Impa's tent was cold, harsh, and hollow. Zelda sat in the corner upon a meager stool, knees bent and pressed up to her chest, chin atop them, staring at the dull grey canvas with a void in her heart that seemed to only worsen with each passing day.

"Three months and I didn't see anyone so much as see you coming, and you spend three days back as yourself and you've already been injured several times." The Sheikah warrior dapped the bloodied cloth into her bowl once more before bringing it to the ugly gash across the princess's shoulder. The younger woman winced but let her audible hiss die on her tongue without any words.

Impa finished cleaning the cut and took care to cover it with a fresh piece of gauze before pulling away from the silent princess. A red potion would have been much more efficient. But their supply was running low, and at times where red potions ran low they were typically saved for those at death's door, not the Princess of Hyrule with a minor cut across her arm. Impa's eyes caught sight of a dark purple and browning spot on the princess neck and she reached out instinctually to inspect it concern.

"That's not an injury," Zelda explained quickly as she pulled the collar of her gown up in meager attempts to hide the ugly bruise.

Impa raised a brow, glancing back at the location of the suspicious bruise one more time before stepping away without a sound.

Zelda refolded her arms tightly over her knees and chest and let her ears sync to sound of her breathing. She hated this. She hated being in this war as Zelda. She missed so much being Sheik of the Sheikah where no one knew who she was and let her be and she could spend her evenings close to his warm body and love.

"Did he know?" Impa's voice broke the princess's self loathing with quiet attention. Zelda didn't even so much as glanced at the woman, her blue eyes still slightly glazed and definitely focused on the dirty canvas wall.

"No."

Impa frowned, clearly expecting a different answer from the young woman but didn't comment with any more words that would only further the young woman's suffering.

Zelda remained still, never moving from her position as Impa busied herself with cleaning up the dirty rags and bandages and discarded, tattered garments the princess had removed a few hours prior. It was nearly twenty minutes later when the Sheikah warrior finally came before the princess, crouching to her eye level before getting her attention.

"You love him." The older woman didn't ask it as a question but rather stated it as a truth.

Zelda looked up to her most trusted ally and met eyes with her.

"It's improper," Her voice spoke small and fragile.

"That has nothing to to do with the shadow of the moon, Princess."

Zelda kept her eyes trained a moment longer before finally giving in and burying her face in her arms and purposely avoiding the question. It didn't matter, however. Zelda's reluctance to give her Sheikah assistant a response was an answer in itself.

"So you've been sleeping with him for about three months, you've fallen in love with him, and it never occurred to you that perhaps informing him that you were the future Queen of Hyrule may be a good idea?"

Zelda grunted and finally stood from her perch with a surprising fluidity. She paced the room uneasily but Impa let her do so, simply keeping eye on her charge and letting her divulge her information on her own terms.

"This whole thing was just a fantasy," the princess spoke softly. She paused her pacing by looking down at her feet and for a moment remembered the feel of his lips kissing up her ankle and calf and how luxurious those calloused hands felt in her flesh. "I did it to save the army the worry of having to watch out for the princess while out on the field and give myself a chance to be part of the fight. I wanted to fight with my men and protect what was given to me at birth. It felt like it was my place to do so." She breathed in deeply through her mouth and out through her nose. "But it was stupid and naive to think I could handle the treachery of a war like this alone."

But she wasn't alone. In the time she needed someone most, she found herself in his arms and that was where the trouble all started.

Impa paced closer with a thought in mind she almost dared not ask. "Did you at the least…" Impa's voice trailed off as if searching for the most delicate choice of words. "Protect yourself?"

It took zelda a moment to understand what her Sheikah familiar was insinuating, but once the reality of her question registered in her mind, Zelda's face immediately burned crimson red to the tips of her ears.

"Oh course!" She hissed almost instantly. What a thought. "It was naive enough to think this fantasy could go on, I wasn't going to let myself get pregnant too."

She could only imagine the kingdom gossip if the future Queen of Hyrule came back from war pregnant with one of her knight's child. Eyebrows would rise higher than Hyrule Castle's highest spire and she never was terribly comfortable with heights.

"You taught me better than that."

Impa had to crack a triumphant smirk at that.

Look at the woman you've become.

She still remembered the day the princess' mother had passed and she'd been appointed to the infant's care. She'd sworn her undying allegiance to the Royal Family much like her ancestors before her, but she'd never expected the task would place her in a maternal role of raising the future Queen of Hyrule.

Now as she watched the young woman broken over her own choices, there was a pride buried somewhere deep in the Sheikah's heart she feared she understood the significance was but dared not speak aloud.

Hyrule had a magnificent Queen ahead of them, if this war would end in time for them to meet her.

Zelda breathed out slowly and looked back towards the old grey canvas of the tent wall. She didn't say anything else, and remained as if entranced in a past time replaying in her memory. Impa's impressive Sheikah abilities were vast and mysterious by nature, but they did not include reading Hylian minds.

Still. The way the princess stared into the void and held herself as limp as a homeless hound gave her more than enough information for her to guess who was plaguing the young woman's mind.

If only broken hearts were as easy to mend as battle wounds.

—-—-—-—-—-—-

The following few weeks brought a new excitement to the Hyrulean forces. With the return of their Princess and future Queen, Hyrule's army seemed inspired to new strength and force. They tackled down monsters and foes with a new vengeance and fought back with enough force to counter twice their man power.

Zelda watched but rarely took part in the fight any longer.

It's too dangerous for the princess to take part!

She could get hurt!

She could be abducted!

Princesses don't belong in battle!

The disgust of such thoughts alone made her sick to her stomach. But she understood that with her role and soon-to-be-Queen, she needed to take certain precautions.

So she sat back and watched as men fought and battles were won and the dead brought back for burial and she prayed over the bodies of each one for a blessing from the Goddess to bring them peace.

She managed well enough in the beginning. She knew she didn't have much choice. As a random and unknown Sheikah warrior, she was anonymous and hidden. No one would target her specifically.

As the Princess of Hyrule, she would have an enormous red target on her 'pretty little head,' as someone had so aptly worded.

So she stayed.

And prayed.

And watched her knights and soldiers take off for battles she didn't know if they had a chance of surviving and praying even harder he would come back to her.

And he always did with triumph in his eye and a well played manufactured smile on his handsome face when he saw her again upon his return. He never spoke to her. He always knelt for the princess with the other knights. He always came back.

Until he didn't.

It was a particularly dark night when the Hyrulean soldiers set out to investigate nearby Faron Woods. Soldiers had left early in the day to look for any suspicious activity and never returned. When it great late and the remaining force worried, Impa and Link led a majority of the remaining men out in search of the missing Hylians.

The princess - of course - was instructed to stay with a small group of guards to ensure her safety. She waited. And waited. And waited. And just when she was nearly falling asleep with the moon high in the sky, Impa returned - alone without any accompanying soldiers and without Link.

The Sheikah blew through the area before any guards even realized she was there. She grabbed Zelda's hand with aggressive accuracy pulling the princess to her feet and into her tent before a word was even spoken.

"What's wrong?" Zelda immediately called once she landed with miraculous grace in the tent. Impa didn't answer and instead through the younger woman a pile of clothes and cloth.

"Put it on. Link can't do this alone." She watched the princess falter and look at the clothing in her hands for a moment. "Dress," she repeated in a more forceful tone. "Now."

Time seemed to pass in a blur after that. Zelda had dressed so fast, she barely remember tying her hair or covering her face.

And then she was there, Impa on her left and a group of soldiers on her right, looking up at a sinister black toware in the middle of land poisoned by dark magic of an entirely different source that the shadow that encompassed the Sheikah or light of the princess.

The air buzzed with power unfiltered by Earthly space and a loud ominous roar shook the Earth beneath their feet as they approached.

Impa looked at the disguised princess beside her at the safe time she looked at her. They didn't need verbal discussion to understand each other.

Go.

She flew.

Zelda dashed down corridors and grass and up walls and corners as if as light as the wind and silent as a shadow.

No longer restrained by heavy armor and massive skirts and crowns, she felt as if her Sheikah disguise gave her a power held dormant the past few days she'd shed her wraps and mask. It emanated from within her soul and fueled her feet and arms and drive forward.

And him.

He drove her concentration - her undeniable, unfaltering speed and determination to progress forward and search each space with unmatched speed.

She flew into a room and froze.

Link stood in the center of the abandoned keep, sword in hand, dirt on his face and tears on his tunic, but definitely alive. He met her eyes almost as soon as she found him, but didn't say anything for several moments.

She didn't understand. He didn't look too badly injured. He didn't look to be in peril. There didn't even seem to be an enemy in the space. In fact, she didn't feel any immediate threat or shift in power at all except the triangle on her hand begun to glow from beneath her wraps indicating he was, in fact, the real Hero of Hyrule.

Zelda narrowed her eyes in suspicion and Link final broke his stoney silence.

"I take it this means you're not abducted by Cia and waiting for me courage to come to the rescue?"

At that the disguised princess did react. She stood up straighter, furrowed her brows and pulled her mask down to hang around her neck. She wanted to speak, and she took a step forward and opened her mouth to say anything that would help.

But the words died on her lips and her feet stopped beneath her and it was just her and him standing in the middle of an abandoned fort in the middle of the night. The bright light of a full moon illuminated the space so clearly, Zelda could make out the look in her Hero's eyes.

They weren't eyes of fear or anger or even regret.

They were eyes of apology.

It all made sense at once. Impa returning on her own, all her soldiers unaccounted for. Link needing her help but no one following behind her. The look of recognition must have registered on the princess' face because Link broke in to a wide, uncharacteristic grin.

"Impa called you here, didn't she?"

It was a trap.

Zelda turned on her heel ready to flee and track down that infuriating Sheikah for what she'd just pulled when Link called out.

"Sheik, wait." She could hear his rushed footsteps behind her and then they stilled and he entered her space. She could feel the heat radiating of his body at how close he stood to her. Link reached out a hand to touch her arm, but Zelda was a foot away before he could even register her movement.

"Zelda," she said definitively. She tried to keep her voice from wavering with the thoughts in her mind and heaviness in her heart. "My name is Zelda," she repeated once more for emphasis.

For a moment Link didn't speak and the princess listened to the sound of his breathing. Slow, heavy, steady.

"Princess Zelda, the future Queen of Hyrule."

She felt her eyes burn at hearing the words in his voice.

"I know who you are, Princess." He tried again to reach for her arm, and this time she let him. He pulled gently and she turned in his direction but didn't meet his eye. "Aren't Royals supposed to yield to no one and look them in the eyes when they speak as a form of showing their power?"

Zelda swallowed thickly and felt her resolving cracking under his words. She was standing so close to him, she could feel his breath on her cheek when he spoke. She felt him leaning closer and wanted so badly to feel his kiss again. But…

"We can't, Link."

Zelda's chest positively trembled with the resolve she tried so desperately to hold on to, but she knew she'd lost the battle already. She felt it in the shiver of her spine and tightening of her throat and numbness in her fingertips.

"Why not?" He reached out a hand to her cheek and she immediately leaned into his touch with eyes pressed painfully closed.

"Its improper." She choked on the words with a swell of emotion flooding her veins. "It would never been accepted."

"Do you love me?" Link's question was not one the princess had expected and she finally looked up to meet his eyes.

His eyes were so blue in the light, it was if she'd never truly seen them. They held such an intensity in them, they seemed to radiate with power in them. Or maybe it wasn't power, exactly. It was something else entirely. A force that reached out to her and pulled her close into his orbit like gravity.

She couldn't. She closed her eyes so tight her vision changed colors in the darkness of her sightlessness.

"Princess, please." He pleaded with her for an answer and asked her again. "Do you love me?"

She felt the gasp coming off her lips before she'd even registered it's building. "I can't," she now spoke out with tears in her eyes. "I can't love you."

"That's not an answer." He waited again but she didn't move. "Zelda, please."

The last straw of resolve snapped all in the same instance.

Zelda's hands reached out and pulled him forward by the hair so quick he didn't even register her movement until her mouth pressed hard against his. She gasped loud enough into his lips that it echoed in his ears.

Link reacted with arms wrapping around her body and she melted into his hold and he pressed her close to his body.

It was like she wanted to absorb him into her body.

"I love you so much, it hurts." Her voice was so tiny and soft and swallowed by his mouth and taste and velvety lips moving so gently against hers he barely heard it at all.

But he did.

She pulled away for breath but Link held her so close their foreheads rested against one another. It was as if an insurmountable weight were lifted off her chest, and Zelda felt so light, she felt it all bubble in her body until it came out of her mouth in what unmistakably sounded like a laugh.

"I love you, Link." She kissed him again and brought his face so close to hers it was as if she breathed through his body. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

Link smiled against her and felt his skin buzz when she finally released his mouth and let him speak. His head swirled and body buzzed and he was pretty sure he had a wound on his arm that was bleeding through his tunic at the moment but it made him no difference.

He'd heard her.