AN:

i haven't written or published legend of zelda fanfiction in two years, but this one is a (belated) birthday present for my bff rena (her penname is sumia) who deserves the best birthday ever! i love you!

alternate universe fic. i took a lot of artistic liberty in regards to canon, and what happens in what game, so if it's inaccurate, you know why! sort of a spiritual companion/sequel to one of my two-year old pieces, encore, although this ended up being much different.

you and i were made of stars
— for rena

phase 01, sky

As far as he could recall, ever since they were children, he had always been the one running after her. Sometimes it was as simple as Zelda, wait for me or Zelda, don't do that, but he had been the one a step too far to be in line with her shoulders, left with the view of her hair against her back. He remembered when they were younger and she was not adventurous enough to stray towards the waterfall and sometimes off of it (that had given her father a blood pressure high enough to strike him dead where he stood). Her hair had been shorter, then. An insignificant detail.

Nothing had changed, anyway - he was still chasing, still running, and she would wait for him at the end, tilt her head, and say something like you should have gotten up earlier or you shouldn't have been so slow, as if both of them were things he could change.

"Why are we running?" Link said once he'd caught up to her. Somehow, her father had managed to wrestle her into a dress. Zelda pushed her hair away from her neck in impatience.

"I can't tell you that," she said, heading off towards the waterfall. Her hands were loose at her sides. "That'll ruin the surprise." She drew the word out as if it would go on forever.

"Won't your dad get mad?" They both knew the answer to that. The dress she wore was a nice one. Pink suited her. "Won't you ruin the dress?"

Zelda turned to look at him, drew her eyebrows together in indignation. One of the relaxed hands had come to rest on her hip. "Questions, questions. Too many questions. Just listen to me, okay?

It was times like this that made it obvious she was the headmaster's daughter. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pajama pants. "If we get in trouble," said Link, "it's going to be all your fault."

She pulled the all-teeth grin on him. "Naturally."

In retrospect, he should have listened.

The ceremony was a weird one. If he could have looked back on that moment, he would have noticed the details that sent it astray, the shifting of cogs that changed everything so slightly he could have never known when it happened.

It started with the dress. He'd known from the beginning that Zelda was a girl and therefore very, very different than, say, Groose (and wasn't that a relief), but it was still -

"Do you like it?" she said, pulling at the hem of it. There was not a speck of dirt in sight.

"Why?" When her face began to twist up, he said, "No, I mean. Why are you wearing it?"

Zelda let go of the hem. The way she looked at him made him feel odd. "It's part of the ceremony." She paused. "And my dad asked - well, made - me."

"It suits you." They were best friends, weren't they? Best friends told each other stuff like that. It was his duty to let her know if the dress had somehow made her look like a clown, which was highly unlikely. Zelda could have made a clown suit. Maybe.

(Those were normal things to think about your best friend, weren't they? Weren't they?)

"Thanks, sleepyhead." She grinned at him again before her face relaxed into something more serious. In a moment it hit him - that they weren't children anymore, that soon his life would change beyond running after Zelda and hauling her out of the pond. Perhaps there was more to it than that, too - that they would change. He bit his lip.

(They already had, and yet-)

Link scratched the back of his neck, and longed for a sharp moment to return to bed. "It makes you look like a goddess."

Zelda made a face, dropping the harp on the ground. "That's the point, silly."

Silly. Sleepyhead. There was a whole list of things Zelda called him when she was mad, disappointed, surprised.

"Oh." He made a face that ended up matching hers. "I knew that. I just meant…" He was digging his own grave, and yet it was impossible to stop. "You really look like a goddess. Really."

The wind made him hug himself and blew bangs into her face that she was quick to brush away. "Thanks." The smile she gave him was different from the grin (softer on its edges, smoother on its way down), and it rendered him speechless all the same. Another talent of Zelda's. "I mean it, Link."

He felt odd again and it was not entirely from the way she looked at him. No silly, no sleepyhead. Just Link. He was fine with that.

"Hey, uh, Zel?" he said once she had begun to walk away. The ceremony was about to start. It wouldn't do for a goddess to be late.

(Or her hero, but that hadn't stopped him before.)

"Yeah?" She didn't look back, and he was grateful.

Nothing had changed, after all. He was still chasing her, chasing time, but he would not have it any other way.

"Do you think we're gonna be like this forever?" It was a heavy word. "Just-I don't know. Me and you." The unspoken word hung and billowed like a sail: together.

He knew her well enough to tell her face had done that twisty thing. "Don't be silly. Of course."

And in retrospect, he should not have believed.

The ceremony had changed everything. In the smallest, barest of moments, she was there (with him) - on the back of the loftwing, so close that their arms were touching. Yet she had seemed different and distant. Looking at Zelda was like watching constellations, like knowing the curve and bend of every line of stars but not how they would feel in your grasp. He was a little grateful for that. The stars had never been merciful; they would have burned, they would have torn, and there was no fate he would have rather chosen.

"Hey," Zelda said as she often did when she needed to tell him something important. She pushed her hair out of her face. He willed his loftwing to a near-stop, heart pounding against his ribcage.

"Yeah?"

The sky around them was a curtain of blue. For a moment he wondered what he would see if he pushed it back and looked beyond, and reasoned the wind was making it hard to sit still.

(The sky had never been enough.)

"I just want to tell you something." She shifted, brushed her hair back again. He'd come to notice it as a nervous habit. "It's-"

The wind had not been a coincidence. It had been a warning. Before either of them could understand what was happening, the loftwing let out a shrill cry and the sky around them fell black. Between the three of them, someone was screaming and he could not tell who and-

She was there in the smallest, barest of moments, and gone in the next.

(Link could not shake the feeling that he'd seen it, felt it, heard it all before.)

The ceremony had changed everything but one.

He had always been the one running after her.

Everything but one.

This time, he promised he would catch her.

phase 02, time

He found her behind the castle and almost dropped his shield. The look she gave him told him she'd been expecting him (somehow, somewhere), but it was not a look he returned. She was different in all the ways she wasn't. Blue eyes. She did not struggle against the dress and it suited her, as it always did. Her eyes were not those he'd expect to see on a child. He wondered for a moment if that was what he looked like, if a glance to the mirror showed a wealth of lifetimes.

(She was different; from what? He did not even know her name.)

She pushed herself away from the window and walked towards him with all the grace of a princess, stretching her hand out. "I expected you to be here." She glanced to the window before meeting his eyes again. "A little early, but nonetheless." For a moment she was out of the princess act before she zipped herself right back into it.

It sounded weird to him. What had she been expecting him for? Why did he think he knew the answer? Why had he gone there?

"I…" Link stopped. She'd expected him, but her look had no traces of familiarity. He was grasping at straws. "I'm Link."

She smiled at him as princesses were taught to. "I'm Princess Zelda."

(He'd known that. The name tasted like smoke.)

"Why am I here?" he said, even though they were both certain it was a question he already knew the answer to.

Crossing her arms, she said, "Because you need to be." She was girl too young to worry about the weight of her kingdom and yet it already rested in her hands. It was what she was born for, what both of them were born for.

(A kingdom and a world in the sky were the same in the end.)

Because you need to be, she had told him, and it was those words he heard again and again when he picked the ocarina up from where she'd thrown it and, with shaking hands, began to play.

Time was a luxury he did and didn't have. It was easy when he woke up and found himself in a body seven-years too old, wielding a sword it seemed like he'd laid to rest lifetimes ago. A ten-year old in the body of a near-adult was one thing; someone beyond time in the body of a child was another.

(No normal child awoke with sky on their lips and slept with it in their throat.)

Because you need to be.

If only it were that simple!

She was recognizable at seventeen (of what? of who?) and the last thing he'd expected was to stand at her side with her hand on an arrow and his on a sword.

"Well, it's over now," Zelda said, even though it wasn't and would not be for a long time. In a way, he supposed she was stalling. She'd never been outright about things like that. "Finally."

Most things that left came back. They were like migratory birds in that way, flying their course until the winds signaled their return.

"I guess." Link slid the sword back into his sheathe where it stayed. "I never would have thought I'd fight alongside Princess Zelda herself."

All of a sudden he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. Seven years of sleep were not and would never be enough.

(That was a good joke.)

She grinned, and he felt his heart fall back into the one-two step it so loved. "It's been an honour, right?" She'd slipped out of the crown for another moment. "And it's Zelda. Just Zelda."

"If you say so, just Zelda."

They could have waited like that forever.

"It's over," Zelda said again, more to herself than to him. He knew what was coming. "So I suppose it's time to end this."

He wanted to tell her that there was more than one way to end it, but he knew it would have been a lie.

Link put the ocarina in her open hands, returning it to its rightful owner at last.

phase 02.5, time

In another lifetime, the prophecy lies, and Hyrule crashes and burns waiting for a hero that never comes. The gods send oceans to put out the flame.

In another lifetime, that hero is him.

phase 03, twilight

She didn't recognize him as a wolf, but he could tell it was her all the same. Eternity could not have changed her enough. The royal bloodline kept her back straight and her head high, even though she sat on the throne of a crumbling kingdom. He knew her well enough to tell she would rather bury herself in the rubble than collapse under Hyrule's weight. Eternity could not have been enough to change that, either. Perhaps the only thing she still had was the crown and blue eyes, something he found himself looking for more often than not.

Hyrule was on the brink of darkness, and he was the one who would return it to light. Because you need to be, said a voice he did not recognize.

(Different, and yet the same. A boy in the sky, and a goat herder.)

"We've been looking for you," _ _ _ _ _ said, pulling the hood down. It rested at the base of her neck. "Hero chosen by the gods."

(And what a joke that was! Hero chosen by the gods. Goat herder. Man trapped in wolf-flesh and bone. Wolf trapped in the body of a man. Hero caught in the life of a mortal.)

Chosen to do what?

The imp on his back tugged on his ear and laughed. "Well, you found him."

_ _ _ _ _'s lips had pulled into a smile that did not quite meet her eyes. "Yes, I suppose I did."

Zelda.

When he threw the stone against the water, it skimmed one-two-three-four before sinking to the bottom where he would never see it again. Link drew his eyebrows together but said nothing.

From the safety of his shadow, Midna said, "Well, that was disappointing."

He picked up another stone. "I'd like to see you try."

"I would," said Midna. Of course. She always had an answer. "If I wasn't your shadow. Can't exactly skip stones, this way."

"Boohoo," Link said, threw the stone again. Three. They both knew there was no real malice in either of their words (Midna had once declared with full confidence that Link couldn't have hurt a fly if he tried, hero chosen by the gods my rump). "Don't complain about me doing badly."

If he could see her, she would have shrugged. "I'm just saying you're doing badly compared to before. Usually you get over four." Her laughter always had him squirming.

"Everyone has their off days."

"Even the hero chosen by the gods?" For a moment her tone was biting and bitter. He wondered if she shunned the Hylian gods, if she hated them for what she had become. He knew he would have. Beyond that, there was something else, and Link wasn't sure if he wanted to know what it was.

"Especially the hero chosen by the gods." Another stone made its way into his hands. Beyond them, the sun fell to a backdrop of orange.

Midna said nothing to that, except, "Something wrong?"

His hand twisted and the stone sank to the bottom without a single skip. "I guess. Kind of. I don't know."

"Like what?"

He sighed. She wouldn't back down without an answer. "I'm just a little… I don't know. Angry. Maybe."

"At?"

"Zelda. The gods. Everyone." When had his mind filled the spaces in with a name? "For being chosen. I know it's not her-"-Midna would know who, he could tell-"fault, but." He stopped and left it at that.

Midna would not offer him any sympathy, he knew. She needed him to save her kingdom just as Zelda did.

"Must be tough," he heard her say. "One minute you're saving goats, and the next you're saving the world."

Link couldn't help a smile, though it was more of a grimace. "When you put it that way."

"I don't know, though," Midna was saying. "There has to be a reason why a goat herder is so good with a sword."

It was a compliment, right? Link felt his cheeks growing hot. "I just trained since I was a child."

Before he heard what she said, he knew what she was getting at, what she was trying to tell him. "A part of you must have known that you couldn't have herded goats forever."

(It was always like that, wasn't it?)

"Yeah," Link said, standing up. Soon it would be dark. He could skip stones another time. Again: "Yeah."

She was right, in the end.

When the mirror fell to pieces among them, his eyes were dry, but it did not stop the shaking of his fists at his side. Had Midna known this would be the only end for them? She must have. Midna had known, Zelda had known, and he had known, as much as he didn't want to admit it. Midna's conversation came to him in black and white: you couldn't have...forever. He played it again and again until he grew tired of it.

"What now?" Link said, as if it was the only question that didn't change no matter the place and time, as if it had an answer. What now? Hyrule was a kingdom now of rubble and recovery, but they had time. They had all the time in the world.

It was a kingdom of rubble and recovery, and it needed a ruler at its head.

Zelda glanced at him. Somewhere, his chest tightened. "We go back," she said. They both knew it was never that easy. "The people will need help. I'll get the soldiers to…" Zelda paused.

He noticed then that they were standing side by side, close enough to touch - his hand in his gauntlet, hers in a torn glove. She took it off.

"And what about you?" he said.

"I'll be helping them." Zelda took off the other glove and held the both of them for a moment. Sand blew between them like a storm in strands of gold. "I won't abandon my kingdom." Not now, not ever. She turned the question on its head: "And you?"

Link shrugged, grinning just a little. "Go back to herding goats, I guess." She had the sense to laugh.

(Would he ever be able to just go back? Would it be enough?)

"You could," said Zelda, "go with me. To the castle. Become a knight, if you wanted. It's the least you deserve."

What was there to do, afterwards?

"I think," Link said, and stopped right in his tracks. "I think I'd like that."

phase 02.5, time

In another lifetime, they have the luxury of growing old together. The end for him is in bed, his children and grandchildren at his side. They, too, will become rulers, and somewhere, the spirit of the hero lies dormant until the gods call upon it once again. He lets one of his children clutch his hand.

By that point she is already gone, and he will follow suit.

In another lifetime, he dies without the taste of blood and a lost battle on his lips.

That lifetime is not this one.

interlude, sky

She stood on the surface beside him and squeezed his hand a little tighter. The sun beat down on them, and he squinted at the loftwings flying away as they became smaller, smaller, and eventually disappeared altogether, swallowed whole by sky.

He was just glad to have her back, even if it wasn't the same, even if it never would be. She had lied, but it wasn't her fault. They couldn't have known she would turn up with the blood of a goddess in her veins, and he with the spirit of the hero in his bones. That was just how it was, and how it had been since-

"Are you going to go back?" Link said, shifting a little. He thought of the ground beneath his feet, Zelda's hand in his, and the sky above them. "Maybe see your dad for a little?"

She was not the same person he remembered leaving Skyloft, but then again, neither was he. And yet it didn't matter, not when she was back, not when she was here and alive and he could see the rise and fall of her chest without worrying if it was a dream.

"Maybe," Zelda said, and he stilled. "I won't stay, though. I can't."

Oh. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She nodded, but didn't let go. Was it the goddess or the girl he was speaking to? "I can't just leave. I have to watch the Triforce."

Somehow, he'd known it. Somehow, he'd chased her and caught her and known this was how it was going to be. The rest was up to him.

Link nodded at her, mute.

Zelda grabbed a fistful of her dress with her other hand. "It's what she would have done. What she would have wanted."

"Is it what you would have done?"

She grinned and he knew then that he was speaking to the girl. "It's what I'm doing."

One. Two. Neither of them pulled their hand back.

"Stay with me?" Zelda said, even though it was a question that did not need an answer.

phase 02.75, time

In another lifetime, he asks her why - why they were chosen, why they listen, why they follow, why they live and die and live and die, again and again and again. In another, lifetime he allows himself to be selfish (foolish), asks her to leave, asks her to leave with him and neither of them looks back.

In this lifetime, he knows better.

In this lifetime, the first word never leaves his lips.

phase 04, sea

He was mopping the deck when Tetra hopped away from the wheel (no doubt leaving Gonzo to steer the ship if he knew her as much as he thought he did), shimmied down the steps, and joined him on the deck. Link's hand stilled around the mop as she stood beside him, neither of them saying a word.

Then, with a hand on her hip, Tetra said, "Did I let you stop mopping?"

He frowned, dipped the mop in the bucket of soapy water, and continued. "You don't usually just stand here and watch me mop."

Tetra pursed her lips as if she was thinking of the answer, but he knew better. "No," she said at last. "I don't."

"So what's up?" Link glanced at her, saw her eyes caught on the movement of the mop. One-two, one-two, one-two, a sword-dance in and of itself. There was nothing but the sound of waves between them, and for a moment he thought of how calming it was - to stand on a ship without a care in the world, surrounded by sky and sea. He could have screamed, and there would have been nothing to answer but the swell of darkness, the waves lapping against the side of the ship.

Night kept him from seeing the expression on her face, but she stood close enough that he could smell, just barely, wind and water. She always smelled like wind and water.

"Nothing much," said Tetra. She drew her hand away from her hip until it rested at her side. "Do we have any other mops and buckets?"

Link stopped in his tracks, caught off guard. "I think. Why wouldn't we?" More importantly, why? "Niko knows where they are."

"Of course he does," said Tetra, shaking her head and walking away. Link watched her leave and went back to mopping, sort of there and sort of not, until she strode back towards him with a mop and bucket of her own.

He blinked twice. "Why?"

Tetra gritted her teeth and started mopping on her own. The movements of her mop were erratic and quick, and she moved from spot to spot before answering. "We won't get it done fast enough if I leave you here alone. You're too slow."

Was that necessary? He frowned at her, but shrugged; she wasn't exactly wrong. (But, Link thought, watching her from the corner of his eye, she wasn't telling the truth, either.)

"Really?" Link said, even though he knew it wasn't.

"Just keep mopping. I'll tell you when we're done."

He shook his head, careful not to let her see. It was weird in more than way one - Tetra, the captain, mopping the deck alongside the rookie; Tetra (Zelda) the princess of Hyrule, of all people. He was certain she'd noticed it as well.

(How did she feel about it - being a pirate and then a princess? Surely ruling the land was much different from ruling a ship.)

He'd just put the mop against the wall of the ship when Tetra said, "Okay. We're done." One look at her told him she'd done the same with her mop.

"Are you going to tell me now?"

(He had the strongest sense of deja vu.)

"Yeah," She walked towards the edge of the boat and he followed, watching as she leaned against the edge and looked at the water. "It's just...weird, I guess. Being a princess."

Link nodded, as if he understood. He did.

She shifted and his hand brushed hers, running over the scars and callouses wrought by sea and ship. "I know what to do with a ship," Tetra was saying, "but a country is something else. What do I do, put on a dress and crown? Sit on a throne? What does this change?"

"You wouldn't look bad in a dress," Link said, ever so helpful.

Tetra glared at him without any genuine malice. "Sorry to disappoint, but I'm a pirate before a princess. I don't think anything will change that."

"Yeah, I thought so."

What now? He was still on the ship, but soon he'd go back to Outset. See Aryll, maybe. Greet his grandmother. And then?

"Can I ask you something?" Tetra tore her gaze away from the waves to look at him, eyes so sharp he felt his breath catch in his throat.

"Go ahead."

"Do you ever…" She stopped herself there, struggling to get the words out, or perhaps struggling to form them in the first place. "Do you ever feel like we were destined for something greater, before?"
Somehow, he understood what she meant. "Like what?"

"I don't know. Just. Something greater, you know? Beyond this world." She stopped, and said again, "Something greater. Something larger. Something for us."

"The sea's not enough for you?"

Tetra considered this. "I mean, it is. But it wasn't always. Am I making any sense?"

"So-so."

To his surprise, she laughed and pushed herself away from the wall, no doubt heading for her cabin. "I didn't think so." Tetra gave him one last glance. "You should head inside soon. It's getting late."

He nodded, watched her retreating figure until she disappeared behind a closed door.

Link looked over the edge of the ship. Just below the surface of the water, luminous fish flocked together, setting it aflame with patches of white light. They were everywhere, going further and further out like streaks of lightning caught by salt and sea. For a moment he wanted to scoop them into his hands and keep them there forever.

With the dark around and above them, it was almost as if they were floating along a night sky of dark water and constellations, going nowhere.

phase 00, sky

He remembered running after her. She was in his grasp for a moment before the space between her and his fingertips returned. There was the sound of laughter, day-bright.

(Of course he would not catch her. A hero and a goddess were different, lived in different worlds-)

"You're the hero," Hylia said, turning back to look at him once. Only once. "Aren't you supposed to be faster?"

Link shook his head at her. "A mortal, hero or not, can't compare to a goddess." If she noticed the bitterness in his words, she did not point it out.

"Oh, Link." He heard rather than saw her shaking his head. She slowed, just a little. "That isn't how to look at it."

"Isn't it?"

Everything was blue/white, the sky around them and Hylia's white dress. Her hair was gold against her back.

A goddess didn't need saving, didn't need a hero, didn't need him. He tried not to think of it as often as he did. He couldn't have left her even if he wanted to (not that it was or ever would be that easy), but some part of him ached. Why was he there?

Her voice carried well. "You're here, aren't you?"

Link almost stopped. He was there, there, there. Was that all there was to it?

(He answered his own question: if only.)

"Yes," Link told her, without a thought that it would not always be that way. "Yes."

A goddess needed someone to fight alongside her, not for her. He could do that. He had to do that.

He tried to preserve that moment in the swell of light and sky above him - Hylia's eyes, the just-so space between them. If there was an eternity beyond, he did not know it.

(Of course it wouldn't last.)

He remembered running after her, but he didn't remember falling. It was if it had happened in the span of a moment if it ever happened at all. One second, he was running after her, and the next he was lying in her lap, cape scarlet behind him. He reached out to touch it. Oh. It hadn't been his cape.

She was biting her lip so hard it drew blood. Link's hand went up to rest on her cheek. It was wet with tears.

What had happened?

"It's okay," Hylia said, even though it wasn't. "It's okay. You're okay. Just rest."

What had he done? What hadn't he done?

He struggled to sit up, straining against the hand on his chest, but she pushed him back down. The sky around them had become a storm.

"You fought well," Hylia told him. The hand on his chest felt warm, and he only then realized it was covering a wound that began to glow. He felt nothing at all. "Rest. Just rest."

"Rest," Link repeated. "Rest."

His eyelids felt heavy and his vision began to blur. Hylia was a smear of white and gold and his fingertips brushed her cheekbones, fire-hot. Rest sounded good. He would close his eyes and nap and open them again. Just a nap.

The storm began to churn and Hylia squeezed her eyes shut. Her hand shook on his chest.

(Of course it had been a goodbye, had been an ending.)

"Will you wait?" he said, forcing the words out of his throat. It was hard to speak and harder to breathe. He was tired of it all. "Will you wait for me to fall asleep?"

She wasn't looking at him, anymore. "Of course. I'll be here when you wake up."

In the end, he hadn't been able to fight alongside her. No matter, Link thought, mind a hazy mess. He would do it when he woke up. Surely she would forgive him.

He closed his eyes.

(It had been an ending.)

(In retrospect, it had been more of a beginning.)

phase 05, land

It started because the stupid cat wanted to go out. Most of the time he loved his brother (they quarrelled as siblings often did, not that anybody was denying that, but it was a normalcy both of them had grown used to), but other times it became difficult, especially when he thought it was a good idea to dump one of his cat's kittens on his younger brother.

He liked cats enough - when they weren't scratching up all his furniture and leaving claw marks along his forearms. Honestly!

"What now, Midna?" Link said to the cat, lying on the coach on his stomach. There was cat hair all over his clothes. He was taking Midna to the pound, or the cat equivalent of the pound, or whatever. He didn't care. "Wanna go out? Wreck chaos?"

At first he thought it was a blessing that the apartment allowed pets. Not all of his fellow college students were allowed the same luxury. Although, Link thought nastily, that didn't matter now. If pets hadn't been allowed, he wouldn't have been stuck with a snotty cat that thought his arm was a scratch post and his bed was its litter box.

He took a moment to think through the cat-induced fit of anger he'd fallen into, massaging his temples. He was getting a new roommate, wasn't he? Hopefully they liked cats. They could keep Midna for all he cared.

Midna blinked up at him with wide eyes and meowed. The damn thing was lucky it was cute. Otherwise it would have been dead.

Cats probably weren't supposed to beg to go out (was that more of a dog thing? he didn't know - it wasn't like he was studying to be a veterinarian for Din's sake). A wave of irritation shot through him as he opened the door. Maybe he would "forget" to open the door and Midna would find another sad sap to mooch off of. It sounded like a far more attractive prospect than it should have.

Standing up, Link headed for the door and put his hand to the knob. Another feeling ran through him, sharper than irritation. He could not shake the feeling that he was waiting for something.

Link opened the door, nearly stumbling backwards when he was faced with a girl standing in his doorway.

New roommate, his mind echoed. He wanted to die.

"Are you Link?" she said, looking down at her paper. The hair that fell in front of her face was blonde, and she pushed it back. Blue eyes. Something, somewhere, clicked. Noticing the look on his face, she said, "I'm sorry if I startled you. I just-"

"It's fine," Link said. He was about to grab Midna when the stupid cat trotted over to the girl and rubbed against her legs. That stung more than it should have. "You're my new roommate, right?"

The girl let out a breath, and it was then that he noticed the bags around her. "Yeah. I was a little afraid I'd stumbled across the wrong place."

He shook his head. "It's fine, I get it." When he looked at her again, she was smiling. Shit. "Want help with your bags?"

Shaking her head, she picked them up. "I can handle it. Thanks for offering, though. And your name is…?"

He scooped Midna into his arms before she tripped right over her. "Link. And you're…" He sought out the click again. "Zelda. You're Zelda, right?"

Zelda looked taken aback, though not as much as he would have expected. "Yeah, actually. How'd you know?"

"Just a hunch." He'd known it as much as he'd known anything. Turning around to head back into his apartment, Link said, "So, wanna come inside?"

Somehow, it felt right. He'd think about that later.

"Sure," said Zelda, and he closed the door behind her.