It was over.
Link could hardly believe it, but the Dark Beast Ganon was gone. The Beast should have been nearly invincible, all malice and power and no weak point to attack, and after a draining fight with Calamity Ganon inside the Castle, Link should by all right have been doomed.
Thanks to Zelda, it hadn't even been a difficult battle. Even after a hundred years of holding Ganon back, right until the point she absolutely couldn't anymore, she'd managed to draw on the Golden Power again to chink the Beast's armor, giving Link targets and not content with that, giving him the Bow of Light to hit them with as well.
And finally, after Link had defeated Ganon, she'd call on yet more power to seal him away completely, finally freeing Hyrule from the calamity.
He felt weak in the knees just thinking of it. She was a Goddess, plain and simple.
She stood now a few paces away from him, still in the white dress she'd worn when the Calamity had fallen, pristine again as if the garment just didn't dare sully its wearer.
"I've been keeping watch over you all this time," she said. "I've witnessed your struggles to return to us as well as your trials in battle."
Link felt himself flush. Not every waking moment since he'd come back to life had been particularly glorious. Being beaten up for stepping on flowers came immediately to mind.
"I always thought... no, I always believed... that you would find a way to defeat Ganon."
The words flooded him with more emotions than he cared to describe. Relief that he hadn't caused her to lose faith was a big one. Sheer joy that she believed in him was up there too, maybe even stronger.
She turned around. "I've never lost faith in you over these many years..."
He longed to run to her, but he had no idea what one hundred years, not to mention watching him flounder around for the last little while, had done to her feelings for him. Belief and confidence are not love.
"Thank you, Link," she said. She looked up, meeting his eyes and gently smiling.
He'd missed her smile. So much. It had been a much rarer sight than it should have been back then, and seeing it again was nothing short of a blessing.
"The Hero of Hyrule," she added.
He blushed and was about to protest that she had more merit than he ever could, but her next words completely distracted him away from that.
"May I ask..." she took a deep breath, as if to work up the courage to finish. "Do you really remember me?"
His heart started hammering. He did. He remembered every single moment he'd ever spent with her. He remembered her every expression, he remembered her every intonation, and right now, both her expression and the tone of her voice showed that she was nervous.
It could very well be that it wasn't at all because she did still love him and wondered if he did too, but Link couldn't bear to let go of the possibility. And because of that, he didn't want to make her wait for an answer.
"My memories came back a little at a time," he said, reaching into his pocket. "The pictures in the Sheikah Slate helped a lot, and even moments that were not strictly connected to the same places have been trickling in, faster and faster the more I remembered."
He walked up to her, eyes carefully on her to make sure he stopped if she backed away, his heart beating so loud he could feel it. She had just saved Hyrule, she had just spent 100 years saving Hyrule, she deserved all the space she wanted and she deserved not to be pushed for feelings she'd had a hundred years earlier, at what was then the lowest point of her life.
She stood perfectly still, eyes not leaving his.
He took his hand out of his pocket and opened it, showing her the content: a pebble, smoothed by age and the elements, white in color with flecks of green, about the size of a thumb. He'd taken a detour to the Shrine of Wisdom, once he'd remembered enough, specifically to pick it up. Given the instant travel the Sheikah Slate allowed for, the detour had only taken a minute, more than worth it. He thought that if Zelda had seen everything he'd done, she had seen this too. Seeing his actions would not reveal his feelings, however, so she wouldn't know why he'd done it.
"The Spring of Wisdom is Holy Ground dedicated to Her Grace Hylia and the Golden Goddess Nayru," he recited. It was easier than to come up with his own words. "None may knowingly take from it, not even the smallest pebble. One exception, granted by the Goddess of Wisdom and therefore of Love, for Wisdom and Love go hand in hand: you may take a token if it is to be a gift to the soul yours is bound to by the deepest love."
He reached for one of Zelda's hand. She extended it and he deposited the pebble in it.
"I remember everything," Link said. "I lost the one you gave me," he admitted, eyes on the pebble he'd just given her. "I didn't have it when I woke up. I'm sorry."
Zelda was staring at the pebble, and tears welled up in her eyes. With her free hand, she reached in her own pocket, and produced the smaller, soft grey pebble.
"I was afraid you would discard it without knowing what it was," she said, "so I kept it safe with the hope that I would one day be able to return it to you." She pressed it in his hand. "My soul and my heart are bound to yours, Link. I believe they always will be, and I hope as much."
Link sighed in relief. His heart did not calm down in the least but the feeling was suddenly much more pleasant. "And mine to yours," he said. "May I..."
"May I kiss you?" Zelda asked, interrupting him with the very question he'd been about to ask her.
He chuckled. She did too, a charming sound he was looking forward to hearing many more times.
She closed the distance between them and tilted her head ever so slightly down towards his.
They were standing in a devastated Kingdom. They had lost nearly everything and everyone, including their closest friends and their families. Thousands had perished.
This had all happened, and they could not rewrite the past. They could, however, help the people who lived now, and they could rebuild. It was the work of a lifetime.
She placed her hands on his cheeks, one of them closed around the pebble he'd given her and the other gently cupping the line of his jaw. He placed his free hand on the side of her face, his thumb in front of her ear and his palm in her hair, and his closed fist, holding on to his own pebble for dear life, leaning against her other cheek.
They touched lips gently at first, and then more firmly, urgently and desperately, happiness and relief eclipsing every other feeling. Link's arms soon traveled to hold the whole of her rather than just her head and they stayed locked in the embrace a good long while.
When they parted, they were ready for the rest of their life's work and the challenges it would bring. They could face it. Together, they could face it all.