HAPPY SATURDAY. I have groceries. And of course, what am I craving? Chick-fil-a nuggets. Pounds and pounds of them all dunked in sauce. Ugh.
Anyway. I have to write this shortie, and then I'm making dinner. Dinner tonight is not chicken nuggets. We have no chicken, and are actually functionally vegetarian (and not just because it's impossible to get groceries).
Right. Focus, Lyxie. Stop thinking about food.
Presenting, for your reading pleasure: A sweet bedtime scene with the TP Link and Zelda that I hitched together in an earlier chapter. Same characters, same world, but not a direct sequel, so don't ask me to fill in the gaps between then and now.
ORDER UP!
Drabble XV: Awakening
Autumn dragged pads of its chilly fingers across the diamond-paned windows of the royal suite. Zelda sat before the fireplace, staring pensively into the embers, listening to the wind howl outside.
"Rupee for your thoughts," her husband said, lightly dropping into the plush chair next to hers.
Zelda shrugged a shoulder. She'd thrown a thick shawl of Ordonian wool over her night rail— partially because it was warm and snuggly, and partly because she knew how Link liked it. King and General he might be, but her husband was a simple man, still a country boy at heart, and relished any illusion that theirs was an ordinary life.
"I always get moody this time of year," she said softly. A tray sat on the table between their chairs, and Zelda reached over for a delicate teacup. She curled her fingers around the delicate china. "The days getting shorter and darker, the air getting cold… It reminds me of the Twilight."
Link inhaled, then exhaled heavily, but didn't say anything. He didn't need to: She was fluent in the nuances of his breaths and silences, and this one was empathetic. Understanding.
Perhaps he felt it, too.
"All over the kingdom, the people are bringing in the crops and making ready for winter," Zelda said. "There are harvest festivals and celebrations. Children are asking their parents when the first snow will come." Her lips quirked. "In some places, it already has."
"Did you used to like fall?" His voice was soft, gentle. Over the past few years of their marriage, his country accent had eroded, smoothed into something a little mellower. But in moments when he was in the grips of some powerful emotion, or in quiet moments like these, the old twang came back.
"I enjoyed the changing of the leaves," she said absently. "But not the cold. I've never much cared for it. The only thing I've ever liked about winter is skating."
"And cocoa," he teased gently. Zelda felt a smile fluttering at the corners of her lips.
"And that," she agreed. She glanced at the dark windows again, heard the murmur of the wind, and shook her head. "I'm sorry for being so maudlin tonight."
"It's fine," he said. "You're fine."
They sat in companionable silence for a while, Zelda sipping her tea, Link petting the massive wolfhound that had settled at his side. Beast was a hunting dog— the king's hunting dog— but the monster refused to stay in the stables. Wherever the king went, the hound went, which was fine with Zelda. Link seemed to have retained that empathetic bond with animals that he'd established when he wore the form of a wolf, and she had to admit that the beast seemed to comfort her husband.
After a few moments, Link unfolded from the chair, standing and stretching. Zelda watched him go with half an eye as he puttered across the room. Beast stayed in his spot before the fire, his dark eyes watching Link with pure doggy devotion. Zelda heard him rummaging about in her dressing table, and smiled. She knew what was coming.
Beast thumped his tail against the hearth rug as Link returned. Zelda heard her husband behind her, and a moment later, felt the soft pull of brush bristles through her hair. The smile broadened on her face and she relaxed back into the chair, back into her husband's gentle touch.
The hair-brushing had started early in their marriage. It had begun after a ball, when Zelda's hair was unusually knotted and snarled from a particularly torturesome updo, and she'd grown tired of her maid's tugging and detangling and sent the woman away. She'd buried her face in her hands and begun to weep, and then a few moments later, she'd felt it.
The soft, gentle ministrations of Link as he tended to her hair.
He hadn't said anything at the time, and neither had he, but it had become a routine for them. Not every night. Not even every week. But whenever one of them was particularly worried, or agitated, or upset, Link would go get the brush. It was soothing for both of them, and eventually, Link even admitted that it reminded him of simpler times spent tending to his horse.
Zelda had known him well enough at that point to be flattered by the comparison, rather than offended.
He brushed her hair in silence for a while. Slowly, Zelda felt the knots in her neck relaxing, the lines between her eyebrows smoothing. After a while, Link eased off, then stopped entirely. He laid his hand on her shoulder, and Zelda reached up to lace her fingers with his own.
"Better?"
"Much." She gave his hand a squeeze. "Thank you."
He squeezed back, his fingers tightening comfortingly on her shoulder, and Zelda felt that dark, soft, hidden part of her heart— the part that was his and his alone— warming and swelling. Goddesses almighty, but she did love this man, unlikely at it had seemed once upon a time. When they'd been married, all she could think of was that the only thing they had in common was trauma. And it had been true, at the time, but they'd been kind to each other. There had been a truce.
From the truce had come friendship, slow but warm. From friendship, deep respect. And from respect, slowly but surely, they'd fallen deeply, quietly, richly in love.
Her hero. Her general. Her king. Her husband.
Her Link.
"Will you come to bed?" Zelda asked him after a moment. "I'm not tired, but… I'd rather like to be held." Though she was much more relaxed, part of her was still feeling vulnerable and cold and afraid of what laid between the light and the dark. When she spoke, her voice was small. "Will you hold me?"
Link slid his hand down his arm in a comforting caress.
"Of course," he said.
They moved around the suite, blowing out candles, banking the fire. Beast curled up in his customary place, on a large rug at the foot of the bed, and they each climbed into the massive four-poster. They drew the curtains, and in the darkness, Link pulled her to him, nestling his body protectively around hers.
With her ear pressed to his chest, listening to the comfortingly steady thump-thump-thump of her husband's heart, Zelda drifted off to sleep.
She awoke midway through the night. She was thirsty.
In the night, she and Link had drifted apart, though he was still close enough to touch. She could feel him sprawled on his back, could hear the soft, steady susurration of his breathing.
Bracing herself, she slid out of the bedsheets and pushed the curtains open. Though the floor of the royal suite was carpeted in thick rugs, it was still cold outside the bubble of warmth she and Link had created, and Zelda immediately began shivering. She threw on her Ordonian wrap and made her way into the chamber.
At the foot of the bed, Beast raised his head at the sight of her, thumping his tail a few times on the floor. Then he went back to sleep. Zelda padded past the great, huge dog, to the ewer set beside the banked fire. She poured herself a goblet and drank thirstily, parched.
Outside, distant thunder sounded. That must have been what woke her in the first place. As she finished her cup, she looked out the window. She couldn't hear rain, but she was sure it was coming: A touch of her fingers against the glass windows told her that outside it had gotten even colder, and likely they'd have sleet tomorrow.
Lightning streaked across the sky, and with it, a face lit up in the window, a reflection that was not hers. A face as smooth as stone. Unnaturally high cheekbones. A pointed chin and a flat nose like a snake. Glowing golden eyes. Skin the color of ash.
Zant.
Zelda gasped, dropping the goblet and stumbling back, but the lightning was gone, and with it, the face. She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the rapid thump-thump-thump of her racing heart. Terror lanced through her veins. Perhaps it had just been a trick of the light— a hallucination brought on by unhappy memory—
She turned on a heel— to wake Link, to retreat into bed, she wasn't sure— but he was there, standing behind her, looming above her in all of his nightmarish majesty. She took a deep breath to scream, and—
— woke up.
Her eyes popped open. Her heart was hammering. She was still in bed. It was pitch black within the curtains. Zelda was sticky with nightmare sweat, but she couldn't make herself get up.
"Link?" Her voice was tiny and shaking. Still, her husband— ever the warrior— came to alertness in a moment, although it the moment was rather ruined by an undignified snort.
"Selta?" He slurred, still half asleep. "'Swrong?"
"I had a nightmare," she said, still in that awful, small voice. "Can you… Can you get up and check something for me?"
He sniffed and snorted and sat up.
"Sure," he said, his voice froggy but more alert than it had been a moment before. "What do you need?"
"Can you find out if there's been thunder or lightning outside? Please," she added to the peculiar silence that followed— she knew he was wondering if she'd completely lost her mind. "I'll explain why once you're back."
"Alright," Link said. The bed bumped and the sheets rustled as he clambered out. She heard him mutter a curse as his feet hit the cold rugs, and Beast gave a gentle chuff as Link shivered across the suite and to the hallway.
She heard him open the door, ask a question of the hall guard. The guard answered something, and Link replied, his voice a bit more forceful now. Zelda pushed herself up so that she was seated, too, and she waited in agony, terrified of what the answer might be. If there hadn't been lightning or thunder, she would look foolish, but that she could live with. But if there had…
If there had, was it just a nightmare? Or was it a vision? A warning of something more?
After an agonizing handful of minutes that felt like a lifetime, Zelda heard Link say something— a thanks, judging from the cadence of his voice— and the door shut. A moment later, the bed sagged as Link crawled in beside her, twitching the curtains shut.
"It's been clear all night. No thunder or lightning— not here, and not anywhere else in the kingdom." He edged across the mattress and slipped an arm around her shoulder. "Would you like to tell me what this is about?"
"I… I had a nightmare," Zelda said again, feeling both very foolish and very relieved. "In the nightmare, I woke up, and I walked to the window. There was thunder and lightning outside, and through the bolts of light, I could see…" She didn't like to speak the name. She couldn't bring herself to. So she swallowed. "The usurper. I saw him outside our window, but only for an instant. And when I turned to wake you, he was in here. He grabbed me, and… and then I woke up."
Link tilted his cheek against her hair, and she snuggled a little more firmly into him.
"You were worried it was a vision." It wasn't a question. Even still, Zelda shrugged.
"I have them sometimes," she said instead. "I was… I thought it might be a portent."
"No portents here," he said. He kissed the top of her hair. "Only nightmares. Do you think you can get back to sleep?"
"If you hold me some more," she said, still feeling very silly.
"Oh, no." His voice was dry. "Not that. You know what a chore cuddling is for me."
She didn't laugh, but she did smile, which she knew had been his goal. Zelda let him draw her down so they were snuggling together in the warmth of their blankets, just as they had been before she fell asleep.
After a long moment, she tapped his rib.
"I'm sorry for waking you up," she said. She tried to sound wry, but mostly just sounded pathetic. "I feel very foolish."
"It's fine," he said. "You know to wake me up whenever you're scared."
"I know," Zelda said, leaning more comfortable against him. "And you know to do the same." He would, too— had before, several times. She'd even woken him up from nightmares in the past, shaking his shoulder until he came to, his eyes haunted.
He hummed an affirmative. From the sound of it, he was already lapsing back into sleep. At this, Zelda couldn't help but roll her eyes. Why was it always so dratted easy for him to doze off?
She didn't know. But she didn't mind. As she listened to his breathing even out, felt the muscles in his arms relaxing even as he kept her pulled flush against him, she couldn't resent him for the ease with which he woke, slept, helped, forgave. It was one of the things— the many, many things— that she loved and adored about him.
Feeling comforted, and safe, and warm, and loved, Zelda drifted back off into sleep.
Ta da! That's all for now, kids. Tomorrow night we'll have a little memory from Link and Zelda's childhood on Skyloft, as requested by Katia0203, because Skyward Sword is an underrated game and I want to write about giant birds.
Until then, stay safe, stay inside, and WASH YOUR HANDS! Air smoochies to all, and to all a good night.
