Day to night, dark and light…
Time flows through my hand like sand in the wind…
Night will fade, the price is paid…
And the dawn will rise again…
The song has been passed down, scribe to scribe, king to king, generation to generation. The song of time… The song I taught to the young boy those 7 years ago.
Goddesses, has it been that long?
I look down at my hands. They’re no longer the soft hands of a princess, but the callused hands of a warrior. Of a Sheikah… which is what I am. What I have become. Princess? It’s an alien title for me. I’m no longer royalty. I’m just… a Sheikah. A shadow. A watcher.
And I like it that way.
In the solitude of this temple, I can almost reach out and touch the spirits that dwell here, unseen like I. They know the feeling I feel right now. The happiness of momentary peace… in this ‘seriously fucked up world’ as my friend Marine would so tactfully put it. And although her description of Hyrule maybe gruff, it’s true. To sugar coat the state of my land, I could say “Oh this is a fixer upper.” Or “Goddesses, it looks like a Dodango belched on this place.”
Yet, as the words in the song say… The night will fade, the price is paid, and dawn will rise again…
I smile under the heavy white cloth covering my mouth and nose.
So true… I can see the sun now, through the loan window of this abandoned church. And it’ rising. It’s signifying a new day… and perhaps… a new life?
For us?
For Hyrule?
That’s been my dream for 7 years… is the sun trying to encourage me to keep the faith? No… it’s just signifying another day… I glance behind me at the dimly lit hallway of the temple… of this.
You thought that I could be hopeful for 7 years? You thought I would come into this temple day after day saying, “Ok today is the day the hero is coming. Today is the day Hyrule will be saved. Today I get to reveal myself to the world as princess, not peasant.”
If you thought that, you’re wrong… dead wrong.
For a year I had that dream. And then I realized. There is a possibility he may not come back… there is that chance… and the words in the song? Will be nothing. They’ll be rubbish. And I’m damned
My people are damned.
My home is damned…
But of course that’s just a ‘what if.’ There is always a chance… and I have a small feeling it could be more… that he will come back, he will save Hyrule. And we can all be happy…
Once again, I kid myself.
After this is over, no one will be happy… I have a feeling, no one will remember.
It’s probably for the best… I saw things they day I fled that I never want to see again. Things that flash across my memory every time I shut my eyes at night. Things that cause my eyes to tear, my tongue to catch, my ears to ring, and my heart to break. Things I want to forget, but don’t dare.
Things that inspire me to fight for my land.
Yet, they are still too terrible to speak of.
So… here I am. In the Temple of Time… with magical spirits chanting the ancient prophetic song that holds the key to the future and the lock to the past. I’m staring out the lone window in the chamber of the Master Sword. And what am I doing?
I’m being foolish.
I’m dreaming again.
Dreaming that, shooting from the center of the ancient tomb for the Master Sword, will come a blue glow. One that will engulf the room causing a feeling, like a splash of cool water to ones face. A feeling that would make most men tremble with fear and delight all at the same time.
A feeling that will rekindle the fire in my heart that grows dimmer by the day.
That feeling is hope.
Hope that only the young lad with the fairy can revive. I barely remember his name, you know? I can’t remember what he looks like… except his eyes. They were perfect mirrors of mine… and his hair was my color tool. It’s strange, how alike we are. Same physical features, both our mothers dead from the time of our birth or young infancy, we’re both destined to save Hyrule…
I thumb the hilt of my dagger gingerly and look down at myself.
I’m not a little girl anymore… in fact I never was.
From the day I could talk, practically, I was trained in the royal ways. I swear to the Goddesses, my first word was “pwincess”. I was always considered a lady, never a little girl… which at times, was what I wanted. I just wanted to be a normal kid, like the ones I saw running around in the market place a lot… I guess that it had just been another one of my silly dreams.
Seems I have a lot of those.
Silly dreams, I mean.
I sigh and look down from my perch on the lone windowsill in the tomb of the Master Sword.
Another day wasted, wishing.
Another day wasted, dreaming.
I jump down gracefully and land on my feet. Yet, some unbidden force causes me to loose my footing, and I sprawl forward and land on the bottom step leading up to the Master Sword with a small cry. I throw my hands forward and brace for impact, and yet it never comes.
I’m pushed back violently by a blinding light. It dims slowly, to reveal that it came from the pedestal of the Master Sword. My eyes widen shock, and pain as I am thrown upon the floor by a wind. I sit up and squint to get a better look at what’s happening.
Then the light bursts throughout the room, carrying and killing my scream with it.
Then, all there is, is silence.
“Come on Link, let’s get out of here…”
“Alright Navi…”
Navi? Link?!
No… never.
I push myself off the ground and walk up the steps and stand beside the pedestal. The speaker’s back is to me lighted by the light of a small fairy.
It really is him, he’s truly come back!
He senses another presence and turns to meet me, his sword drawn and ready.
Our eyes meet.
And under my mask I smile.
Sometimes, silly dreams do come true…
THE END