A Pile of Dirt
AN: In canon, I'm sure they're younger; but in this story, pretend Zelda/Tetra and Link are in the 15-17 age range.
She had been happy when her pirates found them in the water, but is now sad as she rummages around her cabin. Link can tell by the way her shoulders sag; he has always known her to stand with her shoulders straight, sturdy twin reflections of her confidence. He leans back, letting the dilapidated wood support his small weight. It's soothing, the gentle rocking of the ship. It rocks him like a mother would her child.
He watches her rifle through the drawers in her desk. She seizes the bandages she was looking for, but is hardly triumphant. Tetra—Zelda, he reminds himself for the thousandth time—like Link, had never known her mother. Unlike Link, though, she knew her father.
Briefly.
A wave of pain rolls through him, unrelated to his myriad wounds. Tet—Zelda misunderstands his grimace.
"Show me the worst one first." Her tone is soft, but not gentle.
Link unbuckles his belt and stiffly rolls up his tunic. The lime green undershirt is soiled with blood and grime. There is a large gash across his stomach, a diagonal line of crusted fluid. Zelda says nothing. With thin lips she sets aside the roll of bandages.
He cries out as she peels the undershirt up, taking new skin and flakes of brown blood with it. She pauses at his wordless noise of pain, and when he stops, resumes. He has a brief flash of fear that she'll lose her tenuous patience and yank it off all the way, heedless of the agony it would cause him as the wound forcibly reopens.
But to Link's relief, she maintains the same slow, steady pace until the injury is entirely exposed.
"Hold this." She says. He bunches the undershirt with the tunic.
She leaves his side by the bed to snatch up a flagon of water and a scrap of (marginally) clean cloth.
She soaks the rag and cleans the edges of his wound, dabbing at the grit and filth collected near the cut.
He moistens his lips. "Zelda—"
His quiet voice is cut off by her sharp one.
"No."
"But—"
"Just…stay quiet."
But he cannot. He is here, she is here, and everything should be alright, they should be happy they won, but they're not, they're together but they're not everything they should be.
"Zelda—"
"Stop calling me that!" She is all coiled, angry energy right now; if Link wasn't so severely injured, she would undoubtedly strike him. The red rag bunches in her fist.
"It's who you are."
"No. I am Tetra."
" You're Zelda."
"I never asked for that name!" Any thought of tending to Link slips from the forefront of her mind. She stalks across the room, her back to him. "Everything was just fine before you came."
Link unspools the bandages, winding them around himself. He understands Zelda, but he won't let this conversation tail off. He won't let her transform him into a half-minded yes-man too cowed to speak the truth in front of her.
"There never would have been a way to avoid all of this." He says. "The Goddesses always had a plan for us, for Ganondorf, and him."
"And what of my plans?"
"The hungry lion does not care that the mouse had other plans besides becoming its lunch." He ties off the bandage at last. It'll have to do until the pirate ship swings by a fairy fountain.
Zelda snorts, without mirth. "Where'd you ever hear such a stupid saying? From those buffoons at Windfall?"
"From your father." He says, pointedly.
She whirls and storms towards him. Her eyes are rimmed pink. She towers over him but he is not intimidated.
"You—"
"Would you really rather have never known?" Link pushes himself up a little as he takes over the conversation. At the start of his journey, he never would have had the gall to address anyone as he does her now. "Would you really have preferred a life of utter ignorance as to who you are, as to who he is to you?"
"And what, Link, is the point?"
Link distantly hears the scuttling of one of the pirates past Zelda's door. They're past before he can get a good look at them; all her men know when to leave Tetra (Zelda) alone when her shouting volume rises this high.
"He planned it," Zelda spits. "It was so obvious that he planned for everything to happen the way that it did. He planned to be the first to touch the Triforce, he planned to make that wish." And now her tears really did fall. "He planned to die."
"Zelda..." What can he say? She is absolutely right.
"So tell me this, Link—why, knowing all of this, why would he make me—make me—" She chokes.
Now Link summons the energy from Goddesses-know-where to push himself off of the bed so can stand to embrace her. Her arms wind around his back, hands coming up to dig into the backs of his shoulders. Even in her grief, she is wise: she does not press tightly against the bandaged gash on his stomach.
"I loved him, too." Link admits freely. He was a father to both of them.
"And what did he die for?" She sobs bitterly into the crook of his neck. "I've been there, Link. I've been to the land he promised to us. It is nothing. A few scattered rocks and a pile of dirt."
"But it is our pile of dirt."
She pulls back to flash him a look of confusion.
"Once we drop off my sister at Outset," Link draws back a little further from their hug to get the perfect look at the puffy-eyed princess. Their hands remain entwined. "We'll set sail for it. We'll settle there. We will build a new Hyrule. We will create a place where—where—" He swallows. "Where no one has to die like that ever again."
She laughs a little at that, a sort of hiccupping-sob.
"You're setting the standard for New Hyrule impossibly high."
"I'll train the soldiers. We both can. They'll be the bravest, strongest, and wisest defenders in all the ocean."
"They should wear these, too." She pats the faded fabric of his emerald tunic. "Whenever they see themselves in the mirror before drills they'll be reminded of you, of your greatness."
Heat blooms in Link's cheeks and he ducks his head.
"Still can't handle praise, eh swabbie?" She dashes a hand across her eyes. Zelda stands taller now, a wisp of her signature smirk returning. If not for the telltale redness clouding the whites of her eyes, one would never have been able to tell that she had been weeping not moments ago.
"Swabbie? You're telling me that fighting Ganondorf—and winning—isn't worth being elevated at least one rung?"
"Well, it's not as if saving the world is very pirate-y of you. Most pirates would let the world fall apart around them as they plundered from the confused and weak."
"I'll have to hunt down Beedle, then."
She chortles. "The only reason he's still in business is because he's such an easy target. It would be shameful to wipe out someone that's already so pathetic."
Zelda heads for the door.
"I'm going above. After all this time away, my men need to see me on deck, giving orders. It grounds them."
Link nods.
"And you—" She points to the bed. "—are to go to sleep. After you tend to the rest of those minor wounds."
He mock-salutes her. "Yes ma'm."
Zelda winks at him before she ducks out of the room.
Link smiles fondly. She's not entirely happy, not yet. But she's not entirely sad anymore, either. And that's a start.
-FIN-