willtitlelater

He sat on the edge of the bed, holding the small pale hand of his Lover in his large dark palm, smoothing out her bright whitened hair with the other. She was breathing, though barely, the last wisps of life caught in her body to give them a few more moments together. Her eyes were heavy, looking up at her Husband with clouded blue pools, a soft smile on her aged face as she studies the worried look in his golden eyes. Lifting a shaky hand, she rested it on his cheek, feeling the rough red bear over his jaw one last time before trying to muster her parting words. All that came from her were slow wheezing coughs, her once sharp tongue failing to deliver her words.

He leaned into her hand, resting his own over top as he feels the paper-thin skin. She had lived as long as she could, aging to the ancient beauty that now resides in the large bed in his Desert Palace. Their romance was never perfect, their marriage purely political to ease tension between their Kingdoms. She was so young, full of fire and wit, weary of her suitor from the stories fed to her by her Father. His Light, belonging in a garden of flowers rather than the Desert she was sent too to appease some sense of duty as the Princess of Hyrule. He was weary as well when her attendant came with them, carrying a sword that caused him unknown unease when wielded in his presence. It was during the first year of their marriage that they had started to grow closer to one another, for the unease between himself and her attendant to settle, finally seeing one another as more than their titles and racial differences. It was during this time she saw what her people had been doing in the treatment to the Gerudo women, the racism that was directed to not only the Desert people but the other races in the surrounding Kingdoms. It was during this time that he learned that not all that come from Hyrule were the same as the ones that would hurt his fellow Sisters, that the Princess and her Hero were more accepting than he expected of them.

They have been through trials, testing the powers each of the three held by the Goddesses themselves and the bond they had forged during the course of the handful of years living under the same roof. They had fought, as all Lovers do, and they had come back to each other’s arms with whispered apologies and sad smiles. A feeling that this was not right, the life they had carved out in their time together, nagged at him at moments of silence. It was once he voiced this that he learned the Hylians too had these strange feelings that they should be bitter toward him for acts he had not committed. They had been through times of joy when a new Daughter was born to the Tribe, and times of sorrow when she lost their first child in the first month of life. Together they survived, fighting off the forces that be that dared to strike apart their union and endanger the family they had formed. Together they saw a new world building around them as ties strengthened between their Kingdoms and peace was setting in.

They stood with each other; the Princess, the King and the Hero, when a vile wind swept across the lands and brought with it a cloud of death and destruction. They stood with each other, wielding the powers native to only them, sealing the threat into a slab with the Goddesses’ light with the shards that resonated deep inside of them. They all left a sad, empty, knowledge that this fight would have played out differently, had played out differently in the past long forgotten. Part of them knew their shards shared a long sad history with each other, the parts each played with each other and the loss at the end of the bloodied battle of power. Yet they stood together and were made stronger by the tests set out for them.

Now that remains from those days is the folded tunic and a sword untouched, resting in the corner of her room as a way to show that even in his passing her Hero will always be with her. He caught himself looking sadly over at the corner more than once since his passing, missing the quick comebacks the boy would have when in a relatively sassy mood, keeping up with the King as well as any of the Sisters could. He missed the times they would spar in the training field to keep one another sharp in battle if ever a threat came to endanger their family and connected countries. The way the boy would laugh when you caught him off guard or playing with one of the small children, the way he would blush when complimented by the Sisters, the quiet joy he held when he first held his own Daughter.  Now is his nothing more than memories gathering dust in the Princess’ room, a relic from a time passed.

He took her hand from his face and kissed over her wrist, looking down at her. Even in her elder state, she was as beautiful to him as the time she walked into his life.