Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda

Hi everyone! Maybe you've seen me around from 'Finding a Place to Call Home', (and another fic that I promise I'm working on to fix...)? Well, even if you haven't, then I will introduce myself: this isn't my first foray into the TLoZ section here, nor is this my first one-shot series (actually, I believe it's my 15th...), but I've got a couple of one-shots for my favourite TLoZ series, ZeLink, and I thought I'd publish them! I'll be updating every Wednesday for the next few weeks - so don't forget to follow for updates.

I hope that you all like reading my one-shots and that you stick around for the series!

Enjoy!

106. Commit

Today they rose, just as they did all other days. The servants entered the adjoining bedrooms, waking the royal couple and rousing them from their beds as though in an eerie mirror of each other. Zelda stirred just moments after her husband, and they were dressed, washed, and made presentable for the day before they were ushered to the dining room, where breakfast and letters were waiting.

Zelda watched her husband as he ate and read a letter from Ordona Province. He was handsome now, so unlike the mere boy he had been when they first married, just scrabbling into adulthood. He'd been but a younger soldier then; eager, and eyes alive with the fury of battle. He was promoted to General as the old one died, and soon after that, they had been pushed into marriage together. The couple were only twenty when they married, and yet even that was too old for the liking of most.

Even as she watched him, he didn't look at her once.

Then after breakfast, they were separated for the day. That was generally when they wished each other well - and the first time they spoke all day. But Zelda couldn't help lingering on slightly as they parted, watching his retreating figure. There was a certain fondness that sat over her heart, one that she'd never given any weight to before.

She turned, walking away from him towards the throne room, and the audiences that awaited her there. It was a job that she had loved, but as she slipped into an arranged marriage that wasn't what she hoped for, and a life that was slowly becoming almost obsolete, she found it more monotonous than ever. Even the great cataclysm to awaken the Triforce had been but a skirmish in hindsight; barely sixth months worth of fighting and the aftermath swiftly concluded. Suffice to say that the pair of them would be a mere footnote to history. It was not as she had anticipated when she was just a little girl, running around her mother's knees and the lady's chairs.

It hit her quite firmly on this morning of all mornings.

A long while later found Zelda sitting amongst her favourite books in the library - old epics, and tales of times long ago. Of the Queen who'd become a Sheikah, and the king who travelled through time. It allowed her to think about the life she wished she could've had; as though discussing arbitrary laws wasn't all the progress she could make, and as though there was still a chance for recklessly falling in love with a brave, handsome knight after a whirlwind romance.

"I found you." A voice startled the young Queen - so much so that she dropped the book she was holding. He laughed and sat down before her. "Sorry."

Zelda narrowed her eyes at him as he came to sit across the table from where she'd been sitting - before she'd jumped like a coiled spring at his voice. She smiled, perhaps reluctantly. "It's fine."

She picked up the book from the table and closed it, smoothing a hand over the leather cover.

"You never come here except when you're sad. Is everything okay?"

Zelda stared at him for a moment. He had noticed? She thought he never noticed. She thought that all he knew was battle, and the army, and his general friends in court and the stories of women in the barracks that bothered her more than she would've liked when he came home late, and drunk.

"Yes, I-"

She couldn't quite finish her sentence, but just stared, wide-eyed at the man. It was an affront to the stiff regularity of their life to which she'd become accustomed.

"Zelda... you're scaring me." She couldn't tell if that was shyness or nervousness that crept thickly into his voice. "First, you stare at me over breakfast, then you hover in the corridor, then you can't even finish a sentence. And now you're confused? It is strange behaviour for the wielder of the Triforce of Wisdom."

Link was always straightforward, always to the point. He'd never grown to speak like a true noble or bow to their customs, and Zelda appreciated that. But there was the underlying hint of a riddle there that bothered her. Zelda still continued to stare. And then, despite her better judgement, she smiled as the joy spread through her chest like the warmth of a newly kindled fire on a cold winter's night. "I never knew that you noticed these things."

He chuckled. "Of course. I'd be a pretty terrible husband if I didn't, wouldn't I?"

They'd never talked like this before. Not in all the three years they'd been pushed into marriage. They'd barely known of each other's existence for two months before they were wed; Zelda often wondered just why-oh-why it had to be so urgent. Perhaps if they'd been allowed in a room with just the two of them more than three times, it would've been the whirlwind romance she so desired. If they'd met when the world wasn't destroyed, if they hadn't both always been surrounded by ministers and eager ladies and however many more interfering people-

Zelda knew it was no good to think like that. Goddesses knew that she spent enough time wishing that so many things had been somehow different she was wishing her life away. But these dreams always haunted her at night. And no matter how much she took in his handsome, wonderful appearance, she knew that no matter how much she'd grown to love him in her own, distant way, they could never be what she deeply yearned for.

Silence hovered between them. "Thank you."

He smiled at her. That cheeky, mischievous half-smile he reserved for only a few people, and that gave away the unyielding youth in him. "Are you just now realising that I do actually love you? That I wasn't lying when I said that I'd always 'love, honour and obey' you?"

Zelda looked down at the table, and then up at the man before her again. Deep blue, wolfish eyes, a rogue smile, straight nose and good skin; blonde hair that had once been a mess under a green hat but now lay somewhat neatly under the modest crown he'd insisted on. And the blue and gold robes that swathed him, so far from the green tunic she'd first seen him in.

She felt her heart pound. Once. Twice. Everything seemed to stop in that moment when she looked into his eyes. Cliché though it was, it felt like looking at him for the first time, like looking into the soul that she knew deep down had accompanied her throughout the ages and would forevermore. His eyes, they didn't just shine with courage, and the battles fought long ago. There was a love there that she'd never seen before, or perhaps just hadn't looked for. She recognised that same look in the reflection of her own eyes, too.

How long had they spent - silent, distant - just because they never talked? How long would it have continued, if he hadn't been watching her? She smiled at him, shyly, like she'd wanted to when they'd been just twenty-two, and she nodded.

"I would not be lying if I repeated those words now, either."

He beamed in response, like the young boy at heart he was. Her heart began to beat with a tripping, fluttering gallop, and she giggled with a youthful cadence.

She was lucky; she had come to love the man she had been married to. Her Link.

I hope you enjoyed that! I thought I'd start with some full-on romance for this series.

Please review if you've got time and follow for more. As I said above, I'll be updating every Wednesday, so please do stick around for more. Thanks!