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It starts when he’s at Outskirt Stable one day, feeling tired from being on the road but restless from being around people. The stable hand (Canni, he thinks her name is), asks if she can braid his hair.
“It’s just so long,” she says, like she’s trying to explain herself, her face pink. “It can’t be nice, having it all in your face like that.”
Link just nods his head, and she seems to look relieved that he said yes without her having to explain herself further.
He doesn’t like physical touch, not usually, but this is… nice. She undoes the knot of the ribbon that’s tied the rest of his hair back, and she gets to work, brushing out the tangles and letting it fall down to his shoulders. She’s gentle, pulling the curtain of his hair back. It’s strange, how the wind blows softly against his ears and cheeks. He doesn’t think he’s noticed it before, maybe because there’s always been hair covering them. He doesn’t know.
It’s nice, the way she combs through it. The firmness as she begins to braid it brings a little bit (a lot, but he doesn’t complain) of pain. He can feel her working at it, tugging the strands of hair into place up at the top of his head. He feels her tying them off with ribbons and loosening the braids.
Then he feels her putting something in his hair. Delicately weaving something through the gaps.
She hands him a mirror when she’s done, and he wants to gasp. Oh. Oh.
He sees the flowers that she put in his hair, pinks and blues and purples. It’s delicate, he knows it’ll get messed up when he’s fighting, when there’s blood matting his hair again. It’s too delicate and gentle for someone like him, but Goddess, it’s pretty.
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He catches Canni again after that, when she’s not busy looking after horses. Not many people come by Outskirt Stable anymore, too close to the castle, too dangerous. She isn’t too busy too often, he’s noticed. She says she’ll braid his hair again, if he wants her to, with a knowing look in her eyes. Link can’t help but feel like he’s out of the loop, for some reason (he does want her to, and he asks her to, stuttering and stumbling the whole time. He wishes he was better with his words. She always seems happy to oblige).
There are some times, though, that he catches her a bit further away from the stable itself. She always has flowers next to her, and she seems to weave them with the same precision and concentration that she uses when she braids his hair. It fascinates him, the way she does it so quickly and so cleanly, the way the flowers look so pretty.
She notices, eventually. Picks up on his curiosity. Asks him straight out the next time he arrives, exhausted from clearing out another beach full of monsters, if he wants to learn how to make a flower crown.
Link says yes, of course he does.
She leads his horse to an empty spot in the stable, and they sit next to each other. She has flowers next to her, and she shows him how to do it. Cross, wrap and pull down. Cross, wrap and pull down. Cross, wrap and pull down. Its repetitive, she makes it look so easy. He follows her movements with the flowers she gives him, and when it gets long enough, she takes it from his hands and wraps it around his head. She weaves the last daisy into the first one, and lets it rest on his head.
It’s clumsy, flowers far apart and unevenly spread, but it’s good for his first time.
It’s pretty.
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Sidon normally isn’t near her statue during the day.
It’s the first thing he notices when he shows up to Zora’s Domain. Link had only come for ice arrows, he doesn’t like to stay long. Too many memories that he doesn’t know, too many ghosts. It’s drizzling slightly, the rain fills his heart with dread and he finds himself continuing to look up at where Ruta’s perched, just to make sure it’s… to make sure she’s still there. The Divine Beast hasn’t moved at all, but sometimes Link wonders.
Sidon’s usually the one who watches Ruta in the day, but he’s not today. He’s got… sticks? No, stalks from some sort of plant next to him, and he’s at work trying to bend them all somehow. Link lingers, watching him. It’s the first time he sees Sidon looking calm and peaceful, not his usually boastful self (no mournful shadows in his eyes); he seems completely focused in what he’s doing. It reminds Link of Canni, and how focused she is when she’s braiding his horse’s hair, when she’s braiding flowers into his hair, when she’s making chains of flowers.
Sidon looks up from his work and gives Link a warm smile and a wave (he doesn’t know how he feels about Sidon, he knows Sidon admires him greatly, knows he doesn’t deserve it. Link admires Sidon too, he thinks. Sidon’s a good ally, a good person, a good… friend? Were they friends?). Link flushes at being caught, and turns to head into Cleff’s shop. He needs those arrows.
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The next time Link’s in Zora’s Domain (he needs to stock up on ice arrows again, he doesn’t know how he keeps running out of them so quickly), his curiosity gets the better of him. He figures it’s just another way to make a crown, just without the flowers. Still, he wants to know how (wants to know something about Sidon, wants to find something in common with Sidon that isn’t rooted in the past, in the bloodshed, the death, the misery, Mipha). He’s learned he’s good with his hands, he’s good at making them now that he’s practiced.
Sidon’s eyes seem to light up when he asks about it, he tells Link he’d be delighted to teach him how to braid the stalks together. Link feels giddy when Sidon beams at him the way he always does. He feels confused when Sidon picks the Lotus-Fleets from around Ne’ez Yohma and pulls off their heads, handing them to Link with the claim that he’d make better use of them. Link puts them in the Slate (it’s not his, he reminds himself, he has to give it back to the Princess eventually) for later.
They sit themselves down in front of Mipha’s statue, and Link briefly wonders what she’d think, knowing he was wasting his time like this. He doesn’t think she’d mind, not really, not if it’s Sidon he’s wasting his time with.
Sidon teaches him how to braid the stalks together, shows him how to bend them until they’re pliant, until they can be woven together without falling back into place immediately. Link watches, and takes his time trying to figure it out himself. It’s clumsy, just like it was when he tried weaving the flowers together. He huffs quietly in frustration when the stalks refuse to move the way he wants them to.
Sidon laughs and says that the stalks are sturdy, strong. It’s why the heads of the Fleet-Lotus are able to stay upright. He says strong foundations lead to stability later on. For a split second, Link feels like Sidon isn’t talking about the plants anymore.
He asks Sidon, quietly, if he ever puts flowers in his crowns.
Sidon looks at Link, thoughtfully, and says: “If I have them on hand.”
He doesn’t know why, but as he turns to look at Sidon to make sure he’s doing it right, his heart clenches in his chest. He swears he feels it stutter when Sidon shows him how to braid the stalks properly, guiding his hands and talking him through it. He realizes he likes how Sidon sounds, the highs and lows of his voice, the way he’s murmuring right now, gentle and rumbly in his throat. Sidon eventually takes the mess of branches (it’s not so much of a mess anymore, braided loosely and looking neat, pretty) from Link’s hands and wraps it around his head, the same way Canni did when he had shyly asked about the chains of flowers she was making. He holds it in place as he ties a string around where the two ends wrap around Link’s head and meet.
It makes his ears feel warm and his stomach feel like jelly. He wonders if this is what love feels like.
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After that, he finds every excuse possible to pick up any flower he sees (except for the Silent Princess. That was the Princess’s flower, it didn’t belong to him). He finds every excuse possible to go back to Zora’s Domain, every excuse to go back to Sidon.
It’s not even about the flowers, not really. It’s just about seeing the way Sidon’s eyes seem to light up whenever he sees Link. It’s… nice, he thinks, to have a friend like Sidon. And then it’s something more.
And then the bright beams Sidon gives him and the enthusiastic “thank you”s become something softer. Quiet, gentle, knowing smiles that make Link’s face heat up and make Sidon laugh in response. It’s not mean laughter, not something that would make Link want to run into the forest and never come out again. It’s… nice. Better than nice, he thinks.
Sidon shows Link how to put the flowers between the gaps in the braids. How to weave the stems just enough that they don’t look messy, but still makes it look wilder. Link thinks he’s okay at it, less clumsy than usual, even if his hands are shaking slightly.
He’s fucked and he knows it, but he doesn’t think he cares that much.
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There isn’t truly an end to it. Link goes from one place to another, wanders and wanders and wanders until he can’t wander any further. He picks up plants wherever he goes, they help when he’s cooking, they… help. He walks until his feet are numb and he prepares and prepares and prepares for what’s coming. Frees the rest of the Divine Beasts, Medoh and Rudania, checks on Riju and Naboris and he wanders more. His feet always carry him back to Lanayru, no matter what he does. He doesn’t mind, not exactly, he doesn’t mind the way his stomach twists up whenever he sees Sidon’s smile, doesn’t mind the way his heart sings and aches and aches and aches whenever they’re next to each other and Sidon’s filling up the empty space with his words. He comes and goes and comes and goes, returning to Zora’s Domain like some sort of boomerang that Sidon keeps throwing. Back and forth and back and forth. He doesn’t mind, not really, not at all.
He thinks back to Sidon telling him about the Fleet-Lotus, how even though its stalk is flexible, it’s strong and sturdy.
He thinks that they can be like that, whatever their relationship is.
He hopes they are.