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“I knew you could,” a murmur, a little scraggy around the edges from disuse, but sure and sincere; and Zelda jumps as if he’d shouted at her, freezing in place, back straightened against the intricately carved wood of her study’s chair.
What?
His words weren’t processing, flinging around her head like arrows just to bounce off the other side of her skull, cluttering up the space her brain supposedly took. The first time he speaks to her outside of formal banality and she’s not even sure she’s supposed to have heard it.
Ancient machinery hums softly as she stares unblinking at the swirling blue eye on her desk rolling around on its own. A pointless achievement, but one she had done without any help from Purah or Robbie so it had caused a small noise of astonished celebration to slip past her anxiously bitten lips.
When she finally blinks to turn and look at him something clenches in her gut, ticklish fingers clawing at her and pulling down, down, down.
“Wh-what did you say?” and in any other situation, this horrendous squeak of a question she’d flicked over to him would have embarrassed her. It was creaky and broken as if she was some sort of prepubescent goose stumbling its way through speaking, but she can’t bring herself to care about it when his face is as open as she’s ever seen it.
Not that she can bear to look at him long when she gets the chance to, which isn’t often. His eyes are always trained to the tip of her spine, tugging a string up to the ceiling, forcing her into better posture under the weight of his hawklike gaze. Her shoulders ache at the thought.
He is not looking at her like that right now, though, and she’s not sure what to make of it. His brow was always so drawn together she would have figured it was his resting face if she allowed herself to think about him, but here his brow was relaxed, she notices he has a scar through one as she takes in his expression, finally actually looking at him for maybe the first time since his appointment. She scolds herself for wondering what it was from.
His eyes are bright, sincere, and she thinks they may have just indulged in the shape of her features. They aren’t boring into her as if trying to see her and see through her at the same time like she knew, being essentially a blind spot he was forced to protect. She was as useless as one, anyway.
Right now his eyes were holding her as if she was something precious, something he cared for. As if he truly had been invested in her asinine project and is proud of her, which was just preposterous. He was as ambivalent towards her as he was towards anyone else, only focused on his duty like the smooth marble knight of her favorite chess set made into a man. Or, she pondered, maybe not quite a man but he was not quite a boy either, all broad shoulders and lean muscle under so many deceptive layers. Maybe they had that in common; she, who was not quite a girl, not quite a woman, and not at all the goddess she was attempting to forget with her tinkering, the sword he wears hanging heavy on her shoulder despite not being the hero at all.
He smiles at her, just a little. A secret thing, maybe, the thought ghosts behind her eyes like the soft silk of one of Urbosa’s sparkling, decorative shawls and she bristles at the feeling of having shoved her face into freshly grated horseradish. The gentle upturn of his lips only deepens at her soured expression that for once wasn’t meant for him and she wonders if he’s ever looked at anyone else like this before. Her fists clench at the horrid thought that she certainly hopes he hasn’t.
She realizes she wants to hear him say it again, which is why she asked, but he doesn’t give her that, instead inclining his head towards her to grace her with a gentle nod, eyes still locked on hers. He blinks once and her shoulders fall from their place at her ears, a second blink and she lets out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Like the tail end of a firework it drapes her in a veil, settling like luminous glitter on her skin. He blinks a third time, long lashes over tanned cheeks, nods again, straightens back up, and the moment is over.
Zelda allows herself to loiter in it a little longer to gape at him like an octorok who lost its hiding spot, royal etiquette set clumsily next to where her experiment whirs quietly atop her desk.
He shifts on his feet, arms still locked behind his back, shoulders rolling, neck swinging left, right. She imagines how the muscles would move under his skin through the layers he wears greedily, and feels a thump from somewhere deeper than she knew she had. She purses her lips. There’s a quick twist of the hips and he sinks back into his stance as if he had to shake off the way she’s staring at him, but when she looks back to his face and sees his usual stern expression is a few shades lighter, she thinks perhaps he had to adjust to make room for it instead.
Though he was no longer looking at her to witness her acquisitive gaze, eyes trained out of the door of her study and to the window carved into the wall near it, he must have felt it as much as she felt his when it was on her. He would have Lizalfos eyes if he could, she bets as she looks at him monitoring two places at once, three if she counted herself, which maybe she should. Those silly Lizalfos eyes would swirl in all different directions, seeing behind him and in front of him like rounded unblinking telescopes, spinning around in a loose socket like the little machine she’d just put together. He would probably want them in addition to his actual eyes so he could see everything at the same time, she’s sure of it.
She smiles at the thought of him using those silly eyes to stand guard, watching her dutifully as she tinkers at her desk.
“Thank you,” she says, voice finally back in its box and hands smoothing down in an automatic motion to glide along a skirt, her fingers brush over the smooth fabric of her riding pants instead. “That means a lot to me,” she decides to add, because it does, even from him. Especially from him. She catches a twitch in his lips as she turns back to hide her blush in her work, the spinning blue eye twirling its way over to cast her cheeks a soft shade of purple.
It’s not his fault, she thinks, wiping at her eye angrily. She slows her horse into a walk not too far from the hill she’d fled from, he was going to catch up to her anyway. He’s just doing his job and you’re making it so difficult for no reason.
She chokes on a sob when she hears Epona’s strong gallop not too far behind her, as sure on her hooves as her handler is on his feet, and laughs ruefully to herself at her ridiculous behavior, preparing for a berating. Or if it was coming from Link, a harsh look that she knew would say “Stop making my life harder than it needs to be, you flippant thing.”
That would almost be worse, she thinks.
It was just too much today, weeks of desperate prayers and hours spent with hyperboreal feet soaking in supposedly blessed water only to trudge back with nothing to show for it.
Some days, when the Goddess’s silence was particularly deafening, instead of waving him away she would take his always proffered hand, gripping tightly at calloused, bare fingers like they were the only thing keeping her together. Some days they were, as loath as she was to admit it. She would never take his hand again the next day no matter how much she needed to.
Her father had become an unyielding cage around her, unmoved by the pleas of an only daughter begging for a crumb of humanity. So she’s thrust into a strict schedule of prayer, studies with the priestesses in the temple, and prayer again. Link of course is with her, eyes still always on her, seeing her fail and be scolded by the King when she has nothing for him as if he were just a part of the architecture. He has first-hand knowledge of exactly how useless she is, how Hylia deems her so unworthy, but all he ever offers her is something too confusing for her to parse out. His gaze feels different now, or maybe she feels different about his gaze but it had all become too overwhelming, and when she caught him looking at her after a particularly scathing review and saw that his expression held so many things all at once with none of them being disappointment or anger or even pity , something in her snapped. It was too much, everything was too much, and she just needed space.
So she’d escaped.
A complaint about a sour stomach in a meeting, a bat of an eyelash in the stable, and she was at the shrine.
Epona makes her way around Zelda and her horse, swaying lazily before coming to a stop in front of her. Royal lets out a snicker and tosses his head, coarse white mane flying about like a rogue wave but stops easily, happy to greet his friend and her rider who he loves so well.
She can’t bring herself to look at him, shoulders shaking with the force of her attempt to make herself invisible from his piercing gaze.
“Princess,” his voice is soft, not as angry as she’d expected it would be if she played with the idea that he’d speak at all. She still doesn’t look at him but makes no move to grip the reins that she’d let fall from her hands in favor of twisting in her lap. She didn’t want to get away from him, really, as uncomfortable as it was for her to have him see her like this.
He must know this as Epona leans her weight between strong legs before stepping around Royal, only stopping once Link is placed next to her, so close that their knees are almost touching. She lets her eyes trace over tan pants made from tightly knit canvas, strong enough to offer some protection but broken in enough to allow him to move freely and not overheat. If Royal shifted a little, the taut, smooth material over her knee could brush against his, and she wonders if she’d be able to feel the give of his fabric through hers.
“Princess,” he says again, so gentle it knocks another sob out of her.
How dare he be kind when she’d just screamed at him like he’d followed her to the toilet, not because he was just doing his job, the one thing he has to do. When she’d been the one to run away without a thought to the consequences and he was just there to make sure the worst of those didn’t happen.
“I know you’re overwhelmed,” she snaps her head up to look at him, he looks a little surprised at her sudden movement but is otherwise unaffected, continuing on with more conviction now that he has her officially trapped under the spell of his attention. “But you can’t keep running away like that, please.”
It’s jarring to hear it spelled out so candidly, over a decade of compounding anxieties reduced to a few simple words. There is no anger in his voice, no resentment in his expression as he searches her face for an answer.
“You didn’t tell anyone where you went,” he says when she doesn’t give him one and she feels the indignant part of herself bubble up to the surface, opening her mouth to retort at such a ridiculous statement, at the fact that she shouldn’t have to but he doesn’t let her. “I know you hate it,” he adds and her lips squeeze back together, screwed shut to suppress the tremble that was seeping its way over.
His brows are knit, lips pressed in a thin line as he considers her. Probably thinking about how best to approach her, like she’s a wild horse she’s seen him reach out to because he just couldn’t help himself when she’s caught herself spying. She briefly realizes that this is the most he’s ever spoken to her before he speaks again.
“I also know you’re not going to like what I have to say next, but…” he pauses, and she braces herself. His expression is apologetic when he placidly states “You’re too important, Princess.” and she flinches despite the warning, looking back down at her hands that had stilled their anxious wringing. Then, his tone is swapped out for something much more fond, “In more ways than just our duty.”
When she looks at him again to try and ascertain what he could have possibly meant by that he’s smiling, that same little thing he’d given her about three weeks before, just cast a deeper shade of blue in this melancholy air she’d created. His hand is out towards her now, a clean handkerchief in his palm. Had he brought that with him knowing she would need it? The thought flutters around like a thunderwing butterfly in her chest as she takes it with a shivering hand, letting the skin of her fingers brush against his, thankful as always for the structure of his glove, though maybe she hadn’t really thought of that before.
“If you need a break, tell me, and I’ll climb a tree or something,” his grin slants and she knows what he’s doing, she can see the glint in his eye as he leans closer to stay in her line of sight when she begins to turn and hide, shielding him from seeing the curve of her lips with a curtain of wind tousled hair as she blots her cheeks with the well-washed fabric. “You won’t even know I’m there, I promise.”
She lets herself giggle at that because she’s not sure how that could be true. She feels his presence like the heat of the sun over the Gerudo Desert, and she could see the holy sword he wears reflecting off of the moon from the deepest cave she’s sure. Though, she also knows more than anyone not to doubt the ever-expansive breadth of his abilities, seeing as she hadn’t been gone long when he found her muttering to herself like a madwoman at the base of the shrine.
He lets her gather herself in a silence made comfortable solely by him, meandering around with Epona until he’s facing the same direction as her, not exactly towards the castle but maybe he’ll allow them to take the long way back. His relaxed posture indicates he might, a stark contrast to all of the sharp edges he’d stomped up to her with earlier.
She should apologize, she knows, but her skin prickles at the thought of admitting her fault when the hilt of his sword flashes through her vision in the early afternoon light. He’s just doing his job and she’s just his annoying assignment.
Rubbing her fingers over a still dry part of the fabric he’d lent her, she bites her lip, emotions warring, ticking over into anger or calming down and saying sorry when she brushes over a different texture and blinks down to see what it was.
It’s crudely done, uneven and loose, but embroidered all the same; ‘Link’ framed by two simple sprigs of leaves. Handmade for him from a scrap of discarded fabric by someone who cares for him, she’s sure, it’s such a childish thing. She runs her thumb across his name, feeling the shape of the symbols that identify him, and frowns to herself when her lip begins to quiver again.
She washes the handkerchief in the sink in her chambers when they return, using a soap of his that had ended up in her things after their recent journey from an overnight trip to the Temple of Time; and that night when it’s dry she places it on her pillow, lulling herself to sleep by the feeling of crooked letters threading across trembling fingers.
Link is the angriest she’s ever seen him.
They’re convened at the Bazaar still, huddled near a cleared-out stall so they could have some semblance of privacy and Zelda could sit in the shade of the sun-bleached fabric to rest her ankle. Her knight is so tight at her side that she fears he may just sprout wings and fly them back to the castle right this second with the force that his ire is vibrating off of him. If she thought his blatant irritation towards Revali was intimidating, this new facet of him is downright terrifying. Even Urbosa has avoided entering his space yet and Zelda could understand why, he’s livid, nostrils flared and blue eyes piercing as he listens to the Gerudo women fight amongst themselves in hushed, harsh tones. He hasn’t spoken since Urbosa’s arrival at the scene of her attempted assassination, but she could see from the set of his jaw that he had plenty he wished to bark at the woman and her guards.
Her mind was playing the encounter on a loop as she sat stationed in the shade behind his right hip, counting through her breathing like he’d taught her just recently in the sand. When it would catch he’d shift his weight, just enough for the soft clink of metal against metal to escape from his belts. It was only when she’d taken a few manual breaths again that he would settle back into his task of glaring.
In, two, three, four. Running, lungs burning hot and lost in Hebra all at once. Hold, two, three, four. She slips on the sand, a shot of pain through her ankle as she falls, biting her hands through her gloves like so many shards of glass at the impact. Out, two, three, four. A sneer, a flash of a blade as she raises her arms, as useless as ever before suddenly all she can see is him.
He’s crouched in front of her, taking over her field of view, champion blue stretching over the steady rise of his chest. She’s shaking, maybe, when she reaches out to grasp at his waiting arm, chipped nails digging into the soft fabric at his bicep as strong fingers wrap to cup her elbow. His other arm is already around her when she leans forward, and he shuffles closer to catch her when she slumps into him.
Delayed panic crashes over her and she struggles to catch her breath, gasping and hiccuping into his collar. She faintly hears him shush her, long and slow, it tickles the shell of her ear and barely registers him running a warm hand down her sweat damp spine. His knee is steady in the sand behind her and her knuckles are white from the force of her grip on his tunic, tugging him to her so tightly she worries she may rip it, and oh Din if she did then she’d have to repair it and she doesn’t have time for that right now–
“Breathe, Princess, copy me,” his voice rumbles against her chest. The skin of her cheek shimmers from overstimulation when his fingers brush against her on their way to move her hair away from her face, her braid is surely ruined, and she’d done such a good job on it today too.
Focus. Copy him. She tries to figure out what she’s supposed to be copying, she can’t use a sword–that’s preposterous. How is she supposed to do that? She probably couldn’t even lift the cursed thing and if she could? She doesn’t know how to use it, she’s spied on Link practicing forms and has seen him in battle many times but that doesn’t mean she could copy him. He’s the hero, that’s his job.
“Princess,” Link again. She gasps against him, and sure fingers run through her hair. “You have to breathe,” his voice is low and meandering, vibrating against her temple when he moves his head to nestle her closer. “Mimic me, okay?”
Breathing, that’s easy, she can do that. She jerks her head in her best attempt at a nod and his chest expands, pushing her body against his arms until he slowly lets it go.
“You’re okay,” he murmurs at the tail end. “I’ve got you,” he whispers before he draws back in an exaggerated breath. She stumbles to catch up with him, forcing stuttering, wet air into exhausted lungs. They hold their breath together, and he does not falter even as she trembles against him, all twitching fingers and spasming muscles. He smooths his hand down to her hip when he breathes out and she almost makes it through until she trips on a whimper.
“I wa–I wasn’t…” Zelda attempts, but he constricts around her, shushing her again, arm sliding up, up to her shoulder.
“I know,” he says before he breathes deeply. She follows after him as best she can, blinking past tears as her throat threatens to keen. He rushes past breathing out to speak again, keeping his hands slow against her back to guide her instead. “I know you weren’t.”
She relaxes against him a little, he’s not mad at her. Her neck is creaking further into his shoulder when her confused heart kicks back up with a frenzy, sore knuckles tight at his arm again. She tenses away from him but he doesn’t let her get far, arms still locked behind her and so she stares wildly in front of her. The lines of him wrapped around her are backlit by the blinding sand, so bright that all she can focus on is him walling her in with his body and her eyes dart to where a piece of his chainmail is caught on his undershirt. She watches it as he shifts, settling deeper into the sand and the piece of chain attempts to hold on to a loose thread. When it finally lets go the thread isn’t broken, and she feels herself begin to tremble.
“She–I,” she gasps and he’s shushing her again, uncovered fingers pushing hair from her neck. She doesn’t hear it. “She sa–said and I tr–” a gentle hand brushes unruly strands away from her sticky forehead and she sags back against him. She’s all dead weight as she takes a moment to focus on mirroring the swell of his lungs, he makes no move to indicate that he minds. “I trusted her,” she finally manages to breathe out, Link hums.
“I know,” he caresses his hand across her temple this time, smoothing her hair down and pressing her cheek further into the belt on his shoulder. There’s a relief of pressure and she huffs quietly against him, eyelashes fluttering as she remembers how to blink. “It’s not your fault.”
Zelda feels a whine bubble up in her throat, he must feel it too because he adjusts his grip on her, shuffling her up so she doesn’t resemble crumpled parchment quite as much. The long, untamable hair that frames his face kisses her cheek and she uses the opportunity to press her nose into the strong column of his neck as he shrugs into a more comfortable position.
“Just focus on your breathing, Princess,” he says quietly as he reaches for her ankle. “You can count if it helps you, I know that helps me.”
Zelda jumps at the sound of the butt ends of spears hitting hot stone. She blinks back into herself, mind stuck on the two, two, two as she still holds her breath. Urbosa is marching over to her and her heart leaps into her throat when Link steps away.
Where is he going? What’s happening?
She watches him walk towards her pack with cold limbs and a stammering mouth as Urbosa squats down in front of her.
“Little bird,” Link is digging through her bag, what is he looking for? She could help him find it. “Little bird, look at me.” Link is now rummaging through his little bag, what is he doing? Long nails tickle her chin before strong fingers take a soft hold of it and her world shifts to Urbosa’s worried face. “Tanoofu is going to carry you back to the city,” blue lips say ruefully as the same color fingertips brush hair from Zelda’s eyes.
Panic seizes her again and her mouth snaps shut, the clatter of her teeth echoing around her head as she tries and fails to see the broad woman before her.
“But! But what about,” her shoulders are at her ears as she leans away from the Chieftain's touch and those painted lips press together. “But Link! He can’t–”
Urbosa shushes her, she’s being so loud today it seems, and Link is crouched at her knee.
“Link is coming with me, we need to scout the area, little bird, those Yiga could be anywhere,” a wrist twinkling with gold jewelry sweeps down her arm as sure fingers slowly wrap around her calf, palm cushioned by worn leather, and Zelda blinks to meet his gaze.
He’s smiling at her again, that same damn thing, though she can tell he’s forcing it there this time, stress evident in the set of his brow. She stops herself from reaching out to feel the shape of it.
“You shouldn’t be walking on that ankle,” Urbosa says decidedly, voice sounding far away as she moves to stand again. “You'll be safe in my chambers and we’ll talk in the morning.”
Soft silk and ripe fruit and his thumb pets across the cropped hem of her leggings.
When Tanoofu finally deems her settled enough to no longer keep an active eye on, she remains still, watching the doorway to make sure she doesn’t hear heels clacking their way back in to check on her. She waits until the buzzing of desert insects filters back into her ears before quietly throwing the blanket off of her. Thin fabric billows out dramatically when it catches on the evening breeze and she limps her way over to where her bag is resting on a squat, decorative chair.
What had he needed from it? All she carries is her journal and stashes of samples, her mind is reeling as she flips the bag open to rifle through it. Had he taken something, or put something in? She sucks in a breath when she touches the shape of cool glass that she knows hadn’t been there this morning.
Zelda pulls out the small vial of iridescent liquid, shimmering flakes catching the light of the setting sun, and allows herself a tired laugh as she realizes that Link is as eager to get out of the uncertainty of ever shifting sand as she is.
She’s busy chewing on the wood that protects her charcoal when Link pulls the hood of her cloak over her head.
“It’s going to rain,” is his explanation, and she scrunches her nose at him. His lips tick up a little before he wanders away from her, continuing his lazy pacing while she studies the carved stones that litter the hills surrounding the Domain.
She knows better than to argue with him, so she snaps her journal shut and tucks it under her arm, plodding her way over to where he is farther down the hill. They only have one more to look at, the final stop on the trip that has been this ancient meandering story—the one after their first stop at the glowing pedestal under the falls. Which, of course, had told her absolutely nothing but another infuriating riddle.
He’d insisted he didn’t mind taking her when she’d been unable to contain her sound of piqued interest in a mystery that for once didn’t involve her. His face grew more pleasant and his shoulders more relaxed the further they trekked from the waterlogged city, and she found herself feeling the same.
Earlier, when she had triple checked that this excursion would be safe and monsterless, he’d nodded, throwing the friend he’d brought with him and Mipha to greet her a quick look that she couldn’t ascertain. The Zora had straightened slightly, nodding in a practiced imitation of Link before regaling her with how safe they’ve been able to keep the paths so far, and how the Big Bad Bazz Brigade had even made sure early that morning.
Mipha’s headdress twinkled sweetly and Link shifted on his feet.
When she went over the route with him again to make sure; it was going to take all day, they were set to leave at first light the next one, and they were really at the Domain for him all he’d done is nod again. A curt thing, she could see the tension in his neck. He was stressed, which was partly why she had insisted on this trip when he’d gotten hurt, she’d thought it would make him happy. So far, though, all he’d really done is become more tense as their second day there was dawning, arm healed and eyes sharp, but the longer they went the more loose he became so she concluded that the stress was not from her.
“What do you think the answer to the riddle is?” She asks him once she’s caught up to him, shoulders brushing as they step down the grassy path.
He sways into her with a hum, arm pushing against hers like a wave before straightening back out.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he says with a shrug, lacing his fingers behind his head.
“You have multiple hypotheses?”
“Hmmm,” he pouts in thought as he mulls this inquiry over, and she licks her lips, mouth suddenly very dry. “I feel like everything I come up with couldn’t actually work,” he casts his eyes over to her and his lips slide into that grin again before his hands fall to his sides. “I bet you already know the answer to it,” he says as he pulls her hood back over her head, having fallen on her way down to him.
“Oh, please,” she retorts, waving his hand away to hide the heat crawling up her neck. He chuckles and pulls his own hood up just in time for the rain to start pattering against them. “I suppose I have a few ideas,” she admits and his grin slants into something coy, like he’d won a game she hadn’t realized she’d been playing with him.
They continue down the path in companionable silence until she sees the glow of the lantern illuminating the final piece and she’s struck with the need to say something to him. How had she been deserving of this gift of a day he’d given her? She’d snatched him away from his friends, from Mipha, for what? A field trip? The most boring hike? He hadn’t complained once, and as soon as they’d rounded the bend to the second carving, he’d become all loose sword forms and long lazy steps. He’d rested his eyes just off to the side when she was especially captivated by a specific passage, hands laced in his lap, feet crossed at the ankles. She’d linger longer than she needed when he would settle, and she only knew he was stealing glances at her through lowered lashes because she was doing the same to him.
“Thank you for doing this with me,” she finally says, if not to silence her own thinking. “This had to have been boring for you, you could have done anything today.”
“This is what I wanted to do today,” he replies without missing a beat. She scoffs and his cheek dimples on a faded scar, from sword fighting in a bar as a boy she’d learned recently. He moves to toss a small rock up in the air, catching it easily when it makes its way back to him.
“That surely can’t be true,” she chides him and that dimple gets a little deeper. “You said so yourself that you’ve seen them many times.”
She watches him toss the stone up a few more times, before he pockets it and that damned Triforce of courage she’s heard so much about works to his advantage when he shrugs, slowing his steps as they reach the lantern.
“All I wanted to do today was spend time with you, Princess” he says as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “So, thank you as well.”
He turns to face her and she wonders if he can feel the heat radiating off of her blushing cheeks. She knows this dance well now, having done it with him since their journey back from the desert. When they were shoulder to shoulder at their campsite and she apologized for her behavior towards him. He had touched her hair then and voiced his remorse over being so closed off from her, telling her why in that hushed tone of his. She’d reached out to cover his hand with hers, vowing to start over.
She can still feel the brush of his thumb over her pinky if she allows herself to think of it, which she does quite often these days.
Not too soon after that, he pulled her from the Spring of Power, stepping into the sacred water without a thought in his haste to remove her from it. He’d cradled her in his arms, his legs bracketed around her, making himself into a shield from the cacophony of a silent goddess. He was unbothered by the weight of her soaking dress and exhausted body as he told her that there was nothing wrong with her and there was no room for argument. Her worth had nothing to do with Hylia to him, she was more than just a vessel to him.
“It’s your job to spend time with me, Sir Knight,” she leans into his title the same way she leans into him, and he clicks his tongue.
“It’s my job to guard you, your Highness,” he says, voice lofty as he reaches out to adjust the clasp of her cloak, though she’s sure it doesn’t need it. “And as nice as that is, it’s not always the same.”
His fingers trace the edge of long fabric on their way back to his sides and she feels it shoot through her skin as if he’d actually touched her. Zelda licks her lips, and watches as blue eyes track the motion before snapping back up and then away, only to come back again, pink dusting across his damp cheeks like the mist surrounding them.
“You’re right,” she concedes with a quiet smile, pulling her journal back from under her arm and holding his gaze steadily. “It’s not always the same.”
Link huffs out a laugh through his nose, gracing her with a grin that’s a little crooked, but sweet and just for her. He reaches out to pinch her pinky gently between his thumb and the side of his finger, a secret handshake she’s come to know like a dear friend in the past few weeks. He gives her a little squeeze before he pulls away again and her little finger brushes against soft leather as he gestures to the final stone.
“We should get moving again before the rain actually picks up,” he says and she wishes he wasn’t right because she really doesn’t want this day to end.
So, she leans forward, just a little, and ignores the shocked look on his face to press her lips against the soft plane of his cheek, on that faded scar he got as a boy. It’s wet, as wet as her lips are, but warm and she can feel the sharp intake of breath he takes against her damp skin.
When she pulls away, his eyes are as wide as the dinner plates the King uses when he thinks throwing a ball will make the sight of her failures easier to bear. He blinks at her, blue, blue, blue and she smiles again, giving him what he always saves for her. She carries the warm recognition that spreads over his face between her ribs all of the way back to the flooded walkways of the Domain.
“I knew you could,” is the last thing he’ll ever say to her if things continue to go the way they have been the past six hours.
I knew you could, barely there, a gurgle as his lungs filled with his own plasma and she gripped his body to her own, willing the blood back into him, trying to morph him into her, trying to follow after him, she isn’t sure.
The last thing he’ll ever say and it didn’t even sound like him.
She wills herself to remember the murmur in her study instead, quiet and honest, soft like the breeze through her window, but it doesn’t come.
I knew you could, she stumbles over an uneven path, or a root, or nothing, clutching the holy sword close to her chest with trembling fingers that have gone sticky with blood and dirt even through the downpour. The sharp wings of the hilt dig into the thin tissue stretching across her chest leaving red divots in its wake but she doesn’t feel it as she folds forward, gasping and unseeing towards the earth, suddenly overwhelmed by the sharp pelting of the rain on her and the rumbling of thunder and machinery and—
The sword trills weakly, mourning and gentle.
Count if it helps you, I know it helps me.
So she counts.
In, two, three, four, and her focus zooms back into her ruined sandals.
“I’ve got you,” she whispers on the exhale, voice shaking, hugging the sword closer to her as she hinges herself back up. “I’ve got you.”
She counts, counts her steps, counts the number of times her rain-soaked lashes fling water away as she’s forced to blink, counts the times he’d smiled at her.
“I’ve got you,” she mutters into the hilt of his sword until her voice no longer trembles, and then after as well.
The forest is dark and silent as her feet sink into mist-damp earth, and her shoulders are again set far back to hold herself high, determined to fulfill this part of her destiny properly. The sword shows her the path, she assumes, because she hadn’t dared come to the Forgotten Woods after Impa had scared her with a folktale as a girl, but she marches through it like she does in the dark corners of the castle library.
Link had gifted her with a small bird there once, dainty and beautiful and whittled by his own hands from a soft wood he told her was from one of his tours in Lurelin before his appointment. She remembers she’d seen him working on it late at night when she’d peek out of her tent to see if he was sleeping. He never was, instead, he would work in delicate, precise strokes with the small knife he kept in his boot. Some nights, usually after a particularly uneventful or perhaps good day, he would hum quietly to himself, simple folk songs she wished she could ask the names of but she feared he would stop if she did. Instead, she would move her bedroll to the very edge of her tent, face pressed up against the fabric wall in an effort to hear him better as she drifted off to sleep.
She’s almost blown over by the thought that she’ll never see that little bird again, but the sword catches her before she can spiral, growing stronger by the close proximity of her resting place. She gleams and sings expectantly in Zelda’s arms as her view is taken over by the Great Deku Tree, and suddenly she is calm.
The tree greets her like the old friend he is, cherry blossoms fluttering happily, and she finds herself dropping her shoulders and relaxing against the rumble of his mystic voice. He reminds her of her place, her purpose, her why.
Zelda thought she knew her why; she thought it was her birthright, her love for her country, her devotion to Hylia who finally deemed her worthy when it was too late, but it’s not until she returns the sword to where she belongs does she fully understand his. She feels it like the possessed laser he took for her. It burns through her chest and sets her alight, he knew she could.
Tenaciously, unabashedly, unwaveringly, knew she could. There was no other option for him, never a fleeting thought cast towards the idea of her failure. He’d told her as much many different times in many different ways, but she had been too guarded and angry to fully understand how much he believed in her.
How much he cared for her.
The sword allows her that before falling dormant, ready to wait for her master to return. A distant part of her cries out against the loss and she stifles it, letting the hesitant twinkles of the Koroks come into her senses.
She speaks to The Great Deku Tree, he tells her to speak to Link, and she promises that she will.
So she does.
Time moves differently for her now but she knows when he’s waking. She watches him stumble like a still wet foal for only a couple of steps and then his shoulders are set. He’s thinner, of course he is, but he follows her instructions with a single minded focus, face set in determination, stiffening in acknowledgement when she speaks to him.
“I know you,” he says when she tells him to open the shrine, to force him back into a world he’d already sacrificed his life for. It shutters through her with such force that it would shake her bones if she had any, she’s sure. She can feel when his eyes linger on where she’s trapped after he’s trotted up to the edge of the cliff to see the land he’s about to save, his instinct of always knowing exactly where she is shining through, and then he’s off.
“I believe in you,” she whispers into his ear as she wraps herself around him like the trees that have taken back her country when he finally, finally, falls asleep under the stars near the fairy fountain in Kakariko. She imagines they’re tangled like the roots of the twin Silent Princesses he’d thrown himself next to, staring and staring and staring at until his eyes couldn’t help but slide closed.
She presses her lips into his mist-damp cheek when he lingers at the last lantern in the Domain, willing herself to remember the taste of his skin.
“I miss you,” she murmurs against his lips, shoving her hands into his hair under the deep hood of his cloak. She tries to find the feeling of what it was like to know touch, what his hair may feel like wrapped around her fingers. Would it be soft? She’s not sure she even remembers what soft is.
He sucks in a breath, her incorporeal mouth still on his own, and she hears herself whine somewhere far away.
She doesn’t know how much time passes, she can’t always see him, so she doesn’t know when she sees him blink across the entirety of the country if it’s been years or days between the sightings or truly only been a moment.
The beast rumbles but she doesn’t hear it when he says “I’m coming for you,” from the top of the hill crowding Kakariko, near those Silent Princesses again. She wants to kiss him, shove him into a hole so he’ll stay safe and she can just watch over him forever. He would climb out of it and come get her anyway, she knows.
It triggers a blood moon.
She has just enough time before she’s pulled away to see his lips slant into a crooked grin as he launches himself to his feet. She doesn’t allow herself to worry if he’s truly ready, because he’s there, and he listens to her and he does not falter, so neither does she.
And then there is grass at her feet, tickling her ankles, and she doesn’t remember the world being so quiet, words begin to tumble out of her before she realizes she’s speaking.
She barely has a chance to take him in, tattered and heaving before he’s crashing into her, strong fingers connected to a solid leather bound palm cradling her head against him. His arm around her waist is flexed so tight it may bruise her but she welcomes it, twines her arms around his neck and pulls him into her just as hard.
He’s trembling in her arms when he rumbles “Not everything,” into her neck, answering her stupid, selfish question.
“It’s okay,” she whispers, petting down his hair with shaking hands, it’s sticky with sweat but she doesn’t care and his arms constrict around her.
Her only warning is a building of wetness on her shoulder and his attempt at an inhale before he’s sinking down, knees buckling under him, taking her down in his grip though she’d follow him anyway. He slumps against her when she settles with her legs folded under her, hands pawing at her dress as she supports his weight. He’s heavier than she remembers and she relishes in the feel of him, solid and real in her arms as she shushes him like he did her in the desert, and in the holy waters, and in her study.
“I knew you could,” she murmurs against his temple and she feels his fist tighten at her back. He’s panting quietly now, having found his lungs much easier than she ever did.
“I knew you could, too,” he says, huffing, and she knows he means it even if he doesn’t have all the pieces for why he does.
“Thank you,” she whispers into the shell of his ear, because he needs to know it, and she needs to say it. He gasps, wet and labored against her clavicle.
“Ze—I,” he sputters, fists flexing in ancient satin, and because she also needs to feel his skin against hers again, needs to confirm this is still real, she kisses the high cut of his battered cheek. He’s warm, and wet, and in desperate need of a bath but waiting is not an option.
She wants to kiss him all over, memorize the new shape of him, she feels it flowing fiercely through her veins and she tampers it down by pressing her lips further into that poor cheek instead. He makes a choked noise in the back of his throat when she pulls away to hug his filthy head to hers, and she feels her body try to echo it.
“Thank you.”