The Legend Says I Love You | Zelink

Chapter 3: Resolve and Grief

Zelda and Link head to Goron City to make adjustments to the Divine Beast there. Zelda expresses her commitment to researching the ancient technology and still struggles with her own quiet anguish.

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Zelda knew she must've been infuriating for Link. Not only had her devotions at the Temple of Time proven to be fruitless, but their return to the castle was proving to be an equally slow and tiresome affair. Link, with his stamina and easy lope of a wolf, was surely sick of straggling behind her as she dragged out each step. She dreaded the return. Her only success to report was Vah Medoh's speed, and that didn't count for much in the eyes of her father. Not when her sealing power was still locked away.

"Another waste of time," she grumbled to herself. "If we took the southern path from Rito Village we could've seen to Vah Naboris, cut several days off our journey and achieved more than what we have from the Temple of Time visit." Passing through the Great Plateaus' borders had been troublesome and time consuming. Being the Princess, obviously, she had been fast tracked through – but not without paying visit to this Councillor and that. Playing at court had eaten an entire day's worth of travel time, and passing back through with little to show for it had been even worse.

On that thought, her father surely knew of her failure by now - someone must have reported back, even indirectly in the form of gossip. An idea began to form in her: they could send a message of their own to the King, once they reached Riverside stable. She needn't return to the castle just yet.

She pulled out the Sheikah slate and tapped on the map function, already feeling a new energy seep back into her step. "Link, there's been a change of plan," she began excitedly. "From here we'll make our way to Goron city. Then we'll need some adjustments on that Divine Beast so Daruk can manage it as easily as possible. He's figured it out how to get it to move, however it's apparent we still have much more to learn. But to think that the Divine Beast had actually been built by people," she mused aloud. "That means we should be able to understand how it works and how to use it to our advantage. These Divine Beast's... so much we don't know... But if we want to turn back Calamity Ganon, they're our last hope." She certainly wasn't. She paused in her step, clutching the Sheikah slate a little too hard to appear unbothered. Unease was swirling up within her, so much so that it made her feel unsteady. She spoke without thinking - like the only way she could eject the nausea was through her words. "Tell me the truth," she asked over her shoulder. The abruptness of her words didn't seem to phase him. "How proficient are you right now, welding that sword on your back?" her mouth felt dry, but still, she didn't give him time enough to answer. "Legend says that an ancient voice resonates inside it. Can you hear it yet... Hero?"

She tried the title on her tongue. It sounded awkward, clumsy. Unused. She had never called him it before, not out loud, not to his face. She wondered if he could bear the weight that came with it. If she couldn't handle her destiny, then he at the very least had to have a grip on his own.

His face gave nothing away. If the sword ever spoke to him, she wondered if he would even speak back. Sighing, she turned back towards the slowly setting sun in front of her. It hung low in the sky, staining it yellow in contrast to the harsh silhouette of Duelling Peaks in the distance. Zelda had read somewhere that the peaks, once a single mountain, had survived the wrath of a dragon. Rather than be destroyed, it had simply split into two and created a new path. From destruction, a way forward was made: the cracks had let in the light.

Or so the stories told. Stories were finicky things, passed down from person to person, gaining new life and new details, and losing them in equal amounts each time. She was smart enough to distrust local legend. But, the fact of the Dueling Peaks remained: a harsh jagged outline, with a lightning bolt split in the middle that the sunset bled through. It may or may have not survived a dragons force (it certainly looked like it). But the stories themselves, perhaps most impressively, had survived centuries. She couldn't help but wonder if they would continue to survive, even after Ganon, or if that particular legend and Dueling Peaks would both crumble and disappear. She drank in the view. How long could she enjoy this world for? Could she even enjoy it?