Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda

A Battle of Ills
When Zelda is sick

In the afternoon her father pokes his head through the door again, and Zelda hears the creaking in her sleep. Her throat is dry and it hurts to swallow and her neck aches the way it's twisted on her pillow, and she knows she isn't actually asleep at all, damn.

She wishes she was.

Gaepora takes Zelda's hand out of her book, smooths the pages her fingers have creased, finds a bookmark on her desk to stick between them, and lays it back on her bed. Her fingers feel cold and weird without the book pressing them, so she tucks her hand under her pillow.

Her father strokes her hair. "Would you like anything?" he asks. "Henya has soup in the kitchen. I'll bring you some, my dear, if you feel like it."

Zelda's throat feels gross, and it's ruining her appetite if she had one in the first place, and she knows if she sits up her head will pound.

"Alright," she says anyway. "A little."

Gaepora smiles and pats her shoulder, and Zelda smiles back until she grimaces at the ache that shoots up her neck when she rolls over to watch him go.

He doesn't, immediately. He pauses by her desk. Zelda braces herself and twists her head to look and once she works this crick out of her neck she's never going to fall asleep while reading again, especially not when she already feels like crap.

Her father is rearranging Link on her desk, so he looks a bit less like his arm and his head on his arm are about to slip off the edge any moment and send him crashing to the floor. There's nothing to be done about the way Link'll probably be as stiff and sore as Zelda when he decides to stop napping in her chair, though. Gaepora gives up on that one, squeezes Link's shoulder too, and closes the door behind him when he steps out.

Zelda grabs one of the throw pillows lined up on her bed. And, naturally, throws it. At Link.

It hits him square in the head, because Zelda has great aim even when she's sick, and halfway across the dorm room isn't really that far at all. Link doesn't stir.

By the third pillow, though, he's blinking and stretching and sitting up with a bit of wincing. Which is perfect, seeing as Zelda's out of pillows to throw anyway.

"What are you doing?" she demands. She pokes a finger at him, and then gets tired of holding her arm up and lets it flop over the edge of the bed. "Go away. I'm resting. Don't you have flying that you need to be practicing?"

Link stares at her like he's still mostly asleep, and Zelda bets he came and found her as soon as he could escape from lessons. And it makes her feel-feel-irritated, yes, it annoys her that Link thinks Zelda needs someone to sit with her still whenever she's ill, that she can't manage a day or two stuck in bed moping and feeling miserable all on her own.

Honestly, she's going to be just fine and Link knows that.

Zelda sighs and flicks her hand. "If you're going to keep hanging around, then, at least pick up those pillows and bring them back over here so I can throw them at your head again."

Link smiles, and crouches down to grab each pillow, and arranges them along the edge of her bed. He rests his hands on his hips while he admires his handiwork.

Zelda reaches for the nearest one and swings it up right into his face. "You're going to get sick from me. So get out."

Link shakes his head and replaces the pillow, and Zelda didn't manage to wipe that smile off his face even a bit. But talking makes her have to swallow, and swallowing hurts a lot right now, and she doesn't feel up to a hopeless battle of making Link see how stupid he's being.

So Zelda doesn't shove him away when he hovers while she pushes herself up and presses her fingertips against the lightheadedness throbbing in her skull. She lets him fuss with the pillows to cushion her back. And she certainly doesn't say a thing when her father comes back a moment later and leaves two bowls of soup on her desk.