Blood Moon: A Story Before the Calamity

Chapter 11

     Link and Zelda were due for another praying session, this time at the Spring of Power, all the way out to Akkala. 

     How the last prayer ended was disaster. Zelda didn't pass out, but she just... snapped, and started screaming at everything around her, including Link. Especially Link. He just kept his head down and let her yell herself out. These incidents were becoming more and more common, but Link had long since stopped caring. Of course he stopped caring. There was no reason whatsoever to care.

     The Spring of Power didn't have the same feeling as the Spring of Courage. It was more foreboding, less welcoming. The Spring of Power was a tribute to the Triforce of Power, kept by the many reincarnations of Ganondorf. Link didn't have much hope that this Spring would help Zelda in the slightest. 

     The Spring of Power seemed to be more draining than the Spring of Courage. Zelda hadn't even managed to make it all the way through her session before falling to pieces, losing her resolve and getting lost in the river of despair. 

     The waters rippled silently at her feet as Zelda's tears joined them. After getting her--with some difficulty as she kept thrashing--out of the water and onto dry land, Link's hands twitched, unsure of what to do. 

     Hylia, he wasn't trained to deal with these types of things!

     He settled with just letting her be. Zelda clearly wasn't ready to accept his support, so he wouldn't be achieving anything other than a loud talking-to. But that expression on her face... No. Never mind.

     Instead, he slowly walked over to the Goddess Statue of Power. Running his hands over it, he thought back to Ganondorf, in all of his forms. Facing him with the spirit of a child had scarred the Hero of Time forever. The destruction of Hyrule in the Twilight Era had been due to his influence. The Great Sea flooding Hyrule was also in response to his return. 

     However, he was still the holder of the Triforce of Power, and therefore sacred. Absently touching the back of his own left hand with his fingertips, he wondered if the cycle would ever end.

     He could feel the impact that endless reincarnations wearing on the spirit of the Hero. Millennia after millennia of fighting, saving the world, it has leached out all the colour of him, making him feel tired, just tired of existing. 

     One man can only take so many scars.

     "All thanks to you." He whispered to the smiling Statue. "All thanks to you."

     Turning away, he could almost feel the Goddess Statue's eyes on him, almost hear the laughter of Calamity Ganon at how he was floundering, messing up, struggling with even the simplest decisions.

     When Zelda finally came to, Link was sitting cross-legged with his back to her and his hands and chin resting on his sword's butt. Zelda barely took a second to notice how this was the most relaxed position she had ever seen on Link before a surge of white-hot shame and anger entwined rose in her throat. It was all she could do not to lose her cool right there and then. 

     She had collapsed again. Again! Pull yourself together, for Hylia's sake! This cannot happen every time!

     To calm herself down, she decided to shake Link off for a while and visit the shrine she wanted to investigate, up in the Tabantha Region. The feeling of solitude and the lack of eyes on her back at all times was like a breath of the wild, lifting all the weight from her shoulders. She found herself walking slowly, trying to make it last as long as possible.

     But when she got there, she was alight with the joy of discovery at her fingertips. The Shrine was fascinating, full of hidden secrets that mischievously danced out of reach. 

     However, as the hours wore on, she started to feel agitated. Zelda walked around it, tried pressing the Sheikah Slate to various spots, probed the material, and tried to analyze the reactions, which was zero. 

     Trying once more to press the Sheikah Slate to the pedestal, Zelda's efforts yielded no results.

     "Nothing. Just as I thought. Hmm..." Looking up at the Sheikah eye carved onto the Shrine, Zelda mused out loud. "It appears that this structure was exclusively designed to be exclusively accessed by the Sword's chosen one."

      Pushing down a stab of resentment at the thought of Link, she went on. "But designs can always be worked around, at least I hope."

     "How do I get inside? I need to activate it somehow..."

     The loud neighing of a horse pulled her out of her thoughts. At the sight of Link, her insufferable shadow, her anger suddenly went through the roof. First it was humiliation at the Spring of Power. Then it was this intrusion into her private affairs. When will he just stop?

     When Link jumped off his horse to resume his place behind the Princess, Zelda finally had enough. 

     "I thought I made it clear that I'm not in need of an escort."

     Putting her hands on her hips, she continued on her rage. "It seems I'm the only one with a mind of my own. I, the person in question, am fine, regardless of the King's orders."

     Zelda threw her hands down with frustration. "Return to the castle. And tell that to my father, please."

     Link stared after her, confused. Two royals were telling him two different things, and he could only understand the motivation of one side. Tentatively, he jogged to catch up to her.

     Zelda's annoyance reached its peak, and she whipped around and yelled in Link's face, "And stop following me!!"

     Link had never expected this job to be so difficult. He hadn't needed to fight one monster, which was what he was good at. He had to fight, instead, the Princess, jealous bullies, his own doubts, the Princess, the King, and the Princess. He just couldn't understand her, just couldn't understand the way her thoughts worked. He had done literally nothing to her, but she was determined to hate him. Just for doing his job, he had been yelled at. If he just existed to be a human punchbag for the high-and-mighty Princess of Hyrule, then why exist at all?

     Sitting on the windowsill and looking out on the beauty of Hyrule at night, he found that he couldn't find a reason why he put up with it, why he let her walk all over him. Didn't he value his own dignity, his reputation as a fearsome warrior who surrendered not even to the strongest enemies?

     Link was crumbling. He could feel it. Before his defense gave out and he finally broke, he quickly went to bed and prayed for sleep to find him quickly.