#short day today short day! i'll be home early as hell!! hella hella!!

[telesthisia]

On Zel’s telepathy: Her telepathy is a power that she’s aquatinted with far more intimately than the sealing powers and among other abilities granted to her thanks to goddess bloodline. But due to her awful health/power magical stamina she can’t use sealing magic as well as her ancestors did before her, healing is the most she can accomplish without her magic reserves running out too fast as it does with sealing or any other abilities tying with the light magic passed down by the mortal goddess. As for barrier magic, something passed down more by the sages than the goddess, with the help of the seven maidens, she can break down or create a barrier. (This headcanon was long before BOTW came out dhkbfjshb I decided Poor Health is why alttp zel doesn’t display other magics other zel’s did without knowing that it can be hard to unlock these powers). She can’t do the whole barrier magic by herself, it’s an ability that needs a lot of magical powers. The most she can do by herself is pass the hell out just from making a small enough barrier the size of a bedroom door dfhsjkb. The triforce does sap at her magic reserves and health, yes, but she finds telepathy less taxing on her body due to being able to control those incredibly low reservers and it doesn’t require too much effort on her part. On top of that, so long as she takes medicines of magic she’s set! With clairvoyance AND connecting to the spirit realm that’s way out of her control and though she does wake up with either a headache, fatique, or both, it’s once again manageable enough with medicines and medicines of magic. Impa often gives her a brew of medicines to replenish her health every early morning and as always: Zelda hates both those things because how icky they are but still takes it if only to carry on throughout the day. 

Cute fact: A fun little prank she likes to pull on Impa since she was young is pretending to play dead (dramatically placing her hands on her chest, falling to the floor all while saying “i believe this is it, it is the end for me, impa i will see you in the spirit realm”). As an adult, it’s a running joke at this point, to the point where she’d spill red wine and act like it’s blood but Impa knows way better and just goes “Princess pls”, she doesn’t do this joke as often as she did back then.

That out of the way, her telepathy actually breaks up in two parts. Communication, where it’s best described as peering at the brain on a surface level therefore she can not see anything aside from communicating with the person and their response. And perception where she can actually dive deeper into the mind to read thoughts, memories, emotions all that jazz all while sharing her own memories, thoughts, emotions in exchange. Tit for tat, as they say! It’s not necessary for her to do this but she wants to at least make things equal since it means a lot to open up to her completely. Perception requires two important things: complete concentration and touch. Do not be confused by the touch part! She can do little touches just fine without using perception because it requires concentration and complete trust with both parties in order for her to dive deeper. It’s a more overwhelming ability that can cause even more psychic damage than communication does where she just gets a nose bleed if anything. Her telepathy there is an “off” switch she can use because of the total concentration she needs for communication (where she needs to focus on the person or people) as well as perception. Both of these parts of her telepathy do have limited ranges. The best way I can describe this for communication is that it’s possible for her voice to reach Link’s home from her castle. And again, perception is far more intimate than communication so she needs to be close in both distance and relationship. 

She can’t read minds of those who have barriers around their mind, mindless beings, most monsters, and people who have “head empty, no thoughts”.