Answer

By AAR

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to their rightful owners.

She's wise, he cannot deny the fact.

(She's also quite pretty, but he can deny that for as long as he can.)

He feels like a fool next to her. His more battle-ready mind can't handle the pure logic and knowledgeable tone the woman uses.

They have the same eyes, but not the mind. Even the light that fuels the spark in their eyes has a different cause to.

(Crystal blue, full of intelligence and wisdom. That's how he remembers her.)

She answers his fool questions with a smile, always ending her answers in a light laugh.

"Why does the apple fall?"

"Gravity."

Bubbly laughter, that's how he can recall the old her.

And then the nightmares come to the world again, and all of a sudden, she cannot answer the questions the children have to ask.

"Why are they doing it again to us?

"Haven't we already destroyed Tabuu?"

-0-0-0-

Answer them, why don't you?

Answer, answer, answer their questions! If you cannot, how can I?

-0-0-0-

"They have no cause to attack us, but they do anyways. Why is that, Zelda?"

It pains him to realize that the guerilla tactics the new, nightmarish creatures are employing are confusing the ever logical Zelda. Every move she predicts they will make, they do the complete opposite. They have no worries whether how many of their numbers die; they are reborn in their dreary and dark Subspace.

She's the best tactician. The best female strategist inside the estate all the brawlers are residing in next to Samus.

The questions are endless. Her silence is troubling.

"Answer us, please." The children plead with her and they beg with her. When she doesn't answer, their hard-won maturity shatters.

Her pale face is losing its color; all the food Link gives her isn't nourishing her needs at all.

Everyone worries—not about her, the Princess of Hyrule—they worry about the dwindling amount of food they must ration, and the Hands' increasingly weak state.

She tries hard to retain order among the estate; this is what they trained her in after all.

(Ignored, pushed away, and told patronizingly that they don't need her superior attitude among them.)

-0-0-0-

I still ask her—after burying what seems like a hundred yet only two people—why this is happening to all of us now.

She replies in a broken, empty voice and stares at me with unreadable eyes, "I don't know."

She breaks down in front of me, leaning on my shoulder and just sobbing without tears.

"I don't know. I don't know."

Finis