They start off together at a slow pace.

"Anywhere in particular?" He asks.

"That ridge with the view of Hyrule Field, that was nice."

He nods. "It was. What did you want to discuss?"

"It can wait until we get there."

He has an idea of what she wants to discuss. They wander the edge of camp as it goes about its day to day activity and eventually end up back on the ridge, looking out over the far off green of central Hyrule.

"Link. About yesterday."

He braces himself, but doesn't say anything. He finds the castle and decides to marvel over the walls surrounding Castletown.

"I have been thinking. Thinking a lot. Maybe we should just see where things go on their own."

What. He rocks onto the balls of his feet and back. "Uh, sor-what?"

"I think we can let things between us wander on and see where they go. We need to be discreet." She takes a long pause, choosing her thoughts with care. "This is getting very real, and I am feeling the pressures of this role. It is lonely. Very lonely."

She stops and shifts her feet. She tightens her grip on his bicep. He tilts his head as she increases pressure. Her gaze is far away. He isn't sure she realizes how tightly she is holding on.

"You understand this, how it feels here. You are easy to be around. I enjoy being around you."

She stops again. He flicks his eyes to her, then forward again.

"I am often slow to ask for things," she whispers. "Even things I need, things I want. I need to know I am not alone, I want you to be at my side. It would be nice to have one good thing right now."

He finds a spot on the horizon to focus on. There is no name for the emotion he feels, but it's reckless and hopeful and good. He can feel the pulse at the base of his throat and is grateful the cloak he wears covers it. "I. I would like that, Zelda. Very much."

He stares out over the view, but nothing is registering very deeply. He is full of pink light and sparkles. It's a wonderful way to feel. A moment later, he turns to face her for the first time. She is already looking at him, her expression soft but confident. There is fire in those blue eyes, and it is for him, it is his.

"May I kiss you, again?"

She smiles. "I would like that, Link. Very much."

She is already so close. He closes his eyes and leans in.

He doesn't really remember walking her back into camp later. He feels taller and his steps are lighter. It's good to not have the fate of the world at the forefront, if only for a little while. He brings her back to her field office where she dismisses him with a nod and he thinks about how he still feels her lips on his when she does so. This is a good day. It is a day that cannot be ruined. It's one he will think back on, later, when he needs to draw strength from nothing.

Camp broke late the next morning, and the ride to Wolfpeak started uneventfully, at least. Link suspected he was getting a room out of this, or at least a bed. He'd be very happy with just a bed. Weeks on the road in the cold left him stiff in the morning, and he felt his limp was far more pronounced. Using this town as a base camp should work out better than this traveling show they had been. They still had a few days of travel before them and he daydreamed about sleeping off the ground as the road rolled on.

He hoped that whatever was destroying little villages didn't decide to try a larger target.

Impa was declared fit to ride, and managed to trade her chestnut horse for something larger and calmer. She had certainly felt well enough to prod Link on what may have transpired between him and Zelda. By the second afternoon, she had pressed again as they trailed behind the group and he finally asked her for rose garden rules.

"You know," he said. "What I tell you doesn't leave the garden."

She considered it for a long minute.

"I mean it, Impa. Rose garden rules."

"Fine. Rose garden rules. What happened?"

He side stepped Epona closer to her and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "We went for a walk. In private. But also in front of everyone"

Impa rolled her eyes and pulled her horse to a halt. He sank into his saddle a bit and closed his hands on his reins, marching Epona to a halt as well.

"It was nice. I would do it again. I'd like to do it again, and I think she would as well."

"Link. Come on."

"Okay, then. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. We held hands. Also nice."

"Link."

"You're tough. So, what then. Oh, yes. We kissed. Again nice, would do it again."

"You did not. Did you?" She snaps around to stare at him hard. He just meets her and reminds himself he is not lying to her.

"You're impossible," she huffs, exasperated. "Fine. I'll leave you alone."

"Thank you," he sings and clucks Epona to a trot to catch up.

The next day she finds him early. The wound on her forehead is healing well, he thinks. Her stitches might come out before they get to Wolfpeak. She sits next to him as he works on yet another cup of black coffee, and then leans into him, lips at his right ear.

"You did kiss her, didn't you?" He wondered if she had figured it out alone. She probably had.

"Yes, that's what I told you. Impa," he whispers back. "And this isn't the place for this."

"Then let's go find a place, because I have questions."

He rolls his eyes and tosses his head, clutching his coffee mug closer. "Let's go." He turns and heads to the perimeter of the camp, Impa trailing behind.

They have gotten just out of earshot when she grabs his sleeve to stop him. "You kissed her."

"I did. She kissed me back. It was good. I don't see why it matters."

Impa opens her mouth and reconsiders whatever she is about to say. "It matters because you both have the fate of the world upon you."

"If that world does not include spaces for people to find each other, it does not deserve saving. Impa. You cannot wait for things to be perfect to do things. Sometimes you need to just do them."

"This is not really an ideal time for something like this."

"There is never an ideal time for anything, Impa. You have to take things as they come. If I die, and I might, I still got to kiss her.

"I had a discussion with a friend in Gerudo. How did she say it., mortals love in more different ways and more deeply than gods do. Why do the goddesses need us to settle their old scores? Maybe it's because mortals can do different things. It was the best first kiss I've ever had. It was different." He drops his head and studies the tops of his boots for a moment, before turning back to Impa. "I think we are better for it."

"Well, you're both adults."

"We are."

They stand together in silence for several minutes. "I'm not going to regret it, Impa."

"I did not imply you would."

"Its just. Its fine for this big story to play out here, and I'm sure it will be exciting to tell someday. Going through it. Its different, and its lonely, and I'm tired of walking alone. It feels right, how can it be wrong? All I did was kiss her.

"Why do you seem upset, Impa?"

"I worry. It is my job to advise. It is hard to separate the job from the relationships. The discussions we-Zelda and I-had seemed to lean differently, but maybe she had other thoughts all along. I am glad if you've found something, whatever it is, but I hope neither of you are distracted with whatever it is you're doing. We all hang in the balance."

"You think we are being selfish."

"Maybe." She meets his eyes sympathetically.

"I think that we need to work together and if we are doing so with trust and all, that has to be better. If that trust comes with having a person who you can enjoy being with just to be. It is good for me to have something like this. Maybe its not the intimate friendship you envisioned, but I think it is good for my soul. I hope it's good for hers. I need a bright thing out here, Impa, that's all. I am not entirely sure why I need to justify it to you?"

"You don't, and I didn't mean to make you feel that way."

"No one is running off, it was just a kiss."

She says nothing. He does not like feeling judged.

"It was just a kiss."

"It is what it is, Link. We move forward from here. Let's go warm up your coffee." She turns and heads back. He stays for a moment, thinking. He doesn't regret kissing her, he'd do it again. Surely the goddesses cannot be so cruel as to force responsibility and then tease him with the hope of love, however that might mean, but withhold it.

Right?

Right?

And then he had a thought. What if his entire life had just been divine manipulation?

This stops him cold. He wonders if he should pursue the thought further, and decides if he was meant to be bold, then why not?

But what if...

He'd wrapped his hands around a holy relic when he was sixteen, and that act let the goddesses know he had arrived, and maybe they planted the idea of leaving his miserable home with the promise of adventure. Or even just escape? And he could be close to Hylia reborn, just in case? How far did it go? Did Farore tip his senses to that moblin that killed his horse and broke his leg, leading him to a position where he would be wrapping his hands around that same sacred relic until it decided that yes, his service was required?

He furrows his brow at the implications. How far the other way? Was he born to parents who said they loved him, of course they did, but treated him as a problem and inconvenience at every turn so that when a chance to leave presented itself, he was more than ready to take it?

You think you make your own choices, and make your own paths, and it's a wonderful delusion, but so much is already set before you even put your boots on.

He is reeling. This is too much for one person to deal with. He wordlessly stumbles back to camp, leaving his coffee cup at the mess table. He doesn't really recall packing his things or fetching Epona. He has been in the saddle an hour, letting the mare drift along at her big,ground covering walk when he spots Zelda's long white coat, trimmed in pink and gold, in sharp contrast to the dark bay horse she rides. She is flanked by royal guards and appears lost in her own thoughts.

That's who he needs to talk to.

"Your majesty," he is slightly breathless as he rides up to her. "I seek your wisdom."

"And what do you need, sir?"

He pauses, glancing at the cadre of guards she has in her orbit. "Privacy," he says. "I would like to make this inquiry in private."

Her blue eyes look deeply into him and she cocks her head a little. She turns to her guards. "You are dismissed. I will be safe with the Hero of Hyrule." The guards peel off and when they are relatively alone, she whispers to him. "Link, what do you need?"

"I need to talk about what being chosen by Farore means. You are better educated on this."

He pours out his revelations to her, ending by asking her where the story ends and he begins. The story he had told himself about himself was a lie, and he was coming around to that concept. He is not ready for this layer, the one that suggested he was merely along for a ride, a tool, and maybe nothing more. This is still new to him, she grew up with these ideas, right?

She moves her reins into her right hand, and stretches her left to him. "Take it," she whispers. He gathers his reins in his left hand and offers his right to her. There's a small jolt on contact. He doesn't think he will ever really get used to that. The back of his hand warms in her grasp.

"Link. It can't all be preordained, or there's no reason to go forward. Maybe we make fewer conscious choices than we understand, but I believe we bring things to this table that matter. We are not machines, designed for a singular purpose. Otherwise, there is no point."

"Zelda. Are you a conscious choice? Are we? This thing between us?"

She is silent for a long time. Her grip slowly tightens on his. It might be painful if they were both not wearing gloves. "This is real, Link. I don't know what it is yet. I'm not ready to give it a name. But. Real." she turns her head to better catch his eye. He meets her and realizes he is ready to drown in her gaze.

He bites his tongue against what he wants to say next. She isn't ready to hear it. Instead, he squeezes her hand back and says "Thank you, Zelda." He can own this piece of himself, at least. He lets her go.

"Link, when we stop for the night, maybe we can have dinner. Or maybe go for a walk after?"

"Of course, Zelda."