Third-Person – Zelda's POV – Tone: Dreamlike, romantic, unsettling, slow-burning obsession
---
Zelda hadn't been sleeping well.
Three nights in a row, she woke in a cold sweat, heart pounding like it was racing ahead of her body, like it knew something she didn't. She blamed stress. The rising gloom. Link's injuries. The kingdom's fragile peace.
But she knew the truth.
She was dreaming of someone who didn't exist.
---
It began softly. A field of golden wheat under an amber sky. The kind of dream she used to love—peaceful, safe. She walked barefoot. The wind played with her hair. Somewhere in the distance, a laugh—light, familiar, achingly warm.
She turned.
He stood there.
Smiling.
She couldn't see his face, but the moment he touched her hand, her heart broke in two.
When she woke, her cheeks were wet.
She didn't remember crying.
---
The next night, the dream was stranger.
She floated above a sky island—no, not an island. Skyloft. But different. Ancient. Unnamed. There were no guards, no structures—just clouds, silence, and him.
The boy was older this time. Silver-armored. A blade of light on his back. The Tear on his chest glowed faintly blue, and the look in his eyes...
He looked at her like she was his beginning and end.
"Don't forget me," he said.
Then the sky split open like glass.
And she fell.
---
Zelda woke with a scream, tangled in her sheets, sweat soaking her nightgown. Her guards rushed in. Purah arrived within minutes.
Zelda lied. Of course she did.
"Just a vision. Another prophecy. I'll write it down."
Purah eyed her but nodded. Zelda always had dreams. It was nothing new.
Except this time… she'd felt it. The dream hadn't come from the future.
It came from the past.
---
By the third dream, Zelda didn't try to sleep.
But the moment she closed her eyes, it found her.
This time, it wasn't soft. It was war.
A battlefield of ash and flame. Sky islands crumbled into the abyss. A thousand voices cried out—and one voice cut through them all.
His.
He stood alone on a burning spire, the Tear of Balance glowing like a dying sun. Below him, monstrous gods tore through reality. Above him, golden wings—Hylia's—descended.
And still he stood.
Unmoving.
Unafraid.
He screamed something, words lost to thunder, but Zelda could feel the emotion behind them:
> Defiance. Love. Betrayal.
She looked to the side and saw herself.
Not her current self. Not even her past self.
Another version. Older. Cold.
Watching him fall.
Doing nothing.
---
Zelda awoke with blood in her mouth. She'd bitten her tongue.
This wasn't just a dream anymore.
It was memory.
Not hers.
> His.
---
The day after, Zelda withdrew from her council duties early. She said she needed rest. What she actually needed was answers.
She found herself in the Royal Library's restricted wing, deep underground. Books untouched by time and history. Records the Sheikah had sealed even from themselves. And behind a hidden panel, an old tablet buried in dust and wax.
She wiped it clean.
And stared.
A mural—half-buried, barely intact.
A man with a glowing tear stood between twin dragons: one golden, one cloaked in shadow. Behind him, a woman—her, or something close—reached toward him, her face twisted in sorrow.
No name. No record.
But Zelda knew.
It was him.
The outsider.
The Balance-Bearer.
---
Zelda's hands trembled.
This wasn't coincidence. This wasn't madness.
He had been erased from time.
And now he was back.
---
She returned to her chambers and locked the doors. No guards. No Purah. Just the flicker of candlelight and the hum of a storm outside.
She stared at her reflection.
Eyes too tired. Cheeks too flushed.
She whispered his name.
Just once.
Her voice shook.
Her chest burned.
---
"He's mine," she whispered again. "He always was."
A part of her resisted. The scholar. The princess. The wise one.
But another part—a part buried beneath centuries of divine training—awoke with a vengeance.
The part that remembered him not with mind, but with soul.
She pressed a hand to her heart.
She could feel it now. A tug. A connection.
Faint, but real.
He was alive.
Somewhere out there.
And he remembered her too.
---
That night, Zelda dreamt again.
Only this time, she wasn't alone in her dream.
He looked at her.
And this time…
He remembered her name.
---
In the waking world, lightning cracked across the sky.
The Tear of Balance pulsed once, far below, buried in the chest of the forgotten warrior.
And far above, Zelda opened her eyes.
Smiling.