The Legend of Zelda: The King's Sword

Part Twenty-Two: Autumn

A. N. Big, big, BIG milestone reached in this here chapter, guys! Not just for Link and Zelda, but as this chapter is the prologue to the final season in The Legend Of Zelda: The King's Sword--Autumn!

Zelda's POV:

Link continues gazing, unmoving at the furnace wall from his lonely seat at the center of the couch. The Hylian Shield is mounted above the mantle now, with the King's Sword to its right, and my rapier to its left. My dagger stands in a dome-topped case of glass on the mantle's left side, and the Goddess Harp lays tilted on the right in a bed of moss and white autumn flowers.
I stand to his left between the dining table and kitchen with a cup of tea, gifted us by Dahlia from Kakariko Village. While inhaling the crisp sweetness steaming from it, I watch him refrain from blinking at the weapons on the wall, his expression dim, almost concerned, frowning.
What could he be thinking about? His hands are clasped together, suspended in the air from his elbows resting on his knees. Finally, his eyelids droop and close. He then rises from his seat and strolls barefoot out the back door. He hasn't looked into my eyes nor smiled for an hour or two.
Your fault. It's your fault.
I shake the guilt from my mind again. That's finished now. None of it is my fault. I scratch my forearm and follow him outside.
Link on the lonely hill with a tree limb in his hand, whittling with a tiny knife. The vegetables in the garden have been harvested, leaving the rows of dirt bare. I pass through in my sandals that shield my feet from pebbles or weathered grass. I draw my sailcloth closer around my shoulders as I rest on the hill across from him.
"Link?"
"Hm?"
"What's wrong?"
"Sometimes I wonder..." he swats the sharp end of the stick off using his knife. "-what killing monsters had done to them."
"Monsters?"
"I understand having saved everyone else, but what if I saw something other than death in their eyes?"
"You mean," I interject. "What if they had feelings?"
"Yes," he crosses his feet. "Were they sentient creatures, how much would I have devastated them?"
"But Link, you understand this is just theory."
"I do, but this theory, unlike the others, upsets me."
I scoot closer to him and rest my hand on his knee, "...Um, Link?"
"Mmph?" he still looks at the ground with a grey expression I have never, ever seen him make. He's...so sad. What's wrong with him?
"What...made you think about that?"
"I uh," he sighs, uncrossing his arms and placing his hands on the grass behind him. "I've meditated a lot today and, for so long, I never gave my mind the time or space to wander or...dwell."
"Hmm?" I bow my head in search of his azures.
"That's how I thought about...that."
"There's nothing...wrong?" my voice has quieted at the end.
"Mmmph," he looks away.
"Link, I'm worried about you."
His eyes remain closed until they are finally upon me for about the first time today.
"I've felt like, uh, since the weather's gotten cooler, we've grown apart. Even though we're always together."
"Oh?" I almost go on in my honesty, but I hold off on telling him that I'm somehow...missed him.
"I realized that we were able to grow strongest when...we were...apart..." his breaths are becoming more labored.
"Link...?"
"It had nothing to do with you, it's just me..." his sigh sounds more like a painful one. "...my feelings."
"Our...love has been stronger, I suppose." I turn my face toward the garden and rise to my knees, preparing to stand.
"Zelda," his voice wavers as he suddenly unrolls his knees to stand on them. I mistake the destination of his hands for me instead of the grass.
"Link?"
His eyes fall to his hands as he whispers, "Nothing..."
"Honey..." I run my finger down his cheek, "If you want me to let you alone for a day, I understand. Even if only...for an hour or a few, I will." I peck his same cheek and smile, "I'll give you a chance to miss me."
"You'll go?"
"Yes, Link. I can call you, remember? And you will find me when you're ready."
His warm lips find mine, and suddenly, I can't see. "Thank you," he whispers.
I don't see him anymore, for I have turned away. By the look of his back, despite his sunken shoulders, I have the freedom to wander. I stride through the garden and back inside to search for my shawl as a trade for my sailcloth. When I find it on the back of a dining chair, I take it as a hood to keep me warm from the breeze.
My mother's tune begins to vacate from my throat, and the kind gales force themselves upon my skin and into my nose. The chilly scent lulls my eyes shut while I stroll into the golden woods of autumn, a small smile creeping over my mouth. The breeze returns me to my home and my mother's arms, to a seat in the plushest of grass in the world, and a cool warmth unmatched on the Surface.
"These butterflies are like our loftwings," she said to me as the rays of glass glittered through the leaves and obscured her face. "They protect us from darkness when no one else can, and sometimes, lead us to our fates."
I was five when she told me this, so I couldn't quite understand.
"Someday I will not be with you in this world. On that day, the Blessed Butterflies will watch over you in my stead."
If anyone were the Goddess's incarnate, I would expect it to be her. Her kindness flowed more endlessly than the falls of Skyloft.
I wonder if Link was ever told that he wouldn't be alive without her. A mere three days after his birth was my own, and several hours later, the passing of his mother. She left a husband heartbroken and a son without milk. The man was the most resolute knight, so he brought his son to my father; my mother happily kept both of us fed. Would any other woman have done the same?
If only my father could have replaced Link's when he disappeared.
I still remember the cry that the boy made, the sound of a child's soul ripped from him. His father was his life. That age had forbidden him from knowing how to get by on his own. After that, he never knew a day without the academy walls. It wasn't fair that my mother could bless me before joining the gods, and his father could not.
Suppose the plan was to create strength in the boy before destroying his emotions again. What could possibly be taken from him next? He now has the power to take it back.
My living hand reaches out for him, finding itself empty to its own dismay.
Something inside of me yearns for his touch. Although veiled in silk of gold matching my sister trees, the nape of my neck feels his kiss. My own hands in an attempt to emulate his, rest along my forearms, then venture upward to grasp my biceps that have gone soft. I roam further into the woods despite my obstructing eyelids, and I care not where I go. My cheeks blush...as that sensation inside of me burns for him. Something had aroused him when he found me playing with the children that night, perhaps.
Perhaps...he begins to call me 'Flower' in the name of what he wants from me.
A tree's finger grabs at my eye when my skin finds warmth. My eyes open and find a still arcade withering out of a darkened forest, whose trees have gone to bones in autumn's parade. A creek bawls in the distance before me, with the faint vision of a small garden with only grass.
My feet carry me through the prickly route, and I hug my shawl closer to protect it from the greedy shrubs. The meadow is here, just as Link described, although not in summer's green. Nothing lives here but I and the river that runs by the tower rock's stone toes to my distant right. The walls of the forest shade themselves as he told me. I lay my knees at the waters in which Link washed the filth from his hands. The sun's golden luster battles through the red ghosts of leaves and punctures my eye when I turn to face it.