1 Saved, But Now What?

After all the time of dealing with him as her knight, Zelda could read him quite well. Words weren’t his chosen form of expression many times. Observing was something she had to get very good at. She could tell there was something there. He knew who she had been. He even seemed to know what happened. But?

There was a lot of confusion in his face. He knew her, but he didn’t remember everything. If he did, his answer wouldn’t have been him standing and just staring back. “The shrine of resurrection gave you a second chance.” Be strong. He didn’t know her personally, but he was alive, and Calamity Ganon was gone.

Okay. There was no time to stand around thinking about things. She can think on her way home. She needed clothes. As she started to walk back toward the castle, she noticed Link following, but at a farther distance.

He did retain something, and perhaps he believed she could give him more memories. “I’m afraid I can’t help you with your memories, Link. That doesn’t mean they won’t come back per se, but I don’t have the means to restore them for you.” He was still farther back than usual, she didn’t know if he heard her.

It didn’t take long to get to the castle. It was in absolute ruins, but it had been the last time she saw it too. She walked in and tried to find her way to her room. There were a lot of loose bricks and the structure wasn’t sound, but she didn’t want to remain in the blessing clothes anymore. She wanted her clothes.

Not her princess clothes either, she wanted her exploring clothes. She wanted the clothes that made her feel the- shoot!

Oh. He hadn’t been as far back as she thought. He actually caught her. She looked back at him briefly. “Thank you. The ground is a little unstable.” She pulled herself back up straight and kept going. She had to find a different way to reach her room than usual, but she got there. She was weaker with her powers, but she still had some powers.

Scores of her stuff looked old and damaged, but it was still her stuff. Her favorite clothes weren’t just hanging in a closet, so there was a chance they might be quite preserved. She moved things out of the way until she found her box with her outfit.

She stood up and looked at Link. He normally turned around, even when she used her dressing corner, but he hadn’t. He just stared at her like she was something he needed to figure out. “I am getting dressed over in that corner, behind that hidden area.” She pointed to it.

She turned and went over there. So different. He felt so different. When she was done, she swung her hair out of her outfit. That felt so much better. Now that she was proper, she could start surveying what she could do.

She came back out and looked toward Link. He had her sheikah slate, but so far he hadn’t handed it back over to her. Not that he would remember to give it back maybe. Not the biggest deal right now. What had been, would be what to take care of next. “Do you remember what your payment was?” Oh dear. “Yes, I thought so. Probably not the heaviest on the mind. I don’t really know where . . . where even is the royal fortune? That was something father knew.” Right. “I could . . .” Sell? Sell old pieces of the falling apart Hyrule castle? There probably wasn’t anything of value with monsters tromping around it over the last . . . so long . . . that energy holding him down, time moved by almost like a sleeping dream.

It had really been so long. The castle wasn’t savable, and even if it had been, all of the royalty and everyone at the castle was gone. She noticed Link almost wanted to say something, but he didn’t.

Okay. Life would not involve the castle now. She looked around her room and started to dig around. “I like to collect common gems and rupees, and sometimes the rare ones. They would allow me to leave away from the castle much further without needing to return as much. I will have to travel around to different places now. It’s not like I was unused to it, I had traveled a great deal to dig up all of the Sheikah technology.” It had always just been nice to eventually come home to her . . . home.

Fine. Okay, enough of that. “I just have to go and get my . . .” Oh. “There’s no way my horse would still be alive.” Nope, tougher. “I will just have to get a new horse to survey Hyrule for starters. Once I know the kingdom is well, we can check up on our allies.” Slip up. “I will check up on my allies. Sorry. I’m still getting used to this adjustment.” Yes, and it was something she had to take care of.

She approached him closer. He backed up slightly from her? Yes, not used to her at all. She stopped. “Thank you for saving the kingdom from Calamity Ganon. Hyrule owes you a huge debt, Link. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is anything I can possibly give you that isn’t useless. Honestly, if father were still alive, you would have multiple medals and honors and a grand ceremony. I, however, have none of those things to give.” Yes. As much as it hurt, he should understand. “I don’t think I would even be able to pay you for being my personal knight before, Link. There is no duty for you here.”

Now, he really looked like he wanted to speak up.

He would have to do that, if he had something to say. She wouldn’t just wait around forever to see if she got an answer, that was always uncomfortable to Link. He had told her that before, when he knew her. When they were closer. If he needed to speak up, he would.

She continued to look through her royal things. Gems would fetch a price. A ruby would get her through a couple of stables and at least one horse. “I feel like such a heel not being able to give you anything for defeating Calamity Ganon yet.” A simple gem was more of an affront. Two rubies and 40 rupees. It was a start for her, nothing worthy of a knight that saved the entire world.

She stood up and looked at him, still standing there. He must have felt compelled to see her out of the castle or something so she didn’t trip. She walked past him and carefully made her way through the crumbling blocks. The stairs were so much trickier, and Link had stayed extra close while she got down them. When she was exiting the castle, she bowed to him. “Thank you for everything, Link. Go explore the castle, maybe you will find something worthy of your time.”

She started to leave, but he was still . . . following her. “Link, I can’t help you with your memories and I can’t pay you anything for your duty as a knight. I still have some powers, so don’t worry.” If he wanted something else, he would have to speak. Case closed.

She continued to walk, and he continued to follow. She stopped again. Okay? Since he wasn’t minding her, and he wasn’t talking, that only left one thing. Link was a person of action. She walked not just toward him, but stood on the side of him.

He started to walk forward and she followed. Yes, he wanted her to go somewhere with him. She followed him until they reached a stable.

He had them release two horses. Before he mounted his horse, he made sure she got on hers first. Once they were on the horses (with Zelda adding extra soothing), they were on their way out.

She had no idea what he wanted to show her, but she needed to get her first views of the kingdom anyhow. “So much rubble and ruin everywhere. Even in areas of absolute solitude,” she noted out loud. “There’s no escaping a simple rock from the war here and there more than a hundred feet.” She turned all the way around. “No matter how far you go, there is a battle wound somewhere on the horizonal view.”

Link turned to look at her. He didn’t say anything, but he probably thought the same thing many times. He rushed his steed to go faster, so she did the same. He was taking her through . . .

She stopped her horse. “Why are we taking this way?” she insisted. “If you want to go to Hateno, we can go in a way that won’t harrass our minds more than it’s already been harrassed. Just, look at these ancients. All over the place.” She surveyed everything, and felt herself wanting to cry. No, steel herself. She practiced her breathing techniques again.

When she opened her eyes again, Link was beside her on his steed. “Fine, we’ll go this way.” She didn’t want to trot through mess though, she made the horse move through it as fast as it could.

As fast as it moved, it was still ancient after ancient after ancient. Seeing them broken and defeated, with their ancient gears sticking out didn’t make her feel much better. Ganon had taken over the Sheikah tech and made it his own. As fascinating as these had been to her the first time she had seen them, they had lost all appeal. “Nothing but bad memories, and I’m sure the kingdom must feel the same way. Large, broken down hindrances. One of my first duties to this kingdom is getting rid of these eyesores on our land. All of the Sheikah tech we uncovered, it must go, no matter what. Eventually, everything. It must all go, and be buried back to the histories from where it came from.”

She looked ahead. Hateno. A nice village area, much less marred with the wounds. “It almost looks normal, Link.” Almost. “Sheikah ruins are still around us though, even in such a quaint village. This village must have made it out of the dangers being so far away from the first wave of attack. This is so fortunate.”

Link got off his steed so she followed his lead. She smiled at people as some politely stopped what they were doing and started to kneel, or just stared, probably disbelieving she still existed, while some went by her like nothing was new. She understood all of the sentiments and greeted them the same. “Hello.” She gave a small bow back to the ones that bowed, and acknowledged the others with a smile. “Good morning.”

“I-i-it’s Princess Zelda!” People started to yell, making the amount of people bowing toward her increase.

“She would be over a hundred years old,” another one noted, not impressed or believing.

“Have you not seen her pictures?” Another tried to encourage. “That is Princess Zelda!”

“Are you working on a play?” One of the young children said as they came toward her. “I’ve seen pictures of Princess Zelda. You look really good.”

She bent down and smiled. Such innocence, it still existed unmarred. “I’m not working on a play. What’s your name?” She sensed good in the boy, but also something else. “Don’t play with the statue on the outside of the village anymore, okay?”

“You knew that?”

Oh yes, she could feel it. It was trying to get the children to notice it, so as they grew up, they would follow and it could gamble for essences again. It had been known to drain full bank accounts just to fix life essences in a way to make a person feel better. The goddesses saw the danger in that and kept pushing it back further.

No doubt, it would be pushed back again. It didn’t need to be so close to all of these wonderful people. More of his friends seemed to notice her and they ran over, asking all kinds of questions, and none being any she would answer right now. Well, perhaps one. “No, it’s not a princess dress, but this is my favorite outfit. It always makes me feel better, so I love to wear it when I go exploring in my kingdom.”

“You explore?” the same one asked. “The Princess of all of Hyrule explores?”

“Oh yes, I loved exploring. There was always something popping out that was new,” she told them.

“Is the royalty going to come back?” another one asked.

Oh, such questions. “I am the last of it. I am here though.”

“If you have a baby, will you be Queen?”

“Are you Queen since you lived and the king is dead?”

Such innocent questions fell from their mouths until their parents came to retrieve them. They also started to stare. More questions were asked directly to her, but she only answered the ones that she knew. “Calamity Ganon is gone. The brave hero beside me, Link, has stopped him. Our world can finally return to a sense of peace, but there will be much to do.”

She answered what she could, to the best of her ability, but she couldn’t answer everything. Far from it. “I have no plans yet, I’m not much different than any of you in what I can do. We must understand and see Hyrule, each part and each person, to figure out where we need to go from here to make our land well again. We must strengthen our ties with the other kingdoms of our world again. We must relearn, while also learning new things to make our world better. Not everything a hundred years ago matters in the world of today.”

The questions started to change as more people gathered. “No,” she answered several people who was going on about the royalty’s rules and the castles. “I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.”

She noticed Link came near to her again. Oh yes, what was it he wanted? She followed him, some of the townspeople following. He stopped, not seeming to appreciate the extra company.

She bowed toward everyone. “I need to do something personally, I will return to talk more.” There. Only a couple of people seemed to not get the hint.

Link was taking her more on the outskirts, not real far from the Sheikah shrine in the town. He brought her to a quaint looking home. She noticed the sign. “It’s nice to see you have a home, Link.” Oh, now things were making sense. He was still a guard first, even without pay. While he wouldn’t remain, he would still be following rules of safety. It was ingrained within him.

To make it less awkward, she would command the situation with the question. “You have shown such bravery. Would you like to sleep with me, Link?”