Chapter Text
The Princess paused and slowly looked over at her knight, mouth agape, whose mouth was also similarly agape and expression shocked. It took Zelda a moment to process what had just happened, before exclaiming,
“You can speak!? ”
“Answer the question!” Link retorted back with.
“SINCE WHEN COULD YOU SPEAK?!!” Zelda exclaimed louder. The knight’s face went red in embarrassment and averted his gaze, pressing his lips together. “How long have you been able to speak?!” Zelda continued and leaned towards him, but his lips only became a thin line and he looked away more. “Link!” She continued even more, but paused when she realised he wasn’t going to speak. She sighed and slumped back.
There was a long pause as Zelda looked at the ground, pouting, when her knight’s voice would be heard again.
“I’ve been able to speak my whole life… but I find it difficult to.” Link was also looking down now as Zelda looked up at him. “It’s not that I choose not to speak, I just physically can’t get the words out most of the time. And it was very clear that it was something I was born with when I woke up in the shrine of resurrection, unable to speak properly but not knowing why. My father tried to constantly find out exactly why I couldn’t speak, or why my learning to speak was so much more delayed than other children. Eventually the doctors just figured it was something in my brain that was different. I often had a hard time making eye contact and socialising with other children; things my father had an issue with… but… the doctor… he said…” he trailed off a little and had his mouth open to speak but no words were coming out.
“Link…?” Zelda said gently, to which Link’s expression changed to that of guilt as he signed a sad, ‘sorry’. “No, no… it’s okay… you said talking is hard for you… does this happen often when you do speak?” The Princess asked, which was answered with a nod. “You could speak and then suddenly you can’t?” Another nod. “I see… is it hard for you to speak most of the time?” Another nod. “Okay…” Zelda thought for a moment. Link looked up at her anxiously, disliking the sudden silence. Zelda noticed as she looked back over at Link, “sorry! I’m not upset! I’m just thinking, is all.” She attempted to reassure him, but that only caused more anxiety in the poor hylian, which was clear in his face. “Oh goodness…” Zelda held her forehead, “how do I phrase this… Just because I’m thinking doesn’t mean it’s necessarily negative. I also struggle with speech sometimes, but it’s different for me. For me, I often struggle to find the words for what I’m going to say. I can get stuck with a million different thoughts running through my head. As a child, I would just go on rambles, going from one topic to another… but my father told me I couldn’t do that as a Princess. As a result, I would have to sit there for about 2 to 5 minutes figuring out what exactly it was that I was actually going to say, instead of saying anything and everything that came to my head. Impa said that that was actually detrimental to the type of person I was… something about “masking”, but it didn’t make any sense to me… I wasn’t exactly paying attention either. Anyway-! Was there anyone you found particularly easier to speak around?” Zelda finished her ramble with a question. Link stared at her for a moment before nodding slowly. Zelda paused a little but gave him a sad smile, “Mipha?”
‘And Sidon,’ Link signed. The princess giggled softly,
“That’s not surprising… I wish Mipha could have met her brother, all grown up.” Zelda smiled gently and curled up, arms wrapped under her thighs, “they would have… what? Why are you staring at me like that?” Link’s eyes shifted slightly when she pointed it out and glanced away for a second. “No! I can tell when your expression changed! It means something is up! What is it?” Link looked away. “Link.” She pouted.
‘Present day… Sidon…’ Link slowly signed as his face turned a light shade of red. Zelda stared at his hands before looking up at Link himself.
“You LIKE Sidon?!” Link smiled uncontrollably and laughed nervously as he covered his face.
“Link, Hero of Hyrule! Explain yourself!” Zelda exclaimed as Link shook his head, still laughing. “ Two zora? TWO?! Are you serious? Brother and sister as well!”
“I just like fish…” Link said quietly, clearly struggling slightly to speak.
“Clearly.” Zelda replied deadpan, her face reflecting her tone.
“Don’t give me that look…!” Link defended, still laughing, “listen… he’s large… there’s a lot of benefits to being in a relationship with him-“
“ARE YOU TWO-“
“NO! Plus, he always saw me as an older brother… I couldn’t do that to him.”
“How could you like someone who sees you as an older brother?”
“The amazing thing about that is… I don’t tell him…”
There was a long pause of silence between the two as they stared at each other, before Zelda finally asked, “do male zora have… um… goodness, I feel so embarrassed asking this-“
“Two dicks? Yes.” Link answered bluntly.
“Link!” Zelda exclaimed with a shocked laugh as she went red, “is that why…?”
“Not entirely… but I do think about it nearly every time I see him.”
There was, again, another pause of silence.
“I thought you weren’t even interested in men… or anyone besides Mipha.”
“Says the one who admitted she liked Mipha as well…”
“My father never would have allowed it anyway. He was homophobic, he’d never support me being with any woman, let alone someone you may have ended up in a relationship with!”
“It’s not like we could have had any children anyway… And I was only 17.” Zelda stared at him for a moment. Link paused and looked back at her, ‘what?’ He signed.
“It feels so weird to have a proper conversation with you where you’re speaking.” Link blinked a little then looked away nervously. “It’s not a bad thing! I just… always begged to have a proper conversation with you… when you may not have even been able to speak… and now that I’m not begging you to, you finally are… makes me realise I should have been more patient with you…”
“I was also just your knight at the time… I didn’t know how to talk to you because we weren’t very close. Unless I need to convey information to someone else, I can’t really talk to them in a conversation.”
“So you can communicate information, but actually socialising and conversation is hard for you?” Zelda asked gently, and Link nodded in response. “I see… interesting… That is really interesting. I’ve never heard of that before.
“Apparently my dad was the same but he “grew out of it”,” Link muttered with a sigh, “unlike my father, however, the knights were all patient with me and never forced me to speak. They never tried to get me to speak at all. They even told me my dad was exactly the same when he was first a knight… struggled to speak, but he was anxious… I’m unsure if he struggled with the same things as me, but it feels like he didn’t.”
The two talked for hours after that, before returning to Hateno. They shared the same house, Link’s old home, but lived in different rooms entirely. The two slept and didn’t wake up until the next morning… Well, that was a lie.
Zelda woke up in the middle of the night. Unable to get back to sleep, she just decided to get up and went to the kitchen to get herself some water. She didn’t expect to see Link there as well, his hair out and down. He was sat on the counter as he stared out of the window, almost like he had done this a million times before.
“Link?” She said gently, causing her to get his attention. His head whipped around quickly. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you… are you alright? You look exhausted.” Link nodded and signed that he was fine. Her eyes softened and she quietly went to fill up a glass of water, but Link clicking his fingers immediately drew her attention. She looked over at him as he pointed at some ceramic pots. “What?” She looked at the pots then at him.
‘Water doesn’t run properly at night. The pots have clean water inside.’ He signed to her.
“Oh, right… Do you do this often?” She asked as she walked over to the pots. He stared at her for a moment before looking away slowly. Her shoulders dropped, “Link…”
‘Sleeping is hard for me. It always has been…’ Link licked his lips nervously and opened his mouth to speak. It took him a moment but he finally was able to get the words out, “um… I… I could never sleep properly… even as a child-“
“Link… you don’t have to speak, you know? I know I used to beg, but if it is difficult for you, then I don’t want you to feel like you have to speak.” Zelda told him gently. He looked over, a blush lightly appearing on his face but it was too dark to tell.
“It’s too dark for you to see me sign properly… “
“That may be true, but still…”
“And some things are just easier to explain in speech. Anyway… sleeping has been a problem for me since I was young… and the calamity hasn’t made it any easier… I often have nightmares of calamity ganon killing me and hyrule falling into complete destruction and disarray. And I often think about that day I nearly died… what if your powers hadn’t awakened, what if you weren’t able to save me… what if I had been killed by a guardian and you also died… as I gained more and more of my memories, the sight of guardians started to make me more and more anxious… remembering… that day… I had dealt with them completely fine, but it’s like those memories brought all those anxieties back to me. I mean- shit. I had defeated who-knows how many guardians at the point when I finally got the last memory back of me nearly dying in your arms! And yet… the sight of guardians, the sounds that they make… the fucking lasers… and the beams… it nearly caused me a panic attack every single time afterwards… I went to Impa after I had finally become the person I previously was… just- in search of answers… and she told me I was severely traumatised by what we had experienced on that day… that um-“ he took a deep breath, only just realising he was shaking and gripping his own cup tightly. He blinked a little and looked over at Zelda, who just looked extremely worried. He blinked again and looked down, wiping his nose, “sorry…”
“No! No… don’t be… that’s…”
A long pause of silence followed Zelda’s words as she leaned against the counter, back to Link, “I… I understand… I often get nightmares, imagining how Urbosa died and how I couldn’t do anything… I… I had just turned seventeen… and everyone died… nearly everyone we knew and loved died… and… I- I often blame myself. No one would have died if I just awakened my power in time…”
“No…” Link protested quietly as Zelda gripped at her sleeve a little.
“They all… the only person I could protect was you… I could have saved so many more lives… stopped Ganon… and if I had just… been able to… then maybe… just maybe…” the poor girl started to shake as she teared up.
“Zelda…” Link said quietly.
“Everyone would have lived… Mipha would be… she’d be alive… to this day… and we would have lived out our lives with Urbosa, and Revali, and Daruk… and everyone else… and my father, he-“ Zelda let out a sob, covering her mouth. Link jumped down and pulled her close as she started to sob into his shoulder, grabbing onto his sleeves. He let out a shaky sigh and let her cry.
“We don’t know that…” Link said quietly as Zelda seemed to calm down a little, “Ganon took control over the guardians… we have no idea if we would have survived, your power earlier or later. Maybe… things would have played out the same… We- we don’t know… and we’ll never know-“
“But-“
“Mm…” Link hummed quickly to shut down Zelda’s protests. Zelda gulped a little as she stared out of the window, head resting gently now on his shoulder. “We can’t predict what never happened.”
“I know… I know. I know- I- I know! I just… I couldn’t save them… I couldn’t activate my powers… and then I was only able to last second, and I saved you… but I couldn’t save our friends…”
“I wouldn’t say Revali was our friend-“
“Oh, shut up…!” Zelda said with a said laugh as she hit his arm. Link chuckled softly and smiled gently. She let out a small sigh, “you’re…” her hands still on Link’s shoulders, she leaned back slightly with Link’s arms around her mid back to support her.
“Hm…?” Link questioned, looking confused,
“You’re a lot smaller than I thought you were… less muscle…” Link went completely red in the face.
“Wha…!”
“I thought you were more muscular…!”
“Your Highness…” he mumbled embarrassed, unsure what else to say.
“YOUR HIGH-“
“SHUT UP!”
“Listen! The fact you’re not muscular isn’t a bad thing! I just wasn’t expecting it!”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing though!”
“It’s not!” Zelda defended, going red as she giggled.”
About two hours had passed with them just talking about anything and everything, Link sitting at the table and Zelda leaning against the counter.
“You like big men, right?” Zelda asked. Link peered at her over his glass as he took a swig of his drink, and nodded slowly. “What are you going to do if our next villain is a big muscular man?”
“Simply die…” he mumbled and let out a nervous laugh.
“Link!” Zelda exclaimed with a laugh.
“I don’t know! I’d kill him… because it may be another incarnation of evil…”
“What if he’s really hot though?” Zelda smirked. Link looked at her. “What?”
“Do you like men?”
“Yes…?”
“What would you do?” Zelda paused with her mouth agape as Link stared at her, eyebrows raised. She simply closed her mouth,
“Um… I don’t like big men…”
“What if he was really hot?” Link repeated back to Zelda.
“Shut up…” Zelda mumbled, going red.
“No, no! Give me an answer!”
“No! I don’t have to!”
“Coward.”
“No! I’m not! Oh wait… I had a thought… Gerudo are usually hot muscular women… and a male Gerudo is born every 100 years… I’m aware that one of the kings of the Gerudo was evil… you think he was hot?” Zelda explained, leaning forward. Link thought for a moment and sat back. He remained silent for a long time, licking his lips in thought. Zelda giggled a little, “Link?”
“What kind of thoughts have you… put into my head…?” He mumbled, peering over at her.
“Don’t blame me for you being horny, sir!” Zelda defended very quickly, causing Link to start laughing.