Chapter Text
Waking to the sound of his soft footsteps retreating down the hallway, she opened her eyes and gazed at the ceiling. He never slept through the night, not since she’d reunited with him. Realizing that she’d lost count of the number of nights in a row that he’d woken her up as he padded past her room, she sighed. Is it always going to be like this? He was never this quiet and withdrawn before. He had been loud and boisterous and quite frankly annoying. Upon checking into a stable to rest he snored through the night. That kid she remembered had disappeared. She never saw him anymore.
Lifting the blankets and swinging her feet to the cold floor woke her more. Her skin prickled. Rustling of sheets and clothes as she scrambled to put on something warm felt like drums in the stillness of her room. A long sleeve shirt and her old shawl would have to do. Ice crept its way up through the soles of her feet but she didn’t want to bother putting on socks and lacing her boots. By the time she was sufficiently bundled, the footsteps had disappeared, but there was only one way they could have been going.
Stepping into the hallway she was reminded of how she used to not be able to sleep, the reason for it, the panic. Safety was new to him. He needed time. It was new to her too, but it was different with him.
The balls of her feet started to go numb with cold as she made her way through the winding caverns and to the door to the outside. Gently pushing it open, moonlight spilled into the darkness of the hallway. For a moment she was blinded by the radiance of the night before her. Sitting a few meters from the door, overlooking the edge of the cliff and the water below, was Link. His head slightly bowed, his knees were brought nearly up to his chest. With his hands tucked neatly behind his thighs, he looked like a little kid.
“You should be resting.”
Startled at his voice in the quiet, she was sure he should not have noticed her given how silent she’d been upon opening the door.
“So should you,” she responded.
A shifting breeze played with his hair and he turned his face to the moon. Under the cool glow of the moonlight, his blond hair shimmered silver. Hesitating in the doorway, Zelda gazed as his silhouette. He needed something. Peace. Comfort. Company. Whispering, the grasses swayed softly around her legs as she walked towards him until she stood just barely behind him.
“Do you remember it?” His voice cracking on the last word.
The question slid into her ribs, making her breath catch as if a blade had made its home there.
“Every day,” she answered.
The understanding hung heavy in the air for a moment, weighing down the cool breeze of early spring.
He patted the ground next to him, “You can sit you know.”
Zelda stepped forward and settled onto the grass beside him. Tucking her bare feet into a fold of her shawl. His body heat permeated through her layers and she looked over at him to see what could only be the tracks of tears glistening on his cheeks. Witnessing that felt somehow wrong, like seeing something she was never meant to see, and she quickly looked away, mirroring his gaze at the moon.
“It gets easier,” she said.
“I know,” he inhaled shakily, “It’d probably be a swifter recovery if I could sleep through the night though.” Frustration was sharp in his voice. It wasn’t really directed anywhere. But their situation was certainly to blame for his edge.
“Yeah. It would. But that’s the hard part. You’re still in survival mode. Any moment spent not moving, fleeing, fighting, feels wrong, and your heart beats a million times a second and it feels like you can’t breathe…” trailing off Zelda thought about her own experiences.
Silenced by the weight of their trauma, neither could think of anything to say.
“I feel like it should have been me,” he said. “I should have been the one that had to fight for a hundred years by myself, should have held my own against the calamity.”
“Hey—”
“I’m the one that was trained and ready and chosen to wield the sword and I deserved it, I deserved to be alone in that fight,” breathing heavily, he paused. “Either that or I should have died along with the rest of the champions.”
Shocked, Zelda faced Link, “No. Shut up right now.” Zelda’s tone could have sliced stone. “Don’t you ever say that. You almost did die Link. If I hadn’t gotten you to the Shrine of Resurrection in time, you would have.” Tearing up she rubbed her eyes as anger flushed her cheeks red. “How dare you ever say that.” She hated that she was an angry crier, that any strong emotion forced tears to drip from her eyes. It was wet and messy and it made her feel so weak.
Lips pressed into a thin line, lightly trembling, he turned to face her. The regret, the sorrow, the guilt that made him say those things to begin with, all of it was written into his face, a personal textbook of his suffering.
“You just shouldn’t have had to be alone for so long” he said.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Being the only one who had not had a honed set of skills by the time the calamity happened, she shouldered much of the blame herself. Survivors guilt was always a product of war, and they were the only two who survived.
“That doesn’t change that it feels like it’s my fault—I was supposed to protect you!” he exclaimed.
“You did. And you are, and you will keep protecting me,” she reassured. She leaned into him and wrapped an arm around his waist, draping the shawl over both of their shoulders, processing how much he had changed as she did that. His torso was hard with muscle, and his shoulders had broadened. He’d grown to be the same height as her, instead of the couple inches or so he had yet to make up when the calamity struck. At her touch she could feel him stiffen, but she just stayed like that, her head resting on his shoulder until she could feel the tension start to leave his body.
“Why did you come out here?” She asked.
He shrugged. “Bad dream. Not that they’re ever any good, but this time it was . . . too much.”
Zelda nodded. He slouched and leaned into her. He was still for a moment before he started shaking. Moisture starting to seep into her clothes as she realized he was crying. Rough sobs choked his breath.
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay,” she wrapped both arms around him and he pressed his face into her shoulder
“I just --- can’t believe--- they’re all gone----” he managed to say between desperate inhales.
“Shhhh—shh it’s alright—it’s okay—it will be okay” she gently swayed forward and backward, muttering comforts and rubbing his upper back until the sobs subsided.
He gently pulled back a little and wiped at his nose and eyes with the back of his sleeve, embarrassed. His face was shimmery with moisture, and the blotchiness of his skin post-cry was obvious even in the cool light of the moon.
“Hey, come here—” Zelda tenderly held Link’s face and with the corner of the shawl wiped away the rest of the tears on his face. Baffled by her gesture of intimacy, he placed his own hand over top of her hand on his cheek. Eyes teary and swollen, face red.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry Link” she joked, gently pushing a lock of hair out of his face. It had grown quite a bit, she’d never seen it as long as it currently was. Hylia he was gorgeous in the moonlight.
“Well I guess I haven’t really had the chance to,” he inhaled a rattle of breath through his flooded chest.
“We need to get some sleep Link.”
Sighing he pulled out of her grasp, “You’re right.” His absence from her side chilled her to the bone as he untangled himself from the mess of the shawl and stood up before offering his hand to her as she went to stand on her own. Taking it, he lifted her onto her feet with ease.
The trip through the winding hallways back to their side-by side rooms passed in a calm silence. He turned up the gas on the lantern near the door and entered his warmly-lit room. Hovering in the doorway, Zelda watched as he paced back and forth, taking off his boots, his tunic, she averted her eyes at the sight of his bare chest, more out of embarrassment for herself than for him.
Though, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to confront the painful reality of the various injuries he’d endured throughout his time as her knight.
“No need to be shy princess, you can look,” he lightly chuckled as he made his way to his bed.
She flushed red. “I was just trying—”
“—trying to be polite. I know. Just giving you a hard time.” His voice was gruff from the crying, but he was still trying to lighten up her mood, even as he himself was struggling. Tossing aside his blankets he dropped on the edge of his bed.
“Should I turn off this lantern before I go?” She asked.
“Sure, yeah.”
“Okay.” She reached to extinguish the flame, and then went to close the door.
“Wait!” He exclaimed. Startling her.
She whipped around to find him standing, dimly lit from the lanterns in the hallway. The light cast in sharp relief the raised scars crisscrossing his chest and arms, and for a moment she was holding his broken body again before she snapped back to the present.
“I don’t think I can sleep….” He shuffled awkwardly a little bit.
“You have to try,” She responded in earnest, trying not to let the concern for him edge her voice.
“Yeah I know that but—um— I don’t know how to say this but—I just feel comfortable with you—and I thought maybe—well only if you want—do you think you could—stay? Here?”
The question hung in the air for a moment as Zelda processed what he was trying to say. “You want me to stay?”
“Yeah, I just—just now when we were outside—I don’t think I’ve felt that safe in—in forever—and I just thought—thought maybe—if we were in the same room—I wouldn’t have those dreams.” He stumbled through his explanation before it finally clicked.
“Oh,” Zelda said, the concern that had been hiding tension in her shoulders released. “Yeah. Yeah I can stay Link.” She released the doorknob and took a step inside the room.
He exhaled in relief, she hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath.
“Um, well you can have the bed, obviously,” he said, standing and beginning to assemble a pile of quilts and pillows on the rug beside his bed to sleep on.
A vice closing around her heart, she responded, “Oh yeah, obviously,” internally scolding herself. Of course, that’s what he had meant. Same room. Not same bed.
Closing the door, she stood still for a moment while her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Stripping off her shawl she let it fall to the ground and made her way to Links bed. Hands extended into the near-complete darkness Link found them and gently guided her to the edge of his mattress. As he released her hands, she heard the rustling of blankets as he got himself settled on the floor next to the bed. Crawling into his bed, as close to the edge as she could get, Zelda tugged the covers up to her shoulders.
Zelda waited for him so say something, anything, but finally thought to make the move herself. Dropping a hand down to the ground, she found his shoulder and used it to pull his hand towards her. Finally understanding what she was trying to do, Link took her hand. His rigidity was present in his attempt to ‘professionally’ hold her hand, as if it had never been something he’d done before.
“You know, you can relax Link,” she said into the darkness, aware of her own inability to relax as she said it.
A light chuckle reverberated in the air before he responded. “Well you can say that, I’m still riding a little bit of an adrenaline high from asking you to stay.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Probably because I’m still trying to learn that you don’t actually hate me.”
A twang of regret registered as he said that. It wasn’t his fault she had been so angry, she shouldn’t have taken out her frustration with herself on him, he had just been doing his duty as he knight. But there was nothing she could do about it now.
“I’m sorry Link.” Giving his hand an extra hard squeeze, she relaxed into his pillows, savoring the feeling of his hand in hers. His sheets smelled nice, fresh and clean, but, woodsy in a way, maybe like a pine tree. Trying to identify the scent, she felt Link’s hand go mostly limp, and his breathe even out into the steady inhales of a man asleep. Before long the rhythm of his breathing and the methodical attempt to figure out what his sheets smelled like were enough to drag her into the realm of sweet unconsciousness.