A/N: me? updating? It's a Christmas miracle

As usual, I don't have a proofreader so if there are any glaring mistakes just lmk. See the end for more notes

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A Hero's Chance

Chapter 2: Journey to Kakariko

Chapter summary: Zelda's travel montage part 1.

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After her mad dash to the place where her knight landed and subsequently vanished, it takes Zelda a few minutes to gather her bearings. The rush of adrenaline is gone, and with it all sensation and sound she was ignoring crashes into her like a tsunami. The lost princess sways on her feet; her century spent fighting the Calamity took its toll on her, and she knows that the body she wears now may not be the one she was born in—it feels new, flesh and blood magic-made to replace what was destroyed by her own magic. Every nerve is raw, sensitive. The horse's fur under her arms is suddenly painfully prickly, her legs sting where the grasses whipped her during her run to her knight's body, and every nearby cricket's chirp and lizard's rustle screams through her ears. But of all the new information she is processing, it's the disappearance that staggers her the most.

Link is gone. The Master Sword and Bow of Light rest in his place, each humming with energy, heedless to their wielder's disappearance. Link's horse nuzzles the grass where her master vanished at the duo's feet, and Zelda…

Zelda's legs give out underneath her, and her grip on the horse slackens as she falls to the ground. Her dress scrapes and stains over her knees when she hits the grass, but she pays it no mind as she thinks about what just happened. Link was there, and now he isn't. He was gone in an abrupt flash of green light, nothing like the dissolving blue particles produced by Sheikah Slate travel she recalls him using during her brief spurts of consciousness over the past year. (Her brain may be a mess of overstimulation and ephemeral pieces of memory, but Zelda knows she's not misremembering something so integral to her own area of interest back during her first life. This was not normal teleportation.) Link is gone and Zelda has no idea what to do about it. She has no idea that she can do anything about it.

As if reading her thoughts, a flicker of blue tears Zelda from her despair and brings her attention to the sword by her knee. The setting afternoon sun glints off the blade of the Master Sword, but blue light reflects from the blade instead of the natural orange of sunlight. Its sheath is gone, she dully notes. Probably spirited away to the same place Link was taken. Before she even notices what she's doing, the princess has already slipped one hand under the blade and the other around the grip. This proves to be a mistake. With an angry flash of that same blue light, the sword sears the delicate new skin of her palms. She hisses and quickly withdraws her hands. "What was that for?" She yelps.

The sword, obviously, doesn't reply. Zelda never thought an inanimate object's silence could be so malicious.

"Well, what would you have me do?" She snaps at it. "I cannot leave you here in the middle of nowhere, but if you'll only let Link touch you—"

The Sword that Seals the Darkness flashes again, and Zelda gets the distinct impression that it dislikes the idea of being left behind almost as much as it dislikes the idea of anyone but Link holding it.

She is fully aware that she's arguing with a sword, an inanimate object, but that has never stopped her before. Glaring down at the weapon, she huffs and tears a strip from the hem of her tattered white gown and carefully wraps the weapon in it, studiously avoiding touching it with her bare skin. "I suppose… I suppose we'll just have to find him then, won't we?" Once she's finished wrapping it up, she clutches the bundle to her chest and turns to Link's horse.

The mare has given up her inspection of the disappearance site and gone on to graze nearby, but she seems to feel Zelda's gaze. She lifts her broad head to observe her with intelligent chestnut brown eyes. "Hello," the princess says, stepping forward hesitantly. The horse's answering whinny seems accepting enough, so Zelda takes another step. Then another. Soon enough she's stroking the mare's nose tenderly and walking around her side, keeping one hand on her flank so as not to spook her. The princess carefully straps the bundled sword to the mare's saddle and gives her a final pat before walking back to crouch in front of the other holy weapon on the ground.

The Bow of Light is far more amicable towards Zelda than the Master Sword. She only hesitates a second, wary of being singed again, but when she steels herself and wraps a hand around the bow's grip, the warmth that rushes through her hand isn't searing. On the contrary: holding the bow almost invigorates her as its energy tingles up her arm and settles comfortably in her chest. She stands up and slings the bow over her back. It feels familiar.

The horse allows her to mount up with no complaint, although she has to rip a slit in her already ruined dress to comfortably ride astride the mare's back. Mounted and ready to go with both sacred weapons safely secured, the lost princess of Hyrule sets off for the Dueling Peaks in the distance. Idly, she lays a hand on the bundled sword next to her calf. "We will find him," she repeats as she gazes out over the field ahead. The sword heats up to a temperature warm enough to feel through the fabric, though it quickly cools off before it can burn her again. For what it's worth, Zelda appreciates the blade's restraint.

After the final battle with the Calamity, Hyrule Field is quiet but for the occasional breeze blowing through the tall grasses. No monsters plague the plains anymore—as if the presence of their master drove them off instead of luring them in, as Zelda would have initially expected. She spots the tip of a fox's tail disappearing into the brush at one point, but otherwise the only life she spots aside from herself and Link's horse is the occasional cricket rustled up by their fast-paced gallop. Then they come upon the first Guardian.

The horse notices it first, immediately slowing from a breakneck speed to a more cautious canter. Zelda is a bit slower on the uptake, but only a few seconds of confused observation clues her in on its presence fairly quickly. A soothing hand on the mare's neck and a murmured "Shush, now," calms her nervous shuffling, but Zelda is far from calm no matter what she portrays to her mount. "I've no shield," she mutters to herself. She weighs her options as they approach: the Guardian hasn't noticed them yet, hasn't even turned its head from whatever it's staring at right now. Luck seems to be on her side, at least, considering it seems to be a grounded one instead of a walker. Maybe they could slip by unnoticed? Or perhaps the horse could outrun its range? She is pretty fast…

But something's not quite right. Zelda knows all of the Guardians in Hyrule Field were active every time Link passed through in his yearlong quest, yet this Guardian hasn't so much as twitched, let alone swiveled its head in any average Guardians' typical mockery of vigilance. They are almost upon it now. Coming to a quick decision, Zelda pulls the mare to a stop and dismounts, swiftly but carefully making her way to the frozen Guardian. It is clean, she notices. It's clean and all of its legs are still attached; yet it sits still on the ground. She lays a hand on its exoskeleton experimentally. Its stone shell is still warm, but it is cooling. It doesn't react to her touch at all. It must have died recently, but no burns or slashes pock its surface. But… it couldn't have died with the Calamity, could it? "That doesn't make sense," Zelda decides aloud. Link's horse whinnies and stomps her feet behind her. Zelda takes that as agreement and continues. "The Guardians were first possessed by the Calamity when they were already active. Shouldn't they remain active and simply return to their uncorrupted state now that the Calamity has been vanquished?" If she's honest, Zelda isn't sure how she feels about the Guardians after all the pain that the ancient Sheikah technology has caused, but… She shakes her head to dispel her thoughts. "Now is not the time to think about such things," she mutters to herself. "We have someplace to be." She mounts the horse again and together they continue the journey.

More spotless stone and metal carcasses of ancient Guardians dot the landscape, but all appear to be well and truly dysfunctional now that Calamity Ganon has been defeated. After the first one they pass doesn't respond to their presence, Zelda nudges the mare to pick up speed again and ignores the rest of the defunct Guardians they pass. At the faster clip, her long hair whips about her face and shoulders in the wind, but she refuses to let her hands leave the reins and risk slowing their pace just to tie it back. Tangled hair is the least of her concerns right now. Later, though? Well, she might just cut it all off if it continues getting in the way.

She doesn't bother with the dirt paths winding in and out of view in Hyrule Field as she travels due south, but she finally resigns herself to road travel when she cuts east over a bridge she only vaguely recalls the name of. The Dueling Peaks rise steadily ahead now as she follows the road along the riverbank.

Finally out of Hyrule Field, she starts seeing more signs of life here and there: a bokoblin encampment on the bank, an octorock popping up from distant underbrush, things of that nature. Those monsters don't seem to notice her—and if they do, they don't pursue or attack, which Zelda appreciates. With the sun just kissing the peak of Satori Mountain in the west, the princess knows they've been traveling for hours. Exhaustion pulls at her bones and her backside aches from riding so long. Link's mare has been more than happy to continue, seemingly tireless, but Zelda can't justify not allowing the horse to rest. Decision made, she slows the horse right at the base of the mountain, dismounts, and leads her by the reins to the riverside. The horse promptly starts drinking from the river. Zelda pulls Link's empty waterskin from the saddle and crouches a few paces upstream to refill it. While waiting for it to fill back up, her eyes shift upwards to gaze at the activated Sheikah tower across the river.

It's… beautiful. Zelda had been able to watch as Link activated three or four of the towers during his quest, but to see such ancient technology—the likes of which neither the Sheikah researchers nor she herself had ever been able to figure out, unlike the Guardians and Divine Beasts—humming with life again, a beacon shining blue over Hyrule like it was always meant to be there, is something entirely different to witness in person. She is in awe, of course, but she can't help the twinge of bitterness she feels in that moment. Zelda has always been the more intellectual of the two of them, the one less interested in conflict; and yet, she is the one who repaired war machines with her own hands. Link is the fighter, the knight, the one who does battle and kills monsters; and yet, he is also the one who was able to activate and use Sheikah technology that was not purely for combat purposes. Over the past year, Link unlocked the shrines and activated the towers that never even flickered with energy when she attempted the same. During all of her field research when she couldn't get shrines to open or towers to come to life, he had always been right there beside her. Why didn't she ever think to have him try to enter a shrine?

A small splash disturbs the rhythmic babble of the river enough to jar Zelda from her thoughts. She tears her gaze from the tower to look down to the river in front of her, and what she sees makes her freeze.

Protruding from the choppy surface of the river not three feet in front of her is the purple-scaled, ivory-horned head of a Lizalfos. Its beady turquoise eyes watch her every move with chameleon-like precision. The water there isn't very deep, she knows; it must be crouching down on its forelegs, intentionally leaving only the top half of its head above water. Likely just to scare her. She might have laughed at the idea of a Lizalfos practicing its scary poses, if only it hadn't done its job.

She retracts her arm and the overflowing waterskin from the river very, very slowly while holding the Lizal's gaze. Carefully, she twists in the cork and sets the skin on the bank. The monster watches on in silence. Okay, okay. Good. This can work, she thinks. One of her hands makes its way from the smooth rock under her to the grass-spotted sand behind her so she can shuffle away from the riverbank and out of the Lizalfos' range. She shifts her weight. Unfortunately for her, that's when her luck runs out.

She realizes the rock she is crouching on is covered in slick algae only after her foot has already slipped out from under her. She tumbles backward with an undignified yelp and her foot kicks out into the river, causing a large splash.

The Lizalfos chooses that moment to pounce. It slams the prone princess bodily into the ground, pushing the air from her lungs under its weight and raking at her wildly with its claws. Zelda struggles under it for a moment—her hands slip harmlessly from its slimy, algae-covered scales so she can't get a good enough grip to roll over on top of it, and one of her legs is twisted up under her body from her previous crouching position. Kicking up with her water-soaked leg is the only thing that manages to get the beast off her, and even then its horn leaves a bloody clip across her jaw for her trouble. She ignores the stinging cuts and bruises from the sudden attack, gets to her feet as fast as she can, and scrambles away to catch her breath.

But the monster finds its feet too, hissing and shrieking, and Zelda barely meets its eyes before it whips around faster than she can track and lashes out with its tail. She closely evades getting her neck lacerated, but the tip of its tail still neatly cuts a slash across her cheek. Her head turns with the force of the blow and she stumbles back. But she doesn't have time to reel. The monster is already gearing up to pounce again, so she follows her instinct and pitches sideways just in time to evade the attack. The movement jostles the bow on her back.

…Wait a second.

She jumps away from a beam of water the Lizalfos spits at her—gross, she can't help thinking, that cannot be sanitary—and swings the bow off her shoulder. There are no arrows, but after a century of practicing her magic non-stop, summoning a mere light arrow is as simple as breathing. Full immersion really is the best way to learn. Who knew? She thinks, then aims for its head.

Instead, the arrow sails harmlessly above it. Zelda curses her new body's lack of muscle memory. She scampers away from another tail strike, this one missing her arm by a hair's width, and nocks another arrow. "Come on," she whispers as she looses it.

Thankfully, it hits. This time she aims lower—for the heart instead of the head—and though the arrow misses her mark by a few inches it still buries itself in the purple-scaled hide of the monster's shoulder. The Lizalfos' death is almost anti-climactic: just a screech and a thump as its body hits the ground. She knows she ought to loot the body, although the more squeamish side of her protests the thought. Before she can do anything, though, another splash and screech catch her attention. She turns around, nocking and drawing as she moves. Another Lizalfos has leapt from the river towards her. She bites back a groan, rolls her eyes, and lines up the shot again.

And then there's a furious neigh as Link's steed rears up on her forelegs and kicks the Lizalfos in the face. It skips over the water twice, limbs flailing like a puppet with cut strings, and finally sinks as the current drags it away. Zelda lets out a heavy breath. She slings her bow back over her shoulder, collects the discarded waterskin, and dispassionately faces the body.

It's nothing special. She's seen Link loot monster corpses before and she's killed her own fair share of monsters before the century spent with Ganon. It's still disgusting, though. The monster's horn comes off easily when she yanks it. She thankfully can't go for its guts because she doesn't have a knife—aside from the Master Sword, which she wouldn't use for such a menial task as skinning and removing monster parts even if the sword would allow her to wield it. She's not too torn up about it. She has no bags aside from Link's saddlebags, which were made for carrying food and rupees and definitely not for monster parts. Does she want to walk around at twilight carrying raw, bleeding monster guts in her bare hands? No thank you. Maybe some people enjoy that kind of thing, but certainly not her. That's where Princess Zelda draws the line.

After looting what she can, she rinses her hands in the river and pulls an apple from one of those saddlebags. "You couldn't have kicked that first one too?" Zelda grumbles, running a gentle hand down the mare's velvety nose and encouraging her to eat the apple. The mare does so eagerly, nuzzling Zelda's hands and chest afterwards, looking for another. The princess giggles a bit when the horse starts lipping at her hair. "Yes, yes. Thank you for your help." She runs a hand through the horse's glossy mane and asks aloud, "I wonder what he named you…"

A chilly breeze blows off the water, and Zelda is suddenly very aware of just how much of her dress got torn to ribbons in that first attack. She's covered well enough, but what was once a calf-length dress now barely brushes her knees and now parts of her thighs are exposed through the layers of shredded fabric. Her prayer gown was never built to withstand much more than getting snagged on rocks or trees, let alone monster attacks. She should count herself lucky those Lizalfos didn't have weapons. Mindful of her new injuries and state of dress, Zelda is more careful getting up on the saddle this time than she was before. Riding astride was a puzzle she quickly solved when the dress was longer, but now she reluctantly decides that riding sidesaddle is the safest option for all parties. Hylia forbid I run into a traveler and accidentally… She can't even bear to finish the thought. What a way for the lost princess to return.

She has to set a more sedate pace than the breakneck speed at which they traveled before, so the sun has been down for half an hour or so when Zelda clears Dueling Peaks and sees the stable beyond. She runs into no other trouble in the pass, though she does spy another camp of sleeping bokoblins on the opposite bank. It's only as she's already pulling up to the Dueling Peaks Stable and sees the recognition in the stable master's eyes that she realizes she might have another problem: how does she board Link's horse without looking like a horse thief? Will she even be allowed to take Link's horse back out in the morning?

She nudges the mare up to the teller, ready to deliver the most eloquent and succinct explanation her sleep-deprived brain can come up with, when the teller raises a hand. He takes one long look at her in her current state, then flicks a critical glance at the steed she's still sitting on. Then he shakes his head. "That boy rescued you, didn't he."

Well. Apparently looking like a damsel in distress and riding in on a local hero's horse is explanation enough for some people.

What the man—Tasserin, according to his nameplate—asks isn't even a question, not really. He states it like he already knows the answer. Zelda nods anyway. "Something like that," she replies. "Link is… recovering from a great battle." It's not exactly a lie. "I'm riding to Kakariko for him, but I was ambushed on the road."

Tasserin nods. "We don't usually let other people board or take out horses that aren't theirs…" He trails off, stroking his beard. "…But I s'pose an exception can be made, just this once."

Zelda releases a breath she didn't realize she was holding. She really doesn't want to think about having to walk to Kakariko looking like this. "Thank you," she says sincerely.

"It's no trouble," Tasserin replies. Then he points a finger at her sharply. "But next time I expect you to return that horse and catch your own. Only reason I'm not forcing you to turn that horse over right now is 'cause of the state you're in and 'cause she seems to like you." He lowers his finger, puts his hands flat on the desk, and leans forward. "We got a deal?"

"Yes, I understand." Zelda slides carefully from the mare's back and steps forward, studiously ignoring the light tug on her hair that lets her know the horse is nibbling at it again. "We have an accord."

Tasserin raises an eyebrow—at her word choice?—but doesn't comment. Instead, he calls to someone Zelda assumes to be a stable hand (a man who looks remarkably like Tasserin himself) and asks him to lead the horse into the stable. Zelda quickly unhooks the wrapped sword and grabs the sack of rupees from the saddlebag before leaving the hand to do his work. She takes this opportunity to ask Tasserin something she's been wondering all day. "What's her name?"

Tasserin peers at her suspiciously. "You mean he didn't tell you?"

Zelda gives him the blandest look she can muster. Link? Speak willingly and without prompting? Not likely.

Tasserin seems to realize this too, because he blinks at her expression, then laughs. 'My mistake. I see your point." He gives her a good-natured smile, his previous suspicion long forgotten. "That's horse."

Zelda squints at him. "Yes, the horse. What is her name?"

"No, no," Tasserin says amicably, "you misunderstand. Her name is 'Horse'." The man even raises his hands and makes air quotes around "horse" for emphasis.

Zelda was prepared for plenty of different responses. That was not one of them. "Her name…" she repeats slowly, "…is 'Horse'."

The look on her face must really be something to see, because Tasserin laughs again, deeper this time. "That's exactly what I said when he named her! But it's what he wanted, and the little lady herself doesn't seem to mind." He straightens up and gestures her inside. "Now come along, let's get you a bed. You can get on your way to Kakariko in the morning."

Zelda feels somewhat bad for spending Link's money while he's not around, but she resolves to pay him back when she finds him. She deposits the sacred weapons and sack of rupees—now twenty rupees lighter—into the lock chest at the foot of her bed and takes a moth-bitten towel (provided by Tasserin) out to the pond across the road from the stable. The pond is clean and clear, something that seemingly sprung up around the Sheikah Shrine there sometime over the last century. The shrine glows the same blue as the tower she passed on the trip here, but in the moonlight it seems softer, gentler. It's enough light to have a bath by, anyway. She wishes nothing more than to investigate the shrine; the shuttered door of her memories is open on this one, and it would be so easy to just go inside, take a quick look around. But she's tired, sore, and on a quest that doesn't permit her to waste time right now, so she takes her bath in silence, surrounded not by humming machinery and ancient glyphs but by cricket chirps and firefly lights.

When she's finished with her bath she has no choice but to put on her old clothes. The grimy, bloody, ripped remnants of her dress feel crispy and uncomfortably stiff against her freshly scrubbed skin, but she is not going to risk sleeping naked in a stable inn full of strangers. With that done, she goes back to the stable, hangs her towel on a clothesline, crawls into bed, and goes to sleep.

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A/N (PLEASE READ):

Sorry about how late this is. Unfortunately, real life takes precedence over writing and many things happened over the last half year that I had to deal with before spending my time writing fic.

Originally I was gonna have the Zelda/Impa reunion in this chapter, but with it included the whole chapter became 4k words longer and was still incomplete. So that'll be something for Zelda's next chapter. It's already close to finished, just needs a lot of polishing before it's done.

I mentioned this briefly before, but I thought I'd remind everyone that I'll be changing and fleshing out details of Halkeginia's geography for the sake of this story. Hyrule's geography will remain as close to the game as possible. This was always part of my plan, and is partly because Hyrule is very fleshed out/complete in canon and Halkeginia is very… not. So canon Halkeginian locations will still exist, they'll just be moved around. Some of that detail-fudging might show up in the next chapter. Promise it's not for nothing, though.

I hope everyone's finals and holidays went well. Until next time!