Hum… I am encouraged by the love this receives.

There were so many things about castle life that constantly befuddled him. Such as how no one, not Zelda's maids, not the guards, not the many pages and servants, not one of the courtiers, reacted to Zelda talking to Link as if he were a perfectly sentient being, capable of understanding every word she said and, even odder, able to respond. Which he was, of course, but it was odd that no one thought anything of it.

It was also strange that none of the maids ever questioned why Zelda most certainly did not want to undress with her tame wolf in the room (he was only too happy to leave, he might be a wolf in body, but his mentality hadn't followed suit) when he slept in her bed more often than not these days.

He wasn't quite sure when exactly that had started, though. Of course they had first slept together that night when she'd had a nightmare, then a short while later she'd seemed to have a host of bad nights.

Some so bad that she had cried herself to sleep, nuzzling as far into his fur as possible, or had been too scared to go asleep immediately after that, despite her tear-induced exhaustion, and had gotten up to go for a walk in her private garden, with him trailing along beside her, anxiously glancing at her as she would, spontaneously, start shivering, look nauseous or become edgy.

It unnerved him to see her so unnerved…

That had cleared up, after a while, though, and he could have gone back to sleeping on his cushion-bed, but he knew he'd missed before even trying. There were still some nights when he'd go to sleep in one or the other and wake up in the other with a vague memory of getting up in the middle of the night and wandering to the other bed.

Whenever he did wake up in Zelda's bed, he'd lick her awake, sometimes gently, starting with her hand and nuzzling at her arms and face until she woke up. Sometimes only, though. Mostly he gave her a big, wet, sloppy doggy-kiss, jarring her awake every time.

The best part of waking her up like that was how she'd lash out at him, hissing the worst verbal abuse he'd ever received and trying (but failing) to catch him, either with a slap or by the tail. In summer, he had jumped through the open window (he was perfectly certain in his abilities of catching anyone trying to clamber through, and it really became stifling) and into the gardens, escaping her that way. It had been trickier to escape her once fall arrived, and he'd started to open the door before he would jump back on the bed and go about the morning procedure. But she woke up when he opened the door, so that didn't work…

One day she had managed to wake up before him and had woken him up. By kissing him on the nose.

He'd let out a loud yelp and flown out the bed in surprise, hyperventilating in a corner. She'd laughed so hard she'd nearly blacked, stammering something that could have been either an apology or an explanation of how hilarious his face had looked.

He'd sulked for the rest of the day. Until she had promised to make it up to him and given him a more platonic and foreseeable kiss between his ears, at least.

She had thrown him the bone the next day, both literally and metaphorically. The actual bone had been a delicious treat and the metaphorical bone (boon?) had been a reward to the good citizens of Ordon, for having been of good service through generations and for having sheltered and raised the Hero of Twilight for many years. His tail had been wagging and he'd woken her up gently for a week after that.

Then she gave him another kiss on the nose to wake him up and he forgot everything about being nice to her.

The devil that she was.

Another chapter! =D I have no idea what I'm thinking 'coz I'm tired! Please review and tell me what you liked/disliked. ^_^