn the power passed to him, and she hated him for it. She was cold to him at first, only being as polite as she needed to be, when she needed to. Her lack of progress at the Goddess shrines only made her feel more like she was failing.
As the Princess and her knight travelled, they would check in with each of the Champions and fine-tune their Divine Beasts. During their trip to the desert, Zelda slipped away from Link, not able to bear his presence anymore. She'd come to regret this however, when she was ambushed by the Yiga Clan, a splinter of the Sheikah that had devoted themselves to serving the Calamity, and the spirit that lingered within it, Ganon.
Before they could end the Princess, Link spilled their blood into the sand and took Zelda to safety. After that fateful day, something changed in Zelda, and she made earnest attempts to atone for her past behaviour and accept Link as her equal, bonded by destiny. Eventually, Link opened himself up to the Princess, sharing his own interests and insecurities, revealing his silence was to keep up a façade that hid his own fear from a world which expected him to save them all.
As they travelled, Zelda grew to trust Link more and more, proud to call him a good friend and loyal protector. She tried her best to push down the warm flutter in her heart whenever he entered her mind, but even that became too difficult to ignore. She resolved to broach the subject to Link once she had unlocked her sealing power and helped put down Calamity Ganon. In the meantime, the duo travelled Hyrule, working together on various research projects in between fruitless prayers.
But they still had one last spring to visit. On her 17th birthday, Zelda and Link trekked up to the summit of Mount Lanayru to pray at the Spring of Wisdom. Just like the other times, this effort proved worthless. As they returned, the moment of terror came upon them. The earth shook, and Calamity Ganon erupted from beneath Hyrule Castle, where the ancient Hero and Princess had sealed it away all those thousands of years ago. The Sheikah deployed the Guardians to fight back, but the Calamity wasn't going to make the same mistake again. They were instantly swayed by its malicious influence and made to kill the people they were programmed to protect. The Champions were slaughtered by pieces of the beast sent to disable the Divine Beasts and render them docile.
Zelda and Link raced across Hyrule to try and save who they could, but to no avail. Zelda wept in her friend's arm as she despaired that everything she'd done was for nothing, but they kept pushing until they reached Blatchery Plain in the east. There, Link single-handedly fought back waves of possessed Guardians, incurring grave injuries in the process. When all seemed lost, Zelda tried to sacrifice herself to protect Link, and in the process, unlocked her sealing power and stopped the assault in Blatchery Plain. Link collapsed from his injuries, and would have certainly died if not for the Sheikah arriving just in time to bring Link to a hidden shrine on the Great Plateau. There, he would slumber for an unknown amount of time and reawaken once he was fully healed.
In the meantime, Zelda returned the damaged Master Sword to the Deku Tree's forest, where it would remain until it was reclaimed by its chosen wielder. Finally, she trekked back to Hyrule Castle and faced down Calamity Ganon alone, using her newly-unlocked power to trap the beast inside the castle where it couldn't hurt anyone.
One hundred years passed, and Link opened his eyes. He was restored to perfect health, but left without a memory to his name. He slowly acquainted himself to this new world, and left the Great Plateau at the behest of the late King Rhoam, who left him with the objective of destroying Ganon and freeing his daughter from the depths of the castle.
Link journeyed across the land, freeing the Divine Beasts and releasing the trapped spirits of the deceased Champions. As he travelled, he slowly pieced his memories back together, relearning who he was, who he had been, and who he cared for. Eventually, he regained enough of his strength to return to the forest and draw the Master Sword from the pedestal. Having prepared to the best of his ability, Link followed in Zelda's footsteps and ascended the floors of the castle, slaughtering the creatures that served Ganon and finally crossing paths with an underdeveloped Calamity Ganon. With the help of the Champions and the Divine Beasts, the Hero slayed the scourge once again.
Enraged, Ganon poured the last of his malice and hatred into one final assault, determined to crush the Hero who had bested him so many times in the past. With the assistance of Zelda, Link subdued the dark beast. With Ganon weakened, Zelda took the opportunity to free herself and used her power destroy the beast once and for all.
The Hero and the Princess were finally reunited on that day, and they set off together to figure out how to start rebuilding the kingdom.
And beneath the surface, sealed away deep under the castle's foundation, a forgotten evil lay waiting. It didn't matter that it had lost a piece of its malice, for it was only a piece. It patiently waited, anticipating the day it would take revenge on the world above and shape it to its own will.
Shout out to my sibling for proofreading. Thanks for not immediately making fun of me for writing fanfics, I am sure that will come later. Reviews are appreciated!
