disclaimer: i own nothing.

a/n: everybody knew this was coming. just. c'mon. andandand this is my first 1k. woah.

a/n2: greatly inspired by History Lessons by dress without sleeves.

warnings: the ending is so out of it. god.

. . .

The ground is far beyond their reach.

But instead they laugh.

They think of it as plain, old fun—the best they had in their lives because they're free—yet entangled with gravity (though lighter than their previous restraints), and plunging ever so quickly like birds with bones of their wings in fractured pieces.

They are dropping down like stones, some will say.

We are pretending to be angels, they will say.

And without parachutes, they continue to fall.

(Well, it had always been inevitable.)

. . .

It—they, them—leads to chaos.

(Hearts are natural magnets to such things.)

The outcome was obvious, but they did it anyway.

And, really, it doesn't end well.

. . .

Because it starts slow.

He's a canine and she's a princess with irises of different shades but similar all the same.

The first thing he sees in her is withering (headstrong) royalty with eyes of a thunderous storm.

The first thing she sees in him is a shaggy canine with the clearest (sincerest) puddles of blue for eyes.

(And just like that, pandemonium creeps in behind their unguarded backs.)

. . .

Her breaths are harsh and whispery in his ears, pleads dying in her throat.

Something like despair is clutching and clawing the corner of his lungs while he is whispering hang on, stay with me and don't dies while he dashes—similar to reaching out towards the unreachable—like a madman.

(It burns. It hurts. Butbutbut—)

Then hopelessness.

Princess Zelda, she croaks (dying?dyingdyingdying?), please.

And then the princess with the dulled brown cloak and resoluteness on her pretty, delicate shoulders fades in front of him because he's a fool and he's useless and how can he save the world when he can't even save one person?

He wants to laugh and laugh and laugh—what Hero of Time?

(When she looks at him, barely a glimpse, he thinks he can see her sayingsayingsaying—

'I believe in you.')

. . .

The truth is that he is chipping away—too much, too fast.

He endures the spilling of sanguine in buckets with boldness that overflows and too fitting for a selfless, boy-growing-to-a-man savior.

(It isn't right—will never be right.)

But she is watching with the borrowed sight of another. She couldn't console, couldn't speak, couldn't touch, couldn'tcouldn'tcouldn't.

So she decides to do what she could do—watch, learn, see.

And she is eternally grateful that she can.

(He smiles like the sun, speaks with determination, humble and shy, fun to irritate and—)

She promises to mend the bruised parts of himself.

(—is the most beautiful imperfection.)

. . .

The best naps are under a tree, he says to her-but-not with a mischievous, creased grin.

Sunlight filters through the canopy of leaves and the glittering specks caress his cheeks and lashes as he sleeps. He seems comfortable with his back against the rough, jagged bark, his heroic (so he says) garb blending with the greens of the grass.

He sleeps like a baby, she muses.

(There is a want—faint and pulsing—to have her fingers pressed against his cheek to know how much better it would feel when sunlight kisses his skin, but she pushes it back, back, back into the dark depths of her soul.)

And maybe it is melancholy she savoring—because she wants to cry (but she has no tears to shed).

At the very least, he can have this peace—as little as it is.

. . .

Her eyes flutter open.

And she sees.

Not through the eyes of another but—

(She could console, could speak, could touch, couldcouldcould.)

—ah, the world comes first.

. . .

"Thank you, Link."

She breathes it in and out as if every letter and every word was air itself.

The arms around his middle are tighter with the end of each of her appreciation and he could almost feel the ocean in her eyes flowing down, soaking his back.

It squeezes and churns his insides (shattering it all the more). He tightens his hold on Epona's reins and finds that he has nothing to say.

(From then on, she never called him Hero anymore. But Link.

Just Link.)

. . .

He is not her lifeline but she is embracing him as if he is.

(How is he supposed to feel about the princess—now queen—of the land hugging him, a mere village boy?)

And then she admits silently, cautiously, because the crushed eggshells on the floor are as much of a reminder as they are as time bombs.

(Wounds will fester or heal. Though for now, it is still open and fresh.)

Her heart and mine had once been one.

. . .

They realize that they are fixing the tears and ruptures with riddles and hesitancy—like waltzing in masquerades with flawless steps and subtle deceptions.

(It's not how it's supposed to be, really. It's not. She may be wise but she's not brave.)

He is rigid and formal in her presence. Though she notices pink lightly dusting his cheeks when he calls him by his name like longtime friends.

(She is not ashamed to say that she giggles when she thinks back on it.)

And when the elders sought her to end this soon-to-be-a-habit of hers, they receive a cold smile and a thinly disguised warning of troubling consequences.

He asks her why, one day.

She replies, I'm tired of doubting and fearing.

(And reminds her cowardly self that she had made a promise.)

With a simple step forward, a leap of faith and long-awaited boldness, she presses her lips against his sun-kissed cheeks.

. . .

He thinks they are self-destructing.

Ghost touches, lingering gazes, reunions in secrecy—it mends as much as breaks them.

(Oh, oh, it's spiraling, spinning, twisting out of their—his?—control and he can see the finish line—the conclusion to this long, winding, rocky road is—)

But her pale fingers searches for his calloused ones and laces them together—not much like two complementary pieces of a puzzle, not like destined meant-to-bes but like reluctance, bittersweet dreams and unspoken understanding.

(—utter chaos.)

He wonders, for the first time, if it would matter if he didn't care?

. . .

Every twilight, she can find him with his head tilted towards the sky of many colours with the soul in his eyes dimming like fire grazed in ice cold water.

And every twilight, she takes him by the hand and guides him to the gardens. The first time he insists on the separation of their connected hands but she looks back with pressed lips and knitted brows that he swallows down his request.

I'll teach you how to dance, she said the first time.

She does, somehow.

(He is curious as to how she finds the time to spare for him with her schedule but she does and it worries him as much as it warms him because he's important to her—even though he's no Hero anymore—as Link.

Merely Link.)

Then it becomes a tradition to sway in the fading sun and watchful flowers—simply forgetting and loving.

. . .

Her laugh is like bird songs and twinkling stars.

(Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, echoes inside his head.)

They are racing across the blanket of ink dotted with unknown constellations, hooves rhythmically thudding in the night, the field's blade scratching the soles of their feet.

It feels addicting and wild and tastes like sweet, sweet liberation.

The undignified roars of the beasts are lost to their ears.

And they are galloping—fast—until they become blurred splatters on the charcoal canvas with their arms outstretched and voices chiming in the distance.

. . .

He ponders as he leans against grey, aged walls, waiting.

(With her—

he is moving

forward.)

He closes his eyes with a smile, and her footfalls draws nearer.

. . .

The discovery explodes like fireworks. Or better yet, one of Barnes' powerful, destructive bombs.

(Personally, he thinks it's more like the explosives he used. It's not quite as pretty as fireworks.)

Female servants giggle and chatter in the halls, throwing statements—oh, oh, I knew it! or it was too obvious!—to each other while the guards roll their eyes in apparent exasperation.

One had been brave enough to give what seem like a consoling pat on his shoulder and a good luck, mate before skulking away.

Well, he needs as much luck as he can get—now that the council are, not so secretly, pointing sharpened spears behind his back.

At the very least they are not suggesting her on other more sophisticated princes to take his place anymore, and it had taken one Master Sword and a skilfully worded tale of how he got through the Cave of Ordeals for that (all which he did quietly).

Though maybe the triumph in her eyes proved him that is not as inconspicuous as he thought it was.

(He knows it's bitter jealousy and he knows that he is lowly, underserving, pathetic like disabled, injured animal but his mind screams in agony whenever he envisions her with—

…He'll learn politics.)

. . .

"I have decided to marry Link of Ordon. That is all."

"Z-Z-Zelda—"

"W-What is this, Queen Zelda? And how dare you say her name—"

"My decision is final. And my future husband can call me however he wants."

That day, the Hero of Time and the people of the council had come just a hair's breadth away from suffering a heart attack.

. . .

And, perhaps, it's not as chaotic or obvious as it could possibly be.

(For once, it ends well, doesn't it?)

. . .

—end

. . .

a/n3: *insert a random rant on why tp zelink is precious even though they look so formal/awkward with each other hella*