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Link faded.
But only Link faded.
The ocarina fell from Zelda’s hands as she realized her mistake. She thought… she thought that sending him back would fix everything. Make sure that this never happened in the first place. That they would both remember what had happened in the past bright enough to hope for the future.
Instead, she had sent away Link, her husband, her one true love, and everything hadn’t fixed itself. He was gone, and all she was left with were the crumbled remnants of a broken kingdom.
She sobbed.
At some point, she would need to stand up, and start picking up the pieces of this broken kingdom, because they finally did have hope now for the first time in years, even if it didn’t come the way she had wished that it might.
But for now, she sobbed.
It hurt too much to be Zelda, the one who had been his friend and loved him for years. So he wouldn’t be. Sheik cared for Link too, but… his loss didn’t hurt him in the same way.
A couple of weeks hadn’t been enough time to recover much, and certainly not the majority of the castle. But it was looking considerably better than the charred earth and fires that had still been raging after Link left. Besides, representatives of all the races, including Chief Nabooru of the Gerudo and Impa of the Sheikah, were present, and keen to reestablish the rightful monarchy.
They wanted the Queen Zelda they had missed for well over a decade now. But they would have to settle for an inferior King instead, Sheik was afraid. Zelda was too weak to be Queen.
Of course, being as close to his mentor, Impa, as he was, Sheik confided in her the night before the coronation was supposed to be. He planned to receive his crown, not from three priestesses representing the goddesses as his mother had, but from the leaders of the different races, a representation of the people his power would truly come from.
Impa frowned at hearing this. “I believe it is fine if you would truly rather be a King than a Queen, Sheik. But… the people might be confused, if they don’t hear the name given to you at birth. The expectation of the monarchy is that it contains the power of the goddess in their blood. You, of course, are free to choose what you will be called. But as the next monarch of Hyrule, you cannot simply make the decision without first considering how your people will respond to it.”
Impa was right, of course. She often was. So he decided that he would be crowned King Zelda, though he would ask his friends to call him Sheik in private, as he took on his birth name solely so that there would be no question of his legitimacy.
But there was one last thing he wanted to do before the coronation, something that would hopefully be brief and hopefully qualm some of the nerves he was not immune to, despite decidedly wanting to do this. He had a friend in Hyrule Field that he had cultivated a relationship with over the last few years under the darkness of night, as often as he dared to visit, and they had initially bonded over fond memories of a boy with a fairy that they both knew.
“ Sheik?” Malon asked, as he approached her where she was in the horse enclosure as usual. At night, as usual, because it was familiar and because he knew he would miss the shadows that would be increasingly difficult to find, starting tomorrow. “What brings you here?”
“ News,” Sheik said, still relishing what might be one of the last times he was called by his preferred name so naturally.
She frowned. “Well, I mean it’s obvious throughout all of Hyrule that something happened, because there’s less monsters and everything feels… lighter. But I haven’t heard any news of you or Link for a few weeks now. What happened?”
He tried not to let his face fall, despite choosing to wear his covering for one last night. He didn’t succeed. “The Hero and the Princess managed to oust Ganondorf and seal him away, but… well, the Hero isn’t here anymore.”
Malon’s jaw dropped open. “Link died?”
It was more complicated than that. More tragic than that. But… it was hardly as though he was going to live again in this time, and it was easier than explaining Zelda’s mistake, so Sheik simply nodded.
She clasped her hands in front of her, looking down. She hadn’t been quite so close to Link as Sheik had been, but they were still good friends. “Is there going to be a funeral?”
He hadn’t considered that. Maybe… maybe that wouldn’t be such a terrible idea. “Perhaps it can be arranged that there’s a subdued memorial service for his friends that knew him best to attend. Most of the leaders for the different peoples across Hyrule are already in the area, and you can probably easily make it if we hold it after the coronation tomorrow, can’t you?”
Malon nodded, and then tilted her head, curious. “Coronation? The princess is taking the throne, then?”
Sheik took a deep breath, because telling her about this and extending an official invitation was part of the reason he had come to talk to her tonight. “I’m being crowned King tomorrow.”
Her mouth fell open into an “o”. “I should have realized. Thinking back on everything now, it seems so obvious.” She took a deep breath. “King Sheik, then?”
He was glad she didn’t ask why he chose to be King instead of Queen. He would have explained, but it was nice not to, it was nice to just share things at the pace he was comfortable at. “King Zelda, actually. But… I’d like it if my friends would still call me Sheik.”
Malon smiled at him. “Alright, Sheik. Now, are your friends invited to the coronation, too?”
It was a stormy night a couple of months later when Sheik visited the ranch again, this time going to the house where there was light and shelter from the rain, all but actually falling into Malon’s arms as she opened the door and quickly toted him inside.
“ What is it?” she asked, gently setting him down on the floor and fetching him a towel to dry off and clothes to change into.
“ I think I’m pregnant.”
At first he had chalked up missing his cycle to the stress of everything, especially as the work as a monarch began to pick up in earnest as the Kingdom was rebuilt. But then it continued not to come, and he could no longer pass off his consistent nausea as nerves.
And, as he had confided to Malon by now, he had been married. He wished it wasn’t past tense, but his husband was no longer here, so it was, and… well. He was a King, and it looked like he would have his heir soon enough.
It was equal parts terrifying and relieving. Because on one hand, without Link here to help, he was going to be a single parent and while he was sure the child would be full of their own wonder, they would also remind him of their father. But on the other hand, they would provide an heir that Sheik would need for the throne, and remove any reason for him to marry another when he knew he could never be anyone else’s the way he had been Link’s.
But for now, at least, it was still mostly just shocking and terrifying. He wasn’t getting over Link, but the grief had been easier to bear lately, and now to get a reminder of him and how he was gone like this… well, that was perhaps what hurt most of all.
So he let Malon herd him through a warm bath and warm clothes and a warm meal, before she bundled him up in some blankets and wrapped him in a warm embrace as they cuddled on the couch.
“ Do you want to talk about it?” she asked him gently.
“ I just miss him,” Sheik said, and was content to leave it at that. Malon would understand. “And… I’m terrified to do this alone.”
“ You’re certain you do want to do this?”
He nodded. “I’ll need an heir sometime. And I’d rather be able to see Link’s child because of this than not. It’ll hurt in some ways, but… I think I’ll feel better for them existing, regardless.”
“ As long as you’re sure,” she said, whispering into his hair. “But you don’t have to do this alone. I’m sure Impa will help, and I will as often as I can.”
“ Thank you.” Sheik leaned up and kissed her on the cheek. “I honestly don’t know how I would do this without you, Malon. You’ve been a huge help these past months, and… now this.”
She squeezed him in a tighter hug than before, and he could hardly protest, soaking in all her warmth. “Of course! We’re friends. This is what friends do for each other.”
“ Of course,” he said, snaking his arms around her to return the hug.
Sheik suspected that the months of a pregnancy were typically supposed to be delightful in anticipation of the child, even if they were stressful for the preparations and miserable because of the pregnancy itself.
He seemed to feel none of the excitement and double the dread and misery.
Well, perhaps none of the excitement wasn’t quite true. There was a reason he had decided to see this to term, after all. But with the dysphoria of being a man that was pregnant and how it was increasingly hindering his daily activities as he tried to rule, he increasingly couldn’t wait to actually give birth and be done with the ordeal. For the rest of his life.
Though that time would bring its own challenges for a time. Talks with midwives and mothers had given him an idea of the difficulty of recovering from the birth itself, and the pains of nursing and attending to the child through the night especially near the beginning, at least if he wanted to raise them himself. Which he wanted to do as best as he was able, though he knew he would have to recruit some assistance if he wanted to accomplish his duties still, even if he had already made arrangements so he didn’t have to do that for the first few weeks after the child was born while he was still recovering.
“ I can help for a bit, if you haven’t found anyone else by the time you give birth,” Malon offered. They were in Sheik’s room at the now mostly rebuilt castle, because it had been at the point for months now that it was easier for her to visit him than the other way around. And, being as ridiculously helpful as she often was on her visits, she was massaging his legs for him while he was laying on his bed, just exhausted from everything.
“ That’ll be any day now,” Sheik said, looking at his protruding stomach. He was, as best he was able to calculate, about forty weeks along. “So I may very well take you up on that offer. I’m just waiting for the child to decide they’re ready to meet the world.”
Malon stopped her massage for a moment, reaching up to lightly poke his stomach. “Hey, you. Your dad’s tired of waiting for you and ready to just meet you, so hurry it up already, will you?”
He hadn’t quite decided if he wanted to be a mother or a father to this child, because he hadn’t been sure he could claim the title of father when he knew it truly belonged to Link. But hearing Malon call him a dad like that… well, that sounded much better. It wasn’t trying to claim the role Link should have had, but it was allowing Sheik to be true to his own identity in its entirety, all the same.
He smiled at Malon. “Thank you. I know you say I say it to you too much, because this is just what friends should do for each other, but… thank you anyway, Malon.” He sighed, looking contentedly at her. “Actually, now that I think about it, will you be able to get away from the ranch to help me out like you so kindly offered?”
“ Oh, I wouldn’t want to do it regularly, but if I’m gone Ingo will wake up Dad and the two of them can get the work done. And that is certainly something I am willing to do to help out a friend.”
Sheik was about to thank her again, but then felt a sharp pain in his abdomen that made him hiss out in pain instead.
She looked up, alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
“ I think the child listened to you, and decided it’s ready to come.”
Ten hours.
It took ten hours of long, difficult labor. Malon had stayed with him the entire time after quickly getting someone to go fetch the midwife, and he was surprised he didn’t break her hand with how hard he squeezed it at some points.
But at the end of it, Sheik had his daughter in his arms, and he understood why women were willing to go through the ordeal more than once. Because when you held your baby afterwards, it was all worth it.
If his husband wasn’t gone, he would have been willing to have another child. But he wasn’t so lucky, so this one precious little girl would be enough for him.
“ She has his nose,” Malon said abruptly, taking Sheik out of his trance to give her a flat look. She shrugged. “What? Her nose is already pointier than yours is, and that’s on a baby. Am I not allowed to point that out?”
He laughed softly. “No, you’re right. His nose, and… her eyes remind me of his.”
Those eyes were now closed as she slept, but when they had been peering up at him a few minutes earlier, uncertain and unfocused but looking at the world in wonder, Sheik couldn’t help but think of his husband.
“ Have you thought of a name for her yet?” Malon asked.
Zelda was the traditional name for the firstborn daughter of the crown. It had been passed on from mother to daughter for generations in the royal family ever since the first Queen of Hyrule herself.
It carried a great heritage, but also a terrible burden. A burden that Zelda herself had lived enough in her own life, she thought, to cover two generations. So she wouldn’t give that to her daughter.
“ Daphnes,” Sheik whispered, pressing a gentle kiss to her head. “My little princess Daphnes.”
“ I wish I could help you with that,” Malon told Sheik as he was nursing Daphnes. “Because I know it gives you some dysphoria. But I tried milking myself, and I couldn’t get anything to come out, so I can’t.”
He blinked, staring at his friend. “That is such a weird thing to do.”
She shrugged. “I thought you’d appreciate it, if I could help.”
“ I would,” he admitted. “But as much as I love you, Malon, I think you’re the only one who could seriously talk about milking yourself.”
“ What?” she asked. “I live on a ranch. I have cows. I know how to milk teats. But I suppose it’s reasonable that my own are dry, as I’ve never given birth so my body has never had a reason to generate milk.”
“ Can we please stop talking about your lack of milk, Malon?” Sheik asked with a groan.
“ What should we talk about, then?” Malon asked. “Your evident abundance of it? Daphnes isn’t old enough to have anything else, but I swear she’s gaining a pound a day.”
“ I think she shares Link’s appetite,” he admitted. “I’m just thankful my body can keep up with it.”
“ And his predisposition to falling asleep anywhere, it looks like,” she added. “Seems like she decided it was time for her afternoon nap already.”
Sheik looked down to see that she was, in fact, asleep. He tried to gently pull her away so she could be set down to sleep, but of course that just made her start sucking again. He chuckled. “She’s still trying to eat.”
“ What?” Malon leaned over to look, and laughed herself. “Not wanting to be apart from your dad for even a moment. You really are like Link, aren’t you?”
She looked up and met Sheik’s eyes with a smile. “Though I don’t think I can blame you. Your dad is pretty amazing.”
Daphnes was a few months old the first time it happened.
After about a month, Malon stopped her staying so often to help that she practically lived at the castle, because Impa, the closest the princess had to any sort of grandparent figure, had taken up doting on and looking after her when Sheik couldn’t, and Malon missed the animals enough that she wanted to be back on the ranch. But, in her own words, she “couldn’t get enough of this little stinker” and came by at least a few times a week to see her.
Sheik found himself looking over at them and smiling at how she made his daughter laugh more and more lately, and he wasn’t sure if it was just because of Daphnes’ smile that he enjoyed the sight.
Occasionally, maybe once or twice a month, Malon would arrange for the ranch to run well enough in the morning that she could spend the night and help Sheik put Daphnes to bed. And then he was comfortable enough with her that he was more than willing to share his too-huge bed with her.
Today was like that, not really different than usual, except perhaps that he was a bit more exhausted than he ordinarily was because of a diplomatic banquet earlier that night.
“ I’ll get her to sleep,” Malon told him, seeing just how tired he looked. “It’s alright. You can go to bed.”
“ Thanks.” He smiled tiredly at her, and leaned down to kiss her cheek, but was out of it enough that he missed, and managed to kiss her lips instead.
Sheik’s eyes widened as he realized what he had done, and quickly pulled away, cheeks heating up. “Sorry! I didn’t mean—!”
“ I know,” Malon said. He caught sight of her own cheeks that were flushed before she looked down at Daphnes in her arms. “But if I’m going to be perfectly honest, I didn’t mind it at all.”
He paused. “You… didn’t?”
She nodded. “In fact, if you wanted to do that again, I wouldn’t mind. I’ve wanted to kiss you for months, now.”
Taking a moment to think about it, Sheik realized… well, his thoughts hadn’t been nearly so specific as kissing or wanting to express such physical affection. But he had surely been starting to care for Malon as more than simply just a friend sometime in the past months, he knew for sure. And he thought he might not mind kissing her again.
“ Why didn’t you say anything?” he whispered.
“ It still hasn’t been that long since Link left. I wasn’t sure if you were ready for someone else, or if you ever would be.” Malon sighed. “Especially when you said you were glad for Daphnes as an heir because it meant you wouldn’t have to marry anyone else.”
“ I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give someone my full heart like I did for Link,” he said, bringing up a hand to cup her cheek and guide her to look up at him. “Because there will always be a part of it reserved just for him. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love Daphnes. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you in a similar way, if not the same way.”
The way her face was flushed in a bright red was lovely, though he couldn’t say whether it was despite or because of the dim lighting. “Would you marry me?”
“ Eventually, if you want to. If I was just Sheik, I would say yes without a doubt. But I’m also Zelda.” He sighed, and lowered his hand from her face. “I’m also a King. And if you married me, that would mean taking you away from the ranch. If you choose that, it’s one thing. But being royalty is a burden I would not share with you. You already do enough to lighten the load as it is.”
“ You always say that I’m doing so much to support you, but you say such sweet things like that, about how much you care about me. The only thing that surprises me is how I didn’t fall for you sooner than I did.”
Malon looked down at Daphnes, soundly asleep now, and put her in her crib for the night. Then she looked at Sheik, grabbed him by the back of his neck and pulled him down into another kiss.
“ Alright,” she said as she finally pulled away. “Maybe I won’t marry you. You’re right, I probably wouldn’t like being Queen Consort. I’m not saying I never will, but I would certainly have to think more about it first. But for now, is it alright if I keep kissing you?”
“ I’m not going to get much sleep tonight, am I?” But he was grinning, because he didn’t mind the possibility despite how tired he was.
“ Don’t be silly. If you’d rather sleep, of course you can.”
They didn’t get much sleep that night.
“ QUEEN RUTO!” an excited, high-pitched voice screamed as its owner came hurtling towards the leader of the Zora.
“ Daphnes!” Ruto greeted with a smile. “How have you been?”
Sheik looked on and smiled at the sight of his daughter talking to his old friend as she started to talk about her day.
As Daphnes grew older, it was becoming increasingly clear that she was the spitting image of her dad, except for her nose and eyes that were the exact same shade of blue as Link’s. But her personality was the opposite, much more the rambunctious nature of Link, with only a bit of Sheik’s more reserved nature that let her sit through her lessons. Sometimes.
“… and then me and Dad and Grandma went to visit Malon, and I got to ride a horse!” she finished with a flourish.
She smiled sweetly at the little girl. “That sounds lovely. Do you like spending time with your family, then?”
Daphnes nodded. “I like spending time with you, too, Queen Ruto. Do you think we can do something together while you’re visiting?”
Sheik sighed, because he already knew the answer to this one. “I’m sorry, Daphie, but Queen Ruto won’t be able to stay for very long this time.”
“ Why?”
Ruto smiled at him, making it clear she was alright with explaining. “I just laid some eggs, and even though some others are taking care of them for me, I still want to be back home when they hatch. I’m going to be a mom, you see.”
Daphnes frowned. “A mom? What’s a mom?”
“ Well…” she said, clearly not having thought through this enough to expect that she wouldn’t know. But the princess didn’t have a mother, and she didn’t spend much time playing with other children to pick up the term. “Most children have two parents, and the mom is usually a woman. You already know what a dad is like, because you have yours, but they usually take turns taking care of the children and playing with them while the other works.”
“ Oh!” She lit up. “Kinda like my Dad and my Malon!”
Ruto glanced up at Sheik, who gulped. He was pretty sure she had suspected him and Malon for a while, and something about the way Daphnes had answered had confirmed her suspicions. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Something like that.”
Well, Ruto knew anyway. So what was the harm in smiling and telling his daughter, “You’re exactly right.”