The Silent Princess

The Awakening

Her body was grieving, for a reason she knew not. Every moment felt like agony as she felt her body decay, the cool water that had startled  her was waking her body slowly, nerves firing loudly as she tried to get her body to do something. Prevent herself from drowning. She still could not move, but this made no sense. She told herself, she said to her dying body, it couldn't happen. What had happened just a few moments prior? That man... she had seen him before, he had helped her. At least she thought he had, that terrible heartache that pierced her skull for all those centuries, she had been begging for it to end for so long.

Why, why was it back? This time not in her head, not her body now, but in her heart. Something ached terribly and she could only wish and pray for it to end. Pray to the great gods of Hylia to end it somehow. Except, Hylia didn't speak to her. At least not as easily as she had before, the way she coaxed and cooed at her whenever she felt pain or grief. What was this grieving? What did she have to be sad about? Her entire life had been flying, freedom over Hylia. Only plagued by horrible memories, memories that she couldn't even remember. She watched as that man traveled through the centuries with me, she knew him. She knew his spirit. Every time he hid the blight from the world, it resurfaced a neverending Ouroboros. He did so well with himself, he was so pleased with himself, of course, he had to destroy the blight, the gloom, the Calamity. It was common to see them forced to fight young, most of them barely thirteen years of age. Unless you included that strange outlier, the boy who fought for his sister, rather than... than who... She couldn't place who. It was a familiar, yet foreign being. someone who radiated light, a memory she didn't mind remembering. yet it was the only memory that escaped her grasp.

She felt someone touch her, who touched her? A cough slipped past her lips, fingertips twitching as she felt someone touch her face, setting her down in the warm dry grass. Her cold, wet body sank as if she were dead. She could feel their worry vibrating off their spirit, whoever had carried her from the water. The hands moved away from her face, a soft gasp leaving the other's mouth as he cupped the side of her cheek as if he were begging.

She didn't understand this being's sorrow, this man's worry.... I'm okay. She wanted to say, even if she wasn't, I'll be fine. She wanted to coo, to put the tense and fidgety man at rest. He didn't have to do all of this for her, yet he did anyway. This man... Her eyes opened, pale sky blue against stormy ocean eyes. His face lied. It always had;

"Link..." she breathed out, her eyes closing once more, she was dying. She felt him tuck a hand under the crook of her knee again, lifting her as he trudged across the ground, her In his arms.

She hadn't felt so unsafe in centuries. All the memories flooded into her all at once, each one worse than the last.

It started with heavy hits to her psyche, her mother dead from an illness. One she had fought since birth, leaving her weak, and wounded, as if something important had been taken from her. It was all her fault, she had done something to her sweet, innocent mother. She didn't ask to be born... She didn't ask for any of this. Yet she was still being punished for it all.

"LINK."

She heard someone shout, her body jolting awake as she sat up in the man's arms, his body stumbling as she shifted. She Finally got a good look at him through blurred eyes. He was wirey, not all that strong from what she could see, lean at the very most. Not very tall either. if anything, he was... Average. If it weren't for the spirit crying out to me from inside his body, and the sword on his back. She grew timid, she was safe with him. She knew that much. The people coming towards her looked oh so familiar, yet she didn't know them at all.

"Link, Link!" a feathered being said, landing on the ground and dropping his bow "You scared us, where did you go- is that the Princess?!" he exclaimed, his wings flaring out as he jumped into the air in a start.