Work Text:
“I prefer the climate of Hebra and Lanayru to Faron." The rain was coming down lightly.
Link recalled Zelda making this comment at the beginning of their day as she examined their belongings. Everything was rain-damp, the air deeply saturated.
The Spring of Wisdom was always her favorite, right at the peak of the mountain. He couldn’t say that he shared that sentiment, never having enjoyed the feeling of ceramic limbs and every gust of wind like a grater against his skin. He considered the warm droplets colliding with his body, Zelda in front of him.
She looked back as he shifted his weight from foot to foot in the pool. Link shrugged.
They had just come upon the Spring of Courage when the clouds darkened. Zelda wasn’t in her prayer dress. Link was unarmed. They waded in the water bare and unbothered by the weight of prophesy. By then victory was no more than a lingering peace in the hills, a calm in the villages, a few scars on the hero’s back, a faint glow under Zelda’s palms. They shared century-old blood flowing through young veins—he and his heroine, past their destiny, standing under the dead eyes of a weathered stone goddess. Time had given her scars too, moss stains and timeworn wings. Eroded features that dripped with the tears of a dozen storms. She was in worse shape than her two sisters.
Their clothes were in piles under a rock arch behind them, but Link kept his gaze skyward. Wet tips of hair dripped into his eyes.
Despite his disagreement about the snow, he was too comfortable in this space to attempt voicing it. While it was true that for the first time in this spring Zelda wasn’t here with prayerful intentions, he hesitated to replace the litany on her lips with conversation. He would warm up to speaking freely, now that they had the whole rest of their lives.
But if not now, then when? The beast was slain, but the kingdom left in ruins. There was much to be done ahead of them. How could they idle now, when in fact now appeared the time to begin work on restoration? For all the lifetimes past, Zelda deserved to see her kingdom in its glory before the sun set on this one.
The rain started to beat down heavier. Her hair dripped around the curve of her cheek and the shell of her ear like threads of pure gold. He caught sight of his own shoulders in the periphery of his vision, covered in freckles and other blemishes. They both seemed older now, but still too young for the years saved in memory. Maybe Link was taking advantage of time in that way, convincing himself that it was okay to keep his secret until there really was nothing more important. Perhaps somewhere along the way he would slip a confession into the timeline but for now, he was content to let his love lie dormant.
He shifted again and caught a lilypad with his elbow. The flower was weighed down by the pelts of water. The shade of green perfectly matched Zelda’s eyes. He could feel them looking at him now but struggled to meet them.
“Which do you prefer, Link?”
He pretended to reflect on it. The rain.
Droplets sat on her lashes, made her skin shine, and darkened her lips to a floral pink, like dried safflina leaves. The sky was gray, the cliffs surrounding them were gray, and the statue, in the middle of the rainforest, all of it somehow colorless except her. Zelda was a radiant palette of beauty, unhampered by the storm.
She was accustomed to Link’s silence—even past the expiration of its political purpose—but now she waited expectantly for him to answer her.
Any words he could conjure to mind in explanation were caught on the tip of his tongue. Any justification he had would be an extrapolation of his awe, soaked in the thoughts his bleeding heart had been mulling over the whole war through.
I prefer the rain of Faron because it's falling on us right now and you've never been so unbearably beautiful.
Wealth of courage exhausted, Link let every affectionate turn of phrase dissolve in his mouth like hard candy and instead, he muttered, “I like this.”
All that remained unspoken settled in the electrified clouds above, pattering back down on their heads. He smiled under the weight of it. His love never felt like a burden, even as it was.
Zelda found his hand under the water and pulled him towards the base of the statue where they sat and turned upon the curtain of palms. Amidst the drumming of his heart, Link almost believed he heard her say, “I like you.”
“Hm?”
“I like this, too.”