In hindsight, Link had to admit he should have seen this coming: things had been going too well, too smoothly, too easy.
Ashei was not meeting his eyes. She'd arranged this. Why was the question, and Link was tempted to ask and let his lover suffer through the awkwardness.
Except that Ashei would not be bothered at all and Link knew it. She wasn't embarrassed by what was between them, she was merely ignoring him, forcing him to face his visitor.
So he did. He put his drink down, pushed his chair away from the table, got up, ordered his legs not to shake and faced the girl who'd just walked into Thelma's bar.
Ilya seemed rooted to the floor and just stared at him. She looked like she was trying not to look upset. Ilya not being upfront about how she felt had the same effect on Link as a slap.
He swallowed. Ilya wore her heart on her sleeve and nobody ever had to wonder whether she was angry with them, or sad, or happy, or anything. What kind of inner storm was she in that she thought she had to shield others from it?
"You never write back," Ilya said.
Link frowned. That was blatantly untrue. "I do too!" He exclaimed. "I wrote just last month!"
Ilya's mouth twitched downward and her next words were strangled. "You don't write back. You send letters to the whole village wishing us well and saying you're fine. You don't react to any news and don't give any. We haven't really heard from you, other than knowing you're alive, since we all went back home. Beth thinks you're marrying Princess Zelda."
Ashei snorted.
Link shot her a glare. "I'm definitely not," he told Ilya. "I… err…"
Ilya technically smiled. It was false, and sad, and Link swallowed again.
"I know Ashei and you are together," Ilya said softly. "And... you don't owe me any explanation. I hope you know that."
The tears that were starting to well up in her eyes were giving a very different speech right now than her mouth was. The fact she was trying to hide that she was upset was sending a third one, and that third one was the one that hurt Link the most: Ilya was hurt, and it was his fault, and she was trying to hide it for fear of hurting HIM.
"It didn't work out with Shad," Link blurted out.
"Truth," Ashei said. "They lasted a week. Shad was too interested in what Link could get out of the ground and not enough in what he could get out of his pants."
Both Link and Ilya turned bright red. A loud bark of laughter sounded from the bar: Thelma was obviously listening in.
"I think the way I put it was actually that he was more interested in what I could get old ruins to tell him than in what I might want to tell him myself," Link said with a scowl. "Why AM I with you, again?"
Ashei smiled. "Now there's a loaded question. I make you... laugh. Yeah."
Ilya cleared her throat. Link turned his attention back to her. The brief distraction provided by Ashei had at least dried Ilya's eyes.
"It's been two years, Link," she said. "Don't you miss home? We miss you. If you need more time to heal from whatever happened to you, we understand. We want to help. We want you to feel safe, and... and loved, and..." her voice broke in a hiccup and she wiped at her eyes. "Ashei would be so welcomed too. I'm not going to pretend that before all this, I hadn't thought..." she shook her head. "It doesn't matter. We're worried. We want you to come home. Don't you want to?"
Link looked away from her. He missed Ordon, of course he did. The problem was, the Link that had grown up there, the Link Ilya and Ordon were waiting to welcome back... that person was long dead. He knew better than to expect their patience would last with the mess he was now. And he couldn't be near Ilya all the time. That way was madness, and pain.
He hadn't realized they still thought their Link was out there. It was his fault - he hadn't wanted them to worry. All he'd achieved, it seemed, was to deny them closure.
It was time to come clean.
"I don't want to tell you what happened," he said. He realized it was an odd start to coming clean so he clarified, more for his benefit than hers. "Not the details."
Ilya nodded. "You don't have to."
"It was bad," Link said. "The fighting wasn't... it wasn't great, I died and I was revived by fairies several times, and I had to drink potions to bring me back from losing limbs and almost bleeding to death, or having half my face chewed out... but once the pain stops it's hard to remember how bad it was."
Ilya's eyes were wide. Ashei was still and quiet. Thelma and even Louise the Cat were completely silent.
"I ended up in the Twilight. It should have been scary and horrible, because that's what the Twilight is supposed to be, isn't it? It wasn't. There was some evil there that tarnished it, but you could still tell it was beautiful when it was in its normal state. It looked unwelcoming at first, unfamiliar, alien, and rude. But it wasn't her fault, she..."
He stopped, suddenly realizing he had stopped talking about the Twilight and started talking about Midna. He corrected course. He wasn't getting into Midna. An absurd chuckle tried to escape his throat at the thought of what Ashei would say about his not getting into Midna but he swallowed it down.
He was NOT going to go into hysterics. Absolutely not. He was the Hero chosen by the Gods for crying out loud. He was a BIT stronger than that.
"But the world of light and the world of twilight aren't meant to meet," he said. "I fought to save both, and I did, but one of them is forever closed to me and to everyone else in Hyrule. Just like we're closed to them, and we banished them in the first place so maybe that's fair, but it's not because..." it was his turn to lose his voice as his throat closed. "Because now nobody from the twilight can ever see anybody from the light again. There was a mirror, but... she broke it. She chose to separate our words forever."
Ilya and Ashei were both looking at him.
"The mirror was broken by the Twilight Princess," Ashei said. "The Princess has made that known. You saw it happen?"
Link nodded and felt tears well up in his eyes. He wiped at them angrily. Two years. He had moved on and he had learned his lesson. He'd learned to dodge all kinds of attacks from enemies, and he'd learned to dodge this too.
"You were in love with her," Ashei said. "Dammit. I knew you were avoiding attachment, but..."
Link turned towards her, eyes wide. "Wait, what?"
"Avoiding attachment. Link, we're friends who sleep together. We're not a couple, never were, never will be, and I know you know that, and I know you're happy with that."
"What does that have to do with anything!?"
"You're refusing to see anyone else because you don't want to risk falling in love again. You got hurt because you were in love with the Princess of Twilight and she broke up with you in the most spectacular way ever. She literally locked herself in another universe and made sure you could never follow."
"It wasn't about me!" Link protested.
"No, but the result is the same. Go on, deny it. Deny that just talking about the Twilight made it hurt all over again. Deny you were in love and were hurt worse than when you lost life and limb in battle. You literally opened with saying the pain from the fighting wasn't the worst. Go on, we're listening."
"Is that why you told Ilya we were going to be here?" Link asked. He was yelling, knew it, and didn't care. "You were trying to trick me into… into whatever this is?"
"I was trying to get you to admit to yourself that you were avoiding the people you actually love because you were afraid to lose them. I didn't realize you were heartbroken. I thought you had just seen too much death."
Link clenched his fists. It hadn't been a bad guess, he supposed, but the truth was that he hadn't seen much death at all. He was aware there had been a lot, but he hadn't seen much of it. Not directly. It was usually done by the time he got to any given destination and he was just left with the satisfaction of saving the survivors while never meeting the victims.
And anyway, he didn't like being tricked into this, and the fact Ilya had been dragged into it.
"I insisted on coming," Ilya suddenly said.
Link turned back to her. She was doing that technically a smile thing again, but this time the sadness behind it wasn't quite as sharp. It felt more like the smile was fighting through than like it was being used as a mask.
"You shouldn't have," Link said with a sigh. "It's not because I'm avoiding getting attached that I'm staying away. I'm already attached, and you guys wouldn't stay attached for long. I'm… I'm not exactly great company these days."
Ilya frowned. Link's eyes widened: that was an actual real frown. It was delightful.
"Do you really think so little of our judgement, Link?" she asked. "We know you're not yourself lately. Or maybe you are but it's not the same yourself as before. It doesn't matter. You're still Link. You're still OUR Link. We want to help, and if that means helping you figure out who you are now and how to be happy with that, that will be the plan. And we're not trying to confine you to the village. We just want you to come home. Not to be there at all times, not to be who you were before. We just want you to have a home again."
"I have a home now," Link said.
"We're nomads," Ashei pointed out. "So technically you don't."
"YOU don't want one," Link shot back.
"Indeed I don't. Shame this is about YOU."
"Please, Link. We don't have expectations, we don't want you to take your old job back or entertain the kids, or… get close… to anyone…"
Link groaned and dragged his hand down his face. "You don't get it. I know you're going to be perfect, all of you. And guess what's going to happen? I'm going to feel home. I'm going to start feeling like I did before towards everyone."
He didn't say 'including you'.
"But I'm still going to be this… damaged sulky battle scarred nuisance. You're not going to toss me out, but you're going to start keeping your distance. I don't want that."
He didn't say that he couldn't face falling in love with her, because he had been most of the way there before all this and he couldn't imagine being home and not falling the rest of the way sooner or later. And he couldn't face that because he wasn't who he used to be and she wouldn't love him back or worse, she would but only for a short time before she pushed him away as far as she could.
"So you're being a coward," Ashei said. "Kind of weird for you, not gonna lie."
Link felt his face flare again. "I'm not being…"
"You ARE, Hon," Thelma piped in. "You're afraid and instead of facing it, you're running."
"To be fair it's your choice," Ashei said. "I can't complain about our current arrangement."
"Yet you arranged this," Link said.
Ashei shrugged. "Took pity on you. My mistake, it's your folks I should have been feeling sorry for. They're hurting more than you are. Mostly because you got yourself nicely numbed behind a big 'no feelings allowed' wall, but here we are."
Link opened his mouth and closed it again. He looked at Ilya and winced. He could tell plain as day that she was really, really upset and angry. And she didn't look it at all. It wasn't fair, she shouldn't be upset over him. And from what she was saying, everyone was?
He had to go back. It would hurt like hell when they lost patience with him and banned him from their heart even as they allowed him to stay in their home out of duty, but THEY wouldn't be worried sick anymore, and they wouldn't be feeling so powerless it hurt.
Ashei was looking at him. "I'll visit sometimes if that's ok, but I'm planning on a solo trip right now. See you around, Link."
She got up to walk out and pressed her hand to his shoulder on the way by.
Ilya stared alternatively at her and at him.
"I didn't mean to worry you all so much," he said. "I'll come back. You're going to regret it."
Ilya's mask of neutrality seem to melt right off and suddenly, she was Ilya again, her emotions on full display for all to see and deal with. It was easy to deal with right now: relief was etched in every line of her face and body, and Link knew two things.
One, going back was the right thing to do.
Two, he was 100% going to be head over heels in love with Ilya within the year. Most likely WAY faster than that.
He still believed she would probably break his heart. But for the chance to see her heart through her face again, and with the knowledge he was the only one at risk of being hurt, it would have been more than worth it even if his conscience allowed anything less.