Well, here it is--a chapter with all the fluff and love you've all been waiting for. Okay, not really, but there's always hope, right? By the way, sorry for the long hiatus, but I had a horrible case of writer's block, on top of the end of my senior year slapping me in the face. But I'm actually back to making progress now, so that's good, right?

Anyway, enjoy!

Update (6/22/05): Re-uploaded this to fix some QuickEdit-produced errors. So if you've already read this (yeah, all two of you), I didn't tack on a steamy LZ scene to the end or anything like that.

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Zelda refused to wait on Lord Tally. "Lord Emery's treason is vile enough...but to be betrayed by you, after so long? I will not bear it. Should I have you thrown from the ramparts like some unruly garrison man?"

Old Lord Ellison seemed less timid today; perhaps the cloak speckled with Octoroks wrapped around his thin, trembling body had given him courage. "No. You should swallow your foolish pride, lower the drawbridge, and parley with Lord Pollard. As you will not, however, at least allow those of us with enough sense to accept this proposal to..."

"Sense?" Her anger flared. "I name it treason. What else do you call it, when you plot to forsake your rightful king and treat with traitors?"

"Sense," Ellison repeated stubbornly. "If I'm consigned to a dungeon cell till you yield because I dare speak the truth, then so be it; I will bear the punishment gladly. This siege has been folly from the start, I've said that much, and the sooner it's over the better for all of us involved. I have a wife and daughter I haven't seen in over a year. I want to go home."

Laughter burst from the lips of Martyn Alberik, a handsome man with a trident sewn onto his breast. "Be careful what you wish for, Denys, or this council may grow smaller yet."

Zelda glanced coldly at Alberik before pushing her attack once more, heedless. "We must all suffer disappointments in this life..."

"Enough." Berent's soft voice had become a whip. "Are you all trained birds, to chirp in turns? I will have quiet." Almost as an afterthought he added, "Sit down, wife."

Her fury quelled a bit, Zelda took her seat at the foot of the council table and closed her eyes briefly. What was wrong with her? Her anger felt so painful, and her throat was sore all the time. The infection, she reminded herself. Opening her eyes, she attempted to stop the beginnings of fear from growing within her by studying the features of the husband she'd known for the last ten years.

Berent had emerged from his week-long seclusion with the gods no worse for wear than he'd been when he entered it, but that was not all to the good. Hardly the most handsome of men, the king's inherent homeliness had only been compounded by the passage of years. Too close together, his eyes were the brown of his Morley mother rather than the startling green of the swamp lords, rheumy and never still; his nose was sharp, his brow high and pale, his small mouth petulant. A slender golden crown rested on his close-cropped white hair, drawing attention to his thin beardless face; his skin hung doughily from his bones, the main mark of his age. Now that he was sixty-six, Zelda could acknowledge she was married to a man who was old, done, and failing.

This is the husband my father gave me, for the rest of my life. She remembered his words still, could smell the sickly-sweet odor of his sickroom. "Berent's a good man," her father had said as she sat holding his hand. "Dutiful, intelligent, kind...he'll take care of you." The wasting illness had stolen his strength and his voice was hardly a whisper, but once she gave him her word he'd squeezed her hand, and all his characteristic fierceness had come rushing back. That old ferocity couldn't save him when his time came, though; she'd been with him when he died, two days after her marriage. Berent said he'd found her holding his hand still, unable to speak for her tears. That she didn't remember at all.

Just now, Berent was staring at Lord Ellison in a half-bored, half-curious way. Zelda had learned it was best not to interrupt him when he looked like that. "My royal wife seems to be under the wrong impression, Denys. Tell her the tale, as you told it to me. Leave nothing out."

Irked though she was at Berent's coddling, Zelda held her silence and waited for Ellison to pick up the debate the nine of them had agonized over for an entire morning...whether they would sooner live or die.

Dying would be easier, Zelda knew. All they need do was ignore the letter, which still wanted to curl despite the efforts that had been taken to flatten it, and hide behind Hyrule Castle's walls to wait for the end to come. Their wait would not be long now, and the end would come as a welcome relief; Zelda imagined death would come upon them like some old friend instead of the suspicious stranger they'd thought it to be their whole lives. They would win immortality in songs for their efforts, and why not? They had tried valiantly and failed; they would die nobly, with their knees unbent...

Farore gave life and received death, just payment, but it seemed to Zelda that the price for one outweighed that of the other. Living would come hard, hard. To live for another moon's turn they would be forced to sacrifice honor and any vestiges of courage they had left within them. That price went against everything she had been taught, was more than Zelda cared to pay. But to accept death in its place, after so long...the fact that she was inwardly wavering between the two choices was enough to make her fight all the harder to bring about their deaths.

Ellison cleared his throat loudly, drawing Zelda out of her tumultuous thoughts. "I found the bird early this morning while I was walking the roof," he announced. He picked up the parchment from where Lord Burke had laid it down and scanned it idly. "I took it directly to His Grace, as I knew he would want. It turned out to be a letter from Della Morley, who has spent the past year in captivity at the Misery Maze. She and a hundred of Your Grace's lords bannermen are marching to our relief with all their strength. Two weeks from now, her host will arrive; she's already distracted Lord Emery by telling him he has a moon's turn to agree to terms she's delivered to him via one of his lords bannermen, but her plan necessitates our inviting Pollard to parley the morning of her arrival. She says she will be the hammer and our parley the anvil. She--"

"That's enough, Denys." Berent held up one of his gnarled hands, rings flashing on every finger. "We know all of this. There's one thing you neglected to mention, however. My scouts told me that for the past week there have been archers positioned around the moat, poised to strike down any bird that comes within a league of the castle. Yet this morning these archers were curiously absent."

Lord Alberik, the quickest of the bunch, puzzled out Berent's meaning first. "You think the letter was a ploy by Lord Emery to draw us into parley?"

"Why not?" Zelda saw it as well. "He cannot be seen to ask us to parley first, especially if he means to be king. Signing it as Della Morley, he can be assured we'll at least consider this proposal...considering that the Morleys have supported the Crown completely during this war. And now is the perfect time to send this offer. Lady Morley's conveniently been held in the Maze up till this point, supposedly. It's been over a year, and both sides have grown lax. Were I Emery, I would have done much the same. Throw the dice, watch, wait. Either we'll accept his parley, or we'll ignore it and be starved out. There's nothing to lose." She shrugged. "The best thing to do about this is nothing, I say."

"Lord Emery couldn't have written the letter," Ellison argued, his desperation palpable. "I've corresponded with him over the years. His writing is much more spidery. Surely Lady Morley must have written this."

"As it happens, you're right there...Emery couldn't have written this." Berent shook his head languidly. "Anyone else could have, however. Perhaps one of his lords penned it, or a camp follower who has her letters. He could have had Lady Morley write it herself from the Maze, but that's a bit of a stretch for him. He's not that skilled in intrigue."

Lord Burke coughed. "Your Grace...there's no question of if Lady Morley could have been convinced to write such a letter? She is an ardent supporter of the Crown, you know."

Berent stared at Lord Burke for a long time. "Arrick, the dungeons of Misery Maze can break a man's will surprisingly quickly. A woman's even faster."

An awkward silence fell. Zelda used the moment to take up the letter for herself, considering the words one last time. A parley. If only...but no, she dared not. She could not allow any of them to be taken alive, to be paraded as trophies. "So it's decided. We will do nothing."

Alberik looked at her first and longest. "We have no choice," he murmured, ever regretful, ever weary. "Sadly..."

Then came the answers of the other lords, "aye" and "agreed" in abundance, while Berent listened with his fingers steepled. All but Ellison. "I'm sorry, Your Grace, but I cannot accept this decision."

"You must." His obstinance annoyed her. Does he ever see me for a queen? Has he ever? "You have no power here. You are under my protection."

"I hold no power here, that much is true." Ellison cleared his throat, as if to marshal his courage. "But my seat of Hellgate is well placed to cut off the West from Hyrule, if my castellan so chooses. And if news of my untimely death should reach my castellan...well, I have two thousand swords I've held back in defense of my keep that could be deployed. Two thousand swords could mean the difference between victory and defeat." Noon light shone in his dark blue eyes. "You would be wise not to underestimate me, Your Grace."

Zelda could not have been more shocked if he'd slapped her. "Are you threatening me?"

"I mislike that word." Ellison inclined his head stiffly. "Let us say I am advising you."

"Thank you for your advice, Denys," Berent said with a courtesy cold enough to freeze water. "Thank you all. I will think on all you have said. Leave me now. One of you will tell Norton what we've discussed here today."

"Tally," Zelda murmured while Berent's lords rose. "Where is Tally?"

It was Alberik who answered. "Oh, Norton." He said the words with a laugh, but Zelda couldn't help but notice the sweat shining on his forehead. "You surely know how he is. Most like he had a lively night with one of the maids, and..."

Berent slammed a fist down on the table, for a moment too angry to speak; it was well known how he detested whores. "I gave him a command. A royal command! Leave me now, before I grow wroth." His dark eyes flicked up to Zelda when he realized she was leaving too. "Not you, Zelda."

Their lords left them, and a strained silence fell over the council room. Berent shuffled spare bits of parchment together while Zelda looked down at her hands. They had not seen each other in a week...and it seemed neither of them could think of a word to say to the other. Ten years of marriage had formed a bond, Zelda was sure, but that bond extended only to trust, not easy companionship. In truth they had spent the majority of their marriage apart, with Berent ruling and Zelda in childbed, and they didn't have much in common. So Zelda held her silence and waited for Berent to speak, knowing he wouldn't want to speak to her alone unless there was a matter of import to discuss.

"Denys," he muttered at last. "We'll have to watch that one. He misses his family, and he's desperate to see them. I mislike the look in his eyes."

"He threatened me," Zelda pointed out. In easier days she might have laughed at the threat a lordling with some minor holdings in Gerudo Valley could pose, but with their strength all but at an end the danger felt real.

"Let him. It takes courage for Denys to make threats like that, and courage makes him stupid. I prefer my councilors courageous and stupid rather than cowardly and cunning." Berent made a mark on a piece of parchment. "He can do nothing here, for all his protestations otherwise. Now explain to me, wife, why you would have us reject the best chance we've had for victory in a long while."

How could she possibly explain her reasoning to him in terms he'd understand? Zelda bit the inside of her cheek as she considered her words. "We've committed ourselves to this siege, Berent. To parley with your brother at this point would make beggars of us all...would serve as betrayal to all we've fought for in this past year. My father once told me that it was better to be seen as a dead brave man than a live craven. And now I finally understand him."

"You make a good argument, Zelda." Berent nodded. "As it happens, I've come to the same conclusion. The gods granted me a vision in my seclusion, of a future where we went to parley with Emery. Suffice to say, neither of us were alive to see the end of it. Della Morley be damned. I'll tell my lords of my decision at our next meeting. For the nonce..." He shifted and grimaced. "We must keep our men in as high spirits as possible. I will visit the injured ones tonight, in the great hall. Are you sure you won't accompany me? It would be best for them to see us together..."

"No," Zelda said, too quickly. "Forgive me, Berent...I don't feel very well." And the reason behind it would have driven him mad: she could not get those tense, exciting moments she'd spent with Link in the great hall out of her mind. She yearned to see him again, to have him look on her with the longing and heat she felt within herself even now...it could never be allowed to happen again. Or it could, if I so choose. If I want Link, I need only say so. That was a new thought, and one that made her blush; never before had she considered keeping a paramour. It was hard enough to puzzle out her true feelings for him without facing this new choice. Zelda fled from it, banishing it to the back of her mind. Was Berent as weak as I feel, when he dishonored himself in some woman's bed?

Her husband's voice was all she needed to strengthen her resolve. "As you wish. Help me."

Zelda did as he bid her, summoning Berent's son and a few gaunt garrison men to help the king back to his bedchamber. Watching him go, all the indecision came rushing back. Berent was her husband, and though she felt no great love for him she didn't feel she could betray him by taking a lover. As far as Link went, her thoughts were all a tumult. Her mind kept returning to the subject of him, picking at a sore that had never really healed. I'm his queen, not his lover, he must be reminded of that, she decided one such time, only to decide a few minutes later, I'll talk to him, and make my decision then. I will.

But those were foolish thoughts, keeping her mind from the real issue at hand. Here I sit pondering whether or not to take Link into my bed like some fretful maiden girl, Zelda thought, disgusted, while my people suffer and the realm is torn apart. Link would not love me half so well if he could see me now.

It was almost moonrise when he came to see her in her chambers. "Link." Zelda had been reading, but she set the parchment aside now. "Should you be out of bed? You look..."

He looks ghastly. For the first time she appreciated how thin he was, nothing more than skin pulled taut over bone. A swordbelt hung low on his narrow hips, but he wore no sword...and she couldn't help but notice how he seemed to favor his injured sword arm. Thin lines of pain were visible on his sweaty brow and beneath the yellow tangle of hair that passed for his beard, Zelda realized he was biting his lip. His eyes were big and blue, and just now clouded with pain. She wanted nothing more than to give him what comfort she could.

"You look well," she lied at last. "But tired."

Link scarcely seemed to hear her at first, but once his eyes found her face they never left it. "Yes," he murmured, thick and slow. "The doctor, he said...said the same. We must talk, Zelda. May I sit down?"

"Please do." He collapsed into a seat by the hearth, his eyes closing for a moment. Zelda took the chance to look him over once more, surprised by how quickly the blood from his arm wound had stained the undyed wool of his tunic. For him to risk so much, she knew this would be no simple matter. "You missed a lively council. We're to parley with Lord Emery, it seems." An offer that was on the brink of being rejected. A depressing thought, she reflected.

Link's eyes snapped open, and he stared at her for a long moment. "You're to parley?" he asked softly, tasting the words. "Maybe I don't understand you as well as I thought, Zelda. You would never have consented to such ten years ago."

He is blunt. Feeling scrutinized under the weight of Link's gaze, Zelda looked down at herself and smoothed down her skirts, wondering if he could perceive her anxiousness. "But you..." She stopped; it wouldn't be wise to be the first to approach the subject, she decided. For the moment Link was completely ignoring the warm touches they'd shared in the great hall, maybe that was the wisest course. And there would never be a better time to gauge just how he felt about the siege. "Well, it is an offer. Why should it be despised?"

"Because a week ago you would never have allowed that lord down there the chance to take you...alive. Do you think Lord Pollard lies in his tent of a night dreaming of an easy peace? No, don't think to answer. It was not you who agreed to this parley, was it? It was His Grace. Your husband." He said that word with such bitterness that any illusion Zelda held that this would be an ordinary talk was gone. "I swear, I don't know what possesses you to trust him. They're brothers, aren't they? It might be..."

"It's not." She had to shake her head at Link's suspicion. "I am queen, and without many close companions. I must trust someone. I've learned to rely on Berent, Link. He is my husband, though not my friend. And he never held any great love for Emery besides. He was more a reluctant father to him than anything else...and the two of them are too different yet too much alike to ever stand each other now that they are both men grown. If they have worked together all this time to steal my crown from me, then I'll have to congratulate the both of them for being more clever than I ever thought. Please...you must learn to trust my judgment a little."

"I do. My pardons, I forgot myself. I would never have survived to kill Ganondorf without you." Link sighed, wiping sweat from his brow. "There is something that's troubled me, Zelda. I've only seen a single maid here going about her business. The other women left the castle a year ago, I was there to see it. Tell me...why are you still here?"

"You would know?" Zelda got to her feet and went to her narrow window. From here, she could see the westernmost line of nightfires. In an hour, maybe two, Emery's trebuchets would begin their nightly assault on the castle walls, picking off a few more garrison men, making the guilt Zelda felt ever more concentrated. "Very well. I am not one to run away from problems, Link...you should know that better than anyone. When Ganondorf sought to kill me, I resolved to live. I lost myself in another identity, and opposed his rule as much as I could. And after... I would have fought in our border war with the Calatians if Father hadn't forbade it. Well, he was no longer here when Lord Emery's vanguard arrived on my grounds, but there was another thing keeping me from fighting beside my men. This." She gestured down at her body, her voice becoming harder as she continued. "So I convinced Berent to force his brother to lay siege, and when both sides allowed their women to leave I told myself I would stay, that I would be a symbol of strength for my garrison men. And that is why you find me here, Link."

Link was quiet for so long that Zelda turned around and looked at him, just to make sure that he was still there. There was an expression on his face that she didn't understand. "Zelda, I'm sorry."

"No," Zelda said softly. "Don't be sorry. I've done my duty. As you have..."

He shook his head. "A lot of what you've done is more than duty. So many times you've shunned your own comfort, made your own life forfeit...only to prolong someone's pleasure or stop their pain. Can you truly say that it doesn't bother you, that it's nothing more than duty? Haven't you ever felt a sense of regret? Don't you feel any anger when you put your own wants last? This parley...I know you're against it, but don't you wonder what it would be like if you were for it? Tell me you haven't wondered and I'll call you a liar. You must...you must be sad, thinking yourself condemned to death in this castle. Aren't you?"

"...Yes," she admitted reluctantly. Sad and lost. "But none of us can choose what destiny has in store for us. The gods give us what they will...men must do what they can with what they're given."

"Perhaps it's time for you to do more with what you have." Link stood.

"Link, you're a sweet fool." Zelda had to laugh, feeling an absurd sense of relief wash over her for the first time in a few moon's turns. For the moment, maybe everything would be okay. "I suppose I should weave myself a flower crown and put on my softest silk before I command the garrison to raise the portcullis, lower the drawbridge and allow me to pass through. I'm sure Lord Emery will allow me to go on my way as well. That's just...perfect."

Link came to her and cupped her cheek. "And so is this."

There was no time to think, no time to protest because just then he kissed her. His mouth was wet and hungry and he never seemed to notice her pox scars, or smell the stink of her. Before she knew quite what she was doing she responded to him, opening her mouth for his. His mouth tasted stale, and yet...when his tongue moved clumsily over hers, no other sensation had ever seemed so sweet. Zelda lost herself in the joint pleasure, and as she did, one of her hands rose between their bodies and clutched a handful of Link's tunic in a fist, holding him close. This is the way things should have been, she thought, exulting. All this time I've lived a dream, and only now have I awakened.

It was a long kiss, but as soon as it ended she stepped back, outraged and exulting still...and excited. Only Berent had ever kissed her before, and never like that. My vows. "I...you...you should not have done that." She brought a hand to her lips, memorizing how Link's lips had felt there. "I'm a woman wed. Your queen."

"My queen," Link acknowledged, "and the bravest, wisest, most extraordinary woman I have ever known. Zelda..."

"Don't." Zelda forced her face blank before it could betray her. "This is folly. Hear me, nothing must come of this. Surely there must be some other woman who loves you well. Dream of her. I can't...I can't."

"There's been no one else," Link said, and then he was there. He touched her hair. "Only you."

"Only me?" Zelda struggled to hold onto her outrage. It seemed to melt in proportion to the amount of time she spent looking up at Link's face. "It was only me you dreamed of, only my smile you wanted to see, only my lips you yearned to feel against your skin? Even across the water...it was only me you thought of? No crofter's daughter chance met on campaign, no ragged camp follower, no pampered whore in some brothel? Tell me, Link...and tell it true. It was only me you longed for, only this?"

Link lowered his eyes.

"No?" she whispered. "Then don't play the boy with me. You're no lovestruck knight, and I'm not the virgin princess whose hand you seek. All is changed."

"All is changed," he relented. "I've known other women, aye, and you're a woman wed...but sometimes prayers are answered, remember? The gods have given us our second chance, and I swear, this time I mean to fight for your hand." When confronted with his words and the look in his eyes Zelda's outrage and the years slipped away, and the two of them were as they had been ten years ago on a sweet summer day. Melting, Zelda touched his face; her hand moved to his chin as Link brought their mouths together once more, and despite all her vows for a moment everything managed to be heaven.