if i die tomorrow - permanent hiatus

peak

     I stagger back away from Sadie, my heart stuttering. 

     Everything. Everything I had built so carefully over the years.

     I watched it all fall apart by one girl's one sentence after less than a week of journeying with me. 

     "H-How--"

     "You put on quite a convincing act." Sadie said calmly. She turned slowly so that she was directing her words towards the silent Mountain. "You almost fooled me. If it weren't for that glimpse, maybe I would have remained so to this day."

     "What changed, then?" I growled roughly, a slowly pulsing anger starting to take root in my heart. 

     "Your wounds."

     My surprise must have shown, because she laughed. "Yes. Your wounds. That night by the river, I was returning to the camp after scavenging for supplies, just in time to see your entire torso exposed."

     "You... saw that?" Even now, at this point, heat crept up into my face from embarrassment. "Hylia, woman."

     Sadie tossed her hair. "Clues are clues. I don't care what I see to find out."

     "Okay." The absolutely hopeless situation emboldened me. What else could go wrong? "So? What about my wounds made you the wiser?"

     "Their formation, age, and depth, obviously. What else? I happened to notice that most of your oldest wounds were lighter, less severe. Which would make sense, because you were fighting as part of an army. Naturally there were more people to watch your back. Most of the oldest were on your chest, to the front. None of the fatal marks were there."

     I found myself nodding and quickly stopped. 

     "And then the newer wounds were a splattering of front and back. They were all deeper, nearly all of them were potentially lethal. That was from when your were with the Princess. Just from these, it's obvious that you were on the defensive, the monsters attacking first. Which would make sense that you wouldn't want to fight right in front of her, if it weren't for the fact that you weren't always with the Princess. What about combat without her?"

     She laughed softly, her eyes clouded with thought. "If you were without the Princess, you would have been clear to attack first, even solo, given your skill. You could have taken them down with nothing but a few scratches. But there was no sign of that."

     My eyes were wide, rapt. Even talking about my undoing, I couldn't deny that her words made sense in the beautiful way of scattered puzzle pieces slowly falling into place.

     "Which had to mean that you hardly fought, away from her. You didn't fight unless you absolutely had to, to ensure Princess Zelda's safety. However, that does not match up with the past records of Heroes. They fought nearly all the time, even when they didn't necessarily have to. If you really had the Triforce of Courage, combat should have made you happy, the adrenaline rush exciting for you. But it wasn't."

     "And that brings us to the newest wounds. Mostly Guardian lasers, nearly all of them still unhealed. Why? Why was there no sign of healing? And why do you seem so battered all the time? If you were the Hero, these would not have hindered you. They were known for being able to appear completely normal even on the brink of death. But not you. Never you."

     Shock and alarm turned into icy foreboding. Just what exactly was this girl?

     "But, and here's what I had to ponder very carefully, there were also recent signs of reckless fighting, the cuts up front and gathered around your shoulders, chest, and stomach, the age of the cuts between find me and the Princess's death. So, when you were journeying alone. You fought rashly when you were on your own, but you were reluctant to lift a blade when you were with other people, most often Princess Zelda. Why was that so?"