smashcon | Exodus (2018 FanFiction Competition)

Title: Exodus

Rating: PG

Prompt: “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” – Michael Jordan
Fandom/Series: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Word Count: 2,746 words

Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, profit from the story and all creative rights to the characters belong to their original creator(s).

Summary: The Princess knows she can depend on the other Champions, but she does not trust them like she trusts Urbosa.

Exodus

It is one of the last nights.

Already the other Champions are with their Divine Beasts, ready to face Calamity Ganon.

They wait for the word that is yet to fall from Zelda’s lips.

She cares for Daruk, Revali, and Mipha – she knows Link cares for them too, especially the Zora. They’re all very close friends, each with the own strengths, concerns, quirks and wonders; the group picture on the Sheikah Slate is more valuable than the metal mountains in Father’s treasury.

But Zelda cannot bear to send Urbosa away into what could be her grave.

Link patrols the area. He kindly keeps a significant and respectful distance away from them, to allow the two friends some private time in the dwindling hours of the darkness before dawn. Zelda’s grateful for his forethought, and knows he is alert enough to keep an eye out for any foes that dare disturb them. She is safe with him, she knows this.

Zelda stares up at Urbosa in wonder. The great protector. What words can be said now?

The silence chokes her, fills her lungs with weights that she can’t breathe out, like Link tried to teach her weeks ago. She looks downward as Urbosa remains motionless, as still as the Gerudo sands underneath their feet. The chill of the desert’s fading night hovers around them, clinging to them like regrets and bad luck.

Zelda swallows, looking back up at her friend, “Well, where should we begin?”

Urbosa’s silent. The distance has captured her gaze, well past Vah Naboris’ neck. She inhales and exhales deeply, as though she is deliberately taking in the smells of the desert. Zelda follows her line of vision carefully, through the empty spaces and weakening darkness. On the horizon she sees small, twinkling lights – too low to be stars, too bright and unmoving to be people approaching with torches.

Gerudo Town.

“You will see it again, I know you will,” Zelda remarks, hands behind her back. She steps forward, standing beside the Gerudo Chief – not quite shoulder-to-shoulder given their height difference, but the intent is there. “They will welcome you back from your journey with open arms, and with love greater in amount than the sand grains we stand on.”

She does not look at Zelda, despite her words. The Hylian Princess knows how much Urbosa does for her people, how hard she tries – the depth of love for her home. She knows how desperate Urbosa feels to succeed for them – after all, she feels the same desperation carved deep into her own bones.

Clearing her throat, Zelda tries again, linking an arm around one of Urbosa’s, hoping that the act is comforting and warm, “I’m very thankful that you wanted to help. I couldn’t have gotten this far without you – not even from the beginning, before the Divine Beasts. I… owe you so much, Urbosa. More than I can describe.”

Urbosa would not look at her.

Swallowing, Zelda lets go of her arm and walks hurriedly to stand before her. Urbosa turns her head slightly to the side, looking at another part of the desert instead – anywhere but her face, she finds. Judging from this direction, Zelda surmises Kara Kara Bazaar is in the distance. More of her people that Urbosa longs to defend – to save.

The silence unnerves her. Zelda wearily huffs, folding her arms tightly across her chest. Out of the corner of her eye she spots Link still pacing and keeping away, which she is appreciative of. Summoning all the power she has to settle her nerves, Zelda asks, “Do you have nothing to say, or am I bothering you? Are you alright?”

And still Urbosa would not look at her.

As they stand among the Gerudo sands, the quiet between them fills her unpleasantly, like the memory of her Mother’s unwavering belief in her incapable daughter. The quiet feels so haunting that not even the wind itself dared to breathe and shatter the stillness.

“Wilting courage,” Urbosa replies at last, the corner of her lips failing to rise into a smile.

Zelda studies her under the slow beginnings of sunlight that crawl above the horizon. Red hair gradually glittering under the coming rays, a body as strong as stone, and timeless features. But her face, with brown markings around her eyes and blue marring her lips like ornamental war paint, tells more about the Gerudo Chief than what words ever could.

She will not say Urbosa looks afraid. She will not say Urbosa looks defeated. She will not even say Urbosa looks tired. It is something else, something foreign burrowing out of the confidence and cracking through the surface. Something Zelda has never seen cross her face before, in all the years she has ever known her. Not even in her childhood memories.

Something she can’t quite name.

“What is this hesitance?” Zelda inquires, fighting to keep the fire from her voice. She’s not mad – she’s frightened, because the most unshakable woman in the world is… is… different. In a time of great need, where the pillars of Zelda’s world needed to stay constant, Urbosa is different. “Is this too much, now? On the precipice?”

She had gone out of her way to place more burden upon Urbosa’s steady shoulders, feeling that they would not shudder or crack or break; as reliable as the stone cliffs that guarded the desert from outsiders. But her friend, the leader of an entire people, was already under great strain – Zelda feels foolish to have asked for her help, or to have so easily expected it.

The Princess knows she can depend on the other Champions, but she does not trust them like she trusts Urbosa.

Urbosa stares back, forest green into sea blue, both foreign in the landscape they stand within. In all of Zelda’s memories of her, Urbosa always had something to say. A supportive smile and calm demeanour in the moments where Zelda’s anxiety swallowed her. Grit and strength in Zelda’s weak moments. A warm embrace in moments where Zelda felt as though she were going to shatter like ice. And now the Gerudo has no words.

Urbosa does not meet her gaze. Instead, she looks behind Zelda, staring at the mechanical being she is soon to call her home. Zelda watches Urbosa’s eyes as she takes in the shape of Vah Naboris – the long neck, mechanical body, the emotionless face of a being so lifelike and tall. Zelda wonders how the others mentally prepared themselves for the great task they faced. If they were truly ready, and had a chance at success.

Was success always so stressful? Was saying goodbye always this difficult?

Tensely, Zelda runs her fingers through her golden hair, and then internally winces at the knot she finds at the end. She repurposes her fingers into brushing through the locks, trying to ease out the knot and her anxiety within. If fearless Urbosa feels this way now, before the plunge, then what chance does she have against such an unspeakable evil?

And the silence – does Urbosa actually dislike her? Resent her? Does Urbosa wish that she grew up to be half the woman her Mother, the Queen, had been? Did Urbosa ever have true, genuine confidence in her abilities? Or is she just an annoying shadow of a greater woman, who nips at dark heels?

Zelda loudly exhales, trying to control her anxiety. She wishes she were calmer like Link, like how he tames horses with such ease. She hears Urbosa’s feet shift in the sand, moving away from her. Zelda fights hard to bite down on the frustrated wave bubbling in her gut, as it threatens to erupt from her mouth. She feels, though, that some of it still leaks out, “You feel insignificant, is that it? Is that why you’re being like this? Your people look to you for your wonderful leadership. They love you more than I can articulate, and you see it daily. How could you feel so… worthless?”

“I have never questioned my worth,” Urbosa snaps at last, her voice whipping through the air like the lightning she lovingly wields. She glares down at the short Hylian, her eyes glaring thunderously; until something unnameable overcomes her. Urbosa’s voice loses its edge, “Only if I am enough.”

A last, the word forms in her mind.

“Doubt?” Zelda questions, blinking owlishly. “That’s… unlike you.” She winces as Urbosa twitches. “I wish that came out better. I don’t intend to offend. I just mean… You’re such a sure person. Always so confident in your choices, so wonderfully bold; so unlike me. It is odd watching you tread down the same path as I.”

“Even the strongest wolves doubt their steps in thick snowfall, little bird,” Urbosa replies with warmth that gently soothes the Princess’ fears. “You should know that most of all.”

The silence surfaces again, but this time it is a comfortable one. An old-style one, where she does not doubt the supportive love of the other beside her; and where she hopes the Gerudo doesn’t doubt the same supportive love Zelda has for her.

Urbosa sighs, resting the palm of her hand on the end of her sword. She softly traces each dip and rise in the hilt’s patterning, trying to calm herself down. She speaks, “I can’t help but wonder… We’ve had such little time to prepare for this battle compared to the Calamity’s ten thousand years. I have to wonder if what we have done is enough. If my beautiful city will continue to thrive; if its daughters will grow into wives… If I will be enough for you.

“Or will our work be for nothing? If I will fail to uphold my duty, and fail the people that would otherwise thrive, the daughters that would otherwise grow, because I didn’t prepare enough,” Urbosa continues, swallowing the thick lump in her throat. Her voice grows stronger with each passing word, more reminiscent of the Urbosa that Zelda has known for over a decade. “If I fail, my legacy is a dying people, a doomed world, and a dead Princess. A shadow of the Gerudo pride that fostered me. I would be… nothing.”

Zelda stares at her friend carefully. Her hair surrounds her face like a red halo. Zelda’s voice is firm when she speaks, “No, you are far from that. I don’t doubt your talents, your kindness, your morals – you are the picture of strength to me! Unyielding like the storms above. You are what every leader should be… and what I hope to become.”

“This isn’t a pack of hungry wolves beating down on our door, little bird,” Urbosa grunts, staring again into the distance, where Gerudo Town is. “This is a fable that’s returned as a fact. The stuff of nightmares coming back into the waking world. That’s unsettling.”

Urbosa’s eyes snap back to Zelda when she speaks again, “Believe me, I understand. I know what is at stake – I have spent the last ten years trying to prepare for this! Hours upon hours of training, trying to unlock these powers; and even in the end, I cannot summon them! But I’m not backing down, because you never let me back down. You always pushed me forward, and I wish the same for you. For us to face this together. I believe in you, I always have! Even if you doubt yourself, I do not doubt you.”

“I cannot fail, Zelda,” Urbosa growls, eyes alight upon her Princess, furrowing her brow. “I know you understand the weights we carry. I cannot fail my people, or myself, and most certainly not you. My failure creates your failure, and dooms this world to Ganon. I-I… refuse…” She trails off, the hanging words rapidly retreating back into her throat like ants from the underground.

Zelda waits with baited breath, tilting her head slightly. She waits for Urbosa to release the last, nagging thought on her mind, one that seems to have persistently bothered her for many days. She waits for the walls to come down.

“I refuse to put you in such a world where I failed you,” Urbosa announces, the emotion leaking slowly at the passing of every word.

The cold, still air nips slowly at Zelda’s throat, spreading across her white skin and to every available surface. Her eyes don’t leave Urbosa’s, not for one second, because each second is now more precious, more valuable, and more important. Zelda raises a hand and lifts Urbosa’s chin, her fingers ghosting the woman’s strong jaw. Zelda says softly, “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”

Urbosa stares, fighting the welling emotion inside of her. And then it passes with the deliberate closing of her eyes, the steadying of her shoulders, and the long, quiet, purposeful exhale that exits her. Zelda releases her hold on the Gerudo, allowing her hand to fall limply between them. The sun, fully breaking past the horizon, shines around them both.

The Gerudo Chief finally comes back into herself. The easy smile that slides across her face, the tilt of her hips – much of the rigid posture of before having left her with her previously exhaled breath. Her painted-blue lips part, “Well now, they always did say the littlest bird has the biggest voice.”

Zelda releases a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Seeing Urbosa finally relax calms her down too. Her shoulders slump a little, and her eyes open a little wider, though she still feels very tired, “I’m glad you’re alright again, and relieved that you’ll now speak to me.”

“It was a moment of weakness, nothing more.”

“We’re all allowed moments of weakness, Urbosa. If this was yours, then I am glad to have been with you through it,” Zelda remarks, rubbing her eyes. She looks up at her friend, finding that Urbosa’s watching her closely. The tilt in her hips grows with every passing moment, and her posture continues to relax; even when Zelda chokes, “I cannot bear the thought of you alone.”

Urbosa tries to smile a little. She wraps an arm around the smaller girl’s shoulders, holding her tightly, and squeezing her fingers around the blue-clad upper arm. “I’m never alone. I have all the love I could want in this world – from my people, from my friends, from those that have moved into the next life, and from you. There’s nothing more I need to keep me afloat in these times.”

Zelda nods, reeling in the emotions before they spill forth. She looks up at her friend, smiling widely, teeth showing. She clasps her hand over Urbosa’s, squeezing, “Please Urbosa, please be well, stay safe, and stay strong – that is an order!”

“I’ll fight hard, too,” Urbosa replies, without missing a beat.

It is their last night. Time to say goodbye.

Zelda’s hand ascends Urbosa’s muscled arm, until she grasps her shoulder in return and pulls them in together for a brief hug. Her closest friend and confidante, Zelda doesn’t know what she will do if something ever happened to Urbosa; nor what she will do when this is all over. When they succeed, alive, breathe the free air and continue building this beautiful world together.

She so badly wants all Champions to pull through, to lead Hyrule into an age of light, together, so they can all live with joy. An exodus from darkness.

“I already lost Mother,” Zelda abruptly mumbles into Urbosa’s side. “I can’t lose you too.”

Urbosa pulls back and fights to keep the sadness from her growing smile. She tucks some loose blonde strands behind Zelda’s pointed ear and taps her cheek once, “Promise me you’ll fly high, little bird – we’ll never see an end under your steadfast wings.”

Link rejoins the Princess. He nods once, a firm, slow, deliberate act to Urbosa, who smiles in the same way in return. The Master Sword hums against his back.

The pair watch as Urbosa walks to Vah Naboris. She looks over her shoulder, shooting them one last electric smile, before ascending into the belly of the beast, swallowed by metal. Shortly after, Vah Naboris slowly begins moving away, shrinking against the sun.

Zelda at last cannot help the sobbing that follows. And as unfaltering as ever, Link wraps an arm around her shoulders and steadily holds her, turning her away to leave.

They watch the shadow of the Divine Beast on the sand moving away as they part.

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