Her world was fuzzy still, but she moved closer and saw that her eyes weren't deceiving her. Perhaps her mind was.
"Link?" she choked out again.
"It's me," he said, grinning halfheartedly.
"Why are you here?" she hissed, though the words tore at her raw throat. She cleared it, though that did little more than agitate it further.
"I've been looking for you for the past two days," he said, offering her his hand. "This isn't the easiest room to find."
"How?"
He shook his hand, imploring her to take it. "I'll tell you later. Now, we have to get you out. I heard the Princess might be here, too. Any ideas about that?"
Zelda took his hand, but overestimated her legs, trying and failing to stand. She still wasn't sure if it was from her obvious concussion, or her standing for several days. "I… I'm…" the world spun, and her eyes bugged out as she nearly collapsed from her hands and knees.
"Never mind," Link said, pulling her back up.
She leaned heavily against him, but let go, trying to move on her own, without support. Her knee buckled and she felt Link break her fall, lowering her down slowly. He knelt beside her and picked up his helmet.
"Let me help you."
"I can do this," she whispered, maybe more to herself than to him.
He smirked at her and glanced at the door before holding his hand out again. "Is it your pride? Or do you just enjoy falling over?"
She scoffed as he used her own words against her, but still looked hesitantly at his hand. She wanted to walk out of here on her own, but her head made it impossible.
Link didn't budge. "You have four choices, Zelda. I can help you out of here slowly, but with all the dignity you have because you managed to walk on your own. I can carry you out of here and you can maintain most of your dignity, because apparently you think you lose some if someone helps you. I can carry you out of here over my shoulder, which is very sore because I probably popped it back in wrong and I'd rather not carry you out like that. Or, I can drag you out of here, because I'm not leaving this room without you. Which do you want?"
"We'll get caught."
"I accidentally took care of that. We have a window."
"Accidentally?"
"I'll tell you that later, too."
Zelda closed her eyes and winced in pain, as if her body were answering for her. "Fine. Help."
He nodded and slid his arms under her legs and behind her back, picking her off the floor and adjusting her in his arms. She tried to lean on his shoulder—his good one—to take some of the weight off of him. And despite herself, her heavy head lolled onto his shoulder as well.
"We'll be very obvious like this," she pointed out.
"I know," he muttered, walking quickly to the door. "I have an idea for that."
Zelda's breath hitched when he stopped to turn the knob. Her own eyes stared back at her from a mirror over his shoulder.
Her hair was matted down with blood from the day she'd run from the cell. The blonde strands were suspiciously grey from the rubble that had fallen on her. Her entire face was bruised, her lip still swollen from the hard hit she'd received before she'd been rendered unconscious by the guards who'd caught her. She could see that her skirt had torn slightly from the friction of the confined space, and what hair wasn't covered in blood was wild and tangled from her flailing to remove that creature from her head. Her lips were cracked and broken, parched dry, despite the water she'd just drank.
"Do I really look this bad?" she asked quietly.
Link's hand was under her legs, on the door handle, but he stopped to look at her. "Yes," he said quickly before pushing the door open and looking into the empty hallway.
"Thank you for your honesty," she muttered.
He hurried through the long hallway and peeked into a room before ducking into it, setting Zelda down in a chair. He moved another under the door handle so anyone who tried to enter would at least struggle before bursting inside.
"What's your plan?" she asked, watching him take things off a set table with a long, white linen covering the wood.
He only smirked at her, and she rolled her eyes, waiting.
Pulling the cloth off the table, he knelt in front of her, his eyes resting on each of her injuries. "I created a distraction that will make this believable. What I want to do is to wrap this around you and carry you out to the field, as if you were my dead friend."
Her mouth dropped. "You have a morbid fascination with my death, Link."
His eyes softened. "You don't have to do this, after being in that… prison… we can think of something else."
She took a breath, realizing what he meant. She'd be wrapped up, covered, unable to move, her breathing constricted by the sheet.
"Tell me one thing first," she said, looking him over. She felt, more than anything, that she could trust him, but one thing nagged at her. "How did you acquire this uniform. Was it yours?"
He flinched, and she could see the genuine hurt that flickered in his eyes at the implication. "No, it wasn't mine. When I got out, thanks to you might I add, I killed a soldier and took his uniform. You'd believe me if you knew how tight this was on me. It's not my size."
She chuckled, despite herself and the situation.
He continued. "I used the uniform to sneak around undetected. I heard that 'Ganondorf's favorite prisoner' was still alive in this wing of the castle somewhere, and I've just been looking, hoping they meant you."
"You should have left. You should have found the Prince and joined his army."
Link scoffed, his eyes glinting. "You didn't leave me; I wasn't going to leave you."
Zelda felt her chest tighten at his words. He had no idea who she was, yet he was willing to risk his freedom to find her. It was something she was unaccustomed to. Sure, there were people who followed the royal family solely out of love and nothing more, but the majority of her guards gave their lives for her because it was their job, or because—when it came down to it—they were faced with the choice fighting for her, or dying at the hands of the enemy without putting up that final fight.
Link moved to stand, but he was interrupted.
"Wait, one more thing," she said quickly. He nodded, waiting for her to continue. "You said the Princess might be here. You don't want to try to find her?"
That stopped Link for a moment, and he bit his lip, thinking. "Of course, I do," he said after a while. "But I don't know where she is. And if I'd found her before finding you, I'd have dragged her through the castle until we found you. Why do you ask? Do you want to find her?"
Zelda's mouth opened and she made a noise, unsure if she was safe to tell him. But she just shook her head. "No. But, I heard a rumor that she was being rescued. I just didn't know if you were going to try to find her."
Link rested his hand on her knee and glanced back at the door uneasily. He looked like he wanted to say something else to her, but he held out the tablecloth. "Are you ready, or do you want to think of a different plan?"
Her eyes slid to Link's waist, to the long sword that rested there, ready for use. She took a breath and nodded. She let him wrap her up until she was entirely covered and ling prone on the ground. She kept her eyes closed, imagining she was under the blankets of her once-room.
"Okay, Zelda," he said, and she heard the draw of metal. "I'm going to cut my hand and put some blood on this, so it looks like you were stabbed or something, okay?"
"Okay," she breathed.
"I'm just going to let it drip around your waist." She heard the slice from the sword, but not a hiss of pain. "Doing it now," he warned.
She felt the drops hit the cloth and twitched before settling back into her calmer mind-space. She heard the chair from under the door drag and she was lifted back into his arms.
"This probably will be uncomfortable but try to stay limp. I'll try to keep your head up, but if it falls, let it fall until I can move you back."
"Okay."
She felt him chuckle. "Is that all you can say?"
She rolled her eyes, like he could see, and shook her head. "Let's get the nine hells out of here, Link."