Out-Voiced (BotW fanfic) (on permanent hiatus)

2 - Zelda

A blade to my throat... and gone, I am, fighting for breath that shall never come.

What did she mean?

And all that talk of visions...

Why has the goddess forsaken me!?

Zelda's gaze was empty as she stared at the door, heartbroken.

That... That wasn't really her sister in that room, losing her mind like that, was it?

It couldn't possibly have been her...

Four days had passed since Zelda had visited her sister, her mind alight with questions...

And then she heard a knock on her door.

"You may enter."

She had been hoping it was Link, but alas, it was instead her father.

"Do you need something?" She asked, not tearing her eyes from her hands.

"Katherine is well enough to visit, now."

Zelda didn't say a word, only nodding.

Was that why he had told her not to enter Katherine's room?

"I see. Thank you."

After waiting a few minutes for more words to come or for Zelda to rise from her seat, he left her silent room.

Once he was finally gone, Zelda pulled herself together, mentally preparing all her questions.

When she knocked on her sister's door, it was a maid who had opened it. "Welcome, your highness..."

Zelda nodded her acknowledgement, stepping towards her bed-ridden, pale sister.

The hand she had cut on the vase was wrapped, and her eyes looked as though they were glazed over... This was well enough for her to see?

Katherine didn't say a word as she watched her sister approach.

"...First, I'd like to apologize... I should have had you ride on my horse with me... I was foolish and impatient."

Katherine simply gave her a curt nod.

"...let's talk about a few days ago... You spoke of visio-"

Katherine winced as Zelda spoke the word.

"Visions... And you spoke of seeing your own death..."

Katherine let out a shaky sigh, "I suppose the truth always prevails..."

Her breaths broke her words, leaving them in hardly intelligible fragments.

"I'm sorry you had see me in the midst of a... vision. I have magic... I've had them for years. Glimpses of the future... Things which can never be changed."

"Your death?"

"I'm going to be murdered someday soon, Zelda... My life will end by the hands of another, rather than this illness... It won't have even finished running its course."

"M-murdered!? By who!?"

"I couldn't see. My vision was clouded upon my death."

"Why did you never tell anyone about your magic?"

"Fear of being overworked... like you. And these visions are less than pleasurable... I know that I appear to be nothing more than a husk of a human when I get them... And I never wanted anyone to see such a thing."

Zelda squeezes Katherine's hand, shocked by how cold it was. "Y-your hands!"

"A side effect. One of many... They'll be cold for a few more days. It would be quite nice should I live to see the day they're warm again."

"I'm sorry!"

Katherine's eyes widened as her sister roughly wrapped her arms around her, sobbing into her shoulder.

"I'm sorry..."

Zelda had managed to sound as though she were in more pain than Katherine, upon hearing the news.

Katherine shivered as she hugged her sister back, bracing for the moment she could no longer do such a thing.

"Everything will be okay," Katherine stated, patting her sister's back. "My end won't be yours. It will impact nothing but your own emotions—you'll stop thinking about me, someday, and you'll be a great queen."

"How awful!"

"Hm?"

"To stop thinking about you... that's! It's...!"

"The nature of death. When someone dies, tell me, how long does one normally mourn their death? A few months? A couple of years? But always, at some point, they move on and stop thinking about their pain—the pain of loss. I'll be a mere thought that'll pop into your mind when at the strangest moments, not something you constantly think of."

"How can you speak so frivolously of your own death!?"

"Someone has to. My death is a vision I've had for years, and with the date growing ever closer... I've had to come to terms with it, or I'd die with all sorts of regrets."

"You don't plan to fight it!?"

"Of course I do. I'm not going down without a fight—did you never wonder why I pursued a knight's training?" Katherine felt around under her pillow, pulling out a dagger. "However... It's going to be futile. My visions can not be undone or prevented... So I intend to at least mark my attacker in some way."

"You make this seem as though it's nothing..."

"Because in the grand scheme of things, it is."

"How can you say such a thing!?" It's almost like something father might say...

"It's just how things are, Zelda. This is the nature of just about everything... You don't care as much about something until you've lost it, you lose it, and you forget about it as time goes on."

"Just what did father say to you?"

If it was even possible, Katherine's already pale face blanched more.

"Nothing I didn't already know."