Wrapped up in her heavy blankets Zelda was very content, somewhere between the dark haze of dozing and pre-dawn dreams. Her senses had finally ambled off to rest some hours ago, where the mild creak of the joints of the aged lean-to and Link's restful breaths were her lullaby. While most would question camping on the sacred mountain, the practicality of it had never been in question. Generations of royal pilgrimages to Lanaryru to the sacred spring had resulted in outposts built along the way for her highnesses' well-being.
Link's sleeping mat was settled closer to the door of the shelter, up on the lip of the wooden platform made to lift them both from the frozen chill of the granite floor cliff overhang. The door and wall was built to make a simple leaning crag into a hidden sanctuary.
Currently his sleeping roll was empty, abandoned for the sake of the comfort of his charge. They lay bundled together under a large pile of shared blankets, cozy in quilted underclothes and shared heat. Initially Zelda had protested the idea, pulling her blanket over her head to visibly end the argument with a muffled 'Good night!'. Had she let an ear stay perked over the edge of the cover she might have heard a small chuckle as Link dampened the kerosene lamp, throwing the small space into thick darkness with his own 'Good night Princess.'
An hour later however Zelda was awake in the worst way, her fingers, toes and eartips feeling heavy and thick with cold. The mountain temperature had plummeted and the lean-to's walls could at best keep the ambient temperature within just at freezing; Link had turned from his listening quiet to smile in the dark. His warm hand had landed on hers let her know he was awake, and some shuffling and small grunts later, they had clambered together back-to-back under the combined covers. Zelda had again declined comment to his 'good night', lost to whatever thoughts belonged on this side of the night before her last prayers to the Goddesses.
Around the fifth hour of the night Zelda awoke again, her mind this time in a haze of peaceful sleep-contentedness. A restful awareness of her body rolled into being from her subconscious mind; resting on her side and snuggled from behind in what could only be called an intimate embrace. She could sense the heartbeat of the person behind her in the dream, the throb of it transferred across the clothing from their chest along her shoulder blades and down her back.
A slow, moist heat breathed against the back of one of her eartips, and with that thought, blood flowed up her veins to pinken her skin. It was a gradual awareness, something like the visions of the night after reading particular stories secreted away from the castle library under the folds of her gown to be read beside her bed, and it prickled under her skin like the touch of blades of grass on a summery day.
The hours of the night had left her slightly stiff, and she rolled her head against her doubled-over pack, groaning quietly in a shuffling stretch. She moved carefully, shifting her thigh to give her lower back a better angle and stretching her muscles. Tensing and shuddering to relieve her back gave a roll of gratification, and she settled again with one knee folded, a contented sigh settling the actions.
The minutes in the dark passed calmly, sleep washing in over her like hazy sunlight in a gently wave-rocked boat. It had nearly claimed her, when a simple shift in Link's breathing caught her attention; and then, then there were fingers twitching over her side, splaying out, fumbling..., bunching in her quilted shift to pull her back. It wasn't sudden, but Zelda's voice stirred again in her throat in a muted hiccup and her heartbeat picked up, her folded knee loosing some contact with the sleeping pad. Her blanket-swaddled arms scrabbled to clutch together, one at her chest and the other at her midriff, but they did not stop the gentle swaying that began to stir her blood. Link had turned at some point in his sleep, nearly sharing her makeshift pillow, and the squeeze of his fingertips had claimed a hold on her clothing.
His motions were a subtle but steady pushing, an undulation of that warm frame behind her. His steady hand just over her hip was dimpling her nightshift and soft bellyflesh somewhat all together; the pressure was like the first of a line of dominoes, and Zelda bit her lip as heat woke to life between her thighs. His breaths came shorter against her ear, tightening the strings of her own flush, and Zelda began to pant as quietly as possible, wistfully curling her spine a degree and folding her knees together. A pinpoint of desire had focused itself at her core, Zelda felt keenly she ought to shout out and awaken him, but something unspoken held her back.
The dream surged on - her knight, dreaming as a lover is quiet but urgent, his hips scooped and rolled more strongly forwards with want and a burgeoning heat at the apex of her thighs. His form spine curled, his hot, soft skin touching the back of her neck, lips parted and panting enough to rustle the wisps of her hair that had come loose from her braid.
A shudder came rolling up her spine, moisture beaded at the line where her body perfectly understood the rhythm; his hand was but part of the equation and his voice crested in soft, snarled near-aimless nudges of his hips settled a blunt shape of heat and clothing against her, knocking arrow to bow - and Zelda mewled a soft cry into the air.
It was enough to spike adrenaline into her blood, awareness grasping her frame, and she became dizzied, the air crisp and cool, and the dark place full of the smells of old wood and fresh air and - and - panting breaths . Immediately Zelda pulled her hands out of her bundle of blankets to squeeze at her hottened face in the pitch black, her own breaths quick between her palms, but her rhythm was not as fast as those just behind in the air of the shelter.
"Hynnn-" His soft whimper was breathed right under the cup of her ear, the bridge of his nose just beneath her lobe, and Zelda's blushing consternation froze into shock. Her knight's warm palm continued grasping her hip through the blankets, his clothing solidly rustling against her own in his urgent rockings, his- his- Zelda pulled a sharp hiss of air between her lips, palms bearing hard into her covered eyelids. Her mind in the thick of erotic dreams knew very well what that part was, and her toes curled like the tension building in the pit of her stomach already had.
Naturally years of propriety were readily banging at the door to her frontal cortex - his actions were compromising her with the worst of behaviors, wakeful or not. His actions amounted to nothing less than making assumptions well above his station and deserve at the very least the worst sort of dressing down- no, no, that was absolutely the wrong train of thought-! She ought to scream bloody murder and to send him out to chop wood in the snow until daybreak-!
No amount of thinking was likely going to - 'Hnngh' - stop the seconds from ticking by - ' ghaah ' - and put a halt to it. And honestly - ' h-haah- ' - the problem wasn't quite behind her, so much as curled within.
Willingly or not he had been made into her constant companion, her trusted daily guard, a trustworthy ( after some misgivings ) friend, and begrudgingly, fucking handsome . Princesses are the sort of people who don't have time for fucking handsome , or childish crushes, or risky dalliances. Princesses don't bite back squeals while their commoner guard squirms out a wet dream against their backsides. Princesses don't press back, or kick their feet out forwards to stop themselves from getting rolled over, and certainly would never shove a dainty hand down their own britches.
They would certainly never listen in to the breaths and grunts of their fucking handsome personal knight, and they certainly don't bite their lips while pushing fingers between their thighs.
And that was when the whole mess became sticky. Link's gently frustrated sounds hiccuped, his thighs hitched in their rolling pattern, and he shuddered , powerfully, forehead slipping against Zelda's nape in a downwards curl. Just an inch, but the worshipful syllables slipped in his sighing, capitulant breath - '... sel-da ... '.
It made her insides clench, knowing by simple sensation in how his form trembled that Link came to the fevered pitch of his rutting motions. She did not dare process the moments' revelations all the way to their inevitable conclusion - her face burned unbearably hot, painfully so, and a second surge of aroused adrenaline came pumping through her veins.
She wanted to throw off the blankets, barrel her way out the lean-to door and bury herself in the snow outside until it could all melt away into rivulets down the path.
Instead she trembled as quietly as possible, catching hiccups of breath between darting her eyes about the midnight-dark room in frantic thought. There was not a single part of her that wanted to have this particular conversation with her knight with the tightness of her throat giving her away in the thickness of the night, with his sticky mess under his shift-
Zelda shook her head quickly and pushed her hands to her face, trying to work through her fog.
It took her a few minutes for her stilted breaths to oxygenate her brain enough to work out what to do. Behind her, settled still on his side but slowly melting back into peaceful sleep, Link's hold on her hip had softened. Fully aware that he would rouse, she leant forwards to sit up out of the pile of blankets and shuffled onto his empty sleeping pad. The fingertips of her right hand were unkindly cold outside of the blankets.
It took only a few seconds for Link to stir and turn to his back to sit, the sound of shifting cloths and the change of his breath communicating the motions. The cold outside the blankets and away from his side was shocking, and Zelda pulled one of the covers to herself out of his way.
Link wasted no time to shift onto his knees and shuffle past her to prime the lamp and strike the internal lighter into action. At first the light was very faint, showing his own thick shift and winter-breeches - he was careful to turn the fuel up just enough to illuminate the corners of the enclosed sleeping-space. She took her time in the soft light to evaluate his expression, but it was as benign as ever when their eyes met. Zelda was frozen for a moment like a deer in the woods before the beam of a searchlamp, but she was swift to gather her breath and speak.
"... Go to the spring, Sir Link."
He stopped midway turning to face her, his brows squeezing together.
"I want fresh water." Her canteen was easy enough to grasp from the space against the wall next to the head of her sleeping mat and hold it out to him. The spring was but a short way up the path from the lean-to, but he would have to gear himself all the way up, and then all the way down on the trip.
His gaze flickered between her canteen and her face, his own slightly sleep-addled expression showing a mild bemusement before he plucked it from her grasp.
"Right," he spoke with a brief nod, and then stepped barefoot off the wooden platform with a short hiss against the cold. There was only just enough space for a person to stand half hunched-over in the lean-to and it put him in full view, shuffling and hopping into his warm overclothes and boots, but Zelda simply burrowed back under the many blankets. There wasn't a single indication that he had felt the sticky mess she expected was against his skin, and for good reason she did her best to hide her madly blushing face by turning towards the rockface opposite the lamp.
The walk up the path in the snow would likely take him a solid ten minutes in the snow uphill, and then back- that- that should give her enough time to- to work out her issues. Zelda's wait under the blankets was very quiet while Link shrugged on his chainmail, and she occupied herself with wetting the tips of her fingers, tapping them against the rosiness of her lips under the blanket over her face.
Normally Link would give Zelda no more than a few meters distance or stay just outside the door, but in this one instance the snowy creaking and crunch of his steps took the path towards the spring. She spent a careful count of twenty, reddened eartips straining for breaths and steps; afterwards a sigh brought her unwinding onto her back, partially covered by the still-toasty blankets. The mild hiss of the low-lit kerosene lamp was her only companion, and it took very little to bring her dampened palm under the line of her waistband, to roll circles against the blonde curls and pale lips that held her arousal.
Damned knight. Damned L-
Damned fucking to fucking heck...
Time was the enemy, always the worst sort of enemy, and Zelda curled her upper lip while nudging one petal aside to seek and dip and nuzzle fingertips just right. Not too far up, not too far down, but circling just one time counter-clockwise up and down, her wrist held snug to her lower belly by her waistband. The memory of his heat hitching just under her backside had seared itself to the very base level of her thoughts, and her shift was crude against her perked breasts while she pressed into her own furious rhythm.
Look Link straight in the eyes after this ? Hell no. Hellll no. Her bundle of nerves was plump as a rosebud in the thick of June and just as soft, but she mashed it eagerly left and right as she found just the right pressure. Her kingdom could wait a breath, her servants and maids and ladies-in-waiting and father and duties and dominion and r ights ...
Zelda's heartbeat was pounding up her neck and up her ears swiftly, lower lip curled under upper front teeth while her stomach tensed, a first wave of tightness pushing along her spine. Her right heel pushed against the sleeping pad and knee pushed the blankets up - it'd be stupid to try and isolate the origin of the squealing desire to bear down, whether from her mind or her self-pleasuring, but it kept her breath still and tight in her throat-
" Fff-hhh-f huck-" It failed her, that first wave, and her arched back collapsed back down as she panted in heavy gasps, her tensed forearm stilling. Pleasure was an animal of its own; abuse the beast and it would kick back. No amount of fences were quite enough to keep it from nuzzling in to nibble at the freshest thoughts and juiciest ideas. Better... Better still to coax it forwards, and Zelda did just that, the moments ticking by silently.
Silently, silently... but not so quietly, and when she came, clutching on empty and squeezing the blankets with her free hand, a strangled whimper filled the wind-stilled space with the princesses' brief glory.