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Choose this love.
Choose this grace.
Choose this blessing
That we here make.
Through every sickness.
Through bountiful health.
I take your heart
Into my own well.
And when life is uncertain.
When times grow hard.
Know I'll stand with you
'Til death do us part.
The ancient clock on the wall was wrong. For centuries, it had lorded over the dressing room, ticking away the minutes, keeping perfect time. Keeping generations of courtiers and nobles and royals on track, letting them know in no uncertain terms if they had even a second to spare. It had been the invention of one of her ancestors, a princess who claimed to have a rather unique bond with time.
If only that gift had been carried down the generations. If only it was in Zelda's blood now. She would unwind the hands of this clock without a thought, turning back the years until the smile she worked so hard to weave onto her face was real again.
She stared at the hands moving steadily onward, chipping away at the minutes of her life. It was wrong, in every possible way that a strange living object could be. How could it be right when it was telling her that in ten minutes, she would promise her life away to a man who had no hold over her heart? How could it be right when she was standing alone in a wedding gown she detested, simply because it was not meant for him? How could it be right when she was still frozen in this room, two years ago — the day she'd tried to rip that damnable clock off the wall because it just wouldn't stop no matter how much she screamed at it?
There was still a chip in it from her attempts, a small scratch marring the immaculate dark wood from something she'd thrown at it.
She's just in shock, they all whispered, assuring themselves she would be alright. The grief will pass.
Pass? No. It had never passed. She'd only learned to bury it down deep, where they couldn't see how it tore at her. They did not want to understand it, anyway.
The second hand glided around another circle. Zelda reached down to the table in front of her, to the elegant bouquet that had been made especially for her. Silent Princesses and wildflowers, mingled with cool safflina. Someone had taken painstaking effort to ensure that the bow matched the one in her hair, down to the little clear beads that looked like dew lining the edges of the white satin. There was something so perfect about it that made her want to set it on fire, just to watch it burn to ashes.
Today was her wedding, a day she had, once upon a time, been elated about. Oh, how she'd spent hours giggling with courtiers, talking about table centerpieces and exactly which songs should be played on the harp. Back then, she'd joked about installing an organ in the temple chapel, that she'd make her new husband serenade her before she'd sign the contract.
The organ had been installed last year, far too late. The man it was intended for was long gone.
Her grip on the bouquet tightened.
Five minutes now.
Five passes of the clock until she would open those doors and resign herself to a life of pretending that this was the path she chose. No one suspected a thing, for after all, her previous engagement had only ever been an arrangement. A contract between two kingdoms that wanted to find strength in each other through a powerful union.
It wasn't lingering glances and horrible jokes that made her snearly snort out her wine. It wasn't wandering hands during a ballroom dance, his eyes flaring to life as she batted her eyes coyly. It wasn't whispers and secrets and stolen kisses in the halls when no one was around except for them. It wasn't love.
Because how could Princess Zelda Hyrule ever love Chief Ganondorf Dragmire?
How could two souls be brought together by circumstance find themselves so entwined that they'd spoken hushed promises in the dark? How could they ever—
She bent over the table, squeezing her eyes shut tightly, begging the tears not to come for her again. Her veil would only hide so much, and besides. If she let that floodgate inside of her open, she would never be able to go through with this. But Hyrule needed stability. The promise of heirs. A lineage that had to remain unbroken at whatever cost. Even if it meant packaging her heart in a broken box, tying it tightly with frayed twine and shoving it under the floorboards of her mind, she had to take someone else's hand in hers and recite the traditional vows, making him the official Prince Consort.
Ganondorf would have never been content with that title. He'd been going behind her back, bullying chancellors and ministers and sages alike until they'd relented, changing the verbage of the marriage contract and ages of precedent to name himself king.
Her king.
Hers.
Blessed Hylia, how she would give anything to have him be hers again.
Maybe that was why she'd sent the invitation. It was a silly, desperate act, one she'd told herself was really about healing and closure when the truth was that she was fishing for a miracle. A chance that he'd show up, that she could see him again.
But dead men did not receive summons. They didn't crawl out of their graves to storm castle gates. They didn't appear in the dead of night to whisk a Princess of her feet. They just remained absent while the hands of the clock carried on, heedless of the way the world had stopped when she'd received the news of his passing.
Two weeks before what would have been her wedding, a strange force had come from the north. It was the very thing that Hyrule had wanted to unite with the Gerudo to prevent, a darkness that should have been child's play to a sorcerer like Ganondorf. He'd gone off to fight it.
And all that came back to her was a body that had once been blazing with warmth, now still and cold as the grave he'd been laid to rest in.
One minute left. One last pass of the clock.
One last chance for a breath and all the lies she'd been feeding herself for months. This was for the betterment of Hyrule. This day had to come to pass. He was a nice man who did not push her for more than she could give. She would be alright.
"Ch…choose this love," she whispered to herself, voice already cracking at the edges. "Choose this grace. Choose this blessing… that we here make."
These words had been intended for him. She'd practiced them relentlessly, getting her cadence perfect, chastising him for not doing the same.
"Through… every sickness."
Zelda paused before the sob could tear from her throat. Had there been war, or famine or plague, she would have never turned her back on him. Had they grown old together, had his warrior's body given out too young, had he needed a caretaker more than a lover, she would have tended to his every ache. There was only one ailment that she could not stand by his side for.
"Through bountiful health. I take your heart into my own well.” Forcing herself to straighten up, she continued, dull and broken. “And when life is uncertain. When times grow hard…"
In her mind, he was there behind her, whispering the final lines in her ear.
"Know I shall stand with you, for not even by death do we part."
Of course, even in her imagination, he would change the wording to suit his own needs. He always was a magnificent bastard. It was one of the things she loved about him the most.
"Not even by death," she whispered to the ghost of him, the last bit of him she'd ever have.
Then the hour struck, the clock ringing out with a fateful chime.
Head held high, bouquet tucked tightly against her chest, she opened the doors and left her past behind.