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I.
I have been waiting for you.
There is, she deduces, only a two percent chance that Master Link rejects her call.
Uncertainty sits high across his furrowed brow, cream colored cloth crinkling around his squared shoulders. There is something about the way his feet stay firmly planted beneath him when she asks it that has confidence flickering up inside of her, the way his fingers curl into fists at his side, the deep inhalation hissing up through his body. Something unspoken–something colossal—reverberates throughout the interior of the Goddess statute; fate rumbling awake, the very first strains of an eternal song humming to life.
I must aid you in fulfilling the great destiny that is your burden to carry.
This is a new face, its features thinly sculpted with a boyish charm, and yet it’s distinctly him. Something flickers inside of her–acknowledgement, perhaps? A reckoning, a realization; the understanding that the one that stands before her is a remnant of something far greater than her processors will allow her to fully comprehend. A product of devotion, of a Goddess’ love; a moving part in the grand machine she’s set in motion. Fascinating.
Fi pushes on: …and united with a spirit maiden, shall bring forth a piercing light that resurrects the land.
He winces beneath the way she drags his most cherished friend back into mind.
Master, she continues, you must embark on a great journey….it is also the only available method for you to reunite with the spirit maiden, honorable Zelda. There’s a small flurry, a movement from behind him, the shake of a head from a distressed Gaepora as he relays the impracticality of such an endeavor, though he may as well be trying to reason with spirits; Link’s hardened features, the clench in his jaw, oxidized sapphire gleaming back towards her—the choice has already been made.
To the Surface they go.
***
It poses a bit of a challenge, to say the least. Link takes his first steps upon the Surface as carefully as though he were a toddler learning to walk for the first time. Heartbeat doubling its pace, he glances around, the green hues that this sea of trees boasts is almost burdensome on his eyes—beautiful, but a markedly vast cry from the olive shades of Skyloft’s terrain.
Faron, she assesses, is brimming with beasts and dangerous flora. She’s wildly observant, slung over his shoulder—provides him with ample warning when temperature checks register unfamiliar shapes lurking nearby, calculates size and weight to help him prepare for an ensuing interaction. It’s interesting, she thinks, to see him wield a sword for the first time—she assumes he’s never used one with the intention of killing; but here, he has no choice. Each time his fingers wrap around her handle, he intends to take a life—he has to.
The first life he takes belongs to one of the red creatures that stalks through the forest with a bladed tool in hand. The beast is decently large, about Master Link’s height in stature, and it takes him a moment to find his footing as he swings the blade at it—as he decides whether or not he has the strength to strike it down.
Hurry, Master Link, Lady Zelda needs you. It works entirely too well, the thought of his friend in such distress as the driving force behind the final thrust of his blade, steel sliding a little too easily into the rusted red-orange of the creature’s skin. He looks down to where it’s crumpled to the floor, its body contorted and the light in its eyes noticeably snuffed out. You had no choice, she reasons.
“I know.”
It’s his destiny, she knows, but whether it's she or Lady Zelda who have ripped his innocence from him—made him an executioner—he cannot say.
Night falls across the Surface differently than it does up in the skies. It feels far more treacherous here, the unknown of its great expanse overwhelmingly daunting. Fi recommends settling down for the evening, and though Link wants to push on, she has to remind him that this journey is expected to be far more strenuous — if he thinks he’ll be able to bring Zelda home in one day’s time, he’s sorely mistaken. When she’s convinced him to take a reprieve, he finds a small clearing and sets her scabbard down across a felled tree, lights a campfire and pulls an apple from his pack. Fi expects that he may have questions for her, that there may be thoughts sprouting up in his mind as they push deeper into their quest. But Link doesn’t say very much at all, only bites down hard into his apple and stares plaintively into the flame.
The maiden holds great meaning for you, Fi acknowledges, a knowing glimmer sparking up in her voice. She notes the way that the motion at Link’s jaw slows, the bit of fruit wedging its way down his throat in a hard swallow.
“We grew up together. She’s my best friend.”
Fi can’t entirely find fault with that—it’s not untrue, after all—but she detects there’s an array of other thoughts flickering back and forth behind clamped lips, not quite ready to be parsed through. It’s then and there that Fi decides that she, too, can be as elusive as a one made of flesh and blood.
She is a special young woman.
The thought knocks a smile onto his lips. “Yeah. She’s special, alright.” Fi flutters excitedly; there’s something so satisfying about her calculations proving accurate.
Will you take her as your wife?
Link nearly chokes, his body suddenly doubling over in a hacking fit. “You’re bold,” he coughs.
I merely lack pretense. For the sake of efficiency.
Link takes one last mouthful of apple and tosses the core onto the fire, eyes glistening with the supple curves of ochre flames as it swallows up the remnants hungrily. “In another life, maybe. I’ll be lucky if I live long enough to see her again. I don’t know what else waits for me down here.” He glances around the thicket. “I guess this isn’t so bad.” He snorts. “Probably means it’s about to get a whole lot worse, though.”
Fi follows his glance upwards to where stars twinkle in the gaps between the canopies, an unfurled expanse of navy blue stretched out across the forest—across whatever else awaits them on the Surface.
***
My sensors indicate that Zelda has passed through here.
The sand sea of Lanayru stretches impossibly far beyond the massive, ancient relic that looms in the western edge of the mountain, late afternoon sun streaming through the bronze wings fanning out overhead like fingers across a glassy lake. Dust dances in the slant of orange light that washes the Hero’s concentrated gaze. Temperature readings and the sound of his shallow breath indicate dehydration levels, but if she’s learned anything about him in their travels, it’s that her Master is something of a clever young man; he strikes one Timeshift Stone after another with her physical form and watches as patches of ancient green sprout up and across the deep beige, diving quickly for the glistening crystal of a fresh spring when one finally makes itself known, splashing some on his face and around his neck.
Fi finds herself rather impressed that he’s made it this far mostly unscathed. She’d expected that he’d manage well enough in the Faron Woods, but when she’d felt the first sensation of Eldin’s ashen air against her steel frame, every ounce of optimism that came with readjusted statistics had been steamrolled almost entirely. She’d weighed the disadvantage—a young man whose entire life had been spent up in the crystal clear air of the skies now wading through heavy volcanic air. But he fights; navigates his way through the mines and scales the volcano, barrels through the monster hordes that haunt its caves and slays the pyroclastic beast that lurks beneath the corona. Fi remembers the way that his heart rate had increased when he’d laid eyes on the girl atop the altar, the way Zelda had reluctantly turned away from him to continue on her path—the way her guardian’s scathing words brand across his heart: “You failed to protect her.”
Fi pretends not to notice the tears welling up in his eyes once they’re left alone.
And here in the desert, after he’s navigated the mining facility and the stomach churning crevasses, she feels his heart thumping up against his ribcage again—when the soft soprano lilt drifts across the bridge. Fi feels herself moving quickly as he breaks into a sprint, Zelda matching him just in time for that wretched Ghirahim to interrupt what ought to be a touching scene. She feels his fingers wrap around her hilt as he launches himself into battle, placing himself right into the thick of things without a moment’s hesitation. “Am I late?”
Fi stifles a humorous chirp.
Disappointment is palpable once the action fades; he’s left alone in the quiet, Zelda and Impa gone through the gate. He looks down at the item left for him—the lyre—fingers tiptoing across the strings as though he’s afraid of breaking it. Link holds it close to his chest and sighs.
***
Deep in the bright cocoon, Zelda looks peaceful. Link’s fists hammer away, his voice desperate and contorted by the way emotion grips at his features. She blinks down at him across a soft smile, whispering to him in a sweet voice: “I’m still your Zelda.” His fists slow in their beating against her amber cage. “Will you come to wake me up?” He promises that he will.
And then she’s gone.
Everything comes spilling out of him in one guttural wail—every panicked thought, every aching muscle, every moment spent missing his Zelda. He doubles over, hands on his thighs, sobs wracking his frame until there’s nothing left to let out.
Fi now glistens at his back as the Master Sword. In spite of this new power, she’s left lost for words, steeped in realization.
***
When the time comes for them to reunite, Fi watches with bated breath; watches as Zelda stumbles forth from the saffron confines of her crystal, watches as Link catches her in his arms–hears the way he inhales so deeply that her golden hair catches against his nose and hears his sob crash against her delicately clothed shoulder.
“Good morning, Link.”
They depart, hand in hand, their shared smile something undoubtedly sacred. Fi understands this well.
But the joy is short-lived, and Master and Sword are tossed into the fray once more. A long, arduous battle of light and malice ensues, Fi diligently playing her role in his hand as her creator intended. It’s so much, all at once—relentless and devious, Demise’s newly crafted sword remarkably fierce against her own steel. Master Link is small, so small in comparison to him, and though Fi instinctively makes those nauseating calculations, she tosses them aside, doesn’t give them a second thought—he’s beaten the odds more than enough times by now.
When it’s all said and done, when the curling black smoke has cleared and the green of Hylia’s creation is blurring the edges of her vision again, there is little room in her mind for doubt—she understands everything her creator has set into motion; how her Goddess could love one so inherently divine, could rework the cosmos to spend eternity at his side. This is a man who soars through the heavens, conquers any terrain, jumps through time and space itself to return to his beloved’s side.
In the hush of the sacred grounds, Fi looks down upon his heartfelt expression as the weight of sleep begins to settle on her. Those same wrenched brows she’d first met so long ago up in the skies, deep sapphire lingering beneath. His eyes are not the same—there’s so much that’s unspoken in them. He looks upon her like he’s selling his soul; she tries to push the thought away.
Fi had not fully expected to deem him worthy of his Goddess. He passes with distinction.
May we meet again in another life, she says.
She falls asleep in a golden warmth, and in sleep, wonders what becomes of their tender glances and lingering touches.
II.
It’s happening again.
Just as it’s happened many times before; it’s like time and space breaking apart around her when she’s pulled from the comfort of the pedestal. Rising from the muddled depths of sleep has often felt as though the Goddesses were creating creating the world once more, as though the stars were collapsing upon her, pulling her this way and that, thinning her essence and pulling her up through fragments of a reality she hasn’t known in a long, long time.
She envisions a hand around her hilt, inexplicable warmth humming about where her chest might come to form, and it’s only then that everything draws to a hush. The world yawns open around her for the first time in ages to reveal a shroud of sage and olive that can only be the arcadian hues of a forest.
She is, as expected, not alone. Someone lingers beside her, a person whose full height only brings him to half of her own. Bright blue teeming with something familiar to her peers up at her from where he hides behind the scabbard of purple and gold, fingers trembling slightly as they hold tightly to wisps of courage. He’s nothing more than a child now, hardly even twelve years old, draped in a tunic the color of moss and trousers that sag against his hip bone.
There it is again — that small, gleaming spot in her heart that she’s come to know as happiness.
The boy recoils with a small step back when she crouches down to greet him, so she dons the maternal instincts she’s cobbled together after so many years at his side, her voice gentle and cooing.
Hello, there.
He flinches beneath her synthesized tones and swallows hard, but strength works its way up his small form and allows her a timid greeting back. She smiles at the hints of courage peeking up through his youth. There isn’t a hint of recognition in his own eyes, but there is no doubt: he’s found her again.
And what is your name?
He flounders for a moment, lips wrapping around silent consonants he takes in her appearance. “Link,” he finally says, gripping the scabbard a little tighter to his chest. She splays a hand across her own as though it might curb the hint of emotion that swells up inside of her.
What a lovely name. It’s very nice to meet you, Link.
***
Fi finds herself particularly fond of this iteration of the Hero, and the most likely explanation for it is that she gets to spend years watching him grow in a way she’s never been allowed to before. She finds that he’s much more reserved than his predecessors, this tongue frequently ties when he finds himself in conversations he deems uncomfortable. She thinks fondly of those that came before him, with their snarky quips and their sardonic humor; those qualities are there, tucked away inside of him — she knows it. But he spends his days with his face hidden from the world, his hopes and dreams stashed away beneath the looming fears that the rest of the world thrusts into his lap. Shy glances from the maidens in Castle Town, daggers thrown from the eyes of jealous men five years his senior—he sees none of it. It wounds her in ways she hasn’t anticipated, has her feeling somewhat helpless when her words of affirmation fail to provide him much comfort in the privacy of his quarters.
But perhaps nothing makes her feel worse than to hear the way this Princess lashes out at him with such bitter tones. It’s wrong, all wrong—but as often as she pleads to the girl, calls out across her Master’s shoulder and begs her to look harder, begs her to see who he truly is to her; all efforts are in vain. The girl with the blood of the Goddess is not ready to hear. Fi tries to offer some guidance, but she’s rather inept in the ways of romance and courting; after all, when has the Hero ever failed to catch his Princess’ heart on his own?
Temperature reads and quick analysis of his heart rate when Hylia’s daughter acknowledges him as a person and not just piece of decor tells her that he’s settling into his own share of destiny rather well, but the Princess shows little indication of meeting him halfway. (Her pulse and temperature increase as well, but Fi can only interpret it as something less pleasant by the way the girl’s voice grumbles in what she recognizes as frustration.)
But when the day comes that Master and Sword stand before their Princess atop the dunes, the winds change the course of fate. Glimpses of Heroes from generations long passed flicker up in the blistering late afternoon sun when he runs the length of the blade across the assassin’s armor. The body falls, crumpling sickeningly while blood freely stains the sand beneath it and its companions look on tentatively. And when it’s said and done, when two other bodies remain and Link kneels down to check that Zelda is unharmed, she sees everything falling into place.
Fi hums excitedly as Link escorts Zelda back to the gates of Gerudo Town, chirps up with encouragement when the Princess bids him a genuine good night and apologizes without a hint of reluctance in her voice. There’s another slant to her voice—admiration, perhaps?
“Stop that,” Link mutters from beneath rosy cheeks, lips turned inwards as though suppressing a smile.
Over the next few months, it starts to feel that Zelda must be close to achieving her goal. Everything about her begins to change—her posture, the light in her eyes, the tension in her shoulders. She’s infinitely softer, far more like the soft pink of a rose petal than the thorns that climb its stem. As things would turn out, the Princess and her knight grow closer as well, their blossoming relationship something like a promise of better days to come.
Fi finds herself lying across her Master’s back while he wraps an assortment of fruits and sweets for a picnic, reminds him to pack an extra few of the Princess’ favorite things—soaks in bright sunlight when he sets her across the grass beside their knees in Irch Plain; something tells her to keep silent on one particularly cold night in Akkala, when the Princess wails out across the Spring of Courage. Not a single sound falls from her, not when Link steps into the pool after her—certainly not when he wraps his arms around her and lets her melt into his warm embrace.
There it is, that familiar warmth again, spiraling up the length of the blade.
Fi averts her gaze.
***
But, as the fable often goes, their world is equal parts beauty and cruelty.
Alarms are flaring up as Link swings her across his body before the umpteenth Guardian can launch its next assault. Its blast ricochets against her frame, and as it stumbles, Fi finds herself detaching one of its legs, malleable steel writhing with the last flashes of circuitry; she’s entirely preoccupied by the rate of her Master’s heartbeat. He, too, stumbles back, his arm grown a little too heavy to raise her up again before another machine marks him for certain death.
Fi doesn’t have a moment to register the likelihood of what happens next.
There’s a cry out into the blistering air, and Zelda is suddenly before him, a desperately outstretched arm and open palm all that remains between them and the steel beast. And then she’s glowing—her divine light enveloping everything around them. Purging the Guardians of their wicked possession, a new warmth settling across the Blatchery Plain as though every wrong has been made right. Oh, Fi knows this sensation.
But the Princess can’t mend everything: the Master Sword hits the ground beside Link as he crumples onto his side, heartbeat almost nonexistent now, and as Zelda begs him to stay beside her, Fi cries out again and again, begging to be heard: “Princess…princess!” It isn’t until Zelda is bent over his limp body, sobbing into the blue tunic that she had stitched with her own hands, that she finally hears destiny calling.
Zelda’s hands feel almost as familiar as Link as she makes her journey deep into the forest, as she places the Sword back into its pedestal.
“I love him,” the Princess whispers against the ragged blade, her voice as gentle as the easy breeze fluttering through the canopy.
I know, Fi whispers back.
Fi falls asleep in much more discomfort than she’s ever felt in the past. When the world goes dark, it’s anchored with the heaviest of sensations. There’s no indication of her Master’s fate; she’ll have to assume the worst. She wonders what waits for her the next time she’ll be roused.
***
In the end, the Sword and her Master are separated by a century. It seems to pass in the blink of an eye, but when she comes to again, there’s something sitting heavy in her soul when she identifies him—reconstructed, the blood and the burns and the ash and the mud washed from his skin, his tunic stitched together again. Something shimmers in her chest; he’d been saved by his Princess’ love after all. She wonders if he knows the full extent of it, that rose-tinted resilience.
Fi remains at Link’s side until the storm of the Calamity is quelled by their hands in Hyrule Field. The swirling blood red of Ganon’s carnage draws to a hush as the Princess returns to her corporeal form for the first time in one hundred years, her body positively thrumming when she turns to lay her eyes upon him—her partner, her Hero, her beloved. The reunion is soft, tender, tentative embraces that soon melt into tears of relief. Zelda whispers words of gratitude, fingers brushing consolingly against the Sword’s violet hilt.
They take their time in returning to the Deku Tree, looking ahead to what lies before them, but Fi feels ancient in their presence; their youth becomes wildly apparent, their soft blushes and trembling voices so comforting to hear, but she’s tired, so terribly tired—the pedestal calls out for her. Her work, for now, is complete. When they set her to rest with a few kind words and soft smiles, it’s her Master’s thumb gently grazing against the hilt of the sword that rocks her gently into the easy fade of sleep.
Fi is surprised—and as close to horrified as she can be—when she wakes to find his same face. Again.
III.
Fi realizes that she hasn’t known much about pain before any of this. Half conscious, her sides bursting, flames flickering up and down her being as the Master Sword sits anchored into dirt. She can hardly manage a plea for help, can’t call out for her dormant Master with her sides corroded as they are, holes punched through the fuller.
When he finally does come to, he picks her up as carefully as though she were nothing but translucent paper, tears pricking at the edges of sky blue eyes as he assesses the damage with his mouth twisted in horror. And there’s little comfort here, either, because this hand does not feel like Link’s–it’s wildly different, the stone grooves encircling his fingers so authoritative. She misses the warmth of his skin, yearns for it in a most unfamiliar way.
They’re separated again rather quickly, the sword torn from him a force far beyond his control. Fi sails through time and space, and the journey feels not unlike the way rising from sleep at the pedestal does, and when she resurfaces again, she finds herself in the hands of Princess Zelda herself. Fi vaguely recognizes the era through the remnants of her assault, knows just how much time stands between them: how tragic, she thinks at the sight of Zelda’s archaic attire—how tragic that the whirlwind of life has separated them once more.
He’s safe, Fi musters. She affirms that Link will prevail, no matter the odds. (Something tells her to keep said odds to herself.)
***
Fi is there to witness a Hyrule of days long gone. She is there to see the ancestors of her Master’s allies back home and is there to hear of the royal family’s tragedy, of their sacrifices. She is there when Zelda gathers the Sages in the chamber and hears how her fateful decision siphons the air entirely out of the room. How she lets them explode into a flurry of questions and concerns before they melt into silence, resigning themselves to the truth that Zelda has already come to on her own—there is no other path to take.
“How are you feeling?” Raphica, the Rito sage, finally asks in the quiet.
“At peace. This is what I must do.” Zelda masks her thundering pulse quite well.
Fi is there to hear goodbyes that are masked as see you laters. She is there to hear of the kingdom’s restoration projects, in the fables of a Construct Hero that had until only recently had carried a part of her in its body—she yearns to know more ab0ut this, hopes she might shake the fatigue long enough to ask Zelda more about it before the girl is gone forever. Fi is there on that bright afternoon that Zelda lays her upon the altar—is there to whisper reminders of Link’s undying love for her when her pulse quickens with fear.
She’s there when the stone is swallowed, when the point of no return is finally passed, caught in the warm blast of Zelda’s transformation, hot tears plashing against her decayed steel before it’s all growing dark again.
Poor Link, Fi thinks. Poor, poor Zelda.
***
When she wakes again, it’s under the bronze glow of the heavens. She hardly recognizes the grip wrapping around her; even still, it is him, his demeanor changed. Stern and driven, a deep grief masked just beneath it. It takes a moment to realize that Zelda’s sacrifice has worked as intended—Fi feels full again, power swelling up in the blade, humming as her Master aims it skyward.
Something is different.
Fi sits in the moment, feeling wholly complete in Link’s hand. The Light Dragon rumbles beneath her—it’s Zelda, yes, but..but there’s more Zelda, there’s more of her dwelling there. It takes her a moment before it all becomes clear; there’s a part of the girl lingering about in the Sword, too, her eternal love swirling, wrapping the Spirit in all encompassing light. Both of them joined in the blade’s body, and there is an ache so triumphant that Fi wonders if she’s granted mortality herself. How can one body house all of this? How can it carry such weight for a lifetime? How can Zelda have carried such heaviness for thousands of years without crumbling beneath it? Fi can taste the affection—considers how many of the Goddess’ descendants have known it too, thinks about all of the Heroes who have shared in its glory.
It’s two souls pushing against her, crying out to one another through time and space, filling her with an incandescence she’s never been able to process. She finds herself yearning for a man who she has not lost, and mourning a Princess who is never to return to him. Parting and reuniting, the same wicked dance again and again.
Glinting beneath the soft gold of a melancholic sun, Fi thinks she might be crying.
***
They fall from the heavens, two shooting stars across Hyrulean skies. He finds her hand, high above the ground—pulls her in close and cradles her as they land back. Link rises with golden locks strewn across his arms, sets her down gently in the grass and waits for long lashes to flutter open.
Fi chirps up across her Master’s back, intonations tearful and relieved. What a relief to see you.
Zelda smiles softly. “It reached you, after all.”
The spirit sighs against Link’s back as he gathers Zelda in his arms, his sobs silent in his throat as he trembles against her. Over his shoulder, the spirit watches as tears cloud Zelda’s eyes, as she buries her face into the crook of his neck, and both of them are crying with a sterling joy—with a relief neither had dared to dream of.
It’s eerily familiar, their reunion. They savor the moment, locked away in an embrace amongst the tall grass of Hyrule field, the forget-me-nots gleaming proudly around their bodies, and when they’ve gathered their bearings, made their way back north and reunited with loved ones and have spent time recovering in the aftermath of such horrors, they make their way to the safe haven of the forest once again.
They linger atop the pedestal for a while as the children of the forest scamper about, poking their heads through leaves and shrubs until they’re invited over. Link and Zelda recount many tales to them, tales of past Heroes and Princesses and their adventures beside the blessed sword. They paint such stirring images—the Hero who had leapt through time, the Princess who stood strong against the veil of Twilight. They speak of the Sky legends, of the various figures from history that aided the pair in all of the legends. Fi sees everything, everyone, so vividly; they all feel so alive.
And when the Koroks have grown tired and settle down at their feet in the early evening air, Fi too feels the first hint of sleep nudging at her. Link gives her a knowing look.
They share their farewells, Fi thrumming with satisfaction; the feeling where her heart might be twisting a little more than it usually does.
Until we all shall meet again.
Part of her wants to say more, wants to add one more thing, wants to fit one more word in before they’re gone forever from her. But nothing comes, and Fi slips into silence. Link takes a breath and slides her into the pedestal. They’re both smiling all the while, perhaps a little more teary as they tuck her away once more, and the world begins to melt away.
She hopes, for their sakes, that it will not be this Hero’s face that she sees the next time she wakes.