A/N: So this fic is on Ao3 under my other name, DeiliaMedlini. Because it's a different name, I never actually considered cross-posting it here, but I've been moving old fics from here to there, so now I'm going to try to do the same thing, so I'm going to post two chapters daily until the whole thing is here. I feel like it's just so weird to have half of my fics in one place and half in another.

AU world, not a specific Link or Zelda (despite the thumbnail being BOTW). It's rated T for violence. It gets a bit graphic in the last few chapters, but it's otherwise not bad. I'll plop a warning on those.

She was used to the dark by now. It was such a rare occasion that the guards would leave the torches lit in the hall, but when they did, she memorized the empty hallway, the bricks in the wall, the cracks on the floor. There was little else to do but stare beyond the bars. One door on each side of the corridor. Of course, she knew where the doors led. She knew it well. It was her home.

Or, it had been.

Each time the door opened with one of the soldiers who bore her food, she was blinded by the bright light that came from a window just outside. It often took her too long to adjust her eyes before the soldier was gone again, and today, it was no different.

She heard the cell door open and didn't dare to go near it, not again. After several attempts, she learned the punishment for trying to escape. The bruises all across her body were evidence of that. So, as she did every day, she waited for him to leave so she could eat her meal in what little peace she still felt.

But today, she heard a creak as she bit into the sludge she was given. Waiting, she couldn't see or hear anyone entering the room. The light would have given them away for sure, yet no one was inside. A rat, perhaps? She didn't love the thought, but she knew far worse things than the nibbling of an unwelcome predator in the night.

She stood up, ready to fight back. That was something they hadn't broken her of. She would fight. But still, there were no footsteps.

The creak came again, this time, it was longer.

Goddess…

The door to her cell.

They'd forgotten to lock it.

She took a deep, steadying breath. Her adrenalin was pumping her heart faster than even her horse could ride. The door was tight as she squeezed through it. There was no way she'd risk a louder creak by opening it any wider, and no possibility that she could hesitate any longer.

She ran to the far door, one that would lead closer to the stairway out of the dungeons. She, as the Princess of Hyrule, had been afforded the "luxury" of isolation in her own cell, far from the scum in the true dungeons. But it had been a lie.

There was nowhere safe inside the castle. She didn't know who else from the castle household was dead or alive, but she knew that if her people saw her, even just once, that there was no chance of the usurper hiding her away again. Either she'd be released to her rooms and make an appearance once in a while, or she would be publicly executed. Either option was better than this.

But, if she was caught, anyone who recognized her was at risk of execution. The usurper would rather her fate be unconfirmed so he could take the throne, but it was in name only. Until she, the last member of the royal family, signed away her throne, no one, not even a usurper, could take it away from her bloodline. And her cousin had already begun to raise an army to take back the kingdom.

There was no way to risk grabbing a torch to light the way. She had to rely on years of exploring the castle to find her way to the stairs. It didn't take long. They were loud each time her foot hit the stone, echoing through the tall staircase.

But upon reaching the top, there was no reprieve. The door opened, and she was face to face with a moblin and two soldiers.

"Hey!" one yelled as she took off back down the stairs.

Her breath caught as she tried to make it back through the door, but a hard hand hit her shoulder, pushing her against the wall with such force that she felt blood in her mouth from her lip.

"Let's go," the soldier muttered.

"No!" she cried, reaching for the wall to claw at, as if it could halt her captors.

She tried to squirm free of his grasp, but there was very little room in his arms to maneuver. It felt like he was crushing her ribs, though perhaps he was doing so on purpose so she couldn't escape.

He dragged her into the cells of the true dungeon, the seemingly endless room filled to the brim by 'criminals'. Cries from every single cage burst into the air immediately, hurting her eardrums. The most common: "Let me out! I'm Princess Zelda!"

And she knew very well that it wasn't true. She was Zelda. And that plea did nothing.

Her heart sank, but she was thankfully thrown into one of the few empty cells.

"The King will deal with you when he returns."

"He is not the King," she spat back with as much defiance as she could muster, only to receive a hard, gloved slap across her cheek. It stung, sending unwitting tears to her eyes, though she stared back boldly as the soldier locked the cage, testing the door.

It was only when he left and the room quieted down again that she heard a voice from the cell next to hers. Though she couldn't see the speaker, she could tell he was a younger man. His voice was husky, like it hadn't been used in some time.

"Frinz, is that you? Back again?" It was fairly easy to hear him, even over the loud shouts and pleas from the rest of the hallway. She suspected he was right up against the wall that connected their two cells.

"Excuse me?" she asked, leaning against the bars to try to look into his cell. The angle made it impossible "Are you speaking to me?"

The young man chuckled, despite this morbid situation they were in. "Well, you're definitely not Frinz. What's your name?"

"Zelda."

The man sighed. "You and everyone elses' name in here. Is that your real name? I swear I won't tell them it isn't."

"It is my real name."

"Named for the princess, then?"

There was no point in trying to convince the man who she was. "Yes. What is your name? Why are you here?"

"My name? Link. I was a soldier who fought against the Demon King. What brings you here?"

Zelda grasped the bars more firmly. "I existed."

Link scoffed. "I suppose that's reason enough for some people."

"Have you tried getting out of here? Is there any way?" she asked, desperate already.

"I've gotten out several times, actually. I became rather adept at it. But given that I am here still, you can see how far I've gotten. I am now officially chained to the wall just out of reach of the door. I was deemed too dangerous."

"Are you alright?"

The young man laughed. "It doesn't quite matter at this point whether I am or not. I used up my last opportunity for escape."

"So you've given up?" she asked, feeling her own crippling despair.

But Link laughed again. She wished she could see if he had a look of joy or of dark humor on his face. "As long as I'm breathing, I'm not giving up. Have you heard that the real Princess herself is in these prison walls, yet she still hasn't ceded the Kingdom of Hyrule to that usurper? If she can hold fast in this place, I think some of us can learn from her."

Zelda's mouth twitched ever so slightly. "What if she's terrified every moment?"

She could hear his rattle of chains.

"We can only be bravest when we are most afraid."