Eyes of Blue

We stand on the rolling grassy plains beneath the clear summer sky, with only a blood-bay filly and the shadows for company. The young hero and his princess, gazing at each other rather than the endless expanse of blue above.
Instead of studying with my tutors in the castle library, I have snuck outside those walls. To see Hyrule’s hero off, bid him safe travels… and look into his eyes one last time.

His eyes framed by sunshine golden hair, so clear and blue, bright eyes which will never lose their light.

It would be many years before his face would lose that soft boyish curve as the angles of manhood sharpen his features. So strange to be able to gaze on his adolescent face now and know that he would be just as handsome, if not more so, as a grown man. Staring is improper however my eyes linger, refusing to turn away.

I can feel an ever-watchful gaze from the shadows, yet this cannot dissuade my fascination. I trust my caretaker and know the rules. As gravely as I’m tempted, I will not overstep the boundaries set in place.

The child-hero stands before me clad in forest green, straight and proud as any knight twice his age. No one in this country knows that a dark future has been averted by this boy’s bravery. This knowledge tears at my soul, yet my mind is flooded with relief that he does not have to sacrifice his childhood for my mistakes.

I relive our adventures while in sleep, the days that have not come to pass– Of dressing in men’s clothing, the bandaged sensation that came with hiding my face behind hair and beneath enchantments as stifling as keeping secrets. Of watching him overcome impossible odds battered and bloody but still willing through red-stained eyes, and appearing before him to reveal the next task only to disappear in a flash of light. Of how freedom and desperation taste when hope, seven years gone, breaths once more. Of the blue of his eyes flashing bright as he battles the evil tyrant, my hands sting from beating against my crystal prison, against such helplessness. Of aching longings that no woman, let alone a princess, should feel for a man who’s truly just a boy at heart.
Yet I am a girl, not even on the cusp of womanhood, and these memories are naught but dreams.

In my hands I hold the treasured instrument that is the same lovely shade of blue as his eyes. He smiles at me with an innocent sweetness which I doubt he might ever outgrow.

“Link…” his name falls from my lips like a prayer.

I love you, my hero. No matter how time passes or reverses… my heart shall ever, only, belong to you.