For perhaps the first time in all of her years spent in a classroom, Zelda's mind is elsewhere.

It's not entirely new information being presented, of course—she'd already set to studying the various sects of both Hylia's followers and adversaries long ago, as soon as she'd been able to discern the weight of her pedigree—but between piled texts of literature and history and arithmancy, her expression is blank, wholly controlled; none of the knowledge she seeks lies in their pages. She sits in the small classroom, hardly listening to the tutor drone on about the desert clan that Zelda has learned long ago to fear, each of the woman's words entering one ear and promptly slipping out from the other. Every cautious thought falls by the wayside, quickly washing over her like the first hint of bathwater down her chest, and when the warnings have finally melted, all that's left are thoughts of skin and lips and thighs and strong fingers pressing into the soft pink of her flesh. Thoughts of parts still unseen that he might slip into her, the easy touches and smoldering looks giving way to something volcanic.

Beneath her skirts, she aches.

Zelda crosses her legs instinctively, eyes glazed over as she tries to follow the small piece of chalk as it's dragged along the blackboard, ashen white running in circles along a hastily drawn map of the canyons just south of Vatorsa Snowfield. The tutor presses on, delivers something just ignorant enough to make it clear she's somehow never once been relayed the tale of the Princess' near fatal experience in the desert.

But even so, Zelda doesn't find herself recalling any of the fear she'd tasted that day—none of the silent prayers murmured beneath eyelids clamped shut, not the tears or trembling fits that had racked her until early evening; no, she's occupied by thoughts of her Hero, roused by the thought of his surprisingly intimidating form before her, his sword at the ready and fingers curling at his side—the memory of concerned blue on her when he fell to his knees and inspected her, turned her hands over in his and whispered comforting thoughts in a new, ragged voice. And it's then that Zelda takes the memory and manipulates it—imagines launching herself into his arms, tugging at his belt and letting him ravish her then and there on the dunes.

She shivers.

Every day for the last week, she has come undone just as she does now; there is no peace, save for the release her hand grants her in the darkened hours of night. But she spends her days hoping, praying she might find a moment alone with him. Every thought filled with wants and hopes of him, and all roads lead back to Irch Plain—to his finger stroking her and that first soft hint of his tongue against her lips and Goddess, she can hardly breathe at even just a half formed thought.

"Princess," a perplexed voice cuts through. "You seem a bit tired today. Would it be best to end the lesson here?"

She doesn't object.

It's a simple request, really.

"Come help me find something in circulation."

Seven words with hardly a glance thrown his way, and if there's anything further implied in them, she hides it with all the skill of an artisan at the wheel, dexterous fingers curled around cunning porcelain. Zelda finds the most precise of moments—that dead hour when the hum of the castle falls silent and when those whose operations have ceased for the day begin to make their journeys home—and leads him to the quiet sanctuary he's grown rather familiar with in the time spent at her side.

The library door slips shut under Link's gentle command, and as she hurries towards the southern corner of the room, he quickly moves to match her stride. Zelda slips from view, darts behind one of the shelves and waits until he's tucked away himself, too—waits for that moment he dips into shadow and strikes.

In the blink of an eye, Link finds himself being slammed into one of the sturdy bookcases, and the force sends a few hardcovers clattering against the stone beneath him. He's hardly had a moment to register that she is the one that has taken his mouth so aggressively in hers—that he's the one that's fallen into such a neatly laid snare. He turns his head in protest, to try and explain why she ought to remove her mouth from his, but she covers him far too quickly, and his head swirls in a daze.

Though they're normally so collected, frantic fingers hasten gracelessly at his uniform, gripping at his collar to keep him right where she wants him.

"Princess…" he mumbles into her mouth, and though he can feel the first strains of panic swelling up behind his sternum, he's a little concerned by the way desire almost completely eclipses it until there is hardly any left.

"Yes?" Her sweet tone floats up from beneath fluttering lashes, and Link knows he'll have to bow his head in prayer to the Goddess later—he knows that this look is a gift no other soul gets to know, a secret gift designed solely for him.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Of course I am."

He clears his throat, all too aware of the way her molten look runs across him, liquid jade across his shoulders and chest. "Do you think it's wise?"

Zelda purses her lips and tsks, "Now, Sir Link, did you not promise me something just last week?" She giggles, just quick enough to lean and whisper into his ear: "' I'll make it so they hear her screams'. You remember that, don't you?" Perhaps she's spent her tutoring sessions brainstorming ways to ignite him, because she's soon tiptoeing up and taking the soft flesh of his earlobe between gentle teeth, tugging just gently enough to pull a little whine from him. "Do you really intend to break your promise?" Glassy green rolls across him when she presses at his forearms, while she drinks him in like she's imagining what he must look like under the crisp stretches of sky blue.

She's blunted the blade of him, dulled his edges along her cooing tones and beneath eyes washed out with want until he can hardly even remember his name; he's weakened, so close to crumbling entirely; and he will crumble, he knows.

It's only really been a matter of when.

Zelda moves to push herself up against him again, but she hardly has a moment to sweep closer before she finds herself whipped around—finds herself pressed to the shelves in his stead. She inhales, diaphragm expanding into the mold of his hand while his other seeks new territory; it settles atop a clothed breast and presses gently, searching for the slight whisper of arousal beneath the fabric.

"Do you really want me to keep that promise?" he whispers, eyes peering up at her through the sandy fringe sweeping across his eyes.

Zelda nods, strained and eager while a small tremble flutters her lips. "I can think of very little else," she admits.

Oh, he could kiss her.

And then, he remembers that that's something he can do now, so he does, and that slight hint of a whine in her mouth is gone, knocked away by a melting sigh of relief.

Link cracks an eyelid. "Don't know about keeping that promise in here, though."

He feels Zelda's fingers at the back of his neck, dancing around his collar, mindlessly toying with it. "It's a fitting place for new things, wouldn't you say?"

He laughs. "And if Impa should come in…?"

"Impa," Zelda starts, eyes bright and sweet with all the hues of springtide, "is on personal leave, at my suggestion. She's been rather stressed lately…I thought a visit home might do her some good." Glossed lips stitch together in a smile that's anything but innocent. "A bit of stress relief couldn't hurt anyone, yes?"She waits, expectant. Bats her long, golden lashes up at him and gets precisely what she wants under its simple spell: he slides the hand at her hip down, runs it along her front until his palm is flush against the gentle slope between her thighs. The Princess trembles beneath him.

"Have you touched yourself? Since I touched you?" Knowing that he's done such a thing before sends a chill as sharp as an arrowhead down his spine.

"Mhmm," she hums, her own hands lifting to cup his face.

"And what did you think about?" Hints of fire slip out from beneath his half closed eyelids, and he starts to swirl his finger against the swath of deep royal blue that hides her from him. It's a beautiful color, yes—though he knows it would look far better on the floor of her bedchambers.

Perhaps he can afford a little more decorum than that .

But then she whimpers, her lips pursed into a tiny pout he wants to kiss away and she drops two words that send new waves of heat pulsing through him: "Of you."

To hell with decorum.

"What about me?" he asks, fingers moving a little more quickly. Zelda closes her eyes and exhales, shuddering above his hand before her mouth can retrieve the proper words.

"I imagined…that it was your hand touching me." She opens her eyes to find his hunger glaring back at her. "I pretended it was yours…and then...and then your mouth. Your tongue." It's like a surging wave, dragging him deeper and deeper into dangerous waters. But everything about it feels right, as though there's nothing to do but wait for the depths to swallow him whole.

He drops his head into the swoop of her neck, sucks a gentle mark into her neck and asks, "Did that work for you?"

"Yes." A huff against the top of his head, her back arching. Link runs his middle finger down a little further, and when he comes across the seam of her hidden slit, he moves a little differently, pulls his finger like he's beckoning, calling for her, teasing her closer.

"How many times?" he asks, breath rumbling low. "How many times did you cum?"

"I—" she keens into his hand, beneath a nip at her neck "—I don't know. I lost count." He sucks a swell into her neck and she mews again, her head knocking back against the shelves, cheeks suffused with pink popping against the array of dark leather spines.

"Don't lose count now." He growls when he hikes her skirts up around her waist and finds exposed cream where he expects dark stockings to climb, and he follows that path he'd forged only a week prior. Muscle memory pilots him, reminds him of precisely when she'll tremble while his fingers skim across her skin. And he doesn't think he's ever seen anything as sweet as the Princess beneath him, all warmth and silken skin, and when he finds that arousal—that spot of her that's waited so patiently for his return—he can only tip his head to the thudding pulse in her neck and and groan.

"Eager," he muses, his erection throbbing in something painful when she rolls up onto her tiptoes to grant him better access. She sways her hips a little bit, seeking out more of him, and when he's aligned just beneath, she settles back onto her heels and fills herself with his finger.

"I am," she breathes. "I am ."

Link bites down on something profane, and it's like every indecent thought is funneled into his hand as he strokes a little harder, intoxication dragging itself across him as he watches that gleam in her eye sparkle while she parses through each emotion—as she studies each sensation that washes over her. Zelda closes her eyes and breathes him in, hips stilling above his sheathed fingers.

"Move however you like. Whatever you want." A dose of affection, pigmented with the authority she craves from him. And he's a little satisfied with himself for knowing such a thing, his hypothesis confirmed when she clenches around him and sets her palms against the slope of his neck and rolls her hips just a little more, arches her back as she aims to place him in just the right spot. A new smile notches up into his cheek when he spots hints of relief diffusing darkly across her eyes.

"Tell me more. What else did you think about?" It's a little cruel to ask for her voice, he knows—but there's something so endearing about the way she swallows her distraction down to gather a fragmented answer for him.

"I imagined you at my door…listening in…unable to restrain yourself. A lovely thought, real— oh! " Zelda slumps against the column of books when his hand moves a little harder, a little faster—her knees parting further in invitation, adductor muscles straining around him.

"And I'd come in and help you, right?" Link's voice quivers, his own body tensing as he slides through the heat that begs for him.

"Yes." Zelda's glance burns a trail up his arm when it searches for his eye, and she's so ready, so neatly poised at her breaking point that it doesn't take another word—not another sigh, not another sumptuous murmur of her name—before she's thrusting her hips up and shattering around his hand.

Gods, he wants her to be loud—wants to hear her rapture rebounding against stone; but he covers her mouth with his own, traps that bliss in his hungry mouth and swallows it down.

"Keep—going—" she hisses into him. " Again ." One syllable, but it's enough to send them submitting to one another once more, and she's quickly biting back another cry; tasting pleasure again under his control, under his dominion, at his mercy.

"Two?" Hubris creeps into his voice and pulls his lips into a coy smile. "How about we try for three?" Link smirks against her mouth, hand pulsing against her, and he pulls away just far enough to watch as her eyes roll shut, to watch her bottom lip flicker open as that glittering wave crashes over her again.

"More?" Whispered into the corner of her panting mouth, eyelids at half mast to keep his glance on her. He drags his finger along a certain spot and she shivers so tremendously beneath him that he can't keep the cunning grin from splitting across his face again.

"Link," she breathes against him. "I have to be honest with you." Zelda swallows. "I am… haunted by something." He allows her a moment to catch her breath, her heavy exhales soon settling into something calmer, much more contained. And though she meets his eye, her focus falls elsewhere: she places an open palm against the front of his trousers, and in spite of all of his authority, he trembles. "I want to know what you feel like," she says, flushed from the fading traces of her orgasm. "Please?"

Bit by bit he crumbles, the gravel and stone of him splintering off. A castle on the verge of seizure by divine forces.

Link only swallows and nods.

Zelda pulls her hand away and watches as he works, undoes his belt and his trousers just enough that he might compose himself quickly if needed. And though he's known just how hard he's grown, seeing the evidence through the deep color of his exposed undergarments has him feeling more than a little sheepish in her presence.

Only now is it a little hard to meet her eye, so he stays focused on the way the garment peels back to reveal skin, more and more of him until he's exposed, vulnerable and complacent.

"Oh."

His body tenses so combatively it nearly makes him sick. "' Oh '?" He looks up to find her wide eyed and flushed.

Zelda nods.

"That's…that's a good 'oh' , I hope? " he nearly falters.

Blonde brows knit together. "Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"

"I don't know…maybe you found it disappointing or something."

Zelda reaches out, oblivious to the storm brewing inside of him, and suddenly her fingers are on him, wrapping around him, her touch both as gentle as the soft breeze across the tall grass of the plains, and yet every bit as sharp as the lick of a flame. Link shivers.

"I refuse to believe that anyone could ever find this disappointing." She takes him in both hands, one holding him in place while the others' fingers explore him, dragging a long line up the back of him, her thumb swiping against the patch of skin at the base of such an apparatus. "How very fascinating." She tilts her head in observation, and Link thinks she might as well be committing every hint of him to memory—every crease, every vein.

"It's…okay?" A wordsmith, he is not.

"Yes, yes," she speaks briskly, still inspecting this newly unveiled part of him so intensely she sounds almost irritated by the distraction. But her blush is soon blooming dark, squashing her voice into something more like a squeak when says: "It's… bigger than I anticipated." He watches the swallow work its way down her throat, but before he can offer anything else, he hears another small little oh, and he quickly looks back down to find her bending to examine a small, glistening spot on the head.

"Pre-ejaculate?" she whispers, her breath wrangled into something a little more secure.

"Y-yeah."

There are fewer sights that pierce his heart with such panic as the one of the Princess of Hyrule quickly lowering herself to her knees before him.

"Zelda, no—you shouldn't—" He nearly stumbles over her.

At this lower height, later afternoon slants across her face, draping that lustrous glint in shadow. "And why not?"

His forehead pinches together in the middle. "You shouldn't be on your knees for me…"

Zelda huffs. "I am perfectly capable of deciding that for myself, thank you very much!" Conflict wrestles him, but when she looks up, wide green eyes glistening with hope and need and want her fingers tightening around him and fuck—

"Unless… you really don't want me to…?"

In the name of all that is holy, no. "No, not, it's not that—not at all, I…"

She tucks stray gold behind her ear, and the way her palm brushes against her jaw has her looking as though she were a masterpiece, oil on canvas done by an expert's hand. The end of the thought never comes, stamped out across this tongue by that longing in her eyes that's somehow both so pure and carnal all at once.

"Link…" her voice drops, low and tender, like the slight churning of a river as a storm rouses it against the banks, "...may I put you in my mouth?"

Hylia, please. Fucking please.

He exhales. "Yes."

She starts off simply—a quick flick of her tongue against him, and he watches in astonished silence, that blistering ache coiling in his belly when she follows it with a slow stripe along the bottom of him. Above a held breath, he marvels as her tongue bowls at the summit of him, glides along the top and sneaks upon the glistening head. Soft, wet pink touches that hint of arousal and he nearly swoons —his head falling against the row of books, fingers gripping at the shelving that he only just manages to grasp.

And suddenly, the warmth is all around him, enveloping him, kissing the deepest parts of him, and his eyes flit back down to find her mouth closing around him and her eyelids drooped in concentration.

" Z-Zelda !" The version of himself that he's masterfully crafted comes apart at the seams before her, pulled apart entirely when he feels her smile around the width of his cock. Zelda grounds herself with all the durability of wrought iron caught in a gale; places her around the base of him and steadies—hums quietly through her nose as her mouth spreads around various shapes and her hands trial uncertain movements.

There's a delicate popping sound that rings out just before her voice fills the alcove, low and exquisite: "Is this nice?"

"Yes, that's good. Really good." He smiles down at her, outstretched fingers grasping at her golden strands that frame her pink cheeks. "You're good at this," he coos beneath limpid eyes.

"Am I?" Something eager kindles in her eyes, and the way she blinks—quickly, lashes as gentle as the flutter of a winterwing butterfly's wings across the tops of her cheeks—has Link's heart beating squarely at his larynx. And he finds his voice desperate to go on about how good everything feels, as if he could wax poetic about her inviting hands and her pretty lips and the way the architecture of her mouth seems to have been sculpted by the Goddess' hand just for him. But Link is only Link, so the praise will stay jumbled somewhere between his molars, the threat of suffocation on such thoughts lingering just nearby.

Zelda only taps gentle fingers against him, lost in contemplation, Link simmering in delicious discomfort all the while. "I've been so curious about this," she finally says, eyes shifting up to where he burns, his pink cheeks and parted lips matching hers, "but I understand now."

"Understand what?" He slides a thumb across her cheek, encouragement bursting against her skin.

"I feel…powerful." Dark lashes flutter softly, not a hint of pretense beneath them. "I like making you feel good, Link."

Link loves her. He loves her.

It's astounding, Link thinks as he falls into step behind his Princess, just how much the temperature in her shadow has changed since they were first bound together that one mild afternoon; in the past, it's been cold, calloused and rigid, and more recently, balmy—comforting and cool.

Today, it is nothing short of blistering in her shade.

Link follows silently, with only the sight of her backside before him for company. Long, golden hair swishes behind her as she moves, shrouding the firm curves of her rear that have come to feel so familiar. He hasn't intended to ogle her, but the memory of his cock lingering between her hands—in her mouth —has a hold so strong that even the legendary hero can do nothing but submit to it.

If the Calamity arrives in the form of a naked, pliant Zelda, he's dead before he can even draw the damn sword.

"Sir Link," she begins with a simple look, "will you escort me up to my quarters? I've been meaning to look over the Sheikah records and could really use a companion to brainstorm with."

Though her mouth says such things, his ear catches a different request entirely.

"I'll try to be of assistance."

By the Goddess' design, he serves in many ways. But for her, the ways are infinite.

The long stretch of hallowed hall leading to her quarters filters with amber light that spills through the castle's tall windows, the shadows sidling up against the cradling glow. They move through that bronze glow quietly, minds anything but as they ascend the staircase that will set them at her bedroom door, and it looks different to him now—he knows very well how the dark grain feels against his back, rugged and formidable, a bulwark between them; but it's softer now, almost generous. Morose wood grown inviting of her own volition.

He's only just shut the door behind him before Zelda's eager hands are on him again, her mouth quickly finding his kiss-mottled lips before he's even had a chance to turn back to her completely.

Zelda slips a thin finger through the tie that gathers his hair. "May I?" Link nods, quickly sheathed beneath the torrent of wheat she unleashes when she tugs it loose. "It's very nice this way," she observes. "You are a very handsome man, Link."

"And you're far too kind." He swallows, trembling just a little bit in her grasp. "Are you really sure you want to do this?"

Zelda chortles, fingers combing through fringes the color of Tabantha wheat. "Of course I am. You seem to think I don't know my own mind."

"It's not that," he says, deft fingers crawling across her waist. "I just…I want you to be sure. Really sure. Really sure that you want me involved."

This has her giggle sparkling into a full-fledged laugh, her furrowed brow exploding into a bright smile, all teeth and crinkled eyes and sweeter than any berry in his arms. "Of course I do! I can't imagine a kinder…more understanding partner."

Link is well acquainted with the grim taste of pressure—has been since the moment he pulled the sword from its pedestal. And it blooms up in him again now, its steel oppressive and familiar on his tongue—shaded differently this time, with a little less dread and a different strain of desire.

"You're really not nervous?" he inquires, soft hands running a little lower down her body and settling at the flare of her hips.

Zelda shakes her head, her lips pressed together in the tiniest of smiles. "No, Link— the Calamity makes me nervous. Terrifies me, really." And in spite of such a thought, her smile only brightens, and it's like the plaintive hints of sun through weathered rain clouds. "But the thought of being with you like this…it doesn't frighten me. It's normal. Natural. According to the legends…we've done this for ages." Whispers it beneath a honeyed gold look that has tears pricking at the corners of his eyes when she lays the thought before him.

Link tips his forehead to meet hers and exhales, fingers roaming to undo her garments.

"I trust you, entirely," she whispers, and it feels like a declaration of love when something blooms in his chest.

Mouths meet again— touch me, want me, need me —frantic energy skittering through quivering limbs as they free themselves from the clothing that binds them. Link's pieces go first, and Zelda splays her fingers across his chest at the first hint of exposed skin. She breaks from his mouth, watches her fingers as they curl against him over shallow breaths—he feels like marble beneath her, flesh and blood made holy by her gentle touch. And she drags her glance back up to him again, runs her fingers across his lips while he tugs at her dress and fumbles with the lace and strappings he can manage to reach.

Zelda lets the hollow shell of fabric slip from her frame, strips herself of her title and her purpose in one fell swoop, and she's nothing more than a girl, chemise clad and glowing.

"But I am new to this, so I may get it wrong at first, and I apologize—"

"The only way you can do it wrong is if you stop doing it for yourself. If you say 'stop', I'll stop. Okay? You'll let me know?"

She nods.

"Say it out loud."

"I promise. I'll let you know."

"Good." He smiles. "Good ."

"Link?" She's already tilting up to him.

"Yeah?"

"Please kiss me."

She'll never need to ask twice; he does, and though he moves delicately, Zelda has other plans—her mouth is hot against him, tongue thrashing and eager to sweep across his teeth, and he lets her, because who is he to deny her such a thing? She wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him closer, presses her hips against him and gasps at the way something firm presses up against her mound. He slips a hand between to find her, soaked, and he can't help the low growl that rumbles in his throat; his other hand reaches desperately for her hip, clinging to this reality as though it might try to slip through his fingers.

"Lay down," he mumbles softly, and she immediately obeys, the mattress creaking gently beneath her as she falls atop the sea of cotton. Seemingly bashful, she tips her knees inwards, and the slight movement only highlights the peaks of her breasts beyond them—all rose and honey to his eyes. Every inch of his Princess is exposed beneath him, her skin as brilliantly bright as the pear blossoms in full bloom. She isn't unlike a flower herself—opening up to him and only for him, hungry for the kiss of his sunlight and rainfall, thriving in his atmosphere.

Link knows that someone far more eloquent than he could write hundreds of sonnets and songs on the same exact sight—she'd certainly deserve it—but he settles on the simplest of thoughts:

"You're beautiful, Zelda. So beautiful."

She nods up at him, cheeks flushed and eyes widened, a little laugh settled against the back of her lips.

Link lowers himself onto the bed slowly, adding more and more of his weight—little by little. He tries not to stare too heavily on her body, focuses instead on her curious eyes as he crawls the length of her. He runs a free hand across the slopes of her body, along her stomach, up her sternum; and he watches as his hand comes to rest across her breast. She never shies away—tethers her glance to his and takes in everything that flashes through his eyes, and it's that hunger, that concern, that need—he can see all of it in her, too, confirmed by the way she shivers up into his grasp and laughs a little, overcome by such things. He lowers his lips to her neck and plants kisses along the column of her throat, sinking lower and lower until he reaches her collarbone, her chest—kisses at her sternum and watches her melt beneath it, as if the bone that protects her heart eases up to him, lowers its defenses and welcomes him in with a sigh. Soon, his mouth seeks other prospects, and he travels the gentle slant of her breast and captures a hardened peak between ravenous lips.

Zelda's soft cry rings above him, a halo of her sound adorning his head.

"'S'good?" he mumbles against her chest.

"Yes—very nice," she winces.

"You said you dreamt of my mouth, right?"

He glances up just long enough to watch her teeth pull her bottom lip in as she nods, like she's nothing more than a schoolgirl. "I did."

"And just where exactly did I put it?"

"Down…" Zelda has to think for a moment, as though the fantasy hasn't beaten incessantly against her brain for days on end. She licks her lips, and he loves the way the new blush flares to life on her cheeks. "Down there. "

" 'Down there' ," he echoes, tensing against her. "Well then…may I?"

Zelda clears her throat. "If—if you'd enjoy that."

"Yeah. Yeah, I would." He trails his kisses down the middle of her, lower and lower until he reaches her stomach, and he has to take a moment to admire such a sight—

"Let me do the work." A kiss to the inside of her thigh, and it's more than enough to send her whole body fluttering around him. Link drags his tongue around the hollow where her legs meet, presses just a little deeper and tugs another moan from her. The dark duvet rustles in his ears as she writhes beneath him, pointed toes delving into crinkled waves of fabric beneath her like she's already breaking at the edge of eruption. His reaction is just as electric, fingers digging into the padded flesh of her thighs and canines dragging across her skin.

"Please… please ," she whines, and he's really such a kind man that he has no choice but to dive right in.

Link savors the first drops on his parched tongue. She tastes of hibiscus, he thinks, and presses deeper. More. Consumes the wine of her—thinks he could have doses of her by the chalice full. Beneath him, Zelda agonizes, fingers curling into the bedspread beneath her and her hips lifting, pressing further into his mouth as she searches for more. He smiles against damp skin; he knows exactly how to send her soaring, but he won't—not yet, at least. He swirls his tongue, covering every inch of her with him, knowing full well that she's examining, considering, learning—adapting to every variable. Link hears his name whispered, hot and needy, and he thinks he could live off of that sound as it trembles in his ears. He ruts into her mattress a little, hopes it might cool him down a bit so he can focus on her and only her, and it seems almost impossible to—

"Is this okay?" It almost makes him jump, her inquiry cast out into the air like that.

"Of course," he hums into her, tongue honing in on the bud before he withdraws to ask, "Do you like it?" One more kiss against her seam before he continues: "Is it everything you hoped for?"

Zelda rounds her lips and exhales through the small space. "Different, I think. But divine." She props herself up on her elbows. "You're very good at that. Lots of practice, I assume?" She giggles.

Link only furrows his brow and shakes his head. "I'm just listening. You're calling the shots here, you know." He places his thumb against her and begins to draw small circles, hears her breath catch in her throat when he does. "It's like…being in a forest when birds go silent. Tells you something—maybe a storm's coming, a predator. And you go from there. It's like that." She nods, and he loves the tousled hair strewn across her face and the way her hips naturally incline towards him.

"The call of nature. Am I such a threat as all that?" She giggles, but that light is muted out when she sees the look in his eye, an onslaught of heat and desire building up in him.

"Your body's call is different," he says. "Like something I want to chase down. I just want to hear more of it."

She looks a little like she's breaking, and Gods does he love it. "Put your mouth there again, please."

Her final word isn't even halfway past her lips before he's on her again, tasting her pleasure, inhaling her skin while his fingers pulse harder, faster . Her back arches, impossibly curved while her hips impress into the sheets, and the spark grows and grows and grows , swallowing her whole, Link's tongue working as she bursts around it, her hand senselessly clasping to the back of his head as she keeps him in place.

"Oh…that was…" Zelda huffs, covering her eyes. "...and with your mouth , oh Goddess…"

He clears his throat. "Hope it was okay."

Zelda lays there for a moment, her chest rising and falling and her gaze boring hard into the dark wood of the canopy above her. "How can the tutors be so fearful of this?" she wonders aloud, voice floating upward.

Link settles his head against her thigh and peeks past the slope of her breasts. "What do the teachings say?" he asks. "What does the Goddess say?"

Zelda laughs a little bit. "Not a disciple I see?"

Link nearly snorts. "I'm feeling a little bit like her most faithful right now," hummed into her skin before he presses another kiss to her thigh. "But really, I'm surprised to hear they feel so strongly about these sorts of things."

"The testaments actually say very little," Zelda says, and Link nearly sighs aloud when he feels her fingers creeping through his hair, twining thread. "But how could she say anything against it? If she…if she took a lover…why would she ever chastise such a thing? Why are the scholars so insistent on neglecting that part of her?"

"Your scholars need to take a break from overthinking so much," Link starts, "They're in need of…what did you call it? Stress relief?"

Zelda presses her head back into the pillow and sighs. "My sins are far more egregious than anything that's transpired today," she asks, her voice more like dredges of sound now.

Link props himself up on his elbow and lets his free hand run up and down her thigh, a small comfort. "And what sins has the Princess of Hyrule committed?" There's a hint of humor infused into his voice, and Link can see something rising up in verdant irises as she curls her lips in.

"My powers," she whispers, the gentle tremble of the words rolling down across her chest. "Dormant, still. And what more can I do? If I should doom us all…that is a sin I shall never wash away. Even now…there is no rest for any of us. My father…the Champions…" She exhales, a long steady stream of air to keep her feelings at bay, "...they are afraid. And I make it so. I don't deserve their forgiveness." Zelda rolls her head to the side and meets Link's eye where he sits low on her body. "Yours, either. And certainly not your kindness."

There is something roaring in him. He sits up and summits the length of her, settles against her delicate form and lets his fingers dangle along her stomach.

"I have nothing to forgive you for. You're good, Zelda. You're good ." He settles into the alcove of her neck and dresses her with slow kisses, his hands moving even slower as they slink further south again. "You're too good. Your father…the court…they don't deserve you." He lifts his head to meet her eye, and something melancholic chimes up in him when he notices how misty they've grown. "None of us do."

"Oh, Link…" she whispers, blinking back tears.

He smiles and presses a kiss to the side of her eye, his fingers floating across the bud between her legs again. "Do you want to stop?" he asks, voice nearly lost in her skin—and he asks it, fully prepared to do so, but his voice is a plume of smoke against her, so strong that every anxiety, every hint of fear is quickly extinguished, gone as if they'd never even crossed her mind at all.

Zelda gasps and clears her throat, heels digging into her sheets. "No, please. Keep going. There are still other things I'm curious about."

So it goes. Link's hand lingers in the precise spot, fingers tending to that primal need lodged deep within her while he cranes down, sets his mouth at one of the rosy buds atop her chest and swirls his tongue around her nipple to send her keening into him. Beneath an incisive gasp, Zelda's hand flies to his head, her fingers raking through soft hair; sliding down dorsal muscles while a grumble knots in her throat, and her hands are searching, searching for something, and her palms are soon digging into the small of his back, fumbling with the trousers that remain between them.

"Off—please."

He's stripped of the last remnants of clothing almost immediately, and he's hardly shaken his undergarments off his ankle before Zelda's reaching for the exposed bit of him, wrapping fingers around him, running her thumb across his weeping head.

"I forgot to ask," Link shudders, "but are we…are we safe to do this?"

"If you're asking if I have contraception….yes. I've been….preparing elixirs all week." She blushes. "Just in case."

And he converts without protest, makes a mental note to start attending the vespers and bow his head in deepest prayer, a reborn evangelical singing Hylia's praises for all she has granted him.

"You ready?"

She nods, golden hair riled up against the pillow.

"Hold onto me if you need me, okay? I've got you." He aligns himself right at her center and presses, gently at first, eyes finely tuned to the flicker he finds in hers, and bit by bit, inch by inch, he sinks a little further into her, slows himself when her nails press into his skin in anticipation, and he has to stop himself from bucking entirely when her small whimper chimes in his ear, like a call welcoming him home. She clings to him.

The sensation of her, like his body remembering warmth in the darkest hours. Like leaving home and finding the distinct grace of it elsewhere. Like the earth harmonizing around them, rumbling up through their limbs, coloring the whispers that drown in sighing mouths. And though he knows it isn't the first time, he thinks it has to be, because nothing else has felt like this; those hands and mouths and whispers he'd known back in those lonely hours…nothing but half truths rocking at him, swearing this is it, this is it .

All lies.

Zelda's moans are deeper than he expects, low and rumbling, mottling his neck while she grips at his shoulders. Link thinks there might be a hint of pain sparking up in her eyes, and he slows.

"All good?" Strangled and bit back.

"Yes—just…new."

"Remember to breathe," he whispers, craning his neck, softening her up with another kiss.

And she does, breathes with him, every inhalation threaded with another press of him, deeper and deeper until she feels him slide past that spot and seals himself away deep inside, and Link closes his eyes, pleasure pressing up against his eyelids and committing the sensation to memory before the moment flits away. And when he opens them again, he finds her there, waiting and patient, and he thinks, for the first time, that she might just love him the way he loves her.

"Go ahead and move a little, okay?"

Link sees the opposition in her eyes before her mouth even opens. "Do you think...can you move instead?" she asks. "I want to…feel you."

His answer comes at a set of steady, slow pulses, and any trace of that first, slight sting is cleanly wiped away, replaced entirely by the decadence of him. Zelda closes her eyes and bares her throat to him, and a new whimper vibrates in his ear when he gathers a bit of skin between his firm lips, and he feels her tighten around him and he swears the flame inside is gnawing away, carving him out, vowing to leave him as nothing but a still beating heart before her. They move like that, in the ebb and flow while he learns her body and she learns his, and even when the smooth waters turn shallow as they take time to adjust, to reassess— "Like this?" and " Is that nice?" whispered in the lulls—it's remarkable.

"It's funny…" Link breathes when he finally manages to pull his mouth away.

"What is?"

"The thought of you not being good at this. You feel amazing, Zelda." His rhythm incessant all the while, finely tuned to the tempo he can hear her body craving. "Perfect, just like I knew you'd be."

And Zelda is lost to him. Wholly lost to the way he pushes himself a little higher and grips at the top of her headboard with one hand, to the way his hips swell up into her and sends that delicious sensation rippling up through her. She's meek in his shadow, small and insignificant— he must be the great deity, the one in whose name altars and temples have been constructed and knelt before, and Zelda thinks she must be nothing more than a grain of sand as a tidal wave comes to crash into the shore. At her lips, nothing but whimpers; hymns composed for her Hero.

Link slides his other hand down between their bodies and touches, winches just a little when he brushes up against their union—at the thought that this is really happening . And he makes his familiar circles, spreads them a little wider as his body begins to lose control and panics just at the thought.

"Zelda, I'm…I'm really close. I can stop—"

But she only cants her hips up closer, the slight ovate shape of her lips thinning into a breathless smile.

"Keep going," she urges. "It's okay."

"But I want you to—"

"—not now, I want…" She swallows. " Let me see? Please? "

She asks so kindly.

He spills into her with her name painted across his shuddering breath, and Zelda gasps as though he's dragged her through a peak of her own. Every inch of his skin screams, begs to collapse against her, but even through spotted vision he can see her, glowing—watching him as though she's seeing the northern lights across the highest peaks of Hebra for the first time.

"Wow," she whispers, reaching up to brush sandy strands from his face.

Link laughs, voice breaking through his panting breaths and yowling muscles. " I should be the one saying that." He bends to kiss her again, a thank you and a you okay? all at once, and even though he can feel fatigue gnawing at him, blood boils hotly in his veins and every thought hones in on her.

"Come here," he says, but he leaves nothing in her hands; they share a sigh when he extracts himself, but he pushes it aside—moves her, hoists her up and sets her across his lap. Slides a hand across the back of her knee and spreads her just enough before his other hand sneaks across her front and seeks out her arousal. His fingers push past remnants of himself, a mixture of releases, and his normally precise fingers spread further into an oval shape as he chases her climax, muddled by his own.

"I want to see now."

And Zelda is writhing in his lap, her cheek smearing against his bare chest and her mindless hands grabbing at his thigh—and though he stays focused on where his hand works, his gaze slides up her body, across pert nipples and shuddering chest, and it lands on her arched brows and her gentle eyes and the open gasp of her mouth and the wet hair on her forehead and Goddess what has he done in a previous life to deserve this?

"You're so fucking gorgeous, Zelda."

A kiss is quickly stolen atop her head, and together they watch as he tends to her, nurtures her soul in the way he's said to have done again and again, and suddenly, Link finds himself languishing behind her; wishing he could know what she'd looked like all those other times—wishing he could dig down deep enough and pluck someone else's memories out from the depths of him.

But this Zelda is his, and she's all golden warmth in his hands.

"Let go," he whispers against her temple. "Please? Let me see."

His name rumbles up in her throat, again and again, and she falls apart beneath his touch with that's my good girl crashing against her ear.

Two bodies strewn beside one another, backs dampened with sweat flat against silk sheets. Link's hand finds its way across her and guides her closer to him, placing her in the crook of his neck to feel her heavy handed breath against him.

"Are you okay?" he asks when it all settles.

"Yes," she whispers back, glowing.

"Did you like it?"

She laughs into his skin. "Goddess, yes."

"Would you do it again?"

"Now?"

He almost snorts. "In general."

"Oh, most definitely. That was…even better than I could have imagined." She smiles sweetly, like he's purchased her a trinket from one of the stalls in town.

"It's not great for everyone at first. So I'm really glad you enjoyed it," he tells her as Zelda curls a little closer, nuzzles his chest and hums against his regulating heartbeat when a new thought floats across her mind.

"What is it?"

It takes a long moment and a deep breath before she shares the thought. "I wish we'd tried…the other way. With you…beneath."

Sandy brows arch upwards, already intoxicated by the prospect. "Next time, then. Yeah?"

"Oh, you are a most generous friend, Link." She huffs a laugh before she pulls away, readjusts herself to his level and tucks her hands beneath her cheeks as though she's poised to fall asleep. "I've been meaning to ask you…how many other friends have you shared a bed with out of kindness?"

His brow twitches. "None. Why?"

"Because you…well, you shared a bed with me out of kindness. And I'm curious to know who else may have been given such a favor."

"That's not…"

Link's puzzled, really, that a woman so bright can live in such a way—blinded by the most obvious truths. He raises a hand, and Zelda blinks gently when it comes to rest on her cheek. He bites down gently on his tongue, lips soon twisting in thought, and Zelda must mistake it for reluctance, because she's quickly moving to rise, sheets pressed up against her bare chest.

"Oh Gods, I'm so sorry, Link, this was cruel of me, wasn't it? I shouldn't have asked this of you—"

"—no, Zelda, stay…I'm just…" He reaches out, fingers coming to rest against her collarbone. "I'm just…I'm just thinking."

Zelda tucks tousled hair behind the point of her ear. "About what?"

"About…" About how I love you, how I wish I could spend each night and each morning making love to you, making you mine again and again— " ...about how to say certain things."

"Like what?" Below a wrinkled brow, her lips hardly move. And he knows, all at once, exactly what it is she's hoping to hear.

Link props himself up on an elbow and lets his other hand fall to her hip—set gently against the soft swell of her.

"I have this friend," he starts. "We've gotten very close. She doesn't ask much of me, but she asked me for a favor last week. And it…wasn't really a favor. It was something I wanted, too, but it was never something I could have ever asked for." His hand moves north, across the curve of her breast, up to her cheek. "And this…friend…is…well, she's an incredible person and she's beautiful and strong and sometimes it's hard to believe she's real." A gentle thumb along the gentle swoop of her jaw.

"It sounds like you're quite fond of her." She says it quietly, pulse whispering to life in her neck.

"I am." He smiles, his hand sliding down to rest against her throat.

"She's fortunate to have someone like you, I think."

"Well, I'm fortunate to have her."

Zelda swallows and leans into his touch with closed eyes. "What if…what if she were to ever wish for your affections?" And Link waits until she opens them again to share his answer:

"She has them. She's always had them."

It's like the permission she's been seeking, and she crashes into him again, mouths reacquainting themselves under this new light, meeting with such ardency that the room begins to spin; and when the urgency subsides, they're left with a kiss just as pristine as the one he'd given her out in the wild. Zelda pulls away just far enough to whisper another thought against him:

"I should think it would not trouble him to learn that his friend might hold similiar feelings."

And it hits him square in the chest, this affection he holds for her; clenches at his heart and has three words bursting around his teeth and sidling up against the front of his mouth.

"I think he'd love that," Link says.

And he would. He'd love it tremendously.