And So We Move On, However Slowly
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
AN: Reviews greatly appreciated!
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There is a snail on Zelda's arm.
She doesn't know how it got there, or why it seems insistent on oozing around and leaving a trail of slime behind. She does know that she does not want it to be there.
Naturally, she shrieks.
"Get it off! Get off! Ew!"
Link looks up, wondering why the supposedly delicate princess has just jumped off the stone block—now apparently a bench—they are relaxing on. She is now hopping up and down, flinging her arm around like she's trying to shake it off her body.
"What? What?"
"A snail—" Zelda is babbling, "—snail on my—ew!"
Link laughs, which is a mildly stupid sound, but it isn't without its charm because it sounds so genuinely happy. A lot of things about Link are unrefined and strange, but Zelda likes to say it makes him all the more endearing.
"Ugh!"
There is no more time for laughter. There is a snail related emergency happening, and Link will not let Hyrule's beloved princess succumb to this dastardly creature's assault on her fair arm—an arm that is just as beautiful as the rest of her. Link tells her to stop thrashing around just long enough to pinch the thing by the shell and pluck it off of her.
"You're so cruel," teases Link, the slug squirming in midair, "What if he just wanted to shower you with his slimy love?"
Zelda, now smearing off the slime with her gloved hand and making a mental note to burn it later, sniffs at him.
"Then he needs to find a lady snail to give his attention to."
"See how he's moving so sadly? You've broken his heart."
Sure enough, the snail is now only giving a half-hearted wiggle, though it's impossible to tell if it's depressed or just falling asleep.
"Yes," Zelda agrees, coming to sit down again, "I have broken that poor snail's heart. It's because he's been secretly writing me forbidden love letters all these years, because I am a princess and he is a simple garden snail. But he's always stashed those letters away, too embarrassed to give them to me because he thinks perhaps his feelings can only be expressed if we were to meet in person, but that would be nigh impossible, seeing as I can move much faster than him. And then, today, we come for a walk in the garden, and he finally sees his chance, and he builds up all of his courage in his snaily chest just for me and now I've gone and rejected him. That snail's heart will never recover."
Link stares at her for a moment before a crooked smile spreads over his face, and then he's cackling so hard he can't sit up straight anymore. Zelda thinks that she's going to be able to hold it in, but the sound of his laughter is infectious, and she cracks up as well. They collapse against each other in a heap, giggling helplessly.
There are a lot of gorgeous, sunny days in northern Hyrule, but Zelda attributes most of the reasons why she loves days like these to the fact that Link comes to visit. There isn't much for a hero to do when there isn't a terribly evil threat to the world, so lately he's taken up a job at Lon Lon Ranch, and every once in a while, when the weather is nice, Link hitches a ride with the owners of the ranch when they come to the market to deliver milk. Certainly he will make sure that all of the orders are right and that there's enough ice to keep the milk cold for the afternoon first, but then he will come to the castle, and the guards will let him with a respectful nod, instead of the usual lengthy interrogation and suspicious glares.
Zelda often feels trapped in the dreary Hyrule Castle with no friends her own age and only her snobby instructors and her kind but rather boring nursemaid, Impa. This means that she is invariably delighted when she learns that a certain blonde haired boy, dressed in peculiar forest clothes, has requested to see her. That is the part where Zelda's heart would always do this flip-flop in her chest, and she would drop whatever she was doing and rush downstairs, bowl over a maid or two, and arrive, breathlessly, in the main hall. Link—who was ever the gentleman except for when the two of them would compete in burping or who's-got-the-most-earwax-in-their-ears-today? contests and what not—would bow to her. Zelda would then tell him to stop it, because Link had earned the right to not bow to anyone anymore, as far as she was concerned.
The snail has regrettably returned to Zelda's arm.
"Argh!"
"Sorry!"
Link, who stops dead in the middle of particularly pleasant chuckle, scrambles to scoop the escapee up again, and then puts it back in his hand and taps it in gently scolding way.
"How can you stand to do that?" asks Zelda, who is not at all keen on returning the affections of her secret admirer.
"I've seen worse," Link explains, and the princess does not doubt him. He considers the snail for a moment, shrugs, and then puts it on the sturdiest looking leaf he can find growing from a scraggily bush behind them.
"There are other fish in the sea!" Links tells it, dramatically holding his hands over his heart. "Don't let your heartbreak hold you back from finding the perfect girl! Go onward, my friend! Good luck, soldier! Fight on!"
The snail takes off at pace that is slow even for a snail. Zelda snorts.
The gardens that surround Hyrule Castle are so enormous that there are entirely different sections, some of them devoted to flowers, some devoted to confusing labyrinths, and then there is the part in the far back, the part that they are currently sitting in, where there are the ruins of an ancient building which has been made wild with the passing of time. The walls are falling down and weathered, and vines and ivy crisscross over what's left of the façade of the once beautiful building. It is a shame that no one knows much about its history beyond an educated guess, but Link and Zelda love to come here and make slightly less educated guesses about the story of this old place and try to see how high up they climb before one of them breaks an arm—not that that's ever happened.
It's almost too easy to spend entire afternoons with Link like this, just talking and doing nothing of importance with no one to watch them and try to stop them from joyously participating in arm breaking activities, or heaven forbid take off their shoes and splash around in one of the fountains. Zelda enjoys acting completely immaturely with Link, but the problem is that Mister Hero of Time is a bit too immature himself. Link may be more than competent when it comes to the art of using a sword, but he is certainly socially awkward, and he comes across as oblivious to Zelda's feelings even on his best days. The blatant truth is, there are times when Zelda imagines herself spending the rest of her life with Link—and not in the way that they are together now, as two friends that occasionally find the time to be together.
She envisions that one day, perhaps far in the future or perhaps tomorrow, she would marry Link. They would talk together and eat all their meals together and whisper sweet nothings—or burp, whatever they liked, really—into each other's ears without any sort of time limit or fixed schedule. Then, skipping years down the road and probably at least fourteen children later because she never gives much thought to the more embarrassing elements to being husband and wife, they would grow old beautifully together. Even in her old age, as the senile dementia starts to set in, never a day would go by without her thinking that marrying this penniless orphan boy from the southern forests of Hyrule was the greatest decision she'd ever made.
However, these very things are what make Link unsuitable for marrying Hyrule's wise and noble princess, much less become a king, once the inevitable happens and Zelda's poor father passes away. No matter what, they are of different classes—a different sort of blood—and the normal sort of romantic 'love-conquers-all' ideals become instantly invalid and bushed away for a princess in her circumstances.
"Um… Zelda?"
Zelda is abruptly pulled from her thoughts. She realizes that they have both been silent for several minutes, and wonders if it's making Link uncomfortable.
"Yes?"
Link scratches one of his long ears.
"Well, I don't know a whole lot of girls other than Saria that I can talk to, and she wouldn't be too helpful on this subject I don't think, so can I ask a serious question?"
Zelda would love to hear any questions at all. She nods.
"Well… Malon. You know who she is, right? I've talked about her before."
"Yes."
"Just this morning," Link says slowly, "Something strange happened."
"Strange? What happened?"
Link hesitates.
"She said, 'I love you,'" says Link, now speaking much more quickly, like he doesn't want to think about it. "I mean, she sort of said it in a hurry, and it was almost like it came out accidentally, but then I didn't know what to make of it. So I asked her father, and that turned out to be a mistake…"
He groans softly.
"Basically, he's thinking that we're just the right age, and I'm practically already part of the family, and, well… he wants me to, uh, marry Malon."
For a moment, Zelda says nothing. The sky seems to have suddenly darkened.
"W-what am I supposed to say?" she stammers at last.
"I guess I'm asking you what you think," Link says, though he doesn't sound too sure that this is what he wants to hear Zelda say. He sounds like he'd rather have Zelda get up and do a tap dance than have her answer him and say something he doesn't want to hear.
"Um," begins Zelda. She'd gladly begin to tap dance if it meant she didn't have to respond.
"Well?"
"I… well, I think you should do whatever makes you happy, I suppose."
It was a safe answer, and Link looks quite relieved.
"See! You're the only one that makes any sense around here!" he tells her, gesticulating wildly. "I tell her father that I'm not so sure, and that I'm not ready for anything like that, and he just tells me it's nonsense, and that it's obvious Malon likes me, so why should I keep her waiting? Well, of course she'd be ready to get married! Don't girls start thinking about that sort of thing the second they're born? And she's a whole year older than me—she's seventeen, just like you are—"
"Then don't marry her," interrupts Zelda, in her infinite wisdom—the kind she doesn't need her portion of the Triforce for.
Link makes a frustrated noise and then seems to realize that her opinion is a valid one. He sits down just as thunder crashes overhead.
Zelda's earlier observation that the sky had darkened was not merely metaphorical. Looking up, both the hero and the princess can see that a freakish summer storm is rolling in, turning the sky purple and orange and throwing wind into their faces as it comes. Raindrops start to fall.
"Wonderful," complains Zelda. If her gown gets wet, Impa is going to berate her until she dies from a profound lack of interest. And then Impa would be hanged for murdering a member of the royal family, but that's beside the point.
"I should go," Link tells her reluctantly, probably disappointed that their meeting had to end on this note. "The animals need to go back into the barn before the rain moves south, and it's going to take a while to get back."
"I understand."
The rain starts pouring, and they are already very wet—Zelda is questioning whether any part of her is dry anymore. Link picks up his satchel and they move to a mostly broken archway just long enough to get in their goodbyes.
"Goodbye Princess," says Link, grabbing her hand and making a production of things yet again. "Fare thee well and all of that, I suppose. I'll be back next week and tell you if anything happens."
"Right," says Zelda. She forces a pained smile onto her face. "Bye Link."
He's supposed to let go now, but unless Zelda is imagining it, his fingers are lingering against hers for a little longer than necessary. She looks up at him, wonderingly, but then his hand pulls away, and it's as if it never happened.
"Later!"
He about-faces and gives her a little wave as he darts out into the rain, which is now coming down with such intensity it's like a waterfall is coming down from the roof of the broken building. Zelda sighs and turns around so that she can stare down the dirty hallway in front of her. She was always afraid this tunnel could collapse, but now she wonders where it leads to. She begins to walk down it.
Part of Zelda is very grown up, and very mature. This is the part that knows that one day, she will leave behind her title as Princess Zelda and become, instead, Queen Zelda. She will marry a man who will one day become the King of Hyrule, and she will probably never meet him before their wedding day, but it will be her duty to provide him with support and treat him amicably all the same, and she will have children with him, so that the royal blood line can continue into the future. This part is of Zelda is very wise, and grounded within reality—it's the part of her that's worthy of protecting the Triforce of Wisdom.
But there is also another part of her, the one that is still optimistic and believes that love can change the world. That part of her wants to chase Link into the rain, expensive dress be damned, and throw herself into his arms and kiss him. It's the same part of her that wants to be with Link even though he is a simple, common boy with average looks, and she's known for a long time now, deep down, that she was going to fall for every bit of his awkwardness, especially that silly grin of his, or his tendency to trip over his own feet when he's nervous.
That small part, however, is illogical, and she wishes she didn't put so much faith into those girlish dreams of hers. She is the wise Zelda, and she does not believe in things that are illogical.
The hall suddenly opens up, and Zelda comes upon a shrine, where there is an enormous statue of the Triforce that takes up much of the back wall. It is the only valuable thing here that plunderers through the years have not dared to deface— most of the art, the candle brackets, and even the tiles under her feet have all been pried up and carried away.
She gets down on her knees before the golden symbol and holds her hands together, not quite praying, but wishing nonetheless. Here, the thunder is not so loud, but it rumbles down the walls, and the vibrations are shaking dust loose from the ceiling. She finds that she doesn't care that it smells like rodent droppings and decay. It doesn't bother her at all that the whole room has been wound up in a spider's web.
She remembers the snail, out in the storm, though he's probably found somewhere warm to be at this point, and he's writing more love letters to her at this very moment. She finds it even more amusing now—the story of two lovers, destined to find each other again and again, but also to be apart, forever. She is on the verge of laughing again at the hysterical tragedy of it all.
Someday, the magic behind this curse would fade. Until that day, she plans to wait here, because she knows that eventually, things will be begin to move for them once more. She knows this to be true, and she believes it with more certainty than she has felt ever before.
She can hear the stomping behind her, and the sound echoes, making it much louder. She turns, and she can see Link standing there, breathless, soaked through to the bone.
She doesn't care if it takes ten years or an eternity—the walls around them may crumble, and the universe may turn to dust, but one day, without fail, the princess and the snail would be together at last.
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