Morning comes as a gleaming mist that sits as heavy as sediment across the grass.
The two blessed—or accursed , depending on whose perspective one seeks out—travelers depart just as dampened sunlight begins to slip across the craggy tips of Death Mountain, their throats whining where whiskey has burned across them the evening prior.
Before their departure, a stomach knotted with freshly born anxiety keeps Zelda from accepting the cup of coffee prepared by one of the kitchen staff—Akkala is rather proud of the silky flavors it brews, she notes—but her knight sips in her stead as something of a formality. Zelda slips a pastry into her pack while Link swallows a particularly crackly piece of smoked bacon, and when they step beyond the canvas flaps of the stable to reunite with their horses, it's abundantly clear that cloaks will be required for the next leg of the journey.
It begins with an easy descent into the Shadow Pass, the morning chill festering between the gentle slope of the gully. Quiet, voices kept as close as a winning hand, tucked away in their throats until the day has dusted off the lingering fatigue—avicular melodies rousing the sun up. The cold snap breaks just as the Akkala Highlands come into view, the depth of grassy inclines tearing gasps from their throats as the sheer immensity of such a sight dawns on them. And over a distant hill, the Akkala Sea rises into view, endless and vast and brimming with the promise of what lies beyond it: a new world, one that doesn't stop to think twice at the mention of the word calamity .
Link requests a momentary pause to gather a few mushrooms he spots along the path, and when he's satisfied, they're quickly picking up the pace again; in spite of the tremors that roll up through her body, Zelda has been rather eager to reach the eastern end of the pass, because it is here where the land really opens up to flaunt it's beauty—an enormous view that spans across across the entire northeastern tip of the kingdom. From here, they find Death Mountain's rugged fingers clawing into the sky, the fire-kissed foliage of Akkala—the spiral of Rist Peninsula as it curls into Malin Bay, hints of Tingel Island where it stands beyond the Kaepora Pass—not to mention the northern shelf of Ploymus Mountain proudly sitting high above it all, the gem of Lanayru's shimmering crown. In their mounts they sit, achingly minuscule in the midst of the Goddesses' creation.
"My goodness," Zelda breathes aloud at his side.
Her knight gives a low whistle. "Have you ever been this far north before?"
"Not quite this far. To the Citadel, yes. But….this view is so different. Up there, I feel very much like royalty, but from here…well, I feel quite small at the moment." Zelda closes her eyes and inhales as the first hints of sea air skim across her cheeks, lets the idling wild swallow her whole. "A good small, I suppose."
"Like you're a part of something bigger."
"That's precisely it." Zelda calls out, glancing over to find him, that familiar pop of cerulean springing forth against the autumnal reds and greens—the same color that had flooded her mind as sleep tugged her down the night prior; seen behind her eyelids as she burst into consciousness earlier that morning. Beneath his smile, she nearly forgets she needs a cloak. "Talented with a sword, incredible culinary skills…don't tell me the Goddess gifted you mind—reading as well?"
Link shrugs. "And if she did?"
Zelda doesn't dare to entertain the thought, only tucks her lips inwards and nudges her mare's sides before declaring that they're setting off again, her cheeks heated from much more than just the rising sun. Behind her, he tries to bite down on a laugh.
It doesn't quite work.
And if he could read her mind? What would he find? The bloody red of panic and nightmares sprung to life, yes—but if he were to peer a little deeper? He would find familiar features there, the swelling pink of cheeks in the winter and the thundering blue of his own eye and the slight tilt of his head when he looks at her and the ends of the scars kept from her as they splinter off beneath his clothing, into places she can only imagine in her lonesome.
And he'd certainly find much more than that, if he cared to look—he could peek a little further to find his own secret sounds imprinted upon her limbic systems, all of his tones committed to memory; drawn out throughout sleepless nights and languid mornings to bring her a most delicious satisfaction. And maybe he'd find other sounds in there—a heavy breath tugged from him while he slips into her, his own coveted voice spilling across her bare back; murmurs of her name across her shoulder when she presses herself up to his chest, gasping and desperate.
An ache hums to life at the apex of her legs, and she can only slide her hips back to try and shake it from her body; none of that, not now.
But in spite of all her intellect, Zelda makes another catastrophic choice: one loose glance tossed back, just in time to find herself in the direct line of a glinting smile, charming blue spilling out from beneath sandy fringes, so stirring that his skin might already be upon hers.
They both avert their eyes as though they've stolen an all too long look at the sun; cheeks flushed, hearts leaping and sighing in silent unison.
The Princess remains in rather good spirits until the stout stone pillars of the quarry pop into view. They're already descending the slope that leads down to Ordorac Quarry, ore deposits visibly plentiful as they sit along the base long overgrown with verdant nets.
Link has never made it this close to the spring. He's heard legends of it, much in the same way he had grown up with tales of the one they'd visited in Faron and the one that sits high above Lanayru's snow capped peak—but this one feels different. It's more accessible, by geographical standards: in his mind, there should be a temple waiting to welcome them, acolytes and pious minds flocking to preserve the Spring for the moment that Hylia's daughter needs it. But they find nothing of the sort—only portly rocks and old trees and nothing that looks remotely helpful.
He glances at the Princess to find her hands tightening around her horse's reins as they reach the bottom of the quarry. She inhales once, twice— are her hands trembling? —and it's when Link himself finds it difficult to breathe past the crowded earthen floor that he knows she must be on the verge of unraveling.
"Ordorac is a strange name, don't you think?" His distraction reverberates against the obtrusive stone, bouncing back against his ears. "Do you know where it comes from?"
Zelda glances back at him. "It actually comes from the ancient name that this region used to use for the fire spirit, Dinraal."
"No kidding?"
Her head glints as she shakes it, an inherent crown. "Fascinating, isn't it? One of the tutors told me that during a geography lesson when I was younger…" It's a polite little trap he's set for her, and he's grateful that it works as intended; a soliloquy on languages—translations and regional influences—pervades as they come across the tunnel that leads into the mountainside. It's small, and easy to miss—peculiar, really, with hardly any evidence that a sacred spot exists beyond that point. Link supposes that might be the point entirely.
"Well…shall we?"
They fall into the usual routine, Link hitching up the horses near the tunnel's mouth while she presses on, the heavy echoes of her footsteps slowly receding as she moves further into the hillside. He can hear her exhaling, heavy breaths rolling across the arched stone, and the sound of her is like a whip against him— faster, faster, go to her .
He breaks that stalwart rhythm and falls into the step just behind her with the packs slung across his back.
Neither speaks as they march through ancient stone with solemn steps, heading for yet another place in which their histories cross. Link tries not to dwell on such thoughts if he can help it—it leads to nothing productive, nothing he can hold onto—but the thought knocks at his head again and again: his blood runs for her. His skin, his mind, the heart that beats in his chest—all of it meant for her. To walk beside her, to rest at her side—this very hall built in memory of a connection so powerful that it brought a Goddess to her knees. That it touched her so deeply that she spun the fabric of the universe to breathe life into her most beloved.
What he would give for Zelda to feel the smallest fraction of her predecessor's affections.
He hears another exhale released through her nose, his eyes flitting down to where her hand hangs limp at her side. Fingers soon twitch into a curl, tightening further—he could reach out and fold his own across them, squeeze them the way he did by the fireside the night before, a silent promise gently laid across her hand.
A promise of precisely what, he isn't entirely sure.
There is something oddly enchanting about the Spring of Power. Sunlight streams across its gray margins and skims across an assembly of waterfalls. In the center of it all stands a familiar effigy, that same dark stone that watched over him in Faron—the same stone that bore witness to impropriety he knows he will carry with him to the grave. His cheeks pool with color at the thought, as though he expects the Goddess' likeness to round on him with her carved eyes and her chipped, knowing smirk.
"We've made it." Zelda's voice is hollow, her gloomy eyes cast high as she studies the Goddess statue, almost as if she's searching for some proof of life. She waits for a moment, listening, and then: "There isn't much room up here," she observes, splayed fingers gesturing down, "but I think we should be able to manage at the base of the steps."
Link nods. "Why don't we take a little rest first?"
Her rest seems anything but restful. Peripheral vision catches her crouching down at the most northern edge of the platform as she dips exposed fingertips into the water—recoils gently at what he can only assume is a temperature verging on frigid. She sits and sighs and rises to her feet and paces and lets air bubble at her lips and Link can soon feel her anxiety overflowing the brim of her, catching him its current, threatening to knock him down as he nibbles on an apple pulled from a tree near the stable.
He clears his throat. "Everything alright, Princess?"
She stands up tall, like she's been caught in something compromising. She bites her lip and nods. "Just nervous, I suppose."
Link bends to set his apple upon his pack. "Have the scholars ever offered you any meditation techniques?"
"No, they haven't. I'm aware that some exist, but I've never been instructed to use them."
"They're really helpful." Link raises his shoulders as though he's going to bring them all the way to his ears. "Might be worth trying." He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and hopes there isn't apple skin tucked between his teeth.
She cocks her head to the side with intrigue before she's seeking a spot on the floor near where he stands. "Do you practice them?"
"Yes. Part of my training. If you'd like…I could…show you something that helps me?"
Bright green flashes up at him. "And here I thought you were so infallible. To know that you also must take time to preserve yourself…it's comforting, I admit."
He shrugs again. "I'm just a guy." He hears his mouth spread a little wider on the final vowel, unrefined and verging on dopey, and he can feel the blush creeping up his neck that's cooled only by the hint of a giggle she lets out.
The Princess lets her gaze fall to the stone for a moment before she turns it up towards him. "Do you find yourself worrying often?"
Link gives a small nod, familiar troubles bobbing about in the back of his mind. "A little bit."
"About the Calamity." It isn't a question.
"I guess so." He lowers himself to the ground beside her, trousers creasing as he folds his legs. "I worry about fulfilling my duty. If I mess up…" His swallows, his throat scorchingly dry; desiccation sudden and stomach churning.
"...I end up hurt. Or worse."
"Yeah. And…" his breath trembles when he inhales, "...and I can't let that happen." He braces himself for some sort of response on her end—perhaps jest, perhaps embarrassment— but nothing of the sort follows, her eyes glassy with concern for far more than her own welfare.
"The people would stand no chance, then. It seems we're both needed to contain this adversity."
Yes, she's certainly correct on that front—but her equation misses so much it would be easy for him to laugh.
"I…yes, but…it's more than…" Link doesn't realize he's biting his lip—doesn't realize his fingers are nervously toying with each other "...if you…I'd…"
He can't find it. It's there, it's there, so simple, so human, so earnest—and impossible to retrieve, as if he's trying to form a universe of his own through the sheer strength of thought alone. But the sentiment doesn't go entirely unheard in Zelda's ears, the silence between words unspoken as heavy as a summer rain.
"I understand." A smile begins to spread beneath rosy cheeks. "Thank you, Link. For everything."
Link nods and sighs, the weight of something far heavier than diving headfirst into a cataclysmic conflict lifted entirely from his shoulders. In his efforts to hide cheeks furbished pink, he misses the way her gaze clings tightly to his hands, her fingers silently aching.
"What exercises would you recommend?" Link's made acutely aware of how his breath flows through him when she finally asks through pursed lips, an intrinsic matter made anomalous.
"Box breathing. Take four counts to take a deep breath. Hold for four, exhale for another four…. Hold for one more set. That's basically it."
"And how many repetitions?" She places her open palm against the lower part of her belly; Link fights to keep from studying where her fingers seek their rest.
"Until you don't need it."
Zelda closes her eyes and begins the cycle under Link's studious watch, her brows knit together. Quiet inhalations and trembling exhales, a sacred descant above the Spring's melody. And surely, little by little as the minutes drag past, the malaise that sings in her face, in her shoulders—it melts away, drips down her cheeks and runs the length of her until there she's washed clean of it, her face primed with a softness that he hardly recognizes. And soon, she recognizes it too, because her eyes are gently fluttering open, eucalyptus blooming for him—attending to his gently parted lips and sensitive watch. The smile she gives him would perhaps go unnoticed if he were any further away, but it makes the earth below him fissure.
"Better?"
She hums assuredly and nods, the sound of her like a gentle purr. "It feels a little more bearable now. Thank you, Link."
"It's my pleasure."
Zelda extends a hand and offers him her upturned palm, hand twitching gently—beckoning him. He answers with a silent slide of his hand into hers, and he sinks into the way her fingers wrap around his, his wrist bending just enough that his palm comes to touch the back of her hand. It's there that they stay, breathing into their joining—tacet and flourishing, all at once.
In the shade of the afternoon, soft touches and equally soft glances had diffused the tension strung up high. But the pale blue overhead has long deepened above the golden hues of the setting sun, and Zelda finds herself in the midst of the spring without the meekest hint of a divine voice ringing in her ears. Tension binds her in its iron grip once more, lead fingers wrapping around her throat one icy finger at a time.
This Spring, she finds, is far less accommodating for such a lengthy vigil than that of the one in Faron; though the Spring of Courage had gently jostled the heart-shaped leaves and bentgrass strewn across its surface, none of the debris had irritated her in the way that the small stones lining the springbed beneath her feet currently do. If the Goddess were to suddenly whisper something in her ear, she'd be keen to ignore the irritation, to wear the bruising marks on the balls of her feet with pride; but the hours quickly fade, the golden halo replaced by a silver pearl of the moon, and every prayer soon wrinkles with contempt, every thought distressed at the edges as the endeavor begins to feel a little more hopeless, a little more nonsensical—and the irritation is all the more agonizing for it.
Zelda silently stands with her fingers clasped together, her mood flattened by another devotional gone noiseless. Every splintering emotion that Link had helped her quell earlier that afternoon—all of it swarming back up her arms; denting at her collarbone, knocking her shoulders in and dropping her ribcage down. There is nothing, it seems. Nothing but silence. And she is doomed to wallow it in until the moment the world around her shatters into violence and bloodshed and collapse. And if she is fortunate enough, she won't be around to hear the silence that follows in the aftermath. The thunderous echo of failure.
The iron of night air grows trenchant against her skin, incessant enough that it might have her crying out into the night, and the grievances fulminate—her lungs grown electric, her body at the edge of combustion; she could claw her eyes out, peel her skin back to reveal ivory and impious blood. She wants to scream and scream, wants to feel her vocal folds crack and break open, wants to let her voice spill from her and watch it die on the ground—there's no Goddess to hear it anyways.
And then, all at once, the pounding in her ears drops to a simmer. Hot and angry, laying low in anticipation of an onslaught. It tastes like resilience dying out before her—this must be the taste of defeat.
Zelda feels something shattering where her heart lives.
"I come seeking help, regarding this power that has been handed down over time." A reluctant thought spirited to life, a cynical stream of consciousness prodding at clenched teeth with all the hasty vigor of the roaring falls that surround her. One last plea—a death rattle. "Prayer will awaken my power to seal Ganon away… or so I've been told all my life…"
And what is her life? A collection of less than seventeen years, an existence riddled with isolation, with grief, with inadequacy—a weight so mighty that even the Goddess herself cannot look upon it. Is that all she's made for, Zelda wonders? To shed those traces of humanity, to become that honored vessel puppeteered by the threads of fate? Hours spent beneath a deluge of shoulds and needs —assaulted by the lessons and the teachings, by the scholars and the priests and the King of Hyrule himself.
A resentful sound nudges at her throat. "And yet, Grandmother heard them—the voices from the Spirit Realm. Mother said her own power would develop within me… but I don't hear or feel anything!" Desperation bleeds into her sound as her voice floats above the rush of the water.
"Father has told me time and time again—he always says: "Quit wasting your time playing at being a scholar!" Curse you." Her whisper breaks in her ears as her hands fall into the water with a defeated splash. "I've spent every day of my life dedicated to praying…I've pleaded to the Spirits tied to the ancient Gods. And still the holy powers have proven deaf to my devotion." Zelda wraps her arms around herself, every inch of her falling, sinking into that familiar dark place.
"Please, just tell me…what is it? What's wrong with me?"
And in the middle of the Spring, holding herself in a way the Goddess would never care to, Zelda realizes the thought has never struck her ear in such a way. And it's far worse said aloud, the fear more apparent.
She breaks.
Zelda doesn't recognize the sound in her ears as her own. The sharp air catches in her throat, choking her, her shoulders shuddering and her fingers tightening around her arms. Zelda raises a tear-stained face to the Goddess' gravel eyes, the venom drained from her tongue, purged from her through her weeping sighs.
Something is soon laid on her shoulder, unyielding and mellow all at once, a hint of thin sunshine in its touch. Zelda turns, iced jade sweeping across a face—across fawn hair that gentle rustles in the night breeze, across coruscating blue, across gentle lips and a soft brow—
Zelda comes undone in his grasp, laying all that sits heavy in her between encompassing arms, limbs that crease to keep her close. Fear and defeat swirl about there, but that familiar whisper of cedar throws something else into the fray; Zelda wonders if this might be that elusive taste of relief making itself known for the first time.
"You're okay, you're okay."
Hummed against her, like a lullaby she's never known. Zelda feels her tears pool between her cheek and his collar, closes her eyes beneath the hand that lifts to stroke the back of her hair, lets herself relax ever so slightly when his fingers curl reassuringly into the back of her neck.
"You're okay. I've got you." His voice thrums with the darkened hues of evening. "I've got you."
And Zelda wonders—perhaps this is Her message; a divine reply in the form of flesh and bone.
In the shadow of grief, her heart flutters, dissonance crashing into her. Breathless and yearning, defeated even as hope once again tries to leap up inside of her chest. Battering, battering, knocking at her heart—uncurling her fingers so they flat across the slope of his chest.
She wonders what she'll find when she finally dares to pull away.
And when she does, weeping eyes find solace glistening under the moonlight. His hands slide down along her shoulder blades, fingertips on bare skin–intimately, tenderly. Zelda's chest rises and falls and swells like the water near the base of the falls, though she's aware it has very little to do with her trembling limbs—she's focused on the way her open palms come to rest on him, the way he's still murmuring kind things to her through lips that only half touch.
"I'm here. I'm here."
And the hands on his chest are not enough —chilled fingers come to meet his jaw, to run along the soft angle of him. Her thumb comes to rest in the crease beneath his bottom lip, settling a little more firmly when he smiles. "See? I'm here."
"Link…I…"
She can see all of him here—sees the way he wants to close his eyes and lean into her touch, wants to lean down and press his lips to hers and oh Goddess how she wants him to; how she wants him to carry her from the Spring and lay her down on the cold stone that she'd gladly brave on her bare skin if it meant he'd set her alight with his own.
"Yes, Princess?"
Oh, the good natured knight that he is, feigning ignorance. Pretending he can't feel her heart thudding against his chest, can't feel the way she's grown blisteringly hot in his arms. So hot that she can't untangle the words that collide upon her tongue, the ones that linger at the roof of her mouth and fight for dominance across the ridge of her molars.
Kiss me, hold me, take me. All of it bundled into one, incoherent cluster—one he'd be able to untangle if chose to do so, if he were to lean down and tilt his head, coax unbecoming thoughts from her with the slightest hint of his tongue against her lip. The gentlest of smiles into her mouth would be enough to spill every truth from her.
He smiles, a little weary—but it knocks the stars into her eyes when he does so; the melancholy that accompanies a radiant sunset at the end of a perfect day.
And then, a sound rumbles up in her, and a nervous little laugh breaks from Link's lips and into her touch.
"You haven't eaten yet," he says, swallowing hard.
She clears her throat, her knuckles curling against his chin. "I haven't, no." Her eyes never leave him.
"You…you should. You have to stay healthy." She feels his grip on her begin to loosen, little by little, and a small voice in her cries out. Stay, stay.
"You're right." She finally drops her gaze, a small sniffle twisting her face. "As usual."
And as quickly as he had come to collect her, she's free of his touch, open and chilled—fiercely missing his warmth.
Link has no recollection of eating any sort of dinner—not that he's really made any, of course. They're nibbling on bits of leftovers brought from the stable's pantry, purposefully rationed to last them until they make way on their return journey. But he certainly would not be able to tell his hardening slab of rye bread from a piece of igneous rock; not when his mind races as it does. Not when his heart stammers as it does, a pithy staccato like gunfire against the top of his thoracic cage.
Hylia's chosen cannot stop replaying his name in the Princess' voices again and again—he doesn't think the combination of those four letters has ever sounded so delicious in anyone else's voice. Not the Goddesses, not the monarchs who came before her. None .
The princess sits outside the plain-weave mouth of her tent, freshly changed into dry clothes with the last few bites of her leftovers between her hands, her bites slow and deliberate when she remembers to eat. He doesn't dare to look—he knows very well that if he does, he's bound to find himself caught up in the sight of her; her fingers around the edge of her fare reminding him of how they felt against his chest, against his jaw.
The sleeping bag unfurls like a spring, coiled tension snapping to lay it flat across the stone. Link's grateful that he'd packed an extra blanket at the stable manager's request—the northern night seems to sing of winter. And when he glances up to find gray clouds quickly sailing across overheard wandering across a limpid sky, he feels something in him sink—perhaps a night spent beneath rain would serve him well. Link turns his glance back to where he'll seek out his rest for the evening, thoughts flashing across his mind before he has a moment to parse through right or wrong—Zelda atop his sleeping bag, Zelda peeling her dress off and slipping beneath his blankets, Zelda dipping beneath the nylon wrap to disappear completely until plush lips wrap around the head of his cock to caress him to pleasure.
His tolerance for shame, it seems, is increasing exponentially.
And really, it should have been apparent far earlier than this—to have approached her in such a way, to have reached out and touched her, without explicit approval. But once she had fallen into him and sought comfort in his embrace…surely he would have been in the wrong to let her go? Surely the string of fate that ties them together would never have permitted him to do anything else—if his assignment had always been to protect the princess, to serve her…
If any other soul could hear such arbitrary thoughts bounding about his head, they'd find it rather humorous—a man fashioned by a deity's hand, contemplating insignificant matters of sexuality and impropriety when there's an apocalypse at hand.
But when it comes to Zelda—to her wellbeing, to her tending—nothing can ever really be insignificant, can it?
"Are you ready for sleep?" Her voice bleeds through the haze of his thinking like ink through cotton. Zelda's golden head sparks like a bolt of lighting in the evening blue of night, demanding attention from where she sits neatly perched atop the stone; the soft peach of her cheeks mellowing the world around her. He nods, and they begin to part ways. Zelda retreats into her tent with a delicate sigh, pushing golden locks from her face as she crawls into a place where he can no longer see her.
"Do you need anything else, princess?"
"No, thank you." Muffled tones soon expand into something brighter, something warmer as she makes herself visible at the mouth of her tent. "I hope you won't be too cold out here." She sniffles at that, and Link isn't sure if it's from the chill or a wave of fresh tears threatening to make itself known.
"Don't worry, Princess. I'll be okay." He smiles warmly, hoping it's enough to convince them both. Zelda curls her lips in, and if she remains unconvinced, she says nothing else on the matter. She only bids him a good evening, intentions cloaked beneath a bite of her lip and eyes that shine with stardust.
Link finds himself supine for less than five minutes before the first sprinkle of rain splashes against his nose. He masks his frustration with a heavy exhale and rolls onto his side, pulls the sleeping bag with him so that it covers most of his face. Yes, perhaps this really is punishment for burning as he does—the Goddess' mystical way of turning her nose up at his profane thoughts.
He shuts his eyes tight and feigns indifference. Not a problem. Not at all.
But perhaps he's been mistaken about the Goddess' intentions after all; moments later, a small shuffle pricks at his ears.
"It's raining." Zelda's voice rings through the tent with an authority it hasn't held in quite some time.
Link clears his throat. "Y-yeah," he croaks through the thick lining of the sleeping bag.
Zelda's voice is louder when she speaks again, and Link opens his eyes to find a jade set peering at him from the mouth of the tent. He watches her tuck stray gold behind her ear, her brows knit in sympathy. "You can't sleep in this. You'll catch an illness."
"But if I move into the tunnel, I'm further away from you than I'm comfortable being."
Zelda cants her head to the side, gentle rain brushing against the tip of a nose bathed pink. "Well…then…if you must move, you should be closer rather than further."
Link pauses, holding her eye from where he lays on the floor and his mind racing with repetitions of an impossibly incongruent whatisthiswhatthefuckdoesshemean .
He swallows. "What are you suggesting?"
"I'm suggesting…that perhaps it would be best for us to share my tent this evening. That way you can still protect me and not catch hypothermia. And—" she glances back "—really, it's large enough in here that you'll have your own space." She meets his glance again with nervous laughter slipping past her lips, her voice still somehow chiming like the exuberant peal of a bell choir.
"...is it…proper?"
Zelda snorts. "To most...probably not. Certainly not to the tutors. But…you need to be healthy just as much as I do, and this is a fairly simple accommodation." She swallows. "W-wouldn't you agree?"
Link winces beneath the thickening patter of rain that sends a droplet squarely into his eye, all too eager to join her in, simultaneously dreading what it would mean to spend the night beside her, having her shadow-caressed body spread out beside him.
"I won't bite. I promise."
He can't help the way his eyes dip to her mouth, part of him expecting gnarled teeth—finding nothing but plush lips that spread softly, invitingly. Any verbal opposition slips its way down his throat, lost, and he only nods sheepishly.
"Come on, then."
She withdraws into the tent without another word.
Link slips out from where he's meant to rest and quickly curls his bag up, and he crawls into Zelda's tent with a rolling stomach and skin that feels like it's been set alight. He finds that the Princess is correct; surprisingly, there is ample space for the both of them. Zelda draws out a couple of blankets that surely must carry her scent between its threads in the place where his sleeping pack would go.
"Please don't give those up for me," Link rushes.
"I've packed extra." Zelda thinks for a moment. "Well, really, that would be Impa's doing. Always looking out for me, that one…" Her glance is promptly cast aside and she focuses hard on one of the corners of the sheet as she runs flat fingers across it, again and again, as though she's trying to smear it to make it one with the platform beneath them. Zelda clears her throat. "I hope that might make the floor a little more comfortable. It will be a dreadful ride back if you can't manage to rest properly."
"I'll be fine. Don't worry about me. Really."
And there is a moment in which neither moves, because neither quite knows how to—because should the Princess' knight attendant deign to rest before his charge? And, in the midst of impropriety, she were to lay down before him like an offering upon an altar—
She clears her throat. "Are you ready?"
He nods, wondering if she can see him through the dark. But words fail again, as they so often do. "Alright then."
They sink to the ground with their backs to one another, the gentle rustle of covers rippling through the tent as they situate themselves. She's close enough that he could turn around, stretch his arm out and find the bare skin of her arm beneath his fingertips. Link squeezes his eyes shut, tries to push the thought of her far, far away, as if she isn't right beside him, as if he isn't aching to sidle up beside her and drag a lazy finger along her jaw much in the same way she'd done to him.
And then, he can hear the sound of her pack rustling, and the sound of her voice against the back of his head tells him he knows what he'll find if he does choose to turn.
"Did you ever go camping? Before…all this?"
He knows what he'll find when he turns, steadies himself to sink into the sea green of her eye—but when he takes in the dim sight of her with her hands folded beneath her cheek, so docile and appealing upon her pillow, the aftershock that roils his stomach would be enough to send him flat to ground if he hadn't been there already. Link molds himself into a mirrored position.
"A few times with my dad, yeah. And, I guess if you count my sister making me sleep out back in the yard with her as camping then, yes, I guess I've been camping a lot."
Zelda hums a blithe little laugh through the dark, like the warmth of a candle's flame spilling across its ornamented sconce to grace his cheek. "That's rather endearing. You sound like a very considerate older brother."
Link only snorts as he quietly tucks away the memories that might have her thinking otherwise. "And you?" he asks. "Did you ever get to spend time out in nature? Well…before all of this."
"Father always said it was too improper for the Princess of Hyrule to be sleeping out in the dirt like a Moblin. I suspect that idea doesn't bother him much these days." She lets her words hang a little heavy for a moment. "But I'm glad I finally know what the experience is like. And it's nice to have a camping companion as capable as you."
"It's a nice thing to be—your companion."
The sound of his own words curling around his ears is enough to make his stomach drop like he's diving headfirst into Death Mountain's corona. And he wonders if he's thrown a curve into the stream of her own thoughts, because she grows quiet, her breath knotted behind her lips, and his stomach is dropping further and further, like he's misspoken, like he's signed his own death warrant and oh Goddess what has he done—
"Link, I want to apologize for earlier. For my behavior in the Spring. I'm embarrassed, really."
Relief eases his shoulders. "What? No, it's…fine."
Her wrenched features begin to bleed into focus as his eyes adjust to the light. "I must try to be stronger than that. I can't instill confidence in that way. How are you supposed to trust me when I cannot keep my composure? And if you cannot trust me…how should anyone else be expected to?"
If only he could collect the hand that lies less than an arm's length away; offer comfort in the form of a thumb across the soft flesh of her palm, across the hints of veins threading beneath the skin of her wrist. Would she appreciate it? Would she want it?
"I trust you. You could cry to me every night and my faith will never waver. I swear it."
She breathes his name out into the dark on a pitch that crinkles downwards, touched. And he can just make her out through the muted veil, and she's like an apparition shining through the murky depths of a dream, golden hues bleeding to the surface.
"This is the worst part of the day for me. Trying to sleep." Her thin voice breaks at the end, splinters away on the small slope of her travel pillow.
"Why?" He knows perfectly well why—it's a burden for him, too. But reaching out to stroke her hair is not an option, so he'll have to settle for more of her voice, for bringing her comfort in a different way.
"Because it's when my thoughts are the loudest. I feel the most stuck here…so powerless. And I feel so exhausted, but I can't…sleep doesn't come very easily." Her voice is like a wick, aching to burn.
"There isn't much you can do here. And…that can make it easier. Every errand, every job…it can't be done before the morning. Your only job now is to rest. All you can do is be where you are." He wonders if she can see the small smile he offers. "I try to think of it like that. It helps me. Maybe it'll help you too."
She smiles softly, the soft curl of her lips almost imperceptible in the light. " Be where you are ." Her echo slips across the space between them, lilting like a petal upon a pond as sleep droops her eyes. "Thank you, Link."
"Of course, Princess. Rest now."
Lupine eyes catch her eyes as they flutter to a close, the sound of a heavy exhale flooding across the blankets. He waits and listens, watches and studies her, and when the sound of her breathing finally hums a little higher than it does in the waking hours, Link lets his own eyes flutter shut, the gentle patter of rain knocking against the top of the tent, coaxing him to sleep with lullaby of its own.