Note: Hi! It's been a while. Things have gotten super busy in the last few weeks, so I've been delayed with these. I think there may be two or three more chapters after this one, but the updates will come a little bit more slowly.
Super quick note for the anon that was bothered by me making Zelda a "desperate pick me" in the last chapter- I personally do not view Zelda that way, but I hope you will keep in mind that the prompt was "Mania"! It's not really a healthy or admirable prompt, so that's why she was written in a more unpleasant light. Anyway, totally fine if you didn't enjoy it, but I just wanted to put that out there! :)
This next one is maybe a little reminiscent of 'Agape', although this one is not intended to be as romantic and has more conflict. I've been sitting on this one for a bit because I just feel like I haven't gotten it exactly right, but it's gotta leave the nest sometime.
Storge
[storge: devoted love; comfortable, secure, and instinctual]
"Please, just tell me...what is it? What's wrong with me?"
Zelda's plea pierced the stillness of the Deep Akkala hinterland as her devotional disintegrated into frenzied appeal. As serene as the region presented itself, an undeniable strain of mournful urgency had wrestled the atmosphere all evening, finally coming to a lamentable head with a final cry into the night.
After so many months spent in her company, Link had witnessed the many different shades of Zelda's voice– from her passionate declarations regarding Hylian flora to the strained, indignant whispers in the aftermath of her father's chastising. He took pride in how well he'd familiarized himself with her tones, at how well he could interpret her inflections–though the skill now felt more like a curse; his heart ached at how positively doleful she sounded from the middle of the spring. There was a particularly disconsolate note in her voice, one that promised full-throttled tears, and the knight acted upon it dutifully.
Zelda's knees buckled beneath her, and Link could already see her sinking down as he took his first step into the pool. He waded through the water with haste, artfully catching her in her descent. He gripped at her forearms and indelicately hoisted her up to his level.
"I can't, I can't..." she repeated, her voice shaking with frightful tremors, hardly even registering his sudden appearance before her. The soaked fabric of her dress gripped at her form, and a small gasp escaped her as a wave of chilled air slammed its way into her body. "I can't do it, Link," she whispered, incredulously, as the barren consummation of her efforts crashed upon her. "I can't do it." Zelda's eyes, feverish and overladen with emotion, rose to search her knight's. "It's pointless. It's not meant to be…" The words spewed from her mouth, each one more defeated and bleaker than the last, pulverizing her character and causing Link's brows to furrow in discomfort; it was as though she was seeking confirmation from him: punish me. I deserve it.
Her anxiety appeared insurmountable. Link stepped forward, awkwardly slipping his arms around her frame so that she stumbled inelegantly into his grasp. All apocalyptic declarations suddenly muted in his chest, and he swallowed hard at how still her body became. He'd meant for it to be a consoling gesture. A comfort. A palette cleanser after the initial crest of anxiety. Instead, it surely must have looked like a gauche display of silencing her.
"You're okay. Let's call it a night."
The words trickled out far more unceremoniously than he had hoped, but the aplomb quieted her all the same. He silently prayed it wasn't for the wrong reasons.
Link felt her clenched fists slowly move across his back, and they opened, like blossoms in the spring, to press flat against him. He could feel the slight twitch of fingers aquiver with unease. He inhaled deeply, strands of her hair catching against his nose and cheek, and he focused his attention entirely on regulating his own heartbeat in the peculiar hope that hers might soon harmonize with his.
It was his duty, he felt, to provide her comfort when needed. But he'd never attempted it in such a manner before. Still, she hadn't rejected this new effort–surely he might be permitted to consider it a success.
"Let's get you warmed up."
Link escorted her from the spring and into the night. The familiar whisper of her dress moving across stone echoed much more heavily than usual as it dragged begrudgingly across the landing. In silence, they came upon the campsite, as orderly as they had left it. Link placed Zelda upon a small blanket before rummaging through a knapsack and retrieving a dry set of clothing, placing it beside her tucked knees. Digging into a more cloistered section of the bag, he pulled out a small bottle that housed a deep red liquid.
"Drink up. We don't want you catching a cold."
Wordlessly, Zelda reached out to accept it from him. She uncorked the bottle and tipped her head back, the liquid mingling with sobs still locked away in her throat as it slid into her. She watched him rekindle the fire while hazardous thoughts whirled within her; shivering to death in Akkala would undoubtedly be a far less painful death than whatever the Calamity had in store for them.
"Princess, please change into the warmer garments."
Zelda silently rolled the bottle between her hands, downcast eyes drawing back into focus as her temperature rose in a most peculiar fashion.
His rustling ceased. "Princess…" he lowered his voice so that it rang softly, almost as pleadingly as hers had a short while ago.
"What is the point?" she finally murmured with a heavy exhalation. Her face, dappled with the stains of desiccated tears, managed to maintain its delicate beauty even in the face of such disorder.
"To…avoid sickness," he said, dimly.
Zelda scoffed and tore her eyes away from the bottle, a wretched gleam shining within them. "If I disappeared tomorrow, Hyrule would hardly notice my absence. I am no closer to fulfilling my purpose than I was five years ago. I ought to be put out of my misery–at this point, I welcome hypothermia."
The words were spat out at no one in particular, though it wounded the knight as though he were on the receiving end. Link felt his teeth grit, his body swelling with bewilderment as she spoke in such a manner. He tossed a last piece of firewood onto the flame beside him. "And you would just abandon your people?
"They have my father to lead them," Zelda grumbled. "He isn't a raging disappointment."
Link flared with a bubbling irritation that he'd never felt towards her before, not even when their relationship brimmed with animosity. "Princess…why don't we leave the conversation here for now..."
"-I'm positive that all of Hyrule can agree that he isn't the royal family member that deserves to freeze out here–"
"With all due respect…"
"-in fact, I'd say I deserve much worse–"
"That is enough."
Perhaps it hadn't been the wisest decision. He had refused her in many ways before, like when she'd command him to stay behind and he'd follow anyway. But never like this; never in a way in which he seemed to silence her, in such an authoritative voice unlike any she'd ever heard from him.
"...I beg your pardon?"
Zelda's tone suddenly elicited the far more frigid hues that it had possessed in the early days of their relationship. Link's jaw clamped down as he tried to secure the correct wording for his thoughts.
"I...I cannot permit you to speak this way about–"
She was already up on her feet before he could finish the thought. Link braced himself as he glanced upwards to meet her apoplectic eyes.
"You cannot permit or deny me anything. You are my knight."
The tears that he discovered swimming in her glance were only somewhat unexpected. They betrayed her, dampened her outrage, while her set jaw trembled as she struggled to maintain some sort of composure.
"I despise everyone presuming to have some sort of claim over me. I refuse to hear it any longer-especially from you." she spat, taking extra care to ensure that the final word was spiked with just the right amount of venom.
After all that had grown between them, after all they had shared, the words pierced far more deeply than they would have only a couple of months prior. Link's frown deepened.
"Forgive me, Princess. I have no intention of controlling you. I'm embarrassed to admit that I thought I could speak more freely with you after these last few weeks. It will not happen again." he mumbled, lowering his gaze in response and retracing the steps back to his sheathed demeanor of days past.
Her brow creased, and something suddenly broke within her. All composure withered away, and she was soon sinking down to her knees once more in blossoming sobs.
"…No, Link... I misspoke…I didn't mean..." she lurched forward, arms wrapped around herself as she began to wail. "I'm just so…scared."
Link recognized the desperate sort of cry– haunting and resigned, like that of prey corned in the forest. For a moment, he considered moving to hold her again, though he had already done that once with very little reward–it might have worked, he thought, if I hadn't been terrible at it. The remnants of her words, piercing and invective, still hung heavily between attentive ears, and it was hard to believe that she might have craved his arms now.
"Please," she whimpered, " I apologize. Let me clarify– I just can't bear to hear my father in you. But you are my colleague…my companion. I consider you my…my good friend, Link. But what sort of friend can I possibly be? I've completely and utterly doomed you. You must understand that my inadequacy will be your downfall–the kingdom's downfall. What can I possibly be worth?"
He watched her tremble upon the ground, practically shrinking before his very eyes.
Regret coursed through him; surely, he should have just turned the other cheek, let her vent out her frustrations as he had done many times before. She was exposed, flailing for words and struggling to process her emotions. It would be torturous to let her struggle for much longer.
"Princess, it is never my intention to challenge your authority," he started. "I apologize–what I meant is that…I refuse to hear you speak so poorly of yourself." He bent at the waist to speak more directly to her. Her cries slowly began to settle into a series of trembling sniffles. Link found himself aching further at the sight, wanting so desperately to reach out and hold her close in a way that was far more caressing than what he had offered prior. He wanted redemption. "I can't hear you belittle yourself in such a way." He stated firmly. "I will not let you try to convince me that we are better off living in a world without you."
Zelda looked up at him with widened eyes, the new flush on her face illuminated with silvery moonlight. With flickering compassion in his own glance, Link extended a hand out to her, but she merely eyed it sadly. "But I have been cruel to you," she whimpered, "just cruel. And you have always been so patient with me. And I don't think that I have deserved it. You shouldn't be so kind to me." Her voice thinned away as she lifted a finger to a glossy eye, brushing a lone tear away.
"I can decide that for myself, I think."
Zelda relented. As soon as her fingers found his, she was suddenly launching herself into his arms, burying her face in the crook of his neck and inhaling so deeply that his scent, the one she had grown so accustomed to in recent months, filled her entirely, warming her as though it were an elixir of its own. Link found himself cradling her, suddenly prospering where he had previously struggled, and all at once everything about the embrace felt so natural. He felt secure, confident– more sure of anything than he had ever been; tending to her seemed woven into the very fabric of his being.
"You are doing more than enough," he murmured against her head.
Zelda choked into him, holding onto him treacherously as though he was apt to flee from her. He lowered his face so that he now nuzzled the top of her head, holding her as tenderly as a person with such little experience could manage.
"Whatever obstacle you might be facing…it can't possibly be your fault." He hoped that the words weren't growing disingenuous in her ears. He reared his head back slightly, just enough to allow himself to speak a bit more directly to her plaintive face. "I have complete faith in you. You trust my judgment, don't you?"
Although she hesitated, she was soon nodding into him with a small sound.
"And have I ever been dishonest with you?"
She shook her head, small and callow-like and stirring with foreign vulnerability.
"See? Then trust me. You'll find your power. We'll be victorious."
Zelda pulled herself away to examine him. Despite the soft sadness that flooded her expression, Link suddenly felt pinned beneath it, suspended before her in exhausted exhilaration. He tried, in vain, to still the nagging reminder that her limbs were still pressed tightly against his body. That she had been satisfied with the solace that he had found it within him to provide.
"Link…" His name on her tongue in such a breathless manner burrowed into him, settling beneath his skin in such a deliciously uncomfortable way. "Thank you."
"Of course, Princess." he said, holding fast beneath her uncertain new expression. She pulled him back into one more embrace, savoring this new shade to their relationship, sniffling slightly all the while.
"Now, will you put some dry clothes on, please?"
Zelda closed her eyes and smiled against him.