Saying Goodbye

When Courage Failed

...How?

How did it come to this?

She had muttered the exact same phrase to Link not even an hour ago... wait, was it an hour?

She had lost all sense of time since leaving Mount Lanayru, her only proofs that time had passed being the pants of each breath either she or Link took... and the growing heaviness of her body.

She looked down her bloodstained figure as if she expected anything to be any different than it had been for months. Her swollen stomach, five months with child, still rose and fell with her breath. The child squirming within did not rest, as if they understood that death was upon the trio even though no one had taught them its significance. She hurt, a sharp pain shot through her lower stomach with each breath, but she told herself to not mind it. Whatever pain she felt was no more an inconvenience in comparison to the wounds inflicted on Link.

He was cradled gently in her arms, gasping softly as his breaths shuddered out of rhythm. Blood gushed from his chest, neck and arms, spilling onto Zelda's white gown.

She held her face close to his, smelling the hiss of his blood. The scent made her airways close, Hyrule's sacred princess fighting for each breath. Her vision blurred with tears and tiredness, wishing this was all a nightmare so that she could awaken to find Link, her husband of only a few months, unharmed at her side. "You're going to be fine..." She promised, doubting the statement with every fiber of her being. Even her unborn child called out the lie, but she acted as if she believed in hopes that it would keep him alive.

Shaking, he lifted his hand and stroked her face. "Zelda..." His hand shuddered as he felt the curves of her pointed ear, just as he always had when she was distressed, a deep grimace etched onto his face. "I'm not... gonna make it."

"No! No... you're going to be fine!" She gripped his hand tighter. "Just save your strength... you'll see."

Link forced the best smile he could. "The one time I've got something to say... you don't wanna hear it."

"Don't leave me!" She gasped for air, clutching her stomach. "Don't leave us!"

"Don't you have that child out here, Zelda!" His voice was loud, louder than his dying state should have allowed.

Zelda had heard his demand several times since Ganon's revival. She was nowhere near her time, and the hell Hyrule had become was no place to birth a child, not to mention the swarms of Guardians still searching for them would terminate her on sight... especially if they found her in labor. Her hand gently began feeling the kicks inside her, anxiously analyzing her child's movements.

I shouldn't even be like this...

Zelda had no plans to start a family. The only plans she possessed were to marry Link (for she knew she loved him and was already engaged) and to continue uncovering alternate ways to defeat the Calamity (which was halted by her father partly as punishment for becoming pregnant and partly for still being powerless).

The child had been all Hylia's doing. It had been the only time Zelda had ever heard her voice. She said that it was time, that Zelda was to conceive right then in order to protect Hyrule's future. Had the Goddess not spoken to Link and Urbosa as well, Zelda would have thought she was going insane. Hylia promised it was the only way to restore peace to Hyrule, to ensure the Kingdom, for the last words Link or Zelda had heard from her were 'now go... and bring peace to Hyrule.' However, Hylia's demand only seemed to deepen the divides within the country, uproar consumed Hyrule Castle and its Castle Town after Zelda's pregnancy was discovered.