Prompt No. 11
Word count: ~1840
Universe: Breath of the Wild; sequel to "No. 7 — Support"
Pairings: Zelink
Rating: T
Themes: Lies, destiny, surrender
Defiance
They journeyed two days on the river road, slipping between the Coliseum and the Plateau before it spit them out into Hyrule Field, and Zelda spent most of it getting quieter.
Link hadn't thought much of it at first, attributing her silent spells to fatigue or how easy it was to get lost in daydreams when the road seemed to stretch on and on. But by the time the spires of Hyrule Castle were glinting over the wall in the distance, her jaw was all but knitted shut, and that bright smile of hers seemed permanently locked away. But it was hardly his business to pry into her thoughts, dark though they seemed to be. Though he would be lying if he said her sudden reticence didn't leave him feeling bereft.
Their last night in the fields he built a roaring fire. He laid beside it a long while, watching the stars. She stared into the flames, watching her demons.
"I have to tell you something," she finally said, and he craned his head to look up at her. She was so slanted from that angle she was nearly upside down. Nearly floating, drifting skyward with the sparks. "I'm not who you think I am. I'm not just a priestess."
It had been a while since he'd thought of her as just anything. But he kept that to himself.
He fixed his gaze back on the stars. "All right. Tell me."
"You'll hate me," she warned him.
He scoffed. "I doubt that."
He found the glittering cluster that made the shape of Dinraal's Horn, the vague impression of the Hero and the Lynel, locked in eternal, celestial combat, the powerful, curled legs and four eyes of the Lord of the Mountain, before she spoke again.
She whispered, "I'm the Daughter of Hylia."
His blood slogged thick and hot through his veins. He propped himself up on his elbow to stare at her properly. She looked small and contrite, and impossibly beautiful—and only now did he see it, how impossibly, impossibly beautiful she was. Too beautiful to be earthly. He had never felt more of a fool in his life.
"You?" he demanded, feeling breathless. Because there wasn't a soul alive in Faron who didn't know that name.
And to think he had been so quick to absolve her of her country's wars.
She grimaced. "It gets worse."
He sat up with a sigh, frowning, and faced her squarely. He knew there would be nothing about this that he would like. He steeled himself and gestured for her to continue.
"I had a dream—a vision," she explained, forcing herself to meet his eyes. "It showed me Hylia's Chosen One. I couldn't see his face, but I could see what he was. A man of Faron."
Her words sat between them like a stone. He didn't want to believe it. Didn't want to believe that he had let himself be so manipulated. But it made too much sense for it to be true. He finally loosed a breathy, sardonic laugh. There wasn't much else he could do.
"I can't believe I was so naïve," he murmured, getting to his feet, and she clambered after him.
"Link, wait—"
"Forgive me, Your Grace," he deadpanned, "but I have no intention of being a pawn in another one of your wars."
His eyes held hers for a charged, burning moment. She clamped her jaw and held her arm at the elbow, silenced. She looked like a girl then, young and lost and insecure. And that was the illusion. He turned towards the darkness and marched off.
"Where are you going?" she called behind him.
He didn't deign to answer, even though a thousand scathing retorts leapt up into his throat. It only seemed fair that she be left swimming in questions and uncertainty for a change. Just like the rest of the mere mortals she walked amongst.
He walked with no destination in particular. The plains were cold and gusty, whipping at his cloak, pulling him this way and that. It was a miserably accurate parallel to the disorder in his head.
His anger was dragging him towards the wilderness one moment, and then thoughts of her alone by the fire were pulling him to halt the next. But what he had assumed was mercy or pity or even attraction before was now so obviously something far worse, something over which he had much less control. Instinct. From the first moment he laid eyes on her, he had been powerless. He had given up his means, his freedom, even his body for a girl he hardly knew, and she had happily strung him along. He wouldn't forgive her for that.
But at the same time, treacherous voices tried to entrammel him with reason.
She was an infant when those wars were fought in her name. It wasn't her fault.
She didn't choose to be born the descendant of a goddess. Don't punish her for something she couldn't control.
She isn't her people. She's just a girl.
She needs you.
He fought them until he was exhausted, until he felt dead on his feet, until he found himself wandering back to the smoldering fire under a paling sky. Because of course he would end up back here. It was like she had him tethered on the end of a string.
He laid on the ground and stared over the embers at her back, temporarily defeated. Just until he got some sleep.
"I'm sorry I lied," she whispered.
He closed his eyes, drifting towards nothingness as the dew gathered on the prairie grass and his eyelashes, and fell asleep trying to decide whether or not he believed her.
Late in the morning they set off again with as little discourse as possible, and arrived at the Castletown gate near midday. No one gave him any trouble, or so much as asked who he was. Like they had all been expecting a Faronian in tow upon her triumphant return. And suddenly it made sense why the Hylian army wasn't scouring the countryside looking for their missing princess.
She led him through the grand halls of the citadel that marked the center of the world and presented him to her father, and how strange that must have looked. Nothing about him fit. Even the earthy colors marked on his body clashed with the rich dyes in the carpet and the banners. But no one seemed to mind. It was easy to put their prejudices aside when they were desperate.
They treated him like an honored guest. They spread feasts for him and lavished him with gifts that made the price he paid to free her from the slaver seem paltry. Zelda fidgeted through all of it, undoubtedly thinking the same thing he was, of what he had told her at the fork in the road leading into the Breach: that he hadn't freed her with thoughts of being repaid.
That night, slipping his knife into its holster and fastening his belt, the door to his elaborate guestroom whispered open, and all he could think was that he really should have seen this coming.
"You're leaving," she said, clicking the door shut, and he rolled his eyes.
"Don't sound surprised. You've orchestrated all of this. I'm sure you're three steps ahead of me at least."
"What do you mean?"
"What is it they keep saying? That this is all the will of the goddess?" He turned, frowning. "And that's you, right?"
She met his eyes. They didn't betray much. She just looked tired. "It doesn't work that way."
"If you say so." He moved, meeting her halfway. The room was dark except for a spill of moonlight. Her eyes caught it, glistening in a pale suggestion of that soul-renting green he knew lingered beneath. "What happens now? Are you going to tell me I can't leave?"
"No. You're free to go."
"Then what are you doing here?"
Her shoulders sagged a bit, her eyes sliding sideways and narrowing in frustration. But it wasn't snowballing towards anger the way he might've expected. She just seemed… so, so tired. It made that ridiculous urge to protect her rise up in his gut. He bit it back so hard he heard his teeth grind.
"I suppose I came to say goodbye," she mused, frowning. "And to tell you that I know you'll come back for me when I need you."
He scoffed, even as he steeled himself to weather the disappointment in her eyes.
"I'm very sorry, Your Grace," he breathed, moving to brush past her. "But you've got the wrong man."
But she tangled her fingers in his before he could get away, drawing him up short. He wanted to wrench his hand away, wanted to sneer that he would never be her tool. Wanted to be defiant to the last. But it was so hard to be defiant when she was touching him like this.
"I know it's you," she whispered, too assured, too hopeful. "I saw the kindness in your heart when you freed me in Tabantha, and your selflessness and your courage when you risked your own life to get me out of the city. I saw your loyalty when you followed me in Nima, and when you followed me here, even when you knew the truth."
"You're wrong," he said, because he couldn't manage anything else.
He met her eyes, imploring her, begging her, praying to her if that's what it would take, to let him go. Because if he turned to leave and she didn't, he was sure he would snap right back like a dog on a leash. She seemed to understand, her fingers slipping quietly from his. Maybe she had heard him.
"Go to the Great Hyrule Forest and see for yourself," she said, her face too dark to read in the shifting midnight. "Light a torch in the thick of the woods and follow its embers in the wind. They'll lead you to a grove where a sword lies trapped in a pedestal. That sword is the ultimate weapon. Only Hylia's Chosen One can claim it."
He turned, breathing a sigh of relief that he had scraped together the fortitude to do that much. His hand lingered on the doorknob as her voice crashed over him again like a breaking wave.
"Link. It's your destiny."
"I don't believe in destiny," he said, defiant to the last.
He was defiant as he stormed out of the castle into the welcoming night, even as his feet turned to carry him north against his judgement, against his will; defiant as he struck the flint that lit the sparks to light his way through the dense forest and as he curled his hand around a winged hilt and dredged the sacred sword out of a sheath of stone; defiant as destiny led him relentlessly back to her, as she smiled at him with that smile like the sun.
Defiant as he swore his service, his life, his heart to her, always.