#shout out to that one youtube video that did an overview of the timelines in less than 30 minutes

[zmeydeva-arch]

 ˖⁺    WHAT CAME FIRST...                     THE DRAGON OR THE GIRL?   ⊹   affiliated with @wrrnth​​  )​

she is not always beneath a hill,  she is not always beneath the earth,   but there is always a sleeper…   the suli are not originally from hyrule,   they are not from this realm at all.   they were a group of oracles and seers banished from their world into this one before hyrule was even hyrule.   coming to settle in the lost woods primarily,   they were a nomadic tribe renowned for their fortune telling and magical wares.   to them magic was commonplace but in a kingdom where it was a gift seldom bestowed,  and in such a generous quantity no less,   the suli became outcast by the hylians.   relegated to the fringes they begin to settle in the desert by the gerudo valley.   at first,  the gerudo people are highly suspicious of the suli as they not only have men among their people but their magic is slightly different than that of their own magicians.   eventually tensions do settle and the two groups trade and mingle though they do not live under the same rule.

zoya is a fledgling mage at this time,   the dragon within her sealed away.  her prowess in ethereal magic makes her a valuable asset to the suli and by extension,  the gerudo,  as she frequently is called upon to summon rain for drinking water.   it is a quaint upbringing and she is a young girl who longs to see the sea and is ill-suited for the dry and barren landscape.   when passing bandits attack her village and her aunt and cousin are killed during the ransacking the dragon is released.  she devastates the enemy faction while also nearly leveling a neighboring gerudo settlement in the process.   hostility rises between the two communities again as the storm dragon is heralded as a suli blight.   in the night zoya is taken from her home and bound with magic,  the gerudo sorceresses seal her away in a tomb beneath a mountain.   there she is forced into a sleep like death...   this resting place will later be known as the desert colossus.  

centuries pass and the spirit temple is erected around the slumbering dragon.  zoya's likeness is captured in the stone around her and carved into the hillside's edifice.   this iconography becomes associated with the goddess of sand amongst the gerudo.   it should be noted,   that in the passing ages the gerudo people have mingled enough with the suli of the ancient times that the two factions have become one in the same.  zoya's name is lost to time after generations of the suli slowly dwindling in size and becoming obsolete.  during the hyrulean civil war many traversed the spirit temple seeking out aid from the goddess in prayer.   some more ambitious individuals attempt to find the tomb itself but only one succeeds.  

during the events of ocarina of time,   nabooru awakens zoya from her sleep to assist in her rebellion against ganondorf.   during this time zoya is disguised as another gerudo warrior and the general's second in command.  it is then revealed that the sorceresses twinrova,  kotake and koume,  are the very same sisters who sealed the dragon away originally.   when they are caught,   nabooru is brainwashed and zoya is held captive in the temple while the two witches prepare another binding ritual.   this is when link arrives to free nabooru and she awakens as the sage of spirit.   zoya in the process is also spared from a premature statis.  when ganon is defeated,   she remains with the gerudo and nabooru to help her rebuild their settlement after being under ganondorf's rule.   it is there the dragon lives out the rest of this phase of her life before her next hundred year sleep.

IN SUMMATION:   zoya is not a reincarnated individual in the loz universe so much as she is a persisting figure throughout its history.   she appears in different forms with different epithets all throughout the timelines and is seldom seen for what she truly is;  a girl displaced tied to the fate of a world she does not actually belong to.  depending on the current state of the environment around her she can be either hero,  villain,  or neutral party. 

ASSOCIATED FIGURES / EPITHETS:  

historical figures or deities that zoya is commonly… and wrongfully,  attributed to throughout the ages

the goddess of sand,  the lunar queen,  the spirit of farore,  a facet of ganon himself,  queen of demons,  apprentice to vaati,  a remnant of demise,   queen of the great faeries,  the bakunawa