Chapter six

Never in my wildest dreams had I predicted that things might so so fabulously, so well. When I'd bargained with my father for one hundred days, I'd planned on using it to find someone who would be a good king and draw him to me. I'd even written out a tentative list and had been about to start testing my first two victims when my father decided to go on a camping trip with his knights. Sir Link was going, and I'd always had a bizarre interest in him, a kind of unstoppable inate attraction, but had never thought much of it. Though Sir Link hadn't been on my original list, I thought, why not? Father trusts him, and maybe that's for a good reason. Though there are many times I disagree with my father's judgement and ideas, he's not a fool, nor is he easy to mislead. Often, he'd preached of Sir Link's good morals and kind, quiet, and observant disposition. This quality might be good in a king, or in a consort to a queen. So, as though he were just a pair of shoes, I decided to try Sir Link out.

I was instantly fascinated by him. From the moment I first sat down at his camptire on the ride down to the Southern Wood, something about him seemed to call to me. The way he raised his eyebrow at me as I sat down, half in skepticism, half in surprise, spoke volumes- an informal action, possibly an unconscious display of thought. I'd just surprised him.

Hoping to quell him a little, I said simply, "they're all staring at me. I don't think they like the idea of a woman sitting around the campfire with them. Or they're afraid my maids'll join me." I laughed lightly as he appeared to try to not swallow his bite whole. I'd surprised him again. I wasn't what he'd thought I'd be.

"Well don't look so surprised," I told him. "You were sitting all alone, and what sort of person would I be if I let you sit here all by yourself?"

It was the first time he'd ever spoken to me, directly, aside from the time when he'd said "its okay" when I'd spilled wine on his doublet at a party. "I don't mind being alone," he told me in a deep baritone that had me all ears instantly. "It's good time to think."

I agreed, and told him so, looking into the fire. I thought for a moment- he's so surprised that I'm not what he'd believed I was, and so blatant about it. That's not good politics. He simply will not do for kingship.

No, said a little voice inside my head. Give him another chance. You've just surprised him, that's all. Seeing Link watching my expression carefully, I smiled. "I'm glad to be gone from the palace. I get no solitude there. There's always someone around- maids, suitors, escorts, suitors, my father, suitors… it's like privacy isn't allowed."

"None of us have any," he consoled me, taking another bite. "I used to be stuck in a general barracks with all the other soldiers. It drove me insane. There was always someone around no matter what, or someone awake at three in the morning, or someone sick, or even worse, someone snoring in the bunk above you when you were trying to sleep the night before review. It was awful."

I made a little face and then laughed. He was funny, and sincere, and he was kind, just as my father had said. "I can't imagine," I replied, and I couldn't- being constantly surrounded with mass numbers of people every waking moment? I'd have gone insane. "At least I can dismiss my maids at night and have some small amount of time to myself before I collapse from exhaustion. You're Sir Link, by the way, are you not?"

I knew his name was Sir Link. I also knew he watched me.

"Yes," he replied, again startled. Apparently, he'd thought I wouldn't know his name. "And feel free to call me simply Link. Honestly, I'm surprised you remembered my name at all."

Humble. This was good. This was very good. Perhaps Link would be a good consort. And he was intriguing. At the very least, I'd get a new friend out of this little foray into the woods. Little did I know, though, that friendship would be the least of it.

There was the time I fell down the ravine, and he came and saved me. He never told me what trespassed in the canyon, though- I've never been able to remember, despite long hours spent lying awake at night, probing my memory. Whatever it was that went on, though, I have the feeling it was important- to him, at least. I want to know.

I remember when he taught me to shoot a bow and arrow, the fierce joy that accompanied the twang of the string and the swift, accurate flight of the arrow to its target, to imbed itself in wood, or sometimes even flesh. He didn't have to teach me- I'd worried quite a bit that he would have considered it a chore or obligation, but Link never once complained, or seemed anything less than content to teach me archery. It was a gift from one friend to another, an exchange of equals, and a thing for which I have been eternally grateful.

I remember the very first day he began to teach me, how he put his arms around me and guided my arrow, and I remember how it felt he'd shocked me when his leather glove had touched my bare hand, scraping sensuously over my skin as he tightened his fingers around mine. The heat of his hand beat hot againt mine, even through the thick skin of the glove, and I remember first thinking then how much bigger than me he was yet how gentle his hands were, whether with his horse, or the delicacies of a bow and arrow, or myself. It was then that I first knew that I wanted him, body and soul, and that I'd give whatever I had to, do whatever I had to to earn his love within the next three months. But not because I considered hm an object, I reminded myself, but because he was such a good person and would make a good husband, and maybe even a good king. After all, the people would love him- he was beautiful and charming, and oftentimes that's all that matters to the people that are led.

I came to him at night, sat on his bed and spoke with him about daily life, home, family, dreams. Over that month, we came to being very close friends, and more in soul, though we never once admitted it to each other. I'd spent sleepless nights thinking about him, dreaming of him, and making myself stronger and stronger with my magic, so that maybe I could prove to him someday that I was strong enough for him. I remember the awe on his face the last night when I unworked his bag from across the room, and I remember the conversation we'd had on love. I remember how he told me in that silent way of his that he loved me, or would love me some day, and I remember how my heart soared at this unconscious admission. I remember falling asleep curled in his arms, and the look of his sleepy face the next morning as he woke me up, bright blue eyes content, hair all awy. I remember wanting to kiss him more than ever then- but I held it back. I was still insecure.

I'll never forget my visit to the temple of time when we got back to the palace. Something in the trip, in coming back, had unsettled me- the realization that it wouldn't be proper for me to be around Link anymore, possibly. So I went to the temple of time- and he followed, as I had known he would. And we argued, I recall, about propriety, about father, and I nearly told him then that I'd chosen him to marry me, and that Father needed time to adjust. But I caught myself. I couldn't scare him like that. If he knew about the bargain, he might use me- though part of me screamed he'd never do that, another part of me, the cruel, cold part that distrusted everyone and everything, told me that I'd just be a mechanism for his success if I told him. So it stayed secret.

In that visit to the temple, we knelt together at the altar, much like we will do on our wedding day. I remember that he prayed there for a long time, his face peaceful, save for the tiniest crease at his brow. He was begging the goddesses for something, something that he wanted badly. I idly hoped it was me, and went to get a candle.

He remained in prayer as I dropped a coin into the basket the priest carried and received a brilliant blue candle, lit it, and knelt at a sage grotto, an adorable, grimy little girl following me. I turned, seeing her candle tipping warily, and smiled. "Careful with that candle, little one."

"I am," the little girl told me. Her eyes were remarkably blue, much like Link's. Maybe they were relatives. "This candle is for my daddy."

"A candle to Din for your father?" I repeated, questioning. "It must be very important." She set the candle down next to mine and knelt in front of it.

"Yes," she told me. "He works for the king. He goes out and talks to the desert ladies for him."

"Your daddy is a very important man." A daughter of one of the couriers to the desert- possibly the most dangerous job in Hyrule. I had a renewed respect and sympathy for the men who sacrificed their time, families, and often their lives to run messages back and forth from the desert.

"Who is your candle for?" The little girl asked me, startling me out of my thought. I groped for an answer.

"It's for my mother," I told her simply. "And for my… guidance." Guidance in matters of state, love, and most importantly, the candle was for Link, that I might earn his heart.

"Is your mommy sick?" the little girl asked me innocently. I smiled sadly at this- such a question would be hushed in court, even if it was from an unknowing little girl.

"No. She died a long time ago. No, you don't need to apologize," I added as the little girl opened her mouth to apologize, "you didn't know. And it happened so long ago that it doesn't make me too sad anymore. I just hope that she's happy, wherever she is."

"I hope so, too." She looked back at her candle, fidgeting a bit. Link was still in prayer halfway across the chapel. I sighed, looking at him. Perhaps there was something important in his life I still hadn't learned. Perhaps something to do with his being an orphan...

"Are you and that man going to get married?" the little girl asked me, following my gaze.

"I don't know," I replied truthfully. I hoped so. "Maybe someday, if we're very, very lucky. Why do you ask?"

"You two are sparkly together. Like you belong. Sort of like, like…" The little girl frowned in thought, looking around the chapel. Her eyes landed on a stained glass window of the sage of forest, a kokiri girl. "Mama tells me stories sometimes about the Kokiri children, and how the children aren't complete without their fairies. It's like that with you. Sparkly. Like he's your fairy, or you're his."

"I see," I replied thoughtfully. The little girl fidgeted for a bit, and then crawled up on the pew behind where we knelt. She beckoned for me to follow, yawning, and I complied, smiling a little as she crawled into my lap, falling asleep with her head against my breast.

I watched the candles for a long time, until at last Link returned to me. I couldn't help but think, what if this was our daughter? And I felt warmth and love flowing through me as I did. But then, the little girl's mother came to take her away, and...

I prefer not to think about it.

I recall the next morning, when I first met Esten and Damleda. They were so nice, and little Rowan was the cutest baby I'd ever seen. I remember how I felt like a family with Link again, and how I wanted it to be so with every fiber of my being, yearned for it to be so. Watching him play with Rowan, I realized what a good father Link would make. In a way, that was one of the few things I truly craved- a man who would be a good father to my children.

I remember how I still visited Link every night, and then how, several weeks later, we had the ball, and, for the first time, Link kissed me. I was so happy underneath the moon with him, I thought my heart might burst. This is what I need, I thought. This is what I need forever.

But all things beautiful and good must eventually come to an end.

&-

The days after the ball were the happiest days of my life. Stealing kisses from him during the night and playing with Damleda during the day, it was easy for me to forget the distant rumbling rumors of a far-off war with the Gerudos. Days melded into one another and became weeks, and as the second month of my bargain came to a close, I looked with hope upon the third.

Luck, however, coupled with the good grace of the Goddesses, was elsewhere.

Lord Dragmire, the Gerudo prince who had once courted me, had finally slunk away, pressured by the many trembling rumors of war, his people against mine. It seemed the warrior women of the desert did not favor the idea of a Hylian queen, and did not believe that a union between their lord and myself would produce greater crop fields for them. I had not been sad to see Dragmire go- he'd always made my hair stand on end, spiders crawling up and down my spine, but not in the way that Link did. Dragmire is one of the few people of whom I have had some strange inate fear. My father, however, was quite sad to see the desert lord go- he'd been thinking the man to be a "grand friend and powerful ally."

That was one of the times where I did not believe the widsom of Father's judgment.

Dragmire had crept into the mire and muck of those things which my mind deems unimportant, swirling and fermenting with pointless facts such as how to properly prune a bomb flower, or how to blow a glass bottle in the shape of a mushroom. I am loathe to say that I forgot about Dragmire immediately after his departure, because I certainly hadn't entirely erased his presence from my mind, but at the same time, I rarely, if ever, recalled his existance. All that, however, was doomed to change.

I was reading quietly in the courtyard, in my special little corner where Link and I had first kissed, when I began to feel hot and tired. Dizzy. Thinking I was only exhausted from the heat, I turned to Damleda, who was cooing to Rowan on the ground.

"Leda," I stated, swooning a little, "I'm not feeling so great all of a sudden. I'm going to retire for a little while."

"I'll walk you to your chambers," Damleda replied, cradling Rowan in the silken scarf stretching across her chest. I was breathing heavily by the time we topped the long set of stairs that led to my chambers, and feeling a bizarre sort of side effect. I felt repressed, like I did when I used my glamour, but moreso than I'd ever felt before...

My mind muddled over again as I opened the door. "Shall I send for a doctor?" Damleda asked, worried. I shook my head, trying to breathe.

"No," I said. "Just get me out of my corset. I only need to take a nap, I believe."

Damleda followed me in and helped me out of my gown and corset, despite the fact that it was only noon. She helped me to dress in a simple, delicate white silken nightdress, and then curtsied out of my room. "I'll tell the King you've retired for the day, due to fatigue."

"Thank you, Leda," I replied, and then locked the door after her. I wanted no interruptions in my rest.

As I lay down on my soft sheets, I felt a strange breeze come in through my open window. Funny, I thought to myself, rolling over, I hadn't opened my window...

Then, I was unconscious.

&-

When I came to, I didn't know how long it had been since I'd slept. It was dark, a pitch black that was chilling and unfamiliar to me. I was not in the castle- the freezing wind attested to that. I shivered, my scant silken nightgown doing nothing to heat my body, and wrapped my arms around my shoulders.

Sitting up, I felt the chain attached to my ankle, cold steel locked around my leg. A wave of helplessness overwhelmed me, but I pushed it away. Self-pity would not get me out of whatever it was I'd gotten into- a cell, apparently.

My eyes were adjusting to the dark. I was in a stone room, rectangular, with one window high up that looked out onto a starry sky unlike any I'd ever seen. Wind whipped around outside, I could hear- an icy wind it was, too, harsh and forbidding. In one corner of my cell there was a bucket, but that was all for furniture, save for the pathetic straw that was my only padding from the hard floor. Sighing, I leaned back against the wall and began to think. I could try and escape now, but I didn't know where I was, why I was there, or how long I'd been there. Perhaps this was even a dream! I doubted it, though, and thought to planning.

I could probably pick the lock on my shackle, I decided, using magic, though it would be immensely draining. After that, though, I'd have to try to figure out some way out of the cell, though it appeared there was no way out save for the single high-up window. Getting there would take more magic- I wouldn't be able to climb the smooth stone walls- and that would probably exhaust me back into another coma. If I waited to find out where I was, I could form a plan- unshackle myself one night, get out the next, and return to the palace through mortal means: steal a horse, stow away in a wagon, whatever it took. But until then, I would wait.

As I contemplated, the first rosy fingers of dawn crept across the sky outside my window. Not long after, a woman appeared crouching in the window, the only thing alerting me to her sudden presence the shadow she cast on the floor. Unperturbed, I looked up. Best I not let them have any more of an advantage over me than having me as prisoner. They had encarcerated my body, but I would not surrender my mind to panic so easily.

"Welcome to Gerudo Fortress, Princess Zelda," said the woman in the heavy accent of the thieves, rolling and choppy in turn. "Good to see you're finally awake."

"Thanks for the warm welcome. I assume my lodgings are only temporary, and that I'll be moved to a slightly more hospitable chamber shortly?"

The gerudo woman smiled, plump lips turning upward, and then spat down at me, on me. "Funny little witch," she said as I idly wiped the spittle off my forehead. "Behave. Lord Dragmire will be watching you from the temple. There are guards posted outside your cell as well, in case you decide to attempt an escape."

"How long do I get the luxury of your hospitality?" I asked nonchalantly, disliking the fact that I had to look up at the woman.

"As long as it takes for you to snap," the woman replied simply. "The Lord wants you for his wife, and we'll wait as long as we have to. He's in the desert temple now, asking the goddess of the sand for you. If you have not accepted by the time he returns, he will force you."

"Charming," I replied with a sarcastic smile, even as cold dread wove itself around my stomach as I thought what "forcing me" might entail. "I don't suppose he could have tried to woo me like a civilized being? Being thrown in a cell isn't really my idea of courtship."

The woman scowled, shaking a red strand out of her eyes. "Just for that," she stated simply, "no food today."

I sighed as she vanished. I could already tell that this would not be fun. I began to comb my fingers through my hair, consoling myself that if I didn't eat for long enough, the hunger pains would go away, and started braiding my golden strands, planning, repeating normal and mundane actions to keep me in my right mind. I'd stay sane, I wouldn't marry him, and I'd escape before Ganondorf got back. Everything would be fine.

Again, luck and the goddesses were not with me.