Chapter Text
“Wow… these ruins are really… ruined is the word, I suppose. A bit on the nose,” Zelda said as she turned a broken doll over with her foot. “I remember this place, you know. Well, before the calamity.”
Link looked around at the depressing scene. He found himself reminded that this was once someone’s home. It was someone’s everything. There were born here, and they grew up here, and they either died here, or thought they might.
“It used to be a lively little village with the most beautiful town square,” Zelda recalled. “Sometimes the champions would meet here and we’d train. Right there, in fact,” she pointed to what now looked like a random patch of grass.
Link looked over. If one looked closely, they could see that the grass was growing through cracks in stone. It was covered in a layer of dirt and moss so thick that unless you knew there was something to look for, you wouldn’t have noticed it. Link sure didn’t. He was distracted by what else was there. On the ground lay a bright, golden circle, glowing in the midday light. He walked over.
“Indeed, right there,” Zelda said. “Do you remember it?”
Link didn’t answer. He did not remember it, but he soon would. He stepped into the circle, time seeming to slow around him as he had a flashback to the most wonderful afternoon.
________________________________________________________________________
”As you know, my mother passed away before she could teach me to use my sacred power,” Zelda said. She was sitting on the grass in her ceremonial dress. In her hands was a beautiful, golden harp with silver strings. It was gorgeous, and Link wondered how many millions of rupees it was worth as he sat beside her. Zelda didn’t seem concerned by the cost, playing it like she didn’t know how valuable it was. It seemed like she took excellent care of it regardless. Based on what she said next, it seemed it had immense sentimental value, worth more than all the rupees in the world.
“But she did teach me to play the harp. Only the basics, only two songs, but it was enough. I can play most everything now. I do so wish… I wish she could see it. I wonder… what she’d think of it.”
‘I wonder what she’d think of me,’ went unspoken. It was clear Zelda was thinking it.
“Proud. It’s beautiful,” He paused, hoping he wasn’t about to sound like a creep. He wasn’t sure if Zelda felt the same way he did, after all. He decided to risk it. “Like you.”
Zelda blushed and, most likely without noticing she was doing it, tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Oh. Thank you. I… I appreciate it. You’re beautiful, too. Or, handsome, I suppose.”
“Both.”
“You’re both?”
He nodded as she laughed. “You’re funny, too. My handsome, beautiful, funny knight.”
She began playing again. Si-Re-Si-La-Fa-Do-Sol-Mi, the melody started. Zelda began to sing.
“Bear up my…
Ancient lullaby
May sweet dreams
find your head tonight
C lose your eyes
N eath the velvet skies
'Till we meet again.”
________________________________________________________________________
Link snapped back to the present. He wished he could have stayed in the flashback long enough to hear the rest of the song. Zelda’s singing voice was the most captivating sound he had ever had the pleasure of hearing. He would do anything to hear it again. He looked over to her with a dazed look in his eyes.
“Are you alright?” Zelda asked, concerned. “You look a bit… off.”
“Doing amazing,” he said, “Had a memory. Sing for me, please?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I would be glad to. Are you sure this is the best time and place, though? We *are* in a desolated town searching for building materials. I’m not sure if it’s the best time.”
“Could sing while we look.”
She considered this. “That sounds enjoyable.”
She began to sing the same song she had sung in the flashback.
“…In sorrow hope takes flight
Darkness brings candlelight
Think of me when I'm out of sight...
Ease your soul
Of your endless path
Cradled safe and sound
On the Earth.”
Her voice was different than it had been before. She had gotten years older, over 100 if you counted the years in which she hadn’t aged. She had gone 100 years without speaking or drinking water, too, which couldn’t have been good for her vocal cords. Though her voice was raspier and less melodious, she sang like a non-biblically accurate angel.
When the song was done, Link clapped. “Goddess. That was beautiful.”
“Thank you! My mother taught it to me.”
“She’d be proud, you know. Urbosa and King Rhoam, too.”
“I’m not sure if father could ever be proud of me… but, I thank you regardless.”
She had seen his diary entries. Link had told her about what he said as a ghost, how all he cared about was that Link saved her, as was his sacred duty. All he cared about was making sure his daughter, his dear Zelda, was okay.
But actions spoke louder than words, and Link wasn’t sure if Zelda would ever stop having the insecurities that come with constant criticism. Being redeemed in death is easy. All that matters is that the last thing or things you did and said were heroic. People will forget the rest. Redemption in life is far harder. People are wary of the living and do not easily ‘forgive and forget’. The living must put effort toward redemption, must right their wrongs and become different. Redemption in death is easy. Link sometimes wished he had died in the calamity with his friends so he wouldn’t have to live with his failure. The other champions were seen as heroic for dying, but Link felt like a coward for surviving. What was so different about him that he got to live when no one else had?
‘Nothing,’ was the answer. It was simply luck. The only difference was that he was in the best possible place at the best possible time.
Link had thought about it many times when he was out in the wild, how redemption in death is so, so easy. But Link was never one to take the easy way out, and when he thought about Zelda’s eyes, her smile, her laugh… he remembered what he had been fighting for. He didn’t care about redemption. He was doing this to save the princess. To save Hyrule, and it wasn’t his problem who disliked him while he was doing it.
The song had evoked such strong emotions in him that he had tears in his eyes when it had ended. “You knew him better than me, so I may be wrong. But I promise you, you deserve to be proud of your talents. I only found out you could sing about two minutes ago, and I’m proud.”
Zelda walked over and gave him a hug. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said, hugging back, then pausing. “Do… you still have a harp?”
“Hmm… I don’t think so. I might have one somewhere, but it’s doubtful. Most of my items were either destroyed in the calamity or were ruined from sitting unattended for one-hundred years, so I don’t own much these days.”
Link thought this was a bit of a stretch. She owned a lot of ancient screws and more skincare items than anyone could possibly use, in Link’s opinion. Who could even find the time to wash your face, dry it, then manage to put on both lotion *and* chapstick? Three skincare products were three more than he used, and were absurd to him. Still, Zelda’s acne was better than it was before the calamity, so perhaps the new routine was working. Or maybe it was the fact that she had less stress now. Or that she wasn’t a teenager anymore.
It then occurred to him that if you don’t count the 400 ancient screws, 10 ancient gears, 3 ancient springs, and 1 ancient core she had, she did not, in fact, own many things.
“Do you want a harp?” he asked.
“Hmm,” She considered, then answered. “Yes, I would love one. Not many places sell them anymore, though, and they’re very expensive. I think they’re worth more than our horses and house combined.”
“Not an issue,” he said, marking Hyrule Castle on the Sheikah slate, “I know exactly where to find one. Saw it when I was exploring Hyrule Castle. I mean… going to save you. Didn’t explore first.”
“Link, I saw you the whole time. You found 25 koroks, nine traumatic memories, went out to tell Impa so you could get another memory, came back, found several swords, my diary, my father’s diary, secret passage ways, your old royal guard uniform—“
“It was mine?”
“Why else would it fit perfectly?”
“Most clothes fit perfect. Most men are a size medium. Women’s sizes are weird. Like they spun a wheel to decide what size to put on there. In my purple Gerudo clothes I’m a size 0, and in my green ones, I’m too big for a size XXL.”
“Indeed. It’s so confusing. Before the calamity, I had people to measure me and tailor the clothes specifically for my body. Though I did not have to put as much thought into it, I have to say that I prefer how it is now. The clothing never fits quite as well, but I don’t have to stand through hours of poking and prodding.”
Link thought of the time he had gotten tailored clothes. It was for his champion’s tunic, and it hadn’t been a pleasant experience. He was impressed that Zelda had been able to go through that ordeal so often, but he wasn’t surprised. If Zelda was adept at anything, it was endurance. She could sit through a near eternity of pain and suffering, for better or worse. It was a skill that was sad but, in her pre-calamity life, necessary. It was Link’s goal to never again let her into a situation where she was forced to use that skill.
“You know,” Zelda said, breaking the silence that Link hadn’t realized had fallen, “I taught you a bit of the harp. Just a few notes. Maybe a quarter of a song. Your dexterity from your sword skills made you very talented.”
Link looked at his hands. They were not at all like Zelda’s. His were rough and a little bit dirty, calloused from years of climbing mountains and battling foes. There was always some sort of filth under his fingernails, unless he was cooking, in which case he always washed his hands very well.
Zelda’s were softer and cleaner, though her nails also usually had some sort of grime under them. It came with the job of repairing a kingdom, and ever since she had learned to climb rocks and fight, she found her hands growing rougher and rougher, too. Unlike Link, though, she often forgot to wash her hands before cooking. Link had had to put a sign up above the stove with a cutesy reminder to either wash your hands or wear gloves. (“Whether you cook tasty pasta or yummy-in-your-tummy greens, wear gloves or make sure your hands are clean!” in the same font one would use when writing “Live, Laugh, Love!”) Zelda was not a fan of it, but Link liked it very much, and sometimes one must compromise on the little things for the sake of love.
Link was unsure of how his hands, so different from hers, could play the harp. It seemed like such a delicate instrument. He found himself feeling honored that she had let him play hers before. He wished he could remember it. “Really?” he said.
“Indeed. You never learned any full songs, but you would play the notes one at a time and I would sing along. We would make up songs together.”
Link grinned. “Can you sing one?”
“Hmm… oh, I know the perfect one!
Oooooohhhhh, there once was a maiden named Pearl,
Who fell in love with a squirrel!
As he sang her a song,
She tried to sing along,
But when she opened her mouth, she just hurled!”
Link was silent, staring at Zelda with a blank face. She began to feel a bit uncomfortable, wondering why he was being so quiet, before he burst out laughing. “The heck? We wrote that?”
“We did indeed. We wrote about Pearl’s misadventures fairly often.”
He smirked, trying to contain another laugh. He succeeded in not laughing, but failed in hiding his amusement. “What other songs did we make about her?”
“Well… Here’s the one that you liked best.
Oooooohhhhh, Pearl was a maiden so fair,
Until one day she found a magic pear,
She ate the fruit
And began to take root,
Until only a large tree stood there!”
“She… turned into a tree?”
“Yes. You liked that one because it had a sequel about how she turned back. The sequel song is several minutes long. Would you like to hear it?”
Link considered it. On one hand, it would be a terrible song, but that was part of the fun, wasn’t it? On the other hand, the more Zelda sang, the more he could listen to her voice. “Absolutely.”
“Oooooohhhhh, Pearl was stuck as a tree,
Standing imprisoned, longing to be freed…” Zelda began to sing. Over four minutes later, she took a breath and said the last verse. “And she jumped with joy, for she was wood no longer!”
Link clapped. “Woah! How did you remember all that?”
“It was very important to me. I treasure all of our silly little moments. They add up into what I love about you. One of the things I love about you, at least. I haven’t the time to name them all.”
“Just name as many as you can in the time it takes for me to memorize the song?”
“That would be hours, my beloved. Especially because I haven’t written it down yet.”
They exchanged playful banter until the sun went down. By the time the moon shone bright in the sky, Link had committed three verses to memory, no easy feat. “You know,” Zelda said, “If you want to learn to play the harp again, I could teach you.”
He nodded eagerly, picturing its location in the abandoned castle. “We’ll have to go get that harp.”
________________________________________________________________________
Hudson was glad to have the new building materials (along with the wood he insisted he needed more of) and went to work on rebuilding Deya Village right away. Hyrule desperately needed new villages. Now that the calamity was done and over, now that the world was safer, the population was growing. People were churning out babies like they hadn’t in a century, no longer worried about the world their descendants were going to be born into. Sometimes Link wondered what his and Zelda’s child would look like. He looked forward to one day finding out. He sure hoped they’d be cuter than the painting he had seen of Bolson’s grown-up kid. That was a picture that would undoubtably cause nightmares. Who knew mouths could be that wide? Was it a birth defect, or did he choose to look that way? And Bolson, so queer coded, having a biological son (with a woman, no less) was even odder than the son’s mouth.
After dropping off the building materials, they teleported to the Saas Ko’sah shrine. Without the monsters, it was just a sad, slightly lonely dock. Not that it was any better with the monsters. There just hadn’t been time to focus on the dreariness when there were lizalfos hunting you.
They went up the stairs, into the library, and all through the castle. Zelda remembered passageways Link didn’t. She said they had used them to sneak away from Rhoam back in the day. They trudged through the ruined hallways until they reached Zelda’s old bedroom. It was dusty and dirty, the floor still covered in shards of glass and broken wall. Buried in the rubble was a golden harp with silver strings. Link pulled it out while Zelda walked around the room, examining what had become of it. She hadn’t been here since Ganon had been sealed away, afraid that she would be filled with longing for the life she used to have. She was glad to find that she was filled only with longing for her old friends, the longing that lay in her heart at all times, and no longing for any other part of her past.
As Link dusted off and put away the harp, Zelda took out a duffle bag and began stuffing it with her old belongings. “We’re here anyway,” she said, “I might as well bring some of my old keepsakes.”
She left the castle with a much heavier duffle bag than was comfortable to carry, stuffed with clothes and books and research journals and mementos of good times. “Perhaps I should have left the series of encyclopedias behind,” she huffed, setting the bag onto the floor at home. “I feel as if my arms are going to fall off my body.”
Link chuckled. “I carried it most of the way.”
“And yet you seem to have no muscle soreness at all!”
“Been sword fighting longer than you. I’m a little stronger.”
“Very rude! I have abs, I’ll have you know.”
“’K, fine. Secret’s strength elixir.”
“I knew it!” She stomped her foot. “I am so just as strong as you.”
“Not when I’ve had a strength elixir.”
“Anyway,” she glared at him while she spoke, “I’ll put these up, tune the harp, then teach you to read music notes.”
________________________________________________________________________
Reading music notes was the most boring thing Link had ever done.
“While it can look complex, and even a bit intimidating, it’s not as difficult as you may think. It’s sort of like learning a language.”
“That’s… pretty hard.”
“A very easy language?”
“Hard.”
“The foundation of the written musical language is the staff. It’s the lines here, five lines and four spaces. The notes go in the spaces between the lines. The lines are numbered one through five, starting from the bottom, and the spaces are numbered from one to four, also from the bottom.”
“Notes go in the spaces? How do I know which note is in the space?”
“Each note has a different place with which it corresponds. You can tell which note it is based on where it is. This note is always on the bottom, like you usually are in bed. There are other bits to know about notes, but it’s good to start with the basics.”
“Still kinda hung up on the bed thing. I—”
“Some people call the notes do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do,” she kept going, ignoring Link’s objection, “but for the sake of practice, we’ll use letters. Each note has a letter name. If you like, you can use a mnemonic device to remember which string corresponds with which note. I’ll get to that in a moment. This here is a treble clef. It’s used by instruments with higher registers. The note names spell out F-A-C-E, like a face. Understand everything so far?”
Based on the look on Link’s face, he had no idea what Zelda was talking about. “My queen, I understand nothing.”
She frowned. “Ah. I see. Well, which part confuses you?”
“Everything. I get that I use my face for something, but I don’t know what.”
“N-no. You don’t use your face.”
“Huh. Could’ve sworn you said face.”
“I did, but… how about we start with music theory? It might be good to know about that before you learn how to play.”
“Is that like color theory? Because Traysi said that based on it, red is a great color for the floors in a children’s hospital.”
“Er… no. Wouldn’t it look like blood? Though it does have more positive connotations than negative ones, I suppose.”
Link shrugged and made a sound of nonchalance.
“Anyway, Music theory is a practice used to both understand and communicate the language of music. It examines the fundamentals of music and a system to interpret musical compositions. For example, basic music theory defines the elements that form harmony, melody, and rhythm.”
Link made a sound of confusion.
“I’m not sure how much simpler I can put it,” Zelda said. “Not that you aren’t smart, but I don’t have the language to communicate it differently. How about we start with… no, wait!”
She ran to her still-packed duffle bag and pulled out an encyclopedia. “Here we are! Let’s flip to music theory… alright! Music theory is just the study of music.”
He made a sound of understanding. “Ooohhh, okay.”
“It examines… no, this is even more confusing than the way I said it. Ugh!” she slumped onto the floor in a frustrated heap. “I don’t even know where to start! The harp is so confusing to teach. I’m not a natural born teacher like you.”
Link laughed. “Babe, when I taught you to cook, there was a grease fire. When I taught you to fight, I got you beaten up by a guardian. And don’t even get me started on taking you to such a high cliff when I taught you to climb rocks. No one is a natural born teacher. It takes practice.”
Zelda thought back to when she had gotten beaten up in the Taloh Naeg shrine, when she had dunked her head in the pond to get the grease out, and when her lungs were filled with hairspray on the hill. “I suppose… you’re right! Okay, let me gather a curriculum. I’ll need lots of paper, several highlighters, and some peanut butter.”
Link went to grab the peanut butter while Zelda grabbed the rest. “Why do you need peanut butter?”
“Because I am very hungry. Okay,” she exclaimed, plopping the paper stack onto the table. She cracked her knuckles. They were oddly quiet, but they made a sound nonetheless. “Time to get planning!”
________________________________________________________________________
One week and two days later, Link had learned how to read notes. Not well, mind you, but he could tell what each note was. He couldn’t string them together yet, but it was progress, and good progress if one considered how busy he was with other things. She had shown him how to hold the harp and how to properly pluck the strings, and finally, she attempted and failed to teach him music theory.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get it,” Link said, twenty minutes into the lesson. “I get the notes and strings and stuff, but I don’t know why music theory is a thing.”
Zelda considered this. “Hmmm… Huh. I suppose you’re right. It isn’t really necessary to know in order to play at an amateur level. Alright, then. We’ve covered it all, I do believe. Let’s get to playing!”
She handed him the harp and positioned his hands in their proper places. “Just like we practiced, but this time, all in order. No need to rush, just do your best. I’ll sing along.”
Link took a deep breath and began to play. He went slowly, having to remind himself which strings were which letters, but he played just the same. As he played, he got slightly faster until it started to sound like an actual song. By the time they reached the last few lines, it sounded almost good. Zelda sang along as he plucked the strings.
“One star gleams
Whispers on the breeze
Dream your fears away
Sleep, twinkle of my eye,
Hold close this lullaby
Know that I'm always by your side.”
After he played the final note, Link leapt up and grabbed Zelda in a hug. “I did it!”
“You did it! Oh, you did it!” She lifted him off his feet and attempted to spin him around. She was only able to move him a few inches, but he didn’t seem to mind that her Link-moving skills were worse than her musical ones. “Now we should celebrate! I’ll make fruit cake. Then, if you’d like, I can teach you to play the ocarina.”
Link pictured an octagon. He pictured himself trying to play it. He pictured himself dying at the hands of an octagon. “I’m good.”