Link knows he'll follow her soon, he's never quite been able to stay away from her for long.

Oh, they have a story with separations, ever since they were just children, sitting on her courtyard with him showing her his scrapped knees and elbows and her showing him the complicated books she's always been so fond of, Link trying so hard and not quite succeeding to act his age. By then they'd already parted ways a good number of times, and each time had been more difficult than the latter, possibly the most difficult being having come back to her courtyard to her not remembering any of it...and how could she? It never happened and should he try to explain it, she would probably think him crazy and have him thrown out of the castle.

Perhaps there was a tinge of revenge against her -for having sent him back when he had finally been able to reach her, for having separated in a way he'd never quite be able to overcome- in the fact that the next time it was him who left.

Her surprised eyes -bluer than the Zora sapphire, devoid of what years never lived but still real and present inside the mind had done to Link's- had him mumbling excuses and explanations without her asking. Navi had been his only friend at many moments of tribulation, she had to understand, he said absently as he counted the bombs in his bag, the rupees in his pouch, the tears in his slightly-too-small-for-him tunic, anything to avoid her somehow hurt gaze.

Zelda understood, of course, and even if she didn't she smiled and pretended to.

(It annoyed him because in the future that never was she said goodbye to him with a weak smile and a guilty shine to her eyes, like a permanent reminder that, despite the fact that he went through hell and a half out of his own free will, she would never quite believe it wasn't her fault)

He'd been dead-set in not looking at her that it took him a while to realize she was fumbling inside the pockets of her dress, looking for something with her brow so set that it felt as though she were searching for a poison antidote right after seeing him being bit by a snake. She finally wrapped her fingers around something and pulled it out, softly blowing over it in case of any lingering dust. Link recognized the blue globe right away, even before she held it out for him, and a nostalgia for things that hadn't happened -and thanks to the Goddesses, never happened- choked him slightly. He had to take a breath and remind himself that this time she's shown it to him with all the ease in the world during a sunlit afternoon because he had mentioned Saria's parting gift.

"Take it with you"

"But it's–"

"Take it!" she all but cried, thrusting it to his chest so that he had no choice but to do as he was told. As if suddenly remembering her place, she squared her shoulders and said, in a more composed tone "It's a memento" he blinked as though she'd spoken in another language (And, to all practical purposes, she did) and watched her all but physically restrain herself from rolling her eyes "It's for you to remember me by"

He mumbled, averting his eyes and shifting his weight slightly, before holding out the Ocarina back at her.

"I don't need this to remember you"

As an adult, he'd been inadequately childish, and although he'd never really inwardly reached his grown body, he had returned to a body that didn't quite match his mind either.

He got the satisfaction of seeing her flush deep pink, immediately annulled by the fact that his own face became as red as Volvagia's scales mere seconds later. He'd long since realized how unfair it was for her that he professed her an adoration that practically came out of nowhere, so he normally held comments like that one back, but this time it just burst out because he hadn't left yet and he already missed her.

"A promise, then" she breathlessly piped, flustered beyond words but determined.

"I– Ihaven't promised anything"

"Yet"

He raised an eyebrow.

"Promise me you will return safe and sound" Zelda demands firmly "And that you won't forget me"

As if he could. But before he can reach out for the Ocarina, she thinks it better and brings it to her lips, hesitant.

"And– andpromise you'll remember...this. This song reminds me of us"

He'd already half-guessed what song it would be before she started extracting the familiar notes from it. She played it twice, slowly, assuring it will remain with him, and then handed him the Ocarina and seemed a little baffled at how he'd got it right on the first try.

(She has no way of knowing that song's become as much a part of him as the blood pumping through his veins)

"I promise" Link muttered the moment his lips left the instrument and his voice cracked a bit.

He had honored the promise. Not only then, but each time when his service was needed in other places and he made him, again and again, promise he'd come back. Each time was like a small leap into the future, her future, and all he had missed the last time. He saw her grow in age and beauty and the greatness in her soul. There was this one travel during which she outgrew him in height and he had to deal with her teasing until his growth spurt came and he was finally able to look down on her again...if only by a few inches.

There was another in which her battle abilities grew to match his and he had to stop holding back during their spars to avoid a crushing defeat. Often he would find himself looking at her strong limbs and flowing hair, and even that forehead she called 'Big' and was self-conscious about and think he had never wanted to kiss anyone more in his life.

But he was too well aware of the line between them. When they were children and he would buy a mask and show it to her and she would sneak past the guards and climb up trees with him, tearing her skirts and they would share secret cheek-kisses under the leaves, such line was as unimportant as it was transparent, but still there. It was just a matter of him becoming aware of it, and of the fact that he respected and worshiped her too much to cross it. So he kept the image within his heart and his kisses to himself.

(Sometimes he found himself yearning for the other future, if only because in that one the line had been erased by fate itself...ah, but she had drawn it again with her own hand. Did that mean anything? Or was the line only apparent to him?)

War broke and both of them were summoned to fight, she in the place of her elderly and sick father, him on her name. He was sent to other places a couple of times but he always ended up coming back to her camp, not because he was tied by promises -it had been long since she'd last asked him to promise, perhaps because she'd come to know he always eventually came back- but it was during this one battle where they fought mere yards form each other that he almost didn't make it back to her.

One slash too many and he fell to the ground, blinded by the pain and the blood flowing from his face. He heard her let out a cry, more of a roar, before everything drowning in a dull, deaf darkness. He lost one eye that day, but by the time she was done, most the enemies had lost much more than that. When he woke up in the healing tent, it was Zelda's sleeping face, as she lied next to him, that he opened his remaining eye to.

It was more or less like coming back to life twice. She was dirty and bruised and glorious. And he had dared to tether the line by placing a trembling hand on one of hers to let her know he was back and she had tethered the line by bursting into tears upon finding him conscious again.

"I thought this time you've left me for good" she sobbed into his hand that she'd pressed to her face.

"Never" he whispered.

So when he wakes up after a night spent riding all the way to the cementery and crying and begging her to return next to her tombstone -that doesn't tell she's the best at beating a guy in a race despite being wrapped in heavy layers of cloth or how kind she was to his many sons and daughters even though they weren't hers, and how she'd always allow her daughter to spend the day with him despite her husband's reproaching- it's more or less like a death before his time

But it won't last, he knows. Soon enough, he'll follow...and perhaps this time she won't send him back.