The leader of my church group for writers posted the above picture as a “visual word prompt” for us and this was my ensuing drabble. Enjoy.
The pain of the dimensional-jump wore off over the next 48-hours, but the pain of the memories didn’t.
The strange new world he’d been kidnapped to needed saving—per the lengthy explanations of his captors— and he was the prophesied reluctant Hero from the Land of Hyrule. So the sooner they equipped him, the better.
But as the days and weeks went on, his despair deepened, puzzling him.
All he could think of was her. Her golden hair. Her lilty laugh. Her ongoing plan to rebuild Hyrule after Calamity Gannon had been extinguished.
Her crown would allow her to appoint another hero in his absence, but he hadn’t had a chance to tell her good-bye…
Somehow, he felt this would be what tormented her the most of his disappearance. That is, if he never found a way home.
His sleep consisted of repeating dreams of him climbing the steepest cliffs of Hyrule to the sound of the ocarina, his climbing shoes slipping more than usual, nearly falling, again and again. Every night.
His waking hours were divided between fighting monsters for his captors and flashbacks of saving Hyrule by following the clues the Princess left.
Like a broken timepiece, his mind had no direction without the goal of her. Her plan. Her needs. Her ideas. Everything he strove for before, lost in another realm, another timeframe.
The only items that remained with him from home were his trusty knife—excellently balanced— and the seeds Zelda had told him to hold until they returned to their manor. She planned to run experiments with the rare seeds. Now he treated both like the most valuable items he’d ever held; just like…
Her.
Zelda.
He could hear her saying his name still. The way she did when she begged him to remember who he was. That exact same way.
“Link.”
Keviana Elliot 