Part 4: Promise

There were a few lessons to be learned from the late night tryst that evening. Firstly, sex was an excellent way to release pent up emotions, anger, and pain you didn't want to admit. Of course this was only applicable if you found a partner willing to accept it the way they'd found each other. Luckily for Link, Sheik was more than willing to take everything he gave her, and he reciprocated likewise.

Two, sex was also an excellent distraction from all the chaos erupting around you. Most nights Link found himself starting up at the canvas of his tent and dim glow of the moon above thinking about all his shortcomings as Hyrule's Hero and all the horrors he'd faced or was yet to face. Sleep didn't used to come easy. Now he fell asleep thinking more of the feel of Sheik's flesh against his and her legs wrapped tightly around him than the blood on his hands and weight on his shoulders that accumulated with each battle.

And third, sometimes having a human body beside you made all the difference when living through a war. You didn't need sex for that. One simply just needed a warm body in their bed, and comforting voice to hold your conversation and attention. This was a reminder that there was still a human connection in the world, and that was a priceless gift to even the most legendary of heroes...

With a heavy breath and thunderous heart, Link collapsed on Sheik's side to catch his breath. His entire body shook violently with his release and Sheik involuntary gasped and clenched around him as she felt his warm seed fill her in ragged, unsynchronized jets until it seemed to drip from where they lay connected. She secretly loved the feeling, no matter how unladylike such a fancy was.

She didn't need to worry about her ladylike image at the moment.

Link felt as if his powerful heart were going to give out from exertion, but considering the reason he figured if he died right hen from a heart attack, better death couldn't be had. Once he'd regained enough strength to move without crushing his bedmate, he slowly slipped out of her body. Link hissed loudly as he felt his release oozing from her folds in its aftermath.

A rare and wholly indecent thought crossed his mind about the significance of that situation but he buried the thought away deep in his mind where it wouldn't disturb him again. Now was not the time for such thoughts.

Link gave a long and slowly built up breath and then sank into a comfortable position he could lay in forever if the goddess would let him.

Sheik shifted just enough so her hero's impressive weight didn't crush her arm and felt her body relax into the humble bed. She loved this time — not that she didn't love the sex with him. She loved sec with Hyrule's Hero. She didn't have too extensive of an experience to compare it too, but there was something undeniably explosive in their chemistry when they came together. But she also loved the quiet time she had afterwards where she could listen to his heartbeat in his chest and talk about anything and everything that came to mind without judgement. He was good company in addition to a good fuck.

But tonight was different. As her lithe taped fingers stroked the sweaty golden strands at the base of his neck and she felt him curl into the crook of her neck a little deeper, she could tell from the rhythm of his breathing that he wasn't asleep yet he didn't open any conversation. He was thinking about something he didn't want to tell her.

"Something's bothering you." It wasn't a question but more a statement phrased like a question because they both knew she could see the truth in him without hindrance. Link was reluctant to speak. He'd always been on the quiet side outwardly. He was a man who chose his words carefully and made them count when he did choose to verbalize them. He didn't speak of his troubles or the weight on his shoulders out loud, and he never once complained about being the Hero or his duties as a knight to the royal family.

Except to her. To her, he spoke everything that came to mind. He didn't know why, and she didn't question why, but there was a pull she had on him that let the words just slip so easily from his mind. She was gravity that pulled all the heaviness off his mind and heart and dropped it to his feet where he could finally let it all go.

"Just worried about where this is all going," he spoke softly. He turned his head to press a tender kiss to her shoulder before reclaiming his position. His heavy arm draped over her chest was a comfortable weight to her. Fingers at her other side found the soft skin of her inner arm and absently drew shapes into her flesh.

"It can go wherever we want it to go. I don't think our relationship needs predefined terms to identify it, do you?" She said the words partly to the man beside her and partly to herself in attempts to convince herself that it was true.

To make them true.

Sheik waited for a comment from Link but instead felt him go still a moment before he finally cleared his throat and decided to speak. "I meant the war."

Oh.

"I know with the news that Zelda's been spotted near the temple of souls has everyone excited and worried of finding her, but I'm having a hard time believing anyone could turn her against her people, even with Cia's sorcery."

Sheik felt an uneasiness started to creep into her stomach.

"Impa believes it's her. I suppose I should too, but it doesn't feel right. This whole time it's felt like she was safe; like she never really left." Link paused a beat, distracted in his thoughts. "Not that I've said more than two words to the princess since I've met her. I really don't know her well at all, but it's just an instinct I can't explain with rational words. It doesn't feel like she ever really left."

Sheik was eerily, uncomfortably quiet, and Link picked up on it. "What's bothering you?"

She didn't answer, and instead shifted, trying to move him off of her until she could face him. The tent was much too dark to really see more than the harshest shadows, but the way she rested her forehead against Link's and let her hand rest against his heart told him she wasn't telling him something very important.

"It's not the princess," Sheik's voice was so uncharacteristically tiny that Link almost didn't recognize it at all. Before he even had an opportunity to ask, she answered his unspoken question with "I can't explain how I know, you just have to trust me on it. Believe me."

Link swallowed thickly but moved his hand to her thin back and dragged her closer until he could feel her eyelashes against his cheek.

"I trust you with my life." He kissed her finally and for all the hungry, lustful, desperate kisses they'd stolen and pulled from one another...this one was different. There was a softness in his kiss that hadn't been there earlier. Something in the way his lips brushed hers and he lingered in their kiss and brushed her cheek with the most tender, feather-like stroke of his thumb that changed the mood of the kiss tried to pull him closer and it made them feel like they were each trying to savor the fleeting moment, even if for very different reasons.

"If you found out I wasn't who I said I was, would you still kiss me like this?" The tiny voice had only shrunk even further if anything. She felt his fingers dragging up and down her spine tenderly and almost felt guilty for making him stop with her question.

"I love you without knowing who you are and knowing there are things you'll never be able to tell me. Why would learning a truth change anything?"

Completely missing the one slip of a word, she still remained unconvinced and Link felt it in her cold stillness. "That's like asking me if I'd still want your body if I saw it in the light. If anything, it would make it better."

Weather the last part struck a nerve or Sheik was still unconvinced was something that Link would question for years when she abruptly separated from him and sat up in bed. She already had both long legs over the edge of the makeshift bed and ready to stand and flee by the time Hyrule's Hero registered her movement and grabbed her arm with a hand. She paused, but he could tell by her coldness that she wasn't facing him.

What had he scared her with?

The moment he had the thought at all his mind raced with a hundred different thoughts.

Sheik? Scared? Sheik didn't get scared. Sheikah were fearless, emotionless, strategic beings. They were stone hard and iron clad and they kept their hearts tightly protected under impenetrable walls. They didn't dwell on emotions or fears. It was one of the subtle ways they were different than the general Hylian population, and one of he presumed ways they could harness the magic that far surpassed that of a typical Hylian.

"I should go back to my tent before the other knights awaken." Her voice sounded like someone else's entirely and it was a sound that both astounded and frightened Link. Sheik rose and dressed and before Link had even sat up in bed, she was gone.

A cold wind blew into the tent from her absence, and it sent an uneasy dread to the hero's heart.

Something was amiss.

Link only hoped whatever it was didn't ruin what was growing between he and this formidable Sheikah woman.

Love.

He wasn't certain why, but the word floated to the top of his subconscious like a bubble and popped so abruptly he almost jumped out of his skin hearing its utterance.

He loved her.

No...no, he didn't. He did not. He could not. He would not.

This was highly inappropriate, he reassured himself. He enjoyed the sex, and her tight little ass, and those mile-long legs that flexed like rubber and that perfect lithe body that could bend and twist like something straight out of any man's greatest fantasy.

This was just sex. It was like all those other knights that rented company to keep them warm at night amidst their wars.

No.

Sheik wasn't rented company. She was so much more priceless than that. She wasn't an object to borrow or a tool to use and abuse as much as he pleased.

She was a warrior.

She was his friend.

She was a woman he trusted his life with.

And he loved the way her voice changed when she talked to him alone, or the way she danced her fingers over his chest when they lay in bed together. He adored how no matter which position they fell asleep in, her legs always ended up wrapped around him by the time morning rose as if she didn't want to let go of him. He hungered for the feel of her skin and the taste of her kiss and the delectable sounds she made when he made her curl her toes and filled her with his love.

No, no, no! Not that damn word again.

Love did not exist in the soldier's vocabulary, more less a knight of the royal family. He wasn't here to fall in love with a Sheikah — whatever that was supposed to mean anyways — he was here to find and rescue and return home safely the Hylian princess of Hyrule's Royal Family.

He loved his country and he loved his duty and he swore his oath to the Kingdom of Hyrule and the Hylian Royal Family and that was enough. That is what he'd been bred to do. Unexplainable pull or not, he needed to remember it.

If he jumped with enough force, he could counter the pull of gravity, right?