Fortune Favors the Courageous

Chapter 6: Autonomy

autonomy
n. the ability to freely make one's own decisions, rather than being influenced or told
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Water lapped at the princess's elbows. She was lying face-down on the stony shore.

The back of her head was throbbing. A trembling hand reached up to find a lump the size of an Eldin Ostrich's egg beneath knots of blonde hair. Weak arms somehow managed to flip her onto her back, but the sun was too bright and she squeezed her eyes shut.

She tried to remember how she got here, but she couldn't. Not really. But she figured the welt on her head had something to do with it. Her cognitive functioning might be damaged, she worried, so she decided to test it.

"I am Princess Zelda Arinya Bosphoramus Hyrule," she muttered aloud, "daughter of King Rhoam and the late Queen Zelda. I am a 19-year-old disappointment to my kingdom."

Right, the Calamity. The Spring of Wisdom, the Blood Moon. She thought she and Cleric Ciela had made it back to her carriage, but she must've fallen in the river somehow and washed away all the way to... here.

Mustering all her strength, she pushed up on trembling limbs and tried to ascertain where here was.

It was safe to assume that the river had taken her south, which ruled out Eldin and Akkala. The presence of pine trees ruled out Faron. Could she still be in Central Hyrule? Or perhaps Lanayru? She wasn't even sure how far they had traveled by caravan before they were attacked.

She surveyed her surroundings further. Strips of wood bonked softly on the rocks as small waves pushed them around. She hauled her aching body closer and sifted amongst the debris, looking for anything that might be of use. Alas, nothing to be found but stones and splinters.

Then she caught sight of the rest of the carriage further upstream. As she made her way over to it, she saw something sticking out awkwardly from under the planks.

Legs.

Someone was trapped under the skeleton of the carriage.

"Hello?" she called, suddenly having the energy to move faster. "I'm coming to help you!" She stumbled over the rocky shore as quickly as she could, sometimes having to propel herself forward on hands and knees, until she was able to recognize the broken limbs.

"Cleric Ciela!" she cried, prying some of the wood pieces off with newfound strength.

A pained noise from underneath the rubble should have been a relief. It should have meant Ciela was alive, but there was something strange. It was gruff, subhuman. Still, Zelda drew vigor from her panic and hefted a large piece of the carriage's skeleton.

The sight underneath was horrific. There were two bodies. One was a corpse. The other was a bokoblin. Its red chest was heaving slow, strained breaths while beady eyes stared her down. It was too hurt to move, but that didn't register. Zelda was already screaming, dropping the heavy frame, falling onto her backside and kicking backwards in escape. She found her legs and ran from the river, towards the trees.

There was no mental capacity to grieve for Cleric Ciela. Even though the elderly woman had spent more time with the princess than anyone else in the past decade. Even though she was the closest thing to a mother figure Zelda had after the queen's passing. She had never been as forwardly warm and loving as Mama, but the care and concern was present in every one of Father's abandoned roles she picked up in the wake of Mama's death.

Indeed, there was no room for that. The only thought bulleting through Zelda's head was that of survival. The Blood Moon brought the spirits of monsters back to physicality, presumably all across the land. In other words, nowhere was safe now.