Echoes

[sinnatious]

Title: Echoes

Summary: Breath of the Wild, one-shot, short. After 100 years, Link has to face the truth about Zelda.

Warnings: A bit tragic. Character deaths.

Author’s Note: I realise that the upcoming sequel (and actual ending) totally obliterates this idea but for the entire of BotW I was convinced this was going to happen so I finally wrote out this quick thing to scratch that itch.

Gotta be honest I think I'm playing in Zelda fandom so much to avoid looking at all those corners I've written myself into on FF7 fic...

Her smile is soft and warm. Familiar.

“Do you remember me?” she asks.

It’s difficult – he doesn’t remember everything, but it’s enough. More than the other champions. More than anything else.

He remembers sacrificing everything for this girl. And finally, after months toiling alone, a single piece of his past is here, in front of him. After chasing echoes for so long he’s finally found the real thing.

Now they can go, together, and… he’s not sure yet, exactly. Rebuild? Live out a peaceful life, now their destined duty is done?

She’ll have ideas, he’s sure. But for now, returning to Hateno or Kakariko would be a good way to start, whatever she decides.

Except, as he turns to lead the way, she doesn’t follow.

He pauses, and looks back. She’s wringing her hands, staring at him.

“Link, I’m sorry. You need to know, that I…”

She trails off. She doesn’t need to explain with words. Link can see it for himself.

Blue spirit flames wreath her figure. Her outline is suddenly insubstantial. She glows with some inner light, a halo he’d thought put there by her power but now, in the watery sunlight, is unmistakable.

100 years. He didn't know why he'd ever thought, when they said Zelda was still fighting, that she was any more alive than the Champions.

It’s unfair.

The silence between them stretches. He tries to keep his expression neutral. He fails.

“Oh, Link,” she says, and this is something he doesn’t remember. This is a kindness she’d never extended to him in his memories, not until he’d been actually dying, and how bad must he look that she’s so gentle with him now.

She pulls her hand back, moments before it touches his shoulder, before it can confirm what he already knows.

He tries to voice the question, but chokes on it. She hears it anyway.

"I died in the castle,” she explains, so, so carefully, like he’s glass and the words might break him. “I went alone, knowing what would likely happen. But if my spirit were trapped there, the way the champions were trapped by their beasts... I could use my power to trap Calamity Ganon with me, until we were all finally ready. So that there would still be something of Hyrule left to save. So that there was still a world for you to wake up to."

It makes sense. It’s something he should have guessed, especially after encountering the other champions. He should have known.

He didn’t want to know.

He feels suddenly exhausted. And now has to ask himself the bitter question of just what all the suffering these last months have been for. Had it been duty, or destiny? Just because the first person – also gone – he’d met upon waking up had told him to? Or had he toiled so hard simply for the hope that there was someone else from his past to share this enormous emptiness with?

He can’t honestly say he regrets it. Someone had to do it, eventually. In the past months, for all its harshness and trials, he’s relearned to love this land and the people still surviving on it. But…

It’s so unfair. Why is he the only one who must solider on?

“I’m sorry, Link,” she says, reaching out again. “For everything.”

It’s easy to be sorry, when you’re the one who no longer needs to live with it.

He holds out his hand, a bitter smile twisting his face. It falls through her fingers like mist.

There really isn’t anything more to be said.