A week passes before her as fluidly as a stream, and another follows after that, and still, their paths do not cross. Heartache taints each meal and every sip of tea, stains her pillow when she lays her head down to rest and greets her each morning with its wicked, knowing smile. She feels so much more hollow without him at her side, the world lacquered with gray instead of the rose palette she'd come to love, but as much as she aches for him—as much as she'd like to know if their conversation might have ended with her falling into his arms and him kissing away her tears—she knows it is for the best. It has to be.
In her solitude, Zelda soon learns that she has never really known true wisdom after all—that the Goddesses have only decided to gift it to her on the dawn of her eighteenth year. She'd thought she swallowed the truth down long ago, but realization slams into her: she must finally accept that fate truly does not intend for them to stay together. She is a Princess, after all: her destiny lies in bearing a fitting suitor's children, watching as they grow into their features and aching when they bear none of Link's. He, on the other hand, will retire to a quiet life somewhere; she imagines him inheriting the ranch property, spending early evenings on the porch, a small child with pudgy, pink cheeks giggling atop his lap before an apron clad woman announces supper.
And even if it is not Malon who captures his heart, some other lovely maiden from the town most certainly will. Surely that's what he's wanted all along? Simplicity, quiet. No surprises—stability and comfort, the likes of which he'd never known.
That which a Princess cannot give him.
Zelda has her answer.
She may be a Princess—may have the blood of the Goddess pounding in ears and the Triforce of Wisdom in the palm of her hand, but even still, none of that is enough. She knows, deep down, that she would trade it all.
She spots him once through a bedroom window that sits thick with late autumn chill, and the faintest sight of him is enough to make her heart sing. Through tinted glass, she watches: Impa stands before him with folded arms, shaking her head, and Zelda is so familiar with his body language that even from such a distance, she knows exasperation is knotting in his shoulders and flaring his nostrils. He runs an irritated hand through his hair before he tries to negotiate with her; but Impa stands firm, and Link retreats back into the courtyard like a wounded dog with its tail tucked between its legs.
Impa does not speak of Link to her, and though curiosity still brews silently within her, Zelda does not pry. Perhaps that is for the better, too—she feels herself grow hot with remorse each time she recalls the way she had collapsed in the Sheikah's arms only a few weeks prior, in a manner quite unbecoming for the future ruler of Hyrule. Best not to repeat such an encounter.
Even so, she thinks an exception should be made; after all, had it not been the Goddess herself that reworked cosmic threads out of nothing but unconditional love? Are these feelings not something inherently twined in her veins, in the strands that coil together to make her whole?
Though she won't inquire, Zelda decides that Impa must understand—the Sheikah neither condescends nor shames her, does not ridicule her feelings nor does she try to steer her clear of them. She lingers in the shadow of them and keeps her thoughts to herself.
Until she doesn't.
"He wants to see you," Impa shares quietly from the window a few days later, a flickering breeze whispering strands of silver hair across her temple.
Zelda pretends that her heart has not caught in her throat. "And what did you tell him?" she says, fingers toying across her lap.
"That you have a number of personal matters to attend to and that an audience with him will depend on your availability."
"And how did he take that?"
"About as well as a young man as stubborn as he might." Recognizing humor on Impa is a near impossible task, only apparent through the slight purr of a chortle low in her throat.
"I see."
"Would you have had me answer differently?"
"No, no… I think that is a wise answer."
An aggravating silence floods the room, a hush so heavy that Zelda finds it impossible to bear its weight. She so desperately wishes she could slice through it with words and curses and thoughts that Impa is bound to find far too irrational. She wants to speak of him, wants so badly to orchestrate sentences out of such oppressive feelings. But before she has time to wrangle the storm of her thoughts, Impa is asking:
"Does he know?"
Zelda falters.
I cannot bear to witness the way you look at her.
"He must," she whispers in a voice that would hardly manage to extinguish a candle's whimpering flame. "He must."
Impa says nothing further.
Winter comes and wraps its chilled fingers around the castle's stony limbs, and it's only under the first hint of its sharp kiss that Zelda is reminded of the days that shall soon follow—more festivities that she shall glide through as if she were nothing more than gossamer: Yulesong. A day for the souls that have long departed for the Spirit Realm. It descends upon Hyrule each year in two parts—the first, an evening procession down to the river's edge, where candles entrenched in translucent paper will be sent down its banks wrapped in a lyre's lullaby. The second, a long evening of celebration, coloring in the memories of loved ones passed with the bright reds and greens of midwinter opulence.
Zelda has sent many candles down the current before, has spent many nights kneeling at the mossy bank, nose nipped with the slight evening chill as she watches her pale blues and greens sail out in the night alongside the pinks and violets until they disappear around the distant bend. She has sent them for her elders, for her mother long passed. For the monarchs whose blood still runs through her veins, the ones whose sacred power she's carried about her whole life—she thinks of them often, too.
Though she's meant to take an evening to reminisce on all that has been lost, Zelda finds herself wanting to do anything but: she'd rather swallow the new waves of grief down and focus on what lies beyond. She thinks, after so many days apart, that her longing might cease—but she finds herself terribly disappointed when the opposite happens. She only finds herself growing more melancholic as the hours drip past. Gods , how must her other feel, stuck her in own reality where her beloved no longer exists?—knowing that he does exist, only somewhere far beyond? In a place where she will never be able to reach?
By the time the thin light of Yulesong's afternoon arrives, the familiar taste of solace has grown stale. Zelda finds herself sunken into her bedroom mirror, watching her reflection smooth the deep blue cashmere that hangs across her hips, carefully avoiding the sight of tears pricking up at the corners of kohl lined eyes as she makes the final adjustments to her gown. Her fingers trace along the inlay gold-dyed wool that runs across the bodice, spreading along the fractals splayed out across her chest, and she breathes into her open palm as though they might place a hint of air back into her lungs.
Just as her eyes catch sight of cornflower mellowing into a pale mauve over distant mountaintops, a gentle knock at the door has her sucking in a breath as though it were a cannonball against the battlement. But the voice that floats through is warm and cordial.
"It's I, Princess."
Sir Bertram, the elder of the two attendants that Impa has relegated to her service, dwells on the other side. Princess Zelda is in need of necessary solitude, the advisor tells them one bright afternoon; a time of cleansing and contemplation prior to the holiday. They are instructed to clear landings and hallways to ensure that the Princess finds as much privacy as she needs.
In not so many words, they spend their hours ensuring that Zelda is never caught in a certain knight's vicinity.
"Enter, please."
Sir Bertram's warm disposition is soon revealed in the doorway as it opens with a small whine. He's perhaps only slightly younger than the king, his hair peppered and eyes creased with age, and though highly capable in combat, Zelda has always deemed him better suited to matters of security than bloodshed.
"How may I help you, Sir Bertram?"
He bows his head. "Your Grace, Lady Impa is seeking a bit of clarification for this evening."
"And what is it that I must clarify for Lady Impa?" Zelda turns her fragile smile towards him, hands clasped together just beneath her breasts and her delicate wrists exposed by the flared bells of her sleeves.
"She is inquiring as to whether or not our services will be necessary this evening."
A camouflaged inquiry. Enough of this now, she can almost hear Impa's decisive tone rumbling in her ears. And Zelda knows that the Sheikah would be fully justified in asserting such a thing, because really, it's unreasonable to continue in such a way—the evening will commence with a long, silent processional through Castle Town, and when the congregants break into their groups, the first to lead will not only include the royal family, but members of the court as well. Advisors and couriers, their families. Highly esteemed knights . They shall travel together, silently, and when the lanterns have vanished and the High Priestess finishes her prayers and the town is filled once more with its inhabitants, the midwinter celebrations will burst forth. There is no way to raise her fortified walls tonight. She's susceptible, open—and she must find peace with it.
"Duly noted. You may feel free to spend the evening with your families."
"Thank you, your Grace."
Zelda accepts her vulnerability with dignity.
"Sir Bertram," she calls out, earning another look while his open palm catches the thick mahogany of her door. "I do not think I will be in need of your service anymore. Not in the same capacity, at least." She smiles, a little weak, but a genuine gratitude glistens in it. Bertram seems to notice such a thing, this soft spoken thing that's sat cloistered away from the world.
"An honor to serve however you need, Princess."
She's comforted by the kindness up until the moment he's gone. And then, comfort melts into unease, and then it is a terrifying moment, one in which she realizes that the one thing standing between her and the one she yearns for is no longer there.
Castle Town is incandescent.
Along a multitude of window sills, candles sit enshrined in the bright colors of stained glass, and from the eaves dangle finely crafted ornaments of various shapes and sizes, each house seemingly marked with sentimental pieces to weave together one glorious tapestry of spruce and mulled spice. It's a curious thing, seeing everything alight in such a way with hardly a sound to herald such radiance. Zelda tears her glance from the polished gold of glass blown into a familiar shape, the three equilateral triangles glistening against a hue of red as she takes her first step through silence. Only the slight clatter of boots upon cobblestone pierces the stilled air as the procession commences. Cashmere fits snugly against her body, clinging to her form like the softest embrace so that she would hardly notice the brisk air if not for the sweet caress of evening air against her cheeks.
Zelda lingers near the forefront of the bright sea of lights, a large lantern nestled between gloved hands while two flanking handmaids each carry another half of its size. She's done well to breathe past the idling thought of Link trailing somewhere behind her. If she were to let her mind stray from the silent prayers bestowed upon her lantern, she'd find herself lost—a boulder slumped squarely in the path of a rushing stream, her chest tight and her shoulders wound up with tension. She sighs out across the top of her lantern with an exhale heavy enough to make her flame bend, and it's only when she's taken her first step across the drawbridge that she feels something soft against the small hint of exposed skin at her wrist.
The Princess of Hyrule nearly pools on the spot when she finds Link there, crisp blue eyes brimming with plaintive hope above his lantern. Oh, she could knock it from his hands and collapse into his arms and cry. But she does no such thing, only swallows thickly and allows a whisper of a smile to flicker upon her face before she continues her heavy step forward, the patch of skin where he touches her far more ablaze than any decoration in the town.
From the middle of the faction, a lyre begins to sing, its treble sweet and content as it greets Hyrule Field. It conjures an old hymn, voiceless now though the words still try to dance on her tongue—an old song that speaks of forgiveness and peace, of ending and beginnings and solace; a song that reminds Zelda of winters long gone and makes her feel as though so much history has been carved into her own bones. Beyond the ethereal procession, a radiant Castle Town waits for their return, shimmering in anticipation for the festivities to follow. From grief, celebration will spring forth. Fireworks and feasts and warmth will be there to carry Hyrule through the longest night of the year. But dread sits heavy in Zelda's stomach as she knows what follows for her—a confrontation. A resolution. A truth she might not be able to bear.
At her side, Link's shadow seems to swallow her whole. When the promised berth finally slips into view, Zelda glances behind her to find Impa carefully assessing the situation in a way that's so familiar; she appears almost uninterested, apathetic. As though it makes no difference to her what transpires between the estranged pair. Even so, Impa watches and only blinks, and if it were not for the flicker of her own candle, the small nod she gives would go entirely unnoticed. Deep breaths.
When the lyre's last warbling note fades into the night, it coincides with the procession's arrival. The air is chilled at the water's edge, whistling gently, its calm waves beckoning for their offerings. Peaceful strings are replaced by more resounding tones of the High Priestess' voice, and though she speaks with enough power to fill a whole amphitheater with her sound, Zelda hears nothing over a thundering heartbeat that demands she remember that Link is there. That she could move her hand just an inch and find his fingers and trace up to his pulse point and feel his heart against her; it's so tempting that she finds herself biting back a whine at the thought.
The Priestess is speaking and Goddesses, Zelda wishes the woman would jump into the blistering cold of the river and send them on their ways. Her fingers tremble around the edges of her lantern, and Zelda can't help the guilt from whipping at her as though it were the evening chill striking; though she holds the memory of her mother between her hands, it is Link who demands her attention, unintentional as it may be. It's hard to think past the man at her side, to breathe past his watchful eye, but she manages to close her eyes and snag a fractured memory, draws up the faint hues of her mother's knowing tones and conjures the smoked topaz of her hair and the lapis of her eye and her smile in all of its phases: she starts from the last of them, thin lips pressed together in her final days as her illness slowly leans in to kiss her good night, lets it melt into the rosy smile of Zelda's earliest memories, color as bright as Castle Town drenched in festivities filling in all the gray spots.
Unruly heat skims her body just as the Priestess requests blessings, a mixture of irritation and tension as she lowers herself to her knees while Link bends in tandem. He waits for her lantern to grace that water before he moves to do the same, and Zelda focuses hard on her lantern as it bobs gently before finding stability atop the current. Link's own lantern follows suit, the soft heat of its red glowering as it chases the pale blue of Zelda's. They rise to their feet and continue alongside the river until the flattened bank explodes into a flurry of wild rye, and then, as though it had never happened at all, the solemn procession draws to a close. Zelda bids her mother one last goodbye just as the glow disappears from view.
She glances at Link and gives one, curt nod, pressing on with her handmaidens in tow once they've set their own offerings down. Silence still reigns—it's customary for it to do so until they step back through Castle Town's gates. Zelda eyes the various other colors strung across the river, admiring them; it is love that floats down it. A mosaic of memory and boundless affection, crafted into tangible objects.
It's like a spell has been broken when they cross the threshold back into town. Voices suddenly abound, cheers and hollers and good tidings are bid to one another and push past teary faces as mourning melts into celebration. Zelda is only slightly relieved when Link doesn't try to strike up conversation just then; she wonders if he might be just as preoccupied as she.
Cheers erupt behind them as the crowd fractures off into the town and retreats into the brightly lit homes that line the streets leading back to the castle gates. Zelda stays precise in her step, her eyes fixated on the uneven stone beneath her feet as she trails a fair distance behind her father. Impa soon appears and slots herself just between the Princess and the knight, and though she politely apologizes for interrupting a non existent conversation, there's nothing sincere in her voice. She gives one simple look that hums with a hundred words, and Zelda can only nod and press forward. It's okay.
It isn't until the conglomerate of aristocracy reaches the castle gates that the members of the entourage turn to one another and begin to wish one another a lovely holiday. Impa turns to the Princess first, and then to Link, stepping away when she feels her simple work is complete.
Zelda is soon kindly greeting those around her, heart pounding as she tries to avoid Link in her peripheral vision. But as the swell of bodies dwindles, there is very little for her to hide behind.
"A pleasant Yulesong to you." Blue eyes catch her when she chances a look at him, ensnaring her as though they've waited the whole night to do so.
"The same to you," she says with a throat clenched tight.
He clears his throat. "May I ask, who were your lanterns for? Your handmaidens carried two others."
"My mother. And your parents."
She sees the slight crumple of his brow when she says it, but Zelda is quickly looking away, clamoring to greet another patron who intervenes. When they're left alone again, Link wastes no more time in pressing on.
"Princess, if you find a moment tonight, I'd like to speak with you."
Air quietly catches in her throat. "About what, may I ask?"
"You. Your thoughts. I've missed hearing them."
Zelda's heart somersaults, a salto over the edge of her ribcage when she notices the honesty in his features.
"I think that would be amenable, yes." She nods, pink cheeks flushing a little deeper.
"Please find me whenever you're ready." He speaks rather formally, but Zelda is grateful; of course he will respect her boundaries.
She nods again. "I shall."
"You promise?"
She's disarmed by the tonal shift, knocked off of her feet by the way his charm shines through, her eyes landing upon the smallest of smiles that she wants so badly to feel upon her own mouth.
"I promise."
Zelda spends the better part of the evening wandering, floating from conversation to conversation aimlessly as she tries to keep her mind off of the inevitable moment. She knows Link is kind; he's always been just so—but she's scared, so scared of how certain words will feel strung from his lips. She sighs into a chalice that Impa hands off to her as gloomy thoughts of Link's pity ricochet between her ears. Drowning in the fear of the unknown, she can hardly hear the blaring horns and low strings raucously declaring the holiday; yet again, Zelda finds herself trapped inside of a crystal world she cares very little for.
"Are you well, Princess?" Impa's voice cuts clear through the noise.
Zelda blinks as though she's been half asleep, dozing into a fig wine that's not as consoling as she'd hoped for. "I believe so."
"It's a pleasant affair," Impa observes. Zelda watches her take a sip of her own drink, eyes peering across the rim of her chalice and following a couple as they glide across the floor. A second, middle aged couple brushes past—the wife's eyes like leaves brimming with the soft glaze of autumn and her husbands' a smoky gray above a thoughtful smile—and Impa nods in their direction. "Look how happy they all are."
"They're lovely." Reluctant admiration seeps into Zelda's voice.
"You could be happy, you know."
The words strike a taut chord that runs the length of Zelda's spine, echoing between the ridges and trickling down the base.
"You pity yourself." Impa pushes on with a glance towards her Princess, a small notch at the corner of her mouth, and Zelda knows how rare it is to earn such a look that the inkling of frustration calms before it has a chance to pulse into something more destructive. "Why do you insist on doing so?"
"I'm not doing anything," Zelda says, a new blush frosting her cheeks.
"You're creating unnecessary pain for yourself. In another life, pain is bestowed on you. You don't get a say in it." Red irises flicker with glints of candlelight in them. "You should honor the gift you've been given, regardless of outcome."
Beneath fresh tears, the bright lights are smearing.
"Take your moment, Princess."
She's grateful for the way Impa's lupine watch rolls off of her and her eyes quickly seek out a Link who finds himself tucked away in conversation with a rather tipsy King. Something grinds low in Zelda's stomach, that familiar phantom twisting against her abdomen at the sight of such a winning smile.
"I feel foolish." A murmur through lips that hardly part.
"Easy to feel foolish at your age." Impa hums. "Nothing irreparable. Say your piece and proceed."
Zelda's heart lurches. No, in spite of their talk, the soft glow of optimism that she's known from days past is nowhere to be found. There's only a slight comfort in the knowledge that her love will persist long after they've parted for the evening, but Zelda knows: she won't be able to bear an apology in Link's sorrowful tone. And as she watches him politely excuse himself from another conversation, his sweet eyes crinkled at the edges, she knows the secret must be kept: something else, anything else. Any lie will suffice.
"The night isn't getting any younger, you know."
She could strike Impa then and there, the flaring irritation in her chest the push she needs to move away. Crossing the hall requires a balance that nearly eludes her, each step calculated and curiously foreign. And when she approaches him, shaky air vibrating behind her sternum as she reaches out to wrap fingers around his forearm, she feels her legs trembling beneath her skirts and hopes the world doesn't slip out from under her when he turns and drinks her image in.
"Sir Link, I believe I've found a moment." She exhales. "What is it that you need to speak about?"
He nods. "Would you walk with me?" He whispers it, trusting her ears will find him over the cresting music, and it's harsh and it's urgent and it sparkles with a heat that's just as enchanting as though his hands had sought purchase at the slopes of her hips. She nods back, a little starry eyed from the way his touch ignites the wine in her belly, and she falls into the ghosts of his steps; she moves like a somnambulist, pace slowing as the world blurs into watercolor around her.
Zelda doesn't quite know where she's being led to; all she can say for certain is that Link is stretching the distance between themselves and the rest of the celebration to an extent she hasn't anticipated. They move down empty corridors, unguarded and open—she has half a mind to wonder if Impa has engineered such a clear path for them in the meanwhile. And soon, it's the brisk call of winter rushing Zelda's cheeks as they find themselves north of castle, well past the familiar gardens and at the edge of the forest that eventually bleeds into the dusty base of Death Mountain.
Lunar light slinks through the frail crown of the forest's canopy and dapples midnight blue with silver. From such a distance, the slightest dredges of cheer and mead-drenched song hardly manage to reach their ears, the infrequent collective outburst of applause nothing more than a whisper now. Zelda feels Link's grip tighten around her fingers as he moves further into the thicket, glancing about as though he has a specific destination in mind. And perhaps he does, because he settles on a particularly breathtaking spot: a small pond, dormant lily pads floating atop its placid surface while winter fireflies twinkle about.
"That's beautiful," Zelda murmurs, vocal cords chilled.
Link lets go of her hand, and oh Goddess how she misses his fingers around hers. He draws to the pond's edge before her name crackles out into the night, pitching upwards with the slightest hints of inquiry, and it isn't the cold that sends a shiver down her spine.
He turns to her. "Please speak to me. If you need me to beg for it, I will."
No, no…it's all wrong: to think of Link , of all people, begging for her mercy.
"Well, I have let myself be led all this way…I assumed you would understand that it meant I'm available to speak." She recalls her oration tutor's teachings in her ears as she tries to steady her voice, but that too eludes her; it comes out harsh. Sardonic and curt beneath the flicker of a smile. "What is it that you'd like to speak of, Sir Link?'
He might miss the way her voice rings incorrectly, but the formality of his title drops upon him with all the crushing weight of a guillotine's blade. He swallows something down that Zelda cannot name.
"The last time we spoke, you ran away from me in tears. Do you know how much that hurt? To not be able to…check on you? To comfort you?" His breath paints the space between them with a small, misty cloud, frustration tinted thin blue. Zelda's heart sits so heavy in her throat she struggles to breathe past it. She focuses instead on a flickering firefly, tries to synchronize her diaphragm with the gentle pulse of its display. "I've spent weeks wanting to right my wrongs," she hears him continue when she doesn't fill in the silence like he expects her to.
Zelda only shakes her head. "You did nothing wrong. I'm the one who has acted poorly." The admission crackles her skin, tugs gooseflesh up more than any cold front that might catch them out in the open as they are. Under his eye, she feels so exposed, vulnerable and small and she can't imagine herself to be the Princess she really is; held in such a look, it's not so hard to believe that he's truly crafted by the heavens' almighty hands.
"I can't imagine it." To be ravished by a look so kind—she hardly believes she's worthy of it.
If courage had worked its way beneath her skin, pushed her to his side and fueled her step towards the edge of the castle's grounds, the woods have siphoned it from her blood and spilled it at her feet.
"Will you tell me about your 'poor behavior'?" Kindness glints with just a hint of amusement.
"There's nothing to tell. A bout of childish behavior brought on by coming of age, that's all. It's my burden to bear."
"Let me bear it with you, then." He steps forward, earnest fingers reaching out towards her, but she responds with a step back; one of their imperfect waltzes from days long gone. His face crumples just a bit more, and Zelda can't choke down the need to kiss his frown away, to run her thumb down wrinkles set where dimples should live—but as much as it burns, recoiled she stays, and her stomach twists as she watches his face fall further than she's ever thought possible.
"Are you…are you afraid of me?"
And it shatters her, this thought.
"Oh Gods, no, Link, I…"
It's as though she finds herself sungazing on this wintery night; braving a glance at the flaring blaze and wincing when its tyrannical grasp sinks nails into brumal eyes. She looks at him, and oh Goddesses above, the sight of him—his face softened with concern, brows knit gently beneath the placid hues of night, crickets chirping around him—it's enough to drive her wild. He kindles something low in her belly and she feels a heat begin to curl up inside of her; another stranger that comes to knock at her door. One that she thinks will break it down if it's left uninvited.
"It's nothing important, really ."
The blunted glint in his eye grows dimmer. "You expect me to believe that? You haven't spoken to me for almost a month."
Zelda can do little else but place fingers at her temples. "Why must this be so difficult?" She's half murmuring to herself.
"Me? You are the one dancing around something." He sighs. "I'm sorry. It's hard for me. Not knowing how to take care of you." He steps forward, and Zelda lets him, because he's raising his hand and she thinks his fingers might feel so good against her cheek and they do, like small sparks of bright afternoon sunlight warming the ice of her skin.
Zelda closes her eyes and nearly gasps as she leans into his touch. "Don't," she says, body and mind in complete misalignment.
"' Don't' what?"
She opens her eyes, her walls crumbling. "Look at me like that. You're making it harder."
"And how do I look at you?"
"I don't know how to describe it. Like this."
"With warmth ? And kindness ?"
The implication of her own words thrown back against her sends a blush pooling in her cheeks.
"Zelda," Link starts, a second hand coming to rest against her open cheek. "I have spent every day looking at you like this." His brows wrench where they meet. "You must know this, right?"
No, she cannot let herself dare to imagine such a thing. Because the addiction to such thoughts would consume her, would shatter her mind in two when she finds herself to be mistaken. It's safer here, in the confines of unknowing. She can never look foolish here. But he cradles her between his hands and she thinks she could lay herself to rest in his palms and his eyes are pleading, plaintive—beseeching, in the way he might have looked upon her before she sent him sailing through time and space one final time.
Zelda reaches up and takes his wrist, lowers them down and lets them go.
"I cherish all of your kindness…" Her fraught voice coarsens as she manages to form the words, finds her footing and braces for impact as her long held secret pokes its way up from the back of her throat—rests its head upon her molars and blinks up with starry eyes, "...but, it isn't the same affection I hold for you."
Confusion flashes darkly across his face, wresting his features and cocking his head to the side. "I find that a little hard to imagine."
"—reconsider it, then." Zelda speaks with haste, her quixotic passenger nudging her forward as it stretches its limbs across her tongue—disrupting her plans. "I feel…" she drags her glance across the pond, the thin branches that crane overhead, "...it's different than it was. The way we used to spend our days playing about…it's not so simple anymore."
Closer he moves, so close she thinks he might be able to hear her heart thudding against her chest.
"Will you tell me more?" he asks, his downcast glance rolling across the rose of her cheeks.
"We no longer live in that innocent dream…it's so much more than that . It's…terrifying." Wild eyes seek the clear blue of his own as Zelda realizes that she's edging closer to unveiling something aloud for the first time. "And sometimes it's so difficult to come to terms with these changes that I feel I cannot breathe. " She gasps, sentences strung together across such thin air that she might as well find herself at altitude. "This thing I feel…it began so beautifully…and now it scares me. Knowing that I cannot stop it." She knows she's rambling, skulking around the thing he's trying to tug from her. And she swears he's leaning forward and nodding, a breath held tightly in his chest. It might rip in her half, but she knows she must; if he wants to know it, she shall bestow it upon him—she cannot deny him. "I'm powerless to this, Link. So very, very small compared to this thing I feel for you."
"Will you say it, Zelda?" He takes her trembling jaw between his hands again.
"I…I…"
"It's okay. It's just me. You know you can tell me anything."
"I know I can, which is perhaps the most frustrating thing and I just..I just.." She feels his fingers press just a little more firmly against her. I'm here. You're okay. And Zelda finds herself meeting his eye again, settling into the cradle of azure that's softer than any snow. She inhales, and when she lets it go, the breath slips away beneath one, earth-trembling thought.
"I am so terribly in love with you, Link."
Her secret bids its farwell and vanishes, leaving a set of wide, gleaming eyes in its wake.
She rushes on: "And I'm sorry for it—really, I am, because I understand it can't be the same that you feel for me, and I wish I could make it so that I feel nothing at all, because it would make—"
"Did you decide that on your own?"
"Decide what?"
"Decide that I don't love you? That I'm not in love with you?"
The truth is there, flickering in his eye like another ornament strung up along the soffits of Castle Town, his look so captivating that it dulls her senses to everything but him; the cold melts into something balmy, the echoes of celebration muted entirely. The thin shadows lighten, and it's like seeing his beauty for the first time. It renders her silent, and Zelda finds she can do very little than swallow thickly beneath the hand pressed against her cheek.
"I thought—when I….with Malon…" Clever blue drops to her lips, watches as they quiver against him.
Link hums. "Malon is a friend ."
"—and you weren't upset about Ansel." Her trembling soprano so close to bursting.
Link's mouth crinkles when he suppresses a smile. "And did you decide that on your own, too?"
"You did not voice any opposition."
"How could I? You're the Princess of Hyrule." His look tints sad, voice breaking across the last syllable.
"I thought at the very least you might…voice some discomfort. And you didn't, and I assumed that meant…" Her eyebrows knit, pleading and desperate for his voice to fill the silence that she cannot, but Link is quiet, searching for words. She strives to find them herself: "I thought it meant you were resigned. That you had made your choice…that I could not provide what you needed."
Something snaps in his dreamy look. "Zelda, really, that's…" he chortles, "...for someone so brilliant you've seemed to miss the mark entirely. I can't provide what you need. I'm not worthy of you." The humor drains from his face. "I never was."
Zelda's lips part as she raises fists to rest against his chest. "What are you talking about? Of all people?"
His grip on her softens, hands sliding down to the flushed column of her throat. "In another life, you knew me as a Hero. But in this one…I'm not much. Maybe I was always just a boy with a really good hunch. And you deserve more than that."
It isn't until Zelda feels the delicate touch of wet lashes atop her cheeks that she realizes she's crying. "How can you even say that?"
"Don't cry, love," he's cooing, pulling her into an embrace, and just as she has long suspected, her head fits perfectly in the crook of his neck and she inhales and it's unmistakably him and oh, how she has missed him. His smile curls into the golden crown of her head.
"The other you…" he starts. "I still think of her often. I know you're her and she is you, but…but you're not."
She nods against him, tears slipping down her cheeks and staining his tunic. "I suppose we aren't, not entirely. Perhaps she is who I have the potential to be. But I am not her."
"I spent a long time feeling like I was betraying someone."
Zelda pulls away, tilts her head up, loses herself in the night's spell.
"I felt as if loving you…I don't know…as if it invalidated her. She sacrificed her happiness." Link's voice is trembling now, too. "I often wonder how it all turned out for her."
Zelda reaches up to cup his cheek.
"If she is anything like me…she adores you, Link. She spends sleepless nights wondering what she'd done to deserve your affections. Missing you terribly. And I understand, truly I do," her voice breaks cleanly at the end, "because I would sacrifice everything to keep you happy." He looks at her, and Zelda thinks she could live in his tender glance for the rest of her days. "I choose you. Just as she did. Just as I would in any age."
He tips his forehead to hers, eyes shut tight and his warm breath curling around the cheeks he brings his fingers to once more, enamored with the porcelain of her. "I'm yours, Zelda. I've been yours since the day I first met you—"
"—in the garden," she finishes, breathless at the way her skin burns beneath his fingertips.
"—far earlier than even that." He smiles.
"I knew you already," she laughs.
"—you dreamt of me," he says, his forehead pressed to hers.
"I did. I still do."
"You've always had my heart. Even when you couldn't see it."
He traces the gentle line of her bottom lip with his thumb, eyes flitting back from her mouth, to her eyes, to her nose—and as he trails her features and studies the gentle angles of her face, the wispy look in docile eyes darkens.
"She kissed me," he starts, eyes half-lidded in the low light. "When she sent me back."
"Oh Gods." Zelda flushes at the thought of Link having known the shape of her mouth against his entirely without her knowing. "Shall my mouth always conjure such devastating memories?"
Link's thumb travels to the soft patch of skin below her chin and tilts her mouth up to him, not a hint of embarrassment flickering in his eye, not a trace of hesitation.
"Will you let me replace those with happier ones?" He asks beneath the soft nuzzle of his nose against hers.
With bated breath, he waits for his bid, and it comes in the form of a melting sigh, a single word sung against his mouth: " Yes ."
It starts slowly; delicately, like the earliest patter of rain after a drought. Chaste and inquisitive, and so full of devotion Zelda thinks she could break apart in his grasp. It doesn't take long for delicacy to melt into something stronger, like a low tide pulled out to sea, promising a swell of incomprehensible proportions, and perhaps Zelda is the one that silently leads him there. And when his tongue gently comes to grace her lower lip, there are fireflies in her belly, lighting up every inch of her; jolts of electricity spiking through the trembling fingers and forcing them up to his face and stretching them around the angles of his jaw. In his embrace for the first time, Zelda no longer knows where she ends and where he begins.
This is the crystal world she's longed for.
"Because you should hear it…" he murmurs against her, pulled away just enough to allow his thumb to run along the bow of her bottom lip, "...I could serve you for a hundred lifetimes and never feel worthy of your love. But you have every bit of mine, for no other reason than you are who you are." He closes his eyes and smiles, and in its presence, it feels like basking in a spring sun after a long, cold winter. His name skims across her mouth, the faintest trace of it swallowed by one thought:
"I love you."
It's ghosted into her mouth as he reclaims it once more, as he sets out to make up for lost time and make good on the dream that's gripped at him for so many years. But Zelda pulls away, every inch of her maneuvered by the novel hunger wrapped around her tongue and clamps around her muscles to make her feel like she's spent a lifetime starved of him.
"Say it again," she whimpers, her voice nothing but hot air spilling out into the night as it sets half-lidded hazy eyes alight.
"I love you,"—a kiss against her cheek—"I love you," —against her jaw, "I love you,"—another against the pulse point in her neck.
He tears the gasp from her throat that sends her head craning, and it's then that Zelda finds the sliver of the heavens above, and it's in his grasp she knows what strength tastes like; she could reach up and wrap fingers around that knowing moon, watch its malleable skin sink beneath her fingertips and slip through to rain down upon the land.
" Link. " Melodious, shimmering—a sigh that sings with the tranquility of a quiet snowfall and the promise of a cresting wave. More luminescent than any lantern that the river has cradled out in valediction. But the beauty of such a sound darkens, feels more like a snarl in her chest when his hands seek purchase against her hips, palms resting against the bones while his fingers press into her skin. That familiar rosy glow in her deepens to scarlet, the sanguine pulse triggered by his touch—it's new, wildly unfamiliar, and yet so natural, as though it had long been waiting to rise from the depths of her. As though he'd always been the one meant to pull at its roots and watch it sprout.
Link snaps his hips closer to hers, and Zelda, with her eyes closed and her hands trembling against his neck, feels the boy in him slip away entirely; the sweet soul that brings her treats and showers her with kind words steps aside to let something far more daunting displace it. Something that burns with a frantic need to sink its teeth into her neck, into her thighs, to nip at the swells of her breasts and press on further, lower, deeper—something that she knows will march on until it satiates itself in her skin, in hidden alcoves long neglected.
"Gods, Zelda." He pulls away just long enough to drench her with a needy tone before he's crashing against her again, pressing her backwards, further and further until her back comes to meet the coarse-grained trunk of a neighboring tree, and Zelda is quickly learning just how agonizing arousal can be when she feels something firm pressing against her—a lash against her pelvic floor, a whip of anguish across her most sacred spot.
When she moans his name out in a call of her own, her voice is fluctuating again; breaking from a thready chrysalis and emerging as something far more assured. Link must hear it, because he's humming into her mouth, smiling, pulling away again to admire the feverish sapphire of her glance below a thin slant of moonlight.
"I've wanted this for so long." His tongue swipes out across a lower lip chapped only slightly under dry winter air.
"Is there…" Zelda can't keep from watching his lips, heart thudding beneath the words as they work their way up her throat, "...is there anything else you've wanted?" Coruscating eyes sparkling with promise glance up to meet his own.
His mouth, his tongue, his hands—they all find their way back to her, unsatiated. "Far too many to count."
"Will you tell me? Will you…show me?"
He tilts his head, brows raised. "Here? Now?"
"I suppose one of us has been more eager than the other, then." Fingers curling around the fabric stretched across his chest, demure eyes peering up beneath long lashes where old tears have long dried. A challenge clasped to her tone.
"Hard to believe you're referring to yourself," Link says, his mouth finding the bruised bow of hers while his hand reaches somewhere else, and it's only when she feels a wave of brisk air ravaging her thighs that Zelda realizes just where he's altered his course. She braces for impact, but he drags her through that pique of arousal, sends the muscles inside of her clenching in agony when he doesn't press against that one spot ; instead he moves higher, fabric so obliging as he glides across her skin, across the hint of her ribcage to find the hem of her brassiere. Zelda gasps into his touch, her whine nothing more than thin, spun air vibrating behind a nose that's pink from more than just the slight bite of wind. She tips her head down to watch the shape of his hand at her chest, shudders when he peels the hem of hidden garment down and swipes a thumb over the hardened bud that waits for him.
Against the tree, Zelda hardly minds that he's left her mostly exposed to the pond, has hiked up her dress so far that the grove can turn a knowing look and find her thighs and her stomach and the soft pink of dampened undergarments—none of it matters. Not when his fingers are wrapped around her and teeth are skimming against her neck and the tension between his legs is pressing up against her side.
Link presses fingers together where they meet at the rosy peak of a breast, and it sends another whine crackling out into the night and thrusts a slight arch into her spine. He hums, and it breaks into a heavy pant that pulses against her ear. "Can I keep going?"
"Please. " He doesn't need to seek permission, but she'll beg for him all the same. He hums again in approval, and his hand abandons the aching tip of her in favor of another spot that craves his touch, fingertips blazing a trail across her skin as they skim across the taut muscles that soon give way to soft fabric. He slides his palm across the concave slope of her thigh, and Zelda can do nothing else but succumb to the need to cant her hips forward, to slot herself upon the l-shaped valley of his hand and moan .
On her, impatience carries little resemblance to a vice; he finds it a blessing to witness the way it contorts her features, the way it drives her body into him. His middle finger strokes at her clothed core, hooking against her and provoking desire further while he murmurs soft inquiries— "like this?" ghosted against bruise mottled lips. He thinks he might earn three letters in response, but the flame inside him is stoked when he's rewarded with four instead: more.
And who is he to deny the Princess of Hyrule?
With skilled fingers, Link pushes the hint of undergarments aside and finds damp skin waiting for him there. He swirls it around, his eyes tapered shut at the edges as he wilts against her gasping mouth. It doesn't take him very long to find what he's looking for; Zelda's fingers dig into the fissures of the oak tree's bark just as forcibly as her cry works its way under his skin when he comes across the northernmost spot, the small pearl that sends tremors through her limbs when he brushes against it. It pulls a blissful smile from him, finding it so quickly, but as foreign as her body ultimately is, it feels like second nature—exploring her feels much like coming home after months abroad, like reaching for familiar balustrades or finding the comfort of familiar cotton sheets against skin after a month long voyage. She is a home he's always known.
Zelda's fingers fly up to the back of his neck and bring his mouth back to her own, whimpering gently against the tongue that comes to sweep across her lip, and the fire blazing its way up her spine is nothing short of delectable. All consuming, rampaging as it stamps its feet along the ridges of her and demands more more more. This companion is so different from the one Zelda has come to know; she can't say she minds it very much. Beneath his acceleration, she rocks against his palm, eager for more of him across her opening, and when she thinks she's scaling that final peak, she could scream when he pulls his hand away and raises the two fingers coated so neatly with her slick to his mouth, knocks stars into her eyes when he licks up the length of fingers to savor every last taste of her.
"Can I—" she whines, hands reaching for his trousers.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, Link, please ,"
He dives past her clawing fingers to find her soaked core once again, but this time he sinks a finger into her, eyes fluttering shut as her warmth envelopes him and promises to feel every bit as good around his cock. When he moans her name into her cheek, he sounds like he's already tasting heaven—and still, she needs to know more, needs to know what that sounds like when he's filled her to the brim.
They move parallel to one another, Link's movement's quickening as she hastily fumbles with his trousers as though they're in competition, and when he finally springs free of his clothing, Zelda can't fight the sprawling blush that deepens across her cheeks when her gaze settles upon him. Her fingers are quick to wrap around him—he's hardened and needy, and yet so much like velvet beneath her touch. She wants to know if it's just as soft against the bow of her lip— not now, she thinks: she needs to know how he feels elsewhere first before she can even think past the thought. He sends her undergarments down the length of her legs until they're bunched at her ankles; she accommodates him just enough, steps out to leave them hooked over the bone.
Mangled words bunch at the base of her throat, muted by the sight of him at her entrance. He steadies himself, one more ready? at his lips and a fierce nod, and then he's sinking into her, losing himself inch by inch, and neither can look away from such a sacred sight until he's flush against her and huffing a laugh into her neck, enamored.
"Gods, Zelda…" His voice breaks over her name, and the woman whose name he whines out in invocation can only tilt her head back and offer a silent prayer to the night sky above in gratitude with a sharp breath. He hesitates, just long enough for her to nod into shoulder, fingers running along his clothed back. More, more.
She seeks it out with a tilt of her hips and a whistling whine, and Link doesn't need much else to know what she needs; he places a hand beneath her thighs and lifts, and just when Zelda thinks she can't possibly have any more of him, he's there, like a limb of hers that she's been missing. She doesn't seem to mind the way her back rubs up against the ridged bole of the tree, doesn't mind that she might have to fabricate some tale for the maids in the morning—she'll take every souvenir she can earn.
In spite of her addled mind, Zelda knows that she loves this—pinned up beneath him, his mouth on hers, his cock buried deep inside of her: she knows this must be fate's clever hand working its magic. But if she's expected this to be the peak of bliss, she's wholly unprepared for the rhapsody she finds when his hand comes to meet her precious spot once more. She nearly shatters beneath a reignited touch, her gasps growing thinner and thinner, mouth breaking from his as she nearly collapses in his arms and turns her face towards the prying stars above.
"Yes," is all she can whimper, shades of aspen blurring at the edges of her vision as he drags her closer and closer to that bliss.
"Go on, Zelda— go on, love." A groan against her mouth, strained and jagged and so desperate to see her find it.
And she finds the pleasure quickly after, the echo of love ricocheting in her head as she bursts around him. He fucks her through that all encompassing ray of light, his tempo incessant and delicious beneath what feels like sun lighting up her skin. Only when his breath grows ragged like a distant peak does she feel herself float down from such bliss.
"I've gotta…I've gotta pull—"
"No, it's okay. In. "
"Y'sure?" He can hardly breathe, but when she looks into his eyes and runs a finger down his cheek and whispers another assured " in" and one more whimpering plea, Link is lost to everything but her.
He spills over the edge watching stardust flicker up in her eyes.
Hearts are still aglow when they sink down beside the pond's bank, half-clothed and aching, sleepy mouths still pressed together as moonlight ripples across the trembling waves that a wind stirs up. Link pulls away to stroke the top of her head, thumb skimming golden tresses and his eyes roaming across a pink face that sings of love while it studies his own features darkened by an unadulterated desire, something that still growls with hunger in spite of all that's transpired.
"I love you," he murmurs again. Another kiss upon her lips, and it doesn't seem to matter that he's placed a hundred of them on her lips in their first night together: each one is just as captivating as the first.
Zelda hums against his mouth, parts her lips with half-lidded eyes and whispers back: "We'll have to leave soon." Mournful words spun out into the night, already missing the pristine solace of the floral sheets and wooded canopy that breathe with the memory of their lovemaking as though they weren't still lingering in such a consecrated space.
"I don't want to," he huffs into her neck, fingers meandering against her thigh.
"I'm sure someone will be sent to look for us soon." Golden hues of laughter spill into his hair. "It's best for them to not find us like this."
Link reluctantly lets her go, props himself up and looks down at her with a smile more touching than any lantern upon the river. She rises to meet him, meets his lip once more and with shared, breathless laughter, they retrieve what little clothing they've cast aside and tidy themselves, and it's when Link goes to straighten her tousled locks that Zelda sees the way his face breaks, joy into want, and she finds herself swept up in his arms again, his anguished mouth finding hers in exactly the precise way she wants him to.
"Hard to stop," he finally admits, his hands sliding into hers.
They set towards the castle, their steps languishing and deliberate as they delay the inevitable. They steal kisses here and there, varnishing each pace along their path with remnants of their love, of their moment together.
And when Zelda finds herself pinned up against yet another tree with her fingers tangled in his hair (perhaps they shall never manage to recreate their composure), a thought flutters across her mind: "And what happens next?"
She watches as Link's eyebrows knit at the center, his mouth twisting in contemplation. "I don't know."
Melancholy tinges her peace. It is to be expected, she knows.
"But no need to dwell on it." He tucks a loose, flaxen wave behind her ear and smiles. "Doesn't matter what happens, really—doesn't change how I feel about you. I'm yours, always."
Zelda pulls him into one more teary kiss before they continue on their way, and when the northern doors are soon coming into view, dark iron popping in the midst of a tint of navy and two torches bursting at its sides, she can feel her heart sinking a little further into her. With clasped hands and steadying sighs, they let the castle's stifling embrace swallow them whole.
Link quietly leads her to her quarters, and outside her door, brilliant eyes shine up at him, and in them he sees lifetimes flashing across the rivers of blue; he leans in and tastes every hint of them on her lips. He bids her a good night with eyes closed and his nose against her cheek, one more " I love you" placed across the bruised ridge of her lip before she pledges her own.
They part with all the heartache of sorrow yearning in the space between them.
In her room, solitude tastes sweet. It tastes of pine and fig, tastes of soft lips and fingertips and the promise of more to follow. Her room is painted with the cold colors of winter, frigid stone beneath bare feet and crisp canvas against her hips when she slides beneath her sheets—but sunlight spills over inside of her, keeps her warm even as the air starts to smell of thin snow.
And when the smile against her pillow finally mellows in sleep, she dreams of whispering blue blossoms and crimson wings.