lost
adj. denoting something that has been taken away or cannot be recovered
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"Archery is actually pretty easy to get started, but mastering a consistent shot is what'll be the challenge. At least in my experience," Link explained in the shade of a quiet grove of trees. The bright morning sun had woken him with an ocular migraine, and even now he kept pinching around the bridge of his nose. The air without the sunshine was quite cool, and here—somewhere northeast of Hyrule Field—the trees were all beginning to change into their vibrantly hued gowns in preparation for autumnal dalliances. "It takes a while to get a feel for aiming, and you'll have to really strengthen your shoulder muscles to be able to send the arrow exactly where you want it to go."
Zelda nodded eagerly, inhaling every word as if it were vital oxygen.
"Since you're right-handed like me," he continued, "then you'll hold the bow like this." His body became her silhouette, guiding her to wrap the fingers of her left hand around the bow grip and drawing the string with her right. This Link knew nothing of his former fear of her skin, and the heat of his touch was dizzying. It certainly made focusing on his instructions a bit harder. That is until his arms unwound from hers and the press of his chest withdrew from her back. He fisted his hands on his own hips and tossed her an encouraging grin. "Honestly, I'd say just see how it feels to start shooting and we'll adjust accordingly. Aim for that tree, how 'bout?"
So she did, and as they both probably anticipated, the first couple attempts didn't send the arrows anywhere; she fumbled and they simply dropped to her feet. She wasn't discouraged by these expected results in the slightest, but found Link's constant reassurance sweet anyway.
"Those are to be expected," he'd say. "Even if you think you're lined up, try holding at the anchor point for an extra second or two to really take in how the aiming feels."
Finally, she launched one with some semblance of trajectory. It thunked against the bark but ricocheted awkwardly and fell into the grass.
Link's teeth flashed with an approving tilt of his chin. "Not too shabby, Your Highness."
Her tongue pushed into the pouch of her cheek as she adjusted her grip, trying to absorb the feel of her anchor point like he'd said. "Just Zelda, please." She fired again, about the same results as the previous shot.
"I can't call you that," he objected. "I'm a knight."
"A knight who's snogged his princess," she quipped, reloading.
His mouth twisted playfully. "No no, that was only a dream."
"How very peculiar that we"—she loosed another arrow with a grunt—"dreamt the same thing last night."
"Yep. But that would be way too ballsy for a knight like me to try and kiss the princess."
"They say fortune favors the brave, you know—" She fitted the nock of her next arrow into place. "Perhaps you should demonstrate a bit more courage and see how you fare."
It took a second for the cheshire grin to split across Link's face. "Are you suggesting I kiss you again?"
"'Again', you say?" she sent back. The next arrow released with a satisfying twang of the bowstring. Zelda proudly awaited the result when suddenly, before the bark of the tree, a new wooden target manifested.
"There you are!" Makar harrumphed. "I've been looking all ov—Yah!"
He vanished just before her arrow lodged into the trunk behind him. Makar reappeared in the grass, looking more distraught than the princess thought possible for a creature carved of wood.
"Makar! Oh Gods!" she exclaimed, rushing to cradle the little Korok. "That was too close!"
"Is..." he quavered anxiously, "is that what Hylians do to trees...?"
"This concussion is worse than I thought," Link muttered from where he was standing.
Right, this Link had never met the Koroks. Zelda gently raised Makar like a Hylian Retriever pup and displayed him for the knight now rubbing tight circles into his temples.
"Link, this is Makar—"
"I'm Makar!" the Korok chimed in, as if it were totally normal to introduce himself a second time.
"You saved him from a block of ice—"
"You saved me from a block of ice!" he confirmed.
Cerulean blinked slowly. Then, "I gotta go back to sleep."
Perhaps as a joke, he began lowering himself to the ground.
"Link, wait," Zelda yelped with barely contained mirth as she hurried over and stopped him from going down. "I recognize how absurd it seems, but I can explain..."
And so she did. From the rescue at the river to the promise that brought them to their current coordinates. According to Makar, they were nearly at the Forest Haven, though Zelda still hadn't the faintest idea where he was referring to. It probably didn't help that she didn't actually know their current coordinates on the map anymore as they continued onwards.
At first Zelda thought Link kept intentionally bumping into her as some foreign form of flirting, but after the fourth mumbled apology, the way he frowned at his own staggering feet suggested he simply couldn't manage a straight line.
She almost dared propose that they stop and rest, but the point was moot. Zelda could hear the discussion already. Link would unabashedly place the wellbeing of Makar's friend over his own. Regardless of how... tree the Great Deku Tree was. But it pained Zelda to watch his silent struggle, so she extended her hand to him.
He stared at her open palm stupidly. "What's that for?"
"For you, dummy." She figured the collisions would be more bearable if she cemented their hands together.
He stared a moment longer, then dug his knuckles into his eyes. "Am I blind? You're not holding anything."
"Not blind, just dense," she laughed, reoffering her palm. "Hold my hand."
Long ears flushed. "Hylia above, I'm stupid," he grumbled as a weathered hand fit easily into hers.
Zelda sucked in a small breath. The rest of him was so soft—face and torso and heart—that the roughness of his hands took her by complete surprise. A warrior's hard-earned calluses; the texture shot a fresh tingling along her spine, images of those very calluses causing the sensation there—
Easy Zelda... Now that was truly new!
Some merciful clouds decided to spare Link from the brutal sunlight while Makar skip-hovered confidently in the lead. Link and Zelda trailed behind, where bumping shoulders pushed them apart and interlaced fingers pulled them back together again. She felt giddy as a schoolgirl with her first crush, making up for her lost youth with simple, heart-stopping indulgences.
Soon the clouds consumed more than the blue overhead; a fog was settling over the distant scenery, beautiful and eerie. It became hard to tell where the sun was in the overcast sky, and the unsettling sight soon overshadowed the princess's former gusto.
For as long as she could remember, the things Zelda was told to hold onto when she was scared were all intangible pleasantries. Hope. Faith. Piety.
She decided palpable reassurance—Link's hand—was immeasurably more comforting to cling to. Who knew touch had become so important to her?
So fingers tightened.
There was something familiarly foreboding about the haze that shrouded their vantage, and as the fog and forest grew even thicker, recognition finally flared like spilled oil on a fire.
The Lost Woods. Makar was taking them to a forsaken, primeval grove.
They say anybody who enters into the forest will be lost;
And when lost souls wander too long, they become stalfos.
Even before the Calamity crashed down like a tidal wave and brought Ganondorf's league of horrors, Zelda believed the stories. Everyone did. In her own lifetime, Hylians had gone into these woods and never come back out. She used to have nightmares that the fog would pour in through her bedroom windows and melt her flesh away till she was nothing more than a stalfos, herself. Mama swapped out her curtains two sleepless nights later, claiming the new ones were enchanted with a fog-repellent coating.
Although it was Link who brought them to a halt as recognition hit his features, too. The princess felt the shudder that racked through his body. Even Link—Link!—was spooked by this place.
"Makar, wait..." Zelda stammered, pressing her shoulder into her knight's. "These are the Lost Woods. We— We can't enter this forest."
"What?" he cried. "You said you'd help the Great Deku Tree! We've taken the slow Hylian way all the way here!"
"'Nobody who's gone in has ever come back out,'" Link quoted with a shifty gaze.
"Lost souls become stalfos," Zelda contributed with a squeak, wondering if the notion rang veritably or sounded utterly ridiculous to an inhabitant of the forest.
Makar looked from face to face with as much of a scowl as a leaf mask can muster. "Then don't get lost!" he wailed as if it was that simple. The fact that he didn't rebuke the legends made Zelda's scalp prickle. But then he waved his little wooden arm-hand disparagingly. "It's easy! If you think you've gotten lost, just listen for the wild's breath. Not the wind's breath. Or the wind's waker. They sound samey, so be verrry careful!"
Blue met green, both wide with a reflection of we're so fucked.
But Makar was already bounding ahead and they scrabbled after him, fingers tightening for good measure.
As soon as they stepped past the threshold of the entrance into the woods, the fog swirled around them and consumed the last of the daylight. Humongous trees towered above them, their thick, twisted roots knotting above ground. The bark on many of them had split open like gaping maws, and Zelda jolted, remembering the Evermean.
"Makar, none of the trees are going to pursue us, right?" she murmured, clinging closer still to Link.
"Hylians are weird!" the Korok laughed without turning around.
Dust sprites rose like malice during the Blood Moon, but they floated by in innocuous ease. There was viscosity to the movement of the tall grasses below and empty branches above—not unlike the gentle stirring of life on the ocean floor. If Zelda wasn't so frightened, she might have found the thick silence almost tranquil.
The impression was rightfully short lived, however, for a distinct rattling sounded to their left. She and Link turned to see a bony silhouette breach the fog and vanish again. Link drew his sword, pushing himself between her and the visage. The rattling then came from behind her, and she had the sense to draw her bow, keeping her back pressed against Link's to prevent him from vanishing just as easily.
She peered into the fog, swearing she saw the movement of monsters, but the longer she stared, the more her whole vision started to swirl. The rattling came from Link's side again, but when she turned, her knight was gone.
...What?
His back had just been up against hers! She'd felt it!
"Link?" she called, stomach dropping. Green eyes snapped to the Korok ahead. "Makar, where did Link just go?"
"Who knows!" he basically cheered.
"Link!? Liiink!" The princess whirled, looking for a trace of cerulean and caramel anywhere. "Liiink! Follow my voice, Link! We're over here!" Then she quieted, waiting for a response.
Nothing.
She rounded on Makar, panic fluttering faster than hummingbird wings. "Makar, do something! Please, we have to find him! He's going— He's going to—"
"It's okay!" Makar assured, completely unfazed by the disappearance of their third. "He can just follow the wild's breath to the Forest Haven!"
Zelda's knees threatened to buckle. She ripped at her hair, shouting, "Makar what the hell does that mean!?"
Rattling came again, this time accompanied by rustling. Zelda spun, heart believing the sound was Link, but it was only more bones dissolving into the fog. When she turned back, Makar was gone now too.
Oh, Gods.
Zelda was alone. In the Lost Woods.
She couldn't stave the panic much longer. Her breathing became shallow, uncoordinated as her heartbeat. Her vision was already growing dark—maybe that was just the fog caving in on her, ready to eat her flesh—
No, no, no! Absolutely not! She bit down on her cheek till she drew blood, forcing air into iron-tight lungs. Breath hitching through her nose, she coached herself through endless finish lines of four.
Above the sound of labored respiration, there came a melody. A melody she knew. She stopped her breath, stilling her lungs and straining her ears towards the music. Could... Could this be the breath of the wild? It was faint. But it was unmistakable— When recognition clicked, she stumbled in pursuit of the tune. Link hummed those notes over the campfire—
She tore through the fog, letting her ears lead. The timbre was unique, something she'd never heard before. The song was neither hummed nor whistled. It was being played on something—
The fog finally parted and Zelda found Link, sitting on a tree stump, blue ceramic instrument pressed to his lips. Sapphire snapped up sharply, and as his hair bounced Zelda realized it was parted neatly in the middle.
"Princess Zelda—" he gasped. He quickly stood, and Zelda saw he was wearing green. On top of that, he was looking down at her.
"L-Link?" she hesitated.
Anguish ghosted his features, and he backpedaled around the log, shaking his head in denial. "You— You can't have the ocarina. I-I can't go back— I'm sorry, Princess—" Like a child, he cowered. Troubled, he turned tail and scarpered into the fog.
"Link!? Wait—!" she tried, reaching uselessly after him. The clouds churned in his wake, dipping again until a new, taller head poked through. A head topped by neat ginger waves.
Zelda stumbled backwards, falling flat on her butt, and brown eyes snapped towards the sound. "Your Highness, is that really you?"
Her tongue turned to bitter lead in her mouth as she pathetically shuffled backwards.
Mido waved eagerly, as if the reason she hadn't responded yet was because she simply hadn't seen him. "Thank Hylia! I thought I lost you!"
Before Zelda could formulate any words, the fog converged over him, sweeping him back to the realm of the lost. Only when she rediscovered her legs and swallowed the haze in her lungs did she realize—Mido never used her honorifics. Had the woods veiled her Link in the guise of monsters? Is that how it stole souls?
Did she just forfeit her chance to reunite with him?
Yelling his name, Zelda gave chase into those all-consuming clouds. If there was a tangible being waiting in the shroud, she should have reached them by now.
The fog marred any hazy sense of direction she may have had. She couldn't see more than a couple feet in front of her face. And even then, the looming trees were all unvaried. She couldn't even find that stump the older Link had sat upon moments before.
The rattling came and went, seemingly louder each time, but the princess could never see the monsters' taunting waltz around her. She swallowed her fear and tried to formulate a plan. Maybe... Maybe she could capture one of the stalfos. Maybe it could talk, or guide her back to Makar. Maybe it'd somehow explain what the hell the wild's breath was.
So she drew her bow and nocked an arrow, ready to aim at the next rattle she heard.
But after that, not a single sound came. All she could hear now was her thunderous pulse in her head. It was as if the stalfos were only rattling to unnerve her, not attack. And now that she'd worked up the nerve to face them, they swapped tactics and abandoned her in the kind of silence that bred oxymorons.
Come on, come on—
Emerald slammed shut, siphoning every bit of energy towards the ears to listen. They had to be out there still.
Ba-dumpba-dumpba-dumpba-dump—
Shut up shut up shut up!
A sob burst out like a cough. No matter how she strained, the only sound accompanying Zelda now was that of her useless, overbearing heartbeat. The determination to fight back was worthless so long as she was at the mercy of the mist. She felt that familiar sense of despair clawing up her throat, and although her brain demanded defensive four-counts, her lungs were incapable of abiding. She succumbed to the panic, and her senses exploded in overcompensation.
The rattling was in her head now, bones and fog in the corners of her vision, even with her eyes closed. The thick tang of smoke flooded her nose and mouth and she crumpled to the ground. Digging her knees into her eye sockets did nothing to plug the confidence from leaking out from her body like a sieve. Through the fuzzystatic chaos, something inside was desperately waiting for Link to calm her with his voice, with his gentle touch— but it was never going to come.
She was lost, and she was alone. He probably was, too.
They were going to wander the Lost Woods for a fruitless eternity, till starvation stole their skeletons and added them to a pantheon of aimless wanderers.
Hylia damned them to the same cruel fate and didn't even have the decency to let them suffer it together.
She felt her cheeks swell from weeping, her shoulders tighten against her neck, legs shrinking against a tiny heart. She felt small and frail and hopeless. With every tear and sob, reality sank in more and more.
She was going to die alone here.
That is, until someone dueted her plaints, and Zelda's grief corked in order to analyze the sound. Someone else—a child—was crying. Could it be a Korok to guide her out of the fog?
The little princess scurried after the sound, chasing the young cries until the fog parted around... What the...?
It was like looking in a mirror to the past. A blonde little girl, no more than five or six years old, curled tightly in on herself, crying into her knees.
"Hello?" Zelda called. Gods, her voice had pitched up with despair. "Are you okay?"
The princess reached to pet the young child's hair, but when she did, the sight of her own hand stopped her short. Chubby little fingers attached to a chubby little wrist. She was in a child's body too.
She wasn't just looking in a mirror. She'd entered through its portal.
The sad little girl let her head fall back, revealing familiar, cropped bangs.
Oh.
"I can't find my brother anywhere!" the child wailed up to the unseeable sky.
Zelda crouched down, admitting "I'm lost, too," with a tremor in her voice. "Maybe we can look for him together?"
The child sniffled and regarded the princess with big, watery blue eyes. "We were playing hide'n'seek..."
Zelda smiled sympathetically. "Your brother is really good at hiding," she soothed, taking the little girl's hands, "isn't he, Aryll?"
She nodded with a quivering lip as their little palms matched, like they were etched with the same stencil. There was something supernatural about the connection. It offered no sense of direction, but it lessened the fatalism Zelda felt in that moment.
It's funny how the need to be strong for someone else is often the ignition of bravery.
Zelda picked a direction and started leading. "Have you been looking for a long time?" The confidence had brought some semblance of maturity back to the princess's voice.
"A really really long time," the young girl confirmed with pouty lips and a sour nod. "I've been looking for forever."
Zelda gave her hand a squeeze, not noticing how her fingers had become long enough to encase Aryll's.
"What about your brother?" the child then asked with another sniffle. "Did he play hide'n'seek too?"
"Oh, I don't have a brother," Zelda clarified, somehow looking down at the little one. "I think I would have liked one, though. Especially if he was as kindhearted as yours."
Aryll seemed visibly confused by this. "You mean you never met your brother?"
"It's not that I never met him. I never had one."
"Yes you did." Aryll wiped the snot off on her sleeve. "Maybe your mommy just forgot to tell you."
The princess's brow furrowed, but she decided not to argue with the logic of the lost. "Yeah, maybe..."
Wide cerulean eyes tilted up, staring intently, and after a while she asked, "Are all princes and princesses born beautiful?"
"Mm... not necessarily," Zelda answered, slightly puzzled as to how the conversation had shifted. "And anyone can be beautiful."
"Oh." Little fingertips twitched thoughtfully. "Then do you think I can be as beautiful as you someday?"
The word someday was as devastating a blow as a puncture in a life raft.
"You're already beautiful, Aryll," Zelda insisted softly. "In fact, I hope that someday I can be as beautiful as you."
A bright smile blossomed, one tooth missing. Zelda's arm began to bob with the new skip that accompanied Aryll's step. As it did, something in the back of Zelda's mind flickered to life, and she suddenly felt she knew where they were going. She could've sworn there was a splash of caramel through the clouds. Without realizing, her legs, like her strides, became longer.
A small breeze parted the fog before them, just slightly, and the caramel beacon was no longer a premonition, but a destination.
"There he is!" Aryll cheered. "Linky!"
Both girls broke into a sprint, but despite how tightly Zelda held onto little fingers, they slipped from her hold. She gasped at the loss of the contact but, not willing to let Link out of her sight again, did not turn to witness the sprite vanish. Wordlessly, she thanked that breath of the wild and bounded across the forest floor until she was able to leap into Link's arms.
He spun just as she crashed into him. He staggered back but held her firmly, squeezing harder when he recognized the treasure in his arms.
"I'm sorry, I never should have let go of your hand," he apologized frantically, the words warm on her neck.
She exhaled in grateful incredulity. "It's not your fault, I didn't think it'd be so easy to lose you. I'm sorry—"
Somehow, he hugged her even tighter, as if she'd disappear again as soon as he let go. It constricted her lungs, and her wheezing laughter was the only thing that lessened his grip. But, wait a minute—
She held him out at arms length. "Are you the real Link? How can I veritably corroborate that you aren't some uncanny siren?"
He frowned at her. "I'm not sure, but you're definitely the real Princess Zelda. My brain couldn't make up that sentence if I shoved a dictionary through my ears."
Zelda sighed and buried herself back in his embrace, reassured he was her knight afterall.
"There you are!" Makar exclaimed from ahead. "I knew you'd make it!"
Make it?
Zelda looked around. The fog around them had lessened considerably, obscuring nothing but the distance now. It was clear the three of them now stood on some sort of trail, though there was no actual path. But the trees had dispersed, allowing daylight to filter through to the forest floor, and rocky cliffs rose up on either side, forming a welcoming awning not unlike the ravine that led them into Kakariko.
"Hurry! Hurry!" Makar said, leaping ahead.
Fingers fastened securely and the Hylians followed the Korok through a gigantic, hollow log. The air grew immediately warmer as sunlight poured in on a lush clearing of grasses and ferns. The trees seemed kinder here, and at their roots grew a variety of smaller sprouts Zelda recognized. This place was an absolute wonder, and Zelda imagined it would normally be gorgeous.
But it was not beauty that stole her breath.
It was the splatters of magenta and black, scattered as if a sky giant had been stabbed and bled out upon the forest.
Link squoze Zelda's hand, probably sensing her dread. Because the Koroks needed Her help.
Their haven was littered with malice. Though they'd requested Link, it was Hylia's sealing power that was required to save their home.
Her shoulders slumped. The princess had always known Hyrule depended on her. That was no new bit of news. She'd finally accepted that she could fight in other ways. And yet despite her creativity for alternative solutions, there was no ignoring the fact that the powers she didn't have still condemned her, even now.
She'd been brought here to fail.
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*Me building a LoZ au where Hyrule has no knowledge of previous Link/Zelda incarnations to imply they may be in a universe where they're the first/only ones*
*Also me shooting myself in the foot by throwing OoT Link in there just cause I wanted to*
(Please don't read into his cameo too much rofl)
If you feel so inclined to leave a comment, it would really make my day! Thank you for reading as always, and happy almost-Friday!