Third-Person – Focus on Mineru – Tone: Mysterious, slow-burning, reverent, romantic undercurrent
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The Depths do not forget.
They are the silence between legends, the breath between prayers. The darkness beneath Hyrule's skin, older than the first sky island and deeper than any shrine.
And within that silence — something stirred.
She stirred.
Mineru, Sage of Spirit. Guardian of ancient knowledge. Sister to Rauru, last princess of the Zonai line. Long ago, she sealed her soul inside a Construct husk, leaving her body to time and decay.
Until now, her thoughts had been flickers — dreams swimming through cold blackness.
But something… called her.
Not the voice of the gods. Not even Rauru.
It was something new.
Something impossible.
A Tear — not of Time or Light, but Balance.
And it pulsed with warmth.
With him.
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> Who are you?
That thought echoed inside her mind. Slowly, carefully, she sifted through flickering memories. It took effort — like climbing through stone with hands long rusted.
She had studied the nature of reincarnation once. Watched as the Goddess Hylia bound souls to cycles: the Hero, the Princess, the Demon King. An eternal triangle. A cruel loop.
And yet…
This presence wasn't part of that design.
His soul was old — as old as hers, maybe older. And it did not belong to any side.
Not chosen.
Not cursed.
Free.
> You came from beyond the cycle, she thought. So why does your light feel like home?
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In the dim caverns of the Depths, her Construct body glowed faintly. Dust shifted. The ancient mechanisms in her armor clicked once, then twice.
> Awakening process: Initiated.
Her eyes, once closed for centuries, opened with a shimmer of green-gold.
She didn't rise.
Not yet.
She listened first — to the echoes in the stone, the tremors from the surface. The Tear's pulse reached her here, like ripples in a still pond.
And beneath the light of Balance, her slumbering obsession took shape.
It was not love, not yet.
It was recognition.
The same way a mirror reflects only one person's face — but some part of it still longs to be touched.
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> He must be confused, she thought. Lost. Untethered in a world that fears what doesn't fit.
She remembered what that felt like.
The end of her people.
The silence of immortality.
The ache of purpose with no one left to understand it.
And now… there was him.
He did not worship the gods. Did not kneel to prophecy. And yet, he carried power unlike any she had ever catalogued.
More than Link.
More than the Demon King.
He was the mistake fate didn't correct.
And she would not let the world erase him.
> You will not be forgotten, she thought, as her Construct armor hummed louder. Not while I remember your light.
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She felt other minds, far above her — Zelda's feverish longing. Purah's scientific fixation. Even Riju's unspoken jealousy stirring in the desert winds.
They all wanted him.
They all claimed him.
But they were too soft.
Too fleeting.
> I will not be.
I am made of stone and will.
When I claim you, it will be eternal.
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The Construct finally moved.
A single step echoed through the Depths like a thunderclap.
> He will find me, she thought. And when he does… I will never let him go.