OMG, fam! One, thank you for the kind words! Two, YOU ARE ALL BRILLIANT EVIL GENIUSES. So many delightfully trashtacular prompts! Keep 'em coming! I've already got a few ideas, and I'm adding *every* prompt I receive to my document as a grab bag of trashy goodness. As a note, I might mash up a few prompts, because why the hell not, and also because being an adult means I can make decisions like this without anybody shouting at me. Probably.

Anyway, here we have our first request, written on behalf of my dearest and most perfect friend, CrazygurlMadness. Without further ado, I present to you all the arranged marriage tropeyness you could want, set in the much-neglected universe of Twilight Princess (which, I believe, one of you delightful Guests also asked for).

Oooooorder up!

Drabble II: An Arranged Affair

It felt like her entire queenship had been comprised of people using her as a pawn. First she'd been backed into a corner— through no fault of her own, and more fault of the avaricious council that had corrupted her military— and had been forced to relinquish control of her land to the forces of twilight. Then, she had become a puppet— quite literally— for the ultimate forces of darkness, for the evil Ganondorf.

And now, yet again, she found herself the unwilling piece on someone else's chessboard. As usual. And as usual, she utterly detested the sensation.

"It's a matter of securing your reign, Majesty," said the dour old Lord Butler, one of the advisors on her— formerly her father's— council. "Popular opinion towards the crown is… low, at this time," he said delicately. "It was immediately after the beginning of your reign that the kingdom fell, after all."

Zelda swallowed a hot retort. It hadn't been her fault, but that didn't matter. In terms of fact, in terms of chronology, yes: the fall of the kingdom had been the first major event to occur in her reign. It had happened even before her coronation. Her father had died— poisoned, she privately thought, so as to weaken the country even further— and then— and then—

"The traditional reward for a Hero of the Sword is, of course, generalship over Her Majesty's army," Lord Butler continued, blithely unaware of Zelda's tortured thoughts. "However, this generation's Hero of the Sword has amassed significant regard among the people of Hyrule, common and noble alike. His labors during the darkness, as well as his kindness, made him well-known even before he cleared the clouds from the sky."

Zelda said nothing. Merely waited for the blade of the guillotine to fall.

"He is popular with the people. Forgive me for saying so, Majesty, but he is far more popular than you. With him as your shield and consort, you may be able to avoid a coup. Without him…" Lord Butler spread his hands, inviting her to make what she would of that particularly ominous trailing statement.

And so she found herself cornered again. A pawn once more.

"What does the General think of this… arrangement?" The word tasted foul on her tongue, like oil gone rancid.

"The General has sworn an oath to do whatever is most necessary to secure the safety of Hyrule and her crown," Lord Butler said. Zelda translated: He hasn't been consulted, just as you were not.

You have no choice in this.

"I see," Zelda said bitterly. "My lord, you lay out a persuasive argument. I assume you have already made all the necessary preparations." It wasn't a question. It wasn't even an agreement. Even still, Lord Butler's face lightened with relief.

"Most assuredly, Majesty," the man said. "Preparations are already underway. Of course, the proper thing to do would be a true state wedding, with the traditional year and a day of celebrations, but—"

But the royal coffers were dry. The granaries were nearly empty. They could supply enough food for a feast day for all… And that was it. They would have to trade, and trade dearly, to replenish their stores before winter hit.

"I see." Her mouth tasted like ash. Her tongue was frozen. Her bones were made of wood. She made herself ask anyway, because she was queen, and being queen meant that sometimes (often) you had to face ugly truths. "How soon?"

"Next week."

"I see," she repeated. As soon as she was out of here, away from prying eyes, ensconced safely back in her chambers— her real chambers, not that awful, drafty garret room she'd been forced into during her captivity— she was going to be ill. But in the meantime, she forced a cool nod. Forced her face into its usual, serene mask. Forced herself to behave as though this was all fine. "Very well, Butler. I trust you to see to the preparations. If that is all…?"

"It is," the man said. "I'll work with your secretary to make the necessary arrangements."

"Very well," she said again. She seemed to be repeating herself. But what else was there to say? "Very well. I take my leave of you now, Sir."

And, turning and trying not to look as though she was fleeing, she fled.

Zelda hadn't properly spoken with him since they'd come back from Gerudo Desert. It had been a long, awkward journey— they'd had to walk, slipping and sliding over the dunes, and they'd arrived (finally!) at the edge of civilization dusty and dirty and totally worn through. They hadn't talked much. Hadn't had much in common. Had both been too numb with exhaustion and shock and grief— him more than her, of course— to properly converse.

There had been one moment when she'd been staggering down a dune and the sand beneath her foot had shifted, as sand was wont to do. But she'd been so tired and so unsteady that her legs had buckled, and she'd started to tumbled forward… And then he had been there, steadying her, his hands searing her in a way that even the desert sands couldn't compare to.

"Alright?" He'd asked her. She'd nodded, and he'd stepped away from her, and that had been the last time they'd spoken before they reached the boundaries of Hyrule. As she trudged wearily along in his wake, she realized that he hadn't even referred to her by her title, but then again, it was a title she'd felt at the time (and still felt, sometimes) as though she didn't deserve.

He was a man of few words, the Hero Link. And yet, the memory of his hands holding her up, his strength bracing her, still burned through her.

If only she could forget the other memories, half-hazy, like something from a nightmare, of his unflinching blue eyes, his unyielding grip, the hardness in his face as he'd been forced to strike her with his sword.

She never, ever wanted to get on the wrong side of his weapons. Never ever again.

In the whirlwind of preparations, there was no time for them to speak. She wasn't even sure what she'd say to him, given the opportunity to exchange confidences. It wasn't as though they'd had much in the way of acquaintance prior to this awkward, awful mess. The country had been in a dire way. Their conversations had been limited to the barest exchange of critical information— go here, do this, drive out that evil power.

Not exactly a solid foundation for starting a life together.

Even now, the night before their wedding, they sat side by side at their engagement banquet with silence stretched taut between them. She reached forward to grab her wineglass, but—mortification!— her hands were trembling, her fingers shaking, and she was having trouble getting a grip on the delicate crystal stem.

Warm fingers landed on her gloved wrist, stilling her movements.

"Alright?" He asked in that same low, mellow voice as he had that day in the desert. Zelda tried to nod, but couldn't.

"No," she whispered. She glanced at him askance, afraid of what she might see, but he was smiling.

It wasn't a happy smile.

"Me neither," he confided. They lapsed back into silence, but it was a bit more comfortable. After a moment, he lifted his fingers away, and Zelda felt bereft at the loss of his touch.

Dawn of the next day came too early. She hadn't slept a wink, had tossed and turned all night, her stomach in anxious knots over what was to come. Today she would be married to a man she barely knew, a man she owed everything to.

The first rule her father had taught her was to always open negotiations from a position of power. But in this, she had no power. She was entirely at his mercy. At the mercy of the people who loved him, not her.

She wondered how in the name of all the stars in the sky Lord Butler had managed to get him to agree to this ridiculous scheme. She wondered what leverage the man had used to pressure him— because surely no sense of duty could exhort a man into marriage like this.

Her maids came in and roused her just after sunrise. They bathed her, then trussed her into the traditional wedding dress of the Royal Family— white on white on white, accented with gold, billowing and ancient. Her hair was braided and pinned beneath a long, filmy veil, which was then secured in place by a golden crown. Her nails were buffed and her hands lotioned before they were tucked into long gloves. She was given a bouquet of flowers— Silent Princesses, how appropriate— and ushered to the carriage that would take her to the Temple of Time.

It was a short ride from the palace to the temple, but it was still lined with spectators cheering and throwing flowers. Zelda smiled as best she could, waved as gently as she was able, held herself firmly away from the idea of being violently sick— of leaping out of the carriage and running away, away, away. Before the idea could gain too much appeal, she was pulling into the courtyard of the temple, which had been festooned with colorful bunting. Bells pealed. Flower petals and confetti drifted through the air.

She walked up the stairs, feeling as though she was ascending the executioner's scaffold.

Inside the Temple, it was bright and beautiful. Incense perfumed the air. Nobles and commoners alike lined the aisle, which she walked with slow, measured steps. There at the altar stood her groom. Her husband. Her consort, the general of her army, the hero of her realm.

Don't throw up.

She reached the altar and set her bouquet aside. She slipped her gloved hands into his— also gloved— and let the priest begin his speech. The old man droned on and on and on, pausing only to make the bride and groom repeat the traditional royal vows about fidelity, honesty, responsibility, and Hyrule.

And then they were married.

Don't throw up, Zelda told herself again as her new husband escorted her back down the aisle of the church and handed her up into the carriage. He climbed up after her and settled himself opposite her, studying her.

The door banged shut. They began to creak through the streets. The people were, if possible, cheering even more loudly than before. And yet all Zelda was aware of were those eyes, blue, wolf-blue, the same eyes she'd once seen studying her over the raised blade of a sword.

"Why?" She croaked. Fortunately, he was smart— a stupid man could not have saved the world, after all— and he was able to intuit her question.

"Does it matter?" At her wordless nod, he relaxed back into the cushions, though he still occasionally looked out the window and waved at passerby. "If I'd said no, they would have tried to wed me off to someone else." His mouth kicked up again in that not-smile.

Her throat was still scratchy, dry. "You agreed because I'm the least odious option?"

That not-smile bloomed into something warmer, something more.

"Don't let it go to your head," he said. He— was he teasing her? She stared at him, unable to wrap her mind around the concept. That warm smile slowly faded. "What?"

"When you look at me, do you see…" She gestured. "Do you remember… Back then, when I wasn't myself… Back when Ganondorf..."

She couldn't put words to it. Couldn't even start expressing what it had been like, being that, being under that evil power. And the worst of it was that nobody else knew. Nobody else had seen her. Nobody else understood just how low their queen had fallen back then, back during the darkness.

But he was smart, her hero. Her husband.

"Do I see you flying through the air towards me, nothing in your eyes, your body covered in the marks of evil?" He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. Then he shook his head. "No. That wasn't you."

She released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"I'm glad," she said softly.

He was still studying her, those blue, unnerving eyes intense, and she suddenly wondered if she'd said too much.

"Do you…" he started, but she was saved from hearing the rest of his question— saved from answering whatever awful thing he wanted to know— by their arrival at the palace. A great feast was waiting, and a ball had been planned, and there was no more opportunity to talk privately.

At least, not for many, many hours, not until after they'd danced and dined and pretended to be happy for so long that Zelda's cheeks ached with the pain of smiling, and she just wanted to go to sleep.

But that was a luxury that couldn't be granted. Because when she finally left the party— accompanied by many jeers and whistles from her drunken nobility— her maids stripped her out of that ridiculous, awful dress, and buffed and lotioned her into a smooth shine. They wrapped her in a filmy nightdress that left nothing at all to the imagination, and they blew out all but a few romantically strategic candles, and they left.

Zelda waited in her room, heart hammering in her throat, too afraid to crawl into the sheets and try to sleep. She knew what would come next. While the women had been grooming her, Link would have celebrated on, taking toast after toast. Bolstered by wine, he'd come to her chambers, and… and…

Her mind shut down as she heard the scrape of the door latch.

She shut her eyes and tilted her chin upwards, searching for pride, for dignity in this ridiculous filmy scrap of nothing. She heard his soft bootsteps as he crossed the room— the rustle and shift of fabric, and then—

— and then a warm blanket draped around her shoulders.

Her eyes popped open and she looked up at Link in shock. He was smiling crookedly down at her.

"You looked cold," he told her.

"I…" She hadn't been. But she was still far more comfortable now. So she pulled the blanket more tightly around her shoulders. "Thank you."

He studied her for a long moment, then sat down on the bed beside her. He began pulling off his boots, and Zelda realized for the first time that he wore his General's dress uniform. It had looked absurd on the last General, but Zelda had to admit that his shoulders and muscles filled it out nicely, and the braided epaulets and tassels that should have looked like nonsense frippery somehow lent him an air of… authority, almost.

"We need to talk," he said.

"So talk," she said.

"What you said earlier in the carriage." He looked at her, fixed her with those wolf eyes, and Zelda cursed herself for a dozen kinds of idiot. Drat. He'd remembered. She'd hoped that the celebrations would have driven it straight from his mind. "Do you remember? Can you recall that fight?"

He gave her time to consider her answer by moving his fingers to the buttons of his formal coat, working them through their loops one by one. She thought for a moment about lying. But just that morning, she'd sworn to him at the altar of the Gods that she would always honest. So she was honest.

"A little. Like scraps of a nightmare." She wouldn't look at him. Couldn't. "I remember you. And I remember the sword. And I remember pain."

He hissed out a long, low breath, and slumped. His hands fell away from his chest, his coat half-unbuttoned. "I see. I'm sorry. I'd hoped that you weren't aware when… Well."

And what could she say to that? She shrugged helplessly, because there was nothing she could say, nothing she could do, to make any of this better. Maybe it was the hopelessness, or the exhaustion, or the weight of everything crashing down on her— all the bad options she'd been given, the awful choices she'd been forced to make— but tears began to collect in her eyes. Resolutely, she blinked them away.

But she wasn't quick enough, because a moment later, Link had risen from his seat beside her. He got down before her on one knee, looking up at her, all earnest seriousness, all handsomeness in the candlelight. He took her bare hands in his— also bare— and his touch burned like fire.

"I promise you," he told her. "I will never, ever hurt you again."

"That's a promise you can't make," she said, and she was proud that she sounded more-or-less normal. Mostly. "We'll hurt each other. That's what people do."

"Not like that," Link said. "I will never strike you. I'll never raise a blade against you. I'll protect you from harm, always."

His little speech had brought out his country accent— soft, mellow, and inexplicably reassuring. Now she was crying, and she hated herself for those tears.

"I'm sorry," Zelda said to him as he squeezed her hands in comfort. When he tried to pull away, however, she held tight. "I'm sorry that I was the least bad of your bad options."

He looked at her for a long moment. Then he smiled. It was a real smile, not the brittle half-quirk of his lips she'd been seeing all day.

"I'm sorry too," he told her. "That I was the least bad of yours. But we're in this together. Alright?"

Zelda nodded, trying to get herself back under control.

"Alright," she said after a moment. She released his hands and wiped her eyes with the edge of the blanket he'd tossed around her shoulders. "Alright," she said again, and her voice was much steadier. "Thank you, Link."

"You're welcome," he replied, and that smile was still there. "Zelda."

She found herself smiling weakly back at him now, feeling a little more comfortable, a little more at ease.

"I'm exhausted," he told her, rising to his full (although admittedly unimpressive) height. He yawned and pulled off his dress coat. "If you'll give me that blanket, I'll kip in front of the fire."

Zelda looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head in wonder. If ever she'd needed proof that here was a hero among men— as though his many valiant deeds hadn't already proven that beyond a doubt— here it was.

"What?"

"You're being ridiculous," she said. "This is our wedding night. This is our wedding bed. I'm not saying—" her cheeks flushed, and she paused. "That is, I'm not making you any sort of... invitation. Rather, you'll be much more comfortable up here."

He frowned at her. After a moment, he asked, "Are you sure? I don't want you to be uncomfortable."

She tilted her chin up. She might be a blubbering mess, and he might have seen her at her very worst— several times now, as a matter of fact— but she was still a Queen, by the Goddesses, and she was not to be second-guessed.

"You've promised not to hurt me," she said simply. "I believe you. Now come get some rest."

He stared at her for a long moment, then let out a low, amused laugh. It was a laugh like music to her ears, a laugh that warmed her straight through, a laugh that sent light and heat to the darkest, coldest parts of her. She could learn to love that laugh, she thought.

"As my lady wife commands me," he said, and there was warmth in his voice, and affection, and kindness.

And somehow, Zelda suddenly felt much, much better.

WHEW! That came out quite a bit longer than I'd originally planned, but I am quite quite pleased with the result. What garbage. Muahaha.

Coming up tomorrow: by request of the charming Ravenmist4, we'll have BOTW Zelda trying to escape the overbearing supervision of her ridiculously annoying (and annoyingly good looking) personal guard. Until then, stay safe, stay inside, and WASH YOUR HANDS! Air smoochies to all, and to all a good night.