Chapter Text
Prologue - The Story of Hyrule
The kingdom of Hyrule, these thought to be idyllic lands are a host to the ravages of a never ending cycle of hatred and destruction. Over and over would the land have to face off against the dark king of power and ire incarnate, Ganondorf. Each time the embodiment of the Goddess of Light and her chosen champion would rise up to stop him, and each time the dark king would be either slain or sealed and peace returned, but never permanently and always at a cost. Some cycles the damage was minimal, hundreds killed, the castle taken, but ultimately the kingdom remained whole. Other times nothing but outright devastation would be wrought, fields withered and poisoned, rivers and lakes turned to ash, and the kingdom leveled to the dirt. This has always been Hyrule’s history and the time for the cycle to continue had unfortunately come.
People could feel the coming desolation in the air. The thundering sound of great armored hogs could be heard more and more as raids against merchants and farming towns began to spiral near out of control. Goron’s reported Death Mountain became more active, danger mounting while metals and minerals harder to find and reach. The Gerudo faced day after day of massive sandstorms that threatened the very walls meant to hold them at bay, having to dig the city out of the sand instead of patrolling the sands. The winds and waters that carried the Rito and the Zora fell stagnant causing things like the transportation goods and news to grind to a halt. The night itself began to grow more dangerous as the dead would occasionally pull themselves from the grave. Poe’s and wayward spirits haunting ruins while skeletons of enemies long past would those unawares.
To try and combat the growing danger, recruitment for the Hylian army began to surge. With the swelling numbers, rumors spread of the possible hero of the legends rising in the ranks. Speculation on who could be the hero spread like wild fire throughout the training halls, and yet no matter how hard some tried, no one ever came to dawn the Hero’s garb.
And then came the princess. Her mother dying the year before and the young girls own powers coming to the forefront, the pressure she felt was immense. Multiple sightings of her heading to the Temple of Time and offering prayer. Day after day the poor girl pushed herself harder and harder to try and be ready. Rest became a luxury that she rarely ever enjoyed and while her father did what he could to help, the bags under her eyes only ever deepened. She pushed away friends, family, and anything she felt got in the way of her sacred duties. Then the day finally came.
They weren’t ready and the demon king had assured that. Only a mere century had passed since Ganondorf had last been sealed. His previous awakening had been stopped only half a year into its conquest. The armies of the land had be able to keep his fury from decimating the people but not without cost. The Sages and their temples had been shattered by his might, the princess of that era gravely wounded. Without the aid of the Sages and bleeding out, the incarnation of the goddess was only able to muster a weak seal only truly binding the king himself and unable to banish all of his monsters from her lands. Now one hundred years later Zelda feared the devastation that awaited them. The sages had not reappeared in the last century, their cycle and connection to her broken by Ganondorf. The hero was nowhere to be seen and those meant to help shoulder this burden were not to be seen. And yet when the sky darkened mid day and the ground shook violently she took to the field to meet her destiny. Her father and his army would join her as they rode out to a temple now shrouded in nothing but a bleak storm of wind and lightning. Zelda could feel the power of the Triforce radiating from the sacred grounds and decided to take a stand. Summoning all her wisdom, courage, and power, she pierced the darkness of the storm and delved in, alone. There she confronted a man she had never known in her life but also whose history she knew intimately. His powers, his tricks, his schemes, she knew them all and was prepared to face them.
Hours passed as the battle inside the temple raged. Multiple times did the king try to follow his daughter, only for the storm to cast him aside. All he could do now was wait. Nervous murmurs slowly spread as the sun began to set. Then in a vicious display of power the winds shot past the army carrying with it a wretched howl of the pain of a king brought low. An immense piercing column of light shot towards the heavens and the malign energy that surrounded the temple was cast away. The king and his guards immediately charged into the temple. There they found the young princess kneeling, bruised, bloodied, and breathing heavily. Before her father could even kneel to check on her, Zelda summoned her will to stand firmly and claim for all to hear ‘It is done.’ She had sealed the great dark king once more and the very air itself was all the proof the people needed. The soldiers cheered and celebrated, the prince could barely stand, and a father decided to carry is tired daughter home on his own back.
In the coming days, as Zelda slept, the entire kingdom began to breath a sigh of relief as raids lessened and nature itself balanced itself once more. When she awoke, the princess told the tale of fight against the powerful king and of the limits of his new seal. She sadly shared that she still did not have the power to banish his forces that had roamed the land for the last hundred years, but she was able to guarantee that this new seal would last at least another century and that the next time the demon king appeared, he would not be as capable of immediately driving the kingdom to ruin. The king had been overconfident in his return, thinking his victory all mere moments away. That without the sages and her hero, that Zelda could do little to stop him. In that very moment, in the height of his arrogance Zelda had struck a blow that he couldn’t had foreseen, she took away some of his magic. With that part she stole from him and her own power, she clashed with him long enough to craft a seal fuel by his own magic and bound him with it. This left all who heard of her victory in awe. The very power he held was now his own prison.
With their greatest foe dealt with, and the princess shown to potentially have greater gifts than those that came before her, the land of looked forward with hope of a new age on the horizon.