Work Text:
“and in the last days it shall be, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;"
==
It's not every day the Princess of Hyrule gets free time. Usually she's off doing meetings, having lessons, or other, well, princess-y stuff. Zelda was also training to be a priestess. After all, she was the bridge between Hyrule and the Goddesses.
She quite enjoyed being a priestess. She'd sewn herself lace veils, embroidered with Triforces. She didn't quite know what the Triforce was, but she knew it was on the Royal Crest, so it must've been important. When she asked, her father said it was a talk for when she turned 18, and began truly preparing to inherit the throne. And that was, what, only three years from now? There was so much for her to do in the future.
But right now there was nothing. No one to bother her, nothing to do.
The quiet was comforting, but also strange.
She glanced toward the window, where the sky was a clear, endless blue. A sudden chill brushed against her neck, even though the sun was warm.
“Probably just a draft,” Zelda said aloud, though the feeling didn’t quite fade.
Again, free time was foreign to the princess. What could she do? Read books? No, they were boring. She could paint, but she'd never considered herself good at it. Sewing was fun, but she didn't have any new ideas.
I suppose I'll read, she thought. The day was already boring, so it wouldn't hurt.
She picked herself up from her bed and walked towards her bookshelf. There were hundreds of books inherited from the Princess Zeldas of old, though she'd never bothered to read them. Too much dust, she thought, even though she dusted her books every day.
There was a nice bookstore down in Castle Town where Impa would buy her books in exchange for the occasional favor. Through this, she piled up her collection. She liked to read about love, and alchemy, and maybe sometimes a little bit of history.
And so she picked up a book she'd read many, many times before.
Before she opened it, she lit a candle, fluffed up her pillows, and poured herself tea. For ambience. She set the book in her lap with great ceremony, as if trying to enjoy the idea of reading more than the actual reading.
And then she collapsed back on her bed and looked up. There wasn't anything different, of course. Just wood. There was maybe a crack in one of the support beams, but she couldn't tell.
She sighed, and opened up her novel to a dog-eared page.
==
It didn't take long for her to get bored. Maybe two pages in, she felt that today, the words were dull. Her mind kept drifting to other things, like the gentle but annoying ticking of a clock that somehow felt slower. Or how the birds chirped one less time than usual.
She blinked. The words didn't move. She didn't know why she expected them to.
==
It didn't take much for Zelda's attention span to run out. After all, she was fifteen — a teenager daydreams. She set the book on her bedside table and looked out the window. Castle Town wasn't as bustling as usual. Usually , there were teenagers like her rushing into the bowling alley, or skating rink, but today, there were only five or so.
Zelda looked at the bakery next. Long ago, there might've been a mask shop, or some kind of costume shop there. She wished it was still around. She'd like to be someone else for a day, after all.
==
The clock struck twelve, and she couldn't hear the bells from the western tower. Odd. They usually ring on the hour. When she brought her gaze away from the window, the walls of her room felt "too big." Like the walls moved back a few inches when she wasn’t looking.
It’s fine , she thought. I'm just bored.
She picked up the book again and tried to reread the same paragraph for the third time, but she couldn't remember what it said.
Zelda sighed, stretched her arms overhead, and stood.
Her eyebrows narrowed. Perhaps some fresh air would make the feeling go away.
==
The wind had changed.
It was a small thing -- the way the sea breeze drifted in from the window instead of the usual warm current. But Princess Zelda noticed. She always noticed. The light outside her chamber shimmered strangely. The world was holding its breath.
She sat on the edge of her bed, fingers tightly in her lap, eyes drawn to the skies beyond the windowsill. The gulls had gone quiet that morning. The guards below joked about an incoming storm, but Zelda knew better. There was none on the horizon -- not yet.
Just the feeling of something coming. Something vast.
History doesn’t repeat -- it haunts , Impa once told her. And Zelda knew she'd seen more ghosts than anyone should.
But this felt different. This wasn’t the past bleeding through. This was the future clawing its way in.
Below, the courtyard bloomed with late-summer colors, but it felt distant. Like looking into a memory that wasn't hers.
Something was coming.