The Legend of Zelda: Wisdom and Courage

Chapter 29: The Princess and the Hero

The rain continued to pour all around them in freezing sheets, drenching them both and washing away the blood from their wounds, though it did little to alleviate the pain of them. The girl held the hero close, keeping her hand against the side of his paled, pained face as he was just barely clinging onto life. They had both been dreading this day for so long now, praying and hoping that by some miracle it wouldn't come, but it was finally here and there was nothing either of them could do to stop it now.

"I… I'm so sorry…" he managed to choke out between forced, breathless sobs, even breathing and maintaining consciousness becoming incredible feats to him with each passing moment. His chest still pounded in overwhelming pain from both the heavy burn he had suffered from and the knife still embedded deeply into it. However, even despite the extreme agony he was feeling, what hurt him the most was the look of absolute heartbreak on the girl's face as she hovered over him, her dark blue eyes full of both love and grief.

"No…" she whispered mournfully, holding onto his chilled hand tightly as her tears fell without end. "Please, don't be sorry… This isn't your fault; it's mine. If I hadn't used you like I did, then you'd still have your whole life ahead of you…"

She broke down into a round of inconsolable sobs, but the hero, even in all his intense pain, did his best to try and comfort her in this painful moment. "I-its ok…" he said quietly, giving her a small smile of reassurance. "I… I'll be fine… just knowing that… y-you'll be ok…"

"But I won't be…" the girl said brokenly. "I never will be again once you're gone. I won't be able to go on without you. Every day for the rest of my life, I'll always be lost in thoughts of you, of us, of what we had… I'll always be wishing for that future that we could never have together… Because I love you… I need you… Our… our child needs you…"

Her very last statement came out in barely a tearful whisper, but the hero heard it nonetheless, and it completely replaced his agony with shock for a moment. "W-what?"

"I… I'm sorry for not telling you this before…" she began, avoiding his questioning gaze out of guilt. "But… I… I'm pregnant… We are… or we were going to have a baby…"

"A… a baby?" he repeated with wide eyes, unable to comprehend what she had just told him in his weakened state.

"That's right…" she said with a bittersweet smile. "A baby… and it needs its father… But… I guess it will never get to have him… I had always dreamed that we would have a family together someday… But I guess it just wasn't meant to be…"

The hero was silent for a moment as he took this revelation in, closing his eyes as he realized how much had just changed in an instant. If not for the corruption that was all too quickly pulling him away from the world, he could have been a father, had a family, had a real, actually happy life. But all of those things had been so cruelly stripped away from him, for no real reason at all. He had done nothing to deserve the terrible fate that was falling upon him, and yet it was all the same, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The only thing he could do now in his dying moments was give his wife some much needed hope to see her through this dark battle that was raging all around them.

"I… I know that you don't want to hear this…" he said, placing a gentle hand on the girl's womb, where their unborn child rested safe and sound. "But… you can do this without me… You can… keep the surface safe… from her… and… from me…"

"No-" she began to protest, knowing what he meant by this statement and refusing that he would cause her or the land they both loved so much any harm, even though she knew he would be forced to.