A/N: So this story is one of my favorites because of the certain trutths that are in it. Princesses were married at a young age to men they did not know, and to whom the King chose. I tried to stay true to that fact and although I planned to make her bethrothed, older, I could not simply because of the fact that it did not settle in my stomache well.
He is not much older than her but I did not specify the age because I wanted you *the reader* to decide how old he is so that you feel a comfortable reading this...is do NOT contain graphic details or anything, just a precaution.
Well, I hope you like, and to those of you who read the first version of this fic: THANKS! :) Tell me how this redo compares. :)
"I'm sorry, sweetheart, I truly am." Spoke a voice that was the closest to a Mother's that Princess Zelda would ever know. This voice was deeper than the average woman's but still contained a degree of femininity and affection for the twelve year old girl.
Zelda twisted her hankerchief in her pale, slender fingers and let out a shaky breath. "It is not your fault..." Tears fell down her cheeks that were red from her expressed sorrows and her lips struggled to hold back a frown. "But I am so scared, Impa..."
Impa moved forward and wrapped her arms about the child, pressing the Princess against her own body, and laid her cheek in the girl's golden locks. "He is a good man and will treat you well, there is no reason to fear."
"I fear for my own happiness, Impa!" The twelve year old began to weep. "How can I find peace in marriage to a man who I do not know, who may die by old age before the altar?"
The Sheikah kissed the top of Zelda's head, apologiezed again, and whispered. "You are a Princess, Zelda, and you must sacrifice your happiness if that is what is best for your People. It is why you are given such splendor as a child for happiness ends upon adulthood."
Zelda weeped harder for her thirteenth birthday would come upon the first full moon of Autumn and...her honeymoon.
"I must go and patrol the grounds, Zelda..." Impa gave the girl another squeeze and vanished in a cloud of smoke.
Zelda collpased onto her bed and curlded into a tight ball, crying herself to sleep.
Upon the Princess' awakening, many sevants surrounded the child's bed with question about flower arrangements, color schemes, and various things that required her attention. The wedding consumed all aspects of her life for the next few weeks and began to settle in her stomache like a virus... Zelda would push through the day with few words spoken to her that was not about the wedding and fewer words spoken about the marital duties of a wife.
Zelda pressed her hand against the cloth where her dress maker told her to and took a large breath. She remained still and statuesque, the trademarks of a Princess, but faltered when the woman mentioned what she knew of her husband-to-be. "I...um, may I sit?"
The woman appeared shock, her mouth opening to form a perfectly round 'o'. "Of course, Your Highness, but you do not need my permission."
"I would not want to ruin the work you've done." Zelda smiled, wearily, and seated herself on the stool that she stood upon. The girl laid her face into her palms and took several deep breathes in which the woman knew to be silent.
"Princess, are you alright? Do I need to call a Physician?"
Zelda shook her head. "No, I am fine...Miss?"
Again, shock registered across the woman's face. "Malon."
"Malon." Zelda repeated and smiled at the bright, red haired woman who was pretty and comely all at the same time. "May I...ask you something, Malon?" A blush crept up onto Zelda's weary face.
Malon smiled. "Of course!"
"I have heard...woman talk of...the Wedding Night..." Zelda's face grew crimson. "I do not, uh, knew the mechanics...of it." There was great uncertainity in the girl's voice who was, in all rightful accounts, nervous.
Malon blinked. "You mean, no one has told you...about...sex?" She blinked, again. "No one?"
Zelda hid her face and shook her head.
The Lon Lon Rancher made a mental note to beat Lady Impa to death when she returned from her trip to make arrangments for Zelda's bethrothed to make the venture to Hyrule. "I'm sorry that you've been left in the dark about this."
"Do not apologize, Malon, it is not your fault...but..." Zelda sighed.
"I'm going to tell you the same story I was told by my Mother when I was your age." And Malon did, word for word, with her arm about the twelve year old's frame. The Rancher also stayed at the Castle to help the girl work through womanly issues which choose that time to appear.
Zelda was little more than shaken about this monthly 'gift' but accepted it with deep frustration. Malon would become another of Zelda's maternal figures in her life during the weeks leading up to her meeting her fiance. However, Zelda's luck left when Malon learned she was with child and choose to celebrate it accordingly.
The Princess could not be angry with this abandonment as she wanted Malon to be happy where she could not be.
Impa returned three days before Hyrule's Future King arrived and helped Zelda through the anxiety she faced during them. She also apologized to the girl for not being there to explain the most crucial parts of her marriage and not mentioning 'the gift'.
Malon did keep her promise to 'beat' Impa to death but used words, vile words, to do so. This took place at Zelda's final fitting for her wedding dress.
Zelda took a deep breath of the cripsy Autum air, there was only two weeks until the wedding, and crossed her arms.
"You should have brought a coat." Impa commented, glancing at the glare from the corner of her eye.
The Princess frowned. "I'm frustrated, he was to arrive two hours ago."
Impa clicked her tongue. "It is strange." The Shiekah pressed her hands together and Zelda felt a surge of magick brush across her pale face. "They will be here shortly, the King has decided to come as well."
"Ah, well I am going to get a coat." Zelda felt her nervousness spike to such a high level that her heart began to pound and as soon as she was out of Impa's line of vision, she ran. Her dress that Impa had taliored for her was constricting and uncomfortable so the Princess ripped off the top layer to reveal a much simpler underdress that was a dark shade of blue.
Zelda loved the Fall and kicked off her shoes the moment her feet hti the grass of the Castle Gardens. She spread her pale toes about in the cool emerald blades and smiled, a genuiene smile, then took off again. Her feet felt lighter than air as she ran...and she couldn't stop.
The wind swooped down and untangled her long golden hair from braid the Impa had put it in. Zelda laughed and dashed through the memories of her family playing in the gardens...her Father grinning as they swam in the pond, her mother putting roses in her hair, and her sisters playing tag.
They all led to the monstrous Hedge Maze that was in the very center of the Garden.
Voices called and Zelda could not make them out and did not care to as she slipped into the labyrinth that would hide her for however long she wished.
Her heart pounded in her breast in a way that it had not done in a long time, happiness surged through her veins like a drug. She grinned and ran, ran, ran with the earth kicking up beneath her feet.
Then as she turned a corner, she slammed into a boy with such force that they both fell back onto their behinds.
The lad, who looked around her same age, gazed at herin slight shock then suddenly burst out laughing. His laughter bubbled up from his chest and was so contagious that the Princess soon was laughing as well.
He stood up and offered a hand to the girl who took it.
As she was pulled up, Zelda locked her own violet eyes with the cobalt of the boy's and was shocked at how blue they were. She found herself blushing at him. "Sorry for that." She moved her violet orbs away.
He grinned. "No, no, Milday. It was my own fault... I need to be more careful." His eyes found Zelda's own, once more, and he held out his hand. "My name is Link."
"Zelda." She spoke her name without thinking and gave her hand to him, thinking that he would shake it, but was surprised when he brought it to his lips.
"So, Zelda, what were you running from?"
She frowned. "Who says I was running from anything?"
Link's eyes flashed with knowledge and a smirk flickered across his mildly handsome features. "A Princess does not perform physical labor unless she is in dire need of getting away from something."
"P-Princess?" Zelda stammered, her heart growing anxious. "I am not a Princess."
He smiled. "You're not?"
"Yes, I am just a girl who wishes not to be found."
Link chuckled. "Ah, then lets go hid you!" He snatched up her hand and took off deeper into the Maze with Zelda giggling behind him. When he finally stopped from them to catch their breath, he turned. "Zelda is a beautiful name by the way."
"Do you always compliment stangers?"
He winked. "Only the pretty ones."
Zelda blushed and turned the next corner with the lad to find a dead end. "W'e're lost."
"That means you're wining, no one can find you." Link chuckled and motioned for Zelda to led. "So, if you're not the Princess...who are you?"
Zelda frowned. "Nobody."
"Is that the answer you want to tell me...or is that the truth?" Link asked and sighed when he realized that he should have dropped it.
Zelda brushed away the tears leaking onto her face. "Let it be my answer."
"Of course..." Link rubbed the back of his neck and made a slight pained expression which caught Zelda's attention.
"You're hurt?"
He smiled. "Yeah, I stopped this guy from robbing a gypsy cart."
"You?" Zelda then recalled how calloused the youth's hands are. "You're a fighter?"
Link smiled. "More or less."
"Wow." Zelda spoke under her breath. "That's amazing." The Princess laughed then. "The most dangerous thing I've ever done is go sledding with my friend Ruto."
Link rose an eyebrow and listened with a smirk on his face.
"We would go sledding every winter when it snowed and we always had a competition on who could knock the other one out of the sled by pushing them really hard." Zelda giggled. "Well, one year, she got me to fall off and I was really mad cause I never knocked her off."
Link beamed and raised his fists into the air. "Revenge!"
"Exactly." Zelda smiled. "I dumped a bucket of ice on the little track we had made and overnight, it froze, so when Ruto demanded to go first the next morning...well, lets just say that she stopped coming over for the winter."
"Now, that's amazing." Link shook his head. "I'm not versed in the mind." He tapped his temple and winked. "I destroy things really well though."
"What did you do?" Zelda asked, excitedly.
Link exuded pride as he spoke. "I set the kitchen on fire trying to make something to eat."
Pale hands clapsed across Zelda's lips and she laughed into them. "How did you mangage that?"
Link's brow furrowed and he frowned. "I don't know..."
The next few hours continued with a muliple stories being swapped and the two youths just in a very relaxed state. They reached the center of the Maze and began to walk in a circle about it just talking.
Link stopped and picked up a flat rock then skipped it across a nearby pond. "My Father and I used to skip rocks when I was littled...now he is too busy to even think about anything besides-" Link's pointed ears heard the distinct sound of a sniffle and he turned to find Zelda crying. "Zelda?"
She held hand up and dabbed at her tears with her hankerchief. "I'm sorry...its just a lot of things have been happening and its..." She began to weep and collapsed to the ground, only to be enveloped into Link's arms.
"No, don't be sorry..." Link whispered into her ear. "Let it out. Tell me everything."
And she did. She told him every fear, trouble, and sorrow she had faced up until that day...all while he held her and listened. When she finally finished and expressed her vast worry in being forced into a loveless marriage, Link held her away from him.
"Zelda, do not look upon this marriage as a curse. Think of all of the things that may come out of it, the good things." He smiled and brushed loose strands of hair from her pretty face. "You may find love...there is always a chance, don't dismiss it purely because you do not know him."
The Princess laid her head upon the youth's shoulder and grasped at his red tunic. "Thank you."
Link placed his thumb upon her chin and his forefinger below it, raising her face to his. He placed a soft and sweet kiss upon the Princess' lips and smiled against them before he parted it. "Now, at least he may not have you're first kiss."
The two decided to meet everyday for at least an hour up until the day of her wedding and against the wishes of Impa, Zelda kept that promise. She even allowed herself to develop feelings for the youth for just the simple fact that it was her decision to do so. Zelda even asked Link to come to her wedding if he wished.
He promised he would be there.
Zelda smiled to herself despite hearing the sounds of the Wedding March began and she reamained in those memories with Link until she reached the altar. She glowed in her wedding dress, something her Father would not see as he lay upon her deathbed, and the fact...that she would be Queen soon, frightened her.
Her violet eyes rose up to search for her friend but found the altar first...and to her surprise, Link.
He stood, with her blonde hair tied back into a ponytail, in a white tunic embroidered with gold. Link winked. "Guess I lied about that first kiss, huh?"
Zelda bit her lip, smiling, and took his offered hand. "You're my betrothed?"
"No. I will be the love of your life." Link smiled and pressed an early kiss to his bride's lips.