Princess Zelda: Wisdom Bearer by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Princess-Zelda-Wisdom-Bearer-1196293402#image-1

Princess Zelda: Wisdom Bearer ANIMATION

The Bells Beneath Hyrule

The bells began tolling before the moon rose. They came from beneath the ground — soft at first, like glass struck under water — then louder, like the heartbeat of the earth itself. When the first chime reached the surface, every torch in Castle Hyrule guttered and hissed out.

Princess Zelda felt the sound in her bones.

She stood in the Great Hall, a lantern held high, the tapestries on the walls twitching in the draft of something vast moving below. Her advisors had fled; the guards stood trembling at their posts. The bells had not rung in a thousand years. They were said to sound only when the Deep Vault awakened.

“Your Highness,” Captain Renel said, voice trembling, “we should seal the lower gates. Whatever stirs beneath—”

“No,” Zelda said softly. “If we seal them, it will rise elsewhere. The vault’s heartbeat has returned. It must be answered.”

Renel swallowed. “By you?”

“By me.”

There was no other answer.

The legends whispered of an ancient dungeon beneath the castle — a labyrinth built to contain the sorrow of Hyrule itself. Every grief, every curse, every cry that could not reach the gods had sunk there, until stone and shadow became one living thing. It was sealed with the Bells of Binding, which only tolled when something within stirred.

Zelda descended alone.

The first level was damp and cold, lined with carvings of weeping angels whose eyes had been gouged out. She lit her lantern again and again as unseen drafts blew it out. The silence was immense.

“Show yourself,” she said once, when she thought she heard footsteps.

Only her voice replied, stretched and distorted — Show yourself… yourself… self…

She tightened her grip on the lantern. “Echoes are honest, at least.”

Something laughed.

Not far ahead, a doorway shivered with faint blue light. When she crossed it, she entered a vast chamber filled with broken clocks. Hundreds of them, hanging from pillars and chains. Each ticked to a different rhythm, some fast, some slow, some backward.

A single figure sat at the center — a man made entirely of clockwork, his face a golden mask frozen in a half-smile.

“Ah, the royal pulse,” he said, voice creaking like old hinges. “I remember that sound. Your ancestors’ hearts beat much like yours before they stopped.”

Zelda lowered her lantern. “Who are you?”

“I was the Warden once. I kept time still so sorrow could sleep.” The golden head tilted. “But sorrow woke, and now I wind it again.”

She stepped closer. “What woke it?”

“Loneliness.”

Zelda frowned. “The Vault is lonely?”

“Everything that feels forgotten becomes lonely. And loneliness… grows teeth.”

The clockwork man reached toward her with delicate brass fingers. “You could ease it, Princess. A little time from your heart, perhaps? A minute? An hour? You have so many.”

Zelda met his gleaming eyes. “I will give you something better.”

She drew her rapier, and the blade sang as it caught the faint light. “Release me passage.”

The Warden sighed, a sound of rust scraping stone. “Always blades with your bloodline. Very well. But remember — even clocks that fight time must break.”

He struck his chest. Gears burst outward, spinning through the air like razors. Zelda dodged, parried one, another — the sound of metal against steel rang like a scream. She slashed upward, catching the Warden’s neck.

His head rolled, clicking once more before it stopped. The chamber’s clocks fell silent.

As she turned to leave, one of them whispered: You are running out of minutes, child.

Deeper.

The air thickened with mist that tasted like tears. Shadows flickered across the walls, forming shapes of people she had known — her father, her handmaids, Link — though each had hollow eyes and smiled too widely.

She tried not to look.

Down another stair, past chains that moved on their own. She followed the sound of the bells, which now pulsed in slow, wet tones.

A figure waited for her at the bottom — a woman in white, her face hidden by a veil that shimmered faintly blue.

“Welcome, Zelda of the sunlit halls,” the woman said. “I am the Archivist. You’ve come to read the kingdom’s forgotten chapters.”

Zelda steadied her breath. “I’ve come to end them.”

The woman’s laughter was gentle but wrong,
...(more at https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai).
For more supergirl, chun li, batgirl, tifa, lara croft, wonder woman, rogue and much more, please visit my page at www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai - Thanks for your support :)