Title:
"Once upon a dream..."
By: Jadealiya
Pairing:
Link/Zelda
Fandom: Legend of Zelda
Theme: #3 Jolt!
Timeline:
Zelda II
Disclaimer: Nintendo's characters, written neither for
profit nor gain
It had been a long time.
The girl knew not from any outside stimulus or indication – the dust was heavy, true, and the sun rose and set in regular intervals – but she was beyond noticing those concrete mundane indicators. She knew it had been a long time because her internal companions – dreams frightening and fair – had gradually slowed their regular visitations and blurred their forms. Each had become less distinct, slower, and quieter – fading to vague ghost lights casting a murmur of memories over the gray void. Her brother still cursed and wept over her, but did so silently as a vaguely human shaped blur of sorrow and regret. Her enemy still struck her, casting the spell that had locked her in this unending sleep, but did so slowly, the burst of energy the only illumination against his foreboding and formless presence.
They were fading. Soon, she would be alone. The part of her that cared was almost gone as well, floating away with the memories, hopes, and dreams of the girl who had been Princess Zelda. They were flitting off into the gray empty nothingness, taking with them any desire to fight, to remember, to be. And yet, always, on the edge of being and remembering, there was a sense of waiting. A sense of…
A touch!
Not the ghostly caress of dream, but the true honest skin pressed to skin, fire on her lips, burning through the haze and causing the girl to sit up gasping, crying out, heart- pounding in fear and excitement, what dream, what new nightmare is this…!
A touch. A calmly placed hand on her shoulder, marked with the golden symbol that led to her imprisonment, accompanied by quiet laughter. "My apologies, Princess, I didn't mean to startle you."
Following the mark up the green clad arm to that face, those eyes, the girl smiled, her heart ceasing its struggles to jump from her chest. She knew that face, those eyes, those lips. Every blessed detail was an element of dreams forgotten by the waking mind, but held forever in the living heart.
The man smiled, bowing. "Welcome back, Zelda."