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After the Calamity ends, Zelda finds it hard to sleep.
This is not the most surprising thing in the world. She had spent a century burning her life force up, trapped in an endless stalemate. Now that she’s free, she’s restless. It’s hard to feel safe in this temporary camp, still so close to the ruined castle.
She needs to sleep, but she can’t, so she doesn’t. She stays up, studying the new maps, starting on a century’s worth of reading, dragging herself into this present one piece at a time. But more often, she walks. Walks her tent, in endless circles, walks to the campfire and back, walks the camp, around and around and around…
Link catches her late one night. She’s walking yet another loop of camp, and suddenly the shadows are rustling, and a familiar blonde head appears out of the bushes. He says nothing, just looks at her with that strange blue gaze. There’s something not quite human about the hero of Hyrule.
‘Sorry,’ Zelda says. ‘Can’t sleep tonight. Not with…’ She gestures helplessly toward the shadow of the castle. ‘Too many… it’s too close. I think we should move the camp, or move me, or move me out of…’ She trails off, eyes burning, no longer sure if she’s making sense.
Link just nods. ‘You could sleep in my house, if you want.’
Zelda blinks at him. ‘Your what?’
‘In Hateno Village. It’s a –’
‘You bought a house? When? Why?’
Link looks sheepish. ‘It was a good bargain.’
Zelda feels as though she should have more questions for him. But she’s thinking about leaving the castle below the horizon, about getting to finally close her eyes and rest, and she decides that the house in Hateno sounds good.
*
The house is… well, empty isn’t quite the right word. There’s a bed, a table, cabinets, there’s furniture, but it doesn’t feel occupied.
‘This is where I keep my spare shields,’ says Link, ‘and these are my bows, and these are my weapons. Might take this one, actually. HYAAH!’
‘Link,’ Zelda says.
Link looks up from where the sword is embedded in the floor. ‘Hm?’
‘Do you really…’ Zelda brushes a finger through the dust on the table. ‘Is this really your home?’
Link looks puzzled. ‘It’s my house.’
‘But do you live here?’
Link opens his mouth, and closes it. Zelda frowns at him.
‘Sure,’ Link says eventually. ‘I live here more than I live anywhere else.’
*
The first night’s sleep is blissful. Zelda sleeps for almost fourteen hours, and doesn’t dream. It will take her a long time to come back from the Calamity. Maybe she’ll never make it back all the way. But being able to sleep makes things easier.
When she gets up, Link is crouched by the cookpot outside. He hands her a plate of omelettes.
‘I’m going to head out after this,’ he tells her. ‘I promised to help a friend in Akkala.’
‘Thank you,’ Zelda says. ‘For bringing me here. I’ll see about finding more permanent accommodation for the future.’
Link frowns at her. ‘What? No. Stay in the house.’
‘I can’t live in your house forever.’
‘Of course you can,’ Link says. ‘I won’t be here.’
‘But –’
‘Princess,’ he says, and the light catches golden in his hair. ‘Please keep my house safe.’
And he takes off over the bridge, one hand waving in the air. Zelda leaps to her feet and calls after him, but he’s already gone.
*
Zelda dusts off the table. Changes the bedsheets. Cleans the windows. Throws the door wide open. Leaves flowers on the table.
Link comes and goes. Sometimes she sees him. He hands her a cheesecake or a potion or a beetle, before leaving again. More often, she doesn’t, and she only knows he’s been by when the weapons on the wall change.
She meets with Impa. With Sidon. With emissaries of Lady Riju. With Bludo of the Goron. With the elder of Rito Village.
She wakes. She sleeps. The breath starts to come easier in her lungs.
Where are you living? people sometimes ask.
At first, she stumbles over the answer. Then, with more confidence –
A house in Hateno Village.
*
Zelda starts awake in the middle of the night.
Outside, she can hear noise. The sound of someone moving. A light dancing over the walls.
It’s happening again, she thinks. The Guardians, the fire, blood, death. She won’t let it happen again. She throws herself out of bed, seizes a sword, charges towards the door –
Zelda bursts into the garden, screaming. Link looks up from the cookpot, the tail of a fish hanging out of his mouth. They stare at each other.
‘Hey,’ says Link, through a mouthful of fish.
‘Link,’ Zelda says, ‘why are you cooking at two in the fucking morning.’
Link blinks.
‘Sorry,’ he says, looking genuinely contrite. ‘I forgot that people don’t… do that.’
Zelda huffs. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘I suppose it is your house.’
‘Mm.’ Link holds out a skewer of meat and fruit. ‘Peace offering?’
Zelda sits down beside him, under those softly shining stars. When the sun rises, the two of them are dozing under the tree, leaning against each other.
*
Link starts to come by more often. He’ll linger in the doorway, polishing his shields. Or sit at the table, hands around a cup of warm milk.
‘I don’t see how you can drink that,’ Zelda says to him once, wrinkling her nose.
Link grins, and downs the rest of it in one go. He laughs as he wipes away the milk moustache, as Zelda makes various noises of disgust.
‘I’ve eaten worse,’ he says. She doesn’t believe him until he pulls a melted chuchu jelly monstrosity out of his pack. She screeches as he swallows it down, and the two of them end up almost hysterical from laughter.
Other times, their talk is more serious. She asks him, once, about King Rhoam. About what he’d said and done, on the Great Plateau.
‘He was sorry, in the end,’ Link says. ‘Really, Zelda, he was.’
Zelda looks towards the distant peaks, and doesn’t answer. Sorry won’t give her a century of her life back. Sorry won’t revive the thousands long dead.
Once, she asks him about the champions. They’re sitting in the garden, enjoying the sunshine. Link’s eyes are closed, and he’s quiet for so long she thinks he’s fallen asleep. But eventually he speaks.
‘They were with me,’ he says quietly. ‘I had their power. All the way across Hyrule, all the way to Ganon, they were with me, and now they’re gone.’
‘You must miss them terribly.’
‘It’s not as bad as it was.’ He looks at her, and that smile is devastating. ‘Whenever I get lonely, I just come here.’
*
It’s the middle of summer, and the heat hangs heavy over Hateno. Zelda is lying on her side, watching the moon rise through her open window, when she becomes aware of screeching.
‘fuckfuckfuckFUCK –’
And Link bursts into her room. Dives headfirst through the window in a burst of chicken feathers. Catches himself on the opposite wall and spins around. Bounds onto the bed, pulls the bow from his back, aims out the window –
ping!
‘Got him,’ Link says, with satisfaction. And then blinks, and looks down. ‘Um. Evening, Princess.’
Zelda, half-hidden under the covers, blinks back at him.
‘One of the Yiga,’ he says, gesturing out the window. ‘They think they can get me, but I fought Ganon, they can’t even scratch me – you know, I think I’ll go.’
He’s halfway through the window when Zelda grabs his ankle. He lets out an undignified squawk as she pulls him back into the room.
‘Enough,’ she says. ‘Enough talking, enough fighting, enough fidgeting. Lie down and go to sleep.’
‘Oh! Okay. Sorry.’
They lay together, side by side, in the dark. Outside, a gentle breeze is blowing. The river hushes softly in the distance.
‘We’re invited to a wedding,’ Link says.
‘What?’
‘In Tarrey Town. Hudson and Rhondson. They’re friends of mine, you’ll like them.’
Zelda chuckles. Her eyes are starting to drift shut. ‘Link,’ she murmurs, ‘you must know everyone in Hyrule.’
‘By name!’ he says proudly.
In the dark, Zelda reaches out to take Link’s hand.
‘Introduce me someday,’ she says, but the weight on her eyes is too much. If he makes any response, she doesn’t hear it.
*
An afternoon spent with Purah yields an interesting discovery.
Zelda is self-conscious carrying the package home. When she crosses the little footbridge, Link is crouched by the cookpot.
‘Stay there,’ she orders him, as she marches inside.
He lingers on the threshold as she roots about for a hammer and nails. ‘What’s in the box?’
‘A surprise.’
‘Can I see?’
‘No!’
Not until she’d picked a spot on the wall. Until she’d hammered the nail in place. Until she’d opened the package – ‘turn around, Link! No peeking!’ – until she’d hung the picture in place.
‘There,’ she said. ‘Now you can come and have a look.’
It’s a picture of the two of them. Link’s arm swung around Zelda’s shoulder. Zelda smiling, beaming, standing tall. When Link sees it, he rocks back on the balls of his feet, hands on his hips. The smile on his face is infectious.
‘That’s us!’ he says.
‘So it is,’ Zelda says, smiling. ‘A picture of us, for our house. It’s fitting, don’t you think?’
Link laughs, and she’s never heard him sound so light. ‘It is!’ he shouts. ‘It is! Us in our house!’ He skips to the door, spinning in circles. Zelda follows, laughing.
The picture hangs in their house, among their furniture.
*
They go down to a place beneath the castle, and darkness spews out.
*
After Link wakes up with a new arm, after he talks to ghosts, after he loses the Master Sword, after he falls back down to the Kingdom of Hyrule, he’s left alone outside Lookout Landing’s gates.
He does not go to the Rito.
He does not seek out the geoglyphs.
He takes a horse and he sets out at speed, knowing that if Zelda is anywhere she is at home, having tea at their table, sleeping in their bed.
He arrives in Hateno and he ignores the strange looks, he tears across the footbridge, he shoves open the door of their house, calling her name.
But the dust sits heavy on the table, and Zelda is not there.