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"I have loved you for as long as you have existed."
The goddess is cruel to tell him that. The goddess is cruel to speak from his lover's mouth, to whisper nonsense promises into his hair in the dead of night. The goddess is cruel to keep him at her side like a loyal dog, to let him go like an unwanted mouth she is too indifferent to feed. The goddess is cruel.
Link sinks to the ground in prayer.
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"I have loved you for as long as you have existed."
The hero is cruel to tell him that. The hero is cruel to hold the apple to his lips, to coax needlepoint teeth into sinking past the skin of the forbidden fruit. The hero is cruel to pull him close, to hold in outstretched hands the wonder that permeates the world of the light. The hero is cruel.
Shadow shatters the mirror with an iron fist.
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"I have loved you for as long as you have existed."
The forest is cruel to tell him that. The forest is cruel to raise him gently, to impress upon him the laws of children that demand fairness and kindness above all else. The forest is cruel to grow him a life of trickster games and fairy chimes that he is not allowed to live, to leave hands too small to alone hold up a mistake he has not made and a death he has not faced. The forest is cruel.
Link digs his fingers into the earth and pleads.
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"I have loved you for as long as you have existed."
The hero is cruel to tell her this. The hero is cruel to stand between her and the nightmares that approach, to teach her that there is nothing in this world she cannot face with him at her back. The hero is cruel to leave her side, to venture into waters never charted while she waits alone in a house like bait. The hero is cruel.
Aryll rises from the dirt with a spyglass like a sword.
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"I have loved you for as long as you have existed."
The shade is cruel to tell him that. The shade is cruel to train him in sweat and steel, to pass his burden down the line of succession. The shade is cruel to use him like a mirror, to see only his phantom self and his failures silhouetted over him. The shade is cruel.
Link rises from the shadows like the dead.
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"I have loved you for as long as you have existed."
The hero is cruel to tell her that. The hero is cruel to do as she asked, to breathe life into the notes the god's absent void had pulled from her chest. The hero is cruel to hand a love so real to an illusion who can never hold it, to weep when it slips between her fingers like the sand beneath their feet. The hero is cruel.
Marin kisses him with everything she does not have.
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"I have loved you for as long as you have existed."
The princess is cruel to tell him that. The princess is cruel to ask for more, to whisper him awake from a death that was not his right to bear. The princess is cruel to demand he shake awake the sleeping dogs, to ask him to shoulder a burden he was never meant to hold. The princess is cruel.
Link circles the castle like a moth drawn to a flame.
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"I have loved you for as long as you have existed."
The hero is cruel to tell it that. The hero is cruel to see the world's bones jutting out from its rotting skeleton, to light fires in the windbroken canyons between its ribs and splash in poisoned puddles from the hollows of its eyes. The hero is cruel to fail the world it loves, to dribble poisoned gold into its mouth. The hero is cruel.
The world cradles a dim fairy and weeps.
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"I have loved you for as long as you have existed."
The witch is cruel to tell him that. The witch is cruel to give him everything he ever wanted, to press love and faith and brotherhood into his hands until he holds on with everything he has. The witch is cruel to dangle the toy in front of her pet, to tease it away and laugh while he whines. The witch is cruel.
Link paints portals of his own from her blood.
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