Every Shard of My Heart Belongs to You: There is No Shadow Without Light
"How in the Sacred Realm did you get up there?"
Zelda had chased Link up and down and all over the castle grounds until it became a childish game of hide and seek, just as they played when they were younger. At last she had found him in the foyer hiding in the rafters near the chandelier.
"I climbed," he answered cheekily.
"Well come down, foolish knave, so that I might properly punish you."
"That is not much incentive for me to come down."
"Very well, I shall have to come up there and fetch you." She feigned her intentions to climb the stone support beam.
"Nay, Princess, risk not your royal neck on account of a fool. I'll come down." He sighed in defeat.
Zelda smirked at her cleverness.
Link landed on the floor with his knees bent, but before he could rise to stand the Princess wrestled him to the floor.
"Sweet Nayru! I have been captured," Link sighed, exasperated.
Zelda held him pinned to the floor with her palm against his chest. "Aye, you have," she breathed.
"And what shall be my consequence?" was his taunt.
"You must..." she paused to look up in mock thought, "You must remain here as my slave, so that when you are well and strong you carry my sedan!"
He rolled his eyes. "I told you I'm fi—." She pressed her palm firmly to his chest and pushed his rising form back against the stone floor. "Ugh! What was that f—" She put her finger to his lips to silence him.
"You still have a cracked rib," she chided. Link gave her a puzzled glance.
"How do you know?"
"I did not strike you hard," she answered, lifting his shirt.
"Please, don't look at it." But his defense was too late. She ran her hand over thick bandages, exactly what she had expected to find.
"If you were fine you wouldn cringe when I did scarcely more than touch you." She pressed her hand more forcefully against his breastbone and watched him clench tight his eyelids pain.
"Goddesses! No more!" She raised an amused eyebrow. "So I am not perfectly fine. But please," he struggled to calm his breathing, "Don't torment me." He pulled his shirt down.
A tender smiled graced her lips. "A hero cannot always rely on his own strength." She withdrew her hand from his chest, at a rate that might have been read as suggestive. He watched her hand recoil. "I do not do this to torment you."
"I apologize for not detecting a more amiable motive," he teased. He picked himself off the floor with renewed strength.
"I mean it, Link." He sensed a serious quality in her voice that made him close his mouth and open his ears. She continued, "I care for you infinitely. That's actually what I meant to talk to you about earlier. I came to apologize and—"
"There is nothing to forgive, Zelda. I know it was outright offensive to kiss you. I shouldn't have put that kind of pressure on you. It is I that require your forgiveness."
The silence devoured their words. Zelda stared at him with a question in her eyes and a confidence in her heart, both of which to hide her tears. "So you regret it?"
"Kissing you?"
"Yes, do you regret kissing me? Has it proved too much trouble for you? Was it worth it?"
She seemed upset, the kind of upset that girls often express for no rational reason other than to trip you up. He knew he must choose his answer carefully, for if he said no, he would seem impudent, and if he said yes, he would seem to not care as deeply for her as he truly did.
Finally he answered, "I regret only that which would not please you." That was the safe answer, but it did not satisfy her.
Pleading tears glistened in her eyes. "Don't be so concerned about what pleases me, Link, or how will I ever know what you want at all? Didn't you tell me to be honest? Well, so should you. I wish for your happiness too, you know, and I fear you will not find it here."
To be happy? She wanted him to be happy? How was it that she could not see that it was she, his life, his love, that was the sole object of his happiness, of which her stubbornness was his only challenge? It was with better judgment that his mind restrained his tongue from uttering such thoughts.
He took her gloved hand in his and leaned in close to her, almost as if to kiss her. But instead he rested his cheek against hers and whispered in her ear, "Then let me choose that which bestows my happiness." He kissed her hand gently and left with just as much grace, turning only to say, "I retire."
She watched him turn down the stone corridor, saying nothing and scarcely breathing.
Iain was right. She did feel for him, but she was afraid. He wished he had known it before so that he might have distilled her uncertainty, but the rejection of her lips had deprived him of reason. He knew he must confess to her the true nature of his feelings, that they were unmatched by any other love, and that no exploit could unbind him from the clasp of her heart.
Walking back to his room, he considered how he would tell Zelda. He knew it must be as soon as possible. If he had known what to say at that moment he would have told her, but his mind needed time to translate into words what only his heart could express.
As Link entered his room he saw one loose drape wavering in the evening's breeze. The shadow of the sunset clothed the ivory curtain in hues of gold and violet. He thought of her and smiled.
Outside the highest west tower, which housed the princess's royal bed chambers, far from the view of Link's second floor room of the smaller southwest tower, two animated shadows conversed.
These shadows were those of two figures, though from this could not be extracted by their appearance due to the concealment of their billowing cloaks. Together they stood, side by side amid the bodies of two dead guards.
The masculine voice whispered to the female, "There were only two men posted here. Are you sure this is the right tower?"
The feminine voice replied, "There are more up there." She gestured towards the parapets of the walls adjacent to the tower and rampart overhead. "And I am quite certain this is the tower. ...It once was mine."
The tone of her voice assured him, as well his memory of having climbed the tower before.
"We should wait here a bit longer," he said in a low voice, "until there is complete darkness. There will be no moon tonight, and the wind is blowing the clouds this way."
"They cannot spot us from where we are, and if we remain unheard, we will be unseen."
There was a long silence before he whispered. "That is where we would meet, is it not?" He pointed to a small group of trees several meters to the right.
"Indeed. It is."