In some manner of irony, the selected location had been the Shrine of Resurrection. He felt himself re-constructed on the floor of the Shrine in the same position he had been in. Though he was on his hands and knees, his arms shook from the panic in his veins, and he unceremoniously dropped himself onto the floor. The cool stone floor felt nice against his warm skin, and the pressure of his chest on the ground calmed his fast beating heart. He listened to it slow and slow until it reached a normal pace for him to close his eyes with relative peace.

Link didn't remember falling asleep, but he woke some time later feeling groggy though altogether rested. He pulled himself up, feeling somewhat ashamed for falling asleep on the floor without intending to. Dusting himself off, he looked between the two doors available to him: out to the plateau or back into the heart of the Shrine.

It took him longer than he thought was necessary to decide, and he ended up going back, visiting the place he woke in, alone and confused. Not scared – he remembered that clearly. He had nothing to be fearful of except the unknown, and to that he was only confused. Even then, he had Zelda's voice to follow. She reminded him of his name and gave him a purpose. That had been enough to follow. He didn't need his memories to fight.

Now that his mission was over, he was being given back his memories. Was it a prize? A consolation gift for his work in saving Hyrule?

He wandered around the… actually, he didn't know what to call it. Slab? Chamber? Bed? A bed made the most sense, seeing as the healing process was called a Slumber of Restoration. The bed he woke from, the water draining as he woke from his century long slumber. He sat on the side of the bed, both nervous and comforted by the feel of the stone. Nervous because the healing stole his memories and an irrational part of himself feared that even being near it might steal away a few more. But he couldn't place a reason to the feeling of comfort. His only guess was that it was his first memory, waking healed and safe and oblivious, even if for a small time.

As he stood, he caught a flash of movement from within the bed, and when he turned to investigate it, out appeared a korok.

"Yahaha!" it laughed in that way he had come to know. "You found me!" Then it handed him a korok seed, and he added it to his collection of who knows how many.

"How did you get in here?" Link asked out loud. His voice, as usual when he chose to speak for the first time in a while, sounded soft and a little scratchy. Koroks were easy for him to talk to, he found soon after he woke. He remembered when he first saw one after he dove into a spot of water, through a ring of lily pads. They looked silly and harmless, giving him weird seeds that he hadn't been yet sure why they had them or why they gave them to him.

"No one would find me here!" it gleefully answered, and Link was inclined to agree. The Shrine was stuck in a hole in the side of a cliff, no marker to note its true identity. On top of that, it was on a raised section of land that Link was sure he was only one that walked on it for quite some time, monsters and fauna excluded.

"You should go home. No need to hide anymore."

Link turned on his heel and left the Shrine. Outside, the sun shone at its peak in the sky, barely any clouds obscuring it. It was a nice day, and he had spent the first half of it in panic and then deliberately far away from his charge. Guilt filled him slowly as the hours went on and he still did not return. He stalked the wilds, ridding monsters from the northern portion of the plateau.

The fighting took his mind off things, but at the end of every fight, he remembered and felt the guilt rush back in full force. The guilt ran through his head over and over that he abandoned her in favor of avoiding his memories. Who knew if there would be another Yiga attack or if Ora was hiding her intentions, waiting for a proper moment to take out the Princess. Yet he pushed it down every time and continued where he was.

As night fell, he retired to the Temple of Time. He had left his impromptu bed materials at his house in Hateno, but his hood could function as a blanket and he could bundle up his Snowquill pants for a pillow. Once his "bed" was set up and a fire was made, he took a seat at the base of the Hylia statue.

What happened to the other Heroes? he thought to the Goddess's likeness. Did they have happy endings? Is this my happy ending, and I'm just ungrateful? I'm alive, despite everything.

He felt like one of the fabled Heroes that made it into surviving records, the one that skipped seven years of his life in this very temple, misplaced in his own time. Except for Link, he had his childhood even if he didn't remember it and that it was a century he missed, not just a few years. But there was no point in comparing.

The statue didn't respond, not that he actually expected it to.

Link returned to his fire, taking the time to prep and cook his meal methodically. The process had a similar effect as fighting had, busying his hands and mind. Unlike fighting, cooking left him with a meal, and a good one it was too. Prime cut meat, cooked with truffles and carrots. Each bite of the stew practically melted in his mouth. Along with the day he had, the large meal left him full and tired. He laid down on the makeshift bed and, despite the cold, hard stone, he found sleep easily.

He woke feeling more rested than he had in days. But it wasn't until he began readying himself for the day that it hit him why: he didn't have a nightmare. He didn't struggle against a restless mind that was hell bent on force feeding him his past in small, indecipherable bits. Once that thought came to him, it was hard not to let it affect the guilt inside him. Returning to Hateno village previously seemed like an unattractive option, scared to return to the same reception, but he knew the only difference between last night and all of his other nightmare-ridden nights: Zelda.

He tested the idea by staying another day, ignoring the rational part of him that begged him to return to Hateno village, to ignore his own anxieties in favor of keeping the Princess safe. He ignored it the same way he did the day before: taking out the more of the monsters on the plateau.

He returned to the Temple of Time and slept another peaceful night. The guilt only got worse once he woke. He had been away for too long. Though he had left Zelda close to Purah, one of the few remaining people who knew both of them before the Calamity, it didn't ease his conscience. Before he lost his memory, he was her guard. He was the one that helped her defeat Calamity Ganon and had been with her since. While he could come up with a handful of reasons to excuse his behavior, he knew it wasn't right.

The third night away, if he remembered correctly, coincided with the same night of a blood moon, the ones that would resurrect the felled monsters under Ganon's control. He stayed up later into the night, watching the moon rise from the entrance of the temple.

The rising moon brought memories to mind; not from before his century long sleep but from after, exploring a world he had forgotten, running late in the night to find a fallen star piece or simply watching the stars reveal themselves in the sky before he drifted asleep under them. Not that all the memories were that nice, considering the skeletal monsters that rose from the ground once darkness fell or that first time he experienced the blood moon, waking to the resurrected monsters he had slain the night before.

The monsters had seemed tiringly endless, but so had Hyrule. It seemed impossibly big at the beginning, full of potential at every turn. Korok hiding under rocks or in the lilypads, Shrines cloaked in puzzles simply to find them, and the innumerable other curious people out there who shared the passion for adventure and discovering the forgotten pockets of Hyrule. Goddess, how much fun it had been when he found the shield surfer in the Hebra mountains who showed him the long route down and challenged him to go faster and faster. Even wearing the Snowquill attire, he still favored the memory of rushing down the mountain with the chilled air stinging his cheeks and eyes.

But that third night away from the Princess, alone once more under the twinkling stars with the full moon reaching its zenith, bathing the land with white light instead of red, he didn't feel content. Happy, yes, for the now gone event of the blood moon, but he didn't feel content as he used to, falling asleep by the fire alone after a long day.

Despite the fact that Zelda had been by his side only a few days in comparison to all the days he lived since waking and that it was possible that simply being around her was triggering all of his forgotten memories to resurge and painfully so, something about having her near him felt right. It felt natural.

Yet still, he couldn't bring himself to open the Sheikah Slate and return.

He continued to wander the plateau, now devoid of all monsters except for one. He spent the day picking berries and peppers, traveling up to the top of the mountain just to see that sight again, and finding the last Koroks hidden, just to put off facing down that last monster that would mean nothing else could possibly keep him there.

A light rain fell over the plateau in the afternoon, and Link waited it out under a tree just outside of the opening to the Shrine of Resurrection. At one point in the wait, he found himself dozing off just because he could, waking up with a jerk when his sleeping form threatened to fall to the side and into a spot of mud. By then, the rain had let up and he paraglided down to the rock formation, landing on it to let it know he was there.

Quickly, he jumped off and pulled out his bow, aiming swiftly but carefully with an explosive arrow as the bumbling rock formation drew itself up. The arrow flew and found its target, briefly stunning the creature as it fell forward, obstructing his view of the ore deposit. He ran around, keeping a safe distance between him and the Stone Talus. It was already starting to stand up again when he fired another arrow, though this one didn't keep it stunned.

They traded off shots, the Stone Talus throwing one of its boulder arms at him before he would send back another arrow. It reared one of its newly acquired arms back, and Link crouched slightly, bending his knees to dodge at the last second, rolling shoulder first on the well-tread ground. He reached back for another arrow and-

Link.

He froze. Zelda, he thought in return, his head whipping around to find her before he understood she wasn't actually there with him, not physically. And with his back turned on the Stone Talus, it hit him, throwing him across the dirt expanse. It was almost painful to hold on to during the hit, but he managed to keep his grip on his bow. When he came to a stop, he rushed to his feet and let loose another arrow, this one being the killing blow. The ore deposit cracked and the Stone Talus crumbled before him.

Link, he heard again, now sure it was the same way she used to communicate with him when she was using her powers to seal Ganon. But she had only used her powers twice since the final fight. Did she need him back or was she worried?

He remembered her eyes as he ran away. He felt guilt for abandoning his duty to protect her, but she had shown such unhindered worry in her face, not the kind one wore for appearances.

When he woke on this plateau and set out to save the Princess and help her seal away Ganon, he hadn't done it out of duty. He learned his duty through his memories, but he had wanted to help before. It wasn't about saving a damsel in distress – in fact, she was more capable than him in some ways – or defeating Ganon to save the world; he had done it because it was right, because he saw a way in which he could help someone who needed it.

He shook his head, moved to gather the valuable remains of the monster, and took a seat on the ground. He had been such a fool, and not just for the last few days. Each time he found the location of one of Zelda's pictures, one memory coming to him at a time, he was happy. He got to learn about the Princess that kept Ganon sealed away on her own for the last hundred years, about who she was, and what led the both of them to the current situation.

Link took out the Sheikah Slate and found the location of the Shrine in Hateno village. He had been away for too long, and for everything, he was sorry.

He materialized at the Shrine, still sitting as a heavy rain hit him instantly. In a manner of seconds, the rain had thoroughly soaked him and Zelda, who came running out of his house without a shred of hesitation.

Time seemed to slow. He jumped to his feet, determined to meet her halfway. She barely made it to the bridge as he met her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her so close that he could feel the fast beat of her heart. They stood like that in the rain for longer than they should, until they were both shivering and not even their combined body heat could keep them warm.

Ora was inside his house when they returned, sitting at the base of the stairs with her legs crossed. Though she showed no reaction to them entering, she did stand and fetch blankets for them, bundling them up in a rather motherly fashion. Rather than going upstairs, Zelda took a seat next to his temporary bed and patted the bedding next to her.

When he sat down, his hands under the blanket wrapped around him, she finally spoke.

"I was worried, you know," she said. He didn't look away from her. Even though she looked forward rather than at him, he kept his eyes on her. "When you collapsed and when you didn't come back. I kept waiting." At this, she laughed. "I do a lot of that, I suppose. For you."

Before he could wiggle out his arms to answer her, Ora appeared with two mugs of warm drink and set them near the two of them. He gave her a nod, letting her know his thanks for obviously watching over Zelda while he was away. Though he watched her leave through the front door, she didn't go far. He had a feeling she would be right outside despite the weather.

"I should've paid more attention to how you were feeling," Zelda continued, not having noticed Link wanting to respond. "You have always put others first with little or no regard of how it much it costs you. I don't want to be another burden you carry. I want you to be by my side because you want to be, not because you think you have to or that you feel like you owe me something."

Even though he had his hands free now, he found he had nothing to say. Well, nothing that required anything fancy. He rested a hand on her shoulder, finally getting her attention. He wondered how she looked at him, what she saw. Not about which version of himself she saw in him, the matter of his forgotten and current self. No, he wondered about what she saw, because when he looked at her, he still felt that familiar pang of guilt as he had the first day they were reunited, but it felt softer.

Now when he looked at her, he also saw the small wrinkle in her brow from where it furrowed from her constant thought, how when she looked at him that it started unsteady, flickering away for a moment before returning strong. He looked at her and saw her feats, her compassion, her passion for research, her stubbornness.

She didn't say anything. Not when he reached his arm out a little more to take hold of her other shoulder and pull her close. She leaned her head on him, her wet mop of hair soaking through his blanket to introduce a chilled spot on his shoulder. And there they fell asleep.