Zelda walks to her doom

As with any ceremony, there were rules that were expected of its participants, even if those rules weren't written down anywhere.

Zelda paused before the door for a moment, taking her last chance to take a final calming breath, before she exhaled and then turned the knob. From this point onward, she had to follow the rules that tradition expected of her.

“Ah! There you are, your Highness,” the maid said. The woman looked up and down and down the naked girl in front of her, unabashedly taking in the sight of the princess's breasts and vulva, before smiling. “Oh, you look so pretty, ma'am. I wish I had half your figure to get away with wearing something like that. You must be so excited that this day has finally come!”

Unspoken Rule Number One of a Hylian Royal Coronation was that a princess would never actually admit they were humiliated. They could blush as much as they wanted, because a blush could be explained away as being properly humble and embarrassed at the pomp of the ceremony or at not feeling worthy of the praise of her people.

But a princess could never shuffle, or let her head hang, or use her hands to cover her body or really show her shame in any physical way at all. And the godesses forbid if you actually said anything about wanting to wear some clothes! The first princess had stood proud (or so the legend said), and any subsequent princess doing any less would bring shame on the proceedings.

Mindful of what was expected, Zelda stamped down on her urge to slam the door shut and hide under her bed sheets, or to tell the maid that if she thought it was so exciting then why didn't she take her place? Smiling regally, and keeping her hands at her side so that her flesh was bare to the maid's approving view, she nodded instead. “Thank you. I take it all is in order?”

“Oh yes,” the maid agreed as she started to lead the princess along the empty corridor. “Even though it's early in the day there must be half of Hyrule gathered to watch the ceremony! It's been so long since we've had a ceremony like this, that everyone's eager to see one again.”

Yes, I bet they are eager, Zelda thought in the privacy of her mind. It's not every day you get to see a Royal Peepshow, after all.

“Oh, it'll do us all some good,” the maid blithely continued. “A Royal Coronation's just what we need to raise the spirits!”

And raise some other parts of the body too, Zelda added in her mind. She had spent seven years disguised as a man, after all, and had heard enough uncensored bar talk from other men during that time to know that not everyone would be viewing her nudity with pure thoughts in their head. Only her sense of decorum prevented her from shuddering at the thoughts of how many of her subjects would be masturbating to memories of her naked body by tonight.

As they turned into a random corridor, Zelda finally started to notice a distant murmuring. The more morbid part of her couldn't help but compare it to a crowd awaiting her execution. Even if the only thing dying today would be her dignity.

“Ah, this is always my favourite part of the castle,” the maid piped up as they turned another corner. “Sometimes I like to come here when I'm on a break and just stare. You have so many beautiful ancestors, my lady.”

Having lived in the castle for all but seven years of her life, Zelda didn't need to look to know what the maid was talking about, but she did it anyway in the hopes that she could draw strength from the sight.

On each side of the long corridor hung painting after painting, each around twelve feet in height, and each a portrait of a former queen. Besides those similarities, they all shared another common factor. Every single portrait of every single queen in the corridor was a nude painting.

There were thematic differences, of course. Some queens were sitting, with legs separated enough to display the slit between their legs. Some queens were standing, looking proudly into the distance. If the standing ones had any sort of prop, be it sword or scepter, it was always to the side of the body so that their pussies were left unhidden. In a couple, they were even painted in battle scenes, with one foot raised and planted on a pile of moblins or stalchild, the womens' labia loving painted in with the best artistic talent their time had to offer.

For this was the corollary, the practical consequence of the first Unspoken Rule of the ceremony. As a princess could show no shame at their nudity, and could not hide their bodies, they were expected to sit and stand with legs apart, making no efforts to hide their labia from view. After all, sitting with legs tightly closed would have been a sign of shame at people seeing their exposed slit, and ceremonial propriety left no room for that!

Unspoken Rule Number Two, of course, was that all newly coronated queens were expected to pose for a portrait to mark the occasion, a portrait that would be hung in the throne room until their reign was over, at which point the painting would be transferred to this memorial corridor here.

Zelda looked away from the portraits, not having gained the peace that she'd hoped to obtain from seeing that her ancestors had faced the same trial as her. All she saw was reminders that even after she dressed again, her naked body would be on display for the rest of her life, and centuries beyond. Guards and maids and dignitaries who hadn't even been born yet would one day look up and admire a painting of her bared body.

“Truly, works of art,” the princess managed to say to maintain her polite facade, as they continued on.

With each step the murmurings grow louder, slowly transforming into a dull roar. One more turn, and then two, as Zelda silently counted down the seconds until her doom. Finally, far too quickly, they arrived at a closed door.

Zelda swallowed. She had faced the worst the world had to offer. She had risked her life for seven years as a disguised Sheikah warrior. She had helped fight the evil avatar of the triforce of power. And she had never been as ready to run away as this moment in time.

Her maid smiled at her, before turning and knocking three times on the door before getting out of the way.

For a brief, pitiful moment Zelda held onto the hope that the person on the other side of the door hadn't heard. A second later, even that useless dream was buried.

The clear, loud voice of her major domo rang out, even through the heavy wood of the door. “Presenting her Royal Highness, the Princess of Hyrule... Zelda, blessed holder of the triforce of wisdom!”

Zelda resisted the urge to take another calming breath. Her last chance for that had ended when she'd left her bedroom behind, after all. Instead she called upon her years of decorum lessons and placed herself squarely in front of the door in the pose that tradition expected of her, arms clasped behind her in a Hylian military resting position, her legs parted with her feet around twelve inches apart. Her tutors had assured her that such a stance gave the person an aura of leadership. Zelda wasn't sure how well that aura worked when the stance also ensured her breasts were thrust out and her pussy was fully on display.

Unfortunately she had no time to second-guess her posture, as the heavy doors were laboriously opened from the other side, a guard on each side moving the barriers out of the way. As the crack of the door widened and opened, the dull roar amplified into a cacophony of cheering as the people of Hyrule bore witness to their slowly revealed ruler.

Hundreds of eyes looked up at her as she stood in the center of the door, fully on view to the crowded public that were jammed into the lower courtyard below her. All manner of people, from nobles to merchants to peasants stared at their naked princess as she presented her exposed body for their viewing pleasure. The Hylians were only the start of the many who bore witness to Zelda's nudity. As a gesture towards rebuilding bridges all of Hyrule's allies had been invited to this prestigious ceremony. A delegation of Gerudo, for once not the least dressed in the room, smirked as they compared a royal's tits and cunt to their own. The Goron and Zora were there as well, more naked than her but certainly also far less worried about it as well. Her humiliation only grew when she spotted her former mentor, Impa, who represented the Sheikah. The only major race not in attendance, for obvious reasons, were the Kokiri.

As the roaring cheers washed over her, and all of their eyes... so many eyes... drank in the sight of her uncovered body, Zelda pulled even deeper on her decorum training to show not even a hint of the trembling humiliation that she felt. Pulling her arms out of her military rest and putting on a smile which she'd practiced in the mirror for so many years that even the most experienced noble wouldn't have known it was fake, she stepped forward and started to walk down the short flight of stairs that separated her from the mob. Her destination, a small dais in the very middle of the throng that would allow them all to surround and watch her from every angle as she was crowned queen.