In Zora's domain only two days later, Link, Zelda and Impa found themselves standing before King Dorephan, Princess Mipha, and some of the Zora elders.

"Princess Zelda, it is an honour to welcome you to the Domain." King Dorephan welcomed them happily. "Link, my boy, it has been too long since you've paid us a visit." Link felt his cheeks burn at the attention the King gave him. Maybe he'd organise a trip after his current situation was taken care of. When he raised his eyes, he found that Mipha's eyes were studying him.

"Lady Impa, is it? It has been a long time since your first visit, no?" He turned his gaze to see Impa bowing her head respectfully, nodding to what the King was saying. "I do hope you'll enjoy your stay in our domain."

"Thank you, Your Grace. It is an honour to return to the domain after so long."

"I shan't keep you longer, I'm sure your business with Vah Ruta has waited long enough." the King smiled and motioned for Mipha to step forward. "Dear, please show our guests to their lodgings and have a good time."

"Yes father."

"Remember, if you need anything, simply ask any of us." The trio acquiesced and were led away from the Zora throne room, closely followed by a small group of Zora children.

They moved slowly, Link noticed pretty quickly. Mipha was soon in a very deep conversation regarding a bond with Vah Ruta and ice controls, something Link knew scarcely about so he paid no mind to the conversion, unlike Impa who was attempting to piece together the information she did know about.

"Linny! Linny!" He slowly turned and saw a small red zora running towards him, followed by a blue one around the same age. "Linny came back!"

Kodah and Kayden? He hoisted up to the two as they collided into him, a habit he'd developed whenever any zora child came running up to him.

"You grow too fast!" Kodah cried out. He chuckled as Kayden made a face.

"I'm here for a little bit, ok?" Link told them, continuing his walk with one zora in each arm.

"Are you going to show us more spearwork?"

"Linny, show us more!"

Demanding today. Link found himself smiling at the two tiny Zoras. "Tonight when we get back ok? I'll show you new tricks too." He meant those words, he did enjoy wowing the children from the domain. He enjoyed seeing the wonder in their eyes as he expertly wielded their gracefully crafted tridents in arcs above and around his body.

"Show us Mipha's pinwheel attack?"

"Linny can't do that Kayden! He's not a Zora!"

"Oh yea, Linny's too fat for that."

"Linny isn't fat! He's just Hylian! Linny, tell him!"

Great goddesses… He ignored the bickering between the two children, opting rather to separate them a little further. While he could do the mentioned combo, he did have significantly more trouble with it, seeing that he was indeed Hylian and lacked the fluidity of motion Mipha had been blessed with as a Zora. When he looked in the distance, Princess Mipha, Zelda, and Impa were waiting patiently for him with grins at the end of the bridge, clearly snickering between themselves.

"When are you gonna be back Linny? You're gonna take forever!" He looked down to Kodah, who had decided to adopt a cute pout as he began putting them down near the fountain in the centre of the Domain.

"I'll be back before sundown."

"No! That's too late! Bedtime is sundown!"

"Oh alright. Right before dusk then." When the female Zora seemed content with his answer, he placed her down on the fountain. As he went to move away, he heard the two shout in the distance.

"Don't break your promise!" He threw a thumbs up into the air as he hurried along the bridge before the small children found any new reason to follow him and delay them further.

"We'll try to be back in time for your fanclub, Link." Zelda snickered behind her hand as he finally reached the group.

He rolled his eyes and followed along behind them, letting the ladies talk while he surveyed behind them.


When they returned from the divine beast and had eaten at the feast that King Dorephan had prepared in their honour, Zelda laid in bed, awake. Impa was sleeping in the bed beside hers and Link was on the other side of the Sheikah, snoring lightly.

Or so she thought.

It had taken roughly an hour of the slightly irregular breathing and snoring for him to finally rise, carefully glancing around the room before leaving.

Zelda watched him with an eye cracked open against her pillow as he rose and carefully tiptoed out of the room quietly.

I'll give it to him, he's quiet. He avoided every sound he could have possibly made. The door hadn't creaked, nor had his feet made any noise against the floor. His blanket hadn't made any noise as it had been moved, but he'd placed it in a way where it gave the impression that he was still in bed.

Where are you going? When the door was shut, the click avoided with the doorknob, Zelda finally hopped out of bed, ready to follow him.

She wondered why he was getting up in the middle of the night so suspiciously. Perhaps the bathroom? She quickly scratched it off her list. He wouldn't have placed his blankets in such a manner if he was returning within the next 5 minutes.

Was he hungry? She noticed he'd only eaten two fish and a bit of rice at the feast rather fast but he hadn't gone for seconds. If he was hungry, he would have gone for more, she knew he was very familiar with the Zora royal family, they talked with him in such an informal familiar way, he was practically family to them.

Is he meeting someone? Zelda felt a soft pang in her chest at the very thought. No, he wasn't seeing anyone. Not that she knew of, anyway.

He hadn't even been bothered to put a pair of pants on. He had left shirtless and in a pair of shorts, forgoing even a pair of shoes.

After a short moment of waiting, she slowly opened the door, knowing he'd be far enough away for her to follow undetected. She walked through the very short hall and out into the open area, hiding behind a pillar. She watched from a distance as Link looked around for a short second and hopped off the side of the Domain.

What in Hylia's name?! She heard a resulting splash less than a few seconds later and she ran over. Did he just want to go for a swim? At this time? She watched incredulously from her spot. Who in their right mind goes swimming in these chilled temperatures with the moon as high as it is?

She decided against jumping over the edge, seeing it was quite the fall into the water and opted to leave through the domain bridge instead.

"Princess? Where are you off to?" One of the guards asked as she made her way to the bridge's entrance to the domain.

"Simply going for a walk down by the water." She responded back.

The two guards exchanged a brief glance. "Would you like an escort?"

She quickly waved them off with a hand. "No no, it's alright. I'll only be gone for a few minutes. If I'm not back in half an hour, you may come."

"Understood Princess. Do be careful, there's a chill in the air." The guard bid her a nice evening as she walked off the bridge and down the grassy and rocky cliffside.

She noticed the bright red glow of a flame on the bank underneath the domain. Three skewers were placed next to the fire, items hanging above the flames.

He's really cooking at this time? Link sat with his back to her, skewer in hand.

She slowly climbed down the cliff, her bare feet touching the wet individual stone, cautious of any slippery moss that might be there, and slowly descended to the water level. She wasn't too keen on actually swimming in the water. The waters were quite cold when she'd dipped her toe in, but they weren't freezing.

She slowly inched her way through the high waters, her legs screaming in shivers with every step she took. It didn't take long before Link's ears perked up and saw her, proceeding to immediately choke on the piece of fish meat he'd been chewing.

Oh lord, you mess of a man. Her mind laughed as she finally reached his little island beneath the domain.

"What are you doing here?" He asked between coughs. "You should be sleeping."

"So should you!" She retorted. "Are you alright?"

He coughed out harder than the last. "Wrong hole."

She could see his reddening cheeks through the light of the flames in front of them. Whether he turned red from embarrassment of being caught awake or being caught choking on fish, she wasn't sure. Either way, she smacked his back to help him pass the bone.

"Why are you here? Go sleep." He wiped the small tears that had formed from his choking.

"Really, we're going to do this again? Why are you here?" He narrowed his eyes at her retort, clearly wanting her to stop questioning, but his face felt and he sighed.

"I'm just hungry and I wanted a snack."

Zelda's eyes drifted to the three fish being roasted, the bones of a fourth discarded and looking back, unimpressed.

That was not a snack.

"And you couldn't have cooked this at the inn because?"

"You know…" His voice drifted a moment. "The smell."

"The smell."

"Yes! The smell! It would have woken someone up and I'd rather not." She continued to watch him lie, making up excuses on the spot.

"And you came down here naked because?" His cheeks dusted pink as he took a look at himself as if he hadn't realised he was here in his underwear the entire time. "Did… did you walk out in front of the guards like that?" She gestured to all of him.

"Oh goddesses no. I jumped." She immediately looked up, analysing the distance between the platform way above and the ground.

"You jumped?! You're going to injure yours-."

"It's fine, I did this all the time as a kid." He shrugged it off, leaning back against the wet rock.

She wished he wasn't so casual in the way that he practically presented himself to her; boxers and nothing else. He could have at least pretended to be embarrassed about the lack of clothes.

Confident bastard.

Whatever will I do with you? She forced her eyes away from his well defined chest, refusing to allow him the opportunity to think she'd been doing any ogling and instead looked at the steaming fish.

"You should be heading to bed and you still haven't given me a satisfactory reason as to why you snuck out so late for this snack of yours. Why didn't you eat more at the feast?" She waited patiently, kneeling down to the ground and crossing her arms as Link answered with silence, his eyes averting hers instantly. "Well, go on."

"I just wasn't hungry then, but I am now."

The biggest lie she'd ever heard. A small pang resonated in her chest. Why did he have to lie to her again? Over such a minor thing too?

He picked up one of the steaming fish and blew on it carefully. "Would you like one? They're seasoned." He plucked one of the sticks and offered it over to the Princess. Upon first glance of her expression, the stick slackened in his hand. "Zelda…"

"Why are you lying to me?" She muttered. She wondered how much of the half hour time limit she gave the guards had passed, perhaps half? More?

The offered fish remained extended out, but the knight's expression dropped. "I'm not lying to you Zel… Really."

"Then what's going on?" She snapped, briskly taking the stick out of his hands and holding the steaming fish. "You've been distant since Goron city and I demand to know why."

"It's complicated." Were the only words that came out. Zelda slumped back, knowing she wasn't going to get much more out of him.

"Is it something I did?"

His body jumped immediately at the question, alarm in his eyes. "Goddess no! Please don't think you had anything to do with it." She found it only a little bit more reassuring. "Now eat and tell me what you think."

Deciding it was better to let it go, she looked at the steaming fish eagerly, wondering how it might taste. It smelled divine and she could feel the heat radiating off the stick in her hands. She'd seen him pluck a small piece of the flesh using his fingers, cautious for any more bones to avoid the earlier incident.


"What of the return of the Calamity, Princess?" King Dorephan asked the next morning. "Its return was prophesied for your 17th birthday, was it not?"

"It was, Your Majesty." She nodded. Zelda looked down at her hands, her thoughts drifting.

The morning of her 17th birthday. It had been a tense day.

Anxiety had kept her awake from the toll of the midnight bell, too nerve-wracked to sleep. How could she? Calamity Ganon had been said to return on her birthday. Throughout breakfast and lunch, both Impa and Link had attempted to get her to sleep, even just an hour, but she had focused on her task: Climb Mount Lanayru and reach the Spring of Wisdom before midnight.

And so that's what she did, she reached the base of the mountain by dinner time and had prayed at the Spring before sunset had even arrived. To say the both of them had been nervous had been an understatement.

By the time they had descended the sacred mountain, the four champions had waited for them at the East Gate for news of her power but as she predicted, it refused to manifest atop the mountain.

It was the return to the castle that had them so nervous that every few minutes, Link's eyes were sitting on his sword and the shield, the muscles in his neck and his jaw tensing every few seconds.

No one slept that night. When the clock struck midnight, there was relief but there was also fear.

The Calamity hadn't risen when expected.

Now, her 22nd birthday was fast approaching.

Yet another year the Calamity teased them with return, yet not a single sign of its return showed itself. Not through visions from the Seers, not from any new events unless she counted every monster around the continent.

There was one thing that struck her oddly, now five years passed the prophesied return day. The King barely spoke of Calamity Ganon. As if it didn't exist or he didn't believe in its existence.

Zelda remembered those days miserably. Every day she had prayed for her powers, every day he took another piece of her happiness in the name of Greater Good for everyone. Now he simply did the same without the greater cause as an excuse.

"Princess, you'll tell us if the Seers see something new, won't you?" Mipha was the first to ask.

Zelda nodded, knowing its return was imminent, it was simply a waiting game now. "Of course, Your Highness. You shall be the first to be told."

"Thank you, Princess." King Dorephan thanked them.


The return from Zora's domain held Zelda in mixed feelings.

On one hand, she loved the time away from the castle and royal life, highly content riding alongside Link through the continent.

On the other hand, she felt incredibly uncomfortable at the moment. With Link behaving oddly the last four days, now it felt as if his eyes never left her. For the last hour, she felt his gaze burning a hole in her back constantly and it left her wishing he'd get distracted by literally anything so his gaze could go elsewhere.

Her eyes shifted into her peripherals, catching into his blues on her once more.

There he goes again… he's not even subtle about it… She felt an odd shiver run down her back as she tried to ignore the burning stare on her. She wished he'd be like every other person on the planet and divert his eyes when she tried to look, but he just wasn't doing that. He was persistent in the way he looked at her.

Every time she looked his way, his eyes would shift up to hers and remain there. Unblinking. Just staring.

She wondered briefly if it would be considered rude to ask him to look elsewhere. Previously, she wouldn't have thought twice about telling him off, and she'd have done it in a vulgar manner too, but now that they were much closer, it felt wrong to do so now.

She began praying for anything to appear. Bokoblins, moblins, swarms of never ending keese, even just chuchus would be alright.

But for some odd reason, it was an entirely uneventful ride. For the first time in weeks, they were left completely unbothered. Not a single monster in sight.

It was later that day, when the sun was high, that he finally looked away. It was then that she chose to look at what he was doing. He'd opened his pack and was fishing for something rather intently, shoving random things into his pocket to make his search easier.

What are you looking for? The more she looked, the more frantic his search was. His pack wasn't even that big, she didn't understand what was so small that he'd be in such a rush to find, considering he'd spent the entire morning just looking at her and doing nothing else. Was he just zoned out? It was a possibility that he hadn't intended to stare so intently at her.

Zelda quickly brushed the thought aside when Link's expression morphed into intense discomfort as if he'd been pricked by something painful, only to be quickly discarded for one of relief. Among the small items he'd fished out, she watched the small item disappear, water washing it down his throat.

He's just hungry!? She deadpanned at the thought, wondering if he had been hungry and zoned out until the thought of food being on his person brought him out of it.

No, that couldn't be it. She had watched him devour a breakfast big enough to feed three of her only four hours before.

He… has been eating a lot more recently. She thought back to the numerous rock roasts he'd devoured, eating more than Daruk had that day; then there was the fish debacle from the Domain she had taken an odd interest in. While he had politely only eaten two entire fish that dinner —to her it had been a lot— the moment they had retired to bed, and she vividly remembered their encounter the night before when she'd found him roasting a few fish beneath the Domain in the dead of night.

He had been quite embarrassed when she had found him, she recalled. Granted, he had choked on a very small fish bone when she'd arrived so the embarrassment may have been warranted on his end.


Upon arrival at the castle, Link had quickly dismissed himself and had run off on his own, whispering something to one of the castle guards before disappearing full speed.

Did I… do something? She wondered to herself as the new guard approached and introduced himself, offering to escort her into the castle.

It wasn't until she arrived near his sleeping quarters that she found the Captain of the Royal guard leaving Link's room. She quickly made the decision to inquire about his presence.

"Your Highness," The captain dropped to a knee in her presence as she approached him.

"Good afternoon Captain, may I inquire as to why you were in Sir Link's room just now?" Her other guard stood nearby and remained quiet as the Captain remained on his knee.

"Princess, he hasn't told you?"

The question infuriated her. "Go on."

"Sir Link has entered his seasonal rut and has been placed under strict isolation for the following few days."

Seasonal rut? Isolation?

Well, that would explain his odd behaviour.

"Are you alright Princess? There weren't any outbursts or inappropriate behaviour from him?" The captain cautioned.

"Oh heavens no. He was quite skillful in hiding it, I commend him for his efforts. He was a gentleman, as usual." She reassured the captain. "May I have a short moment to speak with Sir Link?" She watched the Captain look up in uncertainty at the Princess.

"Princess, I'm not sure that's a good idea…"

"I insist, Captain. Allow me to see my Knight Attendant for a short moment."

She watched the Captain reluctantly stand and knock on the door, announcing him and the Princess' presence. Scrambling could be heard in the room until the door finally opened to a pink-faced Link, the rest of him hidden away by the door he'd barely opened.

"Her Royal Highness wishes to speak with you, Sir Link," the Captain motioned for the Princess to step forward. She watched as Link averted his gaze hastily, looking anywhere but her eyes.

"Your Highness," He nodded his head, greeting her formally.

"Why did you not tell me of this sooner? Why did I have to learn this from the Captain?" She watched his cheeks burn and his eyes go straight to the floor. The crystal blue of his eyes were nearly completely replaced by his fully blown pupils.

"I… I didn't want you to worry, Your Highness…" He mumbled quietly.

"You didn't want me to worry?" She sighed loudly, mocking his words. "Sir Link, the condition of your health is imperative to the success of our excursions beyond the castle walls." She hoped he picked up her hidden message. She looked for recognition in his eyes, but was unsure if he'd picked it up. "If this happens again, I do not wish to be informed by a third party. You shall tell me yourself, am I understood?"

"Yes, Princess. Understood."

Zelda nodded and turned as the door closed.


A big thanks to CaptnMoss for beta'in this! your commentary has been a wonderful thing for the chapters

I hope everyone's enjoying the fic so far !