The Promise Of Ages

Evening of Wednesday, June 19, 2019 (comprised of many raw note editings from May 1 through May 10, 2023 that I really hope sound consistent because I left it alone for too long) ~ 4

The Promise Of Ages

The Calamity howled his thousand-dragon-howl, bracing his monumental hooves and throwing up his neck, his putrid tongue lolling between his jaws—the Eyeball in the nape roved and twitched—

And a Light—that Light again!

A White Light SHOT UP from deep beneath the muscled crest of the Beast.

It was her....

It was Zelda.

It was Princess Zelda.

She gleamed like a Star in the Heavens, hands clasped before her as if in prayer, eyes serenely closed, golden light gleaming from her person and leaving a spray of diamonds in her wake.

She was free of the Demon’s grasp.

Everything had stopped. Only the holy resounding ringing of her appearance chimed ceaselessly, cyclicly, like a heavenly glass armonica, humming and shimmering to eternity.

The Calamity snorted, the sound shrunken, roomed in without an echo, as his eyes beheld the Princess.

She hovered back down, haloed as if by a holy golden flame, alighting in the grass so softly she did not even bend. Gentle as a flower, soft as a sigh, she opened her eyes, and no fear marred her brow.

The Demon collapsed onto its chest before her, crashing massively at her feet, its all-rending tusks coming close to crushing her on either side—

—and yet never close at all.

Still blazing, still heaving, still rumbling, the wind of its throes sweeping the grass and casting up the Princess’ hair—

And yet all about her person still was only that serenity, and that gentle ringing.... and perhaps.... as her brow betrayed the slightest furrow.... perhaps.... a little sorrow.

Her eyes looked on the Demon then, purposefully.

And that was the only sign to be seen.

The holy light around her pulsed into renewed ringing, the golden flames moving, growing stronger, no longer at rest, the little glimmers breathing about her person now casting forward like embers in a wind.... toward the Demon.... toward the Calamity.

The Beast chuffed, roared, gnawing the air, its jaws working—what it couldn’t grind to a pulp with that defiling tongue, the foul teeth....

Its eyes still gaping....

But for only a moment more.

For in the next breath the Princess’ shining and ringing redoubled, tripled, overflowed beyond themselves all at once into a radiating brilliance. She was become a tremoring golden sun made flesh, as waves of holy light washed outward and over the Demon.

Beaming spears of golden light shining outward in every direction from her person....

And this final insistence could not be denied.

With a last descending groan, the Calamity mourned out its defiance as its body, the horrible, writhing, Malice-bound mountain of itself, began to recede and wither away, evaporating beneath the Princess’ holy light.

An almighty sizzling electrified the landscape as the hot magenta flames were purged from the crumbling form, licking up into the sky, until all the was left.... was that ghostly form I had first seen of it so long ago.

It mounted into the air, coiling from the cloud of its corporeal death and twining like a snake—its terrifying jaws still roaring fit to swallow the world—

It swooped and stooped like an enormous bird of prey, unable yet to take that woman in its jaws—

But Zelda—her eyes still calm, her brow even, her lips not yet even parted—indeed her face as set and still as one holding her breath underwater—Zelda raised her hand with a final renewed gleaming, and—

SHEEEN-RING!

The sound was like the resonance of an everlasting church bell, mighty from a cathedral tower, resounding and warming and booming and golden without fading and without concussive instigation. Just.... ringing.

The Princess conjured an ever expanding sphere of holy golden light against the Demon’s last lunge. Its wickedness could not stand before her Power, falling to dark shreds and nothing before the divine glow, the sacred Triforce ringing at the center.

The sphere continued to grow, as if to cast a shield around all of Hyrule....

But its only aim was the Calamity—the fleeing Calamity Ganon—and it engulfed him, even his ghostly form then deforming, the jaw unhinging one last time as the Light consumed him and he vanished. His terrible, terrible eyes....

Zelda stood, her right hand still raised, the mighty, flaming, burning, golden sphere of her holy Sealing Power still ringing upon the earth.... until with a final rush like a whipping flag, the mighty sphere shrank with a subito sudden silence, and—Vvp!—

—!—

Blinked its bound captive out of existence.... and back into planes of darkness.

The world faded out to white.... for a looong, loong breath.

And then....

DESTROY GANON

COMPLETE

I exhaled, and Mom and I gazed and gasped in wonderment at each other.

“I didn’t think I would do this on a Wednesday!” I growled in happy exasperation.

The world faded back into view—the battlefield faded back into view.

The sky still raged crimson beneath a Blood Moon.

But.... no....

Light was beginning to shine through.

The racing cloud-wrack, so fitfully tormented, began at last to still, its nightmare finally ending....

The Castle pillars in the distance—they were blue now.

The Piano was the first to step back onto the grass. And it tenderly held the hand of the Lullaby, and led it childlike back to she to whom it belonged, where she stood in the grass. Even as the last dusty maroon in the sky was giving way to lavender.... to the shadow of blues waiting to be born....

“I’ve been keeping watch over you all this time...” the Princess halted.

Her back was to me. That beautiful white dress. The very same? The one with a Grecian grace....

The fiery glow left her hair as the sky cooled further still.

“I’ve witnessed your struggles to return to us as well as your trials in battle.”

I stepped toward her. The Bow of Light still slung across my back.

But she still didn’t turn.

Under the foggy blue of the sky, she had returned to her proper honey-blonde now. The trees in the distance beyond her now green again, no longer clawing nightmares....

“I always thought—no, I always believed—that you would find a way to defeat Ganon.”

The sun beamed brighter still. Haloing us both.

“I never lost faith in you over these many years...”

As at last her feet stepped—swiveled—and stood.

She was a lily about to bloom under the radiant sun’s light, shining new on the world.

“Thank you, Link...”

Hands still clasped so elegantly over her heart.

“...the hero of Hyrule.”

And her green eyes shone. No longer burdened, no longer so solemnly set in power so great and terrible.

Just.... smiling.

But the little furrow came back, as her shoulders rose yet.... and a gentle uncertainty tugged at her brow.

“May I ask...” she started breathlessly....

And the Music held its peace.

“Do you really remember me?”

As we stood apart, together, in the sun.

—A timeless piping took my hand, though, singing the Ancient Song, as it drew the curtain on the Orchestra’s soft cadence, and faded the scene to black.... the Piano voicing the final tremulous laughter from my quivering throat.