Heeello everyone! I'm finally updating this haha

This one is a bit shorter and I, literally, just finished writing it. I wanted to experiment and try to make my writing a little ~fancier~, and I actually like this very much, I might even start a project that follows along these lines. But for now have this!

Reviews are appreciated! (and I swear I'll reply to all of them this time)(I really need to stop reading them on mobile)

Enjoy!


The Price To Pay


He stands with his back to the elegant door, hands folded behind his back and spine taut with tension. His ears are attentive and listen out to sounds coming from the corridors, but his sharp blue eyes stare right ahead of him instead of shifting back and forth between the tall windows, caught in the sight of her basking under the sunlight that filters through the crystalline glass. The light catches in the blue sapphire of her crown and casts rays of color on her fair skin, paints a sliver of a rainbow on the side of the bridge of her nose and when she moves her head it rests on her high cheekbone.

The purple quill in her hand moves across the yellowish paper as cursive letters are written down in dark blue ink, words form and his request is being fulfilled right before his eyes. She stops only to dip the tip in the refill and keeps on writing, hand flowing with grace and elegance and if he didn't know better he would say she didn't care, but when her head moves to the side again the rainbow is cast over the slight stress lines between her eyebrows, and he knows she cares more than she lets on.

For a moment he sees a drop of ink fall from the tip of the quill, red replaces dark blue in his eyes, and perhaps she could be writing his sentence with her own blood, because that is what it must feel like for her, and also her veins are so blue against her pale skin that he catches himself wondering at times if royalties really do have blue blood. She doesn't voice her concerns, doesn't look up at him although he is sure she can feel his heavy gaze on her, and only fills out the request, so silent and so quickly, as if it hurts her to do it. He squints his eyes as the sun rises higher up in the sky, the bright light that reaches the room is almost blinding and it comes from directly behind her. For a moment there's an aura around her, shining and erasing pieces of her form from his sight, and she glows, radiant like a goddess, sitting poised in her leather chair, but the quill keeps on flying across the page, oblivious to the scene unfolding before his nose.

Her golden pauldrons seem weightless, placed on shoulders that are so used to carrying the heavy weight of being the ruler of a kingdom, but he has seen her shoulders, bare of gold and fine fabric, and they are so delicate and fragile, and the skin is so smooth under his rough digits and he swears he isn't going to let anything mark her. He wants her to leave the world untainted and pure, whole and intact and regal and divine, but his hands touched where they shouldn't have and his lips left hers swollen, he was the one who undid her hair and sprawled it on the clean silk bed sheets, and it was his name that she said throughout the night between pants and moans. In the morning there were dark spots all over her bosom and neck, fresh cuts and scratches on his back, and the emotion displaying clearly in her eyes shouldn't be for him.

They don't speak of it in the following days and keep their hands to themselves, but when he touches her it's almost possessive, and when she touches him it's feather-light and warm. There aren't sidelong glances and secretive smiles, their relationship is as professional as it had always been, and the day has come when she leaves on a trip to a neighboring kingdom and he can't come with her, and when she returns he knows he can't do it anymore, because her smile is hollow and the golden band around her finger weighs more than the burden of being one of the chosen ones.

When she finally looks up from her paper the light catches in her irises and they shine bright before she leans in closer and her eyes are back to being dull with the lack of that ever present timid sparkle. The quill is set aside and her index finger runs across the page before hooking behind the corner and catching the edge of the paper between it and the thumb. He steps forward without the need to be ordered to do so and she presents him with his request; their hands don't brush together and their gazes lock for a fraction of a second before he reads the words written in her elegant cursive letter and he nods, pleased, but not really, with what he sees.

There's a moment's hesitation before he decides to fold the paper and pocket it away from sight, and with a deep bow he turns his back to her and backtracks his way to the door of her private study. "Hero," she calls and he halts but doesn't turn, for he knows he won't see much of her face anyway due to the light, and he knows that he doesn't deserve to look at her one last time.

Silence falls in the room and he waits for her words, there's shuffling noises coming from behind him but there are no steps to accompany it. He hears when the quill is picked up again and his heartbeat increases so to the point in which it hurts him to feel his heart moving in his ribcage. The tip is placed down on another paper and she is writing again for a brief moment, until she seems to realize what she is doing and crushes the paper among the fingers of her right hand. The room falls silent again as his heart rate decreases, his breathing is deep and long and low, and hers silently mirrors his.

"Have a safe trip." She decides to say at last and he nods in return and is out the door before either of them can say anything if they find the will to.

Epona waits for him at the foot of the front steps of Hyrule Castle. She doesn't nudge him or whine in contentment, and trots away when he is situated on her back as if she knows what happened on the third floor of the white building. The streets are alive and the townspeople greet him, unaware of the letter in his back pouch, and children circle around him, wishing for a good trip and wave at the gates when he is out in the field. He knows they'll be waiting for his return (and he realizes he knows so many things), but oh only if they knew.

At the top of a hill he sees a crimson carriage with the blazon of a royal family approaching, fine white horses pulling it and golden wheels turning on the deep green grass of Hyrule Field, moving at a comfortable pace towards Castle Town, towards Hyrule Castle. He casts one last glance at it, tries hard not to look at her study windows because he knows she will be looking out at the field, watching him go instead of watching him come. But that's the price they pay for being the chosen ones, for being princess and hero, and they never were free to be Link and Zelda anyway.