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Zelda was there when her parents died.
Father, commanding the guards to resist the strange aliens that invaded their throne room. He fought right alongside them, attempting to push the enemy back.
(He died when—after they’d managed to defeat all but one of those towering dark beasts—the last one let out an unholy screech and a fallen beast at his back rose and tore into him, his blood spilling all over the floor.)
Mother, standing tall and straight-backed as ever, refuting the demands made by the man who hid his face. He had pushed through the fighting to stand as though he were some visiting dignitary. In return, the queen showed as much decorum and wisdom as she would to any mere petitioner, and if the clangs of battle or fallen men bothered her, her face did not betray it.
(She might not have died. But she was surely gone, for once it was clear that she would not surrender, the masked man stretched out a hand and a portal of black and red geometric shapes fell to the ceiling, and she dissolved up into it.)
When they were both gone, he focused on the princess, approaching her slowly.
Zelda took a step back, tightening her grip on her rapier, uncertain what to do now that there was no one else to rely on.
“It is time for you to choose: surrender or die.”
Her parents had chosen. They had refused to give up on protecting their kingdom, their people, their daughter.
And they had died for it.
She looked over the rest of the room. Saw the soldiers standing, struggling to subdue those dark beasts a second time. They lacked a leader and half of the men lay on the floor, cold and lifeless.
The tip of her sword trembled. She wasn’t prepared to make any decisions like this. Not yet. She wanted to protect everything, just as her parents had, but she… she didn’t know if she could.
And, surely, even a life under oppression was better than freedom in death, right?
She lowered her head, and let the blade fall from her hand.
That day, the sky never darkened to night from its golden orange dusk. Instead, twilight seemed to drag on, leaving Zelda with ample time to question whether she had made the correct decision.
Only those strange beasts came up to this drafty tower room.They appeared at regular intervals to check that she hadn’t escaped, and always brought food and water for her. She didn’t love the situation, but… she had, ultimately, decided to surrender in the hope that things would get better. She needed to live if that was going to happen. So she ate, drank, and slept.
And hoped.
After she determined the intervals at which she was visited, she eventually felt bold enough to venture through the unlocked door to see the state of things, hoping that she could try something.
It was depressing. There weren’t many of these strange beasts and birds about, but there were many spirits.
As many as the servants and guards who no longer persisted.
And though Zelda wasn’t able to slip past the gates into town, the window of her tower showed that the twilight extended past the castle walls and even above Hyrule Field. She suspected it was the reason so many were spirits now, and that this was the case wherever this unnatural twilight fell.
It was a little disheartening to realize she was the last of her people with any substance. It became harder to focus on her goals. Easier to remember how alone she was, and how her parents…
She shook her head, as though that simple dismissal would let her forget.
Eventually, though, Zelda decided to continue looking for a way to fix things. Having a purpose was better than succumbing to constant tears when she had none left to shed. Her eyes were already raw from those few times that she laid down to sleep and lost the focus that kept the tears at bay.
The library was unguarded, so it was easy to sneak inside and search out the ancient sections on lore and magic. She spent as many hours there as she dared, seeking answers regarding what had befallen her kingdom. If the time before her wardens came grew short, she could always sneak the books with her to her prison.
It was difficult to know what to look for. But eventually, she discovered one tome on dark magic which briefly mentioned the Twilight Realm and bemoaned the loss of mystical knowledge held by those who had been banished to it.
Twilight… Zelda looked out the window, to the view cast in orange light. A connection between the two seemed likely, so she chose to continue researching this particular topic.
After perusing any lore or historical tome with relevant information, she knew little more than when she started. All magic of the Interlopers was destroyed or hidden, nothing was known of the realm itself, and the mirror that led to it was kept at the top of an ancient prison deep in the Gerudo Desert. Not a single battle had been forgotten in the war leading up to their banishment, yet there was not even a footnote detailing what effect their magic might have had on those battles.
She kept searching and hoping, but it was a little disappointing to see her one pertinent lead ultimately prove fruitless. It became more difficult to come down here every time she failed to make progress.
Until she met Midna.
Zelda blinked when she first saw the strange, floating imp. It was no beast, and it didn’t seem interested in forcing the princess to return to her prison, so Zelda cautiously began to speak to her.
“Do you know anything about the Twilight Realm?”
The imp tilted her head. “I lived there.”
The texts had made it abundantly clear that no prisoners had been sent there since a certain incident of some sort… three centuries ago. No account went into detail, but it was clear that anyone who lived there today had to be a descendant of the people who were banished there so long ago.
“You’re an Interloper?” Zelda asked, hoping to learn about their magic and how it was affecting her kingdom.
The imp cackled at that. “No, those were my ancestors long ago. Now I’m… merely a twili. No one notable. Just a twili.”
Notable or not, Midna still proved to be a wealth of information regarding the Twilight Realm. She returned to the tower with Zelda and told her about how the nature of their magic had changed over time, how their people had softened demeanors, and who Zant—she spat his name with venom in her voice—was. She named the Shadow Beasts, the Kargaroks, the Keese, the Vermin.
“How do we return the twilight to Twilight, and light to Light?” Zelda asked once it was clear they shared the same goals of restoring both realms to how they ought to be.
“You know it, don’t you? It’s a legend from before our peoples separated, after all. A Hero and Princess of Light, sealing away the Evil.”
“Is that what Zant is? Evil?”
“Yes,” Midna hissed.
A Hero, according to newer prophecies of her people, would appear as a divine beast. And the Princess of Light was plainly Zelda, at least to Midna’s eyes.
Zelda wasn’t sure that she was prepared for a role in destiny when she already felt so ill-equipped to even manage her kingdom, but at least she knew now that there was something she could do.
She suggested that Midna would have better luck searching for the Hero outside the castle, as only Shadow Beasts and spirits roamed the halls.
It did, however, also mean Zelda would lose the closest person she had to a friend right now.
She sighed and rubbed at her arm, trying to stave off a horrible sinking feeling. Now that she knew she had a role to play in defeating Zant and freeing Hyrule, she felt that surrendering may not have been her wisest choice.
Midna found the Hero.
They left.
Zelda remained in the tower, alone.
But then, just over two weeks later, the castle was free of Twilight.
Zelda sighed in relief. The castle wasn’t clear of the Shadow Beasts or Kargaroks, and Zant still needed to be defeated, but she could at least see a blue sky that faded to a night full of stars and believe that there was hope to save Hyrule.
She wasn’t sure when exactly Midna and the Hero would return, but she was determined to prepare for the final confrontation with Zant in any way she could.
The wait didn’t last long. A few days later, Midna and the Hero appeared in the tower. Midna, pale and weak. The Hero, still trapped in that form she knew was not his own.
Lately, Zelda had spent most of her time studying magic and lore, and though she did not possess the power to rid him of that darkness herself, she knew what could, and directed him to it.
Midna, however, was more concerning. The condition that ailed her had weakened her spirit enough that it was about to slip away.
“Princess… I have one last request… Can you tell him… where to find the Mirror of Twilight?”
That gave Zelda pause. The way Midna knew so much about the Twilight Realm, mentioning the Mirror of Twilight, the hatred she held for the Usurper King… and being trapped in a form that didn’t belong to her as well…
“Midna… I believe I understand now just who and what you are… Despite your mortal injuries, you act in our stead…”
It was this last detail that made Zelda’s decision. Knowing that Midna was doing all she could to help the Hero free the kingdom. All while Zelda waited. Trapped. Unable to help until they were prepared to face Zant, or…
Was it even Zant? She thought she had been sensing something even darker in the castle of late.
Resolved, Zelda took a deep breath, extending her hand towards Midna. It wasn’t ideal, but she believed she would still be able to perform her task at the necessary time. “Accept this now, Midna. I pass it to you…”
As the power transferred to her, Midna’s eyes widened.
“No! Link! STOP HE—!”
Midna had sacrificed herself. Again.
Zelda slowly let out a breath. She had to stand strong, one more time.
She looked to Link, the Hero, standing at her side—man, not wolf this time. He was seething in rage, looking ready to face a charging Ganondorf, taking no account for the disadvantage or danger—how many times had she seen him charge so recklessly into battle—?
She dismissed the thought—of recent recollection—as it had no use right now. She merely needed to prevent him from needlessly getting himself killed.
Zelda reached for his wrist to stop his charge.
She was determined to stand by him. Not falter. Though it was easier with the remnants of Midna’s courage to bolster her own.
She would stand, like so many already had, and do all in her power to save her kingdom.
The heat of the desert suddenly pressed in around her.
Gone. Gone.
Midna was… gone. And Zelda would never see her again.
Such an important person to her—who she was for a while—and she was simply gone. It had been less than two minutes between the cracking of the mirror and her fading back into her own realm. A moment and an eternity had passed since.
Zelda couldn’t fool herself into thinking she hadn’t known, though. After all, she’d shared Midna’s heart. Watched through her eyes as she witnessed the mixing of Shadow and Light, repelling each other like oil and water and creating something no one could enjoy in between.
She brought a hand up to her chest, wondering how her heart was still able to beat so strongly when it felt so difficult to draw in breath.
“We…” Exhale. “We should leave,” she told Link, who was still staring at the spot where Midna had broken into light. “It’s better to travel the desert at night, while it is cool. If we hurry, we should be able to reach the mountain passes leading back to Hyrule before daybreak.”
“Princess.” His voice was choked, and he slowly turned back to look at her, his eyes brimming with tears.
Zelda had to force herself to inhale her next shaky breath.
“Can’t we just… take a moment to mourn?”
The tears she had been pushing back finally welled up in her eyes. “We… we… we should, shouldn’t we?”
She looked down, and her tears began to fall upon the stones of the Arbiter’s Grounds at her feet.
“I… I just wanted to keep going, because if there’s nothing urgent to focus on as my next task, I have to think about everyone I haven’t… haven’t mourned yet. Not just her. I haven’t even…”
She drew in a sharp breath and couldn’t keep up with her breathing anymore, slowly crumpling to the ground while tears streamed down her face.
“I haven’t even mourned my parents yet,” Zelda explained to Link much later.
After he had pushed aside his own grief to comfort her, the Hero helped her even her breaths and brushed away her tears and even offered an embrace she hadn’t realized she desperately needed (even if it was only with a man she knew from those vague recollections she had gotten from Midna, it was still quite comforting). Then they shared a simple meal he’d packed as a dinner and began their long trek home.
It was about an hour into the journey when she finally felt like she might be able to speak about it without collapsing again.
Link glanced at her. Then his eyes widened and he sharply inhaled. “It… it hasn’t been long, has it? Since they passed?”
“It was the start of the invasion,” she confirmed. “I… I saw it.”
He paused for a moment, then hurried his next step so that he was next to her again.
“I don’t even know what happened to their bodies. I can’t even hold a funeral befitting a Queen and King for them.”
Perhaps, had she thought of it, she could have asked Midna to see if there was a way to recover Mother. But it was difficult to even recollect that terrible afternoon, let alone mention the details of it. Still, if there was any chance she was alive… or even if Zelda could simply bury her…
“I’m… sorry, Princess.”
She didn’t like that. It sounded wrong, coming from him. “Call me… Zelda. Someone who’s comforted and grieved with me should call me by name.”
“Of course, Zelda.”
It barely curled the edges of her lips up. She liked how easily and casually he said it.
“Zelda… I do mean that I’m sorry, though,” Link continued. “I’m not just saying it. I wasn’t there when my own parents died, and now that I’ve seen so much death in front of my own eyes… I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been. But I do know how terrible it is to… adapt to life without them.”
“It’s been less than two months since they died,” she murmured. If she didn’t count the time that she was Midna, and not really conscious of herself, at least—and she did. The look on Link’s face told her that he understood. “And I… I was preoccupied, trying to free Hyrule. I barely even took the time to cry myself to sleep.”
He looked up to the starry night sky, far clearer in the desert than it could ever appear above the bright lights of Castle Town. “But now that your kingdom is safe, you have the time to miss them, right?”
“Well, there’s the reparations—”
“No, Zelda.”
She stayed quiet.
“I mean… you do need to do that. But it’ll always hurt. The pain is just as fresh, if you don’t take some time to grieve.” He shot Zelda a smile. “Everyone around you will help with the work while you do that. That’s what the people in Ordon did for me.”
Ah, right. He had experience in loss like this.
“I’m not sure that those in court are as kind as they are,” she admitted. Midna had imparted an impression that they were at least sickeningly nice. “But I may find… some people to help.”
She glanced at him.
“But… that’s enough about my particular problems. I’m sorry I cut your mourning short with so much grief of my own, earlier.”
“Well, having a task did help. Focusing on you for a bit. But…” He took a deep breath. “Would you mind if I… tell you about her?”
Zelda knew Midna very well. But if that was what helped him…
She smiled. “I don’t mind.”
It was the morning after they arrived back at the castle that she realized Link might leave.
Well, she expected him to leave. There was no reason he had to stay, after all.
But it was another person—the only person who both had grieved the loss of his own parents and knew Midna well enough to grieve her as well. Another person who would leave.
She might see him again. If he ever returned to the castle. Or if she visited Ordon. It wasn’t Father, dead. Mother, missing. Midna, unreachable. She knew where Ordon lay on a map, after all.
But when she woke, still profoundly missing all of them, she found the thought of someone else being gone unbearable.
So with shaking hands, Zelda tied a robe over her night gown, too preoccupied with her fear to get properly dressed before she strode through half-collapsed corridors to one of the few intact guest rooms that served as his quarters.
He was not there, even in the early morning, so she headed to the stables where she feared he’d be.
Link was there, brushing down Epona. But he had no saddlebags.
She sighed in relief.
Link turned as he heard her enter, and she suddenly felt more self-conscious than she had earlier about her appearance.
But Zelda stood tall, deciding she wouldn’t mind if he continued to see her in her robe. “You’re not leaving, are you?”
“Not yet,” he replied, turning back to focus on his horse again.
The worry gnawed at her again. She slowly approached the stall he was in.
“Will you leave?”
He paused in his long, smooth strokes across the length of Epona’s back. “I’m… not sure yet. I’d have to think about it.”
“You don’t have to leave,” she said. If you don’t have somewhere else to return to, please let me be selfish. Let me have a friend. Let me not be alone again.
Link didn’t say anything.
Zelda thought of all she wanted. Someone who could help her through the times when her grief grabbed her by the throat. Someone she could talk to about Midna. A chance to return all the help he’s given her in remembering those she can no longer see.
So finally, she asked what she really wanted to know. “Would you stay?”
She couldn’t help the relief that welled up when Link met her eyes, smiled, and nodded.