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Link may be training as a swordsmith, but he thinks he wants to make a brooch of the dragon in the sky.
It is unlike anything he has ever seen. Zelda – shrouded in tree cover, hiding from Minister Potho’s searching gaze – tells him about dragons from myth. They are very big, scary beyond belief, and breathe red-hot flames onto those who wrong them. He thinks the dragon in the sky only fulfils one of those requirements.
It certainly is large, and if it curled up inside Hyrule Field it would probably spill over the edges. The dragon skirts through the air on a specific path, so he only tends to see it at nighttime, when it appears all the more magical. Like a secret for him and him alone. In the dark expanse, spreading a warm blue and gold glow into its surroundings, it shimmers with the stars. It is beautiful.
A sword cannot be fashioned in the dragon’s image, but jewellery can. He doubts he can capture its vibrance in a lump of metal. He wants to try regardless.
Grandpa chuckles when Link tells him of his plan. He says that he can only consider branching out when he has made his first proper sword. That does not stop him. This brooch has to be amazing, the best thing he will ever make, so he has to start practising now. When Zelda next sneaks out of the palace to meet him, he begs her for some of her tutor’s parchment and a pot of ink. He wants to draw it but does not want to waste his Grandpa’s things. She is quick to agree.
Dragon sketches start to litter his room, the snaking body curled in various ways and covering every inch of his floor. It never looks quite right.
He gives his best one to Zelda to hang up in her room. She always stares at them for ages when he takes her to his house. To his surprise, the drawing is returned the next day. Where he had traced waving lines and sharp talons, she has added life to the page. Ink with a golden sheen fills in the strands of hair, and a lighter blue colour outlines the bright scales. His eyes widen at the beauty of it. And at how expensive this piece of parchment has become.
Link loves it, completely and sincerely, and when he tells Zelda so her face goes as pink as the dress she never takes off.
He nails it to the centre of his bedroom wall. It is definitely worth the scolding he gets from Grandpa.
When he turns ten, he officially makes his first sword. Grandpa lugs the heavy metals around, dealing with the blazing furnace fire so there are no accidents, but Link is the one to hammer it into shape. He is the one to sand the edges into a razor-sharpness. It takes him a long time to make – he is small for his age and has less stamina than some of his peers – but he does it. With his own two hands, he fashions an ugly lump into a flat blade. The sword is the only thing he talks about for the rest of the week.
Grandpa teaches him how to etch the logo of their shop just above the hilt, into the still hardening metal. He draws a base sketch, gets the hammer and nail, and carefully does his best to copy it. It ends up looking more like a squiggle than anything else. He does not care.
The sword gets flipped over. His Grandpa lets him take the nail to the other side with a bemused look. Link does not need an outline this time – the design is something he has drawn over and over again, and he could do it with his eyes closed. The better part of two hours pass, and finally he finishes. Grandpa takes one look at the design and breaks out into laughter.
The misshaped imitation of the dragon’s elegance looks back.
That same outline is etched into everything he makes from then on out. Every sword, dagger, scythe and sickle has the shop’s logo imprinted on one side and a curled dragon on the other. It differentiates his work from his Grandpa’s.
Link’s fascination with the dragon does not escape the notice of others. At Funday School, Erik – or maybe it is Harrison, he can never tell which is which – draws a small dragon on a scrap of paper and it joins his growing collection. At the market, Pina tries to convince him to buy fruit by telling him it has been blessed by the dragon itself. Baris calls him over and suggests that the dragon is actually a silent guide that has conquered time itself. Link likes the sound of that last one.
It is slightly embarrassing, but he can get over it. When he watches the dragon dance in the night, he hopes it knows it is cared for.
One time, Zelda asks him to sneak into the castle for a change. It is hard work to dodge the vigilant knights around each corner, but easier than he thought it would be. That probably is not a good thing. He finds her in the library, and she takes his hand to drag him under a table in the very back corner of the room. She pulls a large book onto her lap and cracks it open, revealing pages yellowed and wrinkled with age. It looks close to falling apart.
The book is about creatures of myth: griffins, krakens, loftwings, animals of all shapes and sizes. Most importantly, however, it contains information on dragons. Most of it is focused on the spirits of Farore, Din and Nayru, but there is a small entry to the side that Zelda drags his attention to. The words tell of a dragon unlike the rest, with golden hair and white scales framed in blue, framed with branching horns and a crystallised back. She is, the book writes, the Light Dragon, as christened by the great king and first hero of the goddess Hylia. There is little else written about her.
Link knows, deep in his heart, that his dragon is the Light Dragon.
The knowledge fascinates him. It remains at the forefront of his mind all the way up until this year’s Picori Festival, before disaster strikes and he cannot afford to muse on other things.
Zelda’s face freezes over, grey stone digging into soft skin and hardening her to the world, and the floor drops out beneath him. He stands next to her for a while. His eyes will not leave her statuesque form. It is wrong that her gaze, so enshrined with life and love, should be blank.
The Light Dragon glides above them. She reminds Link that the world has not stopped turning.
He is given the broken Picori blade and the mission to find the Picori to reforge it. They are said to live in the Minish Woods. It has been a long time since anyone last saw them, so Link has his private doubts about his success, but says nothing. If the king says this will help Zelda, he has to try. He has to rescue his best friend.
The sword put in his hands for defence is heavier than his own blade. It sits awkwardly in his palm, the added weight tiring his muscles, but he does not complain. He needs a blade made with surer hands than a trainee.
The smooth metal around the hilt makes him feel lonely, even with the real Light Dragon following his pathway in the woods.
The woods are confusing. He has never been there before, and each step he takes is more unsure than the last. Thankfully, the Light Dragon sails forward above the foliage, giving him a trail to follow.
It ends up being a good thing that he follows her path – she directs him towards a strange hat, light green in colour and extremely fussy in temperament. He says his name is Ezlo, and he places himself upon Link’s head to join his quest.
Ezlo is really funny. His noisy chatter and snide remarks rip laughter out of Link’s chest for the first time since Zelda turned to stone, startling both of them into silence for a beat. He squashes down that feeling deep inside his chest. How can he be laughing when Zelda cannot, and maybe never will again?
The hat gives him a strange look when he does so, and somehow the following remarks seem softer than before.
He gets to meet the Picori – no, the Minish, they prefer Minish – with Ezlo’s help. Their small stature and community fascinates him, even if he cannot understand a single word from their mouths. Luckily one of them, Festari, speaks Human and helps him solve the issue. A jabber nut, bright red and smelling like walnuts, allows him to speak to the Minish.
“Do you think I could use a jabber nut to talk to the dragon?” Link wonders aloud, desperate for any kind of conversation. He has been instructed to find the Four Elements to reforge the Picori Blade, and thinking about how long that will take makes his stomach twist and his eyes water. Anything is preferable to that.
“Dragons cannot talk, my boy,” Ezlo answers, and Link’s head tips back as the hat shifts his weight. “Besides, we have bigger fish to fry.”
Link ignores his last comment, continuing, “Have you ever tried talking to a dragon?”
“…No.”
“If they can, do you think a jabber nut would work?”
Ezlo stays silent for a minute, eventually saying, “Unlikely. A jabber nut allows communication between Humans and Minish. A dragon is neither.”
“Oh.” Link expected an answer like that. He does not know what he would say to the dragon anyway.
“I’m sorry,” Ezlo says tentatively, but he brushes the hat off. It is not his fault.
Later that night, after Ezlo has talked him through striking a campfire, Link grabs a hammer and nail out of his bag. He had made a quick detour back to the forge and had slipped the items into his bag before his Grandpa could ask why he was there. To ask why he was not immediately moving forward to save Zelda.
He had been tempted to keep walking through the night, but Ezlo said in no uncertain terms that he would pass out and have to recover, which would trap Zelda for longer. It was more efficient to sleep at night. His sluggish movements and slow eyes made him quick to agree.
The sword he had been given rests across his lap. A screeching noise emits from where nail meets blade.
“What are you doing, my boy?” Ezlo asks. His eyes are squinted open, and his head rests on the grass in front of him. “That awful noise makes it impossible to sleep. Typical of children, being so inconsiderate.”
Link is very proud of himself for not doing something irrational, like calling the hat a rude name. Or throwing him in a bush. He simply keeps working away and ignores the hat’s weakening complaints. Soon enough, a serpentine body has been etched roughly into the metal. It is not his best work by far, but that does not matter. He just needed her there.
Ezlo takes one look at the drawing and keeps quiet.
As he continues on his travels, the Light Dragon continues to act as his guide. Ezlo tells him where to go next or what to do, but what really influences the direction of his feet is the point of the Light Dragon’s head. She never leads him astray.
He finds the Elements of Earth and Fire. When they infuse the blade, magic creeps into his being and multiples him. One is now two, and with the Water Element it becomes three. Controlling multiple bodies at once is strange, but he takes it in stride. Anything to get him closer to Zelda. At least he can merge back together when he wants.
On his path to find the Wind Element, he finds the Ocarina of Wind. Playing a fluttering tune into the opening calls upon Zeffa. The bird grabs him in tight claws and drags him across the land, unbothered by his weight and determined to fulfil his wishes. He gives him the power of flight.
Link asks him to take him up to the Light Dragon once. Stubborn as ever, he carries him and shoots upwards, flapping his wings furiously to reach the chosen destination.
He never gets there.
Either Link gets too heavy, or the Light Dragon is too far away, but they do not reach her. The serpentine body only inches a little closer before Zeffa’s wings fail him, and the group drops from the sky in a clump of green and white. He manages to spread his wings at the last second, slowing their descent just enough to prevent Link from turning into a splat on the ground.
Ezlo shouts at him. He sounds incredibly angry – real anger, not the false irritation he normally holds. Link does not blame him. His face is bloody from scratching against dead tree branches, his ankle bruised from catching the weight of his body, and it takes a few hours for him to untense his muscles and stop panicking. He does not ask Zeffa to try again.
Despite this resolve, he does get to meet the Light Dragon.
Cloud Tops confuses him relentlessly. Zelda had previously told him that clouds were droplets of water holding big meetings, and when they finished talking they would return to the ground as rain. The clouds under his feet do not feel like water, though. They are soft, his feet sinking into them just enough to inspire worries of falling, and yet they support his weight. He cannot wait to tell Zelda about it, when she comes back.
If she comes back.
Ezlo snaps at his ear, changing his sentence back into when she comes back.
Up so high in the sky, it is nearly impossible to see Hyrule beneath him. The ground is too far away to be easily discerned, and it makes his stomach drop in fear. He does not feel fear for long.
Gliding beside him, with scales that glitter just as he imagined they would, with blue-tinted spines and horns that catch the sunlight and dazzle him, is the Light Dragon. His Light Dragon.
Her eyes are a shocking amalgamation of blue, purple and green, framed by golden eyelashes as they stare through him. Her neck is warmed with a thick golden mane, identical in colouring to how Zelda drew it so long ago. The dragon is so much more vibrant than he ever could have imagined.
“Hello!” Link calls, racing over to the edge of the clouds as fast as he can. His quest leaves his mind for the briefest moment, gazing upon her form. “Hello, Light Dragon!”
She has nothing to say to him. That does not dampen his spirits.
“Hello, Light Dragon! My name is Link! I love you!”
That is the first time those words are verbalised, and it slightly surprises him. He loves his Grandpa, with his rough voice and calloused palms leading him through blacksmithing and life. He loves Zelda, with her extensive knowledge and warm smile that has been by his side for as long as he can remember. He loves Ezlo, too, with his care concealed under harsh words and flippant statements. He had not considered that he loved the Light Dragon as well.
When he thinks of the sketches covering his room, of the curled crest on the flat of his first blade, of his eyes looking to the sky for guidance, Link cannot think of a word more accurate.
Regrettably, he cannot stay with the Light Dragon for long. She has places to fly to, and he has an Element to claim. His goodbye is only temporary. Once he saves Zelda, he will come back. He wants to meet her properly.
Gaining the final Element allows him to return to Hyrule Castle and add to the sword. It becomes the Four Sword. Three becomes four, and he feels more scrambled than ever before, but he endures. Zelda is just around the corner. He can finally save her.
He races to find her, but bumps into the king. The king who is Vaati. His enemy knocks him out, drops him outside the castle, and then warps the building beyond recognition. Danger lurks behind every pillar, every closed door, but he persists. He moves faster than he ever thought he could.
Vaati puts a timer on Zelda’s life. Link cannot afford to be slow.
The toll of the bell pushes his feet onwards. Each one tells him that he has wasted too much time. On the last ring of the bel, he finally reaches Vaati. Reaches Zelda.
It is a long battle against him, drawn out and painful. His foe shifts through demonic forms with ease, but Link cuts each one down with growing tenacity. He weakens Vaati with each swing of his sword, buying enough time for Zelda to shatter her stone prison. Cracks snake across her form, splitting the rock around her until she can blink again and see the world once more. She uses her freedom and Light Force to seal away the evil.
Vaati is gone. Hyrule is free, and that signals the departure of the Minish from the human world. Ezlo goes with them. Link does not want him to leave, but he never belonged in the Human world to begin with. He deserves to go home.
With the loss of Ezlo, however, is the gain of Zelda. She is back.
Once they are outside Hyrule Castle, and Zelda sees the sky again after so long being trapped, he wraps his arms tight around her. Link hugs her, like she could escape if he let go. She clings back to him just as fiercely.
The Light Dragon soars over them, and Link likes to think she shares in their victory too.
One of the first things Zelda does in the aftermath is to commission the building of a shrine. In it she places a pedestal, and the Four Sword finds its home inside. It feels nice to be whole, to not have to worry about controlling four different versions of himself at the same time. Now that he has Zelda, and Vaati has been sealed, he can go back to how he was before.
Except he cannot.
Hyrule Field is smaller than before. People he had lived with his whole life are gone – victims of Vaati’s machinations or having run away in fear, he does not know. Pina, selling fruit with the ring of her bell. Gepper, who tried his luck year after year in the Sword-Fighting Tournament. Marshall, with his endless stories about the Picori and their blade.
They are all gone, and Link does not know what to do to get them back.
At least, he thinks, the Light Dragon is still there. She soars onwards, breaking cloud cover and blotting sunlight as she flies on her endless path. Despite all the trouble that befell the land, she did not leave. She stayed and guided him when his feet stalled and his mind blanked. She kept him moving when he did not want to.
Link returns to his Grandpa’s forge. His journey gave him more practice in swordsmithing, and he wants to show him what he has learnt. Show him that his adventure was good for something.
He chains himself to blazing furnaces and lumps of metal, puts on his goggles and gets to work.
It does not take nearly as long as his first blade did. He loses himself in the rhythmic clash of his tools against the red-hot metal, and to the sharp hiss of water to cool it down. His nail and hammer etch the forge’s logo into one side of the blade, and then he flips it over to the other. The next design takes him a few hours to complete. He wants it to be perfect, and soon enough, it is. He cannot stop the smile that spreads across his face.
The sword is offered to his Grandpa in earnestness, who takes it with a shaking hand and chokes out a laugh, a single tear escaping his eye.
In all its beauty, with orderly scales and all-seeing eyes, the Light Dragon stares back at him.
Getting back to normal life is hard, but not unachievable.
He takes Zelda up to Cloud Tops. She has missed so much of the world, trapped within the castle. It would be nice if she could meet the Light Dragon. Just as he had predicted, she cannot get over the clouds underfoot – she kneels and digs her hand straight into the white fluff, exclaiming in disbelief when her hand comes away speckled in water. She asks questions about the area that he cannot answer, but he does his best.
They are up there for an hour before the Light Dragon emerges in the blue expanse. Her head bursts through the cloud cover, a golden trail snaking behind her. The second she sees her, Zelda gasps.
“The Light Dragon!” She cries, tripping over her feet to get as close as she can. He is not far behind her. “Oh, you’re beautiful!”
The Light Dragon slowly moves past them, not noticing their presence. Her vibrant eyes remain as vacant as ever. It is slightly disconcerting, but he does not really mind. She has been his guide through danger great and small, and he could not be more grateful for her presence.
“This is amazing,” Zelda whispers to him. Her hand finds his wrist and she holds on tight. Link hums in agreement, and together they watch the Light Dragon float away on her predestined path.
Not long after, Zelda changes her hair colour. He is not sure what exactly she did, but her previously golden locks are now a soft auburn, and she has fastened it with a massive pink bow. She seems more herself, now. More at ease with who she has become. It is a good look on her.
The peace, sadly, does not last long. Evil has a way of worming itself back into his life when he thinks it is gone for good.
Zelda is kidnapped once more, this time along with the six Shrine Maidens. It is not Link who seals her away, but the person who does so looks exactly like him. Same haircut, same clothes, same face – it is a carbon copy of himself. It reminds him of when he was forging the Four Sword and he kept duplicating. He does not like it.
His shadow taunts him, dodging his anger with a careless finesse, and Link does not think he has ever felt so enraged. He grabs the Four Sword and drags it out of his pedestal with a yell but stops short of swinging it. Everything is suddenly wrong.
He does not multiply; he splits. One becomes four, and each is independent of each other, and suddenly there is a hole where each part fits. They burst apart in a multicolour of new tunics, and none of them know what to do. Before they can get to grips with the new state of being, Vaati breaks free from the seal trapping him and whisks them away, preventing him from interfering with his plans.
They want to rush in and save Zelda and the Shrine Maidens, but they agree on the need to figure out what has happened first. The Four Sword previously multiplied Link’s body to be controlled from one central mind. This is different. This is four separate minds, with their own differing ideas and values, who do not know how to operate on their own. Their identities are chosen quickly – they have no time to waste on names.
They cannot all be Link, naturally, so they name themselves after the new colours of their tunics. Red. Blue. Green. Violet.
It is hard to be divided, and they are at odds more often than not, but they can put aside their differences to save their friends. That, at least, is a shared goal.
The obtaining of the four Royal Jewels forms the basis of their quest, and along the way each quarter becomes their own whole. Red is emotional and optimistic, driven to herodom out of empathy for those trapped with an undying belief in success. Blue is volatile and aggressive, pushing them onwards when despair drags them down and meeting their shadow’s attacks in ferocity with a grin on his face. Green is considering and focused, keeping his eye on the main goal when they lose themselves in their own debates. Violet – or Vio, as he prefers – is cool and logical, strategizing their victory and maximising their combined power.
They are no longer Link. They are shades of the person he used to be, and Link was gone the second he touched the Four Sword again.
Red hopes the Light Dragon does not mind that they have changed. She is the same as she has always been, just as she was when Link was one, and five, and ten, and thirteen, but Link is not. Red still loves her dearly and hopes that somewhere in her heart she can feel the same.
Green does not think the Light Dragon will mind that much, if at all. She has more important things to do than to worry about the four of them. Her goal is as unclear as ever, but he wants her to achieve it. They can deal with this themselves.
Vio thinks the Light Dragon is too abstract from the world to notice them anyway. On Cloud Tops, her eyes were vacant of thought or emotion. She likely has no sentience or lost it along the way. She has no capacity to care about their division. Green slaps him when he says that to Red, whose eyes well up and face burns red. He does not understand why – it is only the truth.
Blue tells the others he could not care less, but knows that to be far from the truth. When he loses his temper with the others and storms off in a huff, she glides above him in the same direction. It heals his heart slightly, to be in her presence.
Together they rescue all of the Shrine Maidens, collecting the Royal Jewels along the way and using them to reach Zelda’s prison. Their shadow taunts them all the while, meeting each swing of each blade like he was made to do so. Turns out he was. The Dark Mirror reaches into their souls and finds the darkness hidden within, manifesting it into another Link. Another part of a whole. Red knows that the second he stops fighting he will be taken advantage of, so he keeps slicing forwards. It still hurts to fight himself. Vio feels the same. He does not want to kill a part of himself but he has no other choice. It is the safest thing to do. Green thinks of it as a necessary evil, hoping beyond hopes that the thought will make raising his sword easier. It still shakes in tandem with his hand. Blue uses the resemblance to fuel himself further, sweating at the temples with a growl deep in his chest. He takes a second too long to block metal flying at him every time.
Zelda frees herself with the power they have collected and turns to the Dark Mirror, shattering it in one fell swoop. The evil within their hearts is contained once more.
They are thankful for her actions, but it leaves a strange taste on each of their tongues. A part of them is now gone. He may have been out for their blood, but he had been Link in his own, twisted way. Like each of them.
It is strange, to feel pity for an enemy.
They have little time to reminisce, however, as Vaati is still an emergent threat that needs to be contained. He is defeated soon enough, Zelda aiding them along the way, and his fall cracks the foundations of his palace. The five of them have to race to the Tower of Winds as the palace disintegrates under their feet. Matching their urgency is the Light Dragon, guiding them towards their final destination just as she has always done. The constancy is a comfort to all of them.
With Zelda’s assistance, furthered with the power of the six Shrine Maidens, the four of them attack Ganon with everything they have. The true source of evil. The mastermind leading all other obstacles along. They bring him to his knees, finally sealing him within the Four Sword. It is a rush after that, with no time for celebrations of victory, as they need to put the sword back in its pedestal to complete the cage.
Each of them place their hands on the hilt of the blade, lowering it into the gap. There is no time for final goodbyes, but they do not need them. They will be Link. None of them will truly be gone.
However, they do not merge correctly. They do not become one coherent mind – each of them still have their own corner of consciousness, their own sphere of influence, but they have been forced into the same space. They share Link, who is more confused than ever and does not know what to do with the new souls inhabiting him.
Afterwards, Zelda hooks her arms under his armpits and drags him backwards to his Grandpa’s forge. Red wants to race back into the arms of their family, but Blue wants to recover from any visible weakness first. The warring decisions make Link’s legs weak and prevent him from going anywhere at all. After so long having their own control, none of them know how to share one space. As their legs bump uselessly against the grassy ground, and Zelda huffs in exertion as she slowly drags them home, he can only look to the sky. The Light Dragon glides in the same direction, as peaceful and absent as she always has been. He can only hope that he will be as free as her once more.
Relearning to use his own body is hard. They disagree on every fine motor function – how to hold a sword, which way to write, even what steps they should take. The indecision renders him practically useless. His Grandpa leaves him for a day, and he returns with a polished wooden cane that Link knows would have cost a pretty rupee. He does not begrudge the assistance. It keeps him balanced when he has to come to an agreement on how to move.
It takes a long time, with plenty of practice and many shouted conversations in the privacy of his room, but he manages. He eventually can walk without the cane, as each individual thought starts to fall into sync, but he keeps it in his room. A reminder of his journey.
Red, Blue, Green and Vio are all Link, and Link is them. They are each their own person, but they can compromise. Link’s life is easier for it.
The most surprising thing of all is the grace with which his Grandpa takes his new four grandsons. It is an awkward conversation, filled with many questions and a few misunderstandings along the way, but they get there. Grandpa helps him bargain with the Shrine Maidens to have the Four Sword and use different magic to keep the seal in the shrine. The sword allows him to split whenever he needs to, and life becomes a lot easier. When he is too scrambled, he can grab the hilt of the blade and raise it skyward. They can separate until they feel settled once more.
Fate does not allow Link to feel settled for very long. It snatches at his calves, dragging him downwards through a crackling portal that opens up onto unknown lands. He is greeted by various heroes from across time, boisterous and courageous and loving. Vio wonders what kind of magic could possibly be used to achieve something like this. Green tells Vio to focus more on the black-blooded monsters that drive pointed metal at their faces. Link can wonder about magic later.
The other heroes call him Four, christened after the sword slung across his back, and they all agree that to be a very fitting name.
Even in the new eras, the Light Dragon remains circling the skies. She still guides the fall of his feet in the separation of time. In his own Hyrule, he leads the group based on the pattern of her path, and no one ever questions him. As it turns out, the Light Dragon has been guiding heroes for many millennia. He is glad that she is loved across time.
Four tells the group of the book Zelda had held across her knees so very long ago, under the cover of the library table. The book that gave the dragon the name of the Light Dragon. Sky hums in delight at the name, agreeing that to be the most suitable name he has come across for her. Then Four remembers who initially named the Light Dragon, and Vio starts panicking about time paradoxes, and Red’s voice gets shaky as he considers the consequences of the conversation, and Green and Blue have to take control. They do not bring up her name again.
Not long into their quest, their champion and cook is swept away on his own path. Four misses him, definitely, but does not fear for him. The Light Dragon will guide him onwards, just as she has always done for heroes of legend. She will keep him safe.
Then he returns, sharing information that the Light Dragon is not really a dragon after all. She is a princess of Hyrule, doing the unthinkable for her people to save them in the future. She gave up her life for the benefit of her hero.
Four thinks she would like to know that she helped more than one hero, along the way.
When the journey is over, and he hooks his shield on the wall for the final time, he sets himself to work. Grandpa and Zelda sigh endearingly as they pass him, but he cannot draw himself away from his mission. He has to do one more thing before he can rest.
Metal fashions itself into a curve, with scaly lines pressing across the length and spines pressing into the back. Wide eyes are welded to an elongated face, framed by voluminous hair that catches the sun. Link circles a scrap piece of metal into a small, pointed crown, and fastens it to the top of her head. Artistic licence.
When he is done, and they all agree that it is as close to perfect as it can be, he steps outside the forge and holds it up to the sky.
Zelda winds through the air, twisting her serpentine body to match the design of the brooch held tight in his fist. He will gift it to his own Zelda later.
She moves in the direction of Hyrule Castle, and just as Link has always done, he follows her lead.