Archive of Our Own

In the morning mist, Zelda adjusted herself on her horse and made sure her pack was comfortable behind her. She turned back to see Link lingering at the top of the wooden stairs, his own pack in hand, holding the door open as Impa spoke with him closely. He straightened brusquely, now with a small wooden box in his hand, and headed to his horse, averting Zelda’s gaze. He packed the box into his pack and buckled it to Epona’s back.

Impa followed behind, a wry smile on her face. “Do what you can to relax,” she said to him. Link seemed flustered as he swung himself up on Epona. The horse trotted in her excitement to finally get running again.

Link shot Impa a glare. Zelda wondered what was going on with the two of them, but even before she fell below the castle, she knew they had secrets between them. She understood that.

Impa laughed incredulously. “Some things truly never change,” she mused, her gaze caught adrift for a moment before returning to settle on the pair, astride their horses and ready to depart Kakariko Village.

“Princess,” she reached her small, aged hand up and Zelda brought hers down in return, grasping her old friend’s fingers with great fondness. “Please take care. Of yourself, first and foremost. And of him, as well,” she said as her eyes glanced Link’s way.

The two ancient friends held hands for a moment. Zelda looked into Impa’s eyes to figure out just what she was implying. Impa’s eyes said, “everything.”

Zelda nodded once and Impa dropped their hands. Paya waved the couple off, and as they trotted out of town on their horses, she helped her grandmother up the stairs to her house.

“What did you give Link, grandmother?” Paya asked.

Impa’s eyes glinted mischievously in the morning light. “The Hyrule herb I was drying in the kitchen window, dear,” she replied, her voice wistful. "A little charm from the old world, you might say."

“Oh, for cooking? I thought it was better fresh?” her granddaughter mused.

“No, for smoking.”

Paya’s eyes widened in interest. “Does it grant healing properties that way?” she gasped, surprised she wasn’t familiar with this method.

Impa hummed, observing from her tall porch as her two best friends from a hundred years ago disappeared from sight in the early morning sun.

“Of sorts,” she said.

He wouldn’t speak to her.

Despite this, the ride from Kakariko to Hateno was a leisurely one. They let their horses trail at their own pace, a gentle trot, and they stopped among the ridges to have lunch. It felt strange to go through their ingrained, regular routines again.

A week or so ago, they had fallen from the sky together. The following days had developed a tension between them that was tightening. She couldn't help but compare their decisions in those initial moments to the first time he had rescued her.

The first time, Link was still trying to piece together who he was. When she asked if he remembered her, he calmly placed his pack down and started pulling out slightly crushed bouquets of her favorite flower, the Silent Princess.

She wept in his arms, and, after some time, him in hers.

She didn’t know how much he remembered until he had time to process and they could talk about everyday things. His memory was incredibly patchy, but it could be jogged. A new recipe would remind him of something he ate as a child. An autumn breeze would carry memories of days spent in the castle gardens together.

During those years of relative peace, they gradually rekindled their relationship, with each piece of Link's memory carefully cherished and nurtured by her. They traveled together, and he taught her everything he’d learned about this new Hyrule. Selfishly, she yearned for her best friend’s full memory to return. For him to remember their life before.

Above all, she yearned to know if he remembered them. The years they spent together in the castle, admitting with painstaking slowness their feelings for each other. With the looming threat of the Calamity, they never considered allowing themselves the luxury of courting. Demise cast too smothering a pall over their futures.

But even hatred incarnate couldn’t stop them from pining.

In due time, he remembered.

Before Link losing his arm and her sudden journey to the past, they had established a comfortable rhythm. They shared their home in Hateno. They spent much of their time together but some of it apart, always yearning for the other when they did, their reunions always quite telling of what was simmering underneath.

Maintaining a facade of indifference during the celebrations across Hyrule proved even more challenging. She blamed Noble Pursuits, Goron fire shots, and Zora wine.

Link's constant, burning gaze, and the butterflies it stirred within her, didn't make it any easier.

It had taken several of those long years for Zelda to pull Link from within the walls he’d built. He was stoic, protective, and unflappable as ever. He was reluctant to be vulnerable with her for a long time.

She found that there were many ways to peel back his layers of stoicism, and that she, in particular, was skilled in doing so.

Then she fell.

This time, when they were reunited after their long journeys apart, Zelda didn’t have to ask if he remembered her. After she told him she was home, he ran to her. Her held her bare arms in his, his steady jaw betrayed by his trembling lip. He looked her over thoroughly, almost rough in the way he turned her in his arms, inspecting her for injury. She grinned a genuine, happy grin in the sunlight as she assured him she was okay, thanks to him.

He clutched her with such ferocity it made her head spin. He buried his nose in her neck and clutched her hair in disbelief. He didn’t say anything, he simply shook his head over and over and over again against her ear.

He wept in her arms, and, after some time, she in his.

The first time, they had scurried to his home in Hateno as fast as they could. They kept to themselves for days, until the Sheikah brigade came calling, Impa and Purah and Robbie demanding to know where he was after the Calamity seemed to cease.

Those days were so painful, Zelda remembered now. Before days of stolen kisses beneath fireworks in Kakariko Village, drunken professions of desire in the desert, and slow dances in the moonlight on the beaches of Lurelin, were those first few days in Hateno.

Link had practically shunned her. He refused to speak with her in more than grunts for days even when she tried. He was, however, fiercely protective of her. She knew he was afraid. She knew he was ashamed. She was those things, too.

In the ensuing years, they made amends through multiple apologies, abundant expressions of love, and assurances from both sides. They never could have known they would have to do it all over again.

It occurred to her now that Link may have feared those days in Hateno happening again when they left Hyrule field last week. Instead of hiding away at their house, he had taken them straight to Lookout Landing, where they were welcomed by the many people awaiting their return. This choice had swept them into a week of hustle and bustle without much time to process.

Zelda spent hours with Mineru and Purah discussing at length her experiences in the past. Mineru’s choice to leave had ended the week long welcome wagon at the landing, her departure prompting the other four Sages to return to their homelands where they were needed as well.

The princess of Hyrule had been willing herself to be strong for her people the entire time, but the moment she watched the last of those assembled at Lookout Landing leave, something broke in her. She fell to her knees. Link had rushed to her side and held her.

She was inconsolable. Purah suggested they spend some time in Kakariko, where Paya and Impa cared for her like a wounded baby bird. Over Link’s watchful eye, she rested for the weekend, until she could find the strength to live a normal life again.

Zelda suggested they return to their home in Hateno, because that was the only thing that made sense to her.

What a silly idea, she thought now.

She could sense Link’s posture stiffening gradually as they approached the village. It was an hour or two before the sun would begin to set, the warmest part of the day.

The cozy scent of home drifted over her- warm grass, the pasture, and Link. She smiled at him riding Epona next to her, wanting to share in the comfort of home and nostalgia with him, but his mouth was a tight line, his eyes fixed forward.

He kept their horses’ path short and headed straight to the house. He was silent. He kept his expression unreadable as he helped her off her horse, set them to graze, and headed for the front door. Zelda trailed behind him, keeping quiet.

She watched his hand hesitate as he reached for the handle, then with a deep breath he finally pushed the door open.

Inside, they both took in their surroundings. It was exactly as they had left it, not an item misplaced, as if no one had been here since the day they locked up for their trek to the castle. She trailed her fingers across the dining room table in interest. Huh. A surprising lack of dust.

She finally broke the silence between them with a giggle.

“Were you coming here to clean while you were busy saving the world?” she teased. His passion for cleaning the house was a running joke between the two of them. She liked the way he cared for things, especially things they shared.

Link looked around, a forlorn expression on his face, and rubbed the back of his neck. “No,” he said.

Zelda waited for him to continue but he didn’t. She felt her stomach flip. She couldn’t stand seeing him pull away from her. Not after all the long strides it had taken to get him close. She immediately realized how alone they were for the first time in a week (a year? 10,000 years?) and she wanted to hold him.

She stared at the side of his face long enough that he finally looked up at her through his bangs. She knitted her brows together before raising one at him, daring him to explain why he was acting so cold. They both knew.

He sighed in defeat and looked at the floor. “Clavia was here, when I… came by. She must have,” he said lowly, his words stilted like he didn’t know how to say them.

He left her side to pull their packs in from the doorstep, the draft from the open door tousling his hair. He busied himself unpacking their cooking tools, probably trying to avoid any more questions from her.

The breeze sent a lonely shiver down her spine. She had thought of this place, their home, many times while stuck in the past. She had longed to lay in their bed and breathe the scent of him from his pillow. She dreamed of hearing his soft humming while he cooked outside as she set the table, the scent of mushroom risotto filling the house through the open window.

She felt anger rise in her throat at the thought. This was their safe haven, painstakingly carved from the pile of ash they were given after the Calamity. To see it return to the cold, suffocating place it had been when Link refused to speak with her suddenly made her see red.

She turned on her heel abruptly enough that it startled him. He dropped the spoon he was washing in the sink and whipped around to see her storming out the front door.

“Zelda?” he called after her in surprise.

She pretended not to melt at the sound of her name in his voice and continued stomping through the grass outside, her arms across her chest. His footsteps were hurried behind her, quickly closing the distance between them.

“Zelda?!” he asked again, reaching her and putting a hand to her shoulder to turn her around.

She glared at him and removed his hand gently. Goddesses she loved him, but he was driving her crazy. “Oh, so now you will deign to speak with me?” she said sternly, eyes flashing with pain.

“What? Zelda, I-“ he floundered. His brow was creased with concern, the most emotion she’d seen pass his face all day.

She waited, his mouth opening and closing, but he couldn’t finish the statement. “You what?” she asked, her voice weaker than she intended. She should raise her voice, that would really get a rise out of him, but she couldn’t. Not to Link, not anymore.

His cheeks turned red and he blinked at her. “I- I don’t-” he stammered. His face suddenly twisted in hurt. “I’m so sorry,” he said remorsefully, letting out a breath. He scrubbed a hand across his face, his bangs sticking up. “I’m all messed up.”

She softened. He never spoke like this in the first Hateno days. She could finally hear the Link she had grown to know through the cracks in his voice. She shifted awkwardly, suddenly feeling very silly for being angry at all. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who was all messed up.

The sun was setting behind them, casting a familiar glow on the hills and sky. The twilight was beckoning, a time of day that made both of their stomachs turn with nostalgia, for reasons they scarcely understood. A breeze blew through the trees, trailing through her short hair.

She looked at the grass below her feet and reached her hand out into the middle distance. He took it in his immediately and pulled her against him. “I’m so sorry,” he babbled against her hair, angry with himself. “I’m so sorry, really I- I’m just so sorry Zelda, I am.”

Zelda shushed him sweetly and petted his back, her stomach twisting in glee at the feel of his arms tight around her. “No- no, friend, I’m the one who is sorry. This has all been incredibly overwhelming for the both of us.”

He breathed a tiny laugh of agreement, his voice thick, and pulled away to show his face, nodding. He gripped her shoulders and looked at her. His eyes held unspilled tears. He glanced back at the house. Slowly, he admitted, “I couldn’t come back here without you.”

He held her gaze and offered no further explanation. She nodded again and again, releasing the fistful of his quilted tunic she didn’t realize she’d been gripping against his chest. “I understand,” she said, because she did.

They held each other in the wind, her skirts billowing around their legs, two specks on the rolling green hills of Necluda. The people who saved the world.

She shivered. The sun’s final ray had slipped beyond the horizon. Twilight. A familiar, anxious feeling fluttered in her chest.

He noticed her shiver and pulled her tighter to him. “Please- come back in,” he said with newfound conviction. “Let me try this again.”

“Of course,” she said, because she never really wanted to leave.

He would want to cook her dinner. He always did, any time they cried. Sometimes she thought it might be him apologizing for crying, which she didn’t like the idea of. She wanted him to shed the many tears that both connected and separated them. They would poison him otherwise.

Sidon once suggested, however, that Link cooked for her after they cried because it cut him so deeply to see her in pain from what they’ve endured together, he had to see her happy at his own hand, and it was the way he knew how.

Sure enough, by dark he was shuffling back outside with a tray full of chopped mushrooms, onion and herbs. Zelda felt the healing powers of meager communication soothe her worries from earlier as she sat on the front porch, admiring her knight turned chef in the firelight. He hummed merrily. He was a completely different person, when he could let it go.

He ushered her back inside when the cooking pot was bubbling and aromatic, instructing her to set the table. He was nudging her back into their dinner routine from before she fell. She felt a little less guilty about suggesting they come here as she pulled her embroidered linens from the drawer, as well as their favorite plates and mismatched glasses and even the half burned candlestick from the last dinner they had here.

She arranged the dining table and admired her work. It looked just like their nights here before, the pale blue linen tablecloth, the candle lit with her pocket flint, and the vase in the middle of the table. She used to fill it with flowers from their travels, sometimes even dried ones from Impa’s kitchen window.

Link came in from outside, the wok of the cooking pot in his oven-mitted hand. As he plated and garnished their dinner, she tried not to watch his other thumb swipe the pot to catch a drip and slip into his mouth.

“I might go outside and look for flowers,” she said abruptly. He raised his eyebrows cutely. “For the vase.”

Link’s face fell slightly. He thought for a moment, deposited the empty wok in the sink, and grabbed his pack from under the stairs. He cleared his throat as he placed it on a dining chair and dug inside.

He procured a dozen of the saddest, half wilted and half dried Silent Princesses she’d ever seen. He held them in his hand delicately. He looked completely gutted for a moment as he touched their fragile petals, then he looked up at her and his mouth twisted in a silly smile.

“I couldn’t help collecting them. But then when I found you, I felt stupid,” he chuckled softly, shaking his head. The blue in his eyes sparkled, emphasizing the faded version of the color in the sad flowers. “I didn’t want them to remind you of last time.”

Zelda’s face split into a grin. She felt like crying, but tears didn’t come to her eyes. Instead, her heart swelled with love. “I love them!” she exclaimed, reaching her hands out for Link to give them over gently. She placed the drying bundle in the vase on the table.

The two of them stood for a moment. Their steaming plates beckoned them with delicious smells, the tablecloth had a stain from the time Riju had spilled, and the half-used taper candle dripped prettily into its dish. A petal fell from one of the sad Silent Princesses.

Zelda felt Link start to shake beside her, and when she turned he was laughing. She laughed with him, both of them laughing quietly at their ridiculous lives.

“Let’s eat,” she said, letting go of Link’s hand she didn’t realize she was holding to take her regular seat at the table. He sat beside her, both of them smiling, and they ate. She melted at the taste of home in his risotto. He noticed her reaction and gave her a side-eye, eating freakishly fast as he tended to.

“Slow down, you wild man,” she admonished jokingly.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said through his full mouth, using the table napkins at least. He was joking with her again. She felt like she was floating away.

They enjoyed the clinking of their dishes and the chirping of restless crickets outside. The candle flickered, casting their shadows on the walls.

He spoke again when they were almost done.

“I really am sorry,” he said, pushing aside his empty plate. He rubbed his hands on his thighs nervously.

Zelda covered her mouth as she finished her bite. “I know, Link, truly I know,” she said honestly, though she wasn’t exactly sure if he was just apologizing for being quiet, or for… everything.

He nodded as if he read her mind. He was sorry for a lot of things. His eyebrows scrunched together in a flash of anger, but his features softened before he continued. “What I mean is- I’m sorry for today. This week. And that first week in Hateno, after the Calamity. If I made you feel that way again, I couldn’t bear it,” his voice was low and controlled.

“I meant it when I said I understood,” she said soothingly. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you and stormed out. I think the centuries long slumber might have made me a little… ‘messed up’ as well.” She lifted the corner of her mouth in a smile, catching his eye.

He shook his head. “No, you pulled me from some… cave I was digging myself into,” he spoke earnestly, even when the words didn’t come right away. He raked a hand through his hair and sighed. He tapped his foot. “We’ve been through a lot. As you said.”

She hummed in somber agreement. “I wish there were some way for us to just let the pain go for a night, clear our minds,” she mused. Link raised an eyebrow at that. “What did we used to do?” she asked, squishing up her nose.

Link blushed. “Drink wine, usually,” he laughed through his nose.

“Ah yes,” she giggled, turning her knees toward him beside her at the table. “What a pity we don’t have any for the occasion. Maybe that’s what you should start collecting whenever I’m in peril. Wine, for when we need to forget at the end,” she grimaced, and he glared at her. She laughed, then, so he did too, albeit less.

“Don’t joke about that,” he muttered lightly. He tapped on the table a few times, drumming his fingers in thought. He sighed in defeat. “I might have… something else we could try.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, but, uh…” he rubbed his cheek. “Impa gave it to me.”

“What did she give you?” She remembered the mysterious wooden box Link had left Impa’s with this morning.

“Uhhhh,” he faltered, laughing to himself, trying to find the words. Instead, he left the table and climbed the stairs to the loft. She listened from below as he pulled the wooden box out from where he had apparently hidden it under the bed before returning.

He placed the box between their empty plates and immediately busied himself clearing the table. He started washing the dishes as Zelda stared at the box, a pretty dark wood stained piece adorned with a blue and green Sheikah symbol.

“What is it?” she asked over the sound of water sloshing in the basin. Link scrubbed.

“Open it,” he said vaguely.

She pried it open. The smell inside was familiar, like Impa’s room and kitchen. The contents of the box were five paper wrapped bundles. She picked one up and rolled it between her index finger and thumb. It was a bit smaller than her pinky. The paper was faintly printed with shimmering gold Sheikah symbols. It crinkled.

“These look like the cigarillos my father used to smoke in his study when his pipe was missing,” she said studiously, examining the paper wrapped stick thoroughly. She squinted at it like a specimen.

Link found her that way when he was finished with the dishes, drying his hands on an embroidered towel when he sat beside her.

His heart squeezed at the sight of her so intrigued. He’d hoped 10,000 years of omnipotence wouldn’t have changed that about her. Or was it the opposite of omnipotence, what she had experienced as the Light Dragon? He still didn’t really know.

“Impa told me,” he cleared his throat and picked up one of the wraps to inspect with her, “she dried these bundles of Hyrule herb herself. They’re an old Sheikah… thing, I guess,” he squinted at them with her.

Zelda was fascinated. She had a million questions. “Hyrule herb?!” She had never heard of smoking the common herb. She was often deprived of certain knowledge outside of what was fit for a “proper” princess, though. Curse her noble upbringing. “Dried, crushed, and rolled into these papers, and then… what, are we supposed to smoke these? Like I said, they bear resemblance to a similar form my father would smoke tobacco in, so I assume that’s what we do, and if so, you can smoke Hyrule herb?! Is the herb dried for a certain amount of time? What are its effects? And just where did these wrappings come from?” she gasped. “Does Impa smoke Hyrule herb?!” she paused, realizing how long she had been asking questions without giving Link a moment to answer.

He shrugged at her.

She grinned back at him, then at the wrapped herbs in her hand. “I want to try!” she kicked her legs in glee. Link groaned.

“I thought you might say that,” he said in strife.

“Why would you assume?!”

“You once convinced me to let you try and outdrink the Gorons ‘for science’.“

She scoffed in protest. “So?!”

“You also go crazy when Impa knows things you don’t,” he grinned wickedly at her.

“Well, I certainly don’t go crazy,” she giggled. “Why did you pull it out if you were hiding it from me?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t know if it was a good idea. I felt bad offering it, as if it could possibly fix anything that’s… ailing our hearts. Impa suggested we try it to take our minds off things,” he held the little paper roll in his hand. “I just couldn’t see how this could fix anything.”

“Perhaps she didn’t intend for it to fix things,” Zelda pondered. “Perhaps she could simply see how weary we were.”

Link nodded soberly and locked eyes with her over the candlelight.

She stared at him. “Have you smoked Hyrule herb before?” she sounded accusatory.

He held the paper to his nose and sniffed. “I don’t think so,” he said, his tone of voice betraying his unsureness. “It smells familiar, though.”

“That’s because it smells like Impa!!” Zelda squealed. She couldn’t believe her friend had kept this from her. She supposed she didn’t tell Impa about the time she and Link stole wheat beers at Teba’s birthday party either, though.

“She said not to smoke too much. Could make us paranoid,” he said nervously. Zelda was starting to think he hid it because he didn’t want to try it, and he was using her as an excuse.

She put the wrap she was holding back in the box.

“We absolutely do not have to have any tonight,” she explained to him.

He frowned.

She continued. “Well, I do reserve the right to try some at a later date, for science,” he smiled and laughed. She put her hand on his knee. “But tonight has already been comforting to me. I know how hard it is for you to open up. We live having survived our worst nightmares,” she looked deep in his eyes as she said so. He nodded, casting his eyes down.

“However,” the lilt of her regal accent turned playful. “Hearing your voice for the first time in 10,000 years has healed my heart. For the night, at least.”

Link reddened, her compliments making him jittery. “I spoke to you a few times this week,” he argued weakly.

She glared at him.

“I get it,” he sighed, and they laughed quietly together. “Talking is hard. I’d rather you do it for me,” he muttered. He kept glancing at her hand on his knee.

She raised her eyebrows. “You always say that and yet whenever I am gone is when you seem to get the most conversing done,” she teased. He flinched. He said earlier he wasn’t ready to joke about her disappearance yet. “Sorry,” she said as kindly as she could, squeezing his knee.

He stared at her hand, then her eyes, then back at the box on the table. He looked at the herb bundle in his hand, as if he had forgotten it was there.

Without a word, he brought one end of it to the lit candle on the table. He let the flame burn it for a moment, then shook the flame on the paper out, until the end was an ember from which smoke was billowing.

“How did you know to do that?” Zelda marveled.

He shrugged. “Just seems like what you do,” he said, before bringing the end that wasn’t lit to his lips.

“Wait!” Zelda shouted.

He froze in place before inhaling. His eyes widened in concern.

“May I get my notebook?” Zelda asked desperately, clasping her hands together.

Link laughed openly. The sound was home. “It’s burning away!” he shouted as she sprinted up the stairs to the loft to grab her diary. These field notes could stay personal.

She watched, pen to paper, as Link raised one of Impa’s gifts to his face. He put the end in his mouth, keeping his lips curled in. He took a deep inhale and held it for a moment, then they locked eyes and he laughed, which sputtered into a series of coughs. Smoke spilled gracelessly from his mouth and nostrils. Zelda scribbled furiously, giggling.

“Well?” she asked expectantly.

He pursed his lips and looked at the lit paper in his hand. He hummed in interest, then brought it to his lips again. She tried not to stare at his mouth as he took another drag. The ember at the end glowed with his inhale. This time, he didn’t hold it in as long, and blew the smoke away from them. “Hm!” he said in surprise.

“Come now, don’t be withholding! Describe what you’re feeling,” she studied his face.

Link’s brow crinkled in thought. He stared at the smoke. Realization suddenly passed over his face and he looked at her. “I’ve smoked this before,” he said in disbelief.

Zelda gasped. It had been some time since he remembered something from before. “You have?” she asked.

“Yeah,” his eyes closed in deep thought. “Not like this, but in a pipe. Soldiers in the barracks would pass it around sometimes at night,” he looked at the smoke again wistfully.

Zelda felt a pang of jealousy for the experience he’d had without her, then felt silly at the thought. She reached out and snatched the smoking paper from his fingers. He held his empty hand in the air for a moment before dropping it in his lap. Impaired reaction time, she scribbled in her notebook.

Link leaned back, lost in memory. “I only tried it that one time. I remember not liking it,” he coughed a little and scratched his head. “I do remember seeing these though,” he pointed at the smoking paper in her hand. “It’s called a joint.”

“A joint,” she repeated, looking at the stick as she held it between her middle and index finger. The ash was accumulating at the burning end, threatening to fall. “I wonder where that originates.”

Link got up to look for something in the kitchen. While his back was turned, she curiously brought the joint to her lips. If he had tried it, she would too. She sucked in like a straw. Strange tasting smoke filled her mouth and lungs. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was foreign, like the crispy edges of burnt steak meeting dried, earthy flavors. It smelled more like dry grass than it tasted.

Suddenly there was too much smoke in her lungs and she sputtered as well, covering her mouth as she coughed. The ash threatening to fall from the end of the joint fell to the blue tablecloth. Her head rushed a little.

Link raced to her side, as he always did when she expressed even a modicum of pain. “You okay?” he actually laughed a little, which made her grin through her coughing attack. He placed a glass of water for each on them on the table. “Drink,” he said, and squeezed her shoulders.

She did as she was told. The water soothed her throat like courser bee honey. She didn’t realize until he sat back down that she still had the joint in her hand. Her lips felt a little funny. He had brought a small wooden bowl to the table as well, and when he took the joint from her hands, he tapped its lit end against the inside of it.

“Oh, that’s clever, so the ashes won’t end up on the table,” she said, her voice a little rough from coughing. She took another sip of water, peering at him over the glass. He was smoking from the joint again, eyebrows still knitted together in interest.

Zelda watched as he exhaled slowly. He held the little stick differently than she had, opting to splay his fingers out and hold it between his thumb and index. She had held it how her father held his cigarillos. She felt insecure briefly that the way she held it was prissy.

“What does it make you feel like? From what you remember?” she asked, attempting but failing not to ogle the handsome man she loved putting his fingers to his lips.

"Give it a moment," he advised, passing the joint back to her.

She took another hit and concentrated on trying not to breathe in too deep this time. She let it out slowly, through ‘o’ shaped lips. She pretended not to notice him staring as she looked around the kitchen at the smoke-filled, candlelit room. She giggled.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she said thickly. He laughed and took the joint back from her. They passed it back and forth until Link deemed it finished, snuffing out the end in the wooden bowl. The room was laden with smoke. “Should we open a window?” she asked.

“It’s chilly outside,” he said. “Warm in here.”

She laughed, because his voice was sweet and melty, like it was when he first woke up in the mornings. She looked over at him and his eyelids were heavy. She laughed again.

He snickered in return. “What are you laughing at, Your Highness?”

Her face twisted in mock disgust. “Don’t you start calling me that again,” she chastised.

He smiled at her deviously. “I won’t.”

“Thank Nayru above, he is wise.”

He laughed. He thought for a moment. “It’s just that- this reminds me of old times.”

She sucked in a breath. Her mouth was dry, she sipped her water. Her lids were heavy and her body felt like she had been sitting in the hot springs for too long. It was rare they talked about the old times anymore. They had exhausted the subject when Link was first remembering himself.

“Ah yes, all those times we sat about the castle library, smoking Hyrule herb,” she gestured goofily with her hands. She didn’t know why she did that. She held them in her lap.

Link watched her with a grin he didn’t seem able to contain. He didn’t say anything for a moment, but when she didn’t either, he finally sat forward, leaning one elbow on the table to rest his head against his hand.

“No, more like the days we spent camping, just the two of us,” he explained. His speech was altered from the effects of smoking, but it wasn’t slurred like when they had too much wine. It was light and airy in a relaxed way she wasn’t sure she’d ever heard from him.

Her heart melted at the memory. Something about the herb’s effects made her feel tender at the thought of them before. She was surprised at the notion. Usually, thoughts of before led her to feelings of grief and loss and shame.

“Yes, we would talk for hours under the stars,” she leaned her opposite elbow on the table next to his, leaning her chin on her fist, mirroring him. He nodded, smiling. “Actually, I would talk, and you would do-“ she gestured to his goofy half grin and nodding head, “well, a lot of that.”

“I talked sometimes!”

“You were silent for months after you pulled the sword!”

“You were always mad at me.”

“I had a crush on you.”

He blushed and scoffed. “Well, I definitely talked to you after I figured that part out.”

Her blush rivaled his. “Yes, your monosyllabic grunts and knightly rigidity kept me in great company.”

“You liked it.”

She grinned, her teeth clicking against her dry lips in the quiet room. His eyes held a thousand shades of blue in the candlelight. The whites were a little red, and he had a perpetual smile pulling at the corners of his mouth that he was trying to suppress. She looked away and stifled a nervous laugh. Her brain felt sluggish. Or was it jumping around a million places at once?

He leaned back and slumped one arm on the back of his chair, looking at her through his low lidded eyes. “I’m sorry I don’t like to talk. There were many times I wish I had and I didn’t,” he said.

Zelda stared back at him, her cheeks still hot. “No, you’re right. I like you just the way you are,” she affirmed softly.

He held her eyes with his for too long. He looked at the box from Impa. “This stuff is making me think weird,” he muttered, then pushed his chair back and got up from the table.

Zelda felt a moment of nervousness at his movement. Perhaps he was uneasy. He rummaged in his pack and retrieved something. "Aha," he declared, returning to her with what appeared to be a solid gold apple. "These are everywhere now," he was excited. “You’re gonna love these. Try!”

She took the apple from him. It was shiny, but it wasn’t painted or made of metal. It felt like a regular apple. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” she marveled. Her curiosity nerves were tingling. She took a loud bite. The flavor burst in her mouth like a parade or a sudden rain or an exploding chuchu jelly. She crunched.

Her eyes fell closed and she cooed in delight. It tasted like sunshine, kiwi, apple, vanilla, and sunsets. Her foggy brain had trouble processing the layers of flavor; it tasted like the goddesses light itself. She took another bite and made an embarrassing noise in satisfaction.

Link laughed. She looked over at him, wide-eyed. “I know!” he exclaimed. She offered it back to him and he took a huge bite, chewing noisily. Their crunching filled the quiet room.

“I have more,” he said, his mouth full.

He had felt nostalgic about camping, so they ended up spreading their blue tablecloth on the little grassy ledge right outside the house. He pulled their winter clothes out and bundled them both up, even buttoning and toggling her white winter coat up for her, jostling her around while she blinked at his focused face and steady fingers.

They laid on the ground, the cold weather giving them an excuse to scoot close together. They ate golden apples and pointed at the stars.

Hateno was asleep by now, but Hyrule was awake. They could hear conversations between crickets and frogs around them. Their horses whinnied softly in the little stable behind the house. The trees shifted in the wind. The moon was a sliver tonight, leaving the stars room to glow.

Along with the bowl of apples, Link had brought the box from Impa and the wooden bowl they were using as an ashtray outside with them. They lit fire to another of the wrapped herbs and passed it back and forth between their gloved fingers. The smoke mixed with their puffs of breath in the cold air.

“Can I ask you about something?” his voice was low.

“Of course,” Zelda replied breathily, feeling cozy and content.

He took a moment, as he always did. “Do you have memories of being a dragon, flying up there for centuries?” he asked it wistfully, as if the idea sounded pleasant to him.

Zelda smoked, the red ember lighting up her face, casting shadows from her lashes down her cheeks. Link stared openly. She looked over at him. Caught. He grinned sheepishly.

“Well… they are sort of how I remember our past lives,” she tried to explain, scrunching her face up to find the words. “Which is to say not at all, really,” she laughed once.

He tensed at her mention of the past. The mystical, unfathomable connection they had to the gods and time itself was something they had spoken about a handful of times before she fell. It manifested in sudden flashes of memory, even further beyond their reach than Link’s memories from before the Calamity. Sensory recollections of who they were in histories long past would invade their dreams or still thoughts without warning.

She continued, "It's like I have these echoes of memories, emotions, glimpses of moments, but nothing that feels like it was… me. It's a strange feeling, familiarity with things I've never experienced in this life." He nodded, understanding her sentiment better than anyone. It wasn’t very different from his own.

"I wonder if you'll have lingering dragon tendencies," he muttered. He inhaled, lighting up his face with the ember, blew out the smoke, and watched it curl into the night air. He passed it to her.

She giggled. She was surprised he was talking about what happened so cavalierly. It made her heart swell with love. She wanted to kiss him. The side of his body pressing into hers was radiating heat.

“I hope not,” she coughed. “I wouldn’t care for having horns.” She passed it to him.

“I think you’d look cute in ‘em,” he said dismissively and took a drag.

She bit her lip to hide her smile. Then she thought about something she’d wanted to ask him all week at Lookout Landing, and all weekend in Kakariko, but his steely glare and eyes brimming with pain had kept her from it.

So when she turned to him, his nose and cheeks pink in the wind, smiling lovingly at her, she felt like she could ask. Even if it might ruin the moment, she had to know. She took a long drag of Hyrule herb for courage. It made her feel cozy, like she wanted to snuggle closer to him. She did, a little.

“Link, tell me what it was like for you, when you found the sword,” she asked, trying to convey compassion in her words. She wanted to know his pain so she could hold a part of it for him.

Link stiffened for a moment. She passed him the joint and it took him a moment to reach over their chests to take it. He breathed it in, the last of this one, and sat up on his elbow to snuff out the end in the bowl.

Instead of returning on his back with her, he laid on his side and propped himself up, facing her. He searched her face for something, but either it was too dark to see it, or it wasn’t there to be found.

“Zelda,” he said, and paused. She waited for him to find the words. “When I saw what you’d done, and that brave choice you made,” he tugged on one of her coat toggles to emphasize the word. “…the first thing I felt was- proud. I was so incredibly proud of you that you made that scary, fucked up choice.”

She sucked in a breath when he cursed. He never cursed around her.

“Then… I was-“ he tugged at her toggles again. There weren’t any words that felt weighted enough to convey to her the depth of his pain. “Heartbroken,” he finally said. He frowned.

A tear fell from her eye without her consent. She was angry with it. She didn’t want to cry in front of him right now, but she had willed it by leading their conversation here. She wiped it away quickly, hoping he wouldn’t see.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He nodded. He continued with a levity in his voice she didn’t expect. “Then I took the sword and fell to the earth the angriest man alive,” he gestured wildly with his hands, the way he usually only did when he was playing with the children at the schoolhouse. “I tore through the land and murdered every monster or Yiga or creature I could see. For days! I fell asleep in a cave with no fire, Din be damned, covered in blood,” he breathed out one breath, like a laugh, at the memory. “I’m- not proud of it.”

She wasn’t sure if she should laugh too. Her heart broke thinking of a tear-streaked, blood-soaked Link alone in a cave.

“I was so distracted after that. I thought it didn’t matter what I did then, if at the end you weren’t coming back to me,” the hand of the arm he was leaning on had found the ends of her short hair. He was smoothing a strand between his fingers, reminding himself she was there. “Any time I would catch a glimpse of you in the sky, I’d have to stop for hours to be with you. I thought about… how even if I could defeat the demon king, I would go down in history as the crazy old man who lived on the sky islands with the light dragon.”

She felt her heart hammering in her chest. “You would have done that?”

He looked at her in the dark. The breeze smelled like cool grass, the pasture, and Link. Like home. An owl hooted in the distance.

“Have I not done everything in this life simply to stay by your side?” he asked softly. He used his knightly voice, the one that was prim and proper like hers. It was the first time she'd heard him speak this way in an intimate setting, intertwining his desire to save the world with his desire for her.

She lifted her hand that wasn’t caught below him up and wiggled her fingers. “Will you remove my glove?” she asked. He obliged. She then brought her bare hand to his face, stroking his soft cheek with her fingers. He nuzzled against the touch, brushing his lips to the palm of her hand.

She pushed her fingers through the back of his shaggy hair and brought his mouth to hers. It was only the second time they’d kissed since he caught her. The familiarity of her bottom lip between his was like finally being back on land. Her stomach fluttered and she sighed through her nose, puffing up his bangs.

Her eyelids felt heavy. He laughed against her mouth, breaking their kiss. He laid back down beside her. She wrapped herself around his arm and leg.

“Do you remember our life where we met as children? And you traveled through time?” she asked through a yawn.

“No,” he said curtly. That was the one that brought him nightmares.

“Hmm, neither do I,” she said sweetly, though they knew it was a lie. She clutched his body to hers.

“Do you remember our life with the loftwings?” he asked, his voice syrupy with drowsiness.

“No, do you?” she asked, yawning. She snorted a laugh against his chest.

“No,” he said in mock earnest. “I do remember you played the harp, though.”

“So did you,” she said, her eyes blinking slower against her own will. The breeze in the grass sounded like a lullaby.

“…worst sword fight I’ve ever had and I think he even licked my face,” he was mumbling sleepily.

“Better than the life when you were cursed to be a dog,” she rubbed her face into his soft coat.

“Yeah, that one was sad,” he murmured.

“They’re all sad,” she said mournfully. Then she started giggling sleepily, and couldn’t stop. He started chuckling too. They both sounded delirious.

They finally stopped after what felt like minutes. He had been playing with her hair, but his hand had finally dropped and his breathing had slowed. She was fighting sleep, ready to give in knowing he had drifted off, when he spoke once more.

“I don’t think any of them are sad, Zelda. Because… we lived.”

Months later, when the frost had come and gone, and Kakariko Village was alive with spring festivities, Link and Zelda stayed with Impa and Paya again.

They sat around the low table, eating buns stuffed with meat and vegetables, and shared stories of their winter. Impa eyed Zelda and Link holding hands under the table. They thought they were sneaky.

Impa spent the afternoon watching them under the newly blossoming trees, laughing easily with each other in a way she hadn’t seen since before the geoglyphs. Link was stuffing his face with rice balls, sticky flecks of rice pasted to his cheek.

Zelda was pointing at him and laughing, his eyes widening. He swiped a piece of rice from his cheek and made to stick it to her hair. She squealed in mock terror and ran away, prompting the children of the village to follow after her. Link chased the children and Zelda through the festival, all parties screaming and laughing, until they ended up in a heap of limbs.

That evening, after she and her granddaughter had made their appearances and retired back to the house, Impa stayed up with Zelda, drinking chamomile tea and eating sweet bread.

“Did you ever get a chance to try the gift I gave Link the last time you were here, princess?” she asked Zelda, blowing on her steaming cup.

Zelda grinned around her teacup and set it down with a soft clink. “Indeed we did, Impa,” she said primly.

“So? I suppose you’ll be wanting to interrogate me, ask me why and where and how, write down pages full of meticulous notes?” she jabbed.

Zelda bit her lip to hold back how big her smile was growing.

“I actually thought I’d just ask you for another box,” she locked eyes with her, a facade of modesty on her face.

Impa cackled so loudly, Link stumbled downstairs in his sleep clothes to see what was wrong.

“Nothing, Hero,” she waved her hand at him. “Just happy to see my old friends again.”