Lost in the Passage of Time (Post-Game OOT Zelink)

Lost in the Passage of Time

She missed him.

Every second of every hour, she wished that she had done things differently. Every day, she cursed the prophecy and three Goddesses that had torn them apart. Every moment, she desperately wanted him back.

As the Queen of the most powerful kingdom in the world, she had no shortage of suitors. Yet none interested her. Not when her thoughts always circled back to a certain green-clad hero, long lost in the past.

She still remembered it as clear as day - the sealing of the Black King, and her last contact with the Sages being them telling her that no matter what she thought, she had to let Link go.

And then they were in the sky, someone between the Sacred and mortal realm. Link stared back at her, his celestial eyes shining with hope as he told her of his wish to help rebuild Hyrule. And the pain stabbed at her heart as she crushed both of their dreams, looking back into those fond eyes and telling him that whatever they wanted was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps in another world, another timeline even, the story would end with the Hero of Time riding with the Princess of Hyrule into the sunset, but they did not live in that universe. Link had to go back to the forest, in the past - where he would be happy. He could stop Ganondorf. He could save lives. And as Zelda relayed these words, she knew Link would agree, that no matter how much he longed to be selfish and to follow his heart, he would sacrifice everything, including his happiness, for the greater good of the world. Because that was the way things had to be.

When Zelda - princess, Sage, heir to the throne - raised the Ocarina of Time to her lips once more, she could not even bear to open her eyes to look at the man she treasured so dearly. She pushed down the sorrow in her heart to the bottom of her consciousness, because it was not fitting of a princess and a hero to think only of themselves. Only when Link had risen into a place beyond the sky did she allow herself to look up, to lose her composure and let the tears run down her face freely.

It was finally over, but it had cost Zelda greatly, and while Hyrule cheered, she mourned. Her subjects assumed it was her late father she was grieving over, but it was something else that tore at her heart and kept her awake at night. Phantom memories of Link's hands on her skin, his gentle lips and his eyes like a rolling ocean. Her advisors could never decipher what was wrong - they tried everything to make it better, but sometimes not even time can heal a broken heart.

Zelda could not even bring herself to take her own life, for she had not lost Link to Death himself, but the passage of time, irrevocably woven into her and the Hero's life. Besides, her people needed her. She could not bear to leave them. Therefore, every day she carefully applied her mask of elegance and regality, and tried to forget about a certain green-clad hero. It wasn't easy, but ignoring the pain was better than confronting it.

Eventually, the young ruler of a neighbouring kingdom came and asked for her hand in marriage, and she did not reject him, because aged twenty-nine, she had to produce heirs for Hyrule. Making choices for the sake of her kingdom rather than herself was routine for her now, so she smiled and waved through her wedding and subsequent marriage. The new King of Hyrule was a pleasant man who treated her well, and had she been any other lady she would have been hopelessly in love with him. But she was not any other lady, she was a Queen haunted by the memories of a hero lost to time.

Besides, had she been any other lady, Link would still be with her now.

She wondered how Link was holding out, whether he thought of her too. But it was wishful thinking. He had most likely found another girl who gave him everything he wanted. She was probably so nice Zelda wouldn't have been able to hate her, if she was ever given the chance to meet her. The Queen wanted her hero to have moved on, and found happiness.

So she lived on, and as she carried on into her later years the memory of Link's face began to evade her memory. Soon she hardly even recall the sound of his voice, or what colour his eyes were.

And so, the Queen of Hyrule passed away aged eighty, and her eldest son replaced her as the new King. Her subjects mourned, but unlike their Queen, they eventually recovered from losing someone precious to them. Hyrule blossomed into a new age of peace, and hundreds of years later, Zelda became a legend, immortalised in the history books that praised her successes in banishing the King of Evil.

Those same books also mentioned a hero in green. Nobody ever knew what happened to him after the battle with Demise incarnate, but that wasn't important. All that mattered was that he had saved the day.

They never talked about his celestial eyes, or how his heart was captured by a Sheikah turned princess, or how he always slept on his left side, or how he had a dimple on his right cheek.

Those were memories lost in the cruel passage of time.