Thanks so much to MexicAmerichick6, NerdAngel410 (Revali's too proud to back down from that kind of challenge XD), Luine Mercury LWG, and MJ (New chapters release every Friday!) for reviewing! Glad you guys are enjoying so far!

With that, on with the chapter!

~ Chapter 16 ~

Zelda's eyes snapped open.

During her time spent sequestered in the ruined, corrupted mess that was once Hyrule Castle, she had learned early on that she could use a tiny fraction of her power to throw her senses far away from where her spirit resided. In this way, she had been able to keep an eye on her fallen kingdom. She had watched as the Guardian Stalkers had burned their way through Central Hyrule, she had watched nature eventually reclaim the battered land, and she had watched her knight reemerge from his slumber one hundred years later - as well as many of his heroic feats and ridiculous antics that had followed.

This time, however, once she had spent a few minutes watching several of her friends struggling to hold a gleaming, razor-sharp sword up to her knight's face, she promptly decided that she did not want to watch any further.

"...I really need to get back there quickly," Zelda mumbled under her breath, eyes wide. "I'm gone for half an hour and already Link's head is in danger of being sliced off...and by our own friends, at that."

She couldn't fault them much for attempting the ridiculous plan - with her missing, what else could they do? She also trusted all of them to be as careful as physically possible, but the thought of how easily something could go horribly wrong still made her skin crawl.

Paya - the real Paya - had been the first to volunteer to hold the Master Sword, and she had managed it for a full thirty seconds before she had been forced to step back, gasping for breath as the blade sapped her energy.

It had then been handed off to Sidon, who had held it for almost a minute before Teba forced him to drop it on the floor and go rest. The Zora prince had argued briefly, but it didn't take long for exhaustion to grip him and compel him to concede. When Zelda had broken her concentration, he had still been sitting up against the wall, dozing off.

Yunobo had wanted to give it a try, but unfortunately, he was still not allowed to even attempt to enter the lab. Purah had insisted that he stay outside, citing the risk of his large form knocking over important supplies. Zelda thought she could have been a bit less harsh on the poor Goron youth, but she had to admit that the scientist wasn't entirely wrong.

As a result, Riju had taken her turn next. She was initially met with some resistance from the others, claiming that she shouldn't perform such a draining task while she was still recovering from being strangled.

Zelda hadn't directly witnessed that event, but she had been able to hear Riju describe it to the others. The princess' heart had grown incredibly heavy, and she had almost removed her senses from the area immediately after hearing it, but she had forced herself to continue watching. As much as it turned her stomach to think about Link - her Link - being so thoroughly corrupted by Malice, just as the Divine Beasts had been, just as Hyrule Castle had been, she refused to grant herself the small comfort of looking away.

She owed it to Link to stay as informed as possible about what was happening to him.

In any case, Riju had shut down the others' warnings almost immediately, and ultimately, she had actually managed to hold onto the Master Sword nearly as long as Sidon had. Eventually, when the young Gerudo was swaying on her feet and still refusing to back down, Teba gently pried the sword from her grip and sat her down beside the Zora to rest and recover.

By that point, most of Link's face was clear of Malice. The gleaming blade had burned it all away until only one streak from his left eye to his jawline remained, which Symin had volunteered to take care of. It was almost over, and yet Zelda couldn't bear to watch anymore.

The burns.

Zelda had seen Link without a shirt before. She had seen the countless scars littered across his flesh - long, thin arches from where a blade had cut him, small but deep lines where arrows had pierced him, several burn scars where he had been singed by Guardian lasers, including a particularly large section of his back that had been hit dead-on in the fight when she'd nearly lost him forever one hundred years ago. And, of course, there were the new scars on his abdomen that formed the Yiga eye.

These wounds, however, struck her in a different way.

Admittedly, they weren't particularly bad injuries. They would surely scar and leave six tear-like marks where the evil sludge had dripped down, but such a comparatively small amount of Malice didn't corrode skin quickly enough to damage his face beyond repair. So long as they were treated swiftly, he would heal well enough.

Still, they would serve as a harsh reminder of what Zelda's own carelessness had caused her knight to suffer through. As if the Yiga eye scars weren't enough, now his face would also forever be marked with proof of her mistakes.

"I'm sorry, Link," she murmured, imagining that he could hear her. "You were right, weren't you…? I shouldn't have made you leave your weapons at home that day...you weren't being paranoid, you were right. If I had just listened, this wouldn't have happened to you...I'm so sorry…"

Not that Link would ever let her accept all of the blame. Even when it was so obviously her fault, he would never stop insisting that it was his choice and that she bore none of the burden of blame.

The princess sighed, tilting her head back until it rested against the wall of the cave.

"Can't you just be selfish, for once in your life?"

Even as she had asked the question, she had known what his answer would be. Of course not. Selfishness wasn't in Link's nature, almost to a fault. His entire life had been nothing but sacrifices for the sake of Hyrule, or strangers, or her.

And though he rarely ever complained, Zelda could clearly see how much it weighed on him.

Granted, he never seemed to mind doing favors for various townsfolk - in fact, he seemed more than happy to gather random objects or slay random monsters for whoever asked. For a long while after he first woke from his Slumber of Restoration, he had lived the life as a regular traveler willing to complete odd jobs for a handful of rupees, not openly bearing the mantle of a legendary hero. Sure, his travels were interspersed with fighting Malice demons and freeing Champion spirits from Divine Beasts, but he hadn't exactly been vocal about those accomplishments to anyone outside of the relevant cities.

It was only once he had actually defeated Calamity Ganon and Zelda had sealed the demon away that Link's Champion title started becoming widely known. They'd obviously had to explain why Hyrule's sky had suddenly been set aflame for a short amount of time one day, and why bestial roars and colossal hoofbeats could be heard echoing across the land. Not to mention the questions that surrounded the powerful energy beams that shot forth from the Divine Beasts, as well as Zelda's own sudden appearance as if from nowhere. They had owed it to Hyrule to let its people know what had happened.

And even if they hadn't said anything, Link's bard friend, Kass, would have certainly spread the word regardless through song.

In one sense, Zelda knew that telling the people who she and Link were and what they had done was inevitable, but in another, she sincerely regretted doing so. To say nothing of her own discomfort, she could tell that Link hated the attention that came with the title of "hero." It was easier on him than it had been one hundred years ago, seeing as he no longer had the weight of a mounting threat and the kingdom's expectations on his shoulders, but it had still been enough to cause him to retreat back a bit into his quiet, reserved shell. He wasn't nearly as muted as he used to be, and yet for the most part, he still refused to talk much about himself or his own feelings to anyone but her.

"It's...overwhelming," he had told her once. "Knowing that everyone already has an impression of me before I ever meet them. They know my name, my face, everything I've done and am supposed to do...it's weird. It's not that I don't like talking to people...I just wish I could do it as a nameless stranger instead of some sort of fairy tale character."

As someone who'd often wished she had been born as anyone other than a well-known failure of a princess, Zelda could certainly relate.

"You don't deserve this, Link," Zelda whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. "After everything we've been through...you deserve a life of freedom, a life where you're not chained to fate or destiny or...or to me."

She recalled the soft touch of his lips on hers, blushing slightly.

"...well...perhaps we can still stay connected to one another...but by choice this time, not because of a prophecy. Perhaps we could…" She shook her head, casting away the fluttering thoughts of the future and returning to the bitterly cold present. "...but never mind that. Those thoughts are for after we save you from this Malice."

Her seafoam eyes narrowed as she stood.

"And we will save you, Link. Just as you helped me break free from my own prison of Malice...I will do everything within my power to return the favor."

The princess paced the floor of the cave, eyes closed in concentration. The wind howled outside, finally ushering in the snowstorm she had known was coming, but she paid the weather no mind. She reached deep inside herself, drawing upon the slowly refilling well of power somewhere within, and coaxing it to the surface.

"Thus far, I've been allowing my power to exist in a wide circle, and I've worked on gradually expanding the radius of its effects," she mumbled to herself, pretending that a familiar pair of blue eyes was quietly watching from off to the side. "However...what if I can mold it into a more efficient shape? I don't need it to spread out over such a large area...what I need is a line to send directly to you, connecting us."

Eyes still shut tightly, Zelda envisioned her sacred magic as a wide halo of golden light surrounding her, spilling out of the cave and down the side of the snow-blanketed mountain. She lifted both of her hands, imagining that she could physically grasp this power and collect it into a condensed sphere in front of her.

"There...now to set it free…"

Zelda pushed her hands out towards where she knew Hateno Village lay, sending a steady stream of gold towards the tech lab on the hill. Her senses flowed along with it, until she could once again see her knight lying prone on a worktable, the last of the Malice having just been cleared from his face.

To her alarm, it seemed that more of the evil substance was beginning to push its way out of his body, this time through the pinprick wounds that had littered his chest and arms. It wasn't enough to be visible to the naked eye quite yet, but to Zelda, the dark aura they radiated may as well have been a series of fires broken out across Link's skin.

Her muscles tensed as she forced her magic into an even straighter line, beaming directly from her mountain cave to Link's still form. No one but herself would be able to see the golden strand, but she knew that Link would be able to feel it. Though it would not be potent enough to eradicate the Malice within him completely, it would be enough to keep it at bay until she figured out how to return to his side.

"Link…" she whispered, sending her voice down her stream of power to reach his ears. "Link...can you hear me…?"