He wasn't sure exactly what had brought him here. For years his dreams had been plagued with half-visions, scraps and pieces of something he could never quite remember or recognize. For years he had dreamed of her, but until now, he had never realized.
She had been leaning against the fence and staring down at the long snake of river that slithered through the land far below. She saw him out of the corner of her eye and turned her head toward him, eyes wide. She couldn't believe it. She wondered if she was hallucinating.
She was beautiful; why had he never seen that? He had met her on few enough occasions that he could count them all on one hand, and yet none of those times had he ever thought she was beautiful. To be honest, he hadn't thought anything of her. Who was she, really, to him? And who was he to her? A childhood crush aside, he meant nothing to her, nor she to him. And yet, here he stood before her, after years and years on his part, a mere two or three on hers.
And yet, here he meant to stay forever.
"You came back," she said simply, though it was not simple at all. She was shocked, that was plain—and confused, naturally—for never in her widest dreams had she truly believed she would ever see him again. Never had she even considered he might seek her out, might come back to this place where they'd met. She'd given up that hope years ago, when she was still young and so in love.
He nodded slowly, as if not quite believing it himself. "Yes," he murmured carefully. "Yes… I did, didn't I?"
She nodded too, and her eyes lowered to his feet. He had taken off his boots, and his pants were rolled up around his knees. The water flowed gently around his legs, bare and muscular. She wondered briefly why he had taken off his boots. Noticing where her eyes were, he too glanced down at his feet and wondered the very same question. Oddly, he didn't even remember where he'd put them, or having taken them off in the first place.
She turned fully to face him, and leaned her side against the fence. "Why are you here?" she asked him. Her voice was guarded, and her arms were crossed over her chest; she was not about to show him vulnerability, or any form of emotion, until she felt she could trust him. For she did not trust him, and they both knew it. He knew he had done nothing to earn her trust, and she had every right to be wary of him. He wasn't so arrogant that he even for one moment believed he held her heart in his hands, the hands that had saved their world and destroyed evil—the hands that had killed, the hands that had healed. Though she had, once, professed her love for him (in so many words), he had no foundation on which to base a hope that she loved him still. Love was fickle, was it not? Love was like a fire, easily ignited, easily extinguished. Was he wrong to think this?
Of course he was. His love had not burnt out.
Though she did not trust him in the least, he trusted her. Perhaps it was his gentle, loving heart that deceived him into this unwarranted and certainly unjustified feeling toward her, and he was a fool to have faith in her, but there it was.
"Why are you here?" she asked again.
He looked into her eyes, so strong and so beautiful, and his body filled with warmth. He took a step toward her, and she flinched in caution, but stayed where she was.
"I had to come," he answered finally, his voice barely a whisper. "I had to see you."
"Why?" she snapped, the walls of her heart struck by the blow of his words, but still standing steadfast. Her eyes were hungry, he saw—no, starved, ravenous—for answers, but she would not stand there and simply accept anything that tumbled out of his mouth.
"I had to see you," he repeated, as though the mere repetition of the words would make them mean anything more.
She stood straight, her temper boiling. "Why did you have to see me?" Her voice was rising now. "Why now? I saw neither hair nor hat of you for seven years, and when I did see you, it was on business. If you wanted to see me, you should have come as soon as everything was over and settled. You should have come straightaway. But it's been nearly three years since then."
He took another step toward her, and suddenly she closed the gap and put her hands on his chest, shoving him back to where he'd been when he'd first arrived.
"What could you possibly have to say to me?" she demanded, yelling now. "Do you think I have been waiting all this time? Do you? Do you actually think I would wait ten years for someone I've met three times? If so, you're a fool!"
"Then I am a fool," he told her, perfectly straightforward, perfectly blunt. His eyes were dark and hard, but they burned with all the longing of a decade he'd spent alone, perfectly alone. "I am a damn fool," he said again, and he lunged and grabbed her hand, and pulled her into him. His mouth closed on hers and the ice melted in her chest. He gripped her tightly, but so tenderly, and she found herself burying her hands in his hair and exploring every inch of his mouth with her tongue.
The moment lasted like a breath of air, and she jerked away from him, her eyes full of venom and hate. "How dare you," she hissed, her body curling away from him almost reflexively. "How dare you come here and think—and think that, after all this time, I would still want you! For Goddesses' sakes, I was ten! It was a crush! And I have forgotten you." She turned her back to him and began to walk away.
"You have not forgotten me," he called after her, and she stopped in her tracks. "You have dreamed of me, like I have dreamed of you, since we were children. Indeed, things, tragic things, got in the way, and we were inexplicably bound to the fate we've endured."
Her shoulders hunched up, and she refused to face him. If she faced him, he would see the tears that flowed steady as a stream down her cheeks. If she faced him, she would break down, and she would not be able to resist him. She knew he spoke the truth, and somehow that hurt worst of all.
"And I could not return to you," he went on, "because I did not know it was you that I have been dreaming of. I did not know that it was you that I loved. That I still love."
His words pierced her heart and made her weak, but they somehow gave her strength as well—strength enough to turn to him, full of rage and full of pain, and shriek, "How could you love me? You don't even know me! I don't know you! We've barely even met… and here you say you've always loved me? Don't tell me such lies!"
"I do know you!" he cried, his calm finally broken. "I've always known you! You are Princess Ruto, Sage of Water, heir to the Zora throne—"
"Oh, you know my titles! You know things about me that one will know from the legends my people will tell in a hundred years when I am gone. You know the barest, most commonplace things about me!"
"I know you are the woman to whom I have been betrothed for ten years," he said softly, his spirit breaking. "The woman who is going to be my wife."
She blinked, completely taken aback. She had expected something along those lines, and yet she had not expected it to be so profound. She put her trembling fists to her head, and sank to her knees. "D… damn you, Link. Goddesses damn you."
He came over and kneeled beside her, and took her in his arms. "I understand," he murmured, "that it doesn't make very much sense. You are right, I don't know you—not as I would know my dearest friend. And you do not know me. But somehow, don't you feel it, don't you know, you love me? And I love you. I don't understand it at all. But my love for you makes me want to get to know you, Ruto. I want to know everything about you, and I want you to know everything about me. But, you see, we do know each other, in a way… I know you love me, and you know I love you, and if we know what's in each other's heart, then isn't that a form of knowing?"
A wry smile found its way onto her face, and she shook her head. She pulled away from him and stood, making her way back to that fence to lean and stare, not at the river this time, but at the starlit sky. He stood, and after a moment he followed her to the fence, picking a spot about three feet away from her on which to lean. For a while, it was silent. Then, at last, she spoke.
"You know, the legends say the Zora are descended from the children of a Hylian and a fish goddess." She glanced at him before returning her gaze to the sky. "Isn't that interesting?"
"Yes," he answered softly, and he looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time.