Zelda asks about her constantly.

He'd tell Zelda about how he was conscripted into being one of her Champions, being the only boy who could draw the Sword. He'd tell her about how he'd acted as her personal bodyguard right up to Ganon's awakening. He wasn't there for the hundred years that followed. Moving on to tell Zelda about his return and Ganon's defeat is the easiest part to talk about.

"So it's all gone now?" She'd asked the first time he told her about the calamity.

"Everything except her," he'd said. And despite his reservations he can't help adding, "I'm glad for that."

Zelda's chin trembled and she didn't say anything and just leant on his shoulder while stroking his back. Link had only been able to bear through it for a few minutes before tearing himself away.

Now she follows him everywhere. It feels like they spend every waking moment together and Link sees the looks the other fighters shoot him and he kicks himself for it every time.

They're sitting in the cafe when Zelda asks for another story. Her arm brushes against his and she's imploring him with her smile and her nose seems to almost touch his and she doesn't notice and Link's toes curl as he bites the inside of his cheek so hard it's a wonder how he doesn't taste blood.

"What about you? What's he like?" He blurts out.

Zelda recoils and Link sighs under his breath.

"...he?" Her voice is smaller.

"Yeah. You know."

She blinks, her hands falling to her sides as her eyes wander. She flashes a smile that seems just a little strained. "Well, he was incredible of course. It...in all honesty it felt like I was waiting to die, sitting there in the dark waiting for the dark wizard to do what he wanted with me."

"Dark wizard?"

Zelda nods as if it's an obvious thing. "I called out and I wasn't sure if anyone would answer. Yet almost immediately he did."

The life leaves her voice the longer she goes on.

"He'd take everything meant for me, as I showed him the way out of that death-trap of a castle. Every sword and lance and arrow and bite, he'd take for me unfailingly and without question. He didn't deserve it, no one did. He was just a boy. But he'd just turn to me with that scowl on his face whenever I'd try to tend to his wounds, and he'd just grab my hand and lead me closer into the light. He was the most wonderful boy there ever was," Zelda's nose twitches, "and could ever be. I knew from the moment I first saw him that everything would be ok. And they were."

"I was with him every step of the way on the rest of his journey, up here." She taps the side of her head. "He became more than my knight, he was my best friend. And I was there with him at the end, in mind and body, when evil finally fell and the sun shined bright."

Link's eyebrows draw together despite himself. "You talk like he's not around anymore."

Zelda lowers her gaze, down to her hands lying flat and dead in her lap and everything falls into place.

"I don't begrudge him at all for leaving, understand. This is the way of things. He answers a call none else can hear, and when I wished the best for him I meant it. But he set sail for those open waters and I never saw him again."

"Sometimes I," she laughs again in a way that's just not her, so unsure and withdrawn and afraid that Link has to fight to remain silent, "this is absurd. But I often wonder where he is, and where he has been. So much so that whenever I dream, I dream of him and I can do nothing save wake up in the dead of night unable to close my eyes again. Wherever he is, I'm sure he's accomplishing fine works."

He shouldn't have asked her this. He shouldn't have but he did and he kicks himself for it. He's doing that a lot lately.

"Zelda?" Link says after a while.

"Mm?"

"Come with me. I'll cook you something."

She wipes away at her eyes, smiling. "Very well."

He thinks about her a lot. Not her, her. He sees a thing she might like and he leaves it at her doorstep in the mornings, he uncovers some new tactic while sparring with someone else in the training room and he makes a note of it to tell her later. He'll show up to one of the girl's doors since she's friends with all of them just to check if she's there, since when left to his own devices all he does is think about her clinging to herself at that table with tears in her eyes and how wrong that image feels.

He's lying his head in her lap one day, and she's running her fingers slowly through his hair as she leafs through a booklet on flower language he found for her and he's shivering from the touch. His eyes clench tightly shut.

This is what he does, right? He helps her. He's just swapped one 'her' for another.

Link opens his eyes and sees a girl with emerald green eyes. He smiles at her, full and warm. Her's is smaller, restrained by the sadness in her eyes. It's when the girl grasps his hand in hers and leads him up the stairs that Link realizes he's dreaming. It's the day before he left for the tournament and she's leading him into her bedroom and he remembers vividly what happens next. She peers down at him with a vulnerable gaze, he's drawing a lazy hand from her bare chest down to where her stomach meets her pelvis. Dim candlelight makes shadows dance across the fullness of her breasts and the light fuzz on her skin. He touches her in that familiar way and she gasps with her face scrunched up in tenderness and he's rising up to meet her and she's holding him so gently. It is a steady and constant rhythm they work in, one they know all too well by this point and each thrust sends a slow, gentle rhythm into her. He hunts for the green of her eyes but she looks away. She always does.

The sheer darkness of Link's apartment leaves him disoriented. He blinks calmly as his vision adjusts to his surroundings. It's the first time since he's gotten here that he's dreamed of her. He frowns. It's the first time he's dreamed of anything in a long, long time. He waits for the thump of his heart to fade before sitting up, only for a new wave of dizziness to send him falling back onto the bed. He waits for it to subside and in doing so detects the underlying unease within himself. Where has he felt like this before? He goes to pull back the curtains and let a draft in.

Right. This is what it felt like camping across Hyrule. Faced with monsters that very much wanted to see him dead, he'd sleep very light and every morning he'd wake to that paranoia of being watched. That paranoia often proved to have some basis in some way or another. Link drops on the edge of his bed, swallowing dryly and grimacing at the rotten taste on his tongue. He thinks for a while. The trees outside rustle in the midnight wind and he rubs at his eyes.

He stiffens and turns sharply to the wall directly adjoined to his neighboring apartment.

His ears strain to make out any noise, anything at all. Crickets chirp outside. He hesitantly lies back down and faces the wall with a telepath on the other side. A telepath who may or may not be awake right now. A particularly cold breeze flaps the curtains and pricks at his skin like needles. He sighs before turning around and pulling the sheets up around him, finally closing his eyes. He manages to keep them closed for a few minutes before he sluggishly opens them again, on the verge of returning to his slumber.

"G'night." He says, bleary-eyed to no one. He's gone before he's able to register his own words.

"No more sweets."

Link says this without tearing his eyes away from the open sea ahead of him. Zelda raises her head up from the mountain of cotton candy she's holding. She's frazzled, her lips stained a deep purple.

"Pardon?"

It's a little hard to hear each other over the shouts of festivity and music. Brightly candy cane-colored tents pocket the great white expanse of the beach and a ferris wheel towers over everything. Link shades his gaze from the hot sun.

"You barely keep up with our slowest guys as is. You need stuff that'll help you build stamina, not...that." Link looks pointedly at the sugary mess in Zelda's hands.

"I see. You want a taste?" She winks.

"I really, really don't." Link says and the glint of sunlight off the crystal-clear water catches his eye again. It's getting harder to ignore, but Zelda's presence seemed to demand his attention and he supposes he felt obliged to concede it to her. He supposes it doesn't matter whether he concedes it or not. She can just waltz in whenever she pleases. That's not fair. It was the dead of night, her mind probably just drifted off a little. Supposing what he thought happened really did happen. Just a fluke. A little peek. Huh. It really isn't something she's meant to see, in more ways than one. They're not meant to stand here side by side either, but they are. They aren't meant to break bread with the likes of Ganondorf or Sheik, but they do. Zelda saw what she saw that night. She had to have. And supposing it was an accident, anyone with the least bit of curiosity would stick around. Zelda is an extremely curious individual.

He's done with this topic.

"Very well, I suppose I'll have to take your advice into consideration," Zelda says without giving any indication if she's aware of how Link's stiffened so resolutely, "Anywho, I believe the next destination on our list is that delightful-looking game named volleyb-"

Link pulls his tunic up and over his head, his undershirt quickly following suit. They crumple lifelessly amongst the blanket of near-white sand.

"What're you-?" She asks.

"Swimming." Link says as he focuses on shaking out of his pants.

Zelda's lips open and close like a dying fish. "I, mm, oh I- I see-"

Link is left in nothing but his trunks, a bleached tan. He digs his toes into the searing sand and holds the Sheikah Slate out to her, only faltering when he sees the deepening flush on her strained expression.

"Sorry, you mind holding onto this?" He says blankly.

Zelda's eyes flit over to Link before looking away just as quickly. "Not at all." She gingerly grabs the device without looking.

"Thanks."

He eventually breaks through the waves of vigorous splashing and ball games and fighters lounging atop their floats. He drifts out to where the sea is calmer, the cold at his back and the sun at his front making for a refreshing experience. Link stares at the sea above where stars still twinkle in the hot sun with a pale moon pleasantly in view and he just breathes in the fresh air.

What a strange place. Strange people. It was fun at first. Getting in the mud, using his hands. At least this is the same. There's always been something in the water for him. The pretty Zora girl who used to play with him in the lakes and rivers as a boy. That might be it. Her voice isn't there anymore. It was, but now it isn't. None of them are. Maybe they still had things left to say. He wishes he could hear one of them now.

The girl in the photo. He left her over there in that other place, that other time but he still hears her voice, loud and wonderful in his head. Chastising him, dissecting him, whispering to him, weeping for him. It's so distinctly her. That might go too at some point. Sometimes he thinks and he sees blue eyes instead of green and he has to reach for the picture frame. Maybe this tournament will end soon. Blue eyes. Maybe it shouldn't. That's enough swimming for now.

He's stumbling back onto the sand, still deeper in thought than he'd like to be and his skin glistening in the summery air when he spots her bobbing excitedly with another girl friend of hers. She grips snugly onto a flowing plush robe she didn't have on before, draped over her shoulders and deep red like blood seeping through the sand. She spots him and her eyes sparkle as she waves him over.

"Having a lot of fun, are we?" She says, showing no signs of her previously nervous state.

"Sorry for just up and leaving like that."

"Oh please, we've both done far worse to others here," She laughs. Something in her gaze feels different and Link becomes more acutely aware of just how much of him she can see.

"It's good seeing you let go like this," she decides matter-of-factly, "You're always so serious, you know?"

"I'm a serious guy."

Her hand goes up over her lips. "You look like just another boy now."

"In that case I guess another boy can assist with switching up Robin's tomes tomorrow..."

She shoves him, shaking her head. "Oh, before I forget, I left the slate with the rest of Palu's things, I hope that's alright?"

They chat aimlessly for a short while longer before the goddess herself calls Zelda over. It seems she's waiting for her with a small group of her other friends.

Zelda's facing them, away from Link as she waves. "My apologies, it seems I've let time get away from me a little!" She says before she purposefully shucks her robe off in one smooth motion.

Link's eyes catch the fabric sliding down her bare shoulders and the sun glinting off the skin of her back before his throat seizes up and he looks off just to the right of Zelda's face. All he can make out now in his periphery is the pure white of her two-piece and the way she stands there, shoulders raised and head shifting slightly as if anticipating what he might do or say.

He manages to train his eyes on Zelda's face. She seems satisfied with his.

"Ta-ta!" She flashes him another, smaller smile before racing across the beach to join her friends.

Link's hands clench into fists. He turns back to the water, golden in the afternoon sun. Something in it's tainted now.

Moonlight filters through the window. His sheets cast aside, it's a hot night. The ceiling is a mess of grain and static as his eyes adjust to the darkness. His head aches as it sinks into the pillow.

"You want to watch again?" He asks quietly.

Nothing. His heart pounds in his eardrums. The sliver of moonlight trickles through the window. Then it's like a gentle wave washes over his whole body and his hair stands on end. Link blinks, sighing at the sensation.

"Alright," Link says numbly as he wills his eyes shut, "Watch as long as you like."

The flowers are wilting and the fire is roaring. Link sits in an armchair scrolling through his various recipes when Zelda asks him again, chin perched on his shoulder.

"What's she like?" She says. Link can feel the soft exhale through her nose on his cheek. It tickles.

"It doesn't...bother you?" He asks in vain.

She turns and all of Link's vision to his left is engulfed by blonde bangs and blue eyes. She studies him for a moment, expressionless.

"Not as much as it bothers you."

Link fixes his gaze at the Slate on his lap. He runs a nervous thumb over the screen as he searches his mind for an excuse that doesn't exist.

She tugs lightly at his sleeve. "Come now," she whispers so softly, "tell me of this girl who shares my name."

"...She's smart. Too smart, really. Drop a problem in front of her and she draws up theories and equations from two nights before you showed it to her. Guess she's really curious too, then. It's not enough for a thing to just be, she has to know how and why it came to be that way."
Link darts his gaze to Zelda before looking down again.

"You're a little like her, that way." He continues and sees her controlled enthusiasm out the corner of his eye. "It upsets her though. That compulsion. She thinks it's unbecoming. Something to hide away so she can focus on her other job."

"She sounds as beautiful as she appears," Zelda says encouragingly. Link's jaw tightens.

"It bugs me though. I know why she's like that. She loves doing what she does but it kills her. She knows she's allowed to be human, but she doesn't understand it."

He drops the slate to his side and stares into the fire. "She thinks she has to live up to the expectations of ghosts. She denies it, but I see her when she thinks I'm not looking. I know she thinks she could have done things different. I know how much it eats her up inside. I know she's wrong."

Zelda seems to take his bitterness into herself. She's kneeling as she leans over the side of the chair, her head resting in the nook of his resting arm as she gazes into the fire.

"How do you know all of that, if she won't tell you?" She says and the emotion in her quiet voice stirs what's already there in Link.

"Because I'm the one who left her all alone."

"That wasn't your choice."

"One hundred years. I wasn't strong enough and one hundred years was the price she had to pay. She didn't deserve that. I'm the one who failed my duty."

"You're wrong."

"I don't care."

Zelda flinches at his voice. Then she frowns and she's snuggling deeper against his arm, her fingers gently stroking over his hand. Link silently pleads with whatever goddess can hear him. The fire crackles and neither of them say anything for a long time.

"You know what they say about us, right?" Zelda says quietly.

"Yes." Link's voice sounds lifeless to himself.

"It's awful." Zelda says and the frustration in her is palpable, "I hate it. That I must second-guess everything I say or do because of the pre-conceived notions of others. That I cannot greet a true friend with a smile, or whisper a joke in his ear or console him when he's troubled."

Her fingers swirl delicate circles over his knuckles. Link stares straight ahead.

"And to think that I would be capable or willing to destroy something beautiful, such as the bond you both share. The thought is disgusting."

Her voice wavers almost imperceptibly. Her fingers tremble just slightly.

"You believe me, don't you?" She says.

Silence. Zelda's motions stop and she seems to hold her breath.

"Of course."

Zelda scans his expression before raising her eyes to the flowers on the mantel. "Good. I'm glad."

"He seems angrier than usual." Zelda pants as she dashes through the garden.

Link opens his mouth but then Ridley lets loose another earth-shattering screech and he decides whatever quip he has in mind isn't worth expressing right now. They sprint and the air is thick with the scent of flowers crunching beneath their feet with the warm afternoon sun at their backs.

The flap of hellish wings grows louder and Link haphazardly tosses a remote bomb behind him without looking. Another loud screech and the wing flaps start to echo a little further behind just as he and Zelda turn a corner and face a solid brick wall.

Zelda braces herself on her knees. Her pink dress is muddy and she's missing an earing. "Alright, now seems as good a time as any," she says through hard breaths.

"Hold on." Link unclips the sheikah slate from his belt and holds it up in anticipation. Zelda sees his motion and her gaze turns terrified.

"No, we don't have enough time!"

Link stares intently at the corner they just turned around as the wings beat closer. "On my mark." He zooms the lense in just slightly and he glances as she weaves her hands through the air and the magic starts and the knight falls into place, one solid piece at a time until its big and grounded behind her with the cleaver of a sword raised at the ready. It's whenever she gets this steely look in her eye that Link's heart really starts pumping.

The space pirate himself turns the corner with another unholy shriek, followed suit by the true terror. Link snaps photos at a rapid pace as dozens of cuccos with brilliant white plumage utterly swarm Ridley, the air a cacophony of clucks and screeches and a whirlwind of white plumage sticking to everything.

"Now!?"

"Now!"

Link yells and the phantom knight shoots forward, cracking the dragon across the face and sending him careening back with his wings snapping back and sucking all the air out of the space with him. Zelda grabs at his sleeve and suddenly all the wind rushes back into them and his whole world flashes in green. Link's vision doubles as his stomach lurches and just like that the green fades and the pair are in a completely different part of the mansion. He recognizes the spiral staircase to his left and the narrow hallway in front of him as being somewhere in the west wing.

Link lets out a controlled and deep exhale through his nose, regaining his balance as Zelda's exhausted panting slowly turns into relieved laughter. She stumbles into him and threatens to throw him off balance all over again as she steadies herself on his chest with her palm. Link's back thuds gently against the wall and he grins openly.

Zelda leans in to inspect his handiwork. "These may collectively be your magnum opus," she breathes as she scrolls through the photos.

"Almost worth dying a senseless and painful death, huh?" Link says with increased wooziness. The pump of his heart reverberates through her arm pressing into his chest.

"Definitely," Zelda beams.

Her hand swiping through pictures brushes his holding the slate more than once. Link's shoulders sag and his chin dips until it rests atop Zelda's head. Her hand slows until it comes to rest over his and she squeezes it. His eyes begin to sag; it's been a long day hasn't it? She smells like lilacs. He's nuzzling her head through her hair and he doesn't really notice until she makes a pleasurable sound in her throat. She twists around in his embrace and her cheek lazily drags against his as she does so. She's warm. All Link sees is blue and her small breathes make his wet lips tingle.

She blinks when she kisses him. It's such a fast, darting sort of peck at the corner of his lips that Link almost isn't sure it even happened. Her arms wiggle out from against his chest and her fingers grasp to pull at the back of his neck and her eyes are pouring into his when she leans in again, this time to brush her lips against his other cheekbone. Link's shoulders continue to sag and he sighs as Zelda's kisses are suddenly at his eyelids, the indent of his nose then his chin then peppering down the hard line of his jaw. Her breaths come small and fast as she works him, chipping away at more of him. He exhales with a deep hum and she answers with one of her own. The tones compliment each other nicely.

The slate clatters forgotten against the tiles and Zelda jumps. Link's eyes are wide open when he presses her back and his hands are running over the bare skin of her arms, up her shoulders. His calluses are rough and scratchy against the plumpness of her cheeks, the tickle of her eyelashes as they flutter shut, the glossiness of her hair silky and flowing. He could get lost in that platinum river. It shines brilliantly through the filtered light of a dying day and then they're under the staircase and Link can just barely make out the glint of her eyes. His thumbs drag at her lips and he's cupping her face in his hands when he leans in to taste them. Her hands reach to squeeze encouragingly at his wrists and then the length of her is going lax in his grip, her body crushed against his as he bends over her. He's seeing more of her in the dark now and they shift so that another flash of light through the staircase washes over her. The cobalt blue of her eyes glitter for a second and they're almost green.

Link tears himself away as a feeling like ice washes over him. Zelda's eyes are dazed until Link licks his lips and suddenly they're focused again and she pulls at his wrists. He finally catches her gaze with his own and that's when she stops.

"Oh. Oh no."

Link remains silent as he stumbles back. His hands are shaking. Zelda's eyes flit down and she's shaking too. She takes a timid step forward and like that, Link is gone.