Her feet hurt.
It’s a trivial thing for her to focus on as she walks through the flaming ruins of her country, piles of scorched corpses—his corpse—at her back, but it’s what keeps her from sitting down and letting the Guardians take aim.
They have placed him in the Shrine of Resurrection, The Master Sword informs her, its voice echoing in her head as it hums in her hands. I can feel his soul returning.
Zelda stumbles, one of her sandals slipping out from under her, and she crashes to her knees in the mud. The Master Sword, strapped to her back, slaps against her spine.
(Her feet hurt, and it’s pouring rain, and she’s cold.)
“How far are we?” she pants, putting her sandal back on with a trembling hand, squinting to see through the thick sheet of rain. “How much longer must I walk through this destruction?”
Just as she looks up and at the tops of some trees, the sword replies, We are in the midst of passing through the Forest of Time, just past the outpost beside the Great Plateau. Based on your average walking speed and taking time for rest into account, it will take us four days to reach Korok Forest.
That’s four days too long. “And without rest?”
Princess Zelda, I do not recommend-
“How long?”
A moment of silence. The sword reluctantly responds, Two days, but you are exhausted and-
“I have the Golden Power,” Zelda pushes herself to her feet, staggering, and forces herself forward, further through the small patch of trees. Fire blooms in her chest and her limbs ignite gold, adrenaline flooding her veins and making her able to walk just a bit faster, the Triforce blazing on the back of her right hand. “It will keep me alert and moving.”
It will not last if you are too tired to concentrate on sustaining it.
As the voice of the sword finishes its sentence, the Triforce fades from her skin and the warmth of the Golden Power is nothing but a memory.
The world spins and she almost falls again, catching herself on a tree to her right and leaning her pounding head against the bark.
“Damn it,” she whispers, tears burning at the corners of her eyes as she struggles to swallow around the lump in her throat. “I can’t-I can’t do this now, I…I’m not ready, I…”
I want to go home, she doesn’t have the courage to confess. I want to hug my father.
She doesn’t have a home, anymore. She no longer has a father to hug.
Her chest goes tight and the air leaves her lungs and she can’t breathe she can’t breathe she can’t breathe-
Sit, Princess Zelda, The Master Sword orders, urgent and pulsing against her back.
Zelda has no choice but to listen, pressing herself against the tree she leans against and sliding down it to sit in the wet grass, staring ahead at the grass and the other trees across the way.
Tell me what ails you.
“Is it not obvious?” she gasps.
It is, but tell me anyway.
Mipha. Urbosa. Revali. Daruk. Her father. L-
Her vision blurs and her face crumples and-
“Everyone’s dead,” she sobs, hysterical, her voice shaking so badly that she can barely understand herself. The rain continues to pour, mixing with her tears, and Zelda rakes her soaked hair out of her eyes, burying her face in her trembling hands. “Everyone’s dead-”
(Today was her birthday and for her birthday everyone around her died because she wasn’t enough-)
Her rapid breaths come out as short hiccups and she can focus on nothing but the burn in her chest that accompanies the familiar sensation of hyperventilating.
You need to breathe, Princess Zelda, The Master Sword whispers, soothing. Match me.
It pulses again, slower this time, chiming softly in her ear.
Zelda gasps again, holding her breath for a moment before exhaling as slowly as she can manage. She does her best to listen to the Master Sword’s voice, to match her breathing to the slow, rhythmic pulses of the blade on her back, and it takes her a while to succeed, for the knot in her chest to loosen and for it to feel like she’s getting enough air in her lungs.
Good, The sword that seals the darkness praises when she finally catches her breath. It stops pulsing, the weapon itself going quiet. I recommend that you sit here and rest your feet.
“All right,” Zelda concedes, sniffling, wiping her nose with the back of her arm and cleaning it off in the rain. Her white dress is in tatters on her body, and the piercing cold of the air is finally registering now that her adrenaline rush is fading, the storm only making it worse. “I, ah…I’m freezing. What about you?”
I cannot feel the air, Princess Zelda.
“Oh,” she sniffs again, closing her eyes. She’s so, so tired. “What can you feel?”
You. My Master. The loss of him.
“You’re the same Master Sword as in all of the legends, right? You were there for the first Calamity?”
I am. I was. There is only one me.
“Have…Has something like this ever happened, before? Has the Hero ever…?”
Another rumble of thunder. Her ears ring, and it sounds so much like the screeching of a Guardian’s laser that she has to check and make sure she’s still alone.
No, The Master Sword finally answers, quiet. Not in this version of the story.
Zelda frowns, her head tipping back to lean against the tree. “What does that mean?”
You are tired, Princess Zelda. There is a ninety-nine percent chance that you will fall asleep within the next ten minutes.
“You’re dodging my question, Master Sword,” she mumbles, curling in on herself in an attempt to keep warm. “You really can’t feel this cold?”
I cannot, but what I can do for you is become a source of heat.
Zelda cracks her eyes open, turning her head to look back at the purple-blue hilt peeking over her shoulder. “You can?”
Yes. I am imbued with the light of the divine, and therefore carry the warmth of Hylia.
She’s quick to unbuckle the scabbard and bring the sheathed sword around to her front, hugging it close to her chest. Almost immediately, the blade of evil’s bane heats in her arms, fending off the cold and evaporating the rain surrounding her.
(If she closes her eyes and thinks really, really hard, Zelda can imagine it’s the gentle, loving hug of the boy that died in her arms.)
She looks up through the leaves and at the dark clouds that hide the blood-red sky. She says, “L-”
She chokes on his name, unable to get it past her lips.
(She doesn’t have him anymore, either.)
Zelda thinks of him, regardless, thinks of his soul sitting somewhere in the ether, waiting to be returned to his body once he wakes from his sleep in the Shrine of Resurrection, and whispers, “I wish you were here.”
(She doesn’t notice the Triforce flickering on her knuckles, and believes the warmth spreading throughout her body to be the work of the sword that seals the darkness keeping her from getting sick in the rain.)
There’s a booming crack of thunder that makes her jump, a brilliant flash of lightning that makes her flinch, and in the distance a wolf howls.
Despite that meager rush of adrenaline that’s quick to fade, Zelda’s eyelids droop, her chin dipping to rest on the cross-guard of the Master Sword’s hilt that hums to the tune of a familiar lullaby she’s never heard.
She’s tired, and she doesn’t want to stand up and walk, but she needs to stay alert, she thinks, wrenching her eyes open. She has to move, she has to get to Korok Forest-
The Master Sword continues to hum.
Sleep, Princess Zelda, Its voice beckons. I will wake you when you are able to properly use the Golden Power again.
Zelda can’t fight her body’s pleadings for rest any longer. She lets her eyes close and curls around the Master Sword, letting its lullaby soothe her to sleep.
—
Link holds her hand, leading her through a meadow.
“Where are you taking me?” she asks.
He looks back at her over his shoulder, a gentle smile playing on his soft lips. The sunlight illuminates the blue of his eyes, his eyes that are so bright with life-
“Where are you taking me?” she repeats. There’s no Master Sword on his back. “Where’s your sword?”
He raises a finger to his lips.
They stand before a tree with a face etched into its bark. There, resting before the tree in a stone pedestal, is the Master Sword.
“Oh,” she breathes, relieved. “There it is.”
“What will you do now?” The tree with a face asks, its voice like rolling thunder.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she responds, smiling. “I’m with the Hero.”
“Are you?”
Her smile fades. “I…”
She looks over to find Link standing next to her, his Champion’s tunic dark with blood and his hair matted to his skull with it. There is no life in his eyes, but still he smiles, still he holds her hand.
“I'm sorry,” she whispers, reaching out to touch his face. His skin is cold and her fingers come away red. Tears blur her vision. “I’m so sorry, I-”
I tried everything I could.
He raises a finger to his lips.
The screeching of a Guardian’s laser-
Princess Zelda, wake up!
Zelda snaps awake, jolted out of her dream by the Master Sword’s call.
She’s on her side in the grass, still curled around the blade of evil’s bane. It’s stopped raining, so her ruined dress is damp and clinging to her skin, stained with dirt and blood. Her hair sticks to her face when she pushes herself up to sit on her knees, soaked and limp.
I’m sorry for waking you so suddenly, The sword says. You were dreaming, and it did not seem pleasant.
“I’m fine,” she pants, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with filthy hands, the image of his bloodied corpse smiling at her stuck to the backs of her eyelids. “Thank you for waking me. What time is it?”
It is 6:00 AM, Princess Zelda. You have slept for exactly three hours and seventeen minutes.
Swallowing, Zelda glances down at her right hand and thinks of the Golden Power. The Triforce appears on her knuckles with ease, and warmth spreads from her chest down to her fingertips and toes, her skin burning gold and her hair lifting off her shoulders to hover around her head.
“What direction do I go?” she asks, getting to her feet. They’re still sore, but it’s manageable, especially with the heat of her power soothing the ache.
Princess Zelda, I suggest trying to sleep for longer.
“Zelda.”
That is your name, not mine.
“I mean you should call me Zelda,” she looks up at the sky, where the clouds are dissipating to reveal the bright pink of the bleeding sunrise. “I am not a princess, anymore.”
Silence, like the voice in the sword hesitates. Then, Fine. Zelda, I suggest trying to sleep for longer.
“I’ve rested enough,” she fastens the Master Sword to her back, buckling the straps to the scabbard around her shoulder and hip. “Which direction do I walk in?”
Zelda-
“Which direction, Master Sword?”
More silence. Then a begrudging, Walk northeast. I am taking you along the edge of Hyrule Field to avoid contact with Hyrule Castle, where the Calamity lies.
“Could…” her Triforce hand drifts to the Master Sword’s hilt. “I know you are damaged, but…could I fight it like this? With you?”
If I were at full strength? Yes.
“And there’s no other way for you to heal besides resting in Korok Forest?”
Unfortunately.
Zelda takes a deep breath, letting the Golden Power fade from her skin. It would do her no good to waste her energy by keeping up the magic, and she’d rather not make herself a beacon for the Calamity’s forces, for the Guardians, to flock to.
—
“Master Sword?”
Yes, Zelda?
“What’s your name?”
I…do not have one.
“But you said that Zelda isn’t your name, so don’t you?”
No. I am the Master Sword.
“You sound upset.”
Look around, Zelda, at all of the smoke and flames and death the Calamity has brought with its awakening. Remember whose back I am supposed to be occupying and remember why he isn’t here. Is there a reason for me to sound happy?
—
I am sorry for snapping at you, earlier. I have never been broken like this, it seems to be affecting my tact.
“It’s fine.”
It’s not.
“He never told me you had feelings.”
That was not the nature of our relationship.
“What kind of relationship was it?”
He was my Master, and I am his sword.
“Why say ‘was’? He’s in the Shrine of Resurrection, he’s not dead anymore.”
Why can’t you speak his name?
—
Her stomach won’t stop rumbling.
She hasn’t eaten anything since Mount Lanayru yesterday, since L-since the Hero made her breakfast after her failure, as the sun rose over the icy peaks to mark the dawn of her seventeenth birthday and the dawn of Hyrule’s destruction.
A fox scurries away as she walks over a hill, coming up on Horwell Bridge and intending to cross it, and the Master Sword offers, Though I am damaged, I am still a sharp enough blade that could be used to hunt.
“No,” she says after a moment of consideration. “I’ve never killed an animal before, much less held a sword with the intention of using it.”
I could teach you. That was the purpose I served to my Master.
The howl of a wolf reaches her ears, followed by the dying yelp of an animal, and on instinct Zelda reaches back and clumsily draws the blade of evil’s bane with both hands, holding it tight. It’s heavier than it looks, and she, straining just to keep the pointed, rusty tip up and out of the grass, wonders how he was ever able to wield it with just one hand.
A dark mass of fur trots up to her, a dead fox in its mouth, and Zelda braces herself for a fight she knows she can’t win.
It’s a giant black wolf with strange white markings on its face and startlingly clear blue eyes. It just stands in front of her, staring, before it drops the dead fox at her feet and sits. Its tongue lolls out of its mouth as it pants, licking the blood from its lips, and stray droplets plink against a metal cuff shackled to its front left foot.
That’s strange, she thinks. Why would a wolf be held captive?
(And is its tail wagging?)
The Master Sword buzzes, rattling in her hands, and the wolf’s eyes light up before it pounces.
Zelda shrieks, dropping the sword and bringing her hands up to block her face as the beast slams into her and knocks her clean off her feet. Her back slams into the ground, her head bouncing off the grass, and she’s assaulted by a warm, wet tongue licking her cheeks and the happy little yips of a dog that’s found its companion.
But Zelda doesn’t have a dog, and this dog is a giant f*cking wolf, so why the hell is it kissing her face instead of eating it?
“Off!” she splutters, shoving at the snout in her face, “Off, please!”
The wolf is quick to get off of her, panting, its tail a blur as it whips back and forth.
The Master Sword, laying idle in the grass, hums, Zelda-
The wolf’s ears twitch and its head turns to the fallen weapon. With another happy bark, it pounces on the sword that seals the darkness and licks its rusted, broken blade like its trying to put it back together with the power of puppy love.
Zelda sits up, watching with a strange sense of amusem*nt.
(To think that she could smile during the end of the world.)
—
She decides to suck it up and eat the fox the wolf brought her. Under the Master Sword’s careful instruction, she shakily skins the animal and breaks it down, all the while apologizing to the animal with tears in her eyes.
(The wolf, sitting next to her, watches her hands work with an almost humanlike interest.)
I do not understand your sorrow, The Master Sword states, its blade bloody and chiming in her fingers.
“I’ve never done this before,” she sniffles. “It’s hard, taking an animal apart this way when I saw it living just minutes ago. And…” she chuckles despite herself. “It’s silly, but I rather like foxes.”
The wolf nudges her shoulder with its snout, and the Master Sword’s voice sounds like it’s smiling when it asks, What about wolves?
She laughs again, reaching up to pet the beast’s head and relishing in the muted whish whish whish of its tail wagging over the grass. “Yes, I suppose I like wolves, too. Now, how am I meant to cook this with no kindling for a fire?”
The power of the Goddess that lies within your blood is rather hot.
—
The wolf is following her.
She’s crossed Horwell Bridge, walking along the edge of the Hylia River with the Lanayru Wetlands to her right, and all the while the wolf walks by her side.
“I guess you’re coming along for the journey, hm?” Zelda asks him, having found out that he’s a boy after an unfortunate second where she caught him bathing himself. “I don’t know why you’ve chosen me, but thank you for your help.”
As soon as she finishes her sentence, the wolf steps in front of her and stops, forcing her to stop as well.
“Um,” she glances down at him, trying to move around his large body, but he follows her, effectively blocking her path. “What are you-”
He growls, the fur on the back of his neck standing up, making him look even bigger than he already is.
He’s caught the scent of something, The Master Sword informs her, and the wolf’s ears twitch. There is a 10% chance it is a corrupted Guardian Stalker.
Zelda frowns, staring at the sunset on the horizon, her eyes tracing over the hills. “Only a ten percent chance?”
Two Guardian Stalkers skitter over the nearest hill.
The other 90% was that it was two corrupted Guardian Stalkers.
“You couldn’t tell me that statistic?” The Golden Power ignites in response to the sight of the corrupted machines, the Triforce shining over the back of her right hand.
…The damage I’ve taken may have affected my judgement, as well.
Like they’ve been told where she is, both Guardian heads swivel and their blue eyes land on her, their soon-to-be-fired lasers beep beep beep-ing to life, red dots appearing on her chest-
Zelda shoves a beam of purifying light towards one, cleansing it of the malice, and she turns her Triforce hand towards the other-
The wolf is already there, snarling as he viciously attacks the remaining Stalker, a black blur as he rushes from all angles, seemingly popping in and out of the shadows in order to rip its legs off before leaping up and sinking his fangs into its blinking eye. With a slowing whir, the corrupted Guardian shuts down, bursting into a pile of Ancient Gears and Screws in a flash of blue light.
Zelda lowers her hand. The wolf raises his face to the sky and releases a triumphant howl.
She blinks and he’s back by her side, licking where the Triforce hums on her golden knuckles.
—
The Master Sword insists that she take another break once night falls.
“I’m fine,” she argues, taking a seat beneath another tree regardless. “We’re halfway already.”
The second she’s seated the wolf curls up next to her, pillowing his face on her lap. She scratches behind his ears, thumbing at an earring—an earring?—and his tail wags again.
(Who would pierce a wolf’s ears?)
Which is why you must take a break. The blade of evil’s bane hums on her back. When I said it would take two days to reach Korok Forest with no rest, I was not proposing a challenge.
Zelda huffs, “Master Sword-”
The last time you rested was when Twilight brought you a fox.
Zelda pauses, her hand stilling in the wolf’s thick fur. “Twilight?”
(The wolf’s eyes move to the sword’s hilt peeking over her shoulder. The shackle on his foot rattles as he shifts his weight and presses his face into her palm, silently asking for more pets.)
Yes, The Master Sword answers after a moment. He needs a name, does he not?
She nods. “I just didn’t think of you as a ‘naming animals’ type of person.”
I enjoy the presence of animals, Zelda.
For the second time, Zelda smiles at the end of the world as the wolf—Twilight, she rather likes that name—stretches and rests more of his weight in her lap. “Yes, as do I.”
—
She’s sitting at the head of the Dining Hall’s grand table, staring down at a sprawling feast with the Champions seated around her.
Mipha is seated to her right, followed by Daruk, and Urbosa is seated to her left, followed by Revali. Link sits at the other end of the table, his fingers wrapped around a glass of dark red wine while Revali bickers with Daruk about whether ranged or close combat is better and Urbosa asks Mipha for tips on fighting with a spear.
“I thought you didn’t drink?” Zelda asks him, nodding to the glass in his hand.
He smiles, raising it to his lips. There is no Master Sword peeking over his shoulder or resting against his chair.
“Where’s your sword?”
He takes a deep drink. The commotion of the Champions’ conversations stops.
“Where’s your sword?” she repeats.
He sets the glass down. Zelda blinks, and the appearance of her comrades, of her friends, changes.
Urbosa, bloodied and beaten with a hole in her chest, slumped back in her seat with glassy, unseeing eyes. Mipha, her own spear embedded in her gut, bent over the table and clawing at it to try and push herself up. Revali, riddled with holes left by arrows tainted with malice and his head thunk-ing on the table as he collapses and falls out of his chair. Daruk, covered in long, scorching gashes, parts of his rocky skin flaking off and landing in his uneaten food.
Link, his Champion’s Tunic dark with blood, the impact of a Guardian’s laser marring his abdomen and turning his wounded skin black from the burn. Blood mats his hair, splattered on his face, and when he finally releases his glass it's stained red from his palms.
Your fault, A voice that sounds like her father hisses in her ear. You didn’t try hard enough, you didn’t fulfill your duty-
Your fault, A voice that sounds like herself snarls in her head. You failed them all, your ignorance got them killed-
“Stop it,” Zelda whispers, tears in her eyes. “Stop it-”
As one, the Champions lift their heads and stare at her, chorusing, Your fault, your fault, your fault-
“I-”
I’m sorry I failed you.
Across the table, Link smiles and raises a bloody finger to his wine-soaked lips.
—
She wakes up screaming, begging for people who are no longer alive to forgive her. There’s nothing the pulsing, humming Master Sword can do to calm her down and nothing the comforting presence of Twilight can do to stop her crying.
(The Master Sword stands sentinel over her panic attack, calculating the odds of any impending threats stumbling upon her, and Twilight sits by her side, enduring how she clings to him to ground herself and licking her cheeks to rid them of her tears.)
—
The next time she wakes, it’s to Twilight bringing her a dead turkey for breakfast and the Master Sword telling her, There are Guardians nearby. You must eat quickly unless you want to face them.
—
Twilight is…strange.
Zelda already knows that he’s not a normal wolf, that much is obvious just by looking at him, but on the dawn of the third day of her journey to Korok Forest, she becomes aware of how he’s not even normal for an animal in general.
It goes like this:
A Bokoblin camp blocks her path, becoming visible in the rising red sun and revealing the four Ganon-like pigs all sleeping around a fire. The Master Sword informs her that it is not powerful enough to entirely destroy the monsters, and tells her that to use the Golden Power to eradicate them would be a waste of her energy and attract any nearby, corrupted Guardian Stalkers.
“So what am I supposed to do?” Zelda hisses, crouched behind a bush. “Run through and hope they eventually get tired of chasing me?”
Twilight sits next to her, his tail curled around his feet, tilting his head and staring at the camp with a keen, almost analytical gaze.
I suggest either trying to find a way around or distracting-Oh.
“What?” she asks. “What does ‘oh’-”
There’s a rush of cool air from her right, and Zelda looks over just in time to see Twilight melt into his own shadow and disappear from her side.
“Oh,” she breathes.
She straightens, craning her neck to see over the bush, and-
Twilight is a blot of dark ink in the grass as he prowls the camp, the cuff on his foot jingling out an unheard warning as he circles the four sleeping Bokoblins. His blue eyes are beacons in the darkness of the dawn, gleaming as his lips pull back in a vicious snarl to reveal his fangs, a low, menacing growl reverberating through the air.
One of the Bokoblins snorts, startling itself awake, and Zelda blinks in surprise.
(She shouldn’t have.)
When her eyes open a nanosecond later, a chorus of dying squeals is fading on her ears and she’s met with the sight of four Bokoblins with their throats torn out dissolving into puffs of purple smoke.
There, illuminated by the dead monsters’ campfire, is Twilight, purple Bokoblin blood on his teeth as he lifts his face to the sky and releases a mighty howl.
Zelda comes out from behind the bush, walking up to the giant wolf. Her heart pounds in her warming chest, and the Triforce flickers to life on the back of her hand.
Twilight’s head whips in her direction, and he melts into his own shadow again before materializing into reality from hers, sitting right in front of her. He stares up at her, his mouth open in a sort of smile only dogs can have, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he pants.
“What…” she falters, staring down at him with wide eyes. “What are you?”
Twilight gives an adorable, “Woof!”, leaning back on his hind legs to wave his front legs at her and beg for pets, and the Master Sword buzzes on her back as she shakily complies with golden fingers.
—
“Master Sword?”
Yes, Zelda?
“Do Twilight’s eyes seem…”
Seem what, Zelda?
“Familiar?”
…I do not know what you mean.
“Their color, the way he looks at things, and how he decimated those Bokoblins by-by teleporting through shadows. There…There was a story I read when I was younger, one of Hyrule’s old legends about the Hero-”
Guardians approaching. Please be on the lookout.
—
“Where’s your sword?” Zelda demands through her tears, cradling his body in the rain.
Link, through his dying coughs, smiles up at her. He cradles her face in his hand.
She sobs, “I-”
I love you, I love you, I love you.
He presses his thumb to her lips, silencing her, before going limp in her arms as the life leaves his eyes.
—
On the dawn of the fourth day, she reaches what the Master Sword tells her is the entrance to the Great Hyrule Forest.
“And Korok Forest is just down this path?” Zelda frowns, startling when Twilight presses his cold nose to her palm and sniffs as the Golden Power flickers to life on her fingertips. “That seems…anticlimactic for all of the mythos behind the Master Sword.”
You must navigate the Lost Woods, The voice in the blade of evil’s bane explains. You must navigate the Lost Woods and you must follow my instructions exactly. If you don’t, if you stray from the path I lay at your feet, you will be Lost to the world and become just another voice in the all-consuming fog.
Ah. “That’s more like it.”
You will not need the Golden Power any longer. The only monsters within the Lost Woods exist in bedtime stories meant to scare children into sleep.
“Except for the all-consuming fog, of course.”
The Master Sword hums, and there’s amusem*nt in its voice when it says, Yes, except for the all-consuming fog.
(Did she just make the sword that seals the darkness laugh?)
Twilight barks, breaking into an excited sprint down the path and into the Great Hyrule Forest, and Zelda has no choice but to run after him with a panicked call of his name.
—
The fog is cold, and the trees are dense, and Twilight is nowhere to be seen. Zelda is grateful she can no longer see the bleeding sky as she hurries down the now-broken path and follows the flames of lanterns set up along the way, even as she squints to see and anxiously searches for her four-legged companion.
“Who lit these lanterns?” she asks, holding the strap that wraps around her chest and keeps the Master Sword on her back, rubbing her fingers over the worn material for comfort.
Travelers who have attempted to conquer the fog.
“And they’re Lost?”
They are.
“Can…Can animals become Lost?”
I do not know. No one has ever brought a pet.
She swallows, and hates the way her voice shakes when she continues, “So that means he’s…”
No. Twilight is…different from other animals. You’ve seen it yourself.
“You never answered my question, before.”
What question?
“About Twilight and his…similarities to a legend of old.”
I do not remember you asking me a question, Zelda.
“You interrupted me to warn me about Guardians.”
What is your question?
“Is-” she swallows again. “Is he the Hero of Twilight? And if so, how did he get here?”
Silence. Then, You wished for my Master in the aftermath of his fall while wielding the power of the Triforce, which is very prone to granting wishes if the one that makes them is pure of heart.
Oh. “Oh.”
Yes.
“Why didn’t you tell me when he first showed up?"
I thought it would sound rather crazy to you, but it appears that you are much Wiser than I initially thought.
“Woof!”
Speak of the devil, Twilight sits in between two lanterns posted before a tree, his tail going into overdrive once he catches sight of her. He barks again when she gets close, nudging a nearby torch with his nose.
Taking the hint, Zelda picks up the torch and uses the nearest lantern’s flame to light it.
“Thank you, Hero of Twilight,” she says, pointedly staring at him.
He blinks, and Zelda watches his blue eyes—the Hero’s blue eyes, how could she not have noticed that—slide to the Master Sword’s hilt peeking over her shoulder.
Yes, Master, The voice inside of the sword concedes. She figured out who you are.
“Wait, he can hear you?”
“Woof!”
—
Despite the Master Sword’s careful instructions and the reassuring presence of her Hero’s past life, Zelda struggles to calm down as she slowly walks the invisible path that will take her to Korok Forest.
“At least the torch is keeping me warm,” she whispers aloud, just to fill the thick silence in the air.
Twilight, walking alongside her, presses closer to her bare legs, shoving his large warm mass of a body against her frigid skin.
The embers will also blow in the wind to guide you back to the Great Hyrule Forest, The Master Sword says. Remember, you will have to do this on your own once you put me to rest and go to face the Calamity.
“Yes,” Zelda nods. “I know.”
Twilight huffs, craning his neck to glare up at the Master Sword as if to say, I’ll be here.
“No,” she tells him. “You won’t.”
He turns his attention to her, staring. Zelda thinks that if he had eyebrows, he would raise one.
(She can almost see the expression in the memory of her own Hero’s face.)
—
She stands at what the Master Sword tells her is the entrance to Korok Forest, the fog and the canine Hero of Twilight at her back.
Zelda turns and faces him, crouching to be at his eye-level.
“You have to go, now,” she whispers. “I must do the rest of this on my own.”
He shakes his head, whining, pawing at her filthy, tattered dress.
“I know you want to help me,” she continues, catching his foot and holding it, stroking her thumb over the top of his paw, “And you have, but…you can’t fight the Calamity with me. You’ll be killed without the Master Sword in your grasp, and I doubt you can properly wield it with your mouth. How am I supposed to face it for however long it takes my Hero to wake up from the Slumber of Restoration if I’m worried about you getting hurt?”
The Hero of Twilight slips his paw out of her hand, ducking his head with flattened ears.
“I don’t say that to guilt you into leaving, it’s just...you can’t stay here forever and help me. You have your own Hyrule to save, don’t you?”
He nods, and wow if it isn’t strange to watch an animal comprehend her words and respond like a human being-
“Thank you, Link, Hero of Hyrule,” she breathes, pressing her lips to the top of his head and scratching the sides of his face, the Triforce flickering to life on the back of her hand. “Thank you for answering my call and keeping me safe on this quest of my own. I think it’s time you do the same for your Zelda, hm? If she’s anything like me, then I think she needs you, too. Go home and help her.”
Twilight licks her fingers one last time before he turns around and runs into the fog of the Lost Woods, howling like he’s asking it to take him. Zelda watches him go, waiting for his silhouette to disappear, and once it does she stands up straight, turns back around, and enters Korok Forest to lay the Master Sword to rest.
—
“Tell him I-”
(I tried everything I could. I’m sorry I failed you. I love you, I love you, I love you.)
“Now, then,” The Great Deku Tree rumbles, cutting her off. “Words intended for him would sound much better in the tones of your voice, don’t you think?”
Zelda pauses, thinking.
(The ghost of his thumb on her lips, and a distant howl ringing in her ears.)
He will arrive before you yet again, The Master Sword echoes her own words back.
She replies, “Yes.”
