Chapter Text
“Do you remember me?”
She looks hopeful, still lit from everywhere by that gentle gold glow, still stirred by a breath of a warm breeze that traces through the long grass. She’s almost smiling, but she barely makes it to the end of the question before her eyes are brimming with tears.
The sound of her voice hits him, real and carried through the air between them, and the sound of it - finally hearing it, not echoing from inside his skull or muddied by dreams or hazy in memory - hits him like the combined weight of every bone-shaking, bruising, wrenching blow of the battle they have both finally survived.
He sinks to his knees, faint-headed, as the relief breaks over him. He hears Zelda gasp and - oh, right, last time she did something like this he keeled over and died. With all the strength he can muster he forces his head up and raises a hand.
Lived.
Still, she falls to her knees beside him, and holds his face between her hands, looks into his eyes - he probably does have a concussion, honestly - and when she’s satisfied that he’s there and lucid and that he’s Link, her Link, she buries her head in the crook of her neck and she’s laughing or crying or both but she’s holding him and leaning against each other like this he suddenly feels as though he could just fall asleep on his knees kind of leaning his head into her hair. That would be the concussion, he figures. But no - he’s not falling asleep right here and now. This is important.
He turns the words over in his head a few times, works his mouth a little, and says into her hair,
“I remember.”
—
They can’t sleep right there in the middle of the field. They might have eliminated the risk of a Guardian walking over them, but there are still swarms of keese darkening the night sky, if nothing else. And while this victory might have them both feeling slightly invulnerable, as the air cools, she finds herself feeling exposed on the open fields. For all she’s spent the past hundred years in captivity, at this moment she finds herself craving the comfort of walls and a fire, something at her back, some way to feel safe and secure.
Link’s horse has come over to him, and is pressing her snout eagerly into his palm. She’s a solidly-built horse, mostly black save for the black-and-white speckling across her rump. She looks sturdy, but she doesn’t look like a war horse. She’d been a little surprised to see the Hylian Champion riding into battle on something so… modest.
B-L-A-N-K-E-T, he spells. She giggles, and Blanket has the nerve to look affronted.
‘I might have expected you to charge in on some wild hotblood only your hand could tame,’ she ventures. Link looks thoughtful as he strokes down Blanket’s neck. He shrugs.
First horse after I woke up. Gentle. Good girl, reliable. He grins. Killed the first bokoblin she met. Killed a lot of things.
Blanket snorts, looking quite proud of herself.
Of course, she’d been able to see quite clearly as he approached the castle. Seen the way he guided his horse through the Guardians and malice and everything else. Seen the way Link had dismounted and scrambled up and down walls before whistling his horse to his side. He could slaughter Guardians. But he didn’t let his horse get caught in that crossfire.
Charging in on a gleaming stallion in a shining armour and blazing a path to the castle was one kind of courage, sure.
But cleverness, and kindness, and loyalty - that’s another kind of courage. The kind of courage that trusts. That stands in the smoking remains of slain guardians, waiting sure and steady through beams of divine fury and the quaking of collapsing stone and a pyre of violet-black flame throwing licks of malice into the burning sky. The kind of courage that waits a hundred years holding hard to faith knowing that it will not be in vain.
Link waves for her attention, which is what alerts her to the fact that she has been staring fiercely into the middle distance.
Stable nearby, he signs with a questioning look, and gestures over his shoulder, roughly eastward. A safe place, and a warm bed, and people to give Blanket the treatment she rightly deserves.
People.
Her stomach goes cold.
She’s a princess. She is used to People. Balls. Dinners. Courts.
Those people are dead. For a hundred years, she has been so painfully alone. For a hundred years, only the glowing orange slits bubbling up from virulent malice have gazed upon her. Suddenly, the questioning eyes of common Hylians seem just as frightening.
She shakes her head.
“I - I can’t.”
Link nods, understanding, but the words boil over into her mouth unbidden.
“How am I supposed to face anyone after so long? Will anyone believe that I could possibly be the Princess of Hyrule? And what if they do - is that worse? Do people think of me as a failure? Will they want to know how I’m going to fix Hyrule? I can’t do that - I don’t know - !”
Link’s hand on her arm stems the tide. She falls silent, but finds herself shivering. It isn’t even cold, but the shaking overtakes her anyway. Of course she’s hysterical. Anyone would be. She tries to steady her breath.
“Not yet.”
Link nods again, and then smiles, a little too bright.
“What’s your idea?”
He points straight at the castle.
—
It makes sense. A castle is a stronghold, designed to keep things inside safe and things outside away. That this castle has recently changed hands doesn’t change its general function. They make their way up a winding path past several dead Guardians towards one of the gatehouses. There are a few places that might be more comfortable - at least one with a cooking pot, which would be greatly welcomed - but the gatehouse is somewhere they can bring Blanket and secure the doors and sleep soundly and not be surrounded by obvious reminders of the king and the champions and their old lives.
At the door, he signals to Zelda to wait with Blanket. Neither looks exceedingly pleased with the other’s company. He rolls his eyes at both of them, and steps into the gatehouse.
Nothing happens. There’s no Lynel. Nothing. It’s quiet. He sticks his head outside and scans the night sky until he sees the moon. A thick crescent of blue in a peaceful night sky. The Blood Moon was Ganon. The Blood Moon is gone. This Lynel won’t suddenly appear as soon as they lie down to sleep. He pops back out of the gatehouse, grabs Blanket’s reins, gestures for Zelda to enter.
He builds a fire. It’s not a site for lavish cuisine, but he has some slightly squished rice balls which are edible enough. Blanket - freed of her bridle and saddle, brushed as best he could manage under these circumstances - eats her share of apples raw, but he and Zelda leave theirs by the coals to bake. The crackling and glow of a campfire, the warmth and sweetness of cooked fruit - these have been his comforts for the past few months. He watches Zelda closely, the way she holds the hot apple as though she’s unsure it’s real, the way she trails her fingers close enough to the fire that she has to yank them away from the burning heat.
He works the question into shape for a while as he watches.
“Were you… awake?”
She looks at him, a little puzzled, and then seems to put together what he’s asking.
“I could feel some things, and I could see you, or something like it, and I knew the enormity of it all,” she trails her hands near the fire again “but this is… this is different.”
She pulls her hand away from the fire.“This is - this is real. Finally.”
She buries her face in her hands and he rushes to comfort her but she works quickly to gather herself and wave him away.
“I’m fine. I’m alive. We’re both alive. I’m fine.”
He puts an arm over her shoulders anyway. She lets him. The moon climbs higher into the sky, and their campfire burns lower. They almost fall asleep crouched up together, but his whole body hurts and he can't let the Princess fall asleep curled up with her arms around her knees and her hair almost falling into the fire. He's so tired his head is swimming, but they'll both feel better in the morning if they get something vaguely resembling a decent sleep.
Blanket stays standing by the entry. The two of them scrounge together their best approximation of a place to sleep. He offers it to her, but she rejects that proposition out of hand.
“I will not have you sleep on bare stone, and that is," she halts, looking for all the world as though she might burst out laughing, “and that is my royal decree! As Princess of Hyrule, I command that my appointed knight and champion will sleep in the finest accommodations in the castle.”
She looks so stern and imperious through the barely-concealed mirth that all he can do is reel back laughing. A little too hard. His head is pounding - he’s exhausted, and he’s had enough experience with head injuries to know that arguing the point and sleeping on cold stone floor will do him no favours.
Yes, we can cuddle.
…
Your highness.