So, betcha you thought you'd never see me update THIS again. Well, here I am! I'm not dead, even though senior year is kicking my butt. I'm neck-deep in college applications, standardized tests, and original manuscripts. The free time that I always used to write has melted away, and I'm trying my best.

Thank you for all the favorites, follows, and reviews! The support for this story right out of the gate has been overwhelming, and I truly appreciate it.

I really hope you enjoy the chapter, and that it was worth the wait!

~Alyssa

o(OXO)o

"You know, I think it would go a long way if you just apologized."

It was late afternoon, and Zelda and Helena had retired from lunch to a private sitting room to work on embroidering for the baby. Zelda had been desperate for something to do that would distract her from the lingering feelings of the night, but unfortunately, sewing was the kind of work that only occupied the hands. She found herself divulging what had happened at the ball last night despite her better intentions, and for the most part, Helena had only affirmed her thoughts on the matter. Together they had analyzed every word and motion and nuance that she had ever performed in his presence, dissecting every conversation, and neither of them could come up with anything deserving of his ire.

She had been ranting about it when Helena finally interrupted.

"What do I have to apologize for?!" Zelda demanded, looking up from her work.

She hadn't done anything wrong. She was absolutely sure of it.

"I haven't a clue." Helena's face was earnest. "But clearly, he thinks that he's been wronged, and he doesn't feel like he should be the one to take the first step. That means you have to. I honestly believe that if you sincerely apologize for whatever it is that making him so angry and propose an open dialogue in the future, he won't be so horrible to you. He has to want this to work, or he never would have come, right?"

That's what he had said. But she could still recall the barely-concealed loathing in his eyes as they danced, the biting tone that he responded with every time she spoke.

"Was this arrangement your idea?"

"I make an admirable actor."

"I didn't realize how much we would have to talk."

"Don't you have anything to offer besides questions?!"

"I don't know about that." Zelda grumbled. She couldn't imagine that anything she had to say now would earn the kindness of the Hero. If she hadn't seen him smile with her own eyes the night before, she wouldn't have believed him capable of it.

"You always see the worst in people," Helena accused.

"Well, you always see the best!"

"I'm not the one with the big problem now, am I?"

Zelda scowled.

"Just think about it," Helena said. "It hurts me to see you so unhappy. If this is what the rest of your life is going to look like, I'm going to Dorian right this minute and telling him to call the whole thing off."

As dear and sweet as her sister-in-law was, she knew exactly where all of Zelda's weak spots were, and she wasn't afraid to exploit them. She knew that the only reason Zelda had agreed to this match in the first place was because it was the best possible option for her country, and that Zelda lived and died for her country. Calling off the match would be the worst thing that could happen for Hyrule, especially now that it had already been announced.

And besides, though she was probably stupid to hope, she had seen a part of him last night that she craved to know personally. If the Hero was sent back to the village he'd come from, she would never again see his wonderful smile or hear the infectious laugh that made her heart stir. That couldn't be.

"You can't send him away, and we both know it."

"I can, and I will." Her voice was resolute. "The Hero is the most ideal person for the job, it's true, but I will not let you be so blinded by duty that you sacrifice any chance you have at happiness. If you think your relationship is so hopeless that you won't even bother trying, we're going to find someone else."

She didn't bother trying to test whether or not she was bluffing, instead sighing as despondently as she could manage. "Very well," she said, "I'll try. I'll talk to him. But I promise you, it won't get either of us anywhere."

"We'll see." Her sister-in-law was smug with the knowledge that Zelda never broke her word.

And she wouldn't break her word. She would talk to him, and try to figure out why he hated her so.

It just wouldn't be as Zelda.

o(OXO)o

Seeking the Hero out was harder than she bargained for.

If she had been herself, all she would have had to do was ask one of the guards stationed by his door if he was in his rooms or not. If he was, she would have knocked. If he wasn't, she would ask where he had gone and sought him out there, or waited for him until he returned.

But she wasn't herself, and being the person that the Hero knew her as presented her with a very new and interesting dilemma—sneaking around her own home. It was plain odd, trying to figure out ways to exploit the people that were duty-bound to keep her safe in order to see a man that absolutely hated her, but she supposed stranger things had happened.

She couldn't recall any to mind at the moment, but that was beside the point.

She had realized very quickly that getting to him from the inside was a fruitless endeavor; even at this time of night, there were too many people walking the hallways and not enough places to hide from them. One glance at her would be enough to know that she didn't belong, and she would be reported to the guards before she had a chance to blink. They would go on high alert fearing an intruder to be in their midst and immediately go to make sure the princess was accounted for, and where would she be then?

This meant that she had to find him from the outside, something that turned out to be much easier in concept than it was in reality. She knew the interior of the castle like the back of her hand, but the outside? Not a chance. Though she was no stranger to climbing the uneven stone of the exterior, it took a good hour before she even found the correct wing to be looking in.

And even when she finally had found it, she had been forced to jump for cover more than once as she heard the patrols across the outer wall approaching, watching exactly for people like her. It made her task of peering in every window to determine her bearings absolutely painstaking, and she was just about to give up when she heard a noise coming from her left, from inside.

She strained her ears.

It was a whistle.

She dropped down from the ledge she had been standing on and sidled over to the open window, careful not to expose herself too much as she gripped the sill. From this place, she could hear the noises coming from inside much better, and as she listened, the whistle morphed into a song.

She recognized it immediately—it was a lullaby as old as Hyrule itself, one that mothers crooned to their colicky children before bedtime. The simple melody was gentle and charming, but nothing about it was truly significant. No, it was the voice that sang the song that made her heart lurch.

It was the Hero.

His voice wasn't deep like perhaps some thought a man's should be, but instead higher and strong, smooth like honey and just as sweet. He maneuvered through the wordless song with practiced ease, and her eyes drifted shut of their own accord as she was swept away by the sound.

She felt something strange ball in her stomach. This felt like such a private, intimate part of the enigmatic man she knew. She ached to tell him how wonderful he sounded, that music was such an important part of her life too, and—

"Hey!"

She started, some deeply-rooted instinct for survival the only thing that prevented her from plummeting to her death. Her eyes flew open, and she was faced with the Hero charging from his bed over to the window.

Goddesses, caught as a sneak. This was not the impression she wasn't to leave!

She let go of the window then, more prepared to deal with two broken legs from the fall than with an explanation of what she was doing. She squeezed her eyes shut again, bracing herself for the pain, and it was for that reason that she didn't realize she wasn't falling until a moment later.

He had grabbed her hand at the last moment, suspending her from the window.

"Let me go!" she demanded, a flush burning her ears. Of all the mortifying things in the world, to be at the mercy of this man!

"I don't think so." When she dared open her eyes, his expression was flat. "I believe you owe me an answer or two. What the hell are you doing?"

Briefly, she considered lying. But what would be the point? "I was listening to you," she said sheepishly. "You have a lovely voice."

There. She had said it.

But he ignored the compliment. "I didn't mean just now. I meant last night, too. Who are you? Why are you jumping through windows and climbing all over the castle in the dark?"

Her mouth twisted. "I can't tell you."

He raised an eyebrow, flexing the grip on her arm that kept her from plummeting. "I don't think you're in a position to be refusing me."

"I'd rather you let me fall."

Friction sizzled between them as they stared each other down, willing the other to relent. But as she already knew, both of them were far too stubborn to be bested by the other.

That was the reason behind their animosity towards each other, she realized suddenly. Control. Both of them needed it desperately, but in this situation so orchestrated by King Dorian and the people of Hyrule, neither of them had it. They had been quite literally forced together, and they took out the resentment they harbored for the helplessness they felt on the other.

The epiphany rocked her. So it was in her power to fix the enmity between them!

"Last night, I ran into you by mistake," she admitted, testing her hypothesis by giving him the answers he wanted. "Tonight, I was seeking you out. I wanted to talk to you."

There was a long moment of nothing but his heated gaze on hers, until finally, he sighed.

"Excellent. Now I don't have to watch you splatter on the ground."

She snorted, relieved not to be met with hostility. "I wouldn't have splattered."

"Regardless, why don't you come inside? I might have saved Hyrule from the twilight, but I don't have divine strength, and I can't support you for much longer."

When she nodded, he hoisted her up until she could gain footing on the windowsill. She clambered inside, dropping to her feet on the cool stone floor.

His bedroom, like all guest quarters in the west wing, was lavishly furnished. A four-poster bed draped with fabrics in Nohansen blue was bookended by two tables made of dark wood. A fireplace was against the opposite wall, surrounded by a set of chairs and a bookcase. There was armoire and a divider for changing just by the door, and a large rug dominated most of the space in the center of the room.

But it was his chest that she was most curious to see—it was propped open and filled to the brim with treasures unlike any she had ever seen.

A bow and arrow. A boomerang. A set of boots that looked to be made out of metal. A pair of some sort of claw contraption, their shiny hands reminiscent of pinchers. More.

"I'm something of a master dungeon crawler by now," he said as he closed the window, following her gaze. "There are all sorts of things to find, if you know where to look. You can touch them, if you'd like; they're not of much use to me beyond sentimentality anymore."

Unconsciously, she felt herself moving forward, falling to her knees before the bounty. She picked up a staff propped up against the side with a delicate grasp. Energy pulsed beneath her fingertips, and she gasped. "Goddesses, it's incredible."

He seemed to find her selection funny. "Actually, that thing's probably the most useless of the lot," he said, taking it from her and raising it high. A ball of green light flared at the top. "It looks the best, I'll give you that, but the only thing it's good for is this."

He pointed it at his nightstand, where a tiny figurine of a baying wolf sat. Its eyes flashed the same green as the rod, and seemingly of its own accord, it relaxed from its position and started careening around the table.

"It animates?"

"Only statues. And only certain kinds of statues, mind you. I'm not entirely sure how it works, but one of the Oocca gave that to me as thanks for my help."

The wolf hopped from its perch and onto the floor. It crossed to where she was kneeling and pawed at her leg, tongue lolling out in a doggish grin.

It reminded her so much of the Hero's smile in his own wolf-form that she nearly began to laugh. But of course, she couldn't reveal that she knew he turned into a wolf. That wasn't precisely common knowledge; as far as what she understood, she was one of only a handful of people that knew.

She cupped her hands and placed them beside it, and eagerly, it climbed on. The same energy that she'd felt on the rod pulsed again in her hands.

"Incredible," she said again.

"But you didn't come here to watch the furniture move." He placed the rod down on the bed, and the wolf froze in place. She set it down.

"No," she agreed. "I wanted to apologize. I behaved abominably last night."

He snorted.

"What?"

"Abominably?" he repeated in her accent with a snigger. "You're just as bad as the Princess!"

Affronted, she grimaced. "Does it intimidate you that I am educated?"

"No," he said after a moment. "It just takes some getting used to. I didn't step foot out of my village until I was seventeen. Of all the people I've met, I have the least experience with nobles, and now I'm expected to just become one. All the fancy clothes, the manners, the long adjectives…I've been in a constant state of culture shock since I walked through the gates. To hear you sound like one of them? It took me by surprise, is all."

How interesting. He felt like an outsider.

She didn't understand. Dorian had gone to painstaking lengths to assure a smooth transition, to make sure the Hero was comfortable. No expense had been spared to make the ball last night wonderful, and though she wasn't there, she was sure that the welcome parade that had been set up to greet him was a sight.

But perhaps that was the problem. He felt strange, being thrust into Hyrule's most elite without so much as a question as to whether he wanted it. He didn't know what he was getting into, and all the finery that the palace had to offer didn't suit him.

Strange. But, she supposed she wasn't in any place to understand. She had been raised in the castle atmosphere, and she had known nothing else.

But if she couldn't empathize, she could certainly sympathize. She could make his transition easier and show him that, despite all the scrutiny, life here could be enjoyable.

"Does that mean you accept my apology, then?"

He grinned. "So long as you promise not to use words like 'abominably' in my presence anymore, yes. Does that mean you will come to see me more often, then?"

That wasn't a good idea. She had never interacted with another person in this disguise before, and especially not anyone who knew her as the Princess. There were too many ways she could slip up. There were too many things that this person that she masqueraded as couldn't know, couldn't be. He could tell her something as this alter-ego and she could thoughtlessly mention it as Zelda, or vice versa. He might soon learn to see through her disguise, and he would hate her all over again for deceiving him.

But the idea of having a clean slate, of being able to speak freely to him without repercussion…it was nearly intoxicating. She wanted to know him so badly. She longed to see his smile, to hear his laugh. She knew he would never sing around Zelda, and the thought of never hearing his voice again saddened her deeply.

He heard the indecision in her silence.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday," he said, and her heart ached. They did; he didn't know how much she wished she could turn back time and fix the animosity between him and Zelda. But it was too late for the two of them. Him and this disguise, however? There was a world of opportunity. "I'm Link. It's very nice to meet you. And you are?"

He held out his hand, and she made up her mind.

There was no other way. If there was, she would have thought of it.

"Sheik," she whispered, sealing her fate.

o(OXO)o

So we finally get the Sheik name drop, and a pledge to get together! Ooohhh….

Leave a word, if you would! It's very exciting to see the review count shoot up, and when I'm feeling uninspired, the review section is always the thing that kicks me in the butt and gets me going again.

See you guys next time!