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No sooner than the words “I’m home” had sprung from her lips did Link rush forward and collapse to his knees at her feet. Mud seeped through the knees of his pants, but he barely felt it as he desperately wrapped his arms around her middle, fingers clinging to the pale ancient garb she wore. Shoulders shaking, he buried his face into her skirts and somewhere in the back of his mind, a memory surfaced of tearful children finding similar comfort from her in the schoolyard during playtime.
“Oh, Link,” she murmured, and he ventured a look up at her, pressing his chin into her middle; powerless to resist the break in her voice. Her emerald eyes had been watery since she blinked them open after he laid her on the lush green clover. Those ever-focused eyes, which had been excitedly darting from one marvel to the next wonder in her current Hyrule, betrayed the simmering emotion underneath.
Link knew this look. The default observations the scientist in her would fall back on when the emotions were overwhelming. She’d never let herself break down in front of her people—Link sometimes included. A bad habit inherited from a life they’d lived ages ago filled with royal expectations.
He sat up straighter when he felt fingers card through his hair as if he could get closer to her touch and somehow absorb it into himself. His fingers twisted in the fabric behind her, every cell in his body screaming at him to keep her close, keep her safe. She was so radiant—threads of gold shining in the sun, a lightest tinge of pink on her cheeks, the small freckle just under the corner of her left eye that he loved to kiss.
Link blinked once. Warm tears streamed down his cheeks, and then she was there. He felt her weight shift, and he loosened his hold enough to let her join him on their knees. His arm found its way around her shoulders, and Link pulled her in close, breathing deeply her scent where her neck met her collarbones.
It was his favorite place to smell on early mornings before he left their warm bed to build the fire or cook breakfast. He often struggled to define how she smelled when she asked him—giggling and twisting in the sheets, a siren image that beckoned him to stay and share his secrets. He was never very careful not to overindulge, so she often caught him breathing her in deeply.
Stern looks and pointed fingers would quickly dissolve into simpering and twisting away before his fingers had her shrieking with laughter and demanding that he tell her right away what she smelled like. She decided it was her prerogative to know how she smelled before letting him know if he could continue.
She contained multitudes. Link thought that for someone so wise, she could be rather silly.
But he loved her, so he tried to explain. He wasn’t a poet like Kass, who could warble with beautiful intonations about the various floral or fruity notes a young lass might carry or compare her appearance to the most gorgeous sunset with ease. Maybe it was that Link didn’t have the words of a poet.
Or maybe it was that Zelda didn’t smell like the sweetly tart wildberries or perfumy floral notes of swift violets or silent princesses. When Link brought his nose to her skin and inhaled deeply, he was not greeted with the sharp zing of store-bought scents.
Instead, he was overwhelmed with soft feelings reminding him of many cozy, rainy days filled with cooking, sharpening blades, or whittling while Zelda studied. Occasionally, if he could manage to sit still and not fidget too much—or get too many wood shavings on her beloved books—she’d allow him to pull her onto his lap to do her reading.
She smelled like warmth, like safety. Like their Hateno home.
She smelled like love.
Link swallowed his fears and grief from the worry that he’d never smell her scent again as he reminded himself she was here. In his arms. He nestled her into his side until they were sitting next to each other and let out a slow breath while inspecting her.
Her legs looked fine—seemingly uninjured and without pain as she sat on her knees. Her hands were clear of injury, as were her chest and neck. As his eyes landed on the slight frown pulling at the corner of Zelda’s lips, Link guessed how he looked. He imagined his eyes were ringed red from his tears. She could probably see his exhaustion—he had been nearly seventy-eight hours without sleep, but she didn’t yet need to know that .
He kept one hand looped around Zelda’s back, moving it in slow circles across her back, pausing from time to time on her hips as if to hold her tightly and remind himself that she was real. With the other hand, he ran fingertips through her hair, tucking a bit behind her ear and then trailing along her jaw as their eyes met. Tears welled, and Link frowned.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. It’d been the first words he’d said in…a while.
Zelda chuckled, and Link raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“Just one more tear to cry,” she smiled, raising a hand and gently wiping her eyeline, collecting the droplet on the tip of her finger.
“Don’t cry,” Link tried again. He could hear the desperation in his voice, wincing when it cracked halfway through.
Zelda shook her head with a watery smile. “It’s okay,” she murmured, leaning into his chest. She held her finger up, and the sun caught the drop, refracting the light into a small rainbow. “You better save it for the middle of the night, right? When things aren’t so…clear.”
It was Link’s turn to chuckle then, hoarse sounds of disbelief as he shook his head. How did she always know him so well? He nodded. He understood.
“I can’t forget,” he croaked. Link wrapped his hand around hers, closing his eyes and bringing them to his forehead, where the drop melted into his skin. An anointing that surfaced another memory of being a young soldier taking the knight’s oath in Hyrule Cathedral after a priestess rubbed his forehead with holy oil in the name of Hylia.
Link silently laughed a bit at himself. What a naive soldier he had been. And now he held the goddess in his arms.
“What’s so funny?” Zelda asked, lowering their hands and turning to lean in front of Link’s vision as he blinked his eyes open. He smiled even wider. She was the most beautiful sight he’d seen in his entire life, and he’d gone far too long without her. He could feel the tears building again, and they dripped down his cheeks. He couldn’t stop them.
“Oh... Oh, Link,” she cried, before wrapping him in a hug that he was all too eager to crushingly return.
He wasn’t sure how long they stayed that way. For several minutes, they cried, held each other, and shared desperate kisses. Some were on the lips. Others on the cheeks. Shoulders. Neck. Anywhere he could reach when she was otherwise engaged by hugging him or comfortingly rubbing his back and murmuring.
“Remember Kass,” she said softly, and he did. He remembered. The princess’s love for her fallen knight. “Remember twenty-four.” And he started shaking. His fists clenched in the fabric of her dress, just as soft and pale as her night clothes that he was used to when they did this memory exercise at home—when he woke up screaming, searching for the Master Sword to free her once more. When she would hold him, whispering for him to trust her, that everything was fine.
When she promised that they would be fine.
As he sat in the field holding her, he’d recall the largest emotion was disbelief. He never thought he’d get her back. Not really. He always worried that she’d slip away somehow. But he held hope, and he got her back. Link clung to her as desperately as he wanted to hold onto this moment forever. He couldn’t forget, not again.
Too many mornings in the past year had begun with him starting to pack up his camp and head back to Hateno house on default, before catching himself and his cursed memory problems. He reminded himself once more that she was gone, and there was nothing there for him in Hateno.
Mornings had always been more difficult. Easier than nights when he awoke from night terrors, but difficult nonetheless. Zelda knew. She had caught him more than once, gearing up for calamity and then getting confused because she was there. In his home. And how could she be there if the calamity was still unleashed?
With Zelda’s gentle tone in his ear and firm pressure on his back, Link finally let himself cry. He let himself fully grieve the loss of Zelda and celebrate with relief all that her return meant for him. He even allowed him a few tears for himself and his broken mind before he sat back.
With a watery smile, he gave Zelda one nod.
“I remember,” he said. “I will remember.”
“You will,” Zelda said carefully. He tried not to get upset when Zelda quickly cleared her face of emotion. “And if you don't—if you forget for just a bit—it’s okay.” She tried to reassure him with a friendly smile as she nodded. “It's okay. We remember together, right?”
“Right,” he said. Link closed his eyes and pulled her closer to his chest, running a hand through her soft hair. “We remember together.”
The pair fell into comfortable silence as they sat with each other. As the wind floated by and ruffled his hair, Link breathed in deeply. He could almost feel the other him, the other hero. The person they said he was. The one he felt so disconnected from after he failed and died bloody on that field, leaving Zelda alone. The one who had been so effortlessly chosen. The one he hated both times he woke up so weak he could barely hold a sword.
For once, Link did not hate him.
He frowned for a second, a furrow in his brow before he figured it out. Peace. That was what he was feeling. Now that he was back with Zelda, it was like he could feel all the parts of him align: the boy he was before the sword, the appointed knight, the fallen champion trying to regain his honor, the broken husband trying to find his wife. Link felt them all.
Zelda made them all make sense. Link held her tighter for that, pulling her closer to his side. With his other hand, he pulled her face closer and pressed their lips together once.
“Are you alright, my love?” Zelda asked softly.
Link looked down at her, and he nodded. His voice sounded hollow. “Yes.”
She frowned. “Are you sure? All that matters is that you are alright. Are you, my love?”
Link swallowed thickly, pausing for a moment. Was he alright? A small smile pulled at the corner of his lips when he felt the warmth of her touch, and he nodded. “Yes.” His voice was more confident now. “For the first time in a long time, I feel like everything is alright in the world.”
Zelda swallowed. “And what about what is to come?”
Link froze for a bit, slowing his breathing as his fingers trailed through the fine strands of her hair. It was a question he had anticipated. The last time they were in a field after a life-changing circumstance, it had felt different. He had been different. Anxious. On edge. He had known then it wasn’t over. Felt it in his bones. Something was still coming. The sword was still calling to him.
Now, he looked down at the blade. It had chimed once after he’d found Zelda and had been quiet ever since. For the first time, it felt...dormant.
Link smiled softly, the left corner of his mouth turning up slightly more, like it did when he was surprised by how enthusiastic he felt.
“I think we’ve done our part,” he said seriously before turning to greet her shining eyes. “I think our mission is over.” He kissed her once more, a solid pressing of lips.
It was clearly not enough, as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him back for more. They kissed again and again, tears of relief mixing with the still-dampness of their skin as they fell backward into the grass. Surrounded by purple blossoms and yellow petals and cushioned by the clover, they held each other close, whispering promises and long-held wishes they had been too afraid to utter without the other.
“I wished that we could finally say goodbye to this…” Link huffed and waved his free hand in a circle as his thoughts failed to come. Zelda whined from where she was resting on his shoulder, clearly displeased that he’d stopped running his hands through her hair for even a second. He smirked. She was adorable.
He chuckled and dutifully returned his hand to where it should have been all along, scratching her scalp softly, comforted by the occasional pleased noise she made. “It’s this cycle,” he said. “I wished I could be rid of this cycle of beginnings.”
His love rolled onto her stomach—half on him, with their legs tangled, but he wasn’t complaining—and fixed him with her wide eyes, fingers tracing invisible lines on his chest. “I wish that too,” she whispered.
He sat up a little and pressed their foreheads together, closing his eyes. His hands clasped her cheeks, thumbs rubbing cheekbones. “There will not be another day for me in Hyrule without you,” he said quietly. The truth in his vow thrummed in the confidence of his words, and it seemed to quiet the pair.
They leaned back into each other, sharing in the peace under Hyrule’s sky as puffy clouds lazily floated past. Link relished in the moment as long as he could, turning to press soft kisses on his princess’s skin. He knew it was coming long before it did. He noticed her start to get restless. Shifting in the grass. Felt her eyes on him, watching. He kept his closed, but he knew.
“You grew a beard,” she giggled.
Link cracked one eye open as he felt her pointer finger press at his cheek. He rolled his eyes, pushing her hand away. “I knew you were going to say something,” he grumbled, shyly rubbing at the hair on his chin and under his neck.
He spared her another glance. She had her scientist look on, and Link fought to stay still while she inspected him, pulling at his beard and mussing the hair. Finally, Link could no longer resist, and he gently redirected her hands and smoothed his beard back to normalcy.
“It’s an…interesting choice,” she finally said, and Link could hear the teasing in her tone.
“Sorry, my wife was missing,” he grumbled, but they shared a twin grin. “I didn’t exactly have time to keep up with my hygiene.”
Zelda sniffed. “Well... I didn’t want to say anything...”
Link’s mouth fell open in shock. Zelda’s eyes sparked. He smirked. Her eyes widened in anticipation.
Before she could blink, he was on his feet and had scooped her into his arms. Before she could protest, he was running to the water. But protest she did, and Link only held her tighter as she began thrashing and shrieking with laughter.
“I thought we needed a bath,” he said innocently, dogging a misaimed elbow. She could be less than graceful sometimes.
Zelda turned to him, hair wild in the wind and sun. “We?!” she giggled. “I smell like roses! It is you who needs a bath, Sir Link! Unhand me at once!!”
He met her wide smile with an even wider grin. Had he ever smiled so much in the last year? “I shan’t,” he playfully mocked, taking on a faux noble intonation before his accent turned to one of a scoundrel. “I’ve become quite the rogue since you’ve been away.”
“Is that so?” she giggled.
“It is indeed,” he smirked as he walked to the edge of the water. “Here I am, with a woman in my arms, completely at my mercy!”
Zelda kicked her legs and blithely batted at his chest. “Women are not at the mercy of men!”
Link rolled his eyes as he stepped into the lake, the cool water and warm mud swirling around his feet. “Of course not.” A playfully smug smile stretched across his face. “But you’re at the mercy of me!”
As Link sprinted into the water, he decided that Zelda’s shrieks of laughter should be enough to announce to all of Lookout Landing that the princess had returned. Surely, they’d already seen that he’d saved the day.
He knew Purah might be a little mad that they didn't immediately return to the landing and report in, but when he looked at his wife spluttering water indignantly before splashing him with a grin and watched her struggle to run away in the water, he shook his head.
This was the last new beginning Link planned to have. He’d spend his life at her side, relishing every second of her presence and working to shower her with love. The rest would have to wait.