Zelda had never sat through a more awkward meal in her life.

She and King Auru sat at either ends of the table, both pointedly avoiding eye contact. Daltus sat on Zelda's right, keeping his nose in his plate. They'd invited Commander Ashei to dine with them, specifically to talk about battle plans, but so far, there was very little talking at all.

"So," Daltus said once everyone was nearly done with their plates. "When do we march on the castle?"

Commander Ashei looked up and set her fork down, glad to finally have the conversation she was summoned specifically to have.

"The soldiers have been ready to march for some time. They've known that it would happen soon, so they are ready. There are still fragments of King Nohansen and Queen Llyan's forces out there, and I believe we should all rest tonight, and leave by tomorrow afternoon. We want to try to push our advantage while we have it, and everyone is getting anxious just sitting here."

"I believe we should wait to see if some of my people return to me," King Auru muttered, moving a piece of meat around his plate with his fork before stabbing aggressively into it. "You've said yourself that we need people."

"I think we should listen to the Commander, Auru," Zelda grumbled. "She's the one who does this for a living. We don't. If she believes it's best to move, then we should move."

"I agree with my cousin," Daltus said, though he still didn't have the same confident attitude that she'd always known from him. It was a resigned alliance. He accepted his loss and simply wanted to move on.

"Then it's settled," Zelda said, casting a quick glance to where Link stood by the door as she heard Auru shift uncomfortably in his seat. Link nodded at her, assuring her that he was watching Auru.

Ashei cleared her throat. "I'll leave now to inform the troops that they should grab their things and spend a final night with their families. I advise everyone to get a decent amount of sleep, as tomorrow will be hectic. We could leave at noon. It will be a hike there, so we should move as quickly and efficiently as possible."

"You and I have discussed my guards," Zelda said before Ashei could stand, "but both Daltus and Auru will also be on the battlefield. They have their own guards. Are there any other special positions we need to know about before you go?"

"Um," she said, thinking. "Your man Viscen is leading several scouts ahead. I'll be sending them out in a few hours. I believe he will be trying to get a read on Ganondorf's specific location, though he's a bit cryptic about that. His team is well-crafted though. I trust that they know what they're doing. We also have many soldiers who will be riding into battle on their horses. We've had as many pieces of armor made as we can for their steeds."

Again, Zelda's eyes flickered to Link's. He shook his head. He wasn't going to be riding any of them.

"We'll meet in front of the barracks in the morning before we plan to leave then?" Zelda suggested. Daltus nodded, and Auru begrudgingly made a noise.

"Wear armor," Ashei said, standing. "Once we move, we'll be a noticeable target. We could be set upon at any time. King Auru, I know you do, but Prince and Princess, do you both have armor?"

"Yes," Zelda said. "I got mine today."

"I have something somewhere," Daltus said, already zoning out as he visibly thought of where he'd put it. "I marched here with two pieces." He stood and began mumbling to himself. "I'll see you both tomorrow. I am going to look for it, and then I am going to sleep as best I can."

Auru followed suit, though his dismissal was a curt head nod and a sharp: "Zelda" as a 'courtesy.'

She was left at the table when Ashei took off, and Zelda turned to Link again.

"Well, that was rough. Want any of the food?"

He grinned and strode over to the table and made a plate of the food from the center. "I always knew it paid to have friends in high places," he joked as he followed her back to their rooms.

"For the food," she snorted, eyeing the assortment he'd carried away. She reached over and quickly grabbed a baby carrot, plopping it into her mouth before he could say anything.

But he simply hurried his steps so he was beside her rather than behind. "I hate cooked carrots. You can have them."

"Why'd you take them then?" she asked, not arguing with his offer as she took another.

"When someone offers you a royal meal, you take some of everything."

"You should have seen some of the meals back home, especially during festivals or celebration days. The hall would be filled, and people would just go up and eat off of several long tables, and trays that were brought around. Aelia knocked one of those right out of someone's hand once and was so embarrassed that she started to cry, so I gave myself a little pep-talk and then purposefully crashed into this gorgeous ice sculpture and it shattered into millions of pieces. Oh, it was embarrassing, but no one remembered Aelia knocking the food over."

"You're a good sister," Link said, nudging her.

But Zelda just managed to shake her head as a sad look overtook her. "I was. At least, I hope I was."

"Hey." He grabbed her wrist, stopping her. "You're still a sister, and you're still a good one. You're fighting for her, for your family, for their memories."

"Mmm," she muttered, not wanting to comment on that again. She certainly still didn't feel like a daughter or a sister anymore. Not when the people responsible for giving her those roles were dead.

He understood her dismissal and popped another piece of food in his mouth as they reached their rooms. The guards were at either end of the hall, guarding the stairs, so Link didn't have to whisper too softly. "I've got to go find that potion I was supposed to take. Want some company for a bit after? Or you going to go right to sleep?"

Zelda took the plate from his hands and popped another carrot in her mouth. "You can use the door this time."

"That's never fun. Unlock your window," he snorted, ducking into his room before she could protest.

Rolling her eyes, she went back inside and set his plate on the small table she hadn't really used before that sat in the corner of her room, and then she unlocked the small latch that kept her window sealed. She leaned out into the air and tried not to think about tomorrow.

Thankfully, her attention was averted as Link slid out his window with ease, a feat that actually made her breathe a sigh. He was moving significantly better, despite his ribs.

He chuckled when he saw her. "You're waiting for me?"

She just shrugged. "If you fall and die, I'd like to be the first to know."

"What a comfort." He slid across the ledge and hopped down with his usual grace, though his hand went to his side when he landed. It was a reflex, like he wasn't even aware of it, but Zelda saw.

She stepped aside to let him in and gestured to the table where she'd left his plate before taking the seat across from his and relaxing into the chair with a comfort that she just couldn't manage while being stared at by all the eyes that were on them in the dining room.

She and Link didn't speak while he ate. They didn't need to. Their silence was comfortable, unlike the one that had occurred throughout dinner. When he'd finished, they spent some time just talking, the way they'd done in the past but hadn't had a chance to really do recently. It was calming, and undoubtably one of her favorite things about Link. He lit up when he told stories, seeing an entire world in front of him that he could describe to perfection and make Zelda feel like she'd been there.

It wasn't wine, but they both sipped on some of the water that Zelda had in her room, sharing the single glass between them, though she had refills available. And though they'd thought they'd told each other every story about themselves, they somehow found more.

Seres knocked on the door and let herself in, wondering to herself why she was still surprised when she saw Link in the room.

"I didn't know if you wanted help getting ready for the night," Seres said, her eyes darting between Zelda and Link.

"Oh," Zelda said, forgetting that she wasn't already comfortable. "No, I'll manage later. You should be getting some rest as well. We're leaving tomorrow afternoon."

"I heard."

"You'll be great, Seres. Don't worry."

"If you say so, Princess," Seres said with an attempt at a grin. But it came across as forced and worried.

Zelda nodded and pulled her legs up against her chest. "I do. Go, get some rest. Breathe."

That time, Seres smiled slightly. "You as well… both of you. I'll see you in the morning, Princess."

She left, closing the door behind her with the faintest sound. Zelda wondered how she could so quietly manage to do everything. It would likely help her to run the house while they were away… and if they never came back, she was sure that Seres would find a way to keep enhancing that skill, perhaps work her way into owning and managing a building of her own one day.

"You look distracted," Link said, leaning forward. "Nervous?"

"A little," she admitted. "It's just becoming so real now."

Link understood the feeling. He'd been in this situation plenty of times. "If you want, I'll play Three Heart Draw with you. That will take your mind off it for a bit."

Zelda grinned. "I do like that game."

"We'll finally determine which of us is the superior player."

She rolled her eyes at him and went to grab the deck of cards by her bedside table.

But as she was searching, Link appeared behind her and reached around her to pick something up. "Is this my chess piece?"

Acutely aware that she was now pinned between Link and the small end table, she resolved to lean back into him. Almost on instinct, his other arm reached around her waist to hold her there.

"It's not technically your chess piece. We did steal it."

"I'm not the one who stole it," he reminded her, putting the piece back down and brushing her hair aside to allow him access to her neck where he placed several featherlight kisses from her shoulder blade to her ear, listening to the sound of her hitched breaths as he did. His fingers found purchase on her arms, idly trailing past her wrist to the crook of her elbow and then back down again.

She could barely call it a touch, but it sent goosebumps up her arm all the same, as the light breath from his nose sent chills down her spine.

"You stopped looking for the cards," he whispered into her neck, smugly smiling into her before returning his attention back to her soft skin.

"You're making it very difficult to focus," she said, turning her head towards him so the new angle made it impossible for him to continue.

But despite his loss, he knew what she wanted, and their lips crashed together at once, enthusiastically so, after all the soft, safe kisses they'd shared for Link's sake as he was healing. And that thought occurred to Zelda too late, only after she spun around to fully face him, her body flush against his as they held the other tightly.

She could feel him wince, and she immediately pulled away, though Link's arm kept her too close.

"Gods, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

He could see concern start to cloud her features, and he found himself laughing, though it was to himself rather than at her. "You can if you want to."

She rolled her eyes, but the sharp concern softened the longer she looked at him and his goofy grin. "You're something, Link."

"I'm nothing if not serious," he chuckled. "You're not hurting me. Not the way you think."

He pulled her back against him and she gasped into him as he brought his lips to hers again. They felt a brief surge pass between them, like electricity only different. The soft noises that escaped from them both and the rhythm of their racing hearts mixed together to become a song that they desperately matched the beat of every fervent kiss to.

Zelda spread her fingers along the contours of his face to learn every intricacy of him, tickled by the short hairs on his chin and along his jaw. And then, she quickly realized she wanted to memorize more than just his face and tugged at his shirt, silently asking him to take it off. She'd have done it herself—and without all the lazy teasing motions Link made to show off every ripple of muscle on his chest—if she wasn't so concerned with brushing up against his burn or banging into his ribs.

Link let her push him off to the side, guiding him to a wall where she had a bit more purchase as her hands roamed around freely and to her heart's content. And though he wouldn't call himself the person with the most self-control in the world, he let himself enjoy the tantalizing feel of Zelda's hands and mouth against him.

But the more he let himself feel, the more he realized that he was doing it again: selfishly putting them in a situation that they'd struggle to find a way out of.

Link, a simple soldier, thought there would never be a time that he'd say 'no' to her. And while he certainly wanted to say 'yes' to every move she made, every brush of her fingers, every sharp breath she drew out of him, he had to hesitate when Zelda tried to reach behind her to find the small button that fastened the top layer of her dress, one of several layers that she desperately longed to be free of.

"Zelda," he whispered, because if he didn't, she wouldn't. Because it had all been drilled into his head repeatedly. He was a soldier. Nothing more. Someone people sent out to die for others' sakes. A pawn on a chessboard, easily sacrificed. Worth little in the grander scheme of things. And Zelda was worth more than he could ever be.

"I want this, gods, I want you more than you know. But this is where it's abundantly clear that you're the Princess of Hyrule and I'm no one. If I die in a few days, there are very few people who will mourn me, because I'm just a soldier. But you, you're like the Goddess herself, and the sky would weep for you if you got so much as a scratch. You're the future. I'm just some guy that fell in love with the only woman in this world that he can't keep."

It was the same argument from the morning with Ashei. The same disagreement they'd had in the past. The same belief he'd held since they first met and he offered to let her kill him to escape a prison cell. The same deeply ingrained idea that he would inevitably hurt anyone he let in, so he was prepared to die alone.

"Stop," she said, grabbing the sides of his face to get him to look at her. "I love you. Do I not get a say?"

"It's just better if I leave. One less thing that you'll have to live with when I'm gone. You know that I'm dead when Ganondorf finds me. You know that I might die just fighting, like the good soldier I was raised to be. I was trained to die. You love me? Well you don't deserve to have someone else you love die on you, but it's going to happen. I'm weak around you, and I do things I shouldn't. I say things that I have no right to ever say to you. And right now, I have this moment where I can do the right thing."

"Link," she whispered, his name a caress from her lips in itself. "I know that's what you believe. I understand that you think distancing yourself will help ease some pain for me if anything were to happen to you. But that's not how I feel. If one or both of us dies at the castle, I want to live now. And you make me feel alive in a way no one else ever has. If we die tomorrow morning, I want to have lived one night with you. And if we die in a week or a year or eighty years from now, I want to have lived my life with you. So stop thinking about your death, and start thinking about our life. Because even if I can count the days I have left, I'd want to live them fully with you, not hide from it alone.

"Soldier? Princess? The rest of the world might care, but I don't. To me, you're not some soldier. You've never been a nobody. You're Link Forrester, the man who made me fall in love with him. And I hope to you, I'm just Zelda, not Her Royal Highness, Princess Zelda Aravis Thaisa Hyrule, heir apparent to the Kingdom of Hyrule and all its Territories. That's my title. It's my job. It's not me.

"So you can leave if that's what you want or need, and I would never think any less of you, but it better not be because you're thinking about our jobs, titles, or death. I refuse to care about those things getting in the way, and neither should you."

Link's hand hovered just beyond hers, and she watched him struggle internally. To him, she deserved someone more than a soldier. Someone who could give her a life. Daltus' words still burned him. On the day he'd hit Zelda, he'd reminded him again and again just what Link was, just what his future with her would be, always just out of reach, forced to watch her life move forward.

Zelda grabbed his hand. "Link?"

"I hear you," he said quickly. He ran a hand through his hair and smirked at her. "Did you say eighty years? You really think you could deal with me for that long?"

"Probably not," she laughed. "We'll go with seventy-nine."

"Man," he mused, "You've got us old. We'll be prunes."

"Rude. I won't be a prune. You're older, you have to be the one with more wrinkles."

With the snarkiest grin she'd ever seen from him, he gestured to his bare chest. "Wrinkles? Me?"

"Your modesty is your finest feature, Link," she snorted, resting her hands lightly against him.

His nose brushed her ear and he lowered his voice to barely a whisper. "One night or seventy-nine years, then. Let's live them. I love you, just Zelda."

"I love you, Link Forrester."

She ran her hand through his hair and enjoyed a seemingly unending moment of being completely swallowed in the space between them that was filled with nothing but them: their eyes, their smiles, their breath.

Link's fingers moved on the button behind her neck that she'd been reaching for earlier. Pulling the button through the hole, he hesitated. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She didn't move to help him, allowing him the unhindered opportunity to stop or continue. She'd heard his argument in the past, and she knew how deeply rooted it was in his mind. He'd never planned on living long, let alone long enough to let someone in. It had to be his choice to keep going, because he knew exactly where she stood. So as much as she wanted to run her hands along his bare chest, or drag him down to her for a passionate, incessant kiss, she fought back the desire and let Link take the lead for a while.

He moved his head back to look at her, and she was relieved to see that his flirty glint was back in his eyes rather than a desperate look of forced self-control as he guided the top layer of her dress to the ground. Though it only really exposed her collarbones and upper arms, he smiled and tugged her closer, his hands glided along all the newly revealed skin and to her neck as he kissed her, tilting her head back for a deeper kiss.

When his hands moved down her spine, he had to break the kiss to chuckle. She joined him, knowing exactly why. "You finally get to learn just how many laces this thing has."

"Gods, I can't believe you wear this."

"Help me take it off then," Zelda laughed.

"Turn around," he said, and the small command had Zelda warmer than she'd expected.

She did and craned her neck to watch his face as he examined the intricate pattern that Seres tied her in every day.

"This thing is insane. Where's it even start?"

He gave one of the laces a light tug, and she felt it tighten. She shook her head, fighting another laugh at him. "Goddess, wrong way, Link!"

"Can't I just use my knife?"

"No!" she balked as a giggle escaped her. "You're always saying not to doubt your talents."

His fingers were ardently at work as he bent to kiss her neck again, though it was decidedly not featherlight, as he'd been before. And after a several opened mouth kisses to her neck that had her mind foggy, she heard him let out a grunt of frustration and a muttered curse as his fingers moved quickly but inefficiently on the laces.

She moved her hair aside to cast a backwards glance at him. Her eyes were dark with lust, but soft with patience and love. Still, she reveled in the moments when she could perfectly tease Link the way he often did to her.

"Take your time, Link," she muttered. He looked up to meet her eyes and saw the playful glint in them that he so often sported. "We have all night."