Screams echoed from around the corner, getting closer, and Link straightened up from the worn, splintered wood of the cabin wall into that old familiar posture. Legs bent in a fighting stance, arms half-outstretched and ready to seize and hold and rip and tear, lip curled in a fang-baring snarl, torso leaning forward at the waist as if the coming footsteps were a siren song for the bloodlust that he was barely holding back. Threatening. Terrifying.

The floorboards creaked at the threshold to his lair. An alert that he did not need. He could practically smell the acridity of their fear from here. A low growl rumbled through his vocal cords.

The prey stepped into the candlelight. Three hylian teens, denim-clad against the chill of the autumn night and windswept from the wild rides outside his cabin. Their faces were screwed up in terror. His eyes magnetized to the only feature that mattered: the glowing bracelets spangling their wrists like talismans against the darkness.

Which they were, in fact. Against his particular darkness, anyway. Damn. He'd have to alter his act again. Figuring out juuuust the right level of fear for a Cat—short for 'Fraidy Cat—was always rough.

Ruff.

Well, maybe he'd start there.

Link let out another growl, this one louder than the last. It grated slightly on his throat, which was beginning to ache from a long night of werewolfos impersonations, but not enough for him to change his tactics. He let his makeup and the bloodlust in his eyes tell the story of what he was and what he would do to his prey, given the chance. He stepped forward menacingly and felt the motion-activated motors on his ears and tail come to life, ears rotating backwards and tail raising in excitement.

He crept forward. Now that they had seen him, slow was best. Let them see every movement he made and turn it into a threat. They would never pick up on the way he approached from the side, leaving the middle of the room clear for them to run past him and away.

He advanced on the prey, who still stood frozen in the doorway. He wondered if their eventual response would be fight or flight. One would certainly be more fun for him.

The growling crescendoed into gruff noises that fell somewhere between a bark and a sadistic laugh. The prey reached for one another's hands and clung tight. At that hint of weakness, he let a predatory grin stretch his mouth wide, and he leaned low and pelted towards them, howling and screaming in a voice roughened from use—which only served to make him sound scarier—for the prey to run, run away, little rabbits! Run if you dare!

They did dare, it turned out, screaming all the way down the path that he had left open for them. Link snickered to himself as the leader missed the very obvious arrow pointing to the right and scrabbled against the left-hand wall for a knob for a moment, before their friends tugged them along by the hand through the correct exit.

And then he slouched once more against the wall, waiting for the next group of prey to arrive.

The clock on the other side of the room told him it was 10:45, which he knew was correct—Link had put in the batteries himself at the start of the season so that he had a way to tell the time on his long shifts. Thank Hylia. Fifteen minutes til eleven meant fifteen minutes til his 'lunch break'.

And tonight, it meant fifteen minutes til his first date with Zelda.

Link wished he was allowed to have his phone with him on shift. It would be great to be able to chat with Zelda during slow moments, or check if she'd changed her mind about their date after all and actually never wanted to see him outside of cast meetings again, or reread the text she'd sent that afternoon for the millionth time. He could still see it now, burned into the inside of his closed eyelids:

Looking forward to tonight! Don't forget to bring the dessert! Although you're so sweet that I doubt that will be a problem :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

She was always so kind. And funny. And unafraid to be goofy, just like him. And unafraid in general. It was one of the things that had drawn him to her, starting from the very first icebreakers the cast held during the summer prep season. The way she'd introduced herself, with her 'interesting fact' being that she'd once eaten ten purple ChuChu Jellies® in a row and got only the dubious-flavored ones, and not a single grape flavor. The way she'd scale any ladder (no matter how high) to clean any surface (no matter how scungy) and put up any spooky set piece (no matter how unwieldy). The way she brought in a pair of joke glasses with dangly eyes and debated with Dark Realm's director for half an hour about if they could be a part of her Demon Priestess costume—making some rather compelling points in the process—and then after being let down easy, brought in a pair for the amused director the next day so they could match while off-shift.

And she'd agreed to go on a date with him.

Shrieks echoed along the hallway to his room once more, and Link pushed himself up and off the wall with a soft sigh. Just fifteen more minutes of scaring guests out of their minds to go, and then he'd get to go on a picnic with the girl of his dreams.

Link's gaze darted to Zelda the moment he saw her across the break room, and then stuck to her like flies in courser bee honey. She was just so…compelling. The brightest thing in the room, even with her matted ash-blond—literally, matted with ash—wig and her bloodied, scorched priestess dress and her white-out contact lenses. In a trance, he stumbled over to his bag to pull free the promised dessert, which was wrapped safely in a gingham cloth to preserve the surprise.

When he turned back around, Zelda was waving at him, a grin on her face. He returned the gesture and made his way over to her.

"Hey, Zelda!" Hylia, was that too peppy? Oh god, he was going to come on way too strong, wasn't he? This was why he preferred talking with his hands.

"Hi, Link!" Link relaxed upon hearing the similar enthusiasm in her tone. "How's your shift going?"

"Not bad. More Cats than usual. I'm getting a lot of practice at my routine for them."

"Oh, same here. It's hard, you know? Since we're a touching attraction, and we can't touch the Cats."

Link nodded. "I get that."

Zelda broke eye contact to glance up at the clock over the break room door. "We'd better go if we want to actually finish our food!" She waggled her eyebrows, which should have been unnerving with her pupil- and iris-less gaze, but to him just came off as endearing. "Are you ready for our forbidden date?"

Their little lunch rendezvous wasn't forbidden because of company dating policy or anything, surprisingly. In fact, if things went the way Link was hoping tonight, they'd just have to let their boss know that they were a couple. No, the real reason for the secrecy of it all was—

"Yeah, let's head over to the Spot!"

The Forbidden Picnic Spot (capital letters required) was hands-down the nicest patch of grass in all of Golden Realms Amusement Park. Plush, decently lit, still green even now in the depths of autumn. What made it off-limits was its location beneath Phantom Rat—the spooky season edition of the park's Rat Trap roller coaster. Due to some bogus safety rule or whatever, customers and park staff alike technically weren't allowed to go under the rides, but the grass…it was so tempting. Thus why Link and Zelda had waited to hold their date until a day both of their lunches were scheduled for after 10pm, when the rides closed down and the operators called it a night.

The walk over to Phantom Rat only took about five minutes, as they trekked through the Forest Realm sector of the park. As they walked, they chatted—about their work nights, their coworkers, how school was going. They were both nineteen, but Zelda was a sophomore in university to Link's freshman; his gap year spent traveling around Hyrule had put him behind his age group, which had ended up being pretty disconcerting. Zelda's advice about everything from essays to general education requirements—once they'd started texting as friends—had proved invaluable to him so far.

Still, Link could feel nervousness bubbling through him, like his whole body had been carbonated. Embarrassingly enough, he was saying one sentence for Zelda's every three; his emotional pendulum having swung from overly exuberant to unintentionally recalcitrant. Fortunately, if she noticed, Zelda didn't comment on it.

At last, they stood at the fence separating them from the Forbidden Picnic Spot. The grass, lit by the fluorescent orange bulbs on the paths just outside, practically shone with promise.

"There it is," said Zelda reverently. Link nodded.

"How do you think we should do this? Try the gate, over the fence—oh!" Zelda broke off as Link took a running leap at the fence and hurtled over the sturdy chain links. He landed on the ground on the other side with a dull thud, his knees obligingly absorbing the impact from the four-foot drop, and then made quick work of the latch. The gate swung open to expose an amused Zelda.

"Guess that answers that question, Mr. Parkour."

Link flushed a little. He hadn't meant to show off or anything like that. Running and climbing and jumping were just things he could actually do—unlike talking, apparently. But Zelda didn't make any further jests, just smiled at him as she stepped forward through the threshold.

After only a few steps, they passed out of the well-lit thoroughfare and under the criss-crossing shadows of the struts above. The fence really only existed to protect the patch of land under Phantom Rat, which, being a mouse-run-style coaster, was rather compact. Sturdy steel beams holding up the ride's dips and curves riddled the ground beneath at regular intervals. It was an area that would be inconvenient at best and impossible at worst to navigate on a riding mower, and annoying to cover with a push-mower; as a result, it was the least-maintained patch of landscaping in the entire park, which of course meant it would be the best to sit down on.

Zelda walked to the center of the lawn and plopped down, but Link had to hesitate for a moment. He'd noticed this place all the way back at the start of the season. He'd built it up in his head for months as the perfect nap spot, and then, after getting to know Zelda and telling her about it, the perfect picnic spot. What if, after all this time, it didn't live up to his expectations?

He took a breath, let it out, and joined Zelda on the Forbidden Picnic Spot.

Just as he had hoped, the grass was superb. It was so soft, so plush, so much that he couldn't help but collapse fully onto his back. The miracle of an unmowed lawn, truly. True, there were some harder bumps of earth digging into the underside of his thighs, and he could tell that when he got up the seat of his pants would be damp with condensation, but…he was okay with that. None of it detracted from the overall wonderfulness of the Spot.

He sat up and placed his gingham bundle on the ground in front of him. "You ready to eat?"

"So ready." Zelda reached into her lunch bag—the insulated kind, patterned with dragons, which Link thought was adorable—and pulled out two wide thermoses and a pair of spoons. Link gladly took one of each, and unscrewed the lid on his thermos to reveal a steaming-hot creamy seafood soup.

It took effort not to drool at the aroma alone. Link reined himself in…barely.

"I hope it's good. Honestly, it's one of the premade soups from my local co-op, but I added in fresh herbs and extra seafood since they never put enough actual chunks in with the liquid, you know, but—"

Link, who had already scooped up a heaping, dripping spoonful, mmmmmed loudly in satisfaction at the briny herby richness coating his tongue. He chewed rapturously, enjoying every morsel of seafood and veg, before swallowing.

"It's delicious! And I think adding in the seafood and herbs is what makes it so good. It wouldn't be so flavorful otherwise."

Zelda beamed with pride. "Trial and error pays off again! It's just like following through with a research question, honestly. 'Will this make the experiment work?' And voila!"

They both continued to wolf down bites of the steaming soup. Link felt warmth blooming in his stomach—from the meal, but also from the meal being shared with Zelda. Or was it by Zelda, since she'd made it? Both! There was nothing Link loved more than enjoying food with others.

After a minute or so, though, Zelda had started to fidget. "So…how's your sister?"

What an odd question. Zelda didn't even know Aryll; she'd only heard him talk about his little sister in passing, the day after he'd gone with her and Grandma to her first-ever middle school parent-teacher night. "She's good. Far as I can tell, anyway." He shrugged. "She sure likes to complain, but she doesn't like to actually come to me with her problems."

"Tween girls can be like that," Zelda nodded wisely. "I know I didn't want to tell anyone when I was struggling with things back then. My parents—well, they were adding to my problems, honestly, but still, I didn't talk to them. Even my friends, and they were the people that I got to choose. She'll get through it, though."

"Mmhm." Link took another ecstatic bite of soup.

Zelda pressed her lips together for a moment before relaxing. Link could relate: he too wanted to savor every drop of soup that clung to his lips.

"And your grandma? How is she doing?"

"She's good too. She's started volunteering at the chamber of commerce. I think she likes it, or at least she likes getting out of the house. She feels brighter when she's at home."

"Aw, that's so sweet! It must be easy to suggest things for tourists to do when you've lived somewhere for so long."

"Or harder. She forgets what businesses are open and which ones closed like five years ago sometimes."

"Oh. That's…sad? Is it a…" She trailed off meaningfully, her eyebrows squeezing together in concern. "A degenerative thing?"

"Nope. She just has poor memory."

"Oh."

Link, who at this point had eaten every chunk of seafood in his soup, tipped the thermos back to get every last swallow of the remaining broth into his gullet. His eyes closed in satisfaction, and he hummed in the delicious dark.

When he opened them again, Zelda was staring at him.

"...Hey, Link?"

"Mmph?" The questioning noise was all he could manage with his mouth full.

"I…don't really know how to ask this. It just feels so…presumptuous? Or assuming? Maybe confrontational? Definitely confrontational. I don't mean to accuse you of anything, of course I don't. I just, you know, I…"

"What's the matter?" Link set down his thermos and leaned forward. Presumptuous? Confrontational? That did not sound good. Especially coming from someone dressed up as a demon priestess. Link did not want to be confronted by a demon priestess.

"You just…." She trailed off, and then took a breath, and then tried again. "Do you not actually like me? Now that we're hanging out in person? It's okay if not! You just seemed…a lot more talkative over text. I feel like I'm carrying the whole conversation, kind of, and I can't get you to engage. If you're not interested, or attracted to me, I understand—"

Oh, Hylia, how had he flubbed things this badly?

"Ahlikoo," Link gurgled through his mouthful of soup.

"Huh?"

He swallowed hurriedly, all thoughts of savoring its savoriness forgotten. "I like you, Zelda. I'm definitely interested, and attracted. For sure."

"Oh." Zelda paused, absorbing his words. He thought her cheeks may have pinkened, but with the shadows from the roller coaster beams above casting directly onto her face, it was hard to tell. "Then, why…?"

Link sighed, his shoulders hunching. "I'm just…not a very good talker. I worry that I've been 'too much', so…I start doing not much at all, I guess. That's what happened tonight."

"Oh, I see!" She smiled at him, and the warmth of it kindled a little ember of joy in his chest. "Well, I wish you'd told me sooner, but no harm done. I'm just glad you like me the same way I like you."

Link's eyes widened, but before he had the chance to reply to that mind-boggling statement—how had she delivered it so casually?—she was asking something else.

"Is texting easier for you, then?"

"Y-yeah, it is? I mean, it is." Link shook his head in an effort to clear it. Results were…inconclusive. "Since I can take as long as I want making sure my reply is what I wanna say, without getting the tone wrong or giving too much or little detail. You know?"

"I get that! For sure. I write my profs emails instead of asking after class for the same reasons. Although—you're so good at acting! Even with Cats! Like, I've seen your werewolfos, and you're good." She bit her lip. "Honestly, I've been a little jealous before. So…how does that work?"

"Aw, heh, well…thank you." Link scratched the back of his head. "But, you know…what I do is basically the same script over and over again, right? In a space I know like the back of my faux-fur hand. That's the easiest kind of interaction ever."

Zelda's eyes were wide. "You know, I've never thought of it that way before. As a script. I'm just sitting in my corner calling down Demise all the time or clawing at my eyes and telling people to GET OUT, and I get so tired of it. But a script…maybe that might make it feel different for me." She smiled. "I like the way your brain works, Link! Social anxiety and all. You've got a unique perspective, and I wanna hear more about it."

It was such a relief that she understood his issues that Link could've cried, or maybe run laps around Phantom Rat while pumping his fists in the air to the beat of his heart. He did neither: simply stared into Zelda's empty, soulless eyes, and the way they crinkled at the corners with her own happiness.

"Also, I really like food. Like, really like food. This whole time, I thought we were just eating in companionable silence enjoying a really good soup."

Zelda laughed. "I'm not the greatest at companionable silence yet, but if we do this again, I'll work on it."

'If we do this again'? She…she wanted to go on another date with him! YES!

Fortunately, that did not come out of his mouth. What he said instead was: "I'd love that! I'll work on my small talk, too."

She smiled at him. "I look forward to it. But as for this time…where's the dessert you promised, Mr. I Really Like Food?"

"Oh yeah!" Link scrambled for the gingham bundle, which sat discarded next to his right foot.

In front of Zelda's curious eyes, he untied the little knot holding the bundle together, and flipped down each piece of the towel. Within lay a glass container, a dark lid concealing its contents. He removed the final barrier between the treats he'd brought, and…

"Oh, Link! They look amazing!"

They did look pretty good, if he did say so himself. Winking up from the container like a pair of eyes sat two small cakes. One was a tight roll of black velvet cake and buttercream icing, decorated with a pattern of electric blue that reminded Link of lava, and a singular purple raspberry on top. The other was two layers of golden brown sponge, iced with a pleasant lavender, and topped with two lavender horns sculpted from white chocolate. They (and the larger batches they came from) had taken him all afternoon to make, but it had turned out to be worth it.

"I call the one on the right—uh, your left—dark cake. It's made with extra-dark chocolate, and the pattern on the outside is actually from this sugar-syrup technique thing on the sponge? It's really cool. What you do is heat up some sugar until it melts, and—" Link broke off, flustered at his own rambling. "Uh, anyway, the other one is called monster cake, since it's made with monster extract. It's a really unique flavor, if you've never had it before."

Zelda groaned. Link flinched. Was something wrong? Did she not like chocolate or monster extract? Had he somehow misjudged—

"How am I supposed to pick just one?" she whined.

The knot in Link's organs immediately relaxed. "You don't have to pick just one! I was actually thinking, um, that if you wanted to, we could…share?"

"Yes!"

Link laughed at her exuberance, himself overjoyed as well at the idea of sharing the cakes with her. Don't think about indirect kissing, don't think about indirect kissing…

"Then, please enjoy, Your Cursedness!" He beckoned towards the cakes with a flourish. Immediately, his ears—the real ones hidden beneath his carefully styled shaggy hair, not the wolfos pair atop his head—flushed hot. Would she think that was stupid?

But no, Zelda was laughing. She made an upside-down sign of the Triforce before reaching for a fork. "Ah, yes… May the curses of Demise be envisited upon this place…may His fire rain from the sky until the steel shatters upon our puny mortal heads…!"

"As long as it leaves the grass intact." Link grinned.

"It will be the only spit of green left in our Lord's fiery wasteland," Zelda solemnly confirmed.

A moment passed, and then as one, they both cracked up. Link loved the sound of Zelda's laughter—she sounded so free.

"Let's dig in!"

The date wasn't everything Link had expected. His talking continued to come in bursts and pauses, rather than the smooth banter he'd idealized. Zelda was as understanding as he could've hoped for, but she still rushed him sometimes, even if she didn't mean to. He smeared frosting all over his lips and chin and didn't even notice until ten minutes later, when Zelda finally told him through gales of teasing laughter.

But, just like with the Forbidden Picnic spot…he was okay with it. All of it. The flaws didn't ruin the wonderfulness of their date: they made it real.

They ended up a little late for their shifts, despite having raced each other back to the Dark Realm sector of the park. (Link won, but only because he cheated, according to Zelda.) And as it happened, the hints of electric blue and lavender pressed onto Zelda's cheek where Link had kissed her goodnight didn't match her costume very well…but then, neither did the blush on Link's own cheeks that kept him warm through the rest of the late-autumn night.

Author's Notes:

It took me a little while to getting around to posting this fic, but here it is! To anyone reading now, I hope the unseasonality wasn't too jarring, and to any seasonal readers like myself giving this a shot in future autumns-hi! Thanks for clicking.

I've had the idea for this fic since fall of 2021, when myself and my group of college friends went to our local amusement park for their Halloween season. As you may guess, I too saw a patch of delightfully comfy-looking grass, and went "hm yes zelink date forbidden picnic amusement park" (as one does lmao). Still, I never got around to actually writing it until this year! I ended up dragging those same friends back to a different haunted house attraction on October 1st, 2023—they still don't know it was for fic research, haha.

Thank you to any reader who got this far, and enjoyed my work! And thanks go as well to angelicgarnet (on Tumblr) for her lovely, supportive, and speedy beta reading.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Enjoy your tricks and your treats, and feel free to share your own favorite candies in the reviews! (My top chocolate is Twix, top fruity is Nerds, and I am a staunch candy corn supporter lmao.)