[Link knows what the letter says before he even opens it. How, he cannot explain -- some change in the pressure denoting that something is different or a strange finality to the silence that has settled over the house. There's no way to say. But he knows what the letter says, and yet still he reaches for it, with shaking hands that no longer feel like his own, taking it delicately, as if it could fall apart at any moment. As if it is a treasure and a curse. It is, both of those things bearing down on him at once.
It is time for me to return to Hyrule.
He-- knew, he realizes. From the first moment they saw each other again, he knew that this was the moment they were racing toward, dreading and fearing but facing nonetheless. Her, once again going somewhere he cannot follow. Him, racing, hurtling, falling forward anyway, trying desperately to reach her.
These past four years...
He skimmed beyond that, his heart seized in his chest, the paper still crumpled in his hand as he throws himself out of the house and into the streets. He stumbles forward inch by inch, numb and blind to the world around him, clumsily crashing into people as he tries desperately to stop the hands of time. Recall won't work, here, not like this. Not the way he needs it to work, and by the time he sees the observatory in the distance, he faces it with the absolute certainty that she must already be gone. Still he pushes on, lungs burning as he throws himself forward, well past any notion of his body's limits. Faster. Just a little more.
Be happy, Link.
Somehow, those are the words that sting most. They reverberate inside his skull as if she had spoken them aloud, and he knows how genuine they are, how sincere. The almost endless depths of her care. But somehow that makes it all worse, because she's asking him to be happy in this moment where he can be anything but.
Doesn't she know? Doesn't she know? Even if he could--
The thought dies midway and he freezes outright as he stumbles into the observatory and somehow, impossibly, she's there, standing at the edge with baubles in hand, and he has to do something, he has to make this stop.
no subject
[Link knows what the letter says before he even opens it. How, he cannot explain -- some change in the pressure denoting that something is different or a strange finality to the silence that has settled over the house. There's no way to say. But he knows what the letter says, and yet still he reaches for it, with shaking hands that no longer feel like his own, taking it delicately, as if it could fall apart at any moment. As if it is a treasure and a curse. It is, both of those things bearing down on him at once.
It is time for me to return to Hyrule.
He-- knew, he realizes. From the first moment they saw each other again, he knew that this was the moment they were racing toward, dreading and fearing but facing nonetheless. Her, once again going somewhere he cannot follow. Him, racing, hurtling, falling forward anyway, trying desperately to reach her.
These past four years...
He skimmed beyond that, his heart seized in his chest, the paper still crumpled in his hand as he throws himself out of the house and into the streets. He stumbles forward inch by inch, numb and blind to the world around him, clumsily crashing into people as he tries desperately to stop the hands of time. Recall won't work, here, not like this. Not the way he needs it to work, and by the time he sees the observatory in the distance, he faces it with the absolute certainty that she must already be gone. Still he pushes on, lungs burning as he throws himself forward, well past any notion of his body's limits. Faster. Just a little more.
Be happy, Link.
Somehow, those are the words that sting most. They reverberate inside his skull as if she had spoken them aloud, and he knows how genuine they are, how sincere. The almost endless depths of her care. But somehow that makes it all worse, because she's asking him to be happy in this moment where he can be anything but.
Doesn't she know? Doesn't she know? Even if he could--
The thought dies midway and he freezes outright as he stumbles into the observatory and somehow, impossibly, she's there, standing at the edge with baubles in hand, and he has to do something, he has to make this stop.
Forever yours,]
--Zelda.
[His voice is choked as he speaks.]
Wait. Please.