I'll Walk With You

-Cooking Lessons-

It took a lot to make Link's absolute dedication to his ward waver.

In fact, there had been a time in which he'd firmly believed that nothing could weaken his devotion to serving as Zelda's knight and bodyguard, not even when she was openly avoiding him, ditching him at every turn, verbally assaulting him whenever he showed his face even though he was only doing his duty.

He never had second thoughts, not even as the doom of Calamity Ganon steadily began inching closer and closer even though Zelda was making no progress on unlocking her Goddess-given Sealing Powers, nor when he'd awoken after his one-hundred-year sabbatical to find the world in ruin, his princess gone along with his memory, and the responsibility for fixing everything resting squarely on his shoulders. No, Link had been given countless reasons to doubt or second-guess his loyalty to the crown and had never once, not once, given in.

A certain recent change, however, was pushing his thoughts in mutinous directions he'd thought they'd never go.

"It's chowder with roast bass!" Zelda announced, a frenetic sort of energy glowing in her eyes. "You're absolutely going to love it! I've got more if you want seconds, so dig in!"

Roast bass, she said? He spooned around through the sludge in his bowl, prodding at the chunks floating within. Yes, some of this could be bass… but not all of it. His insides knotted themselves painfully.

"Um, Zelda…" He began, trying his hardest to feign a politely quizzical tone, "What else do you have in here?"

"Oh, you know, just a few things…" She replied amiably as she ladled out a dish for herself and settled down beside him to eat, an eager smile on her face, "Some Stamella Mushrooms, to give us a little extra energy for the road. Some pumpkin, some herbs and nuts for seasoning… A Hearty Lizard…"

Link sighed, barely withholding the groan that would have surely set her off.

She'd done it again. Experimented with his dinner.

Sweet Hylia above, give him strength…

Ever since his admittedly disastrous attempts at teaching Zelda how to defend herself (though they'd since kept up with the practice, limiting it only to swordplay and at its most basic level), Link had offered to divert her attention with a different sort of lesson: cooking.

It had seemed at the time like a stroke of brilliance; he knew how Zelda loved experimenting with new things, and with cooking there was always something new to try. Plus, once she learned the basics, the two could switch off who would cook which meals, thus lessening his workload and enabling her to feel as though she were being more useful. That, and it took her mind off wanting to learn some of the more crazier things, like how to stealth-kill a Moblin, something he had adamantly refused to teach her.

She taken to the lessons with surprising gusto, and though the first few weeks had been filled with burnt suppers and runny breakfasts, she'd mastered the basics soon enough and before long he was free to focus his attention on other things on the nights or mornings in which Zelda was responsible for preparing their meals, trusting her to create something reasonably edible. It's not as though he exactly had a lot of room to talk; he wasn't a professional chef either, and Link was anything but picky. If it was food, he would eat it. Lots of it. Very quickly. And Zelda was an incredibly smart woman; if Link could master the art of cooking in the wild, she could too.

Or so he'd assumed.

It wasn't that Zelda's cooking was bad; quite the contrary. She'd mastered the basics faster and better than he had. It was just… at some point, she'd decided that cooking regular food simply wasn't interesting enough for her anymore. The scientific part of her mind, the part of her that craved the unknown, the part that boldly went where no one had gone before, had become bored of the regular, acceptable, tried-and-true recipes that Link had given her and had decided to come up with a few on her own.

That by itself wouldn't be such a big deal – after all, cooking wasn't all that complicated, and if the result of her experimentation was that the seasoning was off or the ingredients didn't complement one another, Link probably wouldn't even notice.

He sighed as he prodded the lump of lizard meat with his spoon.

If only she used actual ingredients meant for cooking…

It had started small. Frogs in their soup. Crushed beetles used as spice. The time she tried to roast a Lizalfos tail on a spit. From there, she'd escalated to boiling Octorok tentacles and trying to spread Chu-Chu jelly over toast. One particularly horrifying evening involved a failed attempt at using Goron Spice and Rock Salt to make palatable an assortment of roasted Keese wings and Molduga fins (not only was the smell enough to make him gag, it was a terrible waste of supplies). And of course, who could forget the stewed Lynel hoof… That one still haunted him in his nightmares.

He'd tried broaching the topic of her culinary escapades with her multiple times, ever so gently, desperately trying to quell her need to experiment with his food without coming across as cruel or ungrateful, but she never seemed to understand Link's hesitation when it came to putting bizarre, uneatable things into their meals.

"It's simply illogical!" She ranted to him one day as the duo made their journey towards the Rito Village, their horses plodding along side-by-side at a steady pace, "Perhaps the flesh of monsters is, in fact, inedible for most biological life-forms, but given the fact that it can be safely consumed in potions and elixirs without ill-effect seems to throw the entire notion into question! Moreover, I know for a fact that insects and lizards and the like are safely consumed by other animals- given the proper spice and preparation, there is no rational reason for why they shouldn't make for perfectly normal meals!"

He hadn't really known how to argue with that; sure, her explanation was sound, and he sort of saw where she was coming from, but at the same time, all of her previous attempts at mixing those things into otherwise normal dishes had resulted in disaster. Experience trumped logic so far as Link was concerned, at least when it came to his food. Though he refrained from telling Zelda that, much to his stomach's chagrin.

Honestly… for all that he'd come to dread mealtime when he knew she was responsible for preparing it, he simply didn't have the heart to do what he knew he'd need to in order to get her to stop. And stop she would if he pressed the issue. Zelda was many things, but self-centered wasn't one of them, and if he made a big enough fuss about the things she did to his food, he knew she'd put an end to her experimentation and return peace and sanity to what was once his favorite time of day.

So then, why didn't he? Why did he leave all expressions of disquiet to subtle suggestions and silent prayers of help to the Goddess rather than confronting Zelda directly?

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched his princess as she carefully held her spoon up to her lips, gingerly blowing on the piping-hot liquid in preparation for placing it into her mouth and taking her first taste of her latest concoction. In the light of the fire, her eyes seemed to dance with poorly-contained excitement and anticipation.

He knew that look. He lived for that look. It was the same one she used to get back before the Calamity when she and Purah and Robbie would tinker around with the Guardians and the lost Sheikah technology. It was the look she got when she allowed herself to become completely absorbed in an activity, as she waited with bated breath to see if her latest experiment would result in success or failure; and oddly, no matter which it wound up being, she never lost that look of rapture and exhilaration that made her expression glow with pride and purpose.

Back then, it was only in times like these that Zelda seemed capable of forgetting the weight of responsibility that rested over her, her duty to her people, her father's expectations, the approaching Calamity… For that reason, he equated that look with the 'real' Zelda, the person she was underneath all the pomp and circumstance, the person she was when she allowed herself to simply 'be'. It didn't matter if it was long-lost ancient technology or the culinary arts; as long as she was learning and experimenting with new things, that was when Zelda was truly at her happiest.

And Link could never bring himself to take that from her. Not for all the delicious food in the world.

As he watched, Zelda eagerly popped her spoon into her mouth and paused, her face screwing up in a pained grimace. Link didn't even have to touch his dinner to tell; once again, her quest had been a failure. He couldn't stop the rueful smile that tugged at the corners of his lips; he felt bad that she'd been unsuccessful again, but the expression on her face was so comical it made him want to bust out laughing. For the sake of her pride, he refrained. Barely.

Swallowing thickly, Zelda turned to Link, her eyes downcast, her shoulders heavy with embarrassment and shame as she mumbled, "…I think perhaps I used a touch too much of that spice."

Link nodded wordlessly, his bowl still held precariously in his hand though he'd yet to taste the food himself. Sure, the spice could be the problem… but if he had to put money on it, it was probably the lizard meat.

"What do you think, Link?"

He blanched. Struggling to keep his face still under her inquisitive gaze, he gave out an internal sigh of resignation. Well, there was no avoiding it now… Any hope of dumping his bowl out behind a bush while she wasn't looking was officially dashed. He had no choice but to take a bite.

Screwing up his courage, Link lifted his spoon and placed it into his mouth.

Oh…

Oh, Goddess…

Was she certain this wasn't simply boiled mud?!

Mustering all his self-control to maintain a straight face (seriously, how did something innocuous like lizard meat turn a respectable chowder into something that tasted akin to putrid moblin sweat?!), Link carefully swallowed the liquid refuse in his mouth and turned to his princess, searching internally for some easy way to let her down without hurting her feelings.

Her eyes were wide and expectant, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, her shoulders set as though expecting a physical blow…

His determination faltered.

"A-actually, Zelda…" He found himself stammering, "I don't think it's half-bad today."

What?

What?

Zelda was staring at him as though she hadn't understood what he'd said. Truth be told, he wasn't certain for a moment that he'd heard himself correctly, either. Before he could reclaim his words, however, Zelda's expression lit up like a sunrise, her smile so wide and radiant that it blew all other thoughts from his mind.

"Really?! You really mean that, Link?!"

He could only nod dumbly, forgetting momentarily what they were talking about. The way she was beaming at him in that moment, her eyes alive with pride, her skin glowing in the firelight, seemed to hold him spellbound. Sweet Hylia above, she looked beautiful…

"I knew it!" She shouted, causing the horses to shuffle nervously. "I knew I was getting closer! Just you wait, Link, one of these days I'll figure out the secret and you'll never doubt my cooking skills again!"

Link nodded, bemused, and before he realized what he was doing, shoved another spoonful of chowder into his mouth.

Oh, sweet mercy…

Thankfully, Zelda didn't notice the way he gagged, completely caught up in her monologue about the ways she could possibly improve the recipe and the potential benefits of mixing the positive aspects of various herbs and vegetables with complementary benefits from insects and monster parts. Link didn't know anything about that; what he did know was that he'd just doomed himself to a veritable lifetime of terrible meals.

Although, he silently mused as he surreptitiously tried to pour some of his stew onto the ground without Zelda noticing, if it meant he got to see her eyes light up like that more often, the sacrifice might just be worth it.