Less than half an hour later, they were properly clothed and there was no more pumpkin soup left. When his gaze found hers, Zelda knew she wouldn't be able to keep the answers Link wanted until the morrow.

She put her napkin away and folded her hands behind her back. This stance made her seem older, more severe somehow...but he didn't let himself be distracted.

"I do remember a time...moments spent studying a Knight. Then...years later...studying changed into sharing, devising and fighting alongside him. And later still, our inevitable parted ways..." she began carefully, searching deep into the small part of long lost memories that had been returned for good a thousand years past, years slept away in her self-inflicted stasis.

"You have sure read how Knights risked their life to run impossible errands at the whim of their liege, came peace or war, back then; the most skilled only able to expect to retain had all of their limbs for a decade with much luck...?"

"Well... This Knight, a mortal...decided to fight for the people who had deeply scarred him in both body and mind...for decades. He took this responsibility in the name of a goddess in which he hardly believed. ...I knew I had rightfully chosen. His spirit and his body would protect his people; creatures who rose among others in grace and beauty to build colossal kingdoms, flourishing peacefully on the surface. My...Hylia's beloved ones." She smiled, softness and awe in her as she whispered "they used to call themselves Hylians..."

She cleared her voice and blinked.

"The Knight surpassed all I had seen in willfulness. Gore, injustice, betrayal, violence, cruelty...even gratuitous evil were powerless against him will. He could be hurt one thousand times, yet no evil would rub off on him or shackle him as he got up."

She smiled. "And he always got up." The ghost of her smile filled her cloudy eyes. "I...still don't understand how it can be..."

She slowly shook her head, to return to the task at hand and found her track again.

"If any mortal could wish on the Triforce, I knew for sure that this Knight could be acknowledged by Its Powers. But first, his heart had to be prepared," she told, remembering the sight of her Chosen's frail and tortured body hanging from the dirty moist stone wall of an old prison cell.

She had feared he would die from hunger and pain then. Her hanger had took much will to alleviate. Inspiring the kingdom's magistrate to look into his charges again required subtly and patience. Not an easy task when all she wanted was to tear the prison apart and free her chosen herself. But she knew control.

"As he was...he was not ready to balance the three Powers yet. So I came to him to request that he fought in the war against Demise's hordes. He would protect his people but he would also assist me where I could not go among his peers, talking in my name."

Her eyes grew distant again. "He always treated me with the deference owed to a liege...and nothing more. Because his heart didn't expect any good from me. That was..." she shook her head, cutting the thought.

"Well. Through our interactions, he learnt to know me as I already had with him. ... His trust was not easily earned, but once he gave it, it was without restraint."

There was a glow of pride along of the nostalgia in her voice. "Where there had been wariness, grew respect and from admiration bloomed affection... A feeling we shared both, that we saw turning into something else."

Her head lowered to watch his shoes before she noticed it and she sighed. "We found ourselves treading between friendship and passion."

"It was not a physical yearning, you see...so I had no reason to worry. After all he was so thoughtful, so mature for a mortal... I knew there would be no false hope in his heart. So I didn't thought ill could happens because of the feelings I nurtured..."

Her eyes hardened and she shut her jaw. "Yet passion it was and I didn't understood how far the feeling could bring me."

Sadness slipped in past her composure for a second and her head slanted slightly toward him.

"Can you imagine why even such a relationship remains ill fit for a Goddess?"

The question jolted Link out of his thoughts. As he searched his mind, brows knotted in concentration, his friend's expression softened with a trace of amusement. She parted her lips again and he gladly fell back on just listening. (Heh, silence of mind was precious to keep up with thousand years old exclusive revelations as they came...)

"The people" she said, "had set ideals and defined ideas of what I was to be...and their will depended strongly on their faith."

Her voice was so grim that he felt perplexed by the gratefulness that softened her face when she spoke of these people.

"Of course, I couldn't disappoint...no matter how nonsensical these standards could be found. But most of all, favoring one believer over many others, who equally offered their lives, is unjust. It was a betrayal...of...Hylia's clerics, and so, a sin in selfishness. There was no time nor solid enough purpose to change things. So... Knowing that, I thought I could just..."

She shook her head again and lifted her head, pragmatism falling back into place as her shoulders squared again and her eyes sharpened with cold logic.

He felt the buzzing of magic diminish in her aura, as if suppressed. After a pause she went on.

"The long time we spent together was only justified by his mission. We refused each other more intimacy.

"But the Spirit of Demise, whom we called the Abhorred, had attacked before my Knight was prepared, and I had no time left to bring him to the place where I had hidden the Triforce.

"So I sent him back to his people, for him to gather those who remained and watch over them while I faced the Spirit of Demise. ...You have heard how it went. I vanquished him first. But the blow he gave me proved lethal. As I felt my life-force desert me, I knew I would not survive long. Two month it took for the magic-poisoning to reach my heart."

"My heart went weak and I finally indulged in my selfish yearnings... I went to find my...the Knight in the sky. We met on a small island, bare of any but the two of us," her voice slowed down.

"You must understand that we were moved by passion, and despair, and...perhaps," she nodded reluctantly with the hint of a blush, "we were...both a little...overwhelmed, at the moment."

Swallowing her shame, she gathered herself to continue.

"Still, Link...I mean, the Knight, he— he swore many things that night, and I think I did too. He voiced his allegiance explicitly for the first time... I told him of my wound and my plans... "

She softly bit her lips together, their plump flesh promptly rolling back outward.

"I remember him voicing concern about the fate of the Surface world, but also on the seal that would keep the malevolent spirit of Demise imprisoned..." She lowered her gaze. "Yet, in the end, he decided to trust me. With it all. He made an oath of servitude in my name," she murmured in a voice almost timid.

She blinked furiously for a while and Link's mind went all over the place, her admitted feelings flying in a silent mental storm. Adrenaline and confusion buzzed in his heart, distracting; he couldn't decide how he felt about the Knight...

His lover —she was, right?— didn't take long to put herself back together once more.

In fact she looked like she was struggling with bottled up feelings, and he suspected this to be the first time in more than a thousand years when she trusted someone enough to confide herself.

He felt touched by the realization and the shyness and respectful distance his instinct kept enforcing in her presence suddenly lost its strength to keep him apart from her.

Heart thundering, Link forced himself from letting emotion control his acts. Not because he was afraid of her mind, but because she needed space to remember and get the memories out. Hugging her wouldn't help with that.

...Besides, he had to parse all she had to say so he wouldn't express a reaction too premature.

"My Chosen was mortal, I had grown selfish...and we both burned for a chance to be closer... So..." Her lips parted and trembled before her voice rose again; but a feeble whisper as she continued. "I-I used time magic to bind his soul to a body that was to be sired by the time Zelda would be born."

Eyes open wide, Link opened his mouth but all sound died in it. Only a mute question lingered.

"You are right," she whispered without needing to hear the words, "yes. ...It was yours."

Link sat up with a jolt and refrained from shaking his head. Balancing himself, he breathed "And that was your doing..."

She inhaled, and whispered the positive.

A deep contemplative silence fell on his shoulders as up above, the sun began his descent, pouring dazzling color on the gleaming grass.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨Ʒ

Link was barely bothered by the fierce rays while he contemplated the information she had given.

In a handful of days, he had learnt that the girl that was his whole world had been even more. It turned that reincarnation didn't only happened in legends; a guardian goddess could engineer them if she wanted. A goddess who also happened to have had an adventure with his spirit... (And in more than one way.)

These days had been an interesting marathon of discovery, for sure. He'd have laughed at its revelations if they didn't come directly from Zelda's mouth. He knew his childhood friend was still alive. He could see it if it peered deep enough in his lover's eyes...

He tried to shake himself out of it. It wasn't the best moment to indulge in wishful daydreams.

What Hylia had done to his spirit was certainly intrusive and perhaps even out of her league, for all he knew. He understood now what the Abhorred had meant calling him Hylia's puppet... It probably didn't even take to know the details to get the general picture. She had use him without hesitation. He wouldn't have minded if she had been honest from the start, telling him of her benevolent goals and the good his fealty would do to their people, just like she had to his predecessor...

But instead she had just claimed what he would have been honored to provide. He had been clay into her hands. Link cringed and felt an elated intrigue tug at his heart at the same time.

He frowned, being beyond confused by now, and even more so by his reaction to that thought.

Zelda...Hylia wet her lips and blinked several times. She seemed dizzy with dread when she spoke again.

"That is not all of it."

Link's hand joints turned white around the edge of their makeshift table but he didn't rise his eyes to hers.

"I thought you told me everything in the temple..."

"I did," she answered evenly, with an insolent serenity. "On who I was and my plan to destroy the spirit struggling under the Seal."

Link crossed his arms, but didn't move or protest, still too chocked to argue.

"What I told you now, is about something else; feelings old, grown dim. Hopeless." she finished, last word a whisper. In fact, there is night to add here. The rest doesn't concerns your life nor your future in this world."

"You speak in riddles." He frowned, as if scolding her, his tone low from hurt and disappointment.

She shook her head and closed her eyes as pain and conflict weighted more on her features. "I can't freely speak of those memories. There is a forbidding about them. They do not concern..."

"Concern who? Me? Mortals? By the...fates...answer me truly, Hylia," he asked, his grave voice both wavering and chiding, "please."

His eyes flickered down, on the grass between them, to the fair slender hand that supported her frame and he almost jumped when her other hand reached out to his face.

The dainty palm that fondled his cheek was warm, making it a little difficult for him to stand his ground...and before he registered it, his head was burrowing deeper into her hand.

He closed his eyes and sighed.

"You said his spirit has been passed to me, right? Then if any of you memories concerns me...or him, ...I want to know."

Hylia had already tempered with so much, and in ways beyond his understanding. He would be hard pressed to let her keep him in the blue about it too. ...Some lines could not be crossed without damaging the mind. And he wished —no— he needed her to understand so much. (...Not just to be able to live with all of this but...to feel like he was still a real person ... )

He wanted to lower his head to gather some resolve, but instead he held her peeling gaze straight on, as if wearing it long enough would convince her to trust him.

"Please," he tried again, "tell me what else you have done, Zelda; all that remains," He didn't chose the name on purpose, though as it just came to him along when his desire to make her understand. Yet he nudged her hand unconsciously before he could balk against it. "It—it's normal to have a secret garden..." he added, partly because she had fell silent, partly to give himself something to focus on other than the warmth of her palm, or his fingers ready to tremble against the new callous of her dainty hand. "Your Grace." he finished, his bland tone making a point as his voice grew darker and he took his hand back.

She had flinched at the adjective. It didn't alleviate her silence, but she drew herself a little higher, her gaze stern, more distant when she heard it.

His right hand moved to his left mechanically before his conscious could register why gesture missed a weight. His magical shield was useless here.

"I get that you don't want, or you can't share some memories... But—"

"Enough."

Her voice didn't come as harsh, nor with a flare of magic. It just sounded a bit exasperate, though and he blinked before remembering to shut his lips.

"Enough," she commended silently, and this time he could feel a ghost of magical energy that slipped over his skin like a blanket, warm and soothing. "I heard you the first time, Link. I understand your point," she finally said, eyes closed and holding on a small sight. "But I needed to consider the implications of disclosing that kind of knowledge to you."

The calming aura alleviated somewhat. He waited, trying not to add a couple more questions in the thin silence.

"I will tell you."