Work Text:
Hateno Is a town that doesn’t seem to change all that much it’s still is much like it was before I died, it has only started changing and growing during the last few years in large part because of Zeldas influence. Despite the lack of change, having Zelda by my side again made the town feel alive for the first time since I lost her. I struggled to stay in the town for long while she was missing, I did what I could to help those in the town, especially the school. Zelda loved working to rebuild Hyrule, but the school was her favorite part. I knew she would want to see how it was doing in her absence, and I just know she will be glad to find out that I became a professor, but for now we both need rest.
As we crossed the bridge to our house she stopped and stared at it. I looked at her and watched as her face processed all the emotions of seeing our home again, “I’m home…I’m finally home.” She covered her mouth trying to hold back her tears but failed to hold them all back as a single tear fell down her cheek.
I reached up and held her face and wiped away the tear and leaned in and kissed her. “Welcome home. Lets go inside and rest.” I said holding her close. She just silently stared in my eyes and nodded.
I let her head into the small home first. It wasn’t the castle she grew up in, but I knew she always preferred this cozy house and her reaction as she looked around the house for the first time in months, or I guess lifetimes for her, proved that correct. “Oh Link, It’s just as I remembered it. I loved my time with Rauru and Sonia, it just wasn’t the same without you, or our hose.” She smiled at me as I followed her in.
As she wandered around the house I walked to the little kitchen and started the fire to make tea, and warm the house which had gone cold in my time away. As the fire heated up and the water boiled I brought tea over to Zelda who had sat down at the table and was just watching me with the biggest smile on her face. I handed her a cup and sat down next to her wrapping my arm around her waist as she leaned her head into me.
I don’t know how long we sat there in silence, but it was comforting. “I’m so glad we can have this again. After the castle, and after I found out where you were I wasn’t sure I’d ever get another moment like this.” I pulled her a little closer and looked at the bottom of my empty teacup, “I only continued because Impa kicked me out of her house and told me to stop feeling sorry for myself.” I could feel Zeldas eyes on me and I looked up meeting hers.
She reached up and held my chin forcing me to stare at her. “Link, I’m here and I’m not leaving you again.” She spoke so gently and wiped my face brushing a tear I hadn’t noticed falling down my face.
“After I found out, I… I became reckless.” She lifted an eyebrow at that, “Ok yeah I always am a bit reckless, but this was different. Once Impa forced me to move on I threw myself at everything that got in my way. Every monster and then when I confronted Gannondorf’s puppet, I was so reckless I didn’t care for my own life I just wanted revenge. I blamed him for everything, for taking you from me.” His puppet never fooled me, but no one would believe me if I told them the truth, so I just followed any leads and helped people as needed. “The only reason I made it out of the fight alive is because the others arrived. I wasn’t expecting to make it out of the fight unharmed. I only made it out of there because of them and because of them I had regained some hope.”
Zelda simply held my face silently as tears streamed down her face. I reached up and wiped away her tears and she leaned in for a kiss. As we pulled apart she spoke, “Link I’m so sorry you went through that, I wish things didn’t go the way they did. But we’re together now and nothing will change that.” We didn’t say much the rest of the evening as we sat there enjoying each other’s company and neither of us daring to let go of the other fearing that the moment would disappear, and we would lose each other again.
Eventually we made our way to our too small bed that neither of us wanted to replace with a bigger one and held each other. The flickering candlelight on her face made her look even more like the goddess I knew her to be. As I started to drift off she spoke again in a quiet softness as though speaking too loud would shatter the dream we seemed to be in. “You know, the worst part about my life before the calamity wasn’t the lectures or the fact that I was suffering praying for a voice that couldn’t respond, it was the hiding. Hiding you and me, I was never ashamed of you in fact I was so afraid of losing you, or that father would lash out at you to punish me. I feared that, goddess be damned he would have done everything to keep you from me just to punish me for powers outside of my control.” She looked down at our interlinked hands and squeezed mine. “I loved you then as much as I love you now. Even when I acted horribly towards you I loved you, I was just afraid of everything. I was so ashamed of my own feelings after all I’m a princess and sole heir to the kingdom, I should have wanted to be with a noble or some other high status boy but instead I fell for a lowly knight who yes came from a family of the royal guard but a knight nonetheless.”
I let her tell her story even though she has told me this one a few times. I’ve recovered most of my memories in the years since I woke up and I do remember just how awful her father was. I have no doubt he would have separated us the moment he found out about our relationship. If I wasn’t the goddess chosen one since time immemorial he probably would have me publicly executed for even daring to care for his daughter.
“Remember the time we were having a picnic out in the castle gardens in the middle of the night. I had to pull so many strings to make sure that area of the garden was overlooked without giving away anything.” It was one of the last full moons before Calamity and one of the last times we stayed at the castle before our trip to the spring of wisdom. I had to lie to the night crew saying that the captain had gotten it covered and that they should take the night off. I may have also convinced them to go to the bar and get drunk. They only went because I was paying, damn fools nearly drank the bar dry and cost me half a month’s salary, but it was worth it.
Her giggle said she remembered the night well, “I remember how romantic it was supposed to be, you snuck me out of my window but the rope you had was too short so after you fell into the bushes a good five feet below the end of the rope you stood to catch me when I dropped but you weren’t very coordinated, and you dropped me.”
“I did not drop you,” I argued, “you fell at a weird angle, and I did what I could to soften your fall.”
Her smile was growing as our story went on, “Either way we both fell into the bushes and came out of them covered in mud.”
That night was supposed to be a magical night straight out of a romance book that Aryll was so found of, in fact she was the one who gave me the idea, being one of the few people who even knew about the nature of my relationship with Zelda back then. Obviously it wasn’t going to plan but she was just glad to get out of her rooms, so I continued on with the plan even if we were both covered in mud.
Thankfully the trip over to the gardens was a short one. Once there I pulled out the basket filled with fruits, crackers and other snacks, along with a small fruit cake I had made that afternoon from its hiding spot and thankfully it was free of bugs. “You did love the food I had made and despite being covered in mud and dirt we still had a good time.” I said with a grin on my face.
“Yeah I did, and it was going well until we had those unexpected guests show up.” At the reminder of that we both laughed. While I was able to keep the guards away for a few hours, I didn’t think about how a couple of servant girls might have the same idea for a midnight stroll through the gardens. “The way you had scrambled to hide the picnic and then sneak me out of the gardens before they had spotted us. The panic in your eyes was so funny to me. I had seen you take on a hoard of monsters which included several lynals and not even blink, but a servant couple terrified you.”
“Hey, losing you to court politics was far more terrifying then a couple of monsters. I had spent my whole life fighting Gannon’s monsters not the courts.” I tried to sound serious, but she saw right through me. “In the end it was fine they never saw us, and I never had to deal with your father tying me to a horse by my pinky toe and having it drag me through the streets of castle town.”
She let out a loud laugh at that, “Oh Link honey, first off I doubt my father would do that, he’d probably think that too kind for you. Second they did see us, you were not as stealthy as you thought.” She giggled again at my reaction.
I was certain that I remember getting away and no one seeing us, “But we were never caught, and I wasn’t dragged through the streets I feel like even the shrine of resurrection couldn’t have erased that memory.”
She took a moment to respond as her giggling died down. “Honey, they did see us, but they didn’t report us because they would have gotten in trouble themselves, they weren’t supposed to be out and about one was supposed to be in the sick wing recovering from the flu but they both wanted to go for a walk together so they also snuck out.” She let go of my hand and brushed a stray hair from my face. “I think you helped them out too by clearing the gardens that evening. One even told me that we were cute together the next day as she helped me get ready in the morning.”
I never remembered that part I could have sworn that we got away perfectly because we never got into trouble, and why didn’t she tell me about that before?
I must have scrunched up my face in thought because she spoke again “Link, its ok, I never told you mainly because things got so hectic, first my dad forbade me from working with the guardians and then we went to the springs of power and wisdom, and everything kinda got messy.”
“Oh”
“It’s ok, that night was one of my favorites and it helped me get through everything after knowing that I had such a kind and wonderful boyfriend by my side. That night was the night I was certain I was going to marry you one day. Of course back then I didn’t really know what was going to happen but still it gave me hope for the future.” She looked away from me as she spoke, and I could have sworn her face got a bit redder and not because of the candlelight.
An idea sparked in my head at that moment, however my tongue was faster than my brain tonight, “Let’s do it!”
She looked at me like I sprouted a second head, “do what?”
Realizing I had already started digging my own grave, I might as well keep on digging. “Get married. You said you wanted to marry me, and we have been dating for like 110 years or something. I feel like that’s enough time for us to have been dating.”
She laughed louder then she had all night. “You, Sir Link, are terrible.” She kept laughing but never backed away or pushed me off the bed, in fact she somehow managed to get even closer to me than we already were. “Here we are lying in bed in the middle of the night reminiscing about a date we had before anyone in this town’s grandparents were born and you’re all ‘Lets get married’ like that’s any acceptable way to ask for a soon to be Queens hand in marriage.”
“So is that a no?”
She smacked me across the shoulder before pulling me in for a kiss. “You are so lucky I have a rebellious streak when it comes to tradition, and I couldn’t think of a better way for you to have asked me.” She smiled even wider somehow and I could feel my cheeks burning either from me blushing or from the feeling of my smile stretching beyond what it was able to do I couldn’t tell which. “Of course, I will marry you. You’re the love of my life and I couldn’t imagine life without anyone else.”
Another idea popped in my head, and I reached over to the table next to the bed and grabbed my old hair tie she had kept in her well. I held her hand while she gave me a curious look and gently wrapped my hair tie around her left ring finger, “It’s no gerudo made ring but I feel like its special enough for now.”
Her tired laugh was precious, “Why thank you Sir Link, I shall appreciate it for all time.”
My smile never left my face, “Just wait till the kids at school here about this, I’m pretty sure they’ve been betting on this moment for a while now”
“They’re probably gonna kick your butt for asking me in bed with a hair tie.”
“They’ll get over it knowing their two favorite teachers are getting married finally.”
“Two favorite?” She looked at me with a questioning eyebrow, “What have you been up to while I was away?”
I smirked at her, “I kinda accidentally became a professor and helped Symin out and got hired on to help.”
“Oh Link! That’s wonderful, I bet the kids love you!”
Grinning I replied, “You’re gonna have to ask them yourself, I’m sure they miss you.”
We then held each other closer and fell asleep in each other’s arms never wanting to let go again. I felt like for the first time in years that I had everything I need in my life with me, like the final pieces in the puzzle have fallen into place. I don’t know what life may hold for us, but I know I can face anything with her by my side.