The first time Link cooks using Light Dragon Parts, he doesn't know.
He doesn't mean to land on her back, not at first. Not when she's flying so high in the sky, as if to avoid him or anyone else who might be on the ground. Really, he got there by accident, jumping from the Zonai tests of courage in the form of those dangerous skydiving challenges, his curiosity and a wing propelling him the rest of the way.
He was bewildered to see the Master Sword there. Of course he'd tried to reclaim it, but the majestic dragon bucked him off; he hadn't the stamina. He caught himself on his paraglider and landed on her back, winded – but she didn't seem to have any lasting animus towards him.
He gives her a playful poke with a blunted spear, to see if she'll try to buck him again. She doesn't notice, but one of her older scales chip off.
On a whim, the next time he's cooking, he throws it into his pot. The results shock him. The Light Dragon's parts and presence fill him with warmth in a way that Dinraal or Naydra or Farosh don't. A warmth that, for some reason he can't recall, he finds himself craving.
So he finds himself on her back again. Sometimes just to grab the scales, but other times for other parts of her. He doesn't think much of it when the Great Fairies ask him for Light Dragon parts to enhance the tunic Zelda made for him. He feels like it's symbolic. It's a creature of great light and great power, and Zelda had sealing powers of light. In any case it's hardly much of a detour.
He explores the tears, juggling them with his other priorities at first, but the closer he gets to seeing all of them the more frantically and frantically he chases them down. Until he realizes the horrible truth.
His pack feels heavy. The screen of the Purah Pad, with his most delicious meals that he's come to rely on, taunts him.
Now that he knows, he recognizes the feeling that her sheddings give him. It's the same feeling he had when he was by her side, when he walked behind her, when he saw her smile. When she snapped at him with a twinkle in her eye and smirked when he retorted with a bemused silence. The feeling when he woke up besides her in bed and when she fell asleep on his shoulder by the campfires on many a long expedition. Being with her fills him up inside (not to be confused with how she'd filled him up inside that one time with a Gerudo-made toy which had been intensely enjoyable but in a different way) and now the only way he can really feel that, truly feel that again, now that she's gone…
Is to eat her.
A part of him thinks it's not that different from before. He'd eaten her before. In a different way. A very different way. With her gasping and calling his name and encouraging him. Not this passive, meaningless silence.
He breaks down in tears.
He's going through the motions, now. He saves the Deku Tree from the Phantom Ganon in its bowels, and when it wakes it tells him the Master Sword is where he knows it to be.
He delays, visits Rauru and Sonia's shrines, restores the strength of his body as he tries to restore the strength of his will.
One day he returns to her when he's feeling strong enough. He pulls the sword.
She bucks, tries to send him flying, and for half a second he wonders if she's in there, some part of her willing to toy with him and play coy with him and banter with him.
But it's just instinct. A beast in agony as a thorn is removed from its wound. As silent as any other time he's poked her.
He sees a vision of her, in sorrowful repose in a sea of endless light. Hoping that the sword will meet him in the future. He wishes he could tell her it has, but when he comes to, he stands upon the head of a dragon.
She slowly blinks but does not further stir.
The next time he visits, he wears a full set of Snowquill Armor. She'll be flying through the Hebra Sky, where the air remains bitterly cold, even though the endless blizzard from the Stormwind Ark ceased once it was purged of Colgera's infestation.
He has the odd idea to do something sweet. Something they can share, perhaps. A hydromelon and voltfruit for taste and color. Fresh milk for texture. A hearty radish for taste, but mostly for garnish.
And one of her beautiful glimmering horns.
Creamy Heart Soup.
It won't have any effect. The magic of the hydromelon and voltfruit and radish counteract each other. All it will do is feel like her.
He realizes how utterly desperate this must look. How sad and broken of a man he's become. Oh, he's done all he could to help the people of Hyrule. Now, he's just whiling away the days until he's ready to put an end to this tragedy once and for all. To end Ganondorf. Even if it costs him his own life.
Because it's cost hers.
Only once it's done does he realize he has no easy way to get it into her mouth.
He misses her so, so, so much. She's so close and so far.
He's eaten far worse.
She's beautiful, even like this. Even as a living corpse.
And the soup is warming and delicious. Like being with her. Following her through Hyrule. Standing behind her as she brings joy to the new people of the kingdom. Her smile in their tent after a long day of journeying, as she caresses his face and pulls him to her chest as they fall asleep.
He buries his arms and face in her mane.
He dreams.
It hasn't been too long after he rescued her from the dark beast at the Sanctum of Hyrule Castle. They've been traveling together, observing the divine beasts, fixing the world.
Sharing a tent.
He remembers this well. It's only been a few scant days since the first time they fell into each others' arms and made love. Because that's what it was to him. An act of love. He doesn't know if she feels the same or whether her actions were done out of convenience. He's the only person quite like her. An old soul in a youthful body. And he's her knight. She can exploit him as she wishes, and he's the one who would be breaking his vows.
She flips on the bedroll to face him. "You've been silent lately," she murmurs. "More than usual."
He doesn't want to ruin what they have. He'll always be by her side if she wants that, no matter what, no matter how she feels about him. If she falls in love with someone else, or chooses to reign as a outwardly celibate queen, he'll accept that. His devotion will be absolute.
When he doesn't respond, she pushes herself to a sitting position. "Please, Link," she says. "I know… what we did last week…"
A knot of dread forms in his stomach.
"I know… I know it was improper of me. You have always seen to my every need, going even beyond your vows. And as such, it was wrong of me to… to ask of you something beyond those vows for I knew you would give it."
This isn't how he'd expected it to go at all.
"You are very dear to me, Link. You are… you are the Hero of Hyrule, beloved of the four peoples we share our land with. I am but a princess of a dead kingdom, and I had no right to ask that of you."
She's doing it again, beating up on herself. She's so much more than that. She's a thinker, a scientist, a storyteller. A diplomat, an archer, a reader. A botanist, a chemist, and an archaeologist. A bit of a masochist.
The only woman he can ever see himself loving.
"I had no right," she says, and her breath catches in her throat, "I had no right to let my girlish desires infringe upon your freedom. My feelings towards you—Link, I would understand if you wished to leave my side. But I beg you to not."
He can't bear to see her like this, to watch her misunderstand.
So he tells her that he loves her. And he tells her that he's sorry for it.
And then she apologizes.
"What? Sorry? Link? Why are you sorry? I'm the one who's the princess, I could have released you from your vows at any time and I even thought about it but I didn't, and I'm the one who took advantage of you!"
Because she's the princess and he's the knight, and even though this is the end of a fairy tale, where he's saved her from the castle, a part of him is starting to remember how it was before. When there was a court and nobles and how a common-born knight like him could never hope to be the Princess's equal. When his love for her was something he sealed in his heart, like the sword sealed the darkness, and how it was something he followed and was powered by, but that filled him with unending shame.
She stops him.
"No," she says, her green eyes fierce. "Never apologize for that. Never apologize for how I make you feel."
To his horror, he feels a tightening in his pants.
She grabs him, pushes him down against the floor. His pants get even tighter. "I mean it, you know. Even for this."
A part of him can't believe it, that she'll degrade himself for him. That she'll debase himself for him – though, to be frank, she's always fully in charge. He should be the one always worshipping her, not the other way around. He doesn't know why she's okay with it.
"Because," she says, as she pulls him close, so close their lips are almost touching, "I know I'll be okay with you, Link."
The first thing he feels as he wakes is warmth, rolling over him in waves.
The second thing he feels is warm air flowing over his bare thighs. His pants must've slipped off in his sleep as they left the Hebra Sky for warmer climes.
The third thing he realizes is that the tip of his manhood is wet with his own emissions.
And the final thing is that his dick is in the Light Dragon's mane.
Zelda's mane.
The hairs are practically wrapped around his dick, a warm and comfortable embrace. But hardly a loving one.
He pulls himself up in horror, pulls on his pants, not caring about how the last of his spend feels uncomfortably moist.
And he sees his drying come in her mane. Her mane, which had been her hair. And she keeps flying serenely, barely aware that he's there. Unaware of what he'd done. What he'd done to her.
He jumps off of her and doesn't bother opening his paraglider. A fairy brings him back to life after he smashes face-first into the sands of Gerudo, of course, and the pain is an old friend.
But he can barely bring himself to look up at her.
He can't ever go back.
He lasts a week before he visits her again. He misses her so much.
He walks along her back, picking off loose scales when he finds them. He holds Silent Princesses in front of her nose, braids Silent Princesses into her mane. He cooks food she used to like, in her previous life, and she opens her mouth so he can pull out loose fangs.
But he never cooks on her head, and he never mixes her parts into food just to feel her warmth inside of him again.
She doesn't seem to care.
She's overjoyed to see him once they land in the water, once he catches her as they fall from the sky. His presence is a "warm, loving embrace."
He's so glad to have her back, so enthused, that all worry leaves him as they make their way back home to Hateno. After all the diplomacy, and the well-wishes, after all the talking with Purah and the sages – once that is all over, they head home, her head resting upon his back.
He carries her into their Hateno home and then places her upon their shared bed.
And then he stops.
He can't join her. He knows he can't. He can't.
He pulls out a bedroll from under the stairs and lays down on it. Exhaustion takes him.
He wakes to her calling his name. "Link," she cries, and her voice is torn with agony, "where are you?"
Immediately, he's by her side, grasping her hand.
"I thought you were gone," she murmured. "Please… stay… Stay with me."
He can't. He knows he mustn't. But her hand is tight, her pleading insistent, and he can never refuse his princess. He crawls into bed and prays that this time, his body won't betray him.
He wakes up with the dawn and the cuccos, and though she's still sleeping, he goes to make breakfast, hoping that she'll forgive his short absence.
Sure enough, she wakes once the smell of fried eggs and bacon waft through their Hateno home.
"It's so good to have your cooking again, Link," she says with a smile. "I feel as if I haven't eaten in ten thousand years."
It's an attempt at a joke. Neither of them laugh.
Breakfast goes as it ordinarily does, but it's far more somber than either had imagined the morning after their reunion. She talks less than she used to. He talks not at all.
They reach for the syrup at the same time. He recoils. She jerks back as if struck.
"Link," she says, sadly, "Is something wrong? Have I… have I become repulsive to you?"
Of course not. She would never. Never.
He tells her what happened when she was asleep.
"Link, I…"
For once, she seems to be at a loss for words.
"I know you would never do anything to hurt me. And yes, that was odd and if I had been myself I suppose I would have found it violating. But I wasn't, and you didn't mean to. I'm more than familiar with Hylian male biology, and you know that."
He's a dirty boy. He can't shake that feeling. To hurt his princess, to defile his princess in such a way. He feels unworthy to even be near her, even be in her presence. He wants to jump into a chasm without a paraglider or a fairy and only the knowledge that she would jump after him and join him in death stops him from doing so. He's unworthy of her, and yet he knows she needs him as much as he needs her.
And he can tell, even as horrible as he feels, that she hates to see him like this.
She bites her lip. "Would it make you feel better… if I said it was okay if you wanted to relieve yourself… over me… when I was asleep?"
In all his lurid fantasies, even back before the Calamity, even when he was a knight sworn to her service and to never lay an inappropriate hand on her, even when he thought she'd hated him so he'd done his absolute best to repress his fantasies to the darkest, quietest corner of his soul, she'd always been a willing, if not enthusiastic participant. He'd fantasized about her falling into his arms after a frustrating day and night of fruitless prayer at a spring. He'd fantasized about her glaring at him in a library, shoving him into a closet, and silencing his protests with her lips. He'd fantasized about them sneaking away together to a secluded corner of the castle. Always, every time, she'd wanted him as much as he wanted her.
Even in that dream.
"Really, Link, if it will make you feel better even slightly—"
He doesn't want that. He wants her, all of her. He doesn't want some cold, unfeeling doll, like the puppet Ganon had taunted him with, that he'd chased all over Hyrule. He wants her, and he has her back now, but he can't even look her in the eye.
"What if I was only pretending to be asleep, and I woke up in the middle and… punished you for it?"
He gulps. Maybe later, when the very thought doesn't fill him with guilt. When they can laugh about it without feeling like he wants to cry.
She grabs his hand. She seems to understand.
"I just hate to see you like this," she murmurs. "When you blame your mind for the actions of your body. Even back then, you blamed yourself to fighting until you literally couldn't."
Days pass. Slowly, he stops waking up in the middle of the night, panicked that it's all a dream and that she isn't really there. Slowly, he's able to look her in the eye again and touch her without feeling like a filthy pervert. Slowly, he becomes cognizant that she wants something from him – something he's almost willing to give again.
It starts, of course, with her scientific curiosity.
"I do remember the analysis we did of the scales and horns you harvested from the other dragons," Zelda says. "It's all keratin! Imbued with mystical properties, but still keratin!"
He's not sure where she's going with this, but she's lit up, the way she always does when she talks about her research. It's so great to have her back, even if he still can't forgive himself.
"And," she says, something else blooming in her eyes, "it's the exact same substance as what we Hylians have in our own bodies – which makes a disturbing amount of sense now, frankly – but it's the same material on a chemical level…"
He's really not sure where she's going with this. The way she's looking at him is complex. Full of love, as usual, yet treating him like a subject of her scientific investigations. She's always been able to get him to collect data for her, and yet he hasn't the faintest idea what she's thinking.
"Keratin," She leans in to murmur directly into his ear, "is what makes up quite a lot of our own bodies. Our teeth, our nails…"
She warps her arms gently around him as she leans, and he clasps her close, feeling her warmth beneath his hands, hoping he'll never have to let go.
She's done this in the recent past, and when she has, he's pushed her away, held her at arm's length, and she's backed off. He remembers, of course, the look of hurt in her eyes whenever she did so, but this time.
This time.
This time, he wants to see where she's going with this. No matter what it involves.
She sucks on the tip of his ear. "…our skin…"
He flushes, which only deepens as she caresses him with her tongue and splays her fingers across his back. But he doesn't pull away.
Then she pulls back, the sharpness in her eyes still there. "Tell me, Link. Which parts were… the best for you?"
He doesn't want to confess this to her. Doesn't want to admit that in his lowest moments, he'd tried each of her parts. Her scales, her claws, her fangs, her horns, and found that beyond her warmth they followed the pattern of the parts from the other dragons. She doesn't seem offended, though, and he can tell the scientist in her is vindicated that there seems to be a pattern here, one that seems to hold.
"Well, Link…" she said. "It's been over ten thousand years since I last trimmed my nails or cut my hair. Would you be so kind as to help me with my toenails?"
Of course he will. He's dreamed of even this ever since he awoke on the Great Sky Island. He slips out of their bed and kneels before her. She crosses her legs, her right over her left, and he clasps her right foot in his hands, gives it a gentle kiss. It's her and he's missed her so much and being able to touch her and actually be with her feels so much warmer than eating her parts had-
He looks to their bedside table for a dainty set of nail shears, but she slips her foot out of his hands and rests it on his cheek.
"Ah, ah, my knight," she purrs. "It's been so long since I've seen you put that mouth to good use."
He'd forgotten just how hard she could make him.
The scenario had been a lot hotter in their heads – Link couldn't do anything that could possibly hurt her, and that included biting too deep or with too much force or in this case deep enough and forcefully enough to actually trim her toenails – and after several minutes of fruitless nibbling he looks towards the beside table again. And again, she stops him.
"Link. That was a pretext. Just – get up here."
She's missed him as much as he's missed her.
"The next time I get my hair cut, you can keep the extra," Zelda says afterwards. "Perhaps you might use it as a substitute for salt or Goron spice."
She's already shifted back towards research mode. But then again, she's never truly out of it. He keeps his face neutral, forcibly blank. Even after all this time, despite her penchant for experimentation and being a quick study, she's still an awful cook.
"Don't look at me like that!"
He keeps looking at her like that. Her eyes are very green.
She huffs and rolls her eyes, though it is, as always, playful.
"You've eaten far worse things."