After the Calamity

A Bittersweet Reunion

Zelda nearly broke down weeping when she saw her knight before her once again. This moment was what she had been waiting for while she fought Ganon for a century. This very moment, and nothing else. She had stopped counting days, weeks, even years. The pain had been immense and the struggle nearly unbearable. Yet, somehow she came out alive. Against all odds.

She had been watching him on his journey. She had watched him grow, learn and remember.

But she knew something was off. How could someone sleep for one hundred years, lose bits and pieces of himself, and still be the same?

He remembered her, though. That was enough to send her pitiful heart into overdrive.

Seeing him in front of her nearly caused her to cry out. It had been so long; she hardly believed that he was real. This moment was too good to be true. Every day, her heart had ached from missing him and now he was here and she could collapse into his arms and never leave his side.

The princess threw her arms around him, embracing him tightly while letting tears run down her cheeks. He hesitantly placed his hands on the small of her back, the feeling unfamiliar to him. Zelda did not notice, though. Her heart was filled with joy.

She stepped back to look at his face. His beautiful blue eyes, shaggy hair, and attentive expression. It was just as she remembered. She laughed in disbelief and held his face in her hands. Then, she kissed him, just as she used to one hundred years prior. The feeling of his lips on hers once again was indescribable. The rapture and euphoria she felt had never been so great.

However, that moment of joy only lasted for about a second. Startled, Link jumped back. He panicked, wondering why the princess was being so forward.

The problem was that he didn't remember everything. Only the pictures on the Slate, and a few other brief moments sparked by specific people and landmarks. The knight had no idea that his past relationship with the princess ever existed. All of his memories were merely fragments, a few pieces of a much bigger puzzle. The people in his memories felt like distant characters in a story. He knew that he had once known all of them, but everything had changed.

He wasn't the same Link that he had been one hundred years ago.

Zelda looked at him, clear vulnerability and hurt in her eyes.

"W-what is it?" She asked him softly, her voice weak. He looked at the ground. He couldn't look at her. All he could see was a girl who had treated him unfairly, scolded him for doing his job. He had put his life on the line for her several times... he often forgot that she was the one who saved him. She did it to save her kingdom, not me, he told himself. He struggled to see her as anyone but the girl who failed everybody and let his friends die.

After all, who else could be blame? He'd already put enough on himself, and he held her accountable in his mind. Nobody else was around. She was the only remnant of a past he hardly remembered. She was just a reminder. How could he live with that?

"I just... I don't understand." He croaked out. The princess looked at him with her glassy doe eyes, sparkling a brilliant green. They were so sad, so full of dejection and hurt. He thought back to the song he heard from the traveling musician, Kass. The look she had on her face said it all, but he refused to believe it. She never loved me. It was all just a silly rumor. I would have known if she did.

"...I'm sorry." She merely said, turning away from him. Now was not the time to bring this up; she would just have to push her feelings down and try again later. She sensed that something was wrong, and deemed it best to leave him alone for a while. Yet, she could not shake the feeling of her heavy heart, weighed down with grief.