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Link hasn’t felt thankful for anything since he saw Rauru’s solemn head shake after Ganondorf’s defeat, but the closest he gets to the feeling is when Purah lays her hand over his and says that she’ll take charge of organising Zelda’s funeral.
Her body had shown up the morning after Ganondorf’s defeat, after Link had stayed up all night waiting for her to return to him, or at the very least to see the presence of the Light Dragon and confirm his failure. But the dragon had not appeared despite Link not taking his eyes from the sky all night, and just when the hope had begun to flutter once more in his chest, the involuntary smile spreading across his face as he had pictured filling Zelda in on everything she had missed, the news had come from Hyrule Castle. Her body had been found, completely undamaged but entirely devoid of life, in the gardens in the early sunrise hours of the morning. Link had made to run to her, but had been held back by no less than five men.
Give her some dignity, son, they had told him. We don’t want to make a spectacle of the Princess’ death.
He had almost drawn his sword in rage at them, but Purah had approached from behind and sent them away to assist Robbie and Impa in retrieving the body. And then, she had told Link that there was nothing he could have done, that she would never have returned anyway, that it wasn’t his fault.
Wasn’t his fault.
But it is his fault, and he won’t do Zelda any more of a disservice by denying it. As much as Purah assures him that she will be sent off to the afterlife with grace and dignity, a celebration befitting not just a Princess but a woman of her kindness and calibre, he can’t feel any sort of peace knowing that he is here and Zelda is not. She came to terms with her sacrifice millennia ago, but to him, her death is new. Unchartered territory. He’s younger than her by a good six month stretch. This is the first time he has had to live in a world without Zelda.
This thought continues, relentless and screaming, in his head as he dresses himself in his Royal Guard’s uniform. Every soldier from around the Kingdom is either dressing in their best soldier’s wear in the barracks of Hyrule Castle, or travelling from their respective domains to the centre of the country for the funeral service. Purah must have enlisted the help of the Rito and the Lucky Clover Gazette to spread the word of Zelda’s death, because for a service held only the day after her body returned, the square of the castle could not be more packed. It is as though the entire country is sequestered here, leaving Hyrule a ghost town in mourning.
And then he sees her body.
Zelda has been laid out in a fine, white dress, made of expensive fabric that covers her all the way from the neck down. It looks like the kind of thing reserved for a Queen, and Link imagines that Zelda’s mother’s funeral must have been similar, although he doesn’t remember much of it, having been so young at the time. He’d spent most of the time comforting Zelda by letting her point out the flowers growing at the gravesite, explaining their importance with a voice far older than that of a six year old girl.
Now, who will comfort him?
Her eyes are closed peacefully, and her hands are folded over her heart. She is surrounded by Silent Princesses, perfectly unwilted, and is holding a bouquet of them in-between her unmoving fingers. The heads of each region approach the body first, laying down offerings from their hometowns: an iridescent, large scale from the Zora, a tuft of brightly coloured feathers bound with twine from the Rito, a basket of precious gems from the Gorons, and an offering of fine gold and jewellery from the Gerudo women, who are all openly weeping.
As beautiful as she is, and as fitting as the tribute is, Link just cannot associate this body with his Zelda. If it really were Zelda, it would be moving, animated with some fact about the decor or occasion. This body, this… thing with Zelda’s face—it cannot be her. She would never wear such a restrictive, ceremonial dress. She would hitch it up around her ankles or beg Link to cut the dress with his sword so that she could run, explore, dance. She was only twenty-two years old. She was just a girl! She cannot be dead before having lived. Twenty-two years of service and duty, centuries more of sacrifice, and she never got her happy ending. How can Link be at peace with that? How is he supposed to lay a Silent Princess in her coffin, bid her goodbye forever, and continue onwards saving Hyrule over and over when his very reason for fighting is gone?
He’s ashamed of himself as he runs. He can hear the whispers of the soldiers he leaves behind, commenting on the special relationship he had always had with the Princess, how it must be so hard for him to have been unable to save her, how he probably can’t handle the Hero’s burden of loss. What hurts more is that they’re right. He’s not just running from Zelda’s body, but from his own destiny. Whatever forces plucked him as a child and shaped him into the perfect warrior must have missed the memo that he won’t do what they say just because he’s been chosen to do it. Now that Zelda has been taken from him, he has nothing to save. Hyrule is not his home any more.
Before he even really realises how far he’s gotten from the service, he’s in Lookout Landing. The normal hustle and bustle of the hub is eerily silent, and he walks through the settlement with his footfall as the only noise. Nobody is selling any wares; the hatch to the underground market is closed and unguarded, and even Josha’s research area is completely silent, without even the ticking of a project-in-progress. It’s the kind of place Link needs to be right now—somewhere where nobody can see him, offer him comfort for his failure, coax him back to the funeral of a girl he can’t look at now that she is no longer smiling back at him.
And then he sees it: the large Bargainer Statue, standing vigil over an empty room. It beckons him in a way it has never done so before, and Link hitches his breath on the tiny hope that something beyond Hyrule is looking out for him even now. After everything he has done without complaint, not just saving the country from iterations of Ganon, but the small, insignificant services to its people that he undertook willingly along the way, surely he deserves one favour. Just one. He won’t ever ask for anything again.
Hastily shoving his hands in his bag, he grasps onto the Poes, the little, wriggling spirits that he has been ferrying from the Depths to the afterlife. Before fighting Ganondorf and losing Zelda, he had been in the habit of trading them at statues every now and then, but he still has plenty left now. They spill through his fingers as he unceremoniously thrusts them into the face of the statue.
“Bring her back,” he demands, his voice hoarse and scratchy from disuse. But his vow of silence brings him no use now. He may as well scream. “Bring Zelda back!”
“You who stand before me,” the statue says, monotone and level. “I am the one who returns Poes to the afterlife, where they belong.”
“I don’t care,” Link shoves more of the wispy, blue spirits into the statue’s face. “I don’t have to do this for you! I don’t have to do anything for anyone! But I do! So bring her back… so help me Goddess, bring her back.”
“I cannot do that.”
“Yes you can! You ferry things to the afterlife! Why can’t you bring something back on the way?”
“The forces of life are not so malleable. They cannot be easily manipulated.”
“I’m not asking you to manipulate them! I’m bargaining for them. That’s what you do. That’s what you’re made for.”
Now, he upturns his whole bag, shaking the last of the spirits loose and watching helplessly as they are swallowed into the incorporeal maw of the statue. He hates the thing. He hates its passivity, its distance from the situation. He hates that there are laws to bind him to duty but never laws to give him what he wants. And he has been so good; he’s never wanted for anything. He’s always taken everything on the chin and made it work for him, finding loopholes and sacrificing parts of himself—his morality, his sanity, his physical wellbeing—for everyone else. What has it gotten him? A face streaked with tears as he pleads with a ferryman of the dead to bring back the only good thing that has ever happened to him?
No. He will not give up so easily. He never has.
“Then take my soul,” he tells the Bargainer Statue. It is not a request. If he is allowed to demand one thing in this life, it is Zelda’s safe return; it always has been.
“I cannot take the soul of a living creature.”
Link draws the Master Sword, holding the hilt at waist height so that the sharpened tip rests just underneath his chin. The cool metal bites at his neck, but he does not falter.
“Then let me die,” he says, simply.
For a moment, the Bargainer Statue says nothing. It emits a sound, like a low hum of contemplation, before finally speaking.
“Is your life worth hers?”
“No,” Link answers, too quickly and too honestly, forgetting that he’s supposed to be haggling here. “But wait—I have equal value. I’m a killer. I’ve slaughtered thousands of monsters just to get home to her. I don’t know if you ferry their souls or, hell, if they even have souls but… if I die, I think there’ll be a lot of creatures that find peace. Surely that’s worth something?”
“It isn’t,” the Bargainer Statue explains. “But you do have something.”
Link opens his hands, frustrated. “What do I have?”
“You have love.”
“Then take that.”
“You misunderstand me. I cannot simply take love. I take souls, and only souls. But if you are so firmly in love with the Princess that in your heart, she cannot be dead, then perhaps taking your heart may cause a cognitive shift in the underworld.”
“And in Hylian, that means… what, exactly?”
“If you love Zelda so much that you would give your life to bring her back, then perhaps that act itself will balance the universe out. Your love for her life. Your strength as the carrier of souls.”
“Do it.”
“I have not yet detailed what it entails.”
“I don’t care,” Link begs.
“You will die, Hero,” the Bargainer Statue says. “Your soul will be ripped from your body and sent to the in-between. You will not receive an afterlife. You will not be rewarded for your pursuits on this mortal coil. You will simply be sent to purgatory, to wait indefinitely until Hyrule calls for a Hero once more, and then you will be reborn.”
“And Zelda?”
“If my predictions are correct, she will return to life. But she will forever be without you, and that would be a fate that you alone have subjected her to.”
“She deserves to be alive more than I do.”
“It seems you are aware of your own nature, Link. Even now, faced with death, you don’t seem to be acknowledging that you will never see Zelda again.”
“Because I will see her again,” Link says. “Maybe I won’t be me, and she won’t be her, but I’ll see her again. And until then, my duty isn’t fulfilled until she is safe.”
“I understand,” the Bargainer Statue’s voice changes ever so slightly, like a whisper of sadness has entered its otherwise flat tone. “And… if I may just say, it has been an honour meeting you, Hero.”
“Link,” Link corrects. “My name is Link.”
“Very well then, Link. Shall we begin?”
Zelda wakes up on a Sunday morning, with the sun shining in from her windows, and all at once her memories of the distant past begin to fall away from her like a dream. She runs her hands over the dress she is wearing, uncomfortable in the ceremonial gown not just because of the heat of the fabric but because of what it represents. The last thing she remembers is swallowing the stone that forced her to change into a dragon. The only face in her mind is Link’s, swaying as an afterimage, smiling at her from the reaches of her memory in a place that she can no longer access.
She looks at the sun, rising over Hyrule. She watches the soldiers emerging from their positions, and as she makes eye contact with them, waving as she always would before Ganondorf ripped her away from her people, they gasp in shock. Some of them faint. Some run to tell others. Her simple presence has shaken them, like she isn’t supposed to be here.
And now she understands everything. The soldiers’ reactions, the white dress, the image of Link in her mind. She knows what he has done not because the Goddess has given her a vision, but because she knows him so well that she can predict his actions when faced with her death. Although she doesn’t know how, she knows that he has done something awful. Something irreparable. Something so stupid that only Link could have come up with the idea in the first place.
Looking up at the sky, she tries to see if there is another dragon—perhaps he has foolishly transformed himself in an effort to see her again? But there is nothing that even gives her hope. It is simply another day in Hyrule, with nothing so distinct about it except a strange feeling of absence, like she knows she’s never going to see Link again in this lifetime.
“Oh, Link,” she sobs into her hands. “What have you done?”