He remembers her.
Mostly. There are still empty spaces where his life had been, but he seems to have regained much of what the slumber of restoration took from him. Or so he believes. After all, how can you know if you remember all the things that you forgot, he had asked her.
He seems to have retained his particular sort of kindness. She knows this when he offers her his horse and, although he's bleeding from battle, silently stares her down and refuses to move when she declines. Up the horse she goes, and he's already started to walk when she suggest that perhaps they share. He seems to hesitate for a moment, before resting his head against the horse's and whispering a request. That too, is like the man she once knew. Soon, he's in the saddle and his arms reach around her to retake the reins. She starts, he pauses, and she shakes her her head as if to say it's nothing. It's everything. She hasn't felt him in one hundred years. She wants to sink into him, listen to his heart beat in his chest, feel his breath on her hair, to know, to really be sure, that he lives and this isn't some cruel dream she's having. Instead, she digs her fingers in the horse's mane to keep herself from crying.
She'll do no such thing. Not today. They've won. Today has been one hundred years in the making. Today has cost them everything they were and everyone they've loved. Today was gained in blood and tears and loss but it was gained. They've won! She'll find the time to grieve, and asks herself if he's allowed himself that, but not today.
It's a hard thought to push away – she looks at the land, at her beloved Hyrule and sees the remains of the Kingdom she knew. It's changed, just as they are, and she has no clue who'll they'll become. The Princess and the Hero may have gotten their bittersweet ending today. Tomorrow, she doesn't know what it is that they'll start, if a brand new chapter together or the separate stories of just Zelda and Link. But that's tomorrow.
She turns her head to look at him and his eyes are on hers in an instant. "We've won," she whispers. He smiles a goofy smile that she hasn't seen enough of and nods vigorously. "I don't even know what to say," she confesses, but he shrugs that off. He's never really found words all that necessary.
"We've won," he stresses back to her in that tone he'd used to have when she'd bemoan her lack of power. There's a finality to it. They've won and he won't stand for sadness today. She acquiesces with a nod and the arms that hold the reins close a little tighter around her. She allows herself to rest against him, fearful he'll pull back and he does tense for a moment. But soon, his chin is on her shoulder and he's asking softly if they should turn for Hyrule Castle. She assents – even if for a final goodbye, too much of her heart is still in it.
She can't hear his heartbeat or feel his breath as they ride, but with a smile, she realizes that she can feel him. He's there – his chest is against her back and his arms are around her and he's real and tangent and alive. And she gives herself permission to begin feeling everything else that she hasn't in a century – the rays of the golden sun against her skin, the wind which carried her voice to him, the smell of grass and flowers and dirt, the sound of birds and wildlife scattering on their approach, the rustling of the leaves. They live, if a little battered, and so does Hyrule.
Seeing the ruin that is her home makes her throat tighten but she presses on, comforted by knowledge that he's close behind her. For a time, she walks aimlessly around the rooms, stopping whenever a certain object elicits a memory, going in no particular direction. Looking at the state it's in, her hope that it might be rebuilt seems to wane with every doorway she crosses.
Her knight however, seems to have come here with intent. Noticing, perhaps, the turn in her mood, he grasps her hand and leads her through a different pathway.
"I want to show you something," he tells her, as he tugs gently. Through familiar corridors and stairs he takes her, helping her getting over the rubble when needed, with a destination that is all too familiar to her.
"Why are we going to my room?"
"You'll see."
It's a wreck. Half of the walls are missing. There's a pile of rubble where her bed once stood. Miraculously, some of her notes seem to have survived. She enters and looks around at the space that holds so many memories – of her mother, singing her softly to sleep, her father, bringing her new stacks of books she might enjoy, of endless unanswered prayers, and sleepless nights spend in contemplation of a sealing power she couldn't awaken, of Sheikah technology she meant to unlock, and of this silent Hero beside her, and how profoundly her thoughts of him had shifted. A Princess' life, written in ruins.
He says nothing and gives her the time and space she needs for contemplations she does not want, but doesn't let go of her hand.
"Why would you bring me here?" she asks, when the feelings become too much.
"Because," he says stubbornly, "not everything is broken."
He pulls her in the direction of the armoire that stands next to what was once her bed and only there does he let go of her. Inside, there's a slew of dresses, that to her eye are surprisingly well preserved, but she can't for the life her know what it is that Link could possibly want among her silks. But he does produce a small bundle that he proudly presents to her.
"You'll need clothes," he says, "and you used to like these a lot."
She inspects the bundled he produced – a brown pair of pants, white and blue shirt with gold trim, a small pouch – feels the fabric between her fingers, in awe that it's managed to survive. It's just clothes, she tells herself, but it's not. It's another piece of a life that's ended, a reminder of days spend exploring.
"Thank you," she whispers, "they're my favourite."
"You saved my shirt for me too," he says as he tugs at the bottom of his tunic. It's splattered with blood and mud.
"It'll wash off," he's quick to add, letting go of the tunic to rub the back of his head. She smiles at that, and he smiles back, but before she can speak he's already half buried in her closet again. This time, she doesn't have to wonder what he's handing her. It's her journal.
"I thought you might want it back. There's still blank pages on it," he says sheepishly.
How would he know that there's – oh. Oh.
"You've read it," it's not a question.
"Yeah," he tells his boots, "sorry, I thought it might help me remember."
She feels a warmth rising to her cheeks, a tell tale sign of embarrassment that she hasn't had to deal with in a hundred years, and chews on her thoughts. He, of all people, was the last person she would have wanted reading her diary, back when she wrote it. For multiple reasons, raging form her selfish assumptions to...whatever her later feelings had been. But the memories that she had placed told a story of their own – their story – as it was. Beauty and ugliness, in their raw form. Her diary is little more than a footnote.
"Did it?" she asks.
"Yeah."
"Then I'm glad you read it, Link," she says, tipping her head to meet his eyes. "And I'm sorry, I truly am, for the way I treated you. I -"
"You already apologized for that," he says in that final tone of his, "I know because it says so right there," he pokes at the journal with a grin on his face, "so I have it in writing."
"Is that how you know it? Because I wrote it?" she asks with a sudden knot in her throat.
"It was a joke. I told you, I remember all the important parts," his face is serious all of a sudden and she fears he's recalling the way she was. "We misunderstood each other," he says instead, "and then we fixed it."
"I don't remember you misunderstanding me."
"I did," he says suddenly flippant, "I didn't know you hated me, so I just thought you were stuck up," he sticks his tongue out at her, before bouncing to the other end of the room, climbing up half the wall and stretching out his hand.
"Trust me?" he asks a Princess still picking up her jaw at his antics
"Completely," she says without hesitation and takes his hand. He smiles at her, the sort of smile that quickly turns into a grin and she's still searching her memory for this particular smile when the floor disappears from under feet and she's flying towards the landing above. She lands with an "oof" and no grace, and is trying find her balance when her memory delivers – mischief. This is how he smiles, when he's about to misbehave.
"What was that about?" she yells at the tussled head of hair peeking from the hole she just flew through.
"Faster than stairs," it answers before the rest of him follows. He runs past her and she has no doubt as to where he's taking her next. She braces herself, for whatever remains of her life he might have dug up from her study. This place pains her and she's longing to escape the memories of a past that can't return. She won't tell him that, of course. It's sweet of him, it really is, that he's keeping her treasured mementos when she ripped everything from him when she sent him to the shrine.
He's holding the door for her and she goes through, looking without seeing, doing her best not to register the torn notes and shattered glass. Her eyes are drawn to the research journal left at the desk, and she flips through the pages with unfocused eyes. There's a touch, feather light, on her arm and when she looks, he's pointing at the floor. There, a single flower blooms, white and blue.
"It's growing," he says, voice low, but firm, "domestically." She turns to him too see him looking straight at her, his blue eyes shinning in the half darkened room and full of meaning.
"You seriously remen-"
"What did I tell you?" he waves away his recollection and the hand on her arm closes tight. He pauses, and makes that face he used to make when he wanted to say something important but his words were rusty.
"There's so many more of them out there now. In the wild. They survived, when everything was destroyed. That one," he says, and she can't look away, "is growing in the rubble. Almost no sunlight, no water, nothing but wreckage. But it grew. All alone, with no one to care for it. Because it's strong. More than we knew."
She shatters. Her eyes go to the floor because the look in his is too much. She shivers, because she swore she wouldn't cry. Not today. But there's 36500 yesterdays rushing through her at once and they all collide on a single point – he falters, she stands and it was all too late. Those eyes were glass and his chest was silent. One hundred years are nothing, if they're the price for today.
He takes the hair that covers her face and drapes it over her shoulder. His hand is on her chin but she won't look at him, she can't, she doesn't want him to see her like this, never again, not like he saw her break that night. And he seems to be remembering much the same, because he pulls her. Close, much closer than in her memories. Only today, he's shaking too.
"It wasn't meant to be like that," his voice is coarse against her cheek, "you weren't supposed to have to fight it alone...all those years, trapped with that thing." Her hands close on his shirt – he's not making any sense, who else would fight, when she left them all to die.
"I could've – I should've, I -" she feels his words dying too, they way they did before, when it all got too much. And, slowly, it dawns on her what he means to say.
"No," she doesn't realized she's pushed him away until she's staring at his face, "No! You died," she nearly yells.
"You fixed it," he says.
"The shrine fixed it. If not for Purah and Robbie you'd still be…" she trails off, looks at floor. She doesn't want to say it again, not what she did to him. Maybe he's realizing the truth of it too, because the silence settles between them, thick with everything that goes unsaid, crackling with with a million little noises that aren't their words.
"We should go," she says eventually, picking up the clothes and journal on the desk. He nods and they make their way out of the castle. It's a solemn little procession of their own. She's eager for light, and wind and hope and comfort – but she won't find it here. Regardless, she stops outside to look at it one more time. Link does too. There's too many memories living in those halls, for both of them, and she'll never not be grateful for that. With a nod, she turns to walk away but the breeze picks up, and it's almost like a whisper, almost like – she looks back, towards this familiar presence she's felt on and off for the last century and that she can tell is right there. But as soon as it came, it's gone, replaced in the wind by hundreds of soft petals.
Link smiles and catches one as it falls. It's a new smile, a sorrowful sort she wishes he hadn't learnt, but one he's giving her all the same, as he pockets the blue tipped petal. She decides to risk it.
"You felt it too, didn't you?"
He nods, "They earned their rest."
The horse stirs on their approach and this time, he climbs directly before helping her up. "Tell me of Hyrule," she asks. He does. With an ease and animation that are entirely new to her, he tells her not of what has been lost, but of people he found – of a girl, learning to cook to honour her mother and another, who insists on using screws, of a town where all the resident's name rhyme, of a merchant in a balloon and of a young woman, not as fond of crickets as expected. Soon, he's brought her to the shores of Batrea Lake.
"This good?" he asks.
"What for?"
"Rest," he replies. "The stable is more comfortable, I guess," and he rubs the back of his neck as if he doesn't know he's doing the right thing, "but it's a way away and there's people there."
"No people," she says, "not tonight," the thought alone makes her anxious. She hardly knows who she is to herself, never mind who'll she be to others. She focuses on here and now. It's peaceful here. The remains of a bokoblin camp tell her that it wasn't always so, but it's now deserted, by her knight's hand perhaps, and the lake shimmers softly under a silver moon. She closes her eyes and breathes the night time air in, taking comfort in the certainty that the moons will remain silver and she's seen the last of the blood moons.
When she opens her eyes, he's whistling some song she doesn't know and rooting through the saddle bags as more and more items pile at his feet. She rolls her eyes. He's always had this knack for packing way too much into too small spaces and seems as unbothered by it now as he was then.
"Dinner?" he asks raising a small pot triumphantly above his head. She almost laughs, but is distracted by his question. Is she hungry? She supposes she should be but can't remember the last time she felt hunger. But he's beginning to frown and she's reminded that there's only one appropriate answer when her knight asks about meal time.
"Yes," she tells him and shelves the question of all her body hasn't felt for a later time. His brow smooths immediately and he's already resumed whistling when he starts a fire.
"I was going make something more festive," he tells her as he chops a carrot, "but when I woke up, I was starved, I mean, your dad gave me some apples but even after-" he catches himself and his eyes go wide. She feels a pang at the bottom of her stomach that has nothing to do with hunger and although she wants to tell him it's fine, she can't lie through the knot in her throat. Her hands play with the hem of her dress, his finish the carrot in silence.
She knew it, of course. She felt his spirit lingering, just as she did the Champions. Some days, when the beast was quieter and she could push through the haze of malice, she could get a feel for them – their rage, sorrow, resignation – but she could never entirely reach them, not like she could with Link. Not even her father, no matter how much she tried.
"He was there. When I woke up," he says in a quiet voice, "taught me to use the slate and get the runes and the towers. At first, he pretended…" he seems to search for a word to soften her father's pretence, before shrugging it off for lost, "pretended to be alive. But when he saw I was ready, he showed me who he was. And told me who I am."
She nods at the ground and watches the fire cast its shadows there. Something bitter in the pit of her stomach stirs and she tampers down on it. She should be better than this. She's glad, she truly is that her father was there for Link. She's grateful that his spirit stayed to see her plan through, to remind him of himself – it's more than she could ever hope for when she cast all that he was into oblivion. But she spent so long thinking of what she'd say if she had one last chance. She wished so hard just for the chance to show him that she had done it – she had unlocked her sealing power.
"I supposed he tasked you with saving the kingdom," she tries to say without bitterness.
"No," he says with that look that used to unsettle her so much, like he can see her down to her soul, "he asked me to save his daughter."
"Anyway," he says when the tears that have lined her eyes threaten to finally spill, "I woke up, ate too much and then I barfed. And that's why you're having soup."
It's good soup, she decides when he hands her a bowl. Maybe it's the hundred foodless years, maybe it's that he's had more practice since he woke, but while Link always knew his way around a pot, his cooking seems to have improved. He seems to approve of his own efforts as well – he's done with a second bowl before she's halfway through with hers. She smiles, at the comforting familiarity of sitting with him by a campfire.
"This is nice," he says hesitantly, "like before. There's lots of night time bugs too if you want to check them out."
She's about to ask about these bugs, when her spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl and her stomach growls with disappointment.
"I thought you weren't hungry," he says, surprised.
"I didn't think I was hungry either, until I started eating," she answers and realizes her body has started to manifest. Maybe now that they've stopped it's catching up to her but her muscles hurt and her feet are sore and there's a tension in her shoulder blades that wasn't there before.
And maybe the day is catching up with him too, because he yawns and stretches, before refilling her bowl, which he hands to her along with an admonition to go slow.
"What do you want to do tomorrow?" he asks when he sits by her side.
"Tomorrow?", she asks, entirely unprepared for this question. Today, she's hoped and dreamed of for a hundred years. Today, brought with it a million uncertainties and fears entirely eclipsed by the belief that he would defeat Ganon and perhaps even remember her. And now today was ending, and tomorrow, was still a haze of questions without answers and decisions she was yet to make.
"We can go anywhere," he answers for her, "do anything. We can catch bugs, or I can teach you the runes or we can slide down Hebra. There's a lot of people that would love to see you. Riju and Kass and Sidon -"
"Sidon? Goodness, he must be all grown up now," she says, trying to grasp at something concrete among the barrage of possibilities.
"He's really tall," he says, his hand marking a place high above his head, "And his teeth got really sharp. He's a lot like Mipha, though," he pauses and his smile wanes, seemingly searching for the thing that best describes Mipha, "you know, kind," he adds, like his words can't do her justice.
Mipha. There's history there, she knows. Before, she never asked, too afraid of what his answer might be. And now, she has made his answer moot by robbing them both of any chance at a future.
"The Domain is a long way away," she tells eyes that she can't blame for refusing to meet hers, "And I'm not certain that would I be welcomed," she admits, "I broke my promise to King Dorephan – that she would return unharmed. There's no apology that I can give that will ever right that," she takes a breath, knowing what must be said, "to him, or to Sidon or to you."
His head snaps, his eyes meet hers and then he's shaking his head, "She was a Champion," he tells her, "A warrior. She always knew the risks. And no one—not me, not Dorephan, not you—could have convinced her to take a different a path. Because it was worth fighting for," he smiles proudly at the thought of her, but it's like his heart is breaking into a thousand pieces, "and because she thought that she could keep me safe."
"Dorephan and Sidon know that. I'm not saying it will be easy – most of the Zora don't have a clue and they liked her a lot. But if you'd like to see them, I can use the armour to take us up the waterfalls -"
She never hears the end of that sentence. In a moment, her breath is knocked off her lungs and the light of the world seems to go out around her.
"Armour?" she asks with the last of her breath. His eyes widen in realization of what he's said. His mouth open and closes. Once. Twice. No sound comes out. Slowly, and goddess why is the world so slow, he nods his head in the affirmative. Armour. She gave him armour. Her hands dig into her dress. She wills her lungs to take in air but, like everything else, it's slow in arriving.
"You were engaged, then?" she breathes out what little she inhaled, because she could never stop herself from scratching at wounds that bleed. That's the difference, she thinks, between them. Mipha would heal wounds. She just slices them open, over and over again. It's petty, this hurt. Petty and insignificant compared to the magnitude of losing the one you love. But it's burning her from the inside, like one hundred years of malice.
"No," he says, and the fire freezes in her veins, "she never gave it to me."
She shakes her head. Her thoughts are a whirlwind in a frozen world. "I don't understand," she tells him. He pokes at the fire for what seems like an eternity to her. She watches the embers he disturbs take flight, and their light brings the world into focus one by one. Soon, she feels her heart thumping in rhythm with his movements.
"They must have found it after she died," he says at last, "Dorephan gave it to me so I could enter Rutah. The way it fits made the rest pretty obvious".
"Oh," she says, for the sake of saying something. She knows she's breathing, because the charred wood seems to burn her on the way in and on the way out. But she forces herself to take it in, a little each time, in time with the beating of her heart. Thump...inhale...thump...exhale. Her nails dig at her palms. The swirl of her thoughts settles on a question and the nails dig deeper. He's prodding at the fire and she's prodding at their wounds.
"Would you have taken it, if she had?"
It hangs in the air, in the space between both of them, in the century between then and now. It shouldn't matter so much. It should be small, in the enormity of what was won today. And yet it's taken all the space in her already brittle heart.
Link tosses what remains of his stick into the fire and closes his hands on the log they sit on. It's all over his face – whatever he's feeling aren't old scars. It would make sense, she thinks, that if the memories are recent so is the emotion attached to them. She forces herself to hold his gaze, ashamed that her selfish insecurities have brought him this pain. Slowly, so slowly, in pace with the turning of her barely moving world, he shakes his head from side to side.
"No," he says, and there's a finality there, "I wouldn't. Maybe in another life. But not after I -" he pauses, his fists open and close, is breaths are short. All the signs she knows so well of when his words abandon him.
"Not after you took the Sword?" she offers.
"Not after I took the Sword," he concedes, "and a whole lot of things that happened once I had the Sword".
That comes out of him like a burning drink he couldn't stand to swallow. He never meant to spit it out and he couldn't hold it in. And now he's staring at her like a deer, and she's light headed and lost, unable to make sense of much besides 'no, he wouldn't' and how loud her her heart is when it beats this fast. The seconds tick by, and her world, which just a moment ago was standing still, seems rush on its axis as she fails to decipher if it's expectation or apprehension she sees in his face.
"Being chosen by the Sword changed the course of your life," she tries, and knows immediately she got it wrong. Relief turns to disappointment turns into the blank mask of old, which he tries to soften before settling on staring at the ground. Defeated, she slides down the log they're sitting on and leans against it. He follows shortly and so does the silence.
"I don't think we should see Sidon tomorrow," he says after a while.
No, she agrees. They've picked at it too much and made it raw. They'll have to let it mend for a while.
"Impa?" he suggests, "She'll kick my ass if I don't take you there soon."
She find herself nodding before he's even finished. "I've missed her," she says, "she must have changed so much".
"Nah. Still bossy. Got shorter, though."
"I'd love to see her," she decides. Dear Impa. During the years, she would reach for her and her determination, her loyalty, would fill her heart with hope. They would never had won without all that Impa had done to ensure that this day would arrive. She owes her life, and more still, his. For a while, the plan seems settled and she's happy to reminisce of her old friend.
"Who will you be?" he asks suddenly.
That's...existential of him. "Pardon?"
"If we go, we're going to run into people, sooner or later. Who do you want to be?" he presses.
"Just me, I suppose," she blurts out, thankful for the practically of the question.
He rolls his eyes, "You were never just you, Princess."
Existential is unavoidable, then. She rests her head on her knees, aware that she doesn't have an answer for him. Revealing her identity, in any manner, would invite more prying eyes than she's ready to withstand, and a whole slew of questions she's not prepared to answer.
"Who are you," she asks,"when you're out there?"
"I'm Link," he says simply.
"Just Link? No Hero of Hyrule? No knight chosen by the Sword that seals the darkness?"
"Some people know," he shrugs, "but mostly not. People get weird when they learn of that all stuff."
It stings, hearing those words, much as his silence used to. To hear him discard, so lightly, the bond that tied their fates. She lets that sit, turns it over in her a mind, like a looking glass into her possibilities. She always longed for the freedom to explore. She could disappear, live a quiet life, tending crops (how long before she's bored?), study ancient technology (on what funding?), discover all the fauna and flora that Hyrule has to offer (on her own?). And yet, there is so much more that she could do. So much that could be gained, for all of them, by restoring Hyrule. She wavers, certain of little, but her unwillingness to part.
"Will you be Queen?" his voice jolts her back to here and now.
"Goodness, I – I don't know," she laughs, but it's weak even to her ears, "I don't even know if Hyrule wants a Queen, or what support I would have in that claim," she looks at him, and tries to gauge his reaction, but he hardly seems to be listening. "I would like to rebuild," she admits, "in whatever form I can contribute".
"When you're Queen," he asks, as if it's a foregone conclusion, in a tone much too casual to be sincere "will I still be a knight?"
A stone-faced boy, hiding the cracks under the eyes of the world, flashes before her eyes. That's the heart of the matter is it not? She can keep him, her knight, just as she remembers him. Or she can let this unknown hero live. The one who smiles and talks and is free. And he's giving her the power to take it all away. It leaves her wretched at her own weakness.
"If you'd like," she says, not ready to release him yet.
"I'd like to help rebuild," he says, still in that calculated tone. It's not an answer, not really, but it's more than she has the right to ask of him.
"Can I just be Zelda?" she asks, when he's starting to get up and she realizes she never answered. "Not forever, but for now. Just someone you're travelling with."
He nods at that, apparently satisfied with the decision, and begins to pack away the remains of their dinner. She takes the bedrolls, in the same routine they've had some many times. But she does not sleep. The moon is silver, not red. The cloud over Hyrule Castle is gone. His chest rises and falls in his sleep. Hers does not come. It still hasn't, when he begins to toss and turn. She tries to shush him, still him back into pleasant dreams, but to no avail. He gasps, sits up and is staring at her with unfocused eyes.
"It's ok," she says, tucking the hair from his face. He takes her hand, laces his fingers with hers, stares at it, still seemingly dazed from his nightmare. He's still holding it when his eyes begin to close again.
"You're still here," he mutters drowsily.
She's still here, she thinks to herself. But she needs to learn how to let him go.
