((ZELDA AU DUMP what if she hadn't been untransformed... And stayed a dragon... So Link (the one that we know) creates a group of knights to idk... Honour her? Protect her? Brainworms... Cringe but free))

It had been a long time since Zelda remembered the shape of her hands.

She dreamed of them, sometimes, like faint echoes in the back of her mind. Delicate fingers brushing dust from ancient tomes, pressed into soft earth, clenched into fists when her kingdom bled. But dreams faded quickly in the endlessness of centuries. Blurring into the space between the sky and the land that she could never reach. And dragons do not cry.

She had long since lost count of the years.

The world had changed. Hyrule had risen and fallen and risen again. There had been heroes and villains and villains and heroes. But never another princess. The people below had turned her into story, then myth, then sacred truth. Children pointed at her silhouette in the sky and called her Lightscale, the Golden One, the Eternal Queen. Her name was written on frescoes, monuments, royal texts. But never spoken. Not anymore.

She had lost that name. Or her people had lost it for her. Whoever had known her in life was long gone, now. The ones who remained only knew the whispers of who she had been before, deformed over the years. Zelda, the benevolent princess. So selfless, so pure. So brave. The one who gave herself up to save her subjects.

None of them knew that she watched. That she remembered.

She remembered him. Fragments of him, at least. Her Link. The one who had finally defeated Ganondorf. Who had finished it, once and for all. The man, the boy, who put her heart back in her chest. Of course, it hadn't been enough. Nothing would ever be enough for her to turn back. And, somehow, she had made peace with that. Because her Link had made sure she would never be alone again.

He had given her something that could stand the passage of time. The Dragon Guard. Zelda still passed over their citadel, sometimes. A place of prayer and prophecy and swords held high in honour. And the guards, Knights who didn't pledge themselves to the king, or the kingdom, but to her. Kneeling on mountains and whispering her name like martyrs and saints.

They still waited. They still searched. For him.

The next one. The next Link. Another face with the same eyes. Another soul with the threads of courage woven into his very being, like a tunic he could never take off. And it was never her Link, but it was close enough. She knew him. Every single one, over the years, she knew. And she loved.

You were the same. Eyes, soul. The child who climbed up the windmills to see her better. The prodigy that the Dragon Guard stole away to their citadel before you could even understand the old tales. It took you years to even understand what you were, what you both were. And the last human part of her hoped you forgave her for that.

The world had shifted again, since the last time you came to see her. Imperceptibly. In a way that only she would notice. You kneeled in the soft dirt, head bowed in prayer, and she lowered her head to try and be at eye level with you. If the winds didn't turn again, the awakening would be soon. During your lifetime, at least. It was always hard, when one of her Links had to save the world again. But after all, that was what you were born for.

You ran a hand through the soft fur on her snout, and Zelda closed her eyes. Another small tear dripped down and landed, warm and golden, on the ground below. She wished she could say something, anything. But she was stuck like this, trapped in her mind until you left, taking her memories with you.