Eavesdropping had been entirely accidental, but it had revealed something that Zelda had genuinely been unaware of and that potentially put a new layer of complication in her plan for tonight. She thanked the Goddess for the timely realization, as much as it broke the comfortable illusion she had built for herself.
It had been a nice cool morning in Hateno Village. She had been bent over one of the newly developed sunny pumpkins, examining and sketching it, when she'd heard one of the villagers ask Link whether he was a visitor looking for Cece.
She'd been so surprised at the question that she had frozen on the spot, the pumpkin temporarily forgotten. Link had had no such problem, answering easily and immediately that he was accompanying the Princess while she looked at the newest crops.
The villager had gasped and Zelda had heard something hit the ground. Guessing from experience that the man had just fell to one knee, she had turned around and begged him to stand before greeting him and complimenting the crops.
That had been the end of it, a perfectly innocuous interaction, but it had highlighted something that she had somehow been blind to and that she needed to take into account when it came to her plan for the evening and hopes for the future.
Link and herself were now just sitting down to dinner, a collaborative effort where she'd cooked some of the food and he the rest. It was time to address what was going on.
"Link... Do you remember the villager who asked you whether you were a tourist this morning?" she asked.
Link looked up and nodded. "Yes, but I'm afraid I can't remember his name. He's new. Ish. He moved here a bit before the upheaval."
"Considering he forgot your very existence, I do think you can be forgiven," Zelda said with a small chuckle.
Link tilted his head.
"You live here," Zelda elaborated, "or mostly, anyway. And you accompany me nearly everywhere. How does anyone not know you when they know ME perfectly well?"
Link shrugged and smiled. "You're our Princess," he said. "Of course they know who you are."
"You saved Hyrule!" Zelda exclaimed, throwing her arms wide. "Twice! You are the Hylian Champion, you are the One Chosen by the Blade, you..." she stopped and took a deep breath. The fact that Link deserved more recognition was not at all the issue here. "I honestly thought you were AT LEAST as famous as I am," she concludes.
Link chuckled. "To be fair, there's no reason for anyone here to be aware of most of that."
"I suppose it's just a shock to me. You were famous as a child. The prodigy who could defeat fully grown knights in combat... I expected you to be even better known now, not the opposite. It's so unexpected that it feels... wrong."
He shrugged. "I don't mind at all," he said. "I mean, sometimes it would be nice if certain friends of yours felt I could be forgiven for stepping on their flowers on account of having saved the whole Kingdom, but..." he shrugged again, this time with a resigned chuckle.
Zelda was caught off guard and laughed out loud. Magda had given Link an earful again just the previous week when he'd flattened a daisy in the process of killing a keese that had been heading straight for them.
"I'm glad you're not insulted," she said, smiling. "That villager this morning made me realize that you're practically invisible to a lot of people. I... I somehow managed not to notice this until now. It does explain why people don't seem to wonder where you live."
"Well, we're calling this your house..." Link said, a faint blush on his cheeks. "It's not a bad thing if people don't assume... I mean..." he trailed off, the blush darkening.
"Is it the same everywhere?" Zelda asked, intent on addressing housing arrangements later. "Do people who don't know you personally simply have no idea who you are?"
Link made a so-so motion with his hand. "Mostly. Even with those posters they had when we both went missing, some people didn't recognize me. I'd sometimes hear people trying to imagine what Zelda's Chosen Protector might be like and 'tall' was a recurring theme." He grinned. "You can guess they never suspected me."
Zelda was glad that he was able to bring up that time without his voice hitching nowadays. It had taken months to reach that point and she still wondered sometimes if it was more self-control than healing. She shook the thought out of her mind to focus again on her more immediate concern.
"You seem quite happy with that situation... not being recognized despite all you've done. You've never complained about it, you didn't look annoyed at all this morning, or even surprised, and the way you're talking now... it all points to your being content to be completely unknown."
"I'm not THAT selfless," Link admitted. "It would sting if nobody knew any of it, but that's not the case at all. The Sages and anyone else who was directly involved with the Divine Beasts or the Upheaval are nearly all close friends now, and in some cases, they're so grateful it's kind of embarrassing. I mean..." he chuckled. "I'm allowed in Gerudo Town! The absolute only Voe in all of Hyrule!"
Zelda smiled. "There is that statue in Zora's Domain, as well," she said.
Link turned a satisfying shade of red. "King Sidon is a strong believer in fully expressing one's feelings," he said delicately. "I'm just glad Queen Yona understands that the statue is about friendship."
Zelda chuckled. "I must ask King Sidon sometimes why he picked that particular pose."
Link sagely refused to elaborate on the statue depicting himself literally riding Sidon, making it far too easy for people's minds to delight in conjectures, and merely nodded before he moved on. "Some of the Gorons remember me as well. There's Yunobo, of course, but also some of the elders and even some of the younger ones. Mostly, anyone who has actually met me. It's the same in Rito Village, and in Tarrey Town. And then there's Lurelin... I still can't go there without being showered with gifts. Oh, and the Yiga recognize me instantly every time! Those guys are crazy about me!" he finished with another grin.
Zelda chose to not dignify that last comment with an answer. "And you're quite happy with people you don't personally know not knowing you either, aren't you?"
"I don't mind that at all. It CAN lead to some awkward moments... the school kids were going on about how great the Hylian Champion must have been just the other day and asked me whether I shouldn't be working harder to be more like him."
Zelda's eyebrows shot up. Comments that hinted at Link somehow not being good enough were not only unfair but potentially disastrous for him: he'd confessed he had blamed himself endlessly for not catching her before she accidentally sent herself to the past, not to mention for not defeating the Calamity 100 years ago... he wasn't to blame at all, and she still found herself telling him as much frequently. He didn't seem upset by the children's remark right now, thankfully. "What... did you say?" she asked.
Link chuckled. "I agreed that the Princess deserved a truly amazing protector. Seemed to satisfy them. I wasn't insulted and I didn't think their judgement of my skills was valid, don't worry."
Zelda blushed and snorted before becoming serious again.
"All right, I think I've danced around the question long enough. You were once very well known, and a lot of expectations were put on you. Too much, I dare say. We both know how difficult that was. Are you... avoiding being known now, so that this doesn't happen again?"
Link's eyes widened. "No," he said. "I'm not TRYING to stay anonymous or anything like that." He met her eyes, one eyebrow raised. "Why do you ask?"
"There is a rumor that the Princess and her Chosen Protector are in love. That they have been for quite a while. Can you imagine?"
Link pretended to clutch at imaginary pearls. "I dare say!" he exclaimed. "Are you next going to imply that the Princess' protector actually lives with her, despite her house having only one bed?"
Zelda snorted. They'd already covered the fact that Link didn't particularly want to tarnish her reputation through people finding out her house was more accurately their house, but the fact that they were getting away with it amused him just as much as it did her.
She cleared her throat, becoming serious again. Link technically had his own house, near Tarrey Town, but he never actually went there unless she came along. By his own admission, he slept better when he could check on her every now and then. Left unspoken but understood by both of them was why he kept checking on her: to make sure she was still herself, to make sure she wasn't going to turn into a dragon again and be lost to him and herself both, for good this time.
It was not a rational concern, but for a while, it had shown in nearly everything Link said and did, and she knew that it was only less visible now because he was controlling it better. The fear would never be gone, it was a scar just as real as the ones on his skin, there to stay. No monster or battle brought on by the Calamity or Ganondorf had hurt him nearly as much as losing her and being baited over and over by an illusion of her. An illusion he couldn't bear to fully reject because even once he knew it was fake, it was still the closest thing he had to a hope.
She'd known he'd mourn her. She had mourned him too. She hadn't chosen to become a dragon for their sake, she'd done it for the sake of Hyrule, knowing Link would carry on, take the sword back and fight on, and save their home. She had thought that their time together in life was over no matter what she did, and she'd chosen to save Hyrule rather than hope to meet him again in death. Surrendering that hope had been by far the most difficult part of her choice to undergo the draconification process.
She brought her thoughts back to the present. "I've been pondering putting those rumors to rest by abandoning our efforts to hide and allowing our relationship to become official and public knowledge," she said. "After this morning, I was wondering whether the loss of your relative anonymity would be difficult to you... Would it?"
Link turned red again, eyes wide and clearly surprised by the sudden suggestion. "Official relationship? Are... are you sure? You're the Princess of Hyrule, technically the Queen! I mean, you haven't claimed the title, but still! And we haven't been... err... I mean, some people won't approve If you... err..." he trailed off, rubbing the back of his head.
"If I declare you my future Prince Consort?" she filled in.
Link managed to blush deeper still. "Pr...prince consort. Right. Yeah, that... err... I mean, a lot of people don't even know I'm not some random guy you picked up when you escaped the calamity. And it would confirm the... the rumors. That we're... already involved."
"I know," Zelda said. "To be blunt, if anyone feels we have been inappropriate prior to a formal engagement, and that this matters more than what we've been through together, they can be scandalized all they want. I'm much more concerned about the consequences for yourself. People will suddenly become much more interested in you and will surely find out exactly who you are and what you've done. None of it is actually a secret, after all."
Link said nothing for a while, staring at nothing, obviously thinking it through. "You're worried I'll feel too much pressure again," he said. "I understand why you would be. Before the calamity, I felt I had to live up to people's expectations, but everyone was so scared all the time that I also felt I had to make them believe in me, because then maybe they'd believe it would all be ok. They wouldn't have to be afraid all the time. At the very least, I felt I shouldn't add to their worries with my own troubles. And the best way I came up with to do that was to not share any of what I was feeling so people would think I was super brave and confident, and invincible. The perfect stoic hero who just gets the job done."
He sighed. Zelda waited.
"I was young when I started doing that. I realize now that I was taking on a task that was beyond me," he continued. "I can be the best hero I can be, I can train, I can do my best, but I can't make people feel a certain way. Other people's feelings are beyond me and I'm not responsible for them. I'm not saying I'd go out of my way to scare people or lie to them, but I understand now that it's not on me to make sure people know I'm good enough when I'm doing everything I can to be the best I can be. I've grown out of thinking I was responsible for everyone else's feelings."
Zelda nodded and felt her heart start hammering in her chest. She wholeheartedly agreed with what Link was saying – he'd closed himself off with the best of intentions, but he hadn't been fair to himself in doing so. The fact that he didn't seem to be in any danger of going down this road again was a relief. Because she had assumed he was well known already, and because she could see it didn't bother him, she had already thought he'd 'grown out', as he said, of trying to live up to everyone's expectations by showing no hint of weakness or for that matter, of any feeling. When she'd found out this morning that he was not famous, she'd worried that he was only happy because of his relative anonymity and had begun wondering whether a return to fame would cause him undue stress.
She stood and walked the few steps around the table to stand next to him. He was up too, he'd stood up just as she did.
She reached for his hands. He offered them and she held both, her eyes meeting his. Was that her heart she was feeling through her palm and fingers, or his?
She cleared her throat. "Link. Hero Chosen by the Blade that Seals the Darkness, Hero of Hyrule, my Appointed Knight and Chosen Protector... my beloved... will you agree to marry me?"
Link swallowed and tried to blink the tears blurring his vision away. It didn't work. But blurry or not, Zelda was there, and he wanted nothing more than to never let go of her.
She couldn't fall into the distant past if he was holding her. Or at least she couldn't fall alone. The thought was ridiculous, he HAD been with her when THAT had happened, and he obviously couldn't physically hold her every moment.
Still. Being with her was everything: it was all he wanted, it was all he needed, it was all he lived for. And if they were officially engaged, and eventually married, there would be no more need to keep a professional distance in public: they could be closer, physically and in every other way. He HAD enjoyed his relative anonymity, he supposed, and the last few years with Zelda had been wonderful even without an official status, but this was like being offered desert after a good meal.
"Yes," he said. "My dearest Princess, my beloved Zelda, of course I will."
She let out a breath as her nerves relaxed, and smiled. "And will you kiss me?"
He would, and he did. And then pretended he wasn't sure he'd done it as well as the Princess deserved and tried again.
Zelda then pretended she wasn't sure which one had been better and suggested he try for a third one.
Neither of them bothered to make up an excuse for any of the following kisses, or anything else that followed that evening or that night.