Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"It never fails to amaze me how you acquire so many things," Zelda said, surveying Link's gear, which was currently spread over every available surface of their small Hateno home. "Do you think Hestu would enchant a few chests for us?"

Link nodded. He had a whole pouch full of seeds he hadn't gotten around to exchanging before saving the world. Again. "We don't need to keep it all," he said from where he was perched on the stairs. Zelda stood in the middle of the room, turning slowly, an axis of order amidst the chaos.

"We should catalogue it," Zelda said. There were piles of sundelions, bits of armor, weapons and shields, gemstones, Hylian shrooms nestled up against shards of dragon horn. Zelda had asked him to empty his satchel and he'd done so with a grin. "Maybe not everything," she went on, plucking some common flint out from amongst a few diamonds. She frowned. "This is so much flint, Link."

"There's a Goron—" Link started, then saw in his mind how long the explanation would take, how many words. "I needed it," he said simply.

"I don't doubt it," Zelda murmured. She tossed him the flint. "This and shrooms can go back in the pouch – oh, except skyshrooms. Anything from the sky isles, keep out. Common plants and materials, put away. Okay?"

Link nodded, content to set about the task. The look on her face as items had continued pouring out of his satchel had been worth it: amazement and just a bit of academic greed. He could see her building a mental picture of his adventures based on the motley collection. He'd told her about what he'd done, of course – at the end of the day, in the dark, when things moved slowly between them, he found the words. And she was patient. But this was another way to experience what she'd missed.

"You were never this much of a pack rat on our travels," she said, talking about the happy, too-short years they'd spent rebuilding Hyrule after the Calamity.

Of course not, Link thought. I had everything I needed then. He just gave her an intent look and somehow, like always, she took his meaning. Well, he thought she did. She blushed, anyway. He grinned again and set about combing his belongings for flint.

She turned back to her own task, muttering under her breath as she sorted. "Zonai headpiece. I guess. Where did they put their ears, though?" She set it down and rifled through other pieces, looking for the shin guards. "Maybe post-Zonai? Hylian, made with zonaite back when it was abundant? When did we lose the mines? How?"

Link listened to her steady flow of thoughts, the sound a comfort. It reminded him of those early days of Zelda trying to decipher ancient Sheikah technology, and of later days studying the gloom. Her mind worked best when she could hear herself think. Link stowed a silent princess in his bag with a wry smile.

Chains clinked as Zelda dragged the miner's top out of a pile and tried to figure out which way was up. "Fascinating," she said. "Have you showed this to the survey teams studying the Depths?"

Link shook his head.

"Hm. We should let them see it. And probably some of these others." She pulled out the Gaiters of the Depths and gave the anklet a little flick. "Maybe some sort of central repository. Who knows what the Sheikah will find useful, or the different survey teams. Maybe… a museum. So we can all learn about Hyrule's past. What do you think?"

"Just leave me something to wear," Link said with a shrug. "I'm tired of waking up in caves with no clothes."

"Well, we can avoid the caves part," Zelda said absently. "Maybe the castle?"

"I don't want to wake up with no clothes there, either."

"Of course it's still in the air, so that's a barrier," Zelda went on, not really listening. Link sighed, wondering what it was with the rulers of Hyrule taking his clothes. He still didn't know why the ghosts of Rauru and Sonia had done away with his shirt after the last battle with the Demon Dragon, but it would seem Zelda came by it honestly. Not that he would necessarily mind the castle, if she was there. But as it was now…

"I wonder if we should try to get it back down," Zelda was saying. She knelt on the floor to make a mark in her inventory notebook about the miner's set and the Depths set. Her pencil kept moving, though, doodling a rune in the corner of the page. "I wonder… if I can."

Link glanced over her shoulder. She'd drawn the recall rune. Her other hand was at her throat, thumbing at the sacred stone she wore there. His healed arm tingled.

"It's been up too long for this," he said, crouching to tap the corner of the page where she'd drawn.

She smiled up at him, but it was a sad smile. "Rauru's primary ability wasn't time, nor is it yours. Channeling the ability through his arm, his spirit… well, it could only do so much. Sonia could have done it, though. I should— well, I threw myself backward over ten thousand years, didn't I?" She laughed a little. "Restoring the castle should be… should be easy!"

Link frowned, not fooled. He'd heard her say should too many times, back before the Calamity. She should be able to unlock her power, should be able to hear Hylia, should be able to fulfill her duties.

"There's just so much damage," she went on. "We'd barely begun to rebuild, and now…"

Link flicked the notebook closed. "And now we have Zonai devices. We know more than ever. You know more than ever." He handed her the archaic tunic he'd found on the Great Sky Island, pulled from a nearby pile. The green fabric slipped softly out of his hands to pool in hers. "One day at a time."

Her thumbs ran over the fabric. "Yes. Yes, of course." She smiled and it was a little more natural. "Very sensible." Link smiled back. They'd get there. "Oh, listen to me," Zelda said, turning back to her piles of armor and materials. "I can't expect to sort out the castle if I can't even sort out this house. What's this?"

She held up the froggy sleeve, which, to be fair, looked a bit confounding when no one was wearing it and it was just a few scraps of fabric and some straps. Link explained it and was gratified to see Zelda's eyes light up with scientific excitement.

They continued going through everything, and Link was just beginning to regret dumping out his entire pouch when Zelda went quiet mid-sentence. He looked up from his work and saw her holding the frostbite headdress in her lap.

It was glowing, just as it did in cold weather. But of course they were in Hateno, and the weather was as mild as ever.

He went to her side, giving her a curious look and hoping she'd tell him what she'd done to make it glow like that. She didn't look at him, though, only stared at the headdress in her hands. Her eyes were distant, unfocused.

"Zelda?" he said. He reached out and touched her shoulder, then gave it a gentle shake when she didn't respond. "Zelda." Nothing. He placed his hands over hers where she was holding the headdress, prepared for a shock, for ice, for pain. When nothing happened, he grabbed the headdress himself and lifted it out of her unresisting hands. It stopped glowing immediately.

"What?" Zelda said, blinking at him. "What's wrong?"

"It was glowing," Link said, holding the headdress up and away, as though keeping it out of reach of a child.

"Does it not normally glow?" she asked, clearly confused at the frown carving a line between his eyebrows.

"Only in cold weather."

"How peculiar. It's a lovely day. Let me see it."

He hesitated. "You… went somewhere."

"Did I? I only picked it up. Let's see if it happens again." She reached for it. Link held it further away. She raised her eyebrows at him. "Taking it from me fixed it, didn't it? So it's simple enough to fix if it happens again. How can we find out what happened if we don't test it?"

Link gave her his most skeptical frown. She huffed.

"All right. What do you know about this armor? There are three similar sets, right?"

"It was made for an ancient ritual. Makes you stronger when it's cold. That's all I found out."

"Hm," Zelda said, considering this. Then, quick as a whip, she dove to the side and grabbed the charged headdress by the horn where it was peeking out from a pile of zapshrooms. Link gave a strangled cry as Zelda held it up triumphantly. "Ah ha!"

Link glowered at her.

"Look, it's fine." She ran her fingers over the beads and bits of ornamentation dangling from the piece, then shrugged. "I don't feel anything." She set it aside on a table, then held out her hand for the frostbite headdress. "If it bites me, I'll never touch it again. I'll let Purah do all the testing."

He never could deny her anything for long.

He put the headdress in her waiting hands, keeping his own hands on it as long as possible. They stood there for a moment, holding it between them. Then Zelda lifted it away from his grasp and peered at the crown of horns.

"Seems… totally normal," she murmured. "I think… are these actually shards of Naydra's horns? If they are, then that means these were created after the dragons. Hm. I thought perhaps the sages who had— well, never mind." She put the headdress down absently and began making notes, already moving on. "Would you find the red one for me? The ember one?" Link gave the headdress one more distrustful look, but went to do as he was bid. They lined all three up, along with the other pieces of the sets, and Zelda poked and prodded at them but nothing strange happened.

"I may just be overtired," she said eventually. "Oh, don't give me that look. It's not as though you haven't dozed off with your eyes open before."

Link pressed one hand to his chest. Me? Never.

"Only at state functions when Daruk was there to prop you up."

He gave a tiny little snort of a laugh. It was true enough. He had tended not to sleep much after being appointed Zelda's knight. The reason he occasionally fell into a waking doze when the other Champions were present – which was invariably at state banquets and diplomatic meetings – was because he knew Zelda was safest with them around.

"If you're tired," Link said. "Sleep." There had been a nightmare last night. They'd been more and more infrequent, but this one had been enough to wake Link. He'd caught only one word – Ganon – before he'd woken her.

"The sun's barely down!" she protested, though she'd been awake before it was up.

He considered whether he could scoop her up and get her up the stairs to bed without knocking anything over, but she noticed and, as always, correctly interpreted his assessing look. She put her hands up before he could make a move.

"Maybe a break isn't a bad idea," she said.

He knew he'd won when he convinced her a good break would be reading in bed. After all, he pointed out reasonably, it was the only surface currently free of Things. She was out cold not half an hour later, and he not far behind.

Something woke him, though, well before dawn. The moon was high, shining in through their open window. It left a silver square of light on the bed beside Link. He frowned and sat up. Zelda waking must have woken him, but he couldn't hear her in the house. And there was something else – a breeze, but not coming from the open window.

He stood, scooping the Master Sword up from where it rested propped against the wall, and went downstairs. The front door was open. He didn't stop to put on a shirt or even shoes, just slung the sword over his back and left the house, eyes darting around, searching.

She wasn't on the bridge leading back to town. She wasn't under the tree by the cook pot, or in the yard, or visiting the horses, but Link had done plenty of tracking in his time and the grass was thick and wet with dew. It was easy enough to see where a set of feet – just one set, he noted with relief – had passed.

The trail led around the back of the house, past the well, along the base of Ebon Mountain. There was no path at all there, and the terrain quickly turned rockier but there was really only one direction to go unless Zelda had decided to climb the mountain. She didn't have that much of a head start on him, though, and he thought he'd see her if that was the case.

He picked the trail back up in the wooded area near the saddle between Meda Mountain and Stinger Cliffs. She seemed to be clinging to the narrow land above the road there, making a beeline for Oakle's Navel despite the roughness of the terrain. He hurried, and kept casting uneasy glances to his right where the land fell away much too sharply for his liking.

Finally, he saw her, just ahead, approaching the Navel's sunken valley. Something was shining on her head, a crown turning her gold hair into a beacon.

"Zelda," he called. She gave no sign that she'd heard. He shook off the memory of chasing another Zelda – not Zelda at all – and sprinted.

He caught her by the arm just as she approached the edge of the cliffs surrounding the valley. She didn't stop walking, but he was stronger and pulled her back. She stumbled and fell backward into his arms, against his chest, and blinked up at him.

"Link?"

He set her on her feet, ran his hands through her hair. There was nothing on her head, no crown of horns. He had been certain—

"Where… are we?" Zelda asked.

"Oakle's Navel," Link replied. She looked behind her, at the drop that was a little too close, and stepped closer to him.

"Why?"

Link shook his head, mystified. She looked down at herself, then at him.

"I'm in my nightgown."

He nodded. It was a soft purple; he'd had it dyed at the shop in town weeks ago, after a nightmare Zelda had had involving her old ceremonial dress. "Me too," he said and was relieved when she laughed. The night discharged on the back of that laugh, became just a calm, mild night once more.

"Let's go home," she said, and took him by the hand, leading him back the way they'd come.

They slept late the next morning and lingered over breakfast, Zelda reading some of her notes to Link while he cooked – porridge with honeyed fruits and toasted bread with fresh butter. They ate slowly under the tree and talked about what they needed to get from the shops and Purah's latest demands for the lab she was expanding at Lookout Landing.

But they couldn't put it off forever. Soon they were standing over the array of dragon armors, considering them at arm's length.

"Which one did you see last night?" Zelda asked.

"Ember. I think," Link said. He picked it up before Zelda could and put it on his own head.

Nothing happened.

"You know I have to be the one wearing it," Zelda said gently. He took it off with a sigh and handed it to her.

Nothing happened when she put it on, either. And, what was more, it didn't look quite like what he'd seen last night.

"We should ask Robbie," Link said as Zelda drew off the horns and replaced them on the table.

"I'd rather have more data first. Let me think on it."

They spent the rest of the day cataloging and organizing, which Zelda said would help her think. Soon, most everything was tidied away back in Link's satchel except for those things Zelda wanted to study further or delegate to particular research teams. The dragon armors, naturally, she held aside.

"Maybe if we take them to the Springs," she mused. Link raised an eyebrow at her, surprised. Zelda was not particularly fond of the Springs, having spent far too long at Courage and Power with no result. And of course the first time she'd visited Wisdom… well.

She stood and dusted off her hands brusquely. "Or maybe it was just a strange sleepwalking episode!" she said brightly.

"Robbie's a lot closer than the Springs," Link pointed out.

"And more likely to answer me than Hylia," Zelda muttered. Her eyes darted to the Master Sword, propped against the wall by the door. "I don't suppose…"

"You want to try stabbing them?"

"Well… that's probably not the best idea," she said, which meant yes but she was going to be responsible about it. "But I wondered if perhaps— well, it hasn't said anything to you, has it?"

Link shook his head.

"Of course not," Zelda said. "That would be too easy."

When Link dragged her away hours later for a much needed break to run errands in Hateno that afternoon, he noticed her gaze lingered for longer than usual on the stylishly dressed goddess statue in town. He gave her hand a little tug, tilting his head toward the path to the tech lab.

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to ask," she said.

Robbie was enthusiastic as always, especially when he heard they were interested in something ancient. That it wasn't something Sheikah and ancient made him pause only momentarily. He flitted about the pieces of armor Link had slid into his bag before they'd left the house – leaving such things laying around seemed a bad idea – and made many knowledgeable-sounding exclamations.

Zelda and Link exchanged a wry look and Link wandered off to explore the lab while Zelda explained what had happened.

Robbie tried the armor on, and scanned it with his modified Sheikah slate, and prodded it with something cobbled together from what looked like a Guardian arm that fed back into Cherry, and eventually sat back on his heels and announced, "Phew!"

"Any ideas?" Zelda asked.

"You bet! You," he pointed at Zelda. "Are overworked! And stressed out! Quit it!"

"Uh… that's not… really… Oh, shut up, Link," she said when she saw him nodding along with Robbie.

"I mean it. What were you thinking about when you picked up the frostbite headdress?" Robbie asked.

"Well, I was thinking about how to organize everything in general, and wondering specifically about that piece of armor's properties."

"And when you say organizing everything," Robbie said with a shrewd gleam in his goggles. "You mean all of Hyrule and probably a few other kingdoms besides?"

"What? No, I just meant the mess in our living room," Zelda protested.

"Really?" He turned to Link for confirmation. Link seesawed his hand left to right. Ehhhh.

"A vacation is what you need! And you can leave these babies with me." Robbie patted the closest armor piece happily, even though it was the charged headdress and ended up jabbing him in the palm.

"Oh, I see," Zelda said with a laugh. "No ulterior motive there at all?"

"Nope. Go to Lurelin. I recommend leaving in the dead of night and telling no one. That way your mail won't find you."

"We'll take that under advisement," Zelda said. "You can keep them for now, anyway. You're more equipped to study them than we are at the house. But I'll be back – with ideas!"

They left Robbie happily tinkering with his new project. Link tilted his head at Zelda in a question as they descended the path back toward home.

"It won't hurt to have them a bit further away," she said. "We'll see if there's a range on any… oddities."

Chapter Text

This time, Link woke up when Zelda left their bed. He caught her before she made it out the front door, turned her to face him in the light of the moon through their windows. Her eyes were open but vacant, staring at him only because he happened to be in front of her. She tried to turn, to leave his grasp, and he let her, not wanting to hurt her by holding on too tightly.

"Zelda, wake up," he said, as she pushed open the door. He followed her out, got in front of her, walked backward as she stepped lightly through the grass. He put his hands out, pressing them against her shoulders as she walked into him. She tried to walk forward, making no attempt to go around him, but he dug in his heels and didn't move.

"Zelda," Link tried again. There was no glow of horns on her head this time, he was sure; just the moonlight in her hair. He let her step closer to him, opening his arms instead of holding them out stiffly. Then he closed them around her, holding tight as she pressed into him; she was clearly still trying to walk, but he pretended for an instant that she was nestling into his embrace.

Then he swept her off her feet and carried her back to the house.

"Oh," Zelda said, blinking up at him just as he crossed the threshold. "Again?"

He nodded, but didn't put her down. She didn't protest as he climbed the stairs and laid her on the bed.

She glanced at the moon out the window. "It's still early. Let's… let's sleep and see if it happens again."

He gave her a dubious look.

"Maybe it happens only at a certain time, and that's a clue," she said. "Or… or it'll happen every time I sleep. We should find out."

Link nodded slowly and climbed into bed beside her, having exactly zero intention of sleeping.

The sun found both of them still awake hours later. Zelda had likewise not been able to fall asleep. They went about their morning routine in silence; Link's familiar, Zelda's worrying.

"It was the same path," Link said eventually.

"Curious," Zelda said, in a way that told Link she had been thinking about that as well. "I wonder if there is something at Oakle's Navel."

They packed some rice balls studded with diced stambulb to keep them going after their sleepless night and set out, following the same route Zelda had taken two nights before. They spent the afternoon exploring the pond and the cave at Oakle's Navel, Zelda scanning everything with the Purah Pad. She was back to her usual flow of commentary as they explored the caverns that had once dispensed a continuous stream of falling rocks – dormant now that Link had replaced the crystal and activated the shrine there.

The shrine was dormant too, now, no longer glowing. Zelda spent most of her time there, running her hands along it, ducking in and out of it, and, at one point, doing something that involved a flash of light from her hands – but didn't seem to have any effect on the shrine. Link took the opportunity to cook up a few more stambulbs with goat butter and some freshly caught staminoka bass from the pond, and they ate at the entrance to the shrine while Zelda talked about Rauru and Sonia and the creation of the shrines.

She had told Link this before, of course, more urgently in the days following the Demon King's defeat as they had compared their adventures and checked each other over again and again for wounds visible and hidden.

Link didn't mind hearing it again in calmer times. "You miss them," he said.

"Very much," Zelda replied easily, licking butter off her fingers. "There was so much I could have learned from them. And they… were so kind." She had told him all about how they had taken her in without a second thought, and how they had not judged her for being unfamiliar with her own power; family Zelda could look up to and learn from at last, though Zelda never said that part out loud.

They began the trek home as the sun sank lower. They'd found nothing. Zelda was deep in thought as Link helped her over the lip of the Navel and they followed the path along the ridge back to their house.

"I think you should wait and see where I end up tonight," Zelda said, as Link had known she would.

"You almost walked off a cliff," he said.

"You'll catch me," she replied, and what could he say to that?

She did walk again that night. Link had thought it might be another sleepless night since they were both worried, but the lack of rest the night before and the long day had overcome Zelda. Link drowsed himself, sitting up by the door, dressed, the sword strapped across his back.

He followed her dutifully, at her side rather than behind. She gave him a disinterested glance as he fell into step beside her and then continued on. She'd slept in loose pants and a light top, her feet bare because she'd claimed she would never get to sleep otherwise.

The glow began a few minutes into the walk, subtle at first, and then growing into the corona he'd seen that first night. This close, with the time to examine them, he could see that they were indeed dragon horns.

But not from Farosh, Din, or Naydra.

He grabbed her wrist as she approached the edge of Oakle's Navel with no sign of slowing, ready to pull her to safety as she placed one foot out over open air.

The air beneath her bare foot glowed, and she placed her weight on it. She didn't fall.

Link had to let go of her wrist; a quick test showed that he was still incapable of flight, but Zelda seemed to have no trouble gliding across thin air.

He launched himself from the edge, unfurling the glider to continue along with her. She turned her head slowly as she walked on and gave him a stately nod. They both landed safely on the opposite ledge.

"Zelda?" Link tried, thinking perhaps the nod meant she was waking.

She didn't acknowledge him, but kept walking, bearing north and east toward the Squabble River. When she ran out of land to walk on, she simply stepped out onto the air again, this time descending slightly with each step. Down toward Blatchery Plain.

The clench in Link's stomach had little to do with the swoop of the glider as he followed her through the air. Blatchery Plain and the old wall of Fort Hateno were safe enough now, the guardians cleared away and the monster camp eradicated for the last time. But he was remembering the first time he'd seen that camp after Zelda had vanished. He'd been approaching by air, just like this, and had looked down to find the spiked barricades, the moblins, the bokos. The rancid den was squatting practically on top of Zelda's memorial to the victims of the Calamity.

He'd dropped fire on them from above like wrath incarnate. The barricades burned and he stalked the fires, cutting down whatever came his way. He hadn't known there was a monster control squad nearby, but when they arrived they found there wasn't much left to do. Link had accepted their thanks, then scooped up the silent princess from the memorial and slipped away to cool his head and heal his wounds.

As Zelda's foot touched down delicately on the grass on the far bank of the Squabble and she continued her path forward, Link wondered what new horror Blatchery Plain had in store for him.

The sky had just begun to lighten when Zelda finally paused and looked at him as he alighted next to her. The Light Dragon's antlers glowed bronze, a harbinger of sunrise, but her eyes – those were still her own bluish-green, and the sight lifted Link's heart.

"I know you," she said, and Link's heart stuttered a little in its ascent. She reached out one hand, languid, and rested it on his cheek. Link's eyes closed. Whatever came next, he didn't need to see the wall of Fort Hateno behind her, nor the plain where he'd lost everything. Her hand moved from his cheek to his forehead, as in benediction.

"And this," she said, her voice a low throb, so different from Zelda's usual bright notes. He felt her touch the Master Sword's hilt where it poked over his shoulder with her other hand. "Open your eyes, hero."

Link did, and Zelda drew the blade from his back with both hands, holding it upright between them, her eyes locked on his. Her crown of horns brightened, and the Master Sword shone blue to match. Link felt whatever was in him that was goddess-touched leap in response, pulled helplessly to her call as always.

This is it, he thought. I've had too many chances. We've completed our tasks, and now we have to give back the time we stole. He dropped to his knees before her, but did not bow his head. If the goddess had come to claim him, he would go; he would not fight Zelda. But he wouldn't look away, either.

Zelda swept the sword out to the side, holding it level with one hand though Link knew better than anyone its weight. Her other hand came to rest on his head, her thumb just over his eyes.

"My hero," she said. "You must endure." Before Link could register surprise at this command, the sword flared and there was a sharp pain across his brow. A moment later, blood trickled down into his eyes, but still he didn't blink. The sword hadn't moved; she'd cut him with her thumbnail, now a claw.

He caught her bloodied hand as it left his forehead, pressed her knuckles to his lips. "Zelda," he whispered. It was more a prayer than anything he'd ever said to Hylia.

Her eyes darkened. "Yes," she said, and pulled her hand from his only to grasp him by the front of his tunic. She bent, and pulled him up to meet her, crushing her mouth to his. He went willingly, surging to his feet, reaching out and finding the sword hilt and wrapping his hand around hers.

Light and heat surged between them. Zelda shoved him backward, shoved him back down, onto his back this time, and sat astride him. Their hands might have been fused together where they met at the sword; she leaned forward and pressed both their hands and the blade to the grass beside his head. His heart beat so hard he feared it would bruise his lungs. He didn't want it to stop. She leaned over him, blotting out the sky, blotting out the rising sun.

"This I gift to you," she said. And then her hand pressed over the cut she'd made, salt from her skin stinging the wound. And then the sting spread, and deepened, and Link's eyes widened as the pain didn't stop. His head throbbed, his skin was on fire, and finally his back arched as a scream tore from him. Zelda's hand stayed firm on his head the entire time.

His vision exploded in gold and he was mercifully aware of nothing else for a time.

When the world faded back in, Zelda was still looking down at him. But now there was a look of shock on her face, her hands pressed to her mouth despite the blood covering one of them.

"Oh, Link. What have I— Are you—"

He sat up, steadying her in his lap as he did, holding her when she would have scrambled away. "Fine," he said, without taking the time to assess whether that was true. He pulled her hands from her mouth and pressed her knuckles to his lips once more.

"You— But how did— oh, wait, where is—" She pulled from his grip and scooted back, reaching to her hip in a gesture he knew well. He reached into his pack – readied the night before so that he'd be prepared to follow her – and handed her the slate. She turned on the camera in mirror-mode and turned it to face him.

Now it was Link's turn for shock. The light dragon's blue horns branched back into his hair, a dull gold chain of carved zonaite spanning them at the root, draped across his forehead with a tiny jade brightbloom seed hanging in the middle of a familiar eye design. More chains led to combs the exact color of his hair, securing the headpiece in place.

His ears were hung all down their length with brightbloom earrings, enough to weigh them down in a way he certainly would have noticed had he taken a moment to take stock. They weren't painfully heavy, though, and they chimed in a comforting way when he moved his head.

Gold teardrop shapes painted the tops of his cheekbones beneath his eyes, with a matching set painted along his eyebrows. They flared out in a way he recognized, though it took him a moment to place it. They looked like the Light Dragon's eyelashes.

He looked to Zelda, eyes wide.

She reached out to gently lift the chain across his forehead. Her fingernails were back to their normal pared-down length and her touch was gentle.

"Not even a mark," she said. "Link, I'm so sorry. I don't know… what happened. Does it hurt?"

Did it? He followed her touch with his own, finding the skin smooth as it ever was, without even a tacky trace of blood. With practiced ease from his experience with other armor, he lifted the piece from his head. The earrings vanished with a small musical sound, and he knew the face paint would go too. The headpiece looked less magical in his hands, more structured. Just like the others.

"I'm okay. Are you?" he asked.

"I have no idea," she said. Then she seemed to remember herself and backed the rest of the way off of his legs, getting unsteadily to her feet. "Where are we?"

He rose too, the headdress still in his hands. "You don't remember?"

"A little. You said my name, and then I—" She looked down at the smear of red on her palm. "But it was like I was waking up, so slowly. Still half dreaming. I couldn't— I never would have— I'm sorry, Link."

"Do you think I couldn't have stopped you, if I had wanted to?" Link asked.

Zelda gave him a steady look. "Could you have?"

They held each others' gaze for a long moment. Then Link shrugged. "What next?"

Zelda looked around. "Blatchery Plain? Of course." She sighed. "I never should have experimented like this. I put you in danger. We're going to see Purah. She'll have some ideas."

Link pulled a cloak from his pouch and offered it to Zelda. "I came prepared."

They decided to go straight to the Dueling Peaks stable. Link had plenty of provisions and even a few changes of clothes for Zelda – including some good walking shoes – and Zelda thought it would be best not to waste any more time. But she was exhausted, even more so than Link who had also spent the night roaming the countryside. Link hadn't manifested a mystical piece of armor at dawn, though.

He worked on convincing Zelda that they should pause to sleep as they picked their way through the outskirts of Bubinga Forest on their way to the stable.

"But what if I walk again?" Zelda asked, her voice quiet.

"I'll wake you."

"If people see—"

"They've seen stranger things than someone calmly walking around."

"I suppose that's true." It was a testament to how tired she was that she didn't pursue the argument.

They ended up stopping at the stable until noon, Link reluctant to wake Zelda from what looked like a deep and restorative sleep. When she realized how late she'd slept she refused to pause for lunch. The stable brought their boarded horses around and they set out, eating bread, cheese, and roasted nuts in the saddle.

The day was cloudy, the shadows cast by the twin peaks making the pass cool and damp. At least the bridge was repaired now; the path between here and Lookout Landing would be an easy one. The teleportation pads had all dimmed and died after the Demon King's defeat. In the days following their victory, Zelda had speculated that it had something to do with the Light Dragon no longer circling the skies. The dragons, she'd said, were crucial to the magic of Hyrule and it might be impossible to power something like the teleportation pads with one of them missing.

She had delivered this statement very matter-of-factly. But she had still reached out for Link's hand the moment Purah and Robbie were distracted by the challenge of getting the pads working again. Link had felt the tremor in her grip.

He let Zelda set the pace on this journey. It was possible to make it to Lookout Landing on horseback from Dueling Peaks in a day, but their day had started at noon. If Zelda wanted to ride through the night, he would, but based on the steady but unhurried pace she set he thought she'd resigned herself to a night on the road.

"Riverside Stable?" he asked as they followed the Squabble west.

"I think… perhaps the Hyrule Field skyview tower instead."

He cocked his head at her in question.

"You can't keep watch over my sleep every night, and you didn't sleep at Dueling Peaks; you're sleeping tonight. And if I walk I'd rather it be where it won't spark a hundred rumors. The skyview tower is sheltered and it'll take about the same amount of time following the roads."

She'd made up her mind. Link had no objections. He nodded and pointed out a courser bee hive hanging in a tree a little ways off the path. She smiled.

"Go on. I'll ride ahead a bit. I don't fancy getting stung."

He grinned at her and leaped from Epona. Used to these sorts of antics, the horse kept going, trotting calmly alongside Zelda's Storm as Link went to forage for their dessert.

They stopped for dinner at the Proxim Bridge shelter. The cloudy day made it feel later than it was, and their appetites had returned in force after the light lunch. Link had brought down a few wood pigeons in the forest and made poultry curry, considering how best to use his freshly gathered honey while he fluffed the rice.

When he looked up, Zelda was holding the Light Dragon helm. He tensed for a moment before realizing she was perfectly coherent, just quiet.

"What do you think it does?" he asked.

"I've been wondering that. You'd think I'd know, wouldn't you? But… I've no idea!" She laughed a little. "How do you usually figure out the effects?"

"The slate tells me, or a fairy does," he said. "Or it's sort of obvious."

"The slate doesn't recognize this one," she said. "I checked. We'll have to make a manual entry. I suppose that makes sense, if it's new. That's a bit exciting, isn’t it?" Her cheerfulness was definitely forced.

 "Could go back to Cotera," he said. "Or Kaysa isn't too much of a detour."

"No. No, I think it can wait." She tucked the horns back into the satchel. "That smells amazing, Link."

He plated up rice and curry for them both with a small, pleased smile, the one he couldn't help every time she praised his cooking. "Honeyed apples for dessert?"

"Yes, please," she said, and her cheerfulness was a bit more natural that time.

Chapter Text

They reached the Hyrule Field skyview tower well after dark, the horses slowed by a sudden rain that muddied the roads. They took their time currying them and drying the tack when they arrived.

This tower had once been besieged by a bokoblin camp, but that was no longer a problem. Purah's research teams had kept the walls somewhat intact, though, giving any travelers or visiting researchers functional horse stalls, a sheltered cooking area, a gate that could be locked at night, and even a few cots.

Thankfully, no one was visiting this tower at the moment. Most of the research into the sky islands was happening under Purah's supervision at Lookout Landing and there weren't so many researchers that they could consistently people satellite labs.

Zelda and Link moved the cots near the fire and listened to the drizzle outside while they waited for sleep.

"I can feel you watching me," Zelda said eventually. "I meant it when I said you're to sleep tonight."

Link just stared at her, unblinking, from his cot.

"If you don't sleep, I won't," she said.

"Then we might as well keep riding," Link said.

"Wonderful, two exhausted Hylians on exhausted horses riding in the rain and the dark. Nothing could go wrong." She sighed and sat up, then to Link's surprise got up from the cot. He hadn't thought she'd actually consider pressing on tonight.

But that wasn't her intent. "Get out the bedrolls," she said instead. She moved her cot away from the fire and gestured him over. Under her direction, they laid out the bedrolls next to each other and she wiggled into them.

The ground here was dry, though a bit hard even with their soft bedrolls; Link watched her, confused as to why she was rejecting the cot in favor of sleeping on the ground. She rolled onto her side, her front to the fire, then looked back over her shoulder at him.

"Well?" she said. "Get in."

Well, he didn't need to be told twice. He slid into the double bedroll behind her. She scooted back against his front, then reached over to grab his arm and drag it over herself like a blanket.

"I daresay you'll notice if I get up now," she said with a yawn, snuggling deeper into him and the blankets.

Link huffed a little laugh against the back of her neck, tightened his arm around her, and buried his face in her hair. As usual, Zelda was right. He would sleep that night.

…But not for the entire night. Zelda was also right that it was easy to notice when she woke, when she tried to leave their nest by the fire's embers. At first he held her closer on instinct, half asleep, nuzzling against her in wordless, sleepy protest that it was much too early to be awake.

But when she continued to pull away, he let her go – he'd never hold her where she didn't want to be – before suddenly snapping awake, remembering where they were and why.

She made straight for the ramp leading down from the tower, lifting the rudimentary lock easily and swinging the gate open. He lurched after her, scooping up the sword on his way. He caught up with her easily enough. She walked as if in a trance, in no hurry.

They hadn't talked about what to do if she walked again tonight, probably because Zelda assumed it was obvious that she wanted him to wake her after she had hurt him the night before. But she hadn't said as much, and it hadn't actually hurt much at all, or at least not for long. And Link… had a theory. He decided to see where she went.

As he had the night before, he kept pace with her as she looped back around the tower the way they'd come and took the road south. She walked smoothly, steadily, until abruptly she made a hard right turn into the grass, heading straight for Aquame Lake. The ruins of the coliseum hulked on the rise across the water. Link didn't wait to see if she'd walk on thin air again; he'd seen enough and could wake her now. He picked up her hand where it hung by her side and stopped.

Zelda kept walking until she had to tug against Link's grip. Then she turned back to look, as though checking what she had caught on. He saw awareness of him light in her eyes, though it was still vague and not at all Zelda-like. It was as though she had noticed a particularly interesting bird. There were no spectral horns this time, he noted, and wondered if he'd stopped her before they could form – or if they were simply back at their camp in his satchel.

Zelda tugged again at her arm, harder, but Link held firm. She looked back to the coliseum, then again to him, her eyes large and liquid. He shook his head. She heaved out a heavy sigh and tilted her head back to stare at the sky, bright with stars now that the rain had passed.

And then, to Link's astonishment, she started to cry. Her face didn't wrinkle, her shoulders didn't shake, but large tears spilled over her eyelids and rolled down her face. They were large enough to fall from her cheeks and make it to the ground, where they splashed in tiny bursts of light that radiated out in geometric shapes before fading.

Link made a wordless sound of dismay and pulled Zelda closer to him, circling her in his arms and gathering her close. He'd slept in a tunic as he always did on the road, and he could feel it dampening where she pressed her face into his shoulder. That was probably better than creating mini geoglyphs in the ground, but he wished she would say something. Her arms hung limply at her sides as she cried silently on him, making no move to get away or express herself in any other way.

"Okay," Link said. "Okay, let's… it's going to be all right," he said, mainly because he thought he should. He'd never been the best at verbal comfort. He rubbed a slow, soothing circle on her back. "Let's sit?" he said. She didn't object so he eased them down into the soft grass, still holding her close. This seemed to be the right move. It was a little awkward, maneuvering them down, but her arms came up to hold him, too, and her tears seemed to slow.

"What's wrong?" Link whispered as she leaned all her weight against him.

And then— a searing flash of hot pain at the join of his neck and shoulder. Link fell backward with a cry, the world tilting around him, the sky threatening to swallow him as he hit his head on the ground.

Zelda clung to him, fangs sunk deep into the muscle, holding preternaturally still. Link's hand scrabbled once, twice in the grass, wanting the sword— but he stilled it, stilled under her, focused on breathing, on the stars, on being as still as Zelda above him.

The slide of her fangs out of his skin sent another burning wave of pain through him and he winced. He couldn't help breathing heavily, his chest heaving as she sat up and looked down on him. Her mouth was smeared with blood, full of sharp teeth that he had not noticed or that had not been there when she'd been walking. He didn't dare move.

She held up a hand and he barely had a moment to note that her claws had returned and brace himself. She swiped down, just once, and tore his tunic away as though it were spun sugar and not fairy-reinforced Hylian fabric. The strap of his scabbard snapped with it. He had a moment to be grateful he hadn't been wearing his Champion's tunic and leathers, just because that would be harder to replace, before Zelda was pressing her hand against the wound in his neck, making him hiss in a breath through clenched teeth.

"My hero," she said. "All will be well." She smeared his blood across his neck, down his chest. And then she bent her head to press her bloodied lips over his heart. He tensed, brought his hand up — and pressed it against the back of her head, holding her close, bracing himself.

"Yes," he said.

At first he thought she was humming against his skin, but the vibration spread and intensified – through his ribs, down his arms, down his spine. It turned to heat and lightning and he clenched his teeth, his back arching off the ground. Zelda lifted her head as his arms fell to his sides. She placed one hand in the center of his chest, pressing him back down to the ground, and gold-white light overtook his vision.

When he woke up, Zelda was sprawled on top of him, asleep. He brought up a hand to stroke her hair. There was a distinct metallic clinking as he did. The back of his hand was covered in a pattern of three familiar triangles. It was made of tiny overlapping gold scales attached to a ring around his middle finger and a cuff around his wrist made of bronze and jade stones. He lifted his arm to look at the rest.

A thin chain of scales climbed from the cuff to a similarly crafted ring around his bicep. Both looked like more durable, shinier versions of the jewelry he'd seen Zelda wear in the distant past. He sighed and let his arm drop with a clank.

"Mm," said Zelda, stirring. "Did we— oh no." She shoved herself up with one hand planted on his chest — on the chest plate that now rested there. Link sat up too so he could look down at himself.

He could feel a collar of some kind circling his throat, though he couldn't see it. Gentle exploration with his fingers showed that the chest plate was attached there. The plate itself was not actually a plate, but made of hundreds of tiny, interlocking bronze and jade zonaite pieces that picked out the royal bird of Hyrule, spread shoulder to shoulder, the wings curling up and over as though embracing him. A triforce sat directly between its wings at the center where his collarbones met. The whole piece moved like fluid with every tiny movement he made.

His left arm had identical accoutrements to the right.

There did not seem to be anything else to this piece of armor.

"Another shirt gone," he said.

"Link!"

"I'm fine." He took her hands in his. "Are you?"

"I… I don't know." She pulled a hand free and touched the side of his neck, fingertips light as a summerwing. "It doesn't hurt at all?"

He stretched his neck this way and that and rolled his shoulder. There was no pain whatsoever, so he shook his head.

"We should head back to camp," she said, and stood, dusting off the loose pants she'd been wearing to sleep.

Link followed her up, scooping up the sword in its scabbard. He'd just have to carry it for now, but he had his Champion's leathers back at camp – there'd be a spare strap with them. "It's the dragon's route," he said.

"What is?"

"The path you're walking. It's the path the dragon took."

She looked up at the sky, just as she had earlier that night, though with less longing and a great deal more apprehension. "You're sure?"

"I memorized it, back when you were— back then. You walk until you get to the nearest point in the loop and then you follow it."

"I suppose that isn't surprising." She picked her way back to the road, Link at her side.

"You seemed… very sad," he said.

"I felt very sad," Zelda said. "I remember it, I was aware, sort of. But I couldn't stop myself." A line appeared between her eyebrows. "And you let me. You— you said yes. Link, why?"

He touched the emblem on his chest, the triforce on the back of his hand glinting in the moonlight. "Could be important."

"Not as important as you," Zelda said fiercely. "I'm not in control, Link. I didn't— the dragon didn’t want to stop." She cut herself off. They walked a little while in silence, Link clinking gently. "There's a third piece of armor," she said eventually, voice quiet in the night as they rounded the curve that would take them back to the tower.

"Usually," Link said.

"I— it— I hurt you worse this time. What will the next one be like?"

He looked at her from the corner of his eye. He could tell she had already decided that the next one would be a disaster, and that a thought on how to avoid it was forming. "Are you thinking of running away from me to protect me?"

"Well I wouldn't phrase it exactly like that."

"Do you think that would work?"

She breathed out a small laugh. "I know it wouldn't." They had reached the ramp to the tower and she stopped, tugged him around to face her. "Wake me, next time. Before I reach the dragon's path." She met his eyes, her gaze determined, firm as it was any time she made a decision that affected the fate of the world. "Please."

Link nodded, unable to do anything else. She sighed, took his face in her hands, and kissed his forehead. They returned to their camp in silence.

At the campfire, Zelda helped Link remove the new armor. There were delicate chains radiating from the collar, holding up the bird at the points of its wings and the triforce in the middle. They looked like the rays of the sun, and they were fiddly to undo without tangling.

Link sat still and enjoyed the feather-light touches of Zelda's fingertips on his skin as she worked on the clasps. If she touched the specific spot where she'd bitten him a few more times than was probably necessary, he wasn't going to mention it.

"If the dragon was going to give you armor, she might have made it a bit more substantial," Zelda muttered. Link did not point out that she was the dragon; he didn't think it would help at this juncture, especially not when, having finally removed and stored the chest piece and the arm pieces, Zelda rested a hand on his shoulder, on that spot again. She was kneeling behind him, the better to see the clasp of the collar, while he sat cross-legged before the fire.

Then she kissed the unbroken skin there, bending close. Link sighed happily at the touch of her breath, her lips, and sank back into her. She shifted so that she was sitting and he could lean against her, curled her arms around his front and held him to her.

"Are you cold?" she asked. He shook his head. "Good. Because I don't plan on letting you go again tonight."

Chapter Text

Neither slept much more that night, though they did try. They were up with the first glimpse of daylight.

"You… do have a spare shirt, don't you?" Zelda asked as they set the camp to rights for whoever should need it next.

"More than one," Link said, pulling out one of his many green tunics. Then he frowned. "That's not a challenge."

They were back on the road in short order. They passed through the garrison ruins while the birds were still tuning up and made it to the Hyrule Field chasm just as the research crew there was beginning their day. They called out excitedly when they realized it was Zelda coming up the road, and she obligingly stopped to hear their reports even though Link knew she was anxious to make it to Purah.

"—took some samples to Lookout Landing—"

"—the best chasm, better than Kakariko's—"

"—actually got a dark clump for testing—"

"—can't keep anyone at Eventide, they swear it's haunted—"

"Hold on," Zelda said. "Dark clumps?" The researchers fell silent and stepped slightly away from the one who'd said that.

He cleared his throat nervously. "Er, yes."

"Not from gloom spawn?" Zelda asked intently.

"Oh! No, no. We found a merchant who had one. Where he got it, I'll never know—" Zelda glanced at Link, who shrugged. "—but no gloom spawn have been sighted since that dragon was defeated!"

"Good," Zelda said, visibly relaxing. "Very good. Keep up the excellent work, all of you. We're on our way to Lookout Landing. I'll let Purah know things are going well here."

They all beamed at them and waved as Link and Zelda rode on.

"They really are doing very well," Zelda said when they were out of earshot. "We need to start a training program, though. All of our best researchers are here and at Kakariko, but the other chasms need attention too. There's still so much about the Depths we don't know. Not to mention the hazard to ordinary people if they stumble into them! We need to develop safety measures, lift systems…" Zelda went on, making plans and sketching designs in the air with both hands as Storm followed the path without prompting. Link listened gladly, grateful that her mind had been taken at least temporarily off of dragon matters. The research crews deserved a funding increase, obviously.

They made it to Lookout Landing well before noon, the sentries at the gate giving them cheerful waves. Lookout Landing was already expanding into a more permanent settlement; the small stable was nearly as large as any of the others, now, thanks to the speedy work of Bolson Construction. They had built up their stalls outside the wall, and had even added a second storey with rooms for travelers.

Link and Zelda boarded their horses and made their way to Purah's lab.

"Zelda! Linky!" Purah exclaimed when she saw them. "You're not gonna believe this. Major progress on the tele-pads!" She snagged Zelda by the arm and dragged her deeper into the lab. "We've gotten some flickers! Some light! Some flashes!"

"Oh?" Zelda said. "How?"

"Wellllll," Purah hedged. "We don't know. But we do know they correspond to magical atmospheric activity!"

"You… can measure that?" Zelda asked.

"With my handy Purah-nalysis Gadget! Snap!" Purah gestured with a flourish to something that looked a little like a scale, with a bowl on one end of a lever and a bell on the other, and a long reel of paper under a quill sitting under it, presumably ready to spool out. But—

"Purah. That's a korok," Zelda said.

The korok sitting in the bowl of the device waved. "Hello, Mr. Hero! Hello, Mr. Princess!" it said cheerfully. Like many koroks, this one did not quite grasp the intricacies of polite address, and figured 'mister' was for anyone you liked.

"Oh. So you can see them. I wasn't sure," Purah said. "Well, did you know that as spirit-type beings, koroks can sense changes in the magical atmosphere?" she demanded.

"No," Zelda said.

"Ah ha! Well they can! Zooki – show her how it's done!"

"Yeah! Science!" Zooki – the korok – shouted, and then whacked the bell with a twig.

"The bell sends vibes to the quill," Purah said with relish. "Look." She pulled out a swatch of paper that showed marks in different spots, with notes in Purah's handwriting indicating the time of day and the date. "We were at three bells two nights ago," she said, jabbing excitedly at the paper. "And the tower pad was glowing like anything! Stopped before I could try using it, though."

"Purah!" Zelda said. "Don't try to travel during unstable atmospheric events. What if you got stuck between pads?"

"Well, then, I'd have a different interesting problem on my hands," Purah said with a wink. "What we haven't been able to figure out, though, is why the magical atmosphere suddenly began fluctuating."

"Let me see," Zelda said, drawing the roll of paper out so that she and Purah could hold it between themselves.

A recent, intermittent increase in magic was evident. Only at night. Only over the past few days. The pattern was immediately obvious.

"Ah," Zelda said. "Purah, we have to tell you why we're here."

Zelda told Purah everything. She showed her the new armor and didn't stint on the details about how it came to be. Purah made Link draw the Light Dragon's path on a map, and they compared it to the paths Zelda had walked. When they got deep enough in conversation that the two were finishing each other's thoughts, Link slipped out to find them all lunch.

He was waylaid by Josha, who wanted to talk about the Depths and the gloom that lingered there in the shadows thrown by lightroots. And then Gralens flagged him down, wanting his opinion on a new transport design the monster control crew – now the research crew's scouting squad, since there were far fewer monsters – was testing out.

By the time Link made it back to the lab, there were papers everywhere, Purah was waving Zooki around Zelda's head, Zooki was squealing in delight, and Zelda was holding an intensely glowing ball of light between her hands.

Link, standing in the doorway and holding a tray of steaming meat and rice bowls, cleared his throat. The tableau froze as three faces turned to him.

"Lunch! Linky is so thoughtful!" exclaimed Purah. She put Zooki down and snatched a bowl off of Link's tray, cramming rice into her mouth while examining a pile of notes.

"Thank you," Zelda said. She dropped her hands and the light disappeared so that she could take her lunch. Link set the tray down on the clearest surface he could find and joined Zelda with his own bowl. He cocked his head at her in a question. "We have some ideas," Zelda said. "But nothing… concrete."

"You should put on the armor!" Purah told Zelda around a mouthful of food.

"It doesn't even have a shirt!" Zelda shot back so quickly that Link knew it wasn't the first time the suggestion had been made. He raised his eyebrows at her. "Don't start," Zelda warned him. He held up his hands in surrender and she stared at his empty bowl, left on the table. "Where did it— never mind, I don't know why I'm surprised anymore. Purah, let me see that study of Farosh's horn again—"

It went on like this for the rest of the day. At the end of it, they had no answers, or at least none that Zelda was happy with. Purah insisted Link and Zelda sleep in the lab. She had a screen sectioning off a bed beneath the loft; Cado slept there when he and Impa were visiting, and Purah didn't want Zelda trying to navigate a ladder in her sleep.

She pulled Link aside while Zelda was getting ready for bed. "This might be a problem for my sister," she said. "She's always been a bit more of a Sheikah-y Sheikah. You know. The mystical stuff. And this is sure mystical."

Link tipped his head at the literal forest spirit humming happily to itself in the magical resonance bowl and gave Purah a skeptical look.

Purah huffed. "Just. Zelda might take it better. Coming from Impa." She flung up her hands in defeat. "But what do I know! Sleep tight, kiddos!"

Naturally, Link asked Zelda about that the moment Purah was tucked up in her loft, her light out.

Zelda huffed. "Purah thinks that the problem is mental," she said crossly. "As though I could just think my way out of being a dragon." She yanked the blanket up to her shoulders and flopped back onto the pillow. Link settled himself against the wall, sword propped against his shoulder. Zelda stared at him. "You can't just never sleep again," she said.

"I'll wait until you walk. Wake you. Then sleep." He made a shooing motion at her. "Better get to it. It's late."

She flung a pillow at his head.

About two hours later, Zooki dinged. Link got to his feet just as Zelda sat up. Her bare feet touched the wooden floorboards as the blanket slid off her lap. She stood, her eyes taking on that familiar, entranced softness as she made her way to the door.

Link stopped her before she got there, standing firmly between her and the door. "Zelda," he said. "Wake up." She bumped into him, paused, and then tried to walk through him again. He sighed and scooped her into his arms, because that had worked before, but this time she only frowned and tried to get down. He held on to her and walked her back to the bed, laying her on it gently.

She got back up and walked to the door.

He grabbed the pitcher of water on her bedside table and dumped it over her head.

"Eek!" Zelda gasped just as Zooki let out a disappointed oh. Zelda shoved her wet hair out of her face and rounded on Link, who had the sudden urge to hide the pitcher. "Was that necessary?" she asked.

A towel landed on her face from above. "That was interesting!" Purah declared from her loft. "I wonder if—"

"No," Zelda said firmly, stalking back behind the screen. "I'm going to sleep! And so is Link!"

No one argued with her.

This state of affairs proceeded for the next two nights. Whenever Zelda walked, blue light would thrum up from various places around the lab – samples of tech Purah had been trying to get to work. But Zelda could never force a reaction from them when she was awake. And, Link thought, it was getting harder to wake her.

"Maybe we should just let you walk," Purah said while Zelda dejectedly sketched the reverse rune on the table top with her finger. An ancient screw spun listlessly on its end in front of her, first one direction, then the other. "See what happens?"

"We tried that. I bit Link."

"Yeah, and there's one more piece of armor left! Linky doesn't mind, do you Linky?"

He shook his head.

Zelda muttered something that sounded a bit like the sense the goddess gave a cucco but Link elected to ignore this.

"Maybe we should talk more about what it was like when you were a dragon," Purah said. Link stared at her as Zelda's expression darkened. She didn't like talking about it, and Link knew Purah knew that.

"I don't remember it," Zelda said shortly.

"Maybe you're trying to! Maybe that's what all of this is!" Purah said.

"Then we have to stop it for sure. The last thing Hyrule needs is a mad princess."

"You wouldn't—"

"Purah!" Zelda said. "Can you accept for once that I know more about something than you do?!"

Purah blinked at her, surprised. She opened her mouth to respond and Link braced himself for whatever she was about to say— but they never found out. The lab door opened before Purah could finish taking a breath, and all heads turned to see who would be bold enough to enter Purah's lab without warning.

"My, have I interrupted something?" Impa asked. She didn't wait for an answer but calmly walked in, peering around at the assembled group and at Purah's notes, gadgets, and general detritus. "Hm," she said.

"Impa! I wasn't expecting you!" Purah said.

"That's the nice thing about a hot air balloon. You can move so quickly. I visited Robbie this morning."

Link felt Zelda's attention sharpen, but Impa simply took her time making a lap of the lab. Finally, she climbed onto a stool and sat there, legs crossed, for all appearances settling in for another hundred years. "Why don't you bring me up to speed," she suggested.

"That is a great idea," Purah enthused. "Zelly, that sounds like a job for you. Linky and I should go check out little sis' balloon! Might as well, since we have his expertise here, right? Can't be too safe!" She put her hands on Link's shoulders, spun him around, and shoved him out the door. He cast a bewildered look over his shoulder, but let her.

When the lab door slid shut behind them, Purah's shoulders sagged in a long sigh. "Phew! Impa will help her get her head level. Let's go."

Link followed her down the stairs to the Landing's central square where Cado was performing all the necessary balloon maintenance with practiced ease. Purah led Link right past him with just a wave, not even pretending they were really going to inspect it. Instead, they went through Josha's work area, out the large doors, and across the moat. Purah came to a stop in the shade of the crystal refinery pillar and leaned against it with a quiet oof.

Link stood next to her, looking up at the ruined castle hovering over the remains of Castle Town, and waited for her to tell him why she'd dragged him out here, far from any listening ears.

"I hope Impa can talk some sense into her," she said. "Sorry for taking you away, Linky. But it might be easier if you're not there. They can shout at each other or whatever – Impa's seen it all, when it comes to Zelda."

Link gave her a skeptical look. He'd seen pretty much everything, too.

"She tell you about the nightmares?" Purah asked with a raised eyebrow, matching his skepticism.

He shook his head slowly. He knew about them. But she hadn't told him.

"That's why we're out here. She worries about you, you know? So she might pull her punches if you were there. Anyway, maybe the nightmares aren't important, she's had them since way before this started. Goddess knows we all get them." She pounded a fist into her empty palm. "But we don't all start dragon-walking! And making magical armor. I can't wait to find out what that does!" She smacked a hand to her forehead. "I should have grabbed it and said we were going out to run some tests in the field!"

Link shook his head.

"Oh, you're right. She'd want to come too. Well that's why I didn't do it! But when it's safe to go back in there…" She gave Link a scrutinizing once-over. "Then we'll see what we can learn!"

Purah got bored before long, but she opted to pester Josha in her research area rather than go back to the lab. Link considered returning to the lab, but he thought Purah might have had a point. He made the rounds of the Landing instead, checking in at the bunker and the stable. He learned that the Castle Town cleanup crew could use a hand and ventured out to help them. Their problem, he discovered, was not so much that they needed more hands to haul away rubble and clear ground, but that they were jumping at every shadow. Gloom spawn had roamed here, once.

That was one job Link could help with just by being present. But he also helped with the hauling. His giant horse, Phantom, was boarded at this stable, and it was no trouble to devise a harness that would allow him to pull a wagon that normally needed two horses. A few carrots and a stalk of cane sugar ensured Phantom's cooperation.

At the end of the day, he and the rest of the crew packed it in and Link happily joined them when they said they were going for a swim in the Mabe Prairie lake to clean up. When he finally made it back to the lab, the sky was darkening.

Link had a sudden misgiving as he climbed the stairs – what if Zelda had taken off, disappeared? – but he set it aside. She wouldn't run from a puzzle, and Impa was sensible enough to talk her out of running from Link in order to protect him.

Sure enough, Zelda and Impa were still in the lab. Purah had returned as well.

"Link," Zelda said, looking up from a sheaf of papers with a smile. "How was your day?"

Link returned the smile easily. She was far more relaxed than she'd been this morning. Maybe Impa had had some kind of miracle knowledge after all. He gave her a thumbs up and cocked his head at her, returning her question.

"Good," she said. "I could use a break, though. Let's go for a walk? If you're not too tired."

He was not, and she took his arm as they left the lab. She led him outside the walls and on a slow, casual walk in the twilight around the outside of the Landing. The weather was mild, with a gentle breeze bringing them the scent of green things and the occasional whiff of someone grilling meat.

Zelda stretched her arms over her head and exhaled deeply, even more tension leaving her. "What did you do today?" she asked.

"Helped with Castle Town cleanup. You?"

"Impa had some ideas. Good ones. Will you cook for me tonight?"

He grinned at her. They went back within the walls after completing a circuit of the town so he could pick up some ingredients at the general store. Then he led her out of the gate and into Castle Town. He wanted her to see the progress. They watched the moon rise over the castle as he set up a cook pot on a flat, well-swept section in what had been the central square.

He had the feeling Zelda wanted to linger out here, so he'd chosen to make a risotto. The rice would have to simmer for a long time. While they waited, he roasted some tomatoes with Hateno cheese to take the edge off their hunger.

Zelda hummed appreciatively when she bit into one, the juices running down the side of her hand. She licked them up quickly with a laugh before they could stain her clothes. Link did not have this problem; the whole tomato went into his mouth at once.

"Castle Town is starting to look better," she said. "We might be able to get builders out here soon."

Link nodded his agreement, and they talked for a while about the town's layout, what they'd need, what should go where. They built castles in the air, but didn't mention the one that was already there.

The risotto cooked up beautifully with some Hylian shrooms. Link topped their plates with the chopped green parts of a stambulb as garnish, just because they tasted nice and not because either of them needed the energy for a change. Zelda leaned against him while they ate and told him about her concerns with certain plans to rebuild the royal tech lab so close to Castle Town, and where else they might put it.

Link listened quietly, wondering what exactly Impa had come up with that seemed to have put Zelda back at ease so quickly.

"Link, I need to ask you to do something for me," Zelda said eventually, as they gathered up their dishes.

Link knew from the way she said it that she was expecting him not to like it. He blinked a question at her.

"We need to know what the new armor does. Would you take it to a Great Fairy tomorrow?"

He frowned. "Just me?"

"They don't talk to anyone else like they talk to you. And I'd love to be there, but with my sleepwalking every night, it'll be easier if I stay here. Impa and Purah can look after me."

She couldn't run from him, so she was sending him away. Clever. But the nearest fairy wasn't that far – just at the military camp to the east – and Link could be very fast. Zelda was probably estimating he'd be gone overnight based on how they usually traveled when they were together; but with his fastest horse, a disregard for roads, and a willingness to climb, he bet he could make the round trip in half a day, plus however long it took to talk to Tera.

He kept this to himself. "What did Impa say?"

"She said we need to know what the armor is for," Zelda said with a shrug.

Link raised his eyebrows at her and gestured, And?

Zelda hesitated. Link could see her weighing whether to tell him. "And… she wants to know what happens if you're not around when I sleepwalk. If I even still do."

Link sat back on his heels. It never would have occurred to him to remove himself from the equation. Could he really be affecting her like that? It… wasn't a bad idea to test. But… "I don't have to go that far."

Zelda stood, dusted off the seat of her pants, and offered Link a hand up. He accepted. "We really do need to know more about the armor, though. It's a two birds with one stone opportunity. Please, Link?"

"Of course I'll do it," Link said, though not happily. And, in the interest of fairness, "But I'll do it fast."

She took his arm again, twining hers in his, and steered him back to the Landing. "Thank you."

That night, Link had to dump water on Zelda's head again to wake her. He used a cup this time, instead of the whole pitcher. Zelda just sighed, changed into a dry nightshirt, and got back into bed. She lay on her side, staring at the screen that separated the bed from the lab. Cado and Impa had taken advantage of the new inn outside the stable gate since Zelda wanted to stay in the lab for obvious reasons.

Link crawled into bed behind her and tapped her shoulder lightly in question. She hummed in agreement and scooted back so that her back was to his chest. He draped an arm over her side.

"Zelda?" he murmured against her shoulder.

"Mm?"

"If you ever wanted to talk. About the nightmares. You know you can, right? To me? No matter what they're about?"

She shifted and for a moment he thought she was moving away from him, that he'd said something wrong. But she was only turning over to face him. He loosened the circle of his arms to let her do so, then tightened them again as she fitted her head to the curve of his arm, the crook of his shoulder. "I know," she murmured to his skin. "But they're just nightmares. No different from yours."

"You dream of falling?" he asked, horrified. That was his nightmare: of being too slow, of her fingertips brushing his and then…

It was an infrequent terror, with her tangibly safe beside him, easing his subconscious even as they slept. But for her to also dream of his failure—

"No," she said. "Oh, Link, no." She rested her hand flat on his chest over his heart. "I only meant that after… after everything, it's normal for the both of us to have nightmares. They don't have to mean anything more than that we survived."

He nodded, slowly. Her hand moved to his cheek, tipped his face toward hers so that she could rest her forehead on his.

"We survived. You caught me. I don't dream of that at all. I know you will always catch me."

He tightened his arms around her in affirmation. Given a moment to think about it, he knew it was foolish to think she dwelt on how he'd nearly lost her. It wasn't his name she'd gasped in the moments before wrenching herself awake. "Which Ganon?" he asked.

She went tense, but answered him readily enough. "The Demon King," she said. "Impa thinks it's because… because I destroyed Calamity Ganon with my own power. But the Demon King…"

"You destroyed him pretty good, too," Link pointed out.

"The dragon did. And you."

"You and me together. Like we did with Calamity Ganon."

"But I don't even— well, never mind. Yes, we did. So you see, her theory is silly. Sometimes dreams don't make sense. There doesn't have to be a reason."

He hmm'd in agreement, knowing she'd feel the sound in his chest, and was rewarded with an exhale, a loosening in her shoulders.

"And the dream is… hardly even a nightmare," she said. "I dream of the Demon King, yes. But not as he was. In my dream, he is defeated. He has laid his weapons at my feet. And he…" she trailed off. Link didn't press, just stroked his hand down her spine as he had done hundreds of times before, soothing away long days, or comforting her as she remembered friends long gone, or just for the pleasure of feeling her near him. "He asks me to kill him."

Link's hand paused. "He… asks?"

"Yes. He pleads."

Link was having a difficult time picturing it.

"And I want to." This was the first time she sounded truly troubled. As though this was the nightmarish part of the dream.

Link knew all about wanting to kill the Demon King. He had been very in favor. He thought he might be missing something here. "Do you?"

"Kill him? I don't know. That's usually when I wake up."

She usually woke up in a sweat, heart racing, relieved to see her bed and Link and their house. Link had assumed her nightmares were about waking the Demon King, or what he had done in the past, or about Calamity Ganon. What she was describing now wasn't anything he had guessed.

"You're right," Link said. "Dreams don't have to make sense."

"You see what I mean," Zelda said, sounding relieved.

Link hummed another yes and tilted his face up to kiss her forehead. She brought her hand to his cheek and tipped it back down to kiss his lips, brief and chaste.

"Should we have gotten a room at the inn after all?" he asked, his smile just catching her lips, his mouth catching the exhale of her laugh.

"There'll be time for that later," she said. "Promise."

He kissed her again, and they slept.

Chapter Text

Link woke with the sun, even though there were no windows in the lab. He could feel the wild even here and breathed deeply as new light roused the land for another day. His and Zelda's legs were tangled, her arm thrown over his waist, her breath tickling his face. He eased himself apart from her gently, delicately, with all the stealth and precision earned from years of adventure and survival.

"Where do you think you're going?" she murmured sleepily, catching at his hip to turn him back toward her.

"Morning," he said, caught.

"You wouldn't be trying to get an incredibly early start so that you can make it back here before nightfall, would you?"

Caught twice over. She was way too alert for sunrise. Her eyes weren't even open, though, so maybe—

He ended up on his back, with one of Zelda's legs thrown over his, her arm across his chest, her head on his shoulder, curled to him like a shrimp. He sighed and crooked his pinned arm up to pet her hair.

"Aren't you hungry?" he tried.

"That's you," she said.

"Purah will be up soon."

She snorted a laugh at that. "Stay a bit, Link. We've both been having some late nights. You could use the rest." She cracked an eye open and looked at him. "And there's no hurry. We need you to stay away tonight anyway."

"How far?" he asked.

She sighed and used his chest to push herself to a sitting position. "You won't need to come to my rescue. The Sheikah are extremely competent, and we have three of them here. Four if you count Josha."

He frowned up at her.

"What if this solves it, Link? One night away, for all of this to be over."

What if this does solve it? What if I'm the problem? It'll be more than one night away, then. Zelda didn't seem to have considered that. He knew she wouldn't want them to be separated; if it turned out Link was the problem, she would declare they would find a solution other than keeping them apart. But then he might have to make the choice for them both.

He didn't want to think about it.

"Okay," he said instead.

"Okay," she said, smiling down at him. Her face filled his vision as she leaned in for a kiss. "Let's have breakfast. At Mabe Lake. I need a bath."

Link took Phantom for the ride to the lake; it was sort of on the way to the military camp ruins, and he figured he could leave after he and Zelda had eaten. She took her time in the lake while he kept watch… until she convinced him that he didn't need to keep watch for at least a little while.

They ate on the shore while they dried in the sun. Zelda patiently worked a comb through Link's hair while he sat with his eyes closed, letting himself enjoy every small tug and delicate brush of her fingers at his scalp, at his neck, at the backs of his ears.

"Have you got the armor?" she asked when they were dry and fed and presentable.

He nodded. "You'll be all right?" he asked, tilting his head toward the Landing.

"Yes. It isn't far." At his look, she smiled. "And I'll be all right tonight, too."

He helped her up onto Storm, even though she didn't need it. She leaned down, and he stretched up, face tilted up to her as to the sun, their lips just barely brushing.

"Be brave, my knight," she said, her eyes sparkling.

"Be safe, princess," he said, much more gravely.

"I will be," she reassured him. "I'll see you tomorrow." She turned Storm and trotted back toward Lookout Landing.

Behind him, Phantom snorted, impatient. "Don't judge," he muttered at the horse, swinging himself up onto his back. "There's a gold apple in it for you if you run the whole way."

Phantom tossed his head and leapt into a ground-eating gallop. He might not be able to match Epona in a dead sprint, but his stamina meant he could run all day without tiring. They'd be at Tera's fountain in a matter of hours.

The trip went without incident. The arrival did not.

Tera's fountain was gone.

Link stared at the space that had once contained a great, colorful nest of flowers, fungi, and sparkling water while Phantom grazed restlessly behind him. It wasn't unheard of for the Great Fairies to move; Tera, after all, had once inhabited the far reaches of the Gerudo Desert.

He couldn't ride around aimlessly searching, though, and when one moved they all tended to move so checking the other fountains was probably pointless. Zelda wasn't expecting him back tonight, it was true, but if he was gone two nights she'd worry. So would he.

He fed Phantom the promised golden apple as they walked back down the path, thinking. There were other ways to figure out what the armor did, but the Fairies were the fastest and surest. If he could find one of them quickly, it would still be a better bet than wandering different environments or picking fights hoping the armor would start glowing or something. And there was an easy way to find out about changes around Hyrule.

He mounted Phantom and headed toward Woodland Stable.

"Link!" sang out a familiar voice. "I should have known I'd meet you here!" Penn was standing in front of the stable, waving one large white wing as Link approached. Link grinned. He was on the hunt for gossip, and if Penn was here he'd definitely made the right choice. "Are you here to investigate the disappearance of the Great Fairy?"

Link nodded.

"Well, I'm way ahead of you for a change, partner." Penn pulled out his notebook. "Near as anyone can pinpoint, the fountain disappeared a week or two ago. My little birdies at the other stables confirmed: all four have up and moved. Last time this happened was just after the Upheaval, though I guess I don't need to tell you that."

"No Upheaval this time."

"Well spotted," Penn said. "Nothing at all strange has been going on, which might be strange all by itself! What's also strange is that they don't seem to have popped back up anywhere." Penn scratched his head with his pencil. "Checked with my sources in the pre-Upheaval locations. Not a cheep or a chirp. Not sure what to make of that. Sure hope they aren't in the Depths."

Link couldn't imagine any of the Great Fairies thriving down there, and said so.

Penn looked relieved. "You really think not? Not that an intrepid reporter won't go exactly where he's needed but you are sort of an expert on these things, so I guess I won't go Depths diving just yet. But if not there, then where?"

"Somewhere no one can see them," Link said. He could think of a few places Penn's sources were unlikely to reach.

"Hmm, remote locations, eh?" Penn pocketed his notebook and pulled out a map, unfurling it grandly. Link climbed down from Phantom to help hold it open. "Well, the desert is pretty remote, but I already checked there," Penn said. "And there's Eventide Isle in the other corner of the map. Spooky place, but my little birdies don't mind it. No Fairies there." His eyes traveled across to the other corner. "Remote peaks of Hebra maybe? Or the sky islands? Could they even get up there?"

"Maybe," Link said. "Or…" He pointed at the forest just north of the Woodland Stable.

"The Lost Woods?" Penn squawked. "Well if they're in there, we'll never know!"

"Hm."

"I know that look in your eye. You're about to go do something impossible and daring, huh?" Penn looked a little conflicted.

"Not impossible."

"Not for you, I'll bet. Is this hero business?"

Link nodded.

"So – to be clear, you're not chasing this story as a reporter?"

Link shook his head.

"Well then! Will you be my source on this one, partner? For old time's sake? Give the Lucky Clover an exclusive when you find those Fairies!"

"Could take a while," Link cautioned. If they weren't in the woods, he'd have to check the sky islands.

"A great reporter is patient! So how about it?"

"One thing. Can you get a message to Lookout Landing?"

"Not a problem at all! The news is everywhere! What do you need to say?"

"To tell Purah, at the lab, I may be gone longer than planned. And why." No need to mention Zelda was there, so she could lie low if she wanted.

"I'll wing that way myself. Lookout Landing is a great hub for stories, and our readers would love an update on Castle Town. Meet you there when you find our missing Fairies?"

Link nodded and Penn thrust out a wing. They shook on it and Link leapt back onto Phantom. "Glad you're back, Penn," he said, and nudged Phantom into a trot down the path to the woods. Penn's parting shout of Soar long! echoed after him.

Link dismounted at the edge of the Lost Woods, debating whether to bring Phantom in with him. The woods could be marshy in places, and sometimes he had to climb over and through things. Phantom was very large.

He patted the giant horse as high up on his flank as he could reach and fed him an apple. Phantom would be more than fine on his own, and would head back to the stable if he got bored. He'd done it before.

Link pulled out a torch and lit it at the gate to the woods. The mists rose as soon as he crossed the threshold, the atmosphere instantly becoming close and dim. Link watched the flame on his torch intently.

It fluttered in an unfelt, but steady wind and Link breathed a sigh of relief. Without Rauru's abilities, approaching from the Depths would have been impossible. And the last time he'd visited the woods after the teleport pads at the shrines no longer worked, Zelda had been with him. She had not needed a torch, so he hadn't tested the method since that first visit after the Upheaval. He wasn't sure what he would have done if it still hadn't worked.

Following the flame of his torch, he arrived at the Deku Tree's clearing without incident. Koroks waved as they flitted out of his path, some calling out greetings. Link saw right away that the glade was different; it was hard to miss the four giant flower buds circling the Deku Tree.

His relief deepened when he saw the buds were already open. He definitely had not brought enough rupees to convince the sisters to emerge again if they were hiding for some reason.

He considered the placid, glittering pools, and decided to talk to the Tree first. He climbed one of the thick, arching roots and hoisted himself onto a branch near the Tree's face.

"Hello," he said.

The knots and burls in the trunk of the tree animated, arranging themselves into the Deku Tree's eyes and mouth. "Link," he said in his slow, ponderous voice. Then, after a pause. "No Zelda?"

Link laughed. The Tree had favorites, clearly. "Not today. She sent me to find the Great Fairies."

"Ah. And found them, you have. They convened here some time ago to discuss matters which… you are probably aware of."

Link shifted on his branch. "The Light Dragon?"

"Indeed," the Tree said, sounding deeply satisfied. "But it puzzles me, then, that Zelda did not come herself."

"Well," said Link. "She didn't actually send me to ask about the Light Dragon. She sent me to ask about this." He pulled the Light Dragon headpiece from his enchanted pouch and held it up to the Tree.

The Tree hm'd and hrm'd for a few moments. Then, "It is exemplary. As expected of Zelda. Do you have all of the pieces?"

"Not yet," Link said. "She doesn't… She didn't make them on purpose."

"Oh?"

Link explained about the sleepwalking, and how the other reason Zelda had sent him along was because she needed to find out if he, or perhaps the sword, was a variable.

"Well," said the Deku Tree. "I can answer that. The sword and Zelda are of course connected—" Link's heart sank. "—but it could not affect her power in this way. Rest easy, young Link. This problem is not one you, or your sword, can solve."

Link let out a breath, feeling a great knot of tension leave his shoulders. "Good," he breathed. "Then what can?"

"Ah," the Deku Tree sighed. "Only Zelda. And if she has not yet solved it… well, matters become clearer. Go, speak to the Fairies. They can assist with the armor."

The Deku Tree's face stilled, fading into bark, and Link huffed. Matters become clearer, huh? Well not to him, but that was the Deku Tree through and through.

He dropped off the tree limb directly onto the mushroom pad of Tera's fountain. He knelt, leaning forward to touch the water, the barest brush of the pads of his fingertips. Ripples echoed out and then Tera erupted from the fountain with her customary splash and spray.

"Hiiiii!" she crowed. "Oh, it's you, little hero. You came all this way to see me, hmm? What can I do for you?"

Link pulled out the headdress and the chest piece and offered them to her silently.

"Oh?" Tera leaned in to peer at them more closely. "Something new? Ah! That scent! That shine! Flawless. But where is the rest of it?"

"Doesn't exist," Link said.

"Doesn't— well!" Tera said, sounding rather put out. "No wonder the air has been so thin lately. I must tell my sisters."

"Wait," Link said. "What does it do?"

"You mean you don't know? Oh my. Well, I am happy to lend my expertise. Let me hold them, little hero."

Link placed the armor pieces in Tera's outstretched palms. Her hands dwarfed them. She pulled them to her face, nuzzling them in delight. Having been on the receiving end of such nuzzles, Link watched warily.

"Oh, they're so fresh. I can't enhance these a bit, you know. Brand new and in peak condition. What a delight!" She sighed a long, contented sigh and then leaned forward, opening her hands to offer the armor back to him. "Well, go on, put them on, let me see them properly."

Link raised his eyebrows at her. She just waited expectantly. He sighed and took his tunic off and awkwardly fastened on the chest piece. The arm bands and chains didn't tangle, which must have been its own kind of magic, but it was still difficult to do alone.

Then he put the head piece on, feeling the abrupt tug at his ears as the jewelry manifested. He spread his hands toward Tera. Well?

"Oh, my, yes, your mistress—" Link almost choked. "—knows what she is doing. I know my armor and this is top quality." She extended one painted nail toward his forehead. "This," she said. "Will make you stronger when you fight dark things. Gloom, malice, what have you. You'll be very fierce indeed." Her finger lowered to his chest and touched the center of the chest plate gently. "This will heal you."

"Heal me?" Link echoed.

"It won't restore what gloom takes from you, mind," Tera cautioned. "But you'll find your wounds close more quickly. A boon, as there is so much more of you available to wound while wearing it." Her eye drifted lower and she huffed. "I do so hate to see a job incomplete. I don't suppose the two of you could hurry things along?"

Link frowned. "Do you know… how it's made?"

"I know how the old ones were made," Tera replied. "A pact between the dragons and the defenders of their sacred springs. I thought the Light Dragon had left us, but if she's, well, nesting, so to speak…" Tera grinned at him. "Then we may be able to leave this forest soon. A new spring will balance out the atmosphere nicely."

"A new spring?" Link said. "Is that what's happening?"

"Ask your mistress, little hero. The Light Dragon has always been a bit of an odd one, so it might not be quite the same as what the others have done. But if you're to be her priest, you really ought to know."

"Her… priest," Link repeated uncertainly.

"Is that all you needed? It's chilly up here. I'll head home now. Until we meet agaaain~" And she was gone with a splash.

It was late already, but Link was no stranger to sleepless nights. He could ride out now and make it back to Lookout Landing by sunrise. But he'd told Zelda he would respect her experiment, so that was what he would do. He spent the night in the forest; the koroks still kept a bed for him, and he rather liked sleeping deep in a tree, with the hushing sounds of leaves and the quiet rattle of spirits around him.

He left the next morning feeling refreshed and relieved that his task was complete; he'd be back at the Landing by early evening and wouldn't need to spend a second night away searching for Fairies.

Phantom was still waiting for him outside the forest. He'd found a clump of endura carrots under a tree and was methodically pulling them out of the ground with his teeth and devouring them.

"Like you needed more endurance," Link said, giving him a little tug away from the patch. He'd never move Phantom if Phantom didn't want to be moved, but the horse just snapped up one more snack, snorted carrot breath into Link's hair, and came along.

Link's sense of urgency increased the nearer they got to Lookout Landing. He'd been trying not to think of it, but found himself scanning the horizon for— what? Smoke? A dragon? How wrong could one night of sleepwalking really have gone?

He urged Phantom to go a bit faster.

The Landing was still standing. No one was screaming or fleeing. Everyone was going about the business of the coming evening, preparing cook fires or coming in from the fields and construction work in Castle Town, or setting out for a change of the watch. Link stopped at the inn and stable to board Phantom. Lester was happy to see Phantom, as always, and Link thought Phantom might actually have preened a little as Lester cooed over him.

Link spotted Penn atop the walls and gave him a wave. Penn called a friendly greeting and glided down at once.

"That didn't take long at all!" he said. "I gave your message to Doctor Purah. She was real interested in your side trip! And so was Princess Zelda! Did you know she was visiting?"

"Found 'em," Link said, instead of answering the question.

"Ah ha! Knew you would." Penn whipped out his notebook. "So what's the scoop, partner?"

"All four are in the Lost Woods. They like the atmosphere," Link said. He didn't add that they were there because the magical atmosphere in Hyrule was thinner now without the Light Dragon; the people who needed to know that already did and he didn't want to cause any panic.

"The atmosphere, eh? I guess even Great Fairies need a vacation sometimes. Say, what's the Lost Woods like?"

Link hesitated. The kinds of descriptions that filled the Lucky Clover's travel column weren't really his forte. But he supposed Penn could spruce up his words. "Quiet," he said.

Penn looked at him expectantly and Link shrugged. "It's not really for tourists."

"Well, I can work with that. Would you say 'mysterious' is a good word? Is it misty? Gloomy?"

Link found he liked this way of having a conversation – he could say yes, yes, no and let Penn do the rest.

"We'll say the mysterious Lost Woods, full of mist and spirits and… trees so thick you can't see the sky?"

Link nodded.

"Great! One last thing. How long are the Fairies planning to stay in the Woods? Do you know when we can expect to see them out and about again?"

We might be able to leave this forest soon. Thinking of Zelda, and how to phrase his answer, Link's eyes skated over to the lab just as the door slid open. As if summoned, Zelda came out onto the landing and stretched her arms over her head, a motion Link recognized as meaning she'd been leaning over lab tables and notebooks all day. She glanced out over the square and spotted him at once, her face lighting in a smile. She leaned on the rail and tipped her head at Penn, who Link realized was still waiting on an answer.

He turned back to the reporter, feeling Zelda's amusement like a warm breeze on his cheek. "They said maybe soon. But soon for a Great Fairy is…" he trailed off meaningfully.

"I gotcha, I gotcha," Penn said, jotting that down. "This is great stuff, Link. This, plus updates on Castle Town, and even a quote from Princess Zelda herself – I'm flying high! Well, I've got to take off to write this all up. Make sure you take a peek at the next issue!"

He roused little eddies of dust as he launched himself into the air, but Link was moving before they settled. Zelda greeted him at the top of the stairs with an outstretched hand. He took it, searching her face. Her smile seemed a little tired. Did that mean she'd walked again last night? Or was it worry – had she not walked and was troubled by what that would mean for them? The Deku Tree had said it wasn't him but—

She squeezed his hand and drew him over to the other side of the lab platform, where they could look out at the castle. The sky was turning orange around it as another day stretched long. She leaned on the rail and he leaned next to her.

"Penn said you had to go on a hunt for the Great Fairies," she said.

"Yes. They're in the Lost Woods, with the Deku Tree." There was more, but he couldn't take waiting. "Zelda, did you—?"

"Oh, yes. I'm sorry. It was the same as always, even with you miles and miles away in the forest."

Relief battled with concern in his chest. He reached out and laced their fingers together where they hung in the air over the rail.

"Purah let me walk. I woke up above the Regencia. Got soaked. We… had words."

"Impa let her?"

"Impa had words for both of us. I got a room at the inn. I thought a little distance might be good." She sighed. "Impa thinks… I should try to commune with the goddess. Head to the Springs. Seek wisdom."

Link frowned hard enough that Zelda probably heard it. She laid her free hand over the back of their clasped ones.

"It could work," she said. Their hands began to glow as she called upon her light. "Now that I've unlocked this power." It was warm, the way a dip in the hot springs was at the end of a long day. Link felt the aches of a day in the saddle easing.

"If that's what you want to do," he said.

"I really, really don't," Zelda said with a little laugh. The light winked out. "Impa doesn't really think the goddess has the answer anyway. She thinks I have the answer and I just need to do a little meditating. I told her I can do that on a beach in Lurelin, like Robbie initially suggested. I only said it to annoy her, but she seemed to think that was a fine idea, too." Zelda huffed.

"About the Springs, though…" Link started.

Zelda groaned and put her face in her hands, dropping Link's hand to do so. "Did the Fairies say something about them?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Is it terribly urgent? Is the world going to end again if I don't go back to the trauma springs?"

"No."

"Then tell me later. I'm so tired, Link."

Link scooted closer to her and laid his arm over her bowed shoulders. She sighed and leaned into him, and they watched sunset leach out of the sky behind the castle.

Chapter Text

The Lookout Landing inn was a cheerful two-story building, built outward from the wall beside the gate that housed Lookout Landing's stable. It was propped up on stilts where it bridged the moat, and the expanded stable took advantage of the water source for the horses' paddock. It was now just as large, and better equipped, than any of the full stables scattered about Hyrule.

The main floor had huge doors like a barn that remained flung open at all times directly onto the road. The large single room on the ground level had tables and a couple of communal cookpots, plus a small bar at the back where Lester's niece kept track of the rooms and guests in between serving drinks. All of the guest rooms were on the second level and the stairs were on the outside of the building, so guests could come and go without passing through the common area.

Link and Zelda's room was at the far corner of the building and overlooked the horse stalls and pen. It was immediately next to the stairs – Zelda had chosen it specifically for that reason. The window had thick curtains with a pattern of horses on them, which Link recognized as the work of the Kochi Dye Shop. The bed was stable standard and took up most of the small room, with just a little square table and looking glass taking up the rest.

When Zelda woke that night and left the bed, Link caught her easily before she even reached the door. There was no handy pitcher of water in the room, so he'd had an ice fruit ready. He pressed it to the back of her neck.

"Oh!" Zelda shuddered awake and looked at him in confusion until he held up the fruit. She shivered again. "I don't know if that's better or worse than the water. Neater, certainly," she said. She turned back to the bed with a sigh. "I'm starting to forget what it's like to sleep through the night. Maybe we could set up some sort of triggered device to dump ice fruit on me so you can get some sleep, at least. Automate the whole process."

He touched her shoulder. "Let's go for a walk."

"A walk?"

He nodded.

"Well, all right. If you want to." She gathered up a shawl and slipped on her shoes and they descended the stairs together.

The night was clear and mild. Torches and lanterns still burned in Lookout Landing, but Link led them away into the fields and gentle hills to the west. Zelda gave him a shrewd look. "You think it'll help, walking it when I'm awake?"

"Maybe. Kinda want to scout it."

"Very sensible."

"I could sometimes catch you from the Landing tower," Link said.

"Catch— you mean the dragon."

"Yes. Spent a lot of time riding around on your head." He could tell she didn't want to laugh at that, but couldn't help at least a small snort.

"All right," she said. "Tell me what the Fairies said."

"And the Deku Tree. He was disappointed you weren't with me."

"I'll pay him a visit when we sort all this out. Otherwise he'll just be cryptic at me," Zelda said.

"Right," Link said. "He was." He told her that the Tree had said the sword had nothing to do with this issue, and that he was surprised Zelda hadn't made the armor of her own volition. And then he told her what the Fairies had said about the spring and the atmosphere.

"The Springs again," Zelda said. "A new one? I don't have any intention of making a new spring. A Light Spring?" She thought about it as they walked along. "I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea. But I've not the faintest clue where to start."

"With a priest, I guess."

"That has such interesting implications for the other armors," Zelda said. "Do you want to be a priest?"

"Your priest?" Link shrugged. "Sure? What does it mean?"

"I haven't any idea. Whatever we want it to mean, I suppose. Who is there to tell us we're doing it wrong?" She nibbled a thumbnail. "Perhaps… I could make the third piece after all. But the way I made your Champion's tunic, not the way the dragon does it."

"Worth trying," Link said.

Zelda nodded. "Tomorrow, then. I'll ask Impa to help."

They traced the path a little further until they began to yawn. Then they turned back, returning to their small room for their well-earned rest.

Impa seemed intrigued and even pleased by the idea of Zelda completing the armor set using her own magical crafting abilities. Purah looked skeptical, but Link thought that might just be leftover from whatever words she and Zelda had traded yesterday.

He didn't really want to get in the middle of it, so after confirming they didn't need him for anything, he took Phantom over to help out at Castle Town again. Zelda had asked him to scout a better location for the new Royal Tech Lab, too, which meant a visit to Karson, who'd set up his construction crew's base near the foundation of the old cathedral.

The day passed in mundane work, the only excitement being when a clutch of blue chuchus sprang out of an old cellar. They were dispatched easily and no one was hurt.

Zelda came out and found him around lunch time. They ate together and she talked with Karson for a bit about some of the lab sites he'd suggested.

The creation of what Zelda had dubbed the light trousers was going well but would take some time, she told him. But she seemed happy, energized by having a task. She thought she'd probably still walk, at least until the trousers were done, but they could handle that. She returned to the lab with a spring in her step.

Their days continued like that: work in the lab and in town during the day, evenings broken by Zelda sleepwalking, waking her, and then returning to bed. Link would never forbid Zelda anything, but when she began sketching out plans for an elaborate mousetrap to dump ice fruit on her head when she woke up each night, he did say he'd go sleep with Phantom. Her shrieks would wake him up anyway, he pointed out, and she set aside the plans with a huff that was more amused than annoyed.

"The armor will be ready for you to try on tomorrow," Zelda said one night as they lay in bed together. "It's odd that the two pieces of the set do different things, but I went ahead and made this piece different too. I didn't really want to try testing a healing power or finding some dark enemy for you to fight, so I focused on defense. They'll make you harder to hurt. And something a little like what the Champion's tunic has that lets you sense how strong an enemy is; they should help you find dark enemies. To sense them. If I've done it right." She yawned wide enough that he could see her back teeth. She'd already been up to walk tonight, so they were settling in. He lay in her arms, head resting on her chest.

"Can't wait," Link murmured to her neck.

"After breakfast, of course," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. He murmured his agreement and they fell asleep together.

The light trousers consisted of boots and pants similar in design to the ember trousers or the Hylian trousers. They were made of pale tan material with a looser fit. The boots clasped down the sides with bronzed buckles. Zelda, Impa, and Purah all insisted that Link try on just the trousers and boots so they could make sure they were acting as they ought without magic from other clothing influencing them. (Cado stayed out of it.)

But when Link emerged from behind the screen, something was wrong. Everything seemed to be moving very quickly. Zelda was talking at a rate too rapid even for her, and then she was rushing at him. But, no, she wasn't running. She was just walking as though she were on a moving platform, faster than she should be for the way she was moving. It was like watching the reverse rune move something. He frowned and looked down at the pants and boots and in the time that took, Zelda was hustling him back behind the screen, saying something at too high a pitch for him to understand.

Well, the fix was obvious. He took off the boots and pants and put his Hylian trousers back on.

"Trousers of bloody time!" Zelda was saying, suddenly intelligible. "And not even useful time traveling trousers, no, they make the wearer extremely slow. How helpful!"

"It isn't the result we hoped for," Impa said, while Purah was laughing so hard she'd had to put her head down on the lab table. "What went wrong?"

Zelda took a deep breath and let it out slowly, though it was clearly an effort. Her eyes found Link and settled on him, and that seemed to help more than the deep breath. "I don't have full control over my powers. Light powers moreso than time, but time must have… have broken through."

"Look on the bright side, Princess," Purah said. "A few more tries and you could make something really cool! Like the Sheikah stealth armor, but speedy even in the daylight. Or make that little super-quick zip-zip wham-wham move Linky does even faster and easier."

Zelda scowled and Link thought she was about to tell Purah off, but she stopped. "That would be useful. I wonder—"

"Focus, please," Impa said.

Zelda held her hands out to Link. He put the pants in one hand and let her take the boots with the other. "All right, you two Sheikah geniuses," she said. "Help me pick these apart."

Link went back out to Castle Town while they hashed things out. He kept casting glances back at the lab, though, worried he'd hear yelling or start seeing smoke.

Nothing of the sort happened, and Link went back in the evening when work in the town wrapped up. They all ate together in the lab, Impa, Purah, and Zelda all bandying ideas around while Cado and Link just chewed.

Zelda and Link took their time walking back to the inn that evening. "We're a bit far afield from the ancient Sheikah clothing arts," Zelda was saying. "Impa taught me everything back in the days when I was making the Champions' garments. She even knew a little about the goddess magic, because her mother had taught my mother. But I'm a sort of… special case. So we're making it up as we go, a bit."

They were outside the gate now, and she paused, looking up at the sky. "My mother must have had time powers too, though. It has to have been in our bloodline. Though, without the stone, I suppose I would never have woken to mine so it's possible she was unaware. Or maybe she thought—"

Link took her hand, which stopped her from wringing it with the other one. "Let's go for a ride."

The night was clear, well-lit by the moon. Zelda nodded. "All right."

They took out Epona and Storm and rode without real direction, not following the road and not following the dragon's path. Just riding, and letting the wind lift their hair and the horses carry them where they would. They walked at first, and then Zelda urged Storm into a run and Link chased after her over the meadows surrounding the Landing.

They crested a hill and Zelda pulled Storm to a stop and just sat atop her, staring up at the moon. Link kept his eyes on the horizon; it was a good vantage. He'd see anything approaching for miles.

After a moment, though, he realized it was growing lighter. He looked over at Zelda. She was glowing, her head tipped back, her eyes closed. Storm seemed unconcerned.

Zelda's light grew steadily, and she lifted her hands out to the sides and took a deep breath. Then she exhaled sharply and all her light narrowed, condensed, and shot up from her in a beam as focused as a Guardian's laser, then erupted into stardust and glitter far, far above their heads.

"All right," Zelda said. "I feel better now. Let's go back."

Two nights later, Zelda walked twice. It was very like the first nights of this ordeal; Link woke confused and muzzy-headed at first, wondering why Zelda was getting up. He figured it out quickly enough, and then it was automatic to dump the ice fruit down her back.

She stared at him with wide, worried eyes. "Again? In one night?" she asked. He didn't bother answering. She released a slow, shuddering breath. "Maybe just a one-off. A fluke."

It wasn't.

Zelda, Impa, and Purah were working on a new piece of armor for the Light Dragon set, but it wasn't going quite right – Zelda said she could feel it was wrong and insisted they undo it twice more. Zelda still held out hope that completing the armor set would end her nightly roaming, but two more nights passed with extra walks after the first and Link could see that she was hanging on by her fingernails.

"Finish one," he said one night. "If it's not right, take it to the Fairies. Maybe they can tell you what went wrong."

"Yes," Zelda said. "Yes, that's a good idea." She didn't sound convinced, but having a plan boosted her spirits.

She started staying later and later in the lab, though, working long after Impa had nodded off and Purah had quit for the night. It was inevitable that she'd fall asleep there, one night.

Zooki dutifully dinged, and Link startled from his own half-doze to find Zelda leaving the lab. He hurried after her, out onto the platform. He reached out to stop her, then cast an eye at the late night guards and hesitated. Zelda always gave a little yelp when the ice fruit woke her, and—

All thought of subtlety went fluttering away when Zelda stepped calmly over the rail and began walking on the air straight out of the Landing toward Castle Town. Link sighed and dragged out the glider to go after her. The guards seemed surprised, but when they saw Link was with her, they just nodded and looked back to their posts.

The air glowed under Zelda's feet as she descended slowly, as though she was using an invisible ramp. She cleared the moat and touched down near the road, immediately turning left.

Link landed beside her. "Hey," he said. "Dragon. Can't you give it a rest?"

Zelda glanced over at him, but kept walking. He moved in front of her, walking backward. "You know me, right? Your hero?" he asked. The dragon didn't even falter, only kept walking. Link stopped and put out his hands, letting her shoulders meet his palms when she didn't stop. He didn't move.

She met his eyes and tipped her head to one side slightly. Then she put a hand on one of his where it rested on her shoulder and drew her hand gently down the length of his arm. Her other hand she rested on his hip, as though they were preparing to dance. She pulled him closer by that point of contact.

"No," he said. He dropped his hands from her shoulders and stepped away. Her hands were left hovering in the air.

She tipped her head at him and stepped forward again, hands reaching, focused now on him rather than her endless walk. He caught her by the wrists and stopped her from grabbing hold of him again.

"No," he repeated. "I know… you want a priest. And all you have is me." He took a deep breath. "But I belong to her."

Her head tipped the other way. Her hands flexed, as if preparing to test his grip.

He shook his head. "No. Only for Zelda," he said firmly. And then he let go of her wrists.

She nodded, slowly. Her hands drifted back to her own sides. She started walking again, gaze trained on him even as she passed him by. He shivered.

Then he turned and pressed an ice fruit to the back of her neck.

Back at the inn, Zelda was quiet as they prepared for bed. Link kept shooting her worried looks, but she didn't say anything. They slid under the coverlet together, her back to his front, and Zelda pulled his arms around her like a cloak and closed her eyes. Link watched her for a while, knowing she was too troubled to sleep just yet.

Finally, just as he was thinking she might doze off after all, she murmured, "I got rather far tonight."

"Didn't catch you before you left the lab," Link said. "Then, the guards…"

"Yes. And she— it— you stopped her. Me."

Link took a moment to untangle the pronoun salad, then nodded. "You remember?"

"Like a dream. Just that."

They were quiet for several more breaths, several more heartbeats.

"Thank you," Zelda said eventually. "I know… if you had let her… with the last piece of armor this could all be over. And apparently I can only make it when I am. That. But I would not want… that is, I couldn't bear—"

"I know," Link said.

"And so you suffer my ineptitude. As always."

"Hm," Link said.

Zelda waited a few moments, but when nothing more was forthcoming she said, hesitantly, "That was a sound of skepticism."

"Do you know how many times I've fired a shock arrow without realizing I was standing in water?"

There was a moment of what Link chose to interpret as shocked silence. "Link," she started.

"Had a Zonai vehicle fall apart on me in the middle of a huge gloom patch. Had to teleport out of that one. Jumped off a cliff once and completely missed the giant lake I was aiming for."

"Link!" Zelda gasped, distressed.

"Done some pretty inept things myself. Not really the point, though." He hugged her a little closer. "Point is, on the suffering scale… this isn't really registering."

"Well I'm glad this beats a patch of literal darkness incarnate!"

"The literal darkness incarnate would have been bearable if you were there."

"Oh, Link," Zelda said softly. She let that lie for approximately two seconds before saying, "It really wouldn't, though. The actual physical properties of gloom can't be overcome by sentiment. My presence wouldn't materially change the effect—"

He kissed the back of her neck, interrupting her. "Sorry," he said. "What I meant to say was—"

"Oh— ah. I see. You make a. Compelling argument."

They discovered, that night, that even when thoroughly exhausted, Zelda would still walk a second time. Nevertheless, Zelda declared the impromptu experiment a success.

The Trousers of Probably Light and Hopefully Not Time were almost ready, and Zelda was determined to finish them the following night. Link came to the lab prepared with snacks that evening in case the night went long; he was going to stay awake so that if Zelda fell asleep over her work again, she wouldn't get far.

But just after sunset, a cry went up from the wall guard. Link was on his feet instantly, Zelda and the Sheikah all suddenly ceasing their work and turning to the lab door. Then they all moved as one for it.

Link was closest, of course, and burst onto the landing first, triangulating on the guards' shouts. It was the north gate, the one that faced the castle. A guard was on one of the higher platforms with a spyglass to his eye, relaying information shouted down by Harth, who was circling far above.

"Lizals in the castle moat!" the guard called down. Harth shouted something else. "Horriblins from… from the wells!"

Guards were assembling at the north gate, forming up in squads. Zelda had darted up the ladder and requested the spyglass in a polite but firm voice. Link waited for her order, body coiled to spring into action.

"They're massing in Castle Town," Harth called down. "Targeting construction sites!"

"Oh, absolutely not," Zelda snarled, collapsing the spyglass and handing it back to the guard. "Link, to me!" And she stepped over the side of the wall.

Link let out a strangled gasp, but light formed under Zelda's feet as she descended in a familiar way. Link leapt after her with the glider, trying to get a look at her face.

It was all Zelda, expression a little surprised as she glanced down at her own booted feet but then quickly focused on the problem at hand.

If anyone was surprised to see Zelda and Link drop into their midst from above, they didn't show it. Buliara just grinned and brought over Storm and Phantom. "Figured you'd be wanting these," she said.

Zelda stepped directly into Storm's saddle from the air. Link landed and then climbed into Phantom's the traditional way, knowing the horse wouldn't appreciate being a landing pad.

Zelda urged Storm out in front of the squad and raised her hand. A glowing bow materialized there. "My friends," she called. "I will not see your hard work laid waste! Let us defend what we have built!"

The squad raised their weapons in a cheer and Storm leapt forward, Phantom just behind, the mounted guard coming next and foot soldiers following.

Zelda began firing well before their forces crashed into the monsters swarming over the construction site. Her arrows struck in bursts of gold, splitting in the air and raining down on the enemies.

Link pulled a halberd from his enchanted pack and drove Phantom into a knot of horriblins. They scattered, confused and ineffective on the ground with nothing overhead to cling too. Odd that they'd pick a fight out in the open like this, Link thought briefly. Then he focused on tearing through the horde.

There were a lot of them, and lizalfos of several varieties had joined the fray. Also strange for lizalfos to work with horriblins… but they weren't really working together, at least not effectively. It was like they both just happened to be there at the same time and hated Hyruleans more than they hated each other.

The Rito provided support from the air, while the Gerudo formed an honor guard around Zelda as she reached the swarm. Panels of light flashed into existence here and there, protecting fighters with last-minute shields that turned many a claw and blade.

While the Hylians darted in and out, the Gorons provided a solid wall to retreat behind and inexorably pushed the enemy back. When the lizalfos predictably retreated into the castle moat, the Zora followed to ensure they wouldn't harry the defenders with distance attacks from the water.

It was an intense, loud, chaotic battle. But it was also swift. The defenders of Lookout Landing hadn't been training for nothing. As the last of the monsters dissolved into greasy smoke, Link wheeled Phantom about to check on Zelda.

She sat astride Storm, back perfectly straight, surveying the battlefield with a stern expression, surrounded by Gerudo spearvai. When he caught her eye, he gave her a short nod and her shoulders relaxed a little. She dismounted and said a few words to Buliara.

Link left Phantom's saddle and met Zelda halfway.

"There are wounded," she said. "You aren't one of them?"

He shook his head.

"I'll tend to them. Link…" She looked around, frowning. "Something isn't right."

He nodded.

"Will you—"

He nodded again and trotted off to find out what he could about this seemingly random attack.

He spoke to Harth first, who confirmed that the horriblins had come up through the wells and the lizalfos from the moat. He hadn't seen where the lizalfos had come from, how they had reached the moat, but the wetlands weren't far and they were a favorite haunt of the monsters.

"We should tell Sidon," Link said. "Can you send a flyer?"

"My fastest," Harth assured him. "Tell him what, though?"

"Lizals acting weird?" Link suggested.

Harth nodded slowly. "Right, right. Why don't I check in with Princess Zelda before I go?"

"Good idea."

Link turned his attention to the wells. He wasn't going to be able to track lizalfos through the water, but the horriblins were another story. He leapt down the cathedral well without even a look backward.

He landed in the water at the bottom of the well and swam over to the shore. Before, this well had opened onto a tight cavern with a small body of water, a hollow pillar in the center. Now, the pillar was gone, crushed to rubble. The water was full of broken stone and one of the back walls had completely caved in, opening up the cavern into a larger cave that seemed to connect to another cavern system.

There was a stalnox lying dormant where the pillar had been. Well, that explained why the horriblins had bailed. But why now? At the same time as the lizalfos?

Link edged closer to the stalnox, keeping to the edge of the cavern. By the look of the thing, it hadn't been here long; its bones were largely free of dust and were barely buried. Link eyed the back of the cavern, where it must have come from. Why had it left wherever it had been before?

He sighed, pulled out his sword, and leapt on the thing's head. He couldn't just leave it here, this close to Castle Town.

The stalnox animated with a shudder, but Link had the Master Sword through its eyeball before it could even finish standing up. It collapsed back into bones, and then into smoke, and he moved on to investigate the caved-in wall that had let it into the well.

The stalnox's tracks were clear, and Link followed its path deeper into the network of caverns. Moisture built on the tunnel walls; he must be close to the river. And if his sense of direction was accurate – he'd left the slate with Zelda so he couldn't check – then he was bending toward the Crenel Hills.

The stalnox's trudge through the tunnels led to a large cavern with a placid pool filling one side of it. The tunnels continued out the other side, but Link thought he'd found where the stalnox had come from. There was a mound of rock and dirt that looked like the kind they typically bedded down in, now vacated.

There were also the remains of a sizeable camp scattered around the cavern. Tents had been crushed. Some kind of wooden structures were now kindling. Link looked around in dismay. Had some explorers happened across the stalnox and been wiped out?

Then he saw the upside down eye on a trampled banner and closed his eyes in relief – and mild exasperation. Whatever the Yiga Clan had been doing here, they probably deserved to get trampled by a stalnox.

But that did leave the question of what they were actually doing here. He investigated the camp more closely, frowning at what he discovered. The flattened tents and beginnings of sheds had not just been knocked over – they'd been crushed into the ground. A stalnox was heavy, but its feet weren't big enough to flatten a whole shed in one go.

Eventually, he found an intact print. Whatever had done this had headed out of the cavern through the biggest tunnel. And it looked like some Yiga had followed it. It was looking more like something had come rampaging through the cave, scaring off the stalnox, which in turn scared up the horriblins. And whatever it was had probably rousted the lizals too. And he'd bet a sackful of diamonds that all of it was the Yiga Clan's fault.

The tunnel he was following broadened and rose, climbing up in a steeper and steeper grade until he could see moonlight ahead through a cave mouth. He scrambled up the last slope and emerged from a gash near the top of Crenel Hill.

Once, the ponds at the top of this hill had housed gloom spawn. Now, they housed a frox and a squadron of scrambling Yiga. Link watched from the shadows of the cave for a while, enjoying himself just a tiny bit as the frox hopped around, scattering Yiga with every earth-shaking landing. They seemed to be trying to corral it, a few of them on zippy little Zonai speeders circling like sheepdogs. Overall, it was ineffective, particularly when the frox lost patience and opened its mouth, sucking one of the Yiga engineers right off his ride.

Link shook his head and opened his enchanted pouch. He should step in before any Zonai artifacts got eaten. Luckily, he had just the thing for this situation.

Chapter Text

Things were looking grim for the squadron of Yiga tasked with taming the Depths in the name of Master Kohga. First the camp they'd built turned out to be atop an old stalnox mound. Then, the frox they'd caught and laboriously hauled up from the Depths woke the stalnox. And then both creatures had escaped after completely destroying the camp.

The frox had leapt forth into daylight, its confusion at being above ground for the first time in its life not preventing it from flattening a rather large lizalfos encampment the same way it had flattened the Yiga camp. The lizals fled, diving en masse into the Hylia River and getting their tails somewhere safer. Unfortunately, the footsoldiers couldn't do the same. It had taken ages to capture a frox and they couldn't afford to let this one go.

A footsoldier scrambled out of the way, losing his footing as the frox's huge paw crashed down where he had been a second ago. Another engineer skidded out, knocked off his vehicle. They were fresh out of blademasters. The footsoldier scrambled backward on his butt, fumbling his sickle as that clawed foot swung toward him—

And then! Salvation! A blademaster appeared out of nowhere! He seemed a bit small for a blademaster, but there was no denying that technique. He raised his fist and slammed it down into the earth, and the earth responded in a geyser of air, throwing the frox off-balance! The footsoldier stared up at his savior, admiring his form, his hair golden as a banana, his sword gleaming in the moonlight. And then he was off, leaping to the frox's back and attacking the crystals there.

New orders must have come from headquarters. Well, if the blademaster wanted the frox dispatched, then the frox would be dispatched! The footsoldier leapt to his feet and charged the frox, sickle raised, letting loose a battle cry.

Link was trying not to laugh behind his mask. Blademasters didn't laugh. Well, perhaps a menacing chortle. But no, he mustn't. The frox was defeated and the Yiga were explaining to him just what had happened that had led to this whole situation, and he didn't want to ruin it.

Apparently, the Yiga Clan were desperately searching the Depths for Master Kohga. They seemed to have come to the conclusion that his disappearance was a test, and that he was waiting for them to prove their worth by taming the Depths. Link thought back to the last time he'd seen Kohga – shooting skyward up a chasm on a bundle of rockets. Link nodded sagely as the footsoldiers and few remaining engineers boasted of their accomplishments in turning Zonai devices and monsters to their own use.

"Headquarters wanted a frox," a footsoldier was telling him. "Did they change their mind?"

Link glanced at the frox parts littering the hilltop. "Yes," he said, pitching his voice low. "I will take these parts to headquarters as proof of your prowess! This squad has done well."

There was an excited murmur at that and Link almost felt a little sorry for them before remembering that they had planned to rampage a frox across Hyrule.

"So well, that we have chosen you to follow our latest lead on Master Kohga!" Link continued. "There is a rumor he was training in the far northwest of the Depths, past the abandoned Hebra mine. You are just the squad to make that journey!"

He gave them directions to Colgera's nest, gathered the frox parts, and left.

It was easy to retrace his steps back through the cave system. He was back in the well in no time, changed back into his Champion's leathers. He'd have to tell Zelda that there was a route to the Depths somewhere in those caves – a route easy enough that a frox had been led up it, or else the Yiga had been particularly ingenious with Zonai devices. They'd explore, find out togeth—

Zelda was standing in Castle Town square, alone, staring up at the castle.

He realized then how late it was. The detritus of the battle had been cleaned up, everyone tucked safely away back at the Landing. Was she waiting for him? Or… had she fallen asleep? If she had, it was in her field clothes.

As he approached, she turned to walk away from him. The action was measured, the movements trancelike and familiar – and not just because he'd been watching the dragon sleepwalk for so many nights now. Another Zelda had done that once, in the castle, had walked just ahead of him, had turned away, had glided around corners and had used his desperation to lead him into danger. He wasn't pleased to be remembering that now, but hurried to catch up with her just as he had done then.

Before he reached her though, her steps stuttered. She stopped, turned from her path to face the castle again. She took a halting step toward it, like someone who has thought of two different things they need to do and tries to go in both directions at once.

He was steps away from her, hand outstretched and her name on his lips, when she let out a snarl. Her fists clenched and her hand shot out, palm toward the castle. The Triforce blazed to life on the back of her hand and a great wind swirled up around her, stopping Link in his tracks. He threw up an arm to shield his eyes from the dust and the sudden intense corona of gold.

Squinting, he could still make out her form just steps away from him. He moved closer, keeping his eyes down, only wanting to be in arm's reach in case she needed him.

Then, abruptly as it had begun, the light faded to a manageable glow. He blinked away the spots in his vision and saw Zelda was once again walking. Her pace was measured, the pace the dragon always took, but she was walking toward the palace, which was not on the dragon's route.

And the castle was… glowing?

No, Link realized, catching up to her. The castle wasn't glowing. But the newly forged ramp of light thrusting up from the broken ground before the old gates was. It was the same blue-green of the Light Dragon's horns and spikes, and Zelda was heading right for it.

Link could see from here that the light led up and over the old path to the castle, over the remains of the observation room and what was left of the walls on the ground, right to the jut of land at the front of the hovering heart of the castle, connecting it to the surface once again.

"Zelda?" he asked, catching up to walk at her side.

She glanced at him. It was the empty gaze of the dragon. But this wasn't the dragon's path. Making a path of light wasn't the dragon's power. What was—

She reached out and took his hand, but did not stop. He watched their joined hands nervously, waiting for her claws to rake his skin, for her to try to pull forth the last piece of armor. His free hand drifted to his pouch for an ice fruit. His fingers had just closed on one when she said, clearly, "Link."

He stopped. The dragon never called him that.

"We have work to do," she said, still moving inexorably to the bridge of light. Her tone was still vague, her motions still that of a sleepwalker. But her words…

Link left the ice fruit in his pocket and followed her.

The moment their feet touched the bridge of light, the whole thing flared gold and blue, sending up streamers, walls of light, a solid borealis glittering with Zelda's power. Her hand tugged free of his and she rose into the air a few inches with a sigh.

"Can you feel it?" she asked.

And before he could answer she was gone in a streak of light.

"Zelda!" He could follow it with his eyes, a meteor trace heading straight for the castle. Not again. He pelted up the bridge after her, nowhere near fast enough. It was steep, but he'd climbed steeper.

The palace lit up, light flaring from every window like the sun itself was blazing inside. At least it was obvious where she'd be. He made it to the top and pelted across the bridge, between the eagles, a straight shot to the ruined throne room.

He found her there, kneeling in the destroyed center, hands pressed to the dust and rubble, surrounded by light.

The whole castle shook as though the Upheaval were happening again, just once and then stilled. Light flickered around him. A pulse of radiance went out from Zelda and under Link's feet the rotted carpet regrew, becoming plush and bright once again. The second throne reappeared. The first repaired itself. The gloom staining the ceiling shrank away.

Then it all fell apart back into the decay he knew. He ran to Zelda, kneeling in front of her as the castle shook again.

Zelda's teeth were gritted, her head bowed with effort, a determined grimace on her face as another pulse of light went out. The castle shivered into repair again, and back to ruin. She let out a grunt of frustration and Link could see her teeth had grown into points.

"Zelda." He placed his hands over hers on the ground. Her fingernails had lengthened into claws.

"I can do it," Zelda gasped. "This is… my power!" She picked her head up to fix him with a wild gaze. Her eyes were mottled blue, the pupils ringed in caustic green, the sclera purple.

"You don't have to!" Link said, alarmed. "Zelda." He moved his hands from hers to cup her face, staring her into her feral eyes, aware of how close he was to those teeth. "We can buy. A new. Carpet."

She stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Then she blinked. Her eyes didn't go back to normal, but there was thought behind them. Hyrulean thought, not the endless contemplation of an immortal dragon. "We… can… what?"

"Buy a new carpet. Make repairs. Build a lift. Whatever you want. You don't have to do it all yourself."

"But," she said. She looked up, her gaze traveling toward the cupola directly overhead, where gloom still stained the ceiling.

"All right, I don't have a fix for that. But—"

"I do," Zelda said. She closed her eyes and the light flowed out from her in another wave, but this time directed upward instead of all around. Her eyebrows wrinkled and then creased in concentration as she sustained it. She wobbled a little on her knees, almost falling to the side, and Link moved his hands to her shoulders, steadying her.

"Help me," Zelda said, out of breath. She reached out, placed her clawed hand on the back of his neck and pulled him forward. She rested her forehead against his. "Please, Link."

Link breathed out as the claws did not pierce skin. "How?"

Her face tilted. Her fangs stayed behind her lips, chaste, as she pressed her mouth to his. "Yes?" she breathed against him.

"Yes," Link said.

The next kiss was fierce, her mouth crushing against his, her hands knotting in his hair, tugging. He leaned back, pulling her closer. The rubble they knelt on had to be hard on her knees. He sat back against piled up rock and pulled her into his lap to save her the bruising.

A gentle chime, and his ears were suddenly weighted down. He could feel the chain across his forehead, the weight of the horns branching back over his head as the armor appeared.

Zelda's hand circled his throat briefly, applied pressure. He tilted his head back, breaking the kiss with a gasp, and then the chest piece of the armor was there and her hand was gone, sliding down his side to his hip.

She gazed down at him, parti-colored eyes half-lidded, assessing. She shifted, using her knees to part his legs so that she was no longer sitting on his lap, but kneeling in front of him framed by his legs. Her hand moved down his leg, under the knee on her left, pulling so that he bent it.

She leaned forward to kiss him again and he let her move him as she willed. She tugged him toward her, away from the rubble he'd been leaning against. He braced a hand on the ground to steady himself, gold and bronze scales clinking gently, as she pulled his leg up and over her hip.

Link lost track of the light, the gloom, everything but Zelda's hand moving back up his leg. He curled it around her hip to keep it where she wanted it, where he knew she wanted it because this was not an unfamiliar position, not by a long shot, and he knew she would—

"Perfect," Zelda whispered in his ear as her claws ghosted over the back of his thigh. Heat shot through him and he let himself fall back before remembering they were on a very hard floor covered in debris.

Her other hand darted out to cup the back of his head before it could strike anything hard. "You are not permitted to hurt yourself," she said, her voice low and throbbing with power.

He opened his eyes – they had closed at some point – and fixed her with a gaze molten with heat. "Will you, then, Princess?"

Her eyes darkened and she backed away slightly, easing the pressure where their hips had been pressed together. Link wondered if that had been the wrong thing to say, but she took the leg she had been caressing and lifted it, hooking his knee over her shoulder.

He was still wearing both boots and pants and this suddenly struck him as monumentally unfair, particularly as she turned her head to gently kiss the inside of his thigh. He could barely feel it through the cloth. He wanted to.

He propped himself up on his elbows, half sitting up. "Well?" he asked, his tone a challenge.

Her fangs tore away the fabric at his thigh. Her claws did away with the rest of it. She kissed her way along his leg until she reached the top of his boot, then tugged it gently off. He watched, draped in gold and jade and the tatters of Hylian cloth, breath coming deeply and heavily, as she took care of the other boot as well.

When she was done, she ran her hands up his legs and then down again, stopping at his ankles. And paused.

Link stared up at her, unable to quell the wild thrumming of his heart, blinking to try to clear his touch-drunk head.

"Wh— what's wrong?" he finally managed to ask.

"Only thinking," Zelda said. "Of how I would best like you arrayed."

Link felt his cheeks heat. And then he felt more heat, where her fingers circled his ankle, a golden glow that felt like hot springs and body-warmed blankets and a healing after a particularly difficult shrine test. She moved closer, dragging her fingers up his legs again, and the heat trailed after them. He lifted his legs to cross his ankles at the small of her back, pushing her closer, needing more of her warmth and light.

Her touch flowed across him like warm honey, dripping down his calves, down his thighs. Her hands reached his hips and her thumbs pressed gently into the soft space above the jut of the bones there. He squeezed his eyes closed. This was worse than the manifestation of the first two pieces, worse by far. The honeyed heat built and built as her hands moved more and more slowly, pressing here, grazing with her nails there, until his vision was narrowed to only her golden head, bent to her task.

"Zelda, please," he said, speaking without meaning to for once in his life, the words pulled from him by every nerve ending sending sparking signals to his brain and back in a decimating feedback loop that told him he was about to shake completely apart.

"You can take more," Zelda said, her voice calm and confident as a mountain, as a glacier, but warmer, pouring into his ears and filling him up with everything that was her.

He could not take more. He could not take her hands pulling him closer by the hips, angling him up onto her thighs. He'd long since lost the ability to sit up and laid there in the rubble, though it could have been the softest bed and he'd be no more content. Her claws gently scraped the small of his back, exploring the circumference of him, the bounds of his body, circling back around to the front when she was satisfied by what she found there.

And then she leaned forward, bending him in half so that she could kiss him, the chimes of the light dragon's ornaments filling his ears, the light of her filling his vision, the heat of her filling the rest of him beyond even his goddess-bestowed endurance.

Awareness fled in a sharp snap, a burst of white behind his eyelids, a gasp of breath after a too-deep dive, and Link went limp in her arms.

He woke to the crackling of a small fire, the smell of slowly baking apples. He cracked his eyes open.

He was lying against Zelda, his back to her chest, bracketed by her legs. She had clearly moved him; she was leaning against the broken throne, and had taken the time to build the fire and find a few flat pieces of rock to arrange near the heat to more evenly bake a few apples; about the best that could be done on short notice, without a cook pot, and he was grateful for it. He was ravenous.

"Oh good, you're awake," Zelda said. She brushed her fingers over his forehead, pushing his hair to the side. Her fingernails were no longer claws; her gaze was back to its usual steady blue-green. "You don't have to move just yet. We have a little while on the apples. How are you?"

He looked down at himself. He was still wearing the Light Dragon armor. Every piece of it. The bottom part was very much in line with the rest. A green flare of fabric draped down his front with Hylian geometric designs dyed in gold. It was fastened at his hips with zonaite clasps that looked like dragon heads, a matching chain circling his hips between them to provide more support and structure to the fabric parts of the armor.

White fabric hung from the back and looped around the front, and while the piece as a whole was technically longer than the archaic tunic he'd found after waking on the sky islands, there was… rather a gap at the sides where the fabric swooped between front and back, showing off more than a handspan of skin.

His feet were bare, but for a chain of Zonai stones and gold that looped one ankle.

He tilted his head back to look up at Zelda. "How best you like me arrayed, eh?"

She turned pink. Then she turned red. He thought the heat of her flush might speed up the apples a bit and grinned.

"The dragon…" she started weakly. Then she shook her head. "Well, it had to match the first two pieces. I took inspiration from what Mineru and Rauru wore."

He brushed his thumb over the dragon clasps, feeling her eyes track the movement. "And the first two pieces…"

"Yes, fine, they are not. Unpleasing. If I had been… more myself… the result might have been different. But the dragon and I are, to some extent, in accord."

"The same," he suggested.

"…Yes." She trailed her fingers along the chest piece, the tiny gold interlocking scales glimmering in the wake of her touch. "I didn't sleep, you know. I was waiting for you in Castle Town. We cleaned up, took care of anyone who was injured, and then I waited. But as it got later I felt… not tired, but an extreme calmness. It felt familiar and I just. Followed it. So I wasn't asleep when the… power came over me."

They had, of course, stayed up through the night before and no such thing had happened. Link thought about how much Zelda had been using her power lately, though. How she'd crafted armor, even if it came out differently than intended. How she'd stepped down from the wall on stairs of light, as she had at times while sleepwalking. How the more she used it, the stronger it became.

"You're okay?" he asked. She seemed fine. More than. But there had been a reason, after all, that she had not wanted to embrace the dragon.

"Yes. I think so. It's not as though I remember being the dragon, but it is… a part of me. I can't ignore it, obviously. Though I will need to approach it with care. Slowly. The apples are probably ready."

He sat up, taking the hint, and they carefully moved the apples away from the fire to cool a little. He wondered what time it was. Nearly morning, perhaps? There was a glow coming in through the high windows, but it didn't seem like daylight.

He sat cross-legged near the fire, arranging the fabric of his armor… carefully. "You finally got my Champion's tunic," he said wryly. "Hope you're pleased with yourself."

Something flared deep in Zelda's eyes. "We can make a new one."

Link's eyes widened. She definitely did not mean using ancient Sheikah techniques. He felt his cheeks heat. "Yeah. Yeah, okay." Goosebumps rose on his skin remembering the intensity, the heat of their act of creation. He swallowed hard. "Just give me like. A day to recover."

Zelda smiled sweetly at him and handed him an apple.

He ate it quickly. Maybe not a whole day. A little protein for energy and they could— "Oh," he said, distracted suddenly from this train of thought. His gaze had caught on his feet. Since he was sitting cross-legged, he could see the soles, and the geometric Zonai designs painted there. It was pretty, but… he looked askance at all the sharp rocks and rubble surrounding them.

"What's wrong?" Zelda asked.

"There are no shoes."

"As if I'd let you walk around in public dressed like that," she said. He raised his eyebrows at her. "Kidding. Stand up."

He did so, and found that his feet, disconcertingly, did not touch the ground at all. He took a few experimental steps and light flared where he walked, while he remained just a few inches off the ground. He frowned, thought about it too hard, wobbled, and fell over, having tripped over his own feet.

"The hero of Hyrule," Zelda said dryly.

Link scooted back to the fire and picked up another apple. "How did you know what this piece did?" he asked.

"I was aware, as I made it. You'll be faster, and able to traverse gloom while wearing it. I recommend practicing first—" He flapped a hand at her, unconcerned, his mouth too full to comment. "—but there's an additional enchantment, just in case. When you wear all three pieces, there will be a part of you that cannot be touched by darkness. A certain reserve of health, if you will. Enough that you could get away, in extremity."

Link looked down at the armor he wore with new appreciation. Strength against darkness, healing, speed, some gloom immunity; it was all designed to fight dark things, to be a champion of light. Or of the Light Dragon. But… was that still needed? He glanced up at the ceiling involuntarily, where the gloom patch was.

…where it had been. Instead of gloom, there was now a splash of gold glimmering in the firelight.

He got up and walked – carefully – to the middle of the room, trying to see it better. Zelda followed him. "Ah, yes. It seems there is a reason I have this power," she said. She took his hand in hers. "We did that." She sounded warmly satisfied, and he squeezed her hand, a little awed.

"Was it power overflow from creating the armor?" If it was, if they had to create an armor piece for every gloom patch in Hyrule… Link could imagine Zelda applying herself to the task with unrelenting focus and he shivered a little.

"No," Zelda said. She smiled. "It's the power of the Spring of Light, restoring balance to Hyrule."

Link looked around. "The Spring? Here, in the castle?"

"Well," Zelda said. She lifted his hand, touched the triforce shimmering on the back of it picked out in gold. "I think my Spring – our Spring – might be here, actually. Between us." As she had that day on the platform outside the lab, she called light to their hands. It glowed between them, soft and warm like the first summer breeze.

He grinned at her and pulled her closer, kissed her under the shining dome. With the slight extra height the Light armor gave him, they were the same height, which was a novelty.

She grinned against his lips, then pulled away. "That's not all," she said. "Come here." She tugged him across the Sanctum – he found he didn't actually have to walk, he just skated over the air, towed in Zelda's grasp – to the doorway, where they could look out on the broken castle grounds and the far-below land.

The path of light Zelda had created to get to the castle was transformed, twisted into a spiral that rose in a much gentler incline from the ground all the way up to the castle. It was a wide, pleasant thoroughfare anyone could walk. It even had shimmering streamers of light as a guardrail.

It looked like the ribbons of light that had marked the Zonai shrines, but wide enough to walk on.

"We won't have to lower the castle. The light road is stable," Zelda said. She turned to him, eyes dancing. "And as for the rest, well. We can buy a new carpet."