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Link had discovered something dangerous.
Zelda liked kissing him.
The realization should not have been as shocking as it was. They had been together for weeks now. Together-together. Rationally, he knew she liked him. She had said as much. Several times.
That didn’t stop his brain from short-circuiting every time she grabbed him by the front of his shirt and bent down to kiss him anyway.
Like she was doing now.
The mattress dipped beneath her weight as she leaned over him, one hand braced beside his shoulder. Her hair had long since escaped whatever attempt she’d made to tame it earlier, falling around them in a tangled golden curtain that smelled faintly of rosemary soap.
Link kissed her back without hesitation.
Then immediately lost track of whatever thought he’d been having.
Not an uncommon problem lately.
Zelda made a pleased sound and shifted closer. Somewhere in the process, her hands found the hem of his shirt and worked their way underneath.
His breath caught.
Not because he minded.
Quite the opposite.
The expression on Zelda’s face suggested she was being much bolder than she’d originally intended, but now that she’d started, she seemed unwilling to retreat.
Link smiled against her mouth.
Zelda narrowed her eyes.
Then tugged the shirt even higher.
Well.
That seemed fairly conclusive.
Laughing softly, Link broke the kiss just long enough to grab the hem himself. He pulled the shirt over his head and tossed it somewhere behind him.
The reaction was immediate.
Zelda stared.
Actually stared.
Her mouth parted slightly.
A tiny gasp escaped her before she could stop it.
Link felt heat climb into his face.
“Careful,” he said, unable to stop himself. “You’re making me feel impressive.”
That finally snapped her out of it.
Color flooded her cheeks.
“Link.”
His grin widened.
“Link.”
“You gasped.”
“I did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
Zelda’s answer was to grab him and kiss him again.
Link lost the argument instantly.
Not that he’d wanted to win.
The kiss was fiercer than the previous ones, and whatever teasing reply he’d been planning disappeared completely. His hands settled at her waist, then drifted lower as she shifted closer, the fabric of her dress warm beneath his fingertips.
By the time they finally pulled apart, both of them were smiling.
Neither looked particularly composed.
Link certainly didn’t feel composed.
Zelda looked at him, cheeks pink and eyes bright, and for a moment he was struck by the ridiculous thought that he could happily stay right here forever.
Link’s hand found the hem of her dress almost without thinking. He paused there, giving her plenty of time to pull away if she wanted.
Instead, she looked down at his hand and then back at him.
His pulse jumped.
“Can I take this off too?” he asked quietly.
For a second, Zelda simply looked at him, still flushed from laughter and kisses, her expression soft in a way that made Link’s chest feel too tight in the best possible way.
Then she nodded.
“Okay.”
Relief and excitement tangled together in Link’s chest as he carefully caught the hem of her dress and started to lift it, moving slowly, giving her every chance to change her mind if she wanted to.
He barely managed an inch.
“Stop," Zelda said. He instantly froze.
"Don't... don't look," she said. He dropped his hands- he was horrified, he was still holding the hem of her dress- and closed his eyes and turned his head.
He felt the mattress shift and felt a distinct lack of warmth, before he heard footsteps- first padding around the loft, then the stairs. She was moving away. This was confirmed when he heard the door open and shut.
He opened his eyes. He could see his shirt still on the floor.
Hylia.
What had he done?
Link stayed sitting on the edge of the bed long after the door shut.
His fingers were still curved slightly, like they hadn't quite caught up to what had happened.
His chest hadn't caught up either. It was tight; he felt like he couldn't get a full breath in. He felt terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible. He still wasn't sure what exactly he had done wrong, but it was clearly egregious, he clearly had more thancrossed Zelda's boundaries.
Listlessly, his eyes moved over the loft, as if that could make him comprehend what had happened, before they caught on something.
Zelda's shawl.
She hadn't taken it with her.
It was a chilly night. He got up and glanced downstairs and confirmed she hadn't taken his cloak or any blankets. She had to be freezing.
He hesitated a moment before grabbing the shawl- he didn't want to trespass over any of Zelda's boundaries or make her feel uncomfortable again. But he wasn't going to let her go cold because of him.
Before he went downstairs, he tugged on his shirt. After he padded down the stairs, he glanced at the shoes near the door- all of Zelda's pairs were still there, so he also grabbed a pair of flats.
The night air was colder than the loft, sharp enough that it made him inhale through his teeth. It grounded him in a way he didn’t entirely want- everything outside felt too normal, too still, like nothing inside had just irrevocably changed.
He didn't have to look far for Zelda. He figured she couldn't go many places without shoes. A glance around their yard revealed her silhouette in the moonlight, sitting close to the pond.
Making sure that he was intentionally loud, so that he didn't startle Zelda or so that she could flee if she wanted to, he made his way over to her.
He stopped a few paces behind her.
Close enough that she would know he was there.
Far enough that he wasn’t intruding.
For a moment, he just stood there with the shawl folded over his arm and her shoes in his hand, unsure which of them mattered more right now or if either of them did.
Zelda didn’t turn around.
The pond was still, the surface catching the moonlight in broken pieces that shifted slightly whenever the wind moved through the grass. It felt wrong how quiet everything was.
Link lowered the shawl carefully over her shoulders.
He made sure it settled properly. That it wasn’t slipping. That she would be warm.
Then, just as carefully, he set her shoes down beside her where she could reach them.
"I'm going to head to the inn for tonight," Link said. "You can head back inside."
He turned to leave, took one step back.
"Link."
Her voice stopped him dead clean.
"Don't go. Please. You can..." he could hear her pause. "You can join me, if you want to. I understand if you don't."
He turned back slowly.
Zelda still wasn't looking at him. She was staring at the pond, fingers curled into the edge of the shawl like she needed something solid to hold onto.
He sat next to her, but still gave her plenty of distance.
They sat like that for a while. It was too cold for fireflies or crickets or frogs, so they just sat there, feeling the silence.
"I'm sorry," he eventually says.
Zelda turns her head to him, but now he's the one who can't bring himself to look at her.
"I didn’t mean to-” he started, then stopped, because he still didn’t know what he had done to begin with. “I don’t know what I did wrong, but I did something. I can tell I did."
"Link," Zelda says. But he didn't stop.
"I should've been more careful, and I didn't mean to, and-"
"Link", Zelda more firmly interrupts. "You didn't do anything wrong."
Link frowned slightly, still staring out at the pond instead of at her.
"You asked, and I agreed, and then you stopped when I asked you to. Please don't feel bad, because you didn't do anything wrong."
"Zelda, what you're describing is the bare minimum. That doesn't mean that I still didn't make you uncomfortable."
Zelda lies back in the grass, and he dares to glance over. In the moonlight, he can see tear tracks on her face.
"You didn't make me uncomfortable, you did everything all right. It was myself that messed it up. I'm the one who's sorry."
Link’s stomach dropped.
The tear tracks were impossible to miss now that he’d seen them, silver in the moonlight.
Hylia.
She’d been crying.
And now she was apologizing to him.
“Don’t,” he said immediately.
The word came out sharper than he’d intended.
Zelda blinked.
“Don’t apologize to me. Please."
She shook her head against the grass.
“Why not? I ruined the evening.”
“You didn’t ruin anything.”
For a moment, they simply looked at each other.
Then Zelda glanced away first.
Link scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“I mean it.”
His voice was quieter now.
“You don’t have to apologize for…” He gestured vaguely toward the house, toward the loft, toward whatever had happened between then and now. “Any of it.”
"I want to do those things with you- I want you to know that. Or at least build up to it. I just... I just can't." She sounds frustrated.
“Is it because we’re not married?” he asked carefully.
The reaction was immediate. Zelda scoffed. Loudly.
The sound was so unexpected that Link blinked.
“No.”
The answer came with enough force to leave no room for interpretation.
“I love you,” she continued, as if that explained why the idea was ridiculous. “But I have absolutely no interest in getting married. I never- never- want to seek out Hylia's blessing or favor again.”
Something changed in her expression as she said it.
Her jaw tightened slightly, and her gaze drifted away from him for a moment- brief, controlled, like she was putting something back in place before he could see it.
“Oh,” he replied, then winced at his response. Very eloquent. Zelda faintly raised her eyebrows at him but didn't call him on it.
Silence settled between them again.
The pond reflected the moon in wavering pieces.
A cool breeze stirred the grass.
Link picked at a loose thread on his trouser leg before finally speaking.
“Then what is it?” He asks carefully. "I just... I want to avoid making any more mistakes, or making you feel like this again."
Zelda didn't answer right away.
Instead, she reached down and tore a big handful of grass from the ground.
Then another.
Then another.
By the fourth one, Link was beginning to suspect the grass had done something personally offensive to her.
“If there isn’t anything you want to say, that’s okay,” he added. “I just…”
He paused.
“I want to understand.”
That finally made Zelda stop mutilating the lawn.
For a moment she simply stared at the handful of grass she’d accumulated.
Then she groaned. "I ran outside just so I could avoid this conversation. I don't want to have it."
"Oh," he replied again. "You don't- you don't have to explain yourself. Sorry, I didn't mean to push."
“Link.”
“What?”
She tossed the handful of grass she’d uprooted, then rubbed at her eyes.
“You deserve to know. To understand. I'm just... scared to tell you. I don't want to unduly alarm you or burden you with this.”
“Burden me?”
She nodded.
“I don’t want to put something awful on your shoulders just because…” She gestured vaguely. “Just because I can’t get over myself.”
Link frowned.
“Zelda.”
She glanced over.
“If you’re willing to tell me, I want to know.”
The words were simple.
Matter-of-fact.
True.
“You wouldn’t be burdening me.”
Zelda’s eyes searched his face.
Link held her gaze.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “But if you’re willing to, then I want to understand.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Zelda looked away first.
Her fingers found another clump of grass.
And ripped it out.
For a few moments, Zelda just stared at the uprooted grass in her hands.
Then she sighed.
“Before the Calamity,” she said.
The words seemed to stick.
She swallowed.
“Before the Calamity, I hated myself.”
Link felt his chest tighten, but he didn’t interrupt.
He knew that much already.
Or at least he’d known pieces of it.
The frustration. The loneliness. The way she used to speak about herself sometimes, as though every failure was proof of something fundamental.
Still, he stayed quiet.
Zelda wasn't looking at him.
“I felt like a failure all the time,” she continued. “No matter what I did, it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t awaken my powers. I couldn’t make my father proud. Every year that passed just felt like more evidence that everyone was right about me.”
Her fingers tightened around the grass.
“And the closer we got to the Calamity,” she said, then stopped.
Her throat worked once.
“It got worse.”
A breath in.
“I was dooming the kingdom,” she said, voice low now, “and I just couldn’t stand myself.”
Silence held for a moment.
Then, quieter- hesitant:
“And there were times it got so bad that I…” For the first time since she’d started speaking, Zelda seemed unable to force the words out.
Link waited.
Eventually, she tried again.
“Sometimes I hurt myself.”
The sentence landed softly between them.
Link didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
Didn’t do anything except listen.
Zelda’s eyes remained fixed on the water.
“Nothing that would actually put me in danger,” she said quickly. “I couldn’t do that. I had to stay alive. I hadn’t produced an heir. I still had duties to fulfill.”
The bitterness in her voice made Link’s chest ache.
“So that wasn’t an option.”
She laughed once.
A small, miserable sound.
“But there were other things. I hit myself quite often. And sometimes... sometimes when I particularly hated myself, which was often, I would cut myself. Or burn myself.”
The words were barely above a whisper.
Afterward, silence settled over the pond once more.
Zelda stared at the water.
Link stared at nothing at all.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Zelda plucked at a couple more blades of grass.
"The scars are still there. I forgot about them until I didn't. But... they're ugly, and I don't want you to see them."
Link looked over at her. "I have scars too."
Zelda shook her head. "That's different."
His brow furrowed.
"How?"
"Because yours came from protecting people," she explained. "You got them fighting monsters and defending Hyrule. Honorably."
Link looked back out at the pond.
For a few moments, he didn’t say anything.
Then-
“Sometimes, while you were stuck in the castle, I got angry at myself.”
Zelda went still.
“Really angry.”
His fingers tightened against his knee.
“I left you there. Alone. And while you were fighting Ganon, I was asleep.”
The words still tasted wrong, even after all these months.
“And even after I woke up, I wasn’t strong enough to save you right away. So sometimes I’d go looking for fights I didn’t need to pick.”
Zelda was staring at him now.
Link kept his gaze fixed on the water.
“I’d take risks I knew were stupid. Let monsters get a few hits in.”
He shrugged one shoulder.
“Because I really did feel like I deserved it.”
The admission hung in the cool night air.
Then Link glanced over at her.
“So no.”
His voice was quiet.
“I don’t really think it’s that different.”
Zelda turned her head to look at him. There was an expression on her face- not pity. Understanding.
"I'm sorry you went through that," Zelda said.
Link blinked back at her. "I'm sorry you went through that as well."
The wind shifted through the grass around them, soft and uneven, like it didn’t know whether to be part of the silence or break it.
Zelda didn’t look away right away. She held his gaze, like she was searching for something she couldn’t quite name.
Eventually, she exhaled.
“It’s cold,” she said at last. "We should probably head in."
Link nodded.
Zelda pushed herself into a sitting position, then held out a hand toward him.
“Help me up?”
Link got to his feet and took it.
Zelda should have known better.
Instead of merely helping her stand, he gave her hand a sharp tug and hauled her up with entirely unnecessary enthusiasm.
Zelda stumbled forward with a yelp and crashed directly into his chest.
Zelda swatted at him and put an annoyed look on her face. He just smiled dopily back, making her swat at him again.
“You’re impossible,” Zelda informed him.
“That’s not what you usually say.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Link.”
His grin only widened.
The annoyed look lasted another second before it cracked completely. Zelda shook her head, muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like ridiculous man.
Link considered that a fair assessment.
She stepped away from him, adjusting the shawl around her shoulders, then started toward the house.
After a moment, Link fell into step beside her.
The walk back was quiet.
Not awkward.
Just quiet.
As they approached the door, Zelda’s hand brushed briefly against his.
Then, after the smallest hesitation, her fingers slipped into his.
Link looked down. A soft smile plays across his face.
They stepped inside together, the door closing softly behind them and cutting off the cool night air.
For a moment, they just stood there in the warmth of the house.
Link gave her hand a small squeeze.
Then let go.
Zelda’s fingers lingered for half a beat longer than necessary before she finally pulled away.
“I’ll change,” she said, already heading for the stairs.
Link waited downstairs for a moment after she went up, listening to the soft shift of movement above him. The floorboards creaked faintly as Zelda changed, the quiet rustle of fabric carrying through the stillness of the house.
When she spoke again, her voice drifted down from the loft.
“You can come up.”
Link went upstairs. Zelda was facing away from him and hiding underneath the covers, only the shape of her head and body faintly visible. He got changed into his nightclothes as well, then crossed to the bed and climbed in beside her.
The mattress dipped under his weight.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then, slowly, Zelda shifted under the covers, closing the distance just slightly.
Zelda shifted again, and this time she didn’t stop at just closing the distance.
She moved into him.
Careful at first, then familiar in the way she always was when the tension finally drained out of her body. Her head found its place against his chest, and her hand curled lightly into the fabric of his shirt like she needed something solid to hold onto.
Link exhaled slightly, his body settling into the familiarity of their routine.
His arm came around her automatically.
The room was quiet except for the soft sound of their breathing and the faint creak of the house settling around them.
Link’s fingers moved into her hair without much thought. Gentle, careful, trying to work through a few of the tangles at the ends.
Zelda let out a small, content sound that wasn’t quite words.
A pause.
Then her voice, muffled against his chest.
“What if you see them and can’t stop thinking about it?”
Link’s hand stilled for half a second.
Then he resumed, slower now.
“I probably will think about it,” he said quietly. “Because it hurt you.”
Zelda went still.
Link’s hand continued carefully through her hair.
“But that doesn’t mean I’ll want to look away.”
Another pause.
Zelda shifted slightly.
“What if they’re worse than you’re imagining?”
Link didn’t hesitate.
“Then they’ll be worse than I’m imagining.”
Silence.
A longer one this time.
Then, softer:
“You’ll still be Zelda.”
That did it.
Zelda’s grip tightened just slightly in his shirt, like she needed a moment to process the simplicity of it.
Link kept his arm around her.
Didn’t push.
Didn’t add anything else.
Just stayed there with her as the tension in her body slowly began to loosen again, bit by bit, until she was fully settled against him like she belonged there.