Zelda could remember the day her parents told her they were having another child. They'd sat her down on her pink canopy bed and held her in their arms. She was only five years old, and they'd bought her a new stuffed cucco, which she hugged to herself as she listened.
She'd gone through several emotions all at once, not limited to anger, confusion, sadness, excitement, and joy. She'd cleared an area of her room where her new sibling could live, though her parents had to gently explain that it wasn't possible to let the new baby live on the floor of her room with her.
She'd felt that same rush of a thousand emotions again when her sister had been born, and then again every time her sister had been praised for her skills in horseback riding or archery. Zelda knew the confusion that came with conflicting emotions all-too well.
And that's what she could see written plainly across Link's features.
He stared at her, unspeaking for an endless moment before he finally shook his head and managed to croak out one single word.
"What?"
Zelda looked around again to make sure no one else was around. "I am Princess Zelda, Link. No one could find her in the castle because no one knew that she was me. The royal household was all murdered the moment Ganondorf took our throne, and those we were imprisoned with had likely never seen me from up close. And Ganondorf would have killed every one of those people if I'd said a word just so Hyrule wouldn't know that the throne was still mine, not his."
She shook him. "Link, I'm sorry, but I couldn't tell you. I really shouldn't be telling you this now either, but you have earned my trust. Prince Daltus is my cousin and he's coming to avenge my family. He was on his way before they were killed to aid Hyrule, but he will likely be making his way here with more haste after hearing of their death. If I died, he would be the next in line to the throne, so he doesn't have much choice but to come here. He likely has a suspicion that I'm alive, especially if half of the castle heard rumors of my survival."
"You're the Princess of Hyrule?" Link asked, his mouth open slightly as he still struggled to take it in.
Ever patient, Zelda nodded. "I am."
He ran a hand across his face and scoffed. "Do I bow?"
"Please don't, Link. You can't tell anyone who I am. People can't know my identity until I get to the safety of my cousin's camp. And that's why I need you to promise me that if I can't bring myself to take my own life in the event of being captured, you must do it."
This time, he started to pace. "Kill the Princess of Hyrule? Are you mad?" But his face steeled. "I'm sor—"
"If you finish that apology, I'll… throw something at you. Call me mad. Call me anything. Don't change anything about how you speak to me. No one can know who I am."
"Why? They'd rally to your side to fight for you."
Zelda grabbed Link and pulled him with her, getting him to move and continue away from the castle as she spoke. "Imagine that I were to go to an inn and announce who I am. One person there might not have liked my family's policies, or they could be hungry and in need of the reward that would follow. Ganondorf then knows where I am, or at least where I am in terms of the general vicinity. As you've told me in the past, I'm not physically capable of fighting him, and he would be coming with half his army to capture me. Even you couldn't stop them.
"Then, I'd be brought back to the castle and thrown into that hole again for a few days. It wouldn't break me, but I'd be weak with hunger and honest panic. That thing was horrible, Link. And he'd bring me out to watch you be torn to actual shreds while you're alive and screaming. He'd probably do that to you and to several others. I'd gather he'd do it all day, perhaps for two days straight.
"But if I didn't crack under that and give him my family's throne, he would then take to torturing me. I would die for Hyrule, and I would suffer for it as well, but if I'd managed to endure through everything before, that would be where I'd break." She watched disbelief cross his face and she stopped, grabbing his hand, and holding his gaze.
"No, Link, I would. You don't know him like I do. He doesn't want to force me into a marriage with him. He doesn't need to show me any kindness. He would start by taking the pieces of my body that I don't need. My left arm. My legs. My ears. My skin. The list goes on. He only needs my voice and my right hand, so fill in those blanks. If that didn't do it, he'd rip pieces of me out of my body and lay them out in front of me. He's an expert at keeping his victims alive while they are tortured. If, gods, if I managed to keep alive that long without ceding the throne, he'd heal me and do it all again until one day, I stopped being me. He breaks people in the worst ways because all he knows is violence. He doesn't understand how to break someone by showing them a mercy. I can't go back to that castle, Link, because if I do, Hyrule will legally pass to that man because I won't be strong enough in the face of all that. But if I die, it goes to my cousin, who has a vast army behind him."
"You told me how your family died," he muttered, putting everything together, slowly, but steadily.
"Yes."
"Your family… you… you're not even the princess. You're the Queen."
She crossed her arms. That was a fact that had not escaped her notice. "Technically yes, though not officially. Until I am officially crowned, I am still Her Royal Highness, Princess Zelda Aravis Thaisa Hyrule, heir apparent to the Kingdom of Hyrule and all its Territories."
Link licked his dry lips and shook his head, still in shock, though not disbelief. "Did…" he looked at her for a long moment, her words swimming around his brain. "Did they make you learn to write all that as a child?"
Zelda let out a breath and felt her mouth tipping up into a small smile. "Unfortunately."
He nodded slowly. "Okay, Princess, I'll do everything in my power to honor your request and to get you to your cousin. Though, I don't know where he is, and if he's not in Hyrule, it's probably too far to walk on foot."
With a harsh sigh of relief, Zelda grabbed Link's hand and squeezed. "Thank you."
His eyes locked where their hands clasped, and his eyes widened. "Oh gods, I've been… I've been flirting with the Princess of Hyrule while indecent."
Zelda laughed and kept walking. "Yes you have! Shamefully attempting to seduce royalty? That must have been what really landed you in the cells in the first place."
"Fires of Din," he muttered, though he looked up apologetically at his slip of a curse.
"Oh please, if I haven't said far more obscene things than that! You don't have to tip-toe around me. I'm not sheltered; I didn't lie to you in the cells. I did volunteer with the wounded and dying soldiers on Hyrule Field, so I can say that your 'indecency' is a far cry from the most I've seen of a man. Though that situation was far more dire and almost makes one numb to it all after a time. Though, I frequently checked on the soldiers stationed at the barracks and know you boys have a fondness for practicing shirtless. Admittedly, it is far rarer for someone to go without shoes in my presence."
"Goddess Hylia, Zelda," he muttered with a chuckle as he passed her.
"Oh, Link, you've gone red!" she teased, catching up to him.
He breathed into his hand and turned his head to her. "We need to find a place to wash up and drink before anything. Under this armor, I'm still as bloodied as I was in the cells, and your hair is too red for someone not to take notice."
She felt her stiff hair and nodded. "You have a story or two to tell me as well. And while we're still alone, you may ask any question you have and I'll answer it honestly. But once we're near any other living person, you can't even acknowledge my title."
He looked her over. While he'd figured she was some noble, he had never imagined this just based on the sheer implausibility of it all. That he of all people might have ended up stuck in a prison cell with the princess.
"I can accept that, Her High Majesty, Princess Zelda Ar… Aravian Thassius Hyrule, heir of the Throne of Hyrule and all Territories." He grimaced.
But Zelda laughed softly. "Very close, Link. Very close."