Work Text:
Zelda has freckles now.
They’re very faint, scattered across the bridge of her nose and her slightly burnt cheeks. Link counts himself lucky to be close enough to notice.
He finds her at dawn, sitting on the edge of the dock in Lurelin Village with her legs dangling over the water and her face tilted up towards the sky. He quietly makes his way over to sit at her side.
Zelda seems not to notice his arrival until she suddenly says “I haven’t felt the sun in ages.” She turns to him, green eyes crinkled in the corners with her smile. “Thank you.”
She has a smile like the sun, the great Deku Tree had said, and she does. She hasn’t been touched by the sun; it lives in her, it comes pouring out when she breathes. Link lets himself bathe in it for a moment longer that he would’ve allowed himself when he was her guard.
“You’ve thanked me too many times,” he responds softly as he turns away. The early morning is too still for anything above a whisper.
Zelda scrunches up her nose. “I can’t thank you too many times. Let me appreciate you for a moment, Link. Goddesses.”
Link laughs under his breath. She’s the one who never allows compliments or gratitude. Zelda waves praise off with a shy smile and insistence that she had only been able to do the bare minimum for Hyrule, so Link hopes that she sees now what her sacrifices created.
Another sunrise for a doomed kingdom.