One: I have foreseen it.

“I will die soon,” she announces, turned towards the window.

It’s not a new sentiment. For as long as he’s known her, the queen has been convinced she’ll die before forty. Look upon the royal line, she’d insist, and point me to the woman who has made it to her fifties. It’s true: the queens of Hyrule all died young. But a pattern is not a surety, and acting so is foolish. He opens his mouth to say so, to go through the reassurances once again — you are in perfect health, your highness — but then the queen continues.

“I have foreseen it.”

He stands there, mouth agape, stuck mid-word. Still leaning on the windowsill, the queen turns her head to look at him. It is a beautiful day. The sun shines bright upon her crown, casting a faint golden shadow upon her face.

“Are you sure?” he asks, once he had found his words again.

She turns from the window towards him, crossing her arms, long white sleeves entangling. It is not as elaborate as her usual ones, but then, she won’t be using it for long; she’s had it made to fit her stomach. The pregnancy has been coming along splendidly. Only a few months from now, the crown will have its first heir.

How long before it loses its queen?

“Three weeks ago, I received a vision,” she begins. “Of doom upon our land, an attack launched by an ancient foe. In it, I am dead. It was fairly obvious.”

His mouth is dry. It takes all his training to keep his hands from shaking. “Prophecies are fickle,” he says. “This doesn’t —”

“Do not,” the queen interrupts, “lecture me about prophecy. Know your place.”

Quickly, he bows his head. “I apologize.”

“Save your grief for my grave,” she continues. “Denial serves no one. I did not call you here for weeping.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and nods. Then, he takes a deep breath and rights his head. “What would you have me do?” he asks.

She graces him with a thin smile. It’s the kind he’s craved ever since he came here as a teen, the kind that means approval, another coin to squirrel away as you save up for promotion. Even now that ambition rears its head, and he stands a little straighter. For just a second, the smile brightens.

Then it collapses, disappearing into the folds of pinched skin and worried wrinkles. The crown has aged her quickly; even on her best days, the queen looks far beyond her thirty years. Now, she seems a hundred, bent under her own weight. She sighs and turns from him again, towards nothing in particular, staring into the distance. For too long, she is quiet. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was searching for words, but that’s not something the queen has ever needed to look for.

“My husband is kind,” she finally says. It is not what he expected, but he schools his expression and doesn’t so much as blink. “He is steadfast, brave and loyal, as befits his line.” She waves her hand. “He is also a fool.”

To that, he cannot contain his shock. He sucks in a breath, wincing at its volume. The queen hears, and her mouth almost quirks into a smile.

“My father argued against my marriage,” she says. He already knows, of course; everyone does. The then-king had not attended the ceremony. “It was not, as many think, because he believed him below me. If anything, my husband’s knightly lineage was the only thing that pleased him. It was because he studied history, and he’d seen the damage done by foolish kings. He did not believe I would live long, either.”

She is quiet again. Her fingers dig into her sleeves, and it occurs to him she might not be crossing her arms. She’s hugging herself.

“I married for love,” she says. Her voice has dropped down to barely below a whisper. She squeezes her eyes shut. “It was perhaps my greatest mistake.”

Her face drops. She rubs a hand across it, and adds, quiet as a secret: “And yet I cannot feel regret.”

She straightens. From one blink to another, she has shed the grief upon her face, and turns to him with all the regal poise expected.

“I do not trust my husband to weather this disaster,” she proclaims. “That is why I called you here.”

His heart swells until he can feel it in his threat, nearly choking him on his own pride. He bows. “I am honored.”

“Do not thank me,” she replies. At the edge of her voice, something hovers, but he cannot quite place it. “There is little honor in deception.”

In a lapse, he frowns, quickly smoothing his face again. “Deception?”

“Prophecy is muddled,” she says. It is a statement, not an admission, not a concession. “I acknowledge I may be mistaken. However, if I am right, the threat we are facing is too dangerous for us to rely on mere prayer.”

Before he can ask, she answers.

“I believe the Ganon is upon us.”

He cannot control himself at that. His face deforms in horror, his hand twitching towards his sword at the mere mention.

“There is a prophecy,” the queen continues. “Not mine, to be clear. An old one, passed down to us through the line of Sages. When an evil heart obtains the Triforce, a Hero of the knightly line of Hyrule will appear. Only they alone can face him.”

“Your husband,” he stammers, but she waves him off.

“As I said, he is a fool,” she states. “He will be the first target, and I do not trust him to realize this, let alone to defend himself effectively. No, my husband will not survive this anymore than I will.”

Even at this, she does not falter. If he had not caught her earlier lapse, he would think her cold.

“But someone must.” She places a hand over her stomach. “Someone must.”

Slowly, he’s beginning to understand. Dread rises in his throat like bile, and he swallows it down.

“We must secure the line,” the queen, soon-to-be mother, says. “Both mine and my husband’s. We cannot leave this to luck, or chance, or prayer. At least one of us must survive, to fight evil when the time comes.”

He takes a deep breath — in through his nose, out through his mouth — and keeps his voice calm. “What would you have me do?”

The queen looks him in the eye, gaze steady. “I would have you raise the Hero.”

In, and out. Keep your breath steady.

“You shall lack an heir,” he points out. “Even if the war is won, the kingdom would fall.”

“My people are more important to me than the crown,” she counters. “And there is nothing stopping me from having a second child. I have a few more years, I expect. I can have another heir, one who will grow up in the castle, and perhaps they’ll survive the war. Perhaps not. Either way,” she gestures to him, “there will always be another.”

“How would I convince anyone?” he asks. “How would they know to trust I’m telling the truth?”

“I will leave a letter,” she answers. “A royal seal. It should be proof enough, in the turbulent post-war hours, if it should be necessary at all.”

“And your husband?” he presses. “Will he never know?”

At that, she does quiet. Her gaze does not leave his face, but it turns distant, unseeing. Then, she heaves a small sigh, squares her shoulders, and snaps her gaze to steel.

“I shall leave that to you,” she says. “After I’m dead, you may do what you think is best.”

An icy shock of fear runs through him, but he waits it out.

“Can I refuse?” he asks.

“No harm will come to you,” the queen responds.

“Would it stop you?”

“No.”

Of course not.

He sighs. Allows it to be audible, this time. He kneels before her, such as he has never done in private, rarely at all since they became... perhaps not friends. Their positions prevented it. Acquainted. Since they became acquainted. The thought pulls at his heart, but he prevents tears from falling.

“I am always at your service,” he swears, and it feels like a eulogy.

Two: Understood.

The prince is a stillborn. The king and queen retreat in grief, the castle turns to mourning, the countrymen mostly shrug and move on with their lives. The affairs of nobles concern them not.

Six months later, he knocks on the wet nurse’s door. She opens it, eyebrows raised, with an infant on her hip. The boy has feathery brown hair, just like his mother.

“Yes?” says the nurse, giving him an unimpressed once-over. She notes his knight’s crest, but does not smile. He stands a little straighter.

“I believe you haven infant in your care. I have come to pick him up,” he says, gesturing to the babe she’s holding.

Her eyebrows climb higher, and her disinterested expression tightens itself into a sneer. “This is my son,” she announces, tightening her grip on him. “And I would not give any child to a father who cannot even recognize him.”

Ah. Out of habit, he schools his expression, then thinks the better of it and lets his embarrassment show. “My apologies,” he says awkwardly. “I — Truth be told, I’m not — ah.” He fidgets, then says quickly, “I have a sister.”

“Never seen you around with a sister,” the nurse counters, and he remembers: Kakariko is small. Even an outsider like him might be subject to gossip if he visits often enough. That poses a problem.

“Can you blame me?’ he gambles, gesturing past the nurse into the house, as if to say, She only just told me she abandoned my nephew half a year ago.

He’d hoped it would make the nurse thaw, but she does not relent.

“And you didn’t notice she was pregnant?” she challenges.

He flinches. “Knighthood is a busy job,” is the best he can offer.

“Right.” The nurse shifts, holding her son with both hands. She straightens her back and looks him dead in the eyes. “If your job is more important than your family, how could you hope to care for him proper?”

This, at least, he can counter. “I’ve already accepted a demotion.”

That has an effect. For the first time, the nurse seems taken aback.

“I requested it,” he continues. “As a regular guard, I’ll have much less working hours and more time to care for a child.”

The nurse looks at him, considering. He softens his eyes, careful to make his shoulders slump just a little bit, his foot shifting slightly. Finally, she nods, and it is all he can do not to smirk.

“Well, better the kid have at least some family,” she states, and leads him into the house.

It is small, though still a little larger than his own, with a second story and a little cordoned off kitchen in the back. Two cribs sit in the main room, and in the farthest right lies another baby, a crumpled white thing with faint wisps of hair, too thin to quite make out the colour.

The nurse puts her own child down and picks up her charge, before holding him out. Cautiously, he accepts the babe. He’d expected to feel something, perhaps, but mostly he’s just surprised at its weight. It’s kind of ugly.

“I recommend he stay with me for another year or so,” the nurse says. “He’s about to start weaning, but it’s best for him to keep getting milk next to his food until he’s about two years old.” She glares at him. “And I’m not moving in with you.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” he says, honest; his house is not big enough for it. He’d built it when he first came to Hyrule, carrying next to nothing. He’s worried about living with a child, let alone an adult. He hopes to add another room soon. “But might it be possible for me to stay with you? I would pay rent, if desired.”

She blinks rapidly, then frowns. Her eyes flick to the stairs, and she nods to herself. “That’s an unusual request,” she finally says, but before can apologize for presumption, she continues, “But I do have a small spare room. You can use it if you clean it out, and help me run the household while you’re here. Rent is negotiable.”

He nods. “That would be much appreciated.”

The baby stirs. It kicks its feet, then calms again. He holds very still, and feels a little shock at the movement. This tiny bundle was alive.

“One more thing.”

He looks up. The nurse reaches out to rub the babe’s head, but her eyes do not leave his face.

“Children are not pawns,” she says, and he refrains from wincing. “I agreed not to ask questions when I took this job, but let me make myself clear: whatever games you nobles are playing, leave him out of it. Understood?”

His arms are starting to hurt. He adjusts his grip so the child’s head lays a little more secure.

“Understood,” he answers.

Three: There’s nothing your worth depends on.

He never did manage to add another room. His house is as small as ever, with only one room, though it now contains two beds. Link has not complained, but Link’s walked on a half-broken foot for days without protest, so that means little. He still hopes to expand, but there never seems to be the time.

Link is reading. Rather: he is attempting to read. At seven, he still struggling with basic ABCs, and does not seem to follow the story in the picture book he’s being taught from, not even when he’s read to. He’s slow in this, as he is in most things. By now, it’s expected.

It’s far too late for reading, the sun having long since faded. The lantern does not provide adequate light. When he’d pointed this out, Link had clutched the book and ignored him, so he’d let it be. Link has that breakneck stubbornness of his mother’s, and he’d long since learned to pick his fights.

Then Link begins to sob.

He’s trying to hide it, but he’s so bad at lying. He presses his hand against his mouth to smother the hiccups, but seems to forget the tears streaming down his face.

He sits up, and quietly crosses the room from his bed to Link’s. Link jumps as he sits down, curling up a little tighter, clutching his book with a white-knuckled grip.

“You can try again tomorrow,” he says, soothingly.

Link does not respond. He no longer expects him to. Link can talk, and he does so if really, absolutely necessary, if never above a whisper. For a long time, they’d assumed him incapable of language, and undoubtedly it had taken effort for him to learn, but it seems the problem was something different. When they’d — that is, he and the doctor — had forced Link to speak, it had always resulted in the worst tantrums. The doctor had advised him to ignore them, that rewarding this kind of behaviour would cause trouble in the future, but it was his job to keep Link safe and when he’d started banging his head against the wall he’d put his foot down. Speech was not what he needed to teach Link. There was no reason to push him, if it caused this much distress.

He does hope Link will take to writing. It would make things easier than having to rely on short, sporadic, whispered sentences.

“Link,” he tries, a bit sterner. “You can’t read anymore. You can try again tomorrow.”

He attempts to take the book, but Link pulls it out of his hands, and ducks away under the blanket. He represses a sigh, and wonders if the queen had been like this as a child. As always, the thought of her causes a pang of grief. She had died three years ago now.

He pulls up the blanket. Link stares up at him from a huddle with red-rimmed eyes, betrayed. “You can’t read anymore,” he repeats. He points to the lantern. “You don’t have enough light. You cannot see the letters anymore. You can try again tomorrow.”

It often takes a bit before Link understands, but he does, eventually. You explain it piecemeal, in simple terms, repeat as necessary and are patient, and in turn, he’ll strain every muscle in his tiny body trying to do what you need him to. It’s a good thing, he supposes, but mostly it scares him; the lengths to which he’ll go, the disregard for health and common sense he displays in pursuit of a goal. Link still tries to talk, sometimes, if people tell him to.

He clutches his book and refuses to let go. “I can do it,” he whispers.

That stops him cold. He refrains from asking Link to repeat; he heard him the first time. It’s been weeks, months perhaps, since Link’s last spoken, and the shock of it snaps him to attention. He re-evaluates, but sees nothing he hasn’t already seen: Link, distressed, clutching his book like a lifeline.

“What’s wrong?” he finally asks, softening his voice. He hopes it’s not too much. He needs to ask; he cannot figure it out.

Link shakes his head and wipes at his eyes. “Sorry,” he whispers.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he replies. He reaches out, hovering his hand above Link’s head, waiting for permission. It doesn’t come, but neither does rejection. Link curls tighter. He studies, makes a guess, and slowly lowers his hand onto Link’s head, ruffling his hair.

Link crumbles, sobbing worse, and he pulls him into his lap, rocking him. It seems to work; after a little bit, the sobbing dies down, and Link lies curled up against his chest.

“What’s wrong?” he asks again, softly.

Link sniffs. Muffled, barely audible, he says: “Want to be worth keeping.”

It hits him like a mace to the chest. He hugs Link tighter, keeps his voice calm and soothing, his breathing even.

“You’d always be worth keeping,” he soothes, his cheek resting on Link’s hair. “There’s nothing your worth depends on.”

He doesn’t know if Link believes it. Eventually, he falls asleep, still pressed against his chest. He tucks him into bed and tells himself this is worth it.

Three.

Breath breaks in his throat, and he coughs. Blood accompanies the next inhalation, drowning him on cold hard stone. Yet he keeps gasping, keeps forcing his chest to move and his heart to beat even as it slows, as his hearing fades and his vision blurs. Link’s wide eyes and detached smile grow foggy, as does the sword Link holds, the one he himself had pressed into his arms just a moment before. He wants to reach out, to ruffle Link’s hair, to take that sword away from him again and — It’s too soon, he thinks, it’s too soon, he’s still a child, I never agreed to make this kid —

He did. He’d agreed. In his final moments, he refuses to lie, refuses to play the unwitting victim. He’d raised Link for one reason and one reason only: to hold that sword.

It strikes him then, that thing that wouldn’t come when he’d first held Link, strikes him as a sword and makes his breath stutter and falter for just a second to long. He begins to fade, his eyes fall shut, unable to hold onto Link. His thoughts cling for just a second longer, one living longer than the others, the last to go before he does: regret always finds us too late.

Two.

The king is gardening. It’s a sight that belongs to another era, and it stops him dead. Once upon a time, he would’ve stood in this exact garden, watching the king dig as he does now, accompanying the queen as she accompanied her husband in turn. Once, it had been a scene ordinary as bread and butter. Now, though, the queen lies beneath the earth where Link had refused to let them join, and two dead men stop to stare at one another.

The king breaks the silence. “Care to join?” he asks, gesturing at the flower bed. He is planting bulbs.

Unsure why, he nods and kneels down. The king hands him a bulb, and he gets to planting.

“I wanted to thank you for supporting Zelda,” the king says, casually, as if no time has passed between them two. “I know things have been... difficult on her.” His hands falter for a second. “I appreciate your help.”

What he could say, now, if he were less kind, is Help her yourself, you are her father, she needs you more than me. But the king has shadows under his eyes and his breath is still unsteady, even after nearly a year, so instead he answers, “It is no problem. She is a lovely girl,” which is true also.

The king graces him with a smile, and he realizes how much he’s missed this. He’s always been closer to the queen than the king, but the king was open in all the ways the queen was closed. A decade younger, ambitious still, he hadn’t appreciated the ease as much as he should’ve. Mourning seems to be his throughline as of late, and it bites at him again, the grief. He breathes, and plants another bulb.

“I’ll admit,” the king continues, “I haven’t thought of you very kindly, over the last thirteen years.”

That takes him off guard. He freezes and blinks rapidly, frowning. The king continues digging, oblivious.

“To have a son out of wedlock is one thing, to lie about it another,” the king explains. “I’d always thought you an honest man, so it was disappointing.”

He chokes on nothing. “Excuse me?” he sputters. “Son out of wedlock?”

The king gives him a stern look. “Please, do you think me a fool?” He waves him off, still holding a bulb. “You don’t have a sister. You’ve told my wife about your family. I know you’re no uncle.”

His face flushes, and he finds he can’t think of anything to say.

“It wasn’t a very good lie,” the king adds unhelpfully. “I’m unsure who you thought you were fooling.” He pauses. “Aside from the child, I suppose.”

It is said with nonchalance, not malice, but nonetheless it hurts as if he were stabbed. He breathes in deep.

“It wasn’t —” he starts, then stops, because no: he’d absolutely intended to fool the child. He’d succeeded.

The king now planting bulbs too late in spring had died. So had he, now digging small holes to plant his own seeds in. So had the queen, still rotting in her grave. Where did the Triforce’s power end? Could it have reached six feet under, could it have healed the flesh of a corpse seven years dead, could it have resurrected his queen, if Link had only known to care for her?

Her plan had worked. Her plan had worked better than she’d ever dreamed, her beloved husband alive to plant a garden in a new Hyrulean spring, and yet.

“Do you believe I should’ve been honest?” he asks Link’s father.

“Yes,” he answers immediately. “A child deserves to know his parents.” He levels a pointed gaze.

He sighs. Judgment is warranted, but it needs to be placed in context. On impulse, he admits:”I’m not disowned.”

This catches the king’s attention. His eyebrows raise. “Oh?” he says, surprised. “That’s not what you told us upon enlistment.”

“I lied. I was never disowned, I just ran away.”

At sixteen he’d knocked on the castle door and begged for a position as knight. His skill with the sword had impressed them enough to acquiesce, but privately, the queen had asked what he was running from. He’d told her that he’d been disowned, because the truth was far more complicated, and he didn’t want to risk losing his one taste of freedom.

The king frowns. “Why —”

“I’d prefer not to get into it,” he says curtly. “It does not matter. What matters is that I am no peasant; I am noble, and I ran away from those obligations.”

He’s still digging, but he has stopped paying attention. Instead, he is watching the king, carefully, from the corner of his eye. He chews his lip, frowning.

“That’s... interesting new information,” he finally says. “But I do not see why it matters.”

“It matters,” he responds, “because I do have a sister. She is younger than me, but my parents were starting to consider marital matches when I left.”

When the king shows no sign of realization, he spells it out: “Inheritance, my lord. It matters because Link’s existence could cause a crisis of inheritance.”

Finally, the king’s eyes widen. “Oh,” he mutters. “I suppose that does complicate matters.”

He says nothing, watching as the king processes this, bites his lip, then finally nods to himself.

“Even so,” he says, “if nothing else, Link deserves to know.”

Link had been asking. He’d gone through a phase when he was younger, right after he’d started writing, when he wouldn’t stop asking about his parents. Mostly, he’d dropped the subject after it became clear his questions were being dodged, but after everything, he’d started up with renewed vigor. His fight had made him stronger, more confident, even more stubborn; it had become increasingly hard to wave his questions off. There had been fights.

He wonders if that’s why he woke up one day to a note on the table and an empty bed next to his. Probably. Probably, it had been the fights, and the nightmares Link refused to acknowledge, and Zelda’s nightmares he refused to acknowledge, and all the things he couldn’t fix that he refused to acknowledge.

Link would come back. He promised, and he kept his promises. Link would come back, hopefully bettered by his time at sea, hopefully ready to lay down his sword, and he had to figure out what to tell him.

I shall leave that to you, his queen had said, and now he recognizes it for the cowardice it had been.

He locks eyes with the king. “He deserves to know,” he agrees. “But wouldn’t it be kinder to leave him in ignorance?”

“It would be kinder for you,” the king parries immediately.

He flinches. Grimaces.

“And then?” he asks. “Should I inform the family, cause a succession crisis?”

The king does quiet at that. Presses his thumb against his chin, thinking; he leaves a trail of dirt.

“Let him decide,” he says finally. “It’s his inheritance. He should be the one to decide whether he wishes to claim it.”

He stares at the king. Finally, he nods.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll let him decide.”

One.

The queen stands on his doorstep in peasant’s clothes, haggard and sallow. She’s all skin and bones, hair loose and thin as air, trembling as she leans against the doorpost, holding a walking stick. She gives him a faint smile, though it reads as a grimace more than anything.

“My —” he starts, then stops, quickly switching to: “Please, what are you doing here?”

They’d never discussed this. This hadn’t been in the plan.

Vaguely, she waves in his direction. “Help me get seated,” she orders, and he complies, stepping forward to let her lean on his shoulder as he guides her towards a chair. From across the room, Link watches with wide eyes. He half expects him to jump up and run towards her, hug her like a child should hug their parent, but of course, there is no recognition. He just stares.

The queen stares back. “Hello,” she says softly, and before he can control himself, he flinches. He looks over to Link, but of course, he has not reacted. He is simply staring.

A strange fear flares him. He moves between the queen and Link, cutting off sight of him. “Were you spotted?” he asks, hoping to distract her.

She shoots him an irritated look. “What do you take me for?” she asks, with a bit of that bite he’s used to, and oh, how he’d missed her. He should indulge in this moment, in this reunion, but his mind keeps going to Link behind him and the way some in Kakariko frown, loudly asking what he’s intending to do about that child. There, it doesn’t bother him. He ignores or berates them and moves on. But the woman sitting in his weathered chair is no stray passerby, and the thought of hearing the same from her is almost enough to force her to leave.

Almost. She’s still the queen, after all.

Behind him, he hears rustling as Link moves. As predicted, he does not move towards their visitor, ignoring her entirely, as he usually does. Her eyes move as she follows him.

“Forgive him,” he says, “He does not react well to strangers.”

The queen nods, but does not look at him. The silence feels like judgment.

Link walks past him, unsteady as a toddler, and makes it through the door outside. Normally he’d stop him, but just this once he’s willing to take the risk of letting Link wander off; better than having him here inside with the queen.

“He’s healthy?” asks the queen, eyes locked on the door.

“Yes,” he reassures her quickly. “He’s healthy.”

“He has not talked,” she notes. “Is he shy?”

This time, he catches himself before he flinches. “Ah,” he says. “He does not talk yet.”

The queen frowns, and finally turns to him. “He does not talk yet?” she repeats. “He is four years old.”

“We think he can understand what we’re saying. Probably.”

“Probably?” she asks, incredulously.

“He’s not deaf,” he responds. Then, unable to hide a grimace, “He can hear what you say. He just... doesn’t always respond when you speak to him.”

The queen frowns, and he hurries to add, “According to the doctor, there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s simply a bit slow.”

The queen’s still frowning. Her eyes are half-lidded, set in sunken sockets, and she rests her chin on her hand, breathing hard.

“Are you okay, my queen?” he asks softly.

She waves him off. “Fine,” she snaps. “Fine. He’s healthy, though?”

He exhales. “He’s healthy.”

“Happy?”

The door opens again. As one, they turn to look, and watch as Link patters back in. He walks up to the table and opens his fist. Four small, slightly squished strawberries tumble out, landing on the table in a fleshy splash of juice. Without wiping his hand, Link turns and climbs back into his bed, ducking under the covers.

He stares at the strawberries. His face splits into a giddy grin, and without thinking, he leans over to the queen. “I get him strawberries when he’s sick,” he whispers. “He must’ve thought you could use some.”

The queen stares at them. She says nothing.

Just when the fear starts to return, when he remembers showing basic understanding of others’ existence is not noteworthy in normal children, when he opens his mouth to apologize, the queen starts to cry.

She presses her hand against her mouth and sobs, quiet as can be. Her shoulders shake and he can only stand there, mouth agape. She takes a deep breath. Tears still roll down her cheeks, but she’s quiet now. Trembling, she takes up a strawberry and takes a bite. She eats them all, slowly, with shaking hands, and does not wipe the juice from her fingers.

“I apologize for the intrusion,” she says. “I should take my leave, before anyone finds me missing.”

At that, she stands. He takes her arm and helps her out the door.

“Why did you come?” he finally asks, hushed.

She doesn’t answer. She looks past him into the house, then back towards the Castle. She opens her mouth. Closes it again.

“Take care of him,” she finally says. She turns and walks away, slowly, swaying on unsteady legs, leaning on a near-useless cane.

Six months later, she dies. Of course, Link does not attend her funeral.