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syndxlla · 11 months

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best friends don’t look at each other the way we do

A low stakes, high reward, and self-indulgent Zelink fan fiction. Canon-compliant. Takes place between BOTW and TOTK.

Heavily inspired by my Zelink thoughts

I wanted to dig into the dirty, grimly reality of being the saviors of the world and not knowing how to be the savior of yourself. But you can find that safety in another person.

Fan fiction warnings: Canon-typical violence, eventual smut (in later chapters, characters are consenting adults), references to self-harm, eating-disorders, and a lot of angst. Each chapter will have chapter-specific warnings.

Chapter one: I used to tie your shoes

Song: We’ll never have sex by Leith Ross

Summary: Fresh off Hyrule Field, Link and Zelda have to face life after the Calamity, and come to terms with the long road to physical, emotional, and mental recovery.

Warnings: Vomiting, trauma, canon-typical violence, eating-sensitivity

Word count: 3.7k words

Author’s Note: I am so excited to share this. Please share and support this in anyway. I drew this art for the cover :) chapter begins after the page break. I love you guys. Also, these chapters won’t be heavily edited. Ignore any grammatical/spelling errors pls

Time. We never seem to have enough time. Green grass burns soft red embers into the field, a horse’s mane is rebraided at the nearest stable, and the stars shine as if nothing changed. Because it hadn’t, not really. The sun will still rise in the east and set in the west. The birds will still sing their songs at daybreak and the fireflies will still flicker at dusk. Nothing changed, but everything did. The air feels lighter, the sun feels warmer and yet Zelda’s fingers still shake as if she was in the snowy Hebra peaks.

The Princess by nature, is very gentle. She’s soft and patient at heart, but was placed under such strenuous situations all through her youth that caused her to often snap or lash out. But not now. Currently she is silent, stone-cold and confused. She was in shock. And Link could tell.

“Here.” He pulls out a baked apple from his pack, handing it to her. He has to get her attention twice before she finally takes it, their hands brushing for a moment. Her awareness returns to her gaze then, her bright-green eyes meeting his.

“I-I’m so sorry.” She sighs, her voice weak. “I’m just… so tired.” Link tries not to show his distress, but she notices his demeanor change as well. “How much further?” She says, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

“Probably another hour and a half. It’s just through those mountains.” He points.

“Dueling peaks. I remember.” She nods. “I remember everything.”

“Everything?” He asks as he starts to dig around a pack on the rear end of Epona, searching for his rito attire. It was starting to get dark, and she hadn’t stopped shaking since they left Castle Town almost three hours ago.

Zelda nods once.

Her silence speaks volumes.

He yanks out his snowquill armor, finally. “Do you remember anything from the last hundred years?” She doesn’t answer right away, she instead takes a smaller than small bite out of the apple. “Zel? Can I put this on you? You’re still shivering.” He asks, looking at her blank, traumatized stare. “It’s from the Rito, it’s soft as a cloud and will keep you warm for the rest of the way.”

“The Rito.” She sighs. “Revali…”

Link realizes that she hasn’t had any time to process what she just went through. She had spent the last one hundred years deeply focused, probably in a trance-like state. He places a hand on her cheek. “Look at me.” His voice is gentle and welcoming, not forcing her at all. She looks at him, their eyes locking. “Breathe with me.”

They take two deep, heavy breaths. They sync their inhales, exhaling together.

“It’s over. It’s all over, okay?” He reassures her. “It’s not coming back. It’s just us now, alright?”

She swallows, still emotionless. “You’ve changed.” She says.

“So have you.” Link smiles in an attempt to comfort her. “Can I put this shirt on you?” He asks again. She answers faster than she usually had, nodding twice this time. Link bunches up the excess fabric before pulling the head-opening over her hair. He then guides each one of her hands through the arm-holes. Link takes a moment to adjust the garb around her torso until it was probably positioned around her shaking body. She immediately sighs in relief.

“You talk more.” She mumbles, looking at him as he gently wraps his fingers around her long, golden hair and softly pulls it out of the shirt, knowing how much it irritates him when his hair is loose underneath a shirt.

He smiles again, “I do. Some people say I don’t shut up.” He tries to lighten the mood.

“Like who?”

“Impa.” He sighs.

Zelda’s eyes light up with that name. “Impa?”

He hums and nods. “We can go visit her when you’re feeling stronger, okay?”

“Okay…” Zelda looked down into her lap, the skirt of her goddess dress was barely white anymore. “I am going to get stronger, right?” She asks, her voice tender and broken.

Link’s heart sinks. Not because he’s worried she won’t, but rather because he feels responsible for putting her in this state.

“Of course.” He reassures. He believed it. He wanted to believe it.

“I’m… just so tired.” She repeats herself.

“I know, come on, let's get you a bed.” He then picks her up bridal style from the ground. They had stopped in the first place to get that rito armor for her. She rests her head against his chest as he lifts her onto Epona. She smells like burnt oil and exhaustion. He probably isn’t smelling any better.

They wouldn’t get to Hateno until noon at the earliest tomorrow, and traveling wasn’t doing anything for her recovery. He gets on Epona behind her, letting her weak body rest against his chest as they make their way to Dueling Peaks Stable. The road is quiet, so much quieter than it ever has been. The pair of lizalfos always swimming in the river aren’t there, and even the crickets suppress their chirps.

It’s post-apocalyptic. Literally. Link isn’t sure how to feel.

She throws up a few hundred feet from the stable. She gags and lurches over the side of the horse, somehow managing to keep it off of anyone. Not much comes out, she hasn’t eaten in over a century, but Link frowns when he realizes the apple probably triggered it. He silently curses himself out for causing her any form of distress. She dry heaves violently, and Link tries to hold her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. When she finishes, she holds her breath.

She can’t decide if she feels like she lost a bit of dignity or not. She holds back the tears that well in her eyes. Link breathes in to say something, but she raises her hand in protest. She would rather they act like it never happened. Neither of them say anything from there on, they just keep riding the final minute of the journey.

Everyone at the stable was asleep except for an attendant… who was also treading precariously between consciousness and a deep rest behind the counter.

“Excuse me?” Link asks to wake him up, hopping off of Epona after making sure Zelda would still be comfortable in his absence. She would never admit she wasn’t.

The man stirs awake with a jolt. He yawns, slightly startled, “So sorry, young man.” Link wouldn’t necessarily call himself young. He smirks softly.

“I’d like to board this horse till the morning, and we’d like one soft bed, please.” Link nods before setting down the required rupees. The man squints his eyes, taking the money in hand.

“Ah! It’s you! Link, was it?” He asks when Link turns his back to help Zelda down from the horse. “Jeez, you haven’t passed through here in at least six months! We were holding onto that old mare for you!” He gestures to their stables where a small gray spotted horse sleeps. Link’s first horse since he woke up from his century-long slumber. He only rode her in the beginning, when he was doing chores between Hateno, Kakariko and one time a longer trip to Zora’s Domain. But she’s old and weak, which is why she was easy to catch when Link was still regaining his strength. He stopped taking her out when he found Epona in the western part of Central Hyrule.

“Yeah… you guys can let her free.” He says as he sets Zelda down on the ground. She holds her cold hands together.

“Well uhh.. we tried. You see, after four months at a stable we let go of any forgotten pony’s, but she kept coming back.” He chuckled, his voice exhibiting a distinctive nasality.

“Here,” Link hands him a red rupee, not wanting to discuss an old horse any longer when he literally has the closest thing to a God in this world resting her head on his back. “Keep her for another month, I’ll come take care of her then. Okay?” Link asks. “Can I get that bed now?” Not impolite or forceful, he never was. He’s assertive but has a comforting cadence to his tone. For being such a talented swordsman, guard and easily the most deadly hylian in the entire kingdom, he was never rude or condescending. He was welcoming, and little kids often looked up at him with intimidation when they first met him, but it didn’t ever take long until they were chasing him with tree-branches while he fled and begged for mercy, letting them take him down with ease. The kids at the stables loved him, knew him by name, and would play as him in their silly pretend games.

The stable-man replies, “Of course! But you only asked for one bed, it’s not big enough to fit both of you.”

“I know, it’s for her not me.” Link then starts to guide her into the stable, where it’s much warmer and safer. Just because it’s quiet doesn’t mean it's safe. Hyrule is a dangerous place by nature, especially if you’re two century-old Gods being hunted for sport with the faces of children.

“You won’t sleep?” Zelda asks quietly behind him.

He doesn’t directly answer, and instead guides her to the bed. She’s weary, and he’s terrified of her not waking up. He wouldn’t be able to sleep even if he wanted to. He helps the Princess sit in the bed, and kneels before her to untie her sandals. When he touches the leather, he immediately gets transported into another memory.

It rips through him, just like the memories he had images of. Suddenly, he’s kneeling in the same position, but instead he was outside of the spring of courage. He looks up to see the clear sky, it’s sunset, and then his eyes meet Zeldas. Her face is rosy, and her eyes don’t have the blank stare they possess in the current time. He looks down at his fingers, tying the straps around her ankle.

“Really, you don’t have to do that.” She hums. He doesn’t respond. He never did back then. He finishes wrapping the leather around itself and then stands up. His face is emotionless. She looks at him, they’re about the same height. “I won’t be long this time.” She says. “I’m not expecting much anyways.” She sighs and then walks past him, but before she can get very far, he gently grabs onto her arm, holding her back. He doesn’t say anything but she can read his expression. He’s trying to tell her to have faith this time, just one more time.

Surely the Goddess would commune with her.

She shakes her head, and wades into the warm waters of the spring. Link turns to watch her, how her hair cascaded down her back, how her hands balled into fists. She turns around to look at him, their eyes meet. She smiles.

He comes back as fast as the scene played in his memory. He blinks a few times, and looks up at her. She doesn’t look any different, very little—if any—time seemed to pass. He doesn’t usually experience memories with someone, he wonders if she realized anything happened. Link didn’t even consider the fact he would keep receiving memories after the fact. His stomach turns, he feels like he’s lived two completely different lives and is forced to remember things from one that he doesn’t even relate to anymore. He doesn’t feel like the same person, the boy he was a hundred years ago is a complete stranger to him.

Link much preferred this life.

And that scares Zelda.

“I just remembered something.” He says. Zelda hums in response, a light-hearted noise that implies an inquiry. He elaborates, “I used to tie your sandals for you at the springs, didn’t I?” He asks.

Zelda smiles for the first time since they defeated Ganon. It’s a small pull of her lips, not showing any teeth but her eyes finally light back up. After she had asked if he remembered her on the field, she collapsed, not even aware of her own exhaustion until that moment. He ran to her aid, and ever since then she felt woozy, it only got worse the further from the castle they got.

“You did, yes.” She says. “I never asked you to, but since I was in the dress, you insisted.” She sighs. Link grunts in response. “It was very chivalrous.” Zelda adds.

They look at each other for a minute. Not saying anything. It was late, and two beds down there was a set of kid brothers sleeping. Link remembered them from their last visit. One of them wanted nothing to do with him, trying to act mature and ‘cool’. Link eventually won him over, though. They don’t speak out of fear of waking anyone. Zelda’s smile slowly fades away, and Link swallows thickly. They will never be the same.

He pulls her sandals off, her feet are filthy with century-old mud. He silently smiles about that. The closest thing to a Goddess in the entire world has dirty feet. How human of her.

Then, after pulling down the heavy rito-down blanket so she can slide in, he helps Zelda swing her legs into the bed. He pulls the blanket up to her neck, she lays on her side facing him. Her hands find their way up to her face, resting her cheek against them. Link pulls a short stool over to the bed, sitting on it and looking at her, bending at the waist.

“You’re not going to leave me, are you?” She asks in a timid, sleepy voice.

Link’s heart just about breaks when she asks. “Never.” He shakes his head. He takes his gloved hand and tucks a piece of her loose hair behind her pointed-ears. He lets his fingers linger a little bit longer than they should. “I will never ever leave you again.”

“Promise?” She asks, her eyes heavy with exhaustion.

“Promise.” He whispers, “Just as long as you promise to never leave me, okay?” He asks, ignoring the lump in this throat.

“Promise.” She says, taking her pinky finger and sticking it out for him. He wraps his finger with hers, which is far daintier and softer than he's ever been. She is a Princess, after all.

“Wake up in the morning, okay?” He whispers.

“Mhm.” She hums as her eyes slowly close. He tries to disconnect their pinky fingers, but she holds onto his. He leaves his hand in that position, letting her hold it until she falls fast asleep.

Link doesn’t move his hand until he’s certain it won’t wake her up from her much needed rest. He looks at her gentle, soft face. No one even understands what she just went through, no one ever will. He’s worried sick that she won’t make it through the night, and he keeps leaning his head down to listen to her breathing, or places a few fingers against her forehead to check her temperature.

He does his best to stay vigilant the entire night, not once even looking away from her. But just before the sun rises, his body suddenly catches up with his mind. He also just had the most demanding battle of his life. His muscles started to ache, and he developed a headache. He was just a boy, after all. More than anything, his sword arm was weak, and fire-hot pain shot up and down through it. He probably overused it fightin the calamity.

He keeps telling himself that he’s fine. He has to be fine, for Zelda. His arm isn’t that bad, what really hurts was his heart. Usually he’d just down a fairy tonic and maybe go to the hot springs if he was in the area but this pain was different. A twisting and contracting ache in his chest pulled and tugged on his lungs and pulse. It’s the same pain he felt when he remembered Mipha, and more specifically, the pain he felt when he dreamed about his family before the resurrection.

The dream that gave him the memories of a little sister with blonde hair like his collecting fireflies in her pockets. Her laugh echoing, the call of an older man, the image of a royal guards sword leaned up against the dinner table. The touch of his father’s hand as he rubs Link’s back to sleep.

Link’s first sword.

He wakes up like a fire, standing up and almost toppling over. He didn’t even realize he had fallen asleep. He could hear the soft tune of the penny whistle playing the standard stable theme, and the two little brothers played tag outside. He curses and looks down at Zelda.

Her bed is empty, and his heart completely stops. He starts breathing hard and heavy, his entire nervous system feels as though it’s pulled into stasis. How could he make such a foolish mistake? He swings his sword over his back, strapping his shield to his leathers and turns around in a wild-hunt to see the Princess sitting at the round stable table, drinking out of a mug and speaking gently with an older man.

Link takes a breath of relief, and approaches the two.

“Good Morning.” She smiles up at him. Her voice sounded much better, and her eyes finally had life back into them, but she still wasn’t herself. Her skin still looked sickly, her face hollowed out and eyes droopy. Any progress is good progress, Link decides then and there.

“I… didn’t mean to fall asleep.” Link sighs. “I’m so sorry. When did you wake up?”

“Oh not long ago, maybe twenty minutes? I didn’t want to disturb you-”

“You should have.” He interrupts her and her words get swallowed out of surprise. Link realizes that he snapped at her a little, and immediately becomes apologetic. “I’m sorry, again. I just…”

“You’re worried about me. I understand.” She takes his hand, her bones frail. In many ways, she physically looked worse today than last night. But at least she could hold a conversation. He nods. Zelda notices the tension, and changes the subject, “This kind gentleman was telling me about when you saved the stable from a horde of lizalfos about a year ago.”

Link looks over at the man, Giahzo. “Oh that was nothing, it was just two green lizalfos and a blue one who wandered too close to the stable.” Link hums. Their hands were still held together by Zelda.

“Don’t be so modest!” The old man chuckled, “Without you, it would have been a disaster! The number of monsters means nothing, especially when you don’t know how to fight!”

“That’s very kind of you.” Link smiles and then realizes he and Zeldas hands, he’s the one to pull it away. “What are you drinking?”

“I’m not sure…” Zelda begins and Link immediately snatches the mug from her hand. “Hey!”

“You can’t just drink something mysterious.” Link scolds.

“Oh it’s just a bit of Hateno Milk.” The man assures. Link looks at him, then Zelda, and then into the mug to see the creamy liquid. He brings it to his nose and smells it, and then takes a sip of it. Sure enough, it was just milk.

“I’m sorry, Giahzo.” He apologizes and places the mug back down. “I’m just on high alert.”

“Do not apologize to me, apologize to this lovely young lady you’ve graced us with.” The elderly man smiles with a chuckle, his eyes wrinkling up with his age. Zelda smiles, blushing a little, “Tell me, dear, where are you from? We don’t get many new faces at this stable these days.”

Zelda looks at him, her eyes sad. A hundred years ago every person in Hyrule knew her face. She looks at Link, unsure how to answer.

“She’s from the Outskirts stable.” Link covers for her. “Her family used to reside in Central Hyrule before the Calamity.”

“Yes.” Zelda immediately chirps, “We’re headed to Hateno for…”

“A honeymoon!?” Giahzo smiles brightly. Both Link and Zelda freeze in their tracks, and Link hopes he doesn’t look as embarrassed as he feels. “Hateno is a great Honeymoon destination! Although I’ve heard Lureline is even more splendid!” He clasps his hands together.

“Research.” Zelda clarifies, “so sorry to disappoint.” She chuckles politely, making a conscious effort not to look at Link. “I’m researching… population dynamics in Hyrule.” She makes something up that sounds completely believable.

“Of course.” Link then says, “I’m just escorting her there, we are total strangers.”

That breaks Zelda’s heart.

She knows he’s just trying to be extra careful, pushing her anonymity as much as possible. And in a way, it wasn’t a total lie. But it cut her like a knife.

“I see…” Giahzo doesn’t seem convinced. “Well, if you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to stop by. Hopefully the monsters will start to die down.” He smiles and stands up, moving outside.

Zelda is still afraid to look at Link, and he’s a little bit shaken up by the entire interaction. He knows the Yiga are still out there, he knows that there are people who will try to take advantage of her for power or money. He has no reason to suspect anything from the old man, but he can’t help himself from being deliberate. He senses her tension and walks back to the bed to gather their things.

“You should have woken me up.” Link says as he picks up a satchel full of food and readjusts his gloves.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was timid and tired. He turns around to see her, her green eyes looking up at him apologetically. “I didn’t know it would worry you so.” He approaches her.

“Of course it worries me.” He sighs. “I spent three years trying to get you out of that castle, I’m not gonna lose you on the first night.” He holds his hand out for her to trade, helping her up. She must not have rested as well as he thought, because as soon as she gets on her feet, she almost topples right over him. He catches her, holding her up before she collapses. “Woah there.” He mutters. “You alright?”

She nods, “Let’s just get to that house you told me about.”

—

chapter two

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link-eats-rocks · 7 months

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Zelink Masterlist

All fics are SFW fluff/angst

Canonverse:

Zelda's Protector (5528 words) by AnnaWheel

Chapters: 1/1

Homesick/Lovesick (649 words) by AnnaWheel

Chapters: 1/1

Zelda's Dream House (6119 words) by AnnaWheel

Chapters: 3/3

If Our Hero Falls Again (2200 words) by AnnaWheel

Chapters: 1/?

A Break from Eternity (1158 words) by AnnaWheel

Chapters: 1/1

The Bottomless Pond (1760 words) by AnnaWheel

Chapters: 1/1

Lost Companion (578 words) by AnnaWheel

Chapters: 1/1

A Rupee in the Well (1884 words) by AnnaWheel

Chapters: 1/1

Ongoing Series - Their New Life Together

The First Night (1068 words) by AnnaWheel

Chapters: 1/1

Their Stay in Rito Village (1308 words) by AnnaWheel

Chapters: 1/1

Under the Apple Tree (1156 words) by AnnaWheel

Chapters: 1/1

AUs:

(Lol I have so many AU fics/series in drafts so this list will hopefully be drastically longer soon)

Royalty AU:

Princess (2779 words) by AnnaWheel

Chapters: 1/1

Knight & Princess, another royalty au lol:

Their Common Love (890 words) by AnnaWheel

Chapters: 1/?

Lonely Girl: A Modern Day AU:

Lonely Girl (909 words) by AnnaWheel Chapters: 1/?

#legend of zelda #zelink #zelink fanfiction #linkeatsrockswrites #zelink fluff #zelink angst

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demiboydemon · 7 months

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Ancient Discoveries

Prompts 4&5

Fanfiction

Fandom: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Zelink

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: N/A

“Do you even know what this means?” and “You’re the smartest person I know.”

Ancient Discoveries (1115 words) by demiboy_demon Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda) Additional Tags: Zonai Culture (Legend of Zelda), Fluff, Sheikah Culture, zelda is adorable, Post-Canon, Post-Game: Tears of the Kingdom (Legend of Zelda) Summary: Zelda makes a groundbreaking discovery about Zonai and Sheikah tech. Link is happy to listen and learn all he can about the fascinating subject, made even more intriguing by the fact that his beautiful Zelda is the one telling him.

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chicxxonaa · 3 months

Text

Have some Zelink fluff(?) hehehe

(slight spoilers for ToTk)

“Are we soulmates in every universe?”

“We don’t have a choice.”

I lost you again, Zelda.

…

After a hundred years in deep sleep.

Not even feeling a wake of consciousness.

The world I knew was overruled by nature.

The places I knew before were not the same.

The homes I’ve seen, destroyed, different.

The people are different. They don’t know me.

No one that I knew was here.

There’s Impa, and her clan.

The people of Hateno. The Rito. The Gerudo.

The Zoras and the Gorons.

Travelers, merchants, good people.

But no one that I knew.

Revali, Daruk, Mipha, Urbosa. The king.

They were gone.

You were gone.

But not anymore.

…

It’s been a peaceful three years.

Slowly, everything has been restored in new ways I couldn’t imagine.

The people love you. Their Princess.

I was anxious, scared actually. Of placing you in the position of Princess. A leader. You must’ve been so tired, so much energy, and time keeping the evil at bay.

I didn’t want to put you in a place where you’d have to stretch yourself thin anymore than you were.

But, the one lesson I always seem to forget that you have taught me time and time again, is to never underestimate you.

You placed yourself in that role you swore you could never uphold. And you became the person who brought up the whole kingdom out of such a dark rule.

And I followed in return. I’ll always follow you.

I’m your knight.

I’m the one who will follow you to every house, every village, every forest, every mountain, every desert, every corner of Hyrule. I will follow you, protect you, watch you and let you know you’re not alone.

You were never alone.

You’re never alone when we are exploring a large and dark cave, knowing danger lurks inside.

You’re never alone in the places you loved to travel to, to discover, for research or to simply to gaze upon and admire.

You’re never alone on nights when you couldn’t sleep because of the nightmares you’d have of that fateful day. And it was hard for you to go back to sleep.

Because I will be there.

With either a weapon in my hand, or my arms open for embrace. I will be there for you.

…

The night before we began our exploration under the castle rubble, our supplies were packed, and all of our equipment was ready for the day to come. You slept next to me, a gentle hum of your voice every time you’d gently breathe. You were asleep, but I couldn’t close my eyes again.

I had a dream.

I saw you, and I saw myself.

But we looked different.

First you and I were on large birds, in the sky.

Soaring without care in the world.

And then we were young, in a castle. You gave me such an odd instrument. But it played beautiful music

Then we changed again. We were at sea. What a vast sea it was.

Then we were under a blanket of twilight, only to be pierced by your light.

We changed again, and again, and again.

…

I understand now.

This life, our life, is a cycle.

That you and I are doomed to repeat over and over again.

To stop a malefic doom that none of us conjured.

We are here, together, because we don’t have a choice.

But I don’t care.

I don’t care if I die, and come back once again as the hero.

I don’t care that I’m linked to this chain of a spiral that will not cease due to a curse that has been placed thousands upon thousands, upon thousands of years ago.

I don’t care, because you’re here.

We don’t have a choice, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

In all of the lives we’ve lived together, you were happy with me. You smiled at me. In every version of you, your gracious smile never changed.

And my love for you, never changed.

It’s a curse I’m happy to carry, as long as you’re with me.

A curse that has blessed me beyond measure.

…

Now we are separated again, you’re in a place I can’t reach you yet.

I only see your figure above so distantly. You’ve become a part of the sky. Your tears hitting the earth. Staining the land with your memories. You must feel so alone…I’m so sorry.

I lost you again, Zelda. And I’m so sorry.

But, I will be with you again. No matter what it takes.

You’re meant to be with me. My silent princess, my Zelda.

I will always save you.

Until the ends of eternity.

…

#zelink #link x zelda #tloz totk #tloz #totk #zelink fluff #tears of the kingdom #totk spoilers

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owl-girl04 · 1 year

Link

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears Of The Kingdom Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda) Characters: Link (Legend of Zelda), Zelda Additional Tags: One Shot, Haircuts, Kingdom of Hyrule, Camping, Scientist Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Knight Link (Legend of Zelda), Travel, First Kiss, Short-Haired Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Gentle Kissing, Kissing Summary:

Zelda has had enough of her hair, and she can't think of anyone she trusts more than her appointed knight to help her get rid of some of it. Much to her chagrin, Link decides to take some creative liberties with the scissors. Be forewarned, this is 98% fluffy Zelink shananigans!

#BotW #TotK #Breath of the wild #tears of the kingdom #legend of zelda #loz #link #zelda #loz botw #loz totk #zelink #botw fanfic #zelink fanfiction #totk fanfic #zelink fluff #botw fic

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sun-aries · 2 years

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If the Shoe Fits

Thank you to @ilovework for this request!

This short fluff piece accompanies my multi-chapter tp Zelink fic Broken Mirrors and Their Reflections and will be part of a collection of fluffy one-shots.

I already have another one in the making so follow for more! Also feel free to leave a request in my inbox! ❤️

Tawny evening light shed through the sheer folding screen as her lady's maid unfastened the stays of her corset. Each lithe tug resulted in the zipping and shuffling of silk before the bodice finally slackened around her body. When the gown finally pooled around her ankles, the queen let out a relieved sigh and stepped out of the ring of fabric.

Confining corsets and binding bodices were something she'd long been accostumed to, but the further she went along in her pregnancy, the more unbearable they became. With the way she was growing and changing with every passing week, having her body bundled to the brim wasn't exactly ideal. Although the corsets that were designed for expectant women weren't nearly as constricting as most, there were far more ties along her hips that took a far greater time to undo, meaning she had to stand on her feet for longer.

And her feet hurt the most.

They were constantly tender and sore, especially around the laces that cut into her feet all day. Untying her shoes was like dousing a fire, her entire body slackening as if she'd been water-logged. Even as Irene tugged off the boot with a great level of difficulty, the leather seemed to cling to her stockings as if the shoe itself was keen on continuing its torment on the queen.

Zelda hissed through her teeth. "Aye," Lady Irene said with a click of her tongue, "they get more swollen by the day, don't they? I'll get the ladies to fashion some new shoes for you."

Though Link could only make out the silhouettes from behind the screen, his wife's plaint caught his attention – as it always did, as if her pain set off some sort of alarm in his mind. His head snapped towards the screen but he waited until Irene walked Zelda out from behind the divider, finally clad in her nightwear, before asking, "Are you okay?"

She nodded dismissively as she tottered to the bed, eager to take the weight off, while he closed his own wardrobe and turned to Irene for guidance. The older woman smiled consolingly as she swung the used clothes over an arm and prepared to head out. "Just some swelling in the feet. Nothing to fret about."

But just as she passed, she turned to the hero and said in a low voice, "She won't let me touch them, but see if she'll let you give her a foot rub." With a conspiratorial wink, she slipped out of the room and left the young couple to their own devices.

When the door closed, their eyes met. "Don't even think about it," she said with a scowl.

He shook his head, amused, and sat at the foot of the bed. "Let me see."

"They're sensitive."

"I can help."

After a moment hesitation, her eyes fell to her lap and she twisted her hands: a familiar habit of hers that he recognized all too well. Exasperated, she finally said, "They're unsightly."

His brows nearly flew up his forehead. That was not what he expected her to say. Zelda wasn't typically insecure about anything - at least not physical things, but certainly many intangible ones that she found a thousand and one reasons to feel guilty for.

Either way, there was never a good reason to be insecure about something like that - especially considering how strong and beautiful she was to him, and especially not when she was carrying their child. To hear her speak about herself like that...it was just wrong. "Nothing about you is 'unsightly.'"

Flashing him a daring look, she untucked her feet from the comforter and placed them flat on the sheets. Granted, they were very swollen, especially puffy around the ankles, and he could see the notches and bruises in her skin from the tight lacing of her boots. But they were certainly not ugly, and more than that, he was far more concerned with how she felt rather than how she looked.

Renado said it was normal for pregnant women to have swollen feet, but even if it was normal, it looked like it really hurt. And he would bet her tight shoes weren't helping anything. "I was right," he said firmly. "Not unsightly." Then, reaching out, he looked to her for permission. "Can I?"

She held his gaze but it didn't falter; she could see he was not going to give up without a fight. With a small sigh, she waved the white flag. Perhaps a massage wouldn't be so bad. "All right then."

A smile flitted across his face at the small victory, but then he rolled up his sleeves and got straight to work. Toiling in the ranch taught him a few things about using his hands. In the colder months, the Ordonian goats often got stiff and taut, and the ranchers would give them massages to ease the tension. But that was the extent of his knowledge about massages or anything like that and he would certainly be far gentler with her.

At the first touch, a soft sated sigh slipped from her lips and she melted into the mattress like sugar in tea. His hands cupped her ankle, working his thumbs and fingers into her skin with a tenderness one might not expect from looking at him. But Zelda was his wife and she knew his touch; she knew how he could be very gentle when he needed to be.

The feeling of his calloused fingers against her skin, the contrast of his gentle touch with the deep pressure was very pleasing and effectively distracted her of thoughts of welts and bruises. Her head sunk into the downy pillow. "That's nice. Thank you." His smile returned at her praise and his hands travelled down to her heel, kneading and pressing, and earning small, contented noises as he went along.

They were quiet for bit - that is, until his hands went down to her arch of her foot. When his hands travelled past where the laces had nicked her, that same hiss from earlier escaped her.

"Sorry," he said swiftly and loosened his grip. "You shouldn't be wearing these shoes, y'know. They're really digging into you."

"My maids have been very diligent about adjusting my clothes for my pregnancy. We've been doing the best under the circumstances."

"I know, but maybe it's not just the size... I don't care if they're fashionable or whatever. You're bruising from it."

He was far more down-to-earth than she was, especially when it came to her own well-being. Despite her better judgment, she tended to be more reckless in order to maintain a certain 'respectable' image. Though it was often a cause of disputes between them - her caring too much about decorum and him not giving a damn - she really did appreciate his perspective. Growing up outside of the castle had spared his rationale from getting warped.

After all, it was silly, caring about shoes that hardly peeked out from under her skirts. "Perhaps you're right. I could speak to them about commissioning a looser fit."

He was glad, at least, that she was willing to talk to them about it. He didn't know much about style and status, but he knew she did and it always ended up coming at a cost.

It wasn't that he didn't appreciate everything that she did as queen: he did, even things that he didn't really understand. After all, she was perhaps the best ruler Hyrule had ever seen and he was so proud of her for it. But she risked everything - even her welfare - time and time again, and it wasn't worth it to him.

But as time went on, he noticed the little ways she started to look out for herself, whether it was taking more breaks from work or going outside for some fresh air. Especially since discovering she was pregnant, she started to take proactive measures to remain healthy.

"Still, it will take some time before they're ready," she added after some time.

He nodded thoughtfully but it was only a moment later that an idea came to him. His lips stretched into a wolfish smile. "That's okay. I know what to do."

Walking into court the next day, her chancellors were quick to notice the heavy thuds in place of the queen's typically lithe and quiet footsteps. It wasn't until she stepped up to the podium that the toes of her boots peek out, and nearly all the chancellors exchanged a surprised look at the undeniable sight of the oversized men's shoes on Zelda's feet. But she wouldn't deny that Link's boots were quite roomy on her and it was definitely worth a disapproving look or two.

#aries writes #BMTR #tp zelink #twilight princess #one-shot #fluff #zelink #zelink fluff #tp #tp zelda #tp link

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chemmerson · 2 years

Text

days in hateno

series masterlist

read on ao3

Link is cooking dinner when he hears a sharp yelp come from around the corner of the house.

He straightens as he listens for any other signs of danger. “Princess?”

He’s making dinner like most nights, and like most nights it’s quiet around their Hateno house so he’s a bit alarmed by Zelda’s yelp. The veggies need to simmer in the pot for a bit anyway, so he gets up and lightly jogs around the corner only to hear splashing water and grumbling.

“Princess?” He says again, and he is not as surprised as he should be to find her knee-deep in the pond, sleeves rolled up and crouched low over the water.

She looks up suddenly with a small pout. “My frog hopped in the water. He’s a very fast swimmer.”

Link snorts and continues to walk closer to her with a smirk. He spots her study materials near the shore; journals, pencils, and books all scattered in the grass. Though they’ve only been living here a short time, she’s already claimed this spot by the pond and spends many days writing and sitting and studying. It’s her favorite spot, he thinks.

Zelda stands up straight with a sigh, placing her hands on her hips and looking contemplative. “I suppose that’s fitting given their nature. I was trying to get a sketch in…oh well.”

As Zelda starts to wade towards the shore, Link stands just at the edge and holds his hands out for her. “Hot-footed frogs, isn’t that right?”

Zelda smiles amusedly and puts her hands in his to steady herself. “Right.”

Link helps her as she steps out of the water onto the grass. “Well, I’m sure it wasn’t anything personal, Princess.”

Zelda chuckles sweetly and tilts her head back. At that moment, the glow of the setting sun hits her face, and Link feels his cheeks heat. That’s been happening more and more lately, and Link isn’t quite sure what to do with those feelings. Feelings that seem like they belong to someone else yet also to him. Feelings from a long time ago. Feelings from now.

Nervously, Link lets her hands drop from his. “Dinner will take a bit longer, so don’t rush,” he says, and then turns around to head back. “Would you like to eat outside tonight? It’s pretty warm—“

“Wait—“

Link feels Zelda’s hand grab his sleeve, bunching the fabric and pulling him slightly so that he stops. He turns to look at her and furrows his brows at her parted mouth as if the words are lost to her.

And she just looks at him for a moment, bright green eyes scanning his face all over, searching for something. She closes her mouth abruptly then, and lets go of his sleeve like it burns.

“Uh,” she starts, bringing her hands to her chest. “I…I’m sorry. I—“

A gust of wind blows through at that moment, loud and brisk, and Zelda squeezes her eyes shut as she braces it. Link blinks it away, attentive as he waits for Zelda to find her words.

She tucks her windblown hair behind her ear, looking anywhere but at him now. “I just wanted to say that…you can call me Zelda.”

Link remains still while his insides twist into a knot.

“You…used to call me Zelda,” she says her words carefully, cautiously. “Not in front of anyone. Just when…it was us. So…you can call me Zelda. If you want.”

You used to call me Zelda.

Link knows he needs to say something, but he can’t even find his breath. And he knows he’s made mistake when it's her that turns from him and starts rambling. “I’m—I’m sorry. I just thought—“

Link grabs her hand, stops her in her tracks so she turns around. When her eyes meet his, he still doesn’t know what to say.

But her beautiful, hopeful eyes draw him near. He takes a step toward her, closing the space so they are breaths apart. He can’t possibly deny her as she looks at him like this. Despite his own heart beating madly, he reaches up to tuck the rest of her windblown hair behind her ear.

Link holds her face in his hand. “Zelda.”

Her name feels warm and familiar on his tongue. It pulls a feeling to the surface, a feeling he no longer fully knows but can sense. A precious treasure meant only for them.

For Zelda, a different feeling is pulled to the surface. Her breath is caught in her throat when his tender voice floats to her ears.

He says her name just like he did all those years ago.

Does he know? Surely he doesn’t. Maybe he feels it like a whisper coming from somewhere deep inside. Maybe he doesn’t know, but Zelda sees in his eyes that he understands.

Link brushes his thumb across her cheek, and she smiles.

“Link.”

#zelink #zelink fic #zelink fanfiction #zelink fluff #botw zelink #my work #days in hyrule

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akira-pink · 3 months

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Have some zelink brainrot from me to you please enjoy

#zelink #zelda #tloz #the legend of zelda #botw #totk #family fluff #fan art #fan comic #I don’t know how to make good captions #and I hope the quality is at least decent

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imaginethezeldaverse · 10 months

Text

Was thinking about their simple life together before things became not so simple.

#Tloz #the legend of Zelda #the legend of zelda: tears of the kingdom #tears of the kingdom #totk #zelda #totk zelda #link #totk link #zelink #zelda x link #fluff

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thesadpuffin · 4 months

Text

the ending I really wanted from botw 😭

#fanart #botw #botwfanart #zelink #zelinkfanart #the legend of zelda #art #ao3 author #fanfiction #breath of the wild #zeldafanart #link fanart #ship art #legend of zelda #princess zelda #zelda x link #link art #zelink fluff

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syndxlla · 8 months

Text

best friends don’t look at each other the way we do

A low stakes, high reward and self-indulgent Zelink fan fiction. Canon-compliant. Takes place between BOTW and TOTK

Chapter Five: My North Star

Read chapter four here

My masterlist

Song: August by Taylor Swift

Summary: Link and Zelda get a visitor from an old friend, and start to remember how to live for the hope of it all.

Warnings: brief and non graphic mentions of death and dead bodies, canon-typical violence and horror, PTSD (always for this fan fic)

Word Count: 3.3k words

Authors Note: finally some happy moments lol. Also this is unedited!! ALSO I KNOW I HAVE SO MANY UNANSWERED ASKS RN I PROMISE I AM NOT IGNORING YOU IM JUST BUSY AND LAZY kloveyoubye

It takes only three more days for Impa to arrive at their door, angrily pounding her staff on the wooden plank. It’s early, she beats the rooster, and Link is rubbing sleep out of his eyes as he stumbles to the door from his makeshift bed he’s made adjacent to the kitchen.

He’s shocked to see the old woman staring up at him, as far as he knows, she hasn’t left Kakariko village in decades.

“You completed the mission and your first instinct was NOT to come and tell me?” She asks, her wrinkled lips pressed firmly into a frown. Link looks up to see Cado, apologetic. His hair is down, shirt is off, and he’s barely wearing trousers. He yawns.

“Good morning, Master Impa.” He bows deeply to her and she just whacks his skull with her cane in the same manner she did the door. Link yelps and rubs the top of his head. “What was that for?” He asks.

“Where’s the princess?”

“She’s sleeping still, it’s barely sunrise.” Link rubs some more sleep from his lashes, his hand in a tight fist. “You know, most people say good morning when you see them first thing…”

Impa then lets herself into the house, pushing past him like the angry ball of spunk she is. “I’ll have tea.” She states, “And I’d like to see my friend.” Link and Cado look at each other, the Sheikah man staring at him apologetically.

Link nods, walking to the furnace and kneeling in front of it. He blows on the dying embers from the night before, placing a small log on them. Flames catch, and he’s setting the kettle over them, still full of water from yesterday. Cado closes the door and sits across from Impa at the table. Link eyes his bed roll in the corner of the room, kicking some blankets around in an attempt to make it look less disheveled, but the elderly woman just squints at the state of the house. If only she had seen it a week ago. Link was starting to feel proud of he and Zelda’s progress, wildflowers being placed in a vase on the table, and their plates polished and put away neatly for the first time. After Impa’s scrutinizing gaze, however, he was feeling all sorts of insecure again.

The air is stagnant.

“She's still sleeping…still.” Link clears his throat, his voice hushed. “She needs to rest because-“

“Link, two bodies were found just outside of the castle two days ago, the man who found them also reports seeing a Shadowy Figure, covered in what he suspects is malice.” Impa interrupts him.

“What?” He asks, startled.

“I didn’t want to lead with that, but it cannot be ignored.” She spoke in the same hushed tone. They didn’t want to wake the Princess, and they especially didn’t want to scare her.

“Treasure hunters? I mean it's still a war zone there, it wasn’t anything else… right? He was lying, surely. All the Malice disappeared…” Link asks, feeling the blood go from his face.

“The man was Me.” Cado frowns. He would never lie. “After we got your message from Purah, I traveled to the castle to confirm that the Calamity was destroyed. The bodies were hylian, two young people. A boy and a girl… I thought it was..”

Cado’s voice became too loud, and Link hushed him.

“We want to think it was leftover spells, but we don’t know. We don’t know who else to ask to investigate.” Impa says.

“Now that Hyrule is safe, it's time we start reestablishing civility, democracy.” Cado steps in.

“It’s been eleven days since I defeated him.” Link crosses his arms, “I’m still not sleeping through the nights, Zelda doesn’t have her full strength back yet. You promised me I would get to rest when it was all over.” He looks at the Sheikah Chief.

“Don’t lie to me, Link.” Impa shakes her head, “I know you can’t stay in one place for too long. No matter how hard you try.” She states. She wasn’t wrong, but recently Link has started to feel different.

The kettle starts to whistle. Link swallows his frustration and takes it off the heat, preparing three cups of green bell tea. Everyone feels discomfort. “Did the figure do anything?” Link asks as he pours the hot water into the cups, his back turned to the Sheikah.

“It just stared at me, it was tall, hunched over.” Cado describes, one could easily hear the fear in his voice. “We stared at each other, I couldn’t tell if it was from this world or not.”

“Tall like a Zora or tall like a Gerudo?” Link asks, still turned away.

“Gerudo.” Cado struggled to say it. “I drew my sword, and as soon as I did, it turned away from me and walked into the mist to the south. I never saw it again.”

Link swallows and then turns around finally, carrying the cups to the table. “And the bodies?”

“Cause of death was unknown, I checked for a pulse multiple times but they were both long gone. They were dressed in traveler's garb. Their dress seemed to be from the north.”

“If they have families they need to know.” Link sits, holding the mug of tea in his hands.

“You’re the only one who could inform them about such a thing.” Impa says. “Tabantha is a long way, but you could be there and back in an hour if you warp. We’ll stay here until you-“

“The sheikah slate is utterly destroyed.” Link admits. “I left it with Purah but she essentially told me it's beyond repair.”

“You’d have to go on foot like the rest of us.” Cado smirks.

“Why would I?” Link asks, perhaps too forcefully. “I did my quest.”

Impa stares at him, silent for a moment, “You don’t really feel that way.” She shakes her head, “And if you do, then you are not the same man who woke up three years ago.”

“I’m not!” Link almost shouts, and they all bite their tongues, listening for any sound from upstairs. “Impa… you know I care. You know I want to go find whatever that figure was, but I am tired.” His voice cracks. “I can’t just sleep this one off.” He can’t look at her, if he does, he’ll break. “This is much deeper than exhaustion. It’s… it’s traumatic.

I still see him. His eyes, the way His heat radiated and burned my skin, the sound of His laughter. He Haunts me at night, I swear He finds ways into my dreams and taunts me there. Like it was all just a game to Him. Because it was. It always was. He’ll do it again a hundred times, and we can’t ever stop Him. There will be countless more Links who lose their hearing and can’t sleep and won't even look themselves in a mirror because as long as the triforce exists, He will mock us all with His deviance.”

Link stares into his tea.

“Impa…” A quiet voice says from the stairs, and all three of them are turning to see her. Long, blonde hair draped over her shoulder, eyes sleepy and confused, hands at her sides.

She nearly trips down the stairs as she runs to the woman, wrapping her hands around her neck and crying. Impa immediately holds her back, laughing, taking an old, bony hand and stroking the top of her friend's head with it.

“Good Morning, my dear.”

Link and Cado share one more glance.

The day is spent with hugs and laughter and Zelda looking into Impa’s eyes and crying every time she sees that they’re still the same eyes. Link cooks for them, and gets as quiet as he was at the start of this war. It’s all he can think about. Did it return for other Links? Did it return this early?

Zelda must have noticed his distance because while Impa is telling Zelda all about the man she married, the Princess is glancing at Link. His shoulders tense, his head down, his voice silent. She frowns, deciding to ask him about it later.

Cado was delighted to meet the woman, bowing deeply for her. He eventually got on a tangent about his children while they ate the omelets Link prepared, but Link stayed silent. He glances over at the Master Sword, leaning against the corner of the room, staring back at him.

He distracts himself the rest of the day with Epona, tending to her constantly while Zelda tells Impa every single detail about her time sealed away. The two prayed over each other a few times. The sun gets low in the sky, Link stays silent.

They come back inside, and before Impa and Cado enter from the outside to begin their next hour of catching up, Zelda places a gentle hand on Link’s shoulder. “Link,”

He turns to look at her, everything about him immediately softening as her green eyes stare at him.

“You’re upset?” She says, her voice soothing.

“No I’m not.” He denies. She raises an eyebrow.

“I know you.” Link becomes acutely aware of her thumb that starts rubbing circles into his muscle and he has to remind himself how to stand. ”Talk to me.”

He knows he can’t tell her about this, not yet. “Later?” He asks. She smiles and nods.

“I’m here for you.”

Link begins dinner, and Zelda washes up, leaving the three alone for the first time since early morning.

Impa stares, Cado uncomfortably clears his throat. Link looks at them, frowning, knowing what they want.

He sighs deeply.

“I will return to the castle. Zelda and I briefly discussed returning the Champion’s weapons to their people, and can do it then.” He finally says. “Tell every leader to warn their people to avoid the castle at all costs.”

“Good.” Impa nods.

“But-“ Link holds his hand up, “I’m not going until both she and I are ready.” He says.

“What do you mean by ready?” That old woman was always so pushy.

“When Zel and I both feel ready to return to those places without it absolutely crushing our spirits, we will go. Together.”

“Hylia knows when that will be.” Cado scoffs.

“Exactly.” Link says. “Unless more deaths are reported or this shadow is seen again, it can wait. Everyone has been avoiding the castle for a century, what’s a little while longer?” Link states, silently proud of himself for sticking up for himself and not just being the obedient soldier he was trained to be. “Besides, no one should be there anyways, it’s not safe.”

“You’re in love with the Princess.” Impa states with a chuckle and Link sputters, the wind knocking out of him.

“What? Why would you say that?” He asks.

“I saw you two. The way you look at her.” Impa smirks. Link feels his ears heat up, Cado stifles a laugh.

“You are so rude.” Link replies.

“I think you two need each other.” Impa shrugs, “But do not let any worldly affection keep you in the way of what really matters here: Hyrule and its people.”

Impa always knew exactly how to remind Link that he is just a soldier.

“We will leave before we eat. At this rate we will not return home until late into the night.” Impa states, standing back up.

They say their goodbyes. Zelda promises to visit, Impa gives her a kiss on the forehead, Cado bows again. And just as the sun begins to set, the pair is headed through the bridge.

Both Link and Zelda stand in the doorway as they watch them leave. Zelda starts to sniffle, wiping a tear.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Link says in a comforting tone when he sees her cry, turning to face her. “It’s okay, we’re gonna see her again real soon.” He reassures. Zelda sighs.

“She got so old, without me.” She tries to swallow her sob but fails. She presses her tear-stained face into the crook of Link’s neck, and he just holds her for as long she needs. Zelda is the one to pull away after a moment of comfort. “I’m sorry… I know there's something troubling you, too. I shouldn’t be so selfish.” Zelda sighs.

Link swallows, “It’s nothing. Not for tonight.”

“You're sure?”

“Positive.” Link nods. “Can I show you something?” He asks, and Zelda is nodding as he takes her hand and leads her up stairs. He pushes open a hatch on the ceiling in the corner, and a rickety ladder slides down. Some dust and cobwebs fly down, but when the air clears, Link is climbing up onto the roof of their house. He helps Zelda up next, and she’s looking up at the night sky with bright eyes. It’s still not totally dark yet, but the first few stars are starting to shine.

The roof is slightly slanted, but not enough to cause either of them concern. They both comfortably find a position on the tiles, facing south, noses pointed at the heavens. There’s about a foot of space between them, and Link wants to scoot closer into her, but chooses not to. He closes the hatch from the outside, so the warm light of the house doesn’t pollute their view.

“I like to come up here to clear my head.” He says. “It doesn’t hold a candle to the night sky in Hebra or out in the desert, but it's still pretty spectacular.”

Zelda hums, “You’ll have to take me someday.” She stays looking at the sky but Link looks at her. Her profile is beautiful, hair long and cascading, ears pointed and blushed. Surely she knew he was staring, but neither of them did anything to stop.

“One day.” He nods before looking away and laying on his back. He rests his arms behind his head, crossing an ankle over his bended knee. “That one is called Haru.” He points to an especially bright star, “It’s part of the constellation Nabooru.” He then traces the warrior constellation with his finger.

“I remember, yes.” Zelda scoots into him, and he tries to stifle his smile. She doesn’t lay next to him, but now they’re a mere inches apart.

“And this is the North Star.” Link cranes his neck back to see it. “It moves though, did you know that? True north changes over time, so that one was the North Star when we were born, but over time the celestial bodies shifted and now it's that one. They didn’t even know that until I came back, because I was following the original one and ended up in Lanayru instead of Eldin. I talked with Purah and Robbie and they agreed, isn’t that fascinating?” He asks with a smile.

Zelda smiles so wide she thinks her cheeks will burst. “I never heard you speak like that before. With so much passion and eloquence.”

Link looks at her and just chuckles, “Now everyone follows the new star, but it didn’t have a name yet….”

“We should name it!” She gasps.

“Oh…I already did.” Link frowns, “I named it after I got my first memory back.” He shrugs. “I”m sorry. But there are plenty of stars without names anymore. A lot of the scientific research got destroyed with the…” He stops himself, “Well you know why. No one these days even knows the constellations anymore. I’m the only one.”

“What did you name it?” Zelda smiles.

Link looks at her again, “Zelda.”

She just about passes out from flattery, smiling down at her knees which are bent into her chest, blushing a little. “That’s very nice.”

“It was my true north.” He says. “I’d have been lost without it.”

It was fully dark now, and the sky lit up with the twinkling lights, the moon was a small sliver of a crescent and hung low in the sky near the sea.

“When did you remember the constellations?” She asked.

“They come to me slowly. It was required for all knights to know them, as I’m sure you remember.” Link described, looking to the heavens again. “I still can’t think of half of them.”

“Well isn’t that one Navi?” She points to another star.

“No, that one is Navi.” Link scoots up to her level, closing the gap further between them, and takes his hand to move her arm to the right star, his calloused and scarred flesh rough against her soft skin. “That one is the top of the constellation Hylia-“

“-Hylia”

They say it together. Perfectly in tune.

Their faces turn towards one another, locking eyes. The air freezes, time itself seems to hold.

Their hearts simultaneously skip a beat, and a soft blow of warm wind passes by, brushing through their hair.

Link makes the mistake of looking at her lips and for a split second he swears she leans in, but before anything goes any further, she’s moving away and laying down next to him.

He supposes this is alright, too.

“I wonder what she thinks of all this.” Link says.

Zelda is quiet ....“I sometimes wonder if the God’s regret making man.”

“What do you mean?” Link asks, looking at her.

“Well… man is what caused the curse of the loop anyways. If it weren’t for us, Hyrule wouldn’t have to be rebuilt every ten thousand years.” She frowns. “Maybe they wish they had left their creation to rest without our feeble beings.”

“I don’t think that.” Link shakes his head. “I think they put us here because we are flawed, not in spite of it.

I think our mistakes, our sins, our curses are what makes us special. Life would be futile if we were perfect. There would be no motivation. No growth. No passion.

You cannot have good without evil, or light without dark, or joy without pain.

That’s what’s so beautiful about life. I think the God’s know that. I think they love us because of it. That is a luxury they don’t have. I see it as a gift. To live for the hope of it all.”

Link rambles, and Zelda is stunned for a moment. She turns her head to look at him, this time he’s the one with wonder-filled eyes staring up, ignoring the gaze of the other.

“I really think you should wield the triforce of wisdom.” Zelda teases.

Link looks at her, their noses almost touching. “Oh no, I’m only profound when I’m around you.” He shakes his head, giggling. “You should see me try to talk my way through Gerudo town, there's nothing wise about it.” His tone is playful, and they both laugh over it. “I accidentally told a woman she looked pregnant instead of ordering a drink at the bar.” Link explains and then says the two phrases in Gerudo, Zelda can admit they have very similar pronunciations and the both of them are full-belly laughing at the situation. Zelda asks how he managed to get out of that situation, and Link had to describe further that he was in disguise, which made everything harder to get through. Zelda couldn’t get the image of Link in a woman’s clothing out of her mind, and Link only sets her off further when he finishes the story with him getting slapped by an elderly Gerudo Woman. It isn’t much longer until she has tears welling down her face, but this time they are finally tears of laughter and joy.

When they both finally pull themselves together, Zelda smiles at him, wiping a tear from the corner of her eyes. “Thank you.” She sighs, her stomach aching from laughter.

Zelda then takes a risk, and snakes her hand in between them before wrapping it around Link’s. They don’t lock fingers, and it isn’t even necessarily classified as a romantic gesture, but she just squeezes his hand, thankful for cheering her up, thankful for reminding her that there is still hope.

There is hope in balance.

She tries to pull it away, not wanting to overstep, but Link is holding her hand tighter, keeping it in his grip. Zelda happily obliges, and they keep their hands clasped at their sides the whole night.

—

Chapter Six

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adrift-in-thyme · 2 months

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Happy belated birthday @luna-lovegreat !!! Here’s the Sky fluff I promised!

So sorry this took me awhile to finish!

—————————

“Just how strong is the bond between a loftwing and a Skyloftian?”

Sky has been asked that question quite often since plummeting to the surface. Even more so after he ventured from his timeline. He never truly knows how to reply. How can he explain their relationship? How can he put into words the utter exhilaration of soaring atop your loftwing?

From what he has observed, people usually place platonic love — and especially the platonic love between human and beast — somewhere beneath both romantic and familial, as though it is an inferior thing. As though it can never reach the same heights and depths as the others. The same precious worth. But Sky knows differently.

The love a loftwing and their rider share is like nothing else. As priceless and unbreakable as a diamond.

So, when, finally, a portal spits the heroes out in his era, Sky is overjoyed.

He can see Sun for the first time in forever, wrap her in his loving arms, hold her close and breathe her in, and whisper everything he’s wanted to tell her all these long months. He can see his friends, his family, the place that will always be his home, no matter how far he travels or what monsters he battles.

And —

He separates from Sun, runs to Lofty as the bird lands in a rush of wind and feathers. A grin splits his face and it feels good to smile after everything, so, so good…

— and he can reunite with his loftwing.

“Wow!” Wind gasps, mouth agape. “So, that’s a loftwing?”

“Close that mouth of yours before you swallow a bug,” Twilight teases, setting a hand on the sailor’s shoulder. His lips quirk up in a smile. “He’s beautiful, Sky.”

Lofty preens beneath the praise, ruffling his feathers and throwing back his head. Sun chuckles, and Sky sends her a grin.

“He is, isn’t he?” He sighs, leaning his forehead against Lofty’s beak. The next words leave his lips in a whisper meant only for the glorious animal before him…though if the beautiful woman standing close beside him hears he won’t mind. “I missed you so much, Lofty.”

A low trill emanates from the bird.

“He has missed you too,” Sun murmurs. “I’ve taken him out for a few flights to keep his wings limber. But you know he truly flies for no one except you.” She cocks her head, a grin on her lips. “You should take him out for a flight.”

He turns to her, a question in his eyes. It’s been so long, after all. He feels as though he hardly has enough time to catch up with them both. Much less Gaepora and Groose and everyone else….

“Are you sure, Zel?”

Sun nods and the breeze lifts her golden locks. “Go on, sleepyhead. We’ll have all the time in the world to spend together once you get back.”

Sky breathes in deep.

That’s right. They have time now. For the first time in a while, they have time.

He raises his eyes to Lofty’s, excitement alighting in his chest.

“You wanna go for a flight, Lofty?”

Feathers fly as the bird straightens, shaking himself out. His proud cry reverberates around the space.

Sky leans over, presses a kiss to Sun’s lips. And then, surrounded by the echoes of oohs and awws and ews that sound from his brothers, he climbs atop the loftwing’s back and is off.

The sky is a brilliant blue today. And while it’s always a brilliant blue in Skyloft – has been since he was born – Sky can still appreciate its splendor.

Even the brightest, most joyful heavenly display in another Hyrule cannot measure up to the plush clouds and soaring ceruleans of his home. And as Lofty climbs higher and higher, he feels a wide grin stretch his lips.

It is wonderful to be home.

He had known that he missed it – this little island full of vibrancy and life. The longing had eaten at him during the long nights and dogged at his steps through their arduous journey. But he supposes he had suppressed it to an extent — denied it even — if only to keep going. If only to keep from crumbling beneath the fear that always captures him when he sets foot on firm, grounded earth.

The fear that he will never again take to the skies.

But now as Lofty turns his grand body in a barrel roll and his sailcloth lifts and the wind sings in his ears and fills his nostrils with exhilarating freshness, those dark feelings are miles away.

Lofty pauses abruptly at the tail end of the trick. Then, he dives, plunging downward so suddenly that Sky’s stomach plummets along with him. His grin grows wider even as the brisk air steals any moisture from his mouth. He’ll be choking later, more than likely. But he is used to it by now.

A dry throat is a small price to pay.

Lofty shoots up, goes down again. Another pointed spin takes out a drifting octo. Sky’s echoing whoop turns to almost giddy laughter.

“Having fun, sleepyhead?” Someone calls from his right. Sky looks up just in time to catch sight of Sun streaking towards him. Her loftwing flips upside down as they soar over his head. Her delicate fingers reach for his and for a split second, the world seems to slow.

“Sorry,” she says as their fingers brush in the ghost of a caress, “I couldn’t resist joining you.”

Lofty lets out an eager call of welcome and Sky smiles.

“I’m glad you did, Zelda.”

She smiles and the world seems to grow a little brighter.

It always does when she’s around…

“How about a race, then?” She inclines her head toward the minuscule forms standing on the edge of Skyloft. “They’ve already cast bets.”

Sky chuckles. “All in favor of you, I’m sure.”

She doesn’t reply. But her smile grows just a touch larger, a hint of mischief in it.

Sky shakes his head.

He’ll admit it hurts a little to be betrayed by his brothers in such a way. They’re right though.

The only person who could ever beat him in a fair race was Sun.

“Alright.” His grin is more fierce now, teeth bared in playful determination. “You’re on!”

Yes, he thinks as they streak toward the designated finish line, the tips of their loftwings’ wings just touching, the bond between a loftwing and their partner is strong. As strong as the love he feels for Zelda. As strong as the love he feels for his brothers.

His family.

And maybe in it’s own way…even stronger.

#hope you don’t mind that some zelink found its way in here #I can never resist skyward sword zelink lol #anyway I hope you enjoyed!#and had a wonderful birthday :D #trin writes #linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu sky #lu sun #lu chain #fluff #zelink

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tsukinoshinjiu · 10 months

Text

Puppy. Baby. Golden Retriever boyfren. Lover. Cutie. Goober.

#artists on tumblr #artwork #my art #digital art #art #zelda #legend of zelda #link #zelink #ship art #fluff #tears of the kingdom #i love them your honor

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linksthoughtbrambles · 3 months

Text

The Seeds of Love, Well Worn

A gift for @newtsnaturethings for Midna's Merry Mixup! I'm sorry this is so late!!! I am officially saying Newt is also a coauthor of this fic because it is based on a very old, very silly conversation we had that was so much fun! This fic was also inspired by "The Calamity of Link's Cargo Shorts" by @zeldaseyebrows! It is excellent and should be read!! A big thank-you to @bellecream for beta-reading! This fic is also available to read here on ao3. Post-TotK Zelink, Canon-Compliant, Rated T, ~9,400 words

At first, Zelda thought nothing of it. After all, Link was entitled to some eccentricities. He couldn’t be the legendary hero if he were ordinary, could he?

Certainly, his renewed desire to play hide-and-seek with the koroks struck her as odd.

And yes, his sudden willingness to spend time away from her also seemed odd, especially as he’d clung to her so fervently since her fall from the sky—why insist on leaving her behind now?

Perhaps he wished to give her uninterrupted time to pursue her studies. She’d shooed him from her well and atrium often enough, though always with a smile. And yes, she’d been busy with concerns in all corners of Hyrule, leaving her less time to attend to her new garden, and she’d been frustrated with her efforts to populate the lovely pond Link had built into their plateau—had she been short with him? Had she seemed distant? Perhaps she’d hurt his feelings.

“I apologize sincerely, Link,” she blurted that night over dinner.

He blinked at her, all blue-eyed owl. “Huh?”

Apparently not.

His spectacular grin an hour later as he tossed her on their new bed confirmed it.

Definitely not.

Her concern grew as Link traveled further and further afield.

“Link- must you find them all?” she asked. “Surely that’s unnecessary.”

“I need more Korok seeds,” he said.

Her eyes flew wide. “S- eeds?”

“Yeah!”

“Ah. And… how many of these have you collected?”

Link shrugged and jammed his hand in his korok pouch. It emerged overflowing with tiny, golden nuggets. A few fell to the floor as the distinctive scent invaded Zelda’s nostrils.

“Link-“

He deposited them on the table-

“Link-”

-and reached back in, his fist again brimming with the deceptive little pellets. Zelda’s nose wrinkled as she waved her open palms in the direction of his belt.

“Link, this is our dining table!”

“So?”

“What are you doing?”

“Don’t you want to count them?”

“Well- not here.”

Link blinked at her. “Why not?”

She stared at her erstwhile knight, helpless to shut her jaw.

He didn’t know, did he?

She supposed it had never come up.

To be fair, they did look somewhat like seeds.

“How many fistfuls of these would you estimate you have in there?” she asked quietly.

“Oh, fistfuls? Maybe…” he scratched the back of his head with a squint toward the ceiling. “Maybe about twenty?”

Zelda blanched. “And… that’s not enough.”

He snorted. “Noooooo.”

His obsession struck her all the more strangely.

Link would stop at nothing. In short… he would create a mountain out of a molehill, right there on their dining room table, a tribute fit only for a king.

Or so Link seemed to believe.

She began to wonder if he was unwell.

The Rasitakiwak Shrine activated up the hill just before sunset. Link bounded into her garden at an unreasonable pace.

“Hahaaa!” he kissed her cheek with an intentionally long, wet smack and a shoulder-squeeze.

Zelda couldn’t help but giggle. “Link!” She then wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re home.”

“Me too,” he said. “I got sixteen today.”

Zelda’s smile became quizzical as she wondered if he’d washed his hands.

“I’ll be on Hebra peak all day!” Link announced with a sideways smile and two fists proud on his hips.

Zelda tried to appear as though she were not at all worried, and that she was, in fact, happy for him to be so excited about visiting an incredibly dangerous high-altitude frozen wasteland on a whim. “The peak, specifically?” she asked, voice bright, though the slight curl of her lip may have given her away.

“My korok sense is tingling,” he said.

Zelda’s cheek twitched. “I wasn’t aware you had one.”

Link pulled a leaf-shaped mask from his pouch and donned it with a ya-ha-ha. It explained nothing.

She clasped her hands before her with a deep breath. “Will you allow me to accompany you this time?”

“Nope!”

She sighed. “Why ever not?”

“You have things to do! I know you want to-“ he began to count on his fingers- “jam a Zonai charge in that guardian-claw-contraption with Robbie, zip to Lookout Landing and see if Purah’s gotten any Zonai abilities working with the purah pads, weed and water your garden, do your measuring and extracting stuff there, see if any of those frogs you caught are still anywhere near our pond, go to Hateno and check how our critters are doing there, check in with Symin about the school… I mean- you have a lot going on.”

Zelda shook her head. “You’re not wrong, Link, but perhaps you might stay with me today? Can the koroks wait until tomorrow?”

He hesitated. He removed the mask to scratch his nose. “Well- I mean, will they still be there? Yeah! They’re shockingly dedicated to their game, which… is weird considering Hestu stopped playing with them seven years ago.” Link squinted, his eyes defocusing a bit. Zelda kept her laugh silent—a mere flurry of quivers of her diaphragm.

“Huh,” Link finally said, shaking his head, his eyes forcibly wide. “That is really weird, isn’t it? But… I kind of have to hurry. Even if the koroks are… insane. Or messing with me.”

That struck Zelda as disturbingly likely.

Link nodded, apparently resolute despite his targets’ nebulous motivations. “I should go today.”

She couldn’t help her falling face.

“Aw,” he said. He stuffed the mask back in his pouch, took her in his arms, and curled himself around her, pressing a kiss to her hair. “You miss me?”

“Yes,” she said, a little sheepish.

He held her tighter.

Then he bear-hugged her.

“Heh- Link!” she smiled, pushing at him playfully.

“It’ll be worth it,” he said. “Really. Please trust me? I promise there’s a good reason.”

“Can you tell me?” she asked.

He loosened his hold and kissed her forehead with the softness of a cloud. “If I could, I would.”

She studied his eyes a long moment.

He certainly appeared to be his usual self. His eyes sparkled with mischief, with his ever-present love for her, and with that shadow she’d seen in him ever since she’d fallen into the depths, whisked into another time.

The shadow- it worried her, kept her worrying beyond what would otherwise be reasonable. He’d never been the same.

She could even feel it in the cadence of his breath—shortened without apparent cause, always a twinge on the end of each, a restlessness in his fingers as he held her. They just kept moving, even when his hands were still.

Why this would drive him to scour the countryside for korok droppings, she didn’t know.

She ought to enlighten him about that at some point.

It ended on an unremarkable day in late spring, as suddenly as it began.

Zelda had no explanation.

Link said nothing of it.

His korok-seed fever simply ceased.

She wondered if someone else had revealed their nature to him.

He spent two entire days never leaving her side. The most accurate word she could think of to describe his mood was ‘barnacle.’

Zelda-barnacle. Yes, that was it, she thought as she clipped a sample off one of her more mature sundelions, his chin on her shoulder, his nose in her hair, his eyes on her work, and both his arms wrapped securely about her middle. Even his legs were flush to hers a good measure of the way down.

That night, the sound of the shrine’s transport platform reached her in her sleep. She opened her eyes to find Link gone, his place in bed beside her cold. She heard him enter the house soon afterward.

He returned to bed and wrapped his arms around her as though he’d never gone.

“Where were you?” she asked quietly.

He kissed the crown of her head. “Kakariko.”

“Why?”

He chuckled. “Can’t tell you.”

He made several more clandestine journeys, each time unsuccessful in the sense Zelda knew he’d gone. He always returned to bed, and she always asked where he’d been.

“Kakariko.”

“Hateno.”

“The korok forest.”

That one made her sit up. “Oh?!”

He laughed.

She squinted down at him, his bare stomach shaking with mirth.

She squinted hard. “So many koroks…” she said.

“Hm. True,” he answered, mock-seriously.

“…Are you collecting seeds again?”

“Nah.”

She eyed him suspiciously.

Then she tackled his abdomen, tickling hard with all ten fingers.

It hadn’t been wise, truly. He overpowered and tickled her easily, his utter lack of mercy keeping her breathless for the following five minutes.

She learned nothing more from him that night—and he made no more secret journeys after that, as far as she could tell.

The summer solstice arrived.

Zelda opened her eyes to the sight of Link’s lovestruck gaze, the dimple deep in his left cheek. He pushed her hair behind her ear. “Happy Birthday,” he said softly.

His first gift to her arrived immediately, with no need even to leave their bed.

The second waited, a centerpiece on the dining table: a large box tied with a wide, royal blue bow, every bit as obvious as Link’s excitement for her to open it. He’d adopted barnacle-stance once again, using his legs to walk hers toward the table.

She laughed, shifting off-balance as the odd gait forcibly waddled her. He stopped them directly in front of the box, though he didn’t let go.

“I take it you’d like me to open this before breakfast.”

“Yes please,” he said, his laugh higher than normal, burying his eyes in the nape of her neck. “I’ve been keeping it secret soooooooo long.”

She chuckled, her arms and hands covering his, warm, around her waist. “My poor knight,” she said, a habit from days long gone.

He hummed a breath into her, nuzzling her nape and ending with as much of his face as he could tuck into her hair as possible.

She patted his arms and tilted forward. He slid his hands to her waist and leaned around her, watching.

The ribbon fell open easily. She lifted the top off the box and folded back the protective paper to see- “Pants?”

“Take them out!” Link urged.

She lifted them by the waistband. Her head cocked in confusion as they unfolded.

“Shorts!” she said, amazed at the array of large pockets all over them. They were otherwise simple, black, as though to replace her riding pants. Their shorter length would be welcome in summer, and she absolutely could do with pockets. The pouch at her hip wasn’t enough, though Link, of course, would allow her to put anything she wished in his.

“Look inside,” Link whispered, bouncing a little on his toes.

Zelda gave him an amused look. She then held the waistband open and peered downward. As predicted, she saw black fabric. She also saw her own feet on the floor through the leg holes.

“No, no no no no,” Link said. “Look in the pockets.”

“Ah,” she said. Thinking he’d secreted something within one for her, she slipped one strap from its loop, lifted the flap, and rummaged inside.

“Goodness,” she said. “This pocket is quite deep.”

Link produced a snigger.

She eyed him suspiciously once more as she slid her arm further and further into the pocket… still contacting nothing. She withdrew, confused.

“I-“ she lifted the garment above her head. Then she examined the pocket’s outer seam. She pressed her hands on either side of it. It appeared to be utterly ordinary – larger than her hand, certainly, but…

She shook her head and inserted her hand once more. She watched, fascinated, as more and more of her arm disappeared into it, until the pocket’s edge reached her shoulder. She wrapped her other arm around it to feel where her arm had gone inside the cloth.

The answer, it turned out, was nowhere. The fabric pressed flat to her torso.

She gasped, a slow smile spreading across her face as she turned to see one of the biggest grins Link had ever given her.

“It’s like your pouch!” she cried.

“YA HA HA!” Link yelled as she tackled him. “Oof-“

“Oh my goodness- oh- Link- Link think of what I could do with this!”

“I did,” he chuckled.

“Are all the pockets this way?”

He nodded; then he looked up and to the left for a moment, a half-squint on. “Well- yeah they’re all enchanted, but it’s not quiiiite the same.”

“Oh?”

“I had- requests for these pockets. Special ones.”

“Such as?”

“Well…” He opened a larger pocket lower down. “Check this out!”

She did.

And she gasped.

She was peering into a space, perhaps the size of the main room of their new house, with a lush, grassy floor, a medium-sized dogwood tree, and a pond.

With lily pads.

She stared.

She stared more.

She goggled at Link, dully noting his arms supporting her, his eyes positively twinkling.

“is this…. for… frogs?” she asked, her tongue extremely dry.

“Well,” he said waggling his head. “It doesn’t have to be. But I thought-“

She kissed him.

Link examined his work as a myriad of frogs hopped, croaked, and plain-old-chilled out around him, quite proud of himself. The ruby rod was definitely staying put—and unlike one of the old flame blades (damn, he missed those), it wasn’t going to cook every frog that touched it. “I think I got it!” he yelled.

The sound of cloth-on-cloth preceded Zelda’s face appearing in what seemed to be a slit on a dark wall about even with Link’s head.

“Oh!” Zelda said. “You’ve embedded it!”

“I figured it’d work best if it was actually in the water,” he said, trying but failing to see any steam visibly rising from the little pond’s surface.

“Indeed!”

Link wondered if there’d be clouds—like rain—or if droplets would just condense on that nebulous, sky-blue ceiling above. Verrrrrry slowly.

“I’m still concerned about the lack of sunlight,” Zelda said.

Link smiled, pulling his eyes from the unsky to make his way toward her. He stuck his face right up to the opening. “It’s magic, Zelda. Don’t worry too much. It was like this in the sword-trials.”

“It’s unclear whether those were physically real, Link.”

“True, but there were loads of plants inside the Zonai shrines.”

“Hmm. There still are,” she said. “I suppose that suggests whatever the light source is, it’s sufficient for them.”

“Yup. So don’t worry.” He pointed up. “I bet it’s sky blue up there for a reason.”

She huffed a laugh. “I suppose I agree with you, for my instinct is not to take that bet.”

Link raised his chin, proud of himself for the third time that day. “Nice! So… is it testing time?”

“If you’re ready, Link, then certainly. I shall be gentle, but I suspect the fact the pond has remained intact means this will be entirely uneventful.”

The sound of shuffling cloth accompanied the strange sight of her hands, the wall, a painting, and then the ceiling moving beyond the opening followed by a wild motion of the wood, glimpses of Zelda’s armpit, her hair, her nose, and a single green eye as she pulled the garment on. He heard her fasten it.

“Link?” she called.

“Nothing happened down here!”

“Excellent.” She peered down at him. “Link? You are officially in my pocket.”

He snorted. “I’m in your pants.”

“As is typical for you,” she said with a mischievous glint.

Being in Zelda’s pants (literally) turned out to be less interesting than Link thought it would.

She’d warped to Hateno rather than hike or paraglide down to Tarrey Town.

“What if the shorts fall off?”

“Do your pants usually fall off when you paraglide?”

“Of course not, but if they do, you are in them, and you shall hit the water, and if it comes pouring in, what will happen to you?”

Link shrugged. “I’ll swim out.”

“Perhaps, but what if the entry fails to expand?”

“Why would it?!”

“No- we must be scientific about this. Nothing risky is to be done without proof of concept.” Her spine straightened suddenly as though shocked. “Goodness. What if I fall? Same potential result—possibly worse, for we do not know how taking on water affects the weight of the pants-“

Link started laughing. “Zelda, they have a tree and a pond and- DIRT and things. They don’t weigh anything.”

“Yet what if they do, Link?! Perhaps a fraction of their weight is transferred. We don’t know. We cannot test it without removing the material, and frankly I have no wish to ruin that lovely environment in order to haul a tree out. No, the only way would be to add material and weigh the shorts afterward.”

“Ze-“

“Of course, I would do that with the similar pocket on the left rather than disturb the pond...”

He’d been about to suggest he just… paraglide down with her and hop in the pocket in town. They could be discrete about it—ask to use the bathroom at the Hudson Construction office or something—but he liked to hear Zelda talk, and she’d clearly started one of her long thinking-out-loud rolls. So, he’d listened while making mental note of the locations of niiiice, big, heavy boulders he could shove in the bottom left pocket.

And now, here he was, chilling with the frogs, listening to Zelda’s footsteps and chatter with the townsfolk, making yet more mental notes of any jostling (which was… really easy since there’d been none so far), and trying to think of how else he could kick the frog habitat up a level. Luckily, he could hear Zelda even with the flap closed, so he had some entertainment other than the sticky frog that had decided his back was comfortable.

His head shot up.

Neither of them had thought to test whether he could leave with the flap shut. That, to him, seemed a much bigger deal than anything else. What if she was hurt and he couldn’t get out to help her? What if something attacked her? Zelda could defend herself, sure, but he couldn’t be stuck in here, helpless, if someone or something meant her harm. Bokoblins. Moblins! One of the remaining gleeoks he hadn’t yet purged from the depths. He can’t possibly have found them all, and those things could fly like anything, come out of nowhere. He’d never seen one leave a chasm but there was absolutely no reason he could see why it couldn’t, and chasms—dear Hylia, they probably hadn’t found them all and what if she was walking somewhere and she didn’t see it and she slipped and she was falling and falling and falling and he couldn’t catch her again-

“Link?” Zelda called.

Link’s pulse rushed fully tactile in the left side of his neck, audible especially in that ear. Sweat had begun to seep into his clothing.

“Yeah!” he yelled.

“Any motion?”

He laughed a little, rubbing the back of his neck. He’d stopped paying attention—but he hadn’t noticed anything. “I don’t think so!”

He could practically hear her mind whir on that one.

“Alright!” she said.

He shook his head and rolled his eyes at himself. He’d done it again. He really, really, really needed to stop doing that. Hadn’t that been part of the point of this gift to her? Yeah, she loved the pockets, but also he’d had to get used to letting her be alone. He must’ve been driving her crazy. He’d barely been able to let her garden for five minutes without checking on her.

Better that she missed him than got unbearably sick of him hovering around her all the time. It’d happened before, all those… very many long years ago. It could happen again.

He scrubbed his face.

He had to think about something else.

He eyed a particularly quick hot-footed frog.

His nose wrinkled. He wished he didn’t know what its secretions tasted like. He wouldn’t enjoy being stuck in here with nothing but those things to eat. He didn’t expect sticky frogs to be any better, or ordinary tree frogs for that matter.

Not that he planned on eating them. But if it was him or the frogs-

The frog on his back made a soft ‘ribbit.’

Link craned his neck. He could see the moist, blue tippy tip of his stowaway’s nose.

…Eh. Okay, the frog was cute. He could eat other things first.

Grass! There was grass. And flowers.

Could you eat dogwood trees?

He’d have to dig himself a latrine.

…

It would be really gross.

Not as bad as Zelda being hurt. By a lot.

But still… disgusting.

And she’d never let that happen to him unless she was hurt, so it was a moot point.

… Or unless the shorts fell in the lake.

He smacked his forehead. He should know by now that Zelda was always right. Because if lake water started pouring in here and he couldn’t get out because the flap was closed?

He was effed with a capital f.

Much better that he was in here than her. He wouldn’t make it five minutes if their roles were reversed. He’d be hauling her out of here forcibly. Once they knew how it worked, sure.

Hestu hadn’t seemed to know much about it, either. Magic, inventory-expanding dances? He had those in the bag. The mechanics of the bag? Nope.

“No, thank you, Manny.”

Link’s eyes shot to the closed flap.

“It’s a spectacular collection of crickets, to be sure.”

“Turns out Lasli didn’t want them, either.”

Link groaned.

“Eh he. Yes, I heard you telling Link last time.”

He was still on this?

“She didn’t like the frogs, either. But you do, right, Princess?”

Link would not tell Manny Lasli loved fireflies. Because she actually did, and he wouldn’t inflict Manny on anyone for real.

“I know you like them.”

…Link didn’t appreciate that tone in Manny’s voice. Not that he knew what it was, exactly.

He just didn’t like it.

He didn’t like Zelda’s silence either.

He stood and padded barefoot over the grass to try and peek out the flap.

“W- eh- ll. I- suppose I- do like frogs-“

“I have a hundred for you, Princess. Do you want them?”

Link really didn’t like that tone of voice.

“U- ahem. Do you mean the frogs?”

NOT ONE BIT.

Link shoved at the flap, too high-alert to be happy it didn’t resist him. He grabbed the edge with both hands and stuck his head out.

He found himself looking at Zelda’s midriff.

“AaaaaAAAAAAHHHH!” Manny screamed, and he wasn’t the only one.

Several things happened in quick succession.

People and cuccos scattered (Link could hear them), something hit the ground hard and rattled, and several doors slammed open against their stops.

“ARE THOSE DAMN SKELETONS BACK?!”

“It’s daytime, dad!”

“Heavens, Princess, what are you wearing?!”

“MY LAUNDRY!”

“Princess!!! There’s an animal in your pocket!!”

Zelda’s arms shot out above Link’s head. “Oh! No, it’s—" a number of crickets landed on her midsection. “Oh, my,” she said, hers the calmest voice in earshot as Link tried to figure out how to turn his head the right way.

“MANNY WHAT THE HELL, MAN?!”

“BLEHHHHGHGHGHHHH BUGS!” (A door slammed shut).

Someone was shrieking high on the letter ‘E’ as Link, with a great deal of confusion, managed to twist around and see the street.

It didn’t help.

Manny was trying to scoop crickets out of the air and fling them back in the wood-and-mesh cage he’d kept them in, its latch flopping around. The appearance of Link’s eyeballs knocked him back onto his hindquarters with a strange cry, almost as hard as if Link had punched him physically. The cage landed lopsided—which was probably what happened a few seconds ago, too—and crickets streamed outward.

Ivee seemed every bit as terrified of Link’s disembodied head as she’d been of the potential pocket-critter and then some. One of her knees rose and crossed her body as she squealed, dropping her broom.

Her father managed to make a wide-eyed scowl at Link. “What in Hylia’s green hills?! Link?!”

Manny panted, gulped, and leaned forward. “L- Link, man. It is you.” He then looked from Link to the pocket below him, and up to Zelda’s face, an idea clearly forming.

“You-“ Link said, waggling a finger at him- “and me- we’re having a talk. Soon. Got it?”

For some reason Manny grinned wide. “Got it,” he said with a wink.

Link was confused, but he’d take it for now. “Good!” He twisted up to see Zelda. “Hi,” he said. A cricket landed on his forehead.

Zelda shook with laughter. “Hello, Link. Any jostling?”

“Not a thing!”

“Excellent. Well. Shall we continue?” she asked, shooing his cricket away.

“Depends,” Link said. “Do you actually want those frogs?”

Zelda shook her head. “It is far too many frogs. Manny?”

“Y- yes, Princess?”

“You ought to return those hot-footed frogs to the wild where you found them, though keeping a few would be alright. I have enough in here already.”

“E-enough?” Manny stuttered as Link leaned out to see just how many frogs there were and where the heck he was keeping them.

The sticky frog on Link’s back made its bid for freedom.

It launched through the air with a loud croak and landed on Ivee’s hip.

She shrieked, flapping her shirt wildly in attempt to fling it off. Link moved reflexively to yank himself out and recover the frog. Instead, Zelda toppled as Link simply appeared, connected to her leg. They landed in a heap, Zelda on top, with her face in Link’s hair and Link’s legs still dangling in the other-dimensional space.

“I got heavy again, didn’t I?” Link said to the dirt.

Zelda nodded in his hair.

“I’ll get you a new frog,” Link offered.

“No need,” she said, having turned her head to rest it on Link, watching Ivee quiver in fear as the blue terror slowly scaled her torso. “It’s not going anywhere.”

Link rotated his face to look Manny in the eye. “Seriously. You’re still trying this? What do you do, wait by the village entrance and offer critters to everyone who passes you?”

Manny leaned forward conspiratorially. “Only the hot babes,” he whispered.

Link groaned and put his face back into the dirt.

It was better.

“Here you are, Link,” Zelda said, passing him yet another apple.

Not that he wouldn’t take it, but wow, she wanted him to eat today, didn’t she?

“Thanks, Zel!” He grabbed it and made extremely short work of it. He tried to shove the core in his own pouch again, wrinkling his nose when it just hit bottom and got his hand sticky. “Aw. I keep forgetting.”

Her hand reappeared in the opening as she chuckled. “It must feel strange to suddenly have an ordinary pouch.”

“You bet. Don’t know how I managed before.”

“Well, fret not. You shall have access to your many thousands of odds and ends once you emerge.”

Good thing, too. He’d’ve had some kind of breakdown if bringing his pouch inside THIS pouch had broken his pouch forever.

He had over a dozen omelets in there, to say nothing of a now exceedingly rare undecayed eightfold blade.

It struck him real suddenly why she was feeding him so much. He couldn’t just reach in and pull out a snack like he usually could.

He found himself very warm and fuzzy. He turned his eyes on Zelda, still peering curiously at him. “Thanks, Zelda. You’re… really thoughtful. You know that?”

She blinked at him slowly. “You’re… welcome, Link.”

Link now understood his disembodied appearance in Zelda’s pocket was both an asset and a curse.

Sticking his head out among adults, unexpected? Chaos.

Sticking his head out in the Hateno schoolyard? Also chaos. But the screams were fun-kid-play screams, not screams of abject, world-view-upending terror.

The schoolbell rang.

“Awwww,” Azu said. “We just got started!”

They had, in fact, just started chucking insects, sticks, and chunks of bark into the pocket and watching, fascinated, as they fell sideways upon entering the magical space.

Zelda gave an indulgent chuckle. “I’m sure the frogs will be appreciative of your efforts, and It’s not as though we won’t be back. Go to class!”

The children grumbled a little as they traipsed inside. So did Link’s stomach.

“You know, they fed the frogs, but did I get anything? Nope.”

“Hmm. I imagine that’s because they’d eaten their lunches already.”

“Aww. I wouldn’t take the kids’ lunch.”

Zelda hummed a laugh, her forehead wrinkling slightly. “Are you hungry already?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Truly? It’s not as though we didn’t have our own lunch… and quite a few snacks for you.”

Link shrugged. “Hungry anyway.” She was still… looking at him, but not in the ‘oh look it’s Link, he’s so attractive and I’d like to be back at home in bed right now’ way or the ‘look at Link, he’s so silly, he makes me laugh, he might do something else funny if I keep watching’ way.

He could usually de-code if he studied her hard enough—but right now he had to look partway up her nostrils to do it. “You… have your thoughtful-face on,” he said.

“I’m always thinking,” she said with a smile.

A suspicious smile. “Yeaaaaaah, but sometimes you’re thinking harder.”

She cocked her head, still watching him.

He cocked his, too, with half a grimace on.

Maybe it was the ‘he might do something funny’ face.

It couldn’t hurt to try.

Link spun around, spotting a stick Karin had tossed inside. He snatched it up, looked Zelda right in the eye, and took a nice, hearty chomp.

Her head reared.

“Mmm,” Link said. “Sassafras!”

It tasted like skunky-root-beer-meets-a-whole-box-worth-of-matchheads, but the look on Zelda’s face was worth it.

She only laughed a little, though.

He’d have to up his game.

Either that, or he’d just have to be attractive later.

He chuckled to himself. Why not both?

In the meantime, he had a bunch of items to arrange. Now that Zelda had this pocket, and now that it had frogs in it, and the kids had not only seen it but put stuff in it, they were absolutely going to want to visit the frogs and see all their stuff in use in the frog habitat.

Link sighed, looking at the feeble collection of dead tree matter near the opening.

As if on cue, Zelda reached in, a long, curled section of papery bark in her hand. “Would… you like this, Link?”

“Sure—thanks!” he said. He grabbed it and snatched up the rest, intent on turning the kids’ offerings into a tiny frog village in the corner.

“Link,” Zelda said, her voice carefully nonchalant. “Here’s some oak wood.”

Link arrived at the flap and took it from her. “Oh great, yeah, thanks!” He gave her a huge, excited grin and an eyebrow flash. Then he raised it to his wide-open mouth and stuck it right in.

Zelda swallowed, wide-eyed.

He disappeared to the left again with some small shuffling sounds.

She then heard a crack, and a happy sound from Link.

Zelda began to think frantically.

“H- here you are, Link,” Zelda said.

Link turned from his task to see her hand dangling a scrap of leather into the opening.

He bounded over to her, reaching for the offering. Zelda seemed a bit less happy than he’d have liked, her lips pressed together and held there by her teeth. He looked her over. Then he looked the leather over. Not terrible leather. Not great. Nothing special. Big enough to be a blanket for a frog. He snorted.

He’d stuck a few different kinds of wood in his mouth since the stick made her laugh at least a little, but when she got serious he did, too, going about his construction efforts. A bunch more bark, several sticks, chunks of wood, and a sheet of slate later, here she was handing him leather.

What was he supposed to do with it?

She was watching him so closely!

…Maybe she got serious because he got boring? His mouth pulled in deep on the left. He studied Zelda’s downturned face. Maybe he hadn’t gone big enough. “Look. Do you want to see me eat this? Because I can totally eat the whole thing.” He could, too. He’d eaten way worse.

Her eyes flicked elsewhere, then back to him with a little shimmy of her head.

It was cute.

He smiled.

“No, Link,” she said.

He blew a puff of air out. He’d hoped so. “Just checking.”

She looked so expectant.

What was he missing?

“…Thanks, Zel! Be back in a minute.” He jogged past the tree and out of Zelda’s direct line of vision.

What to do with the leather? Zelda didn’t just do things for no reason. Maybe he should just ask her. But she wasn’t saying anything, so she must think he already knew, so it must be something for the habitat and he must be being dense, and-

Oh.

OH.

He was… really thick sometimes. He smiled to himself.

Of course. He’d even thought it was about big enough to cover a whole frog! It could be a little frog blanket. Or a mat. Or frog armor for a teeny tiny little frog army.

Link’s entire form lit up.

No, no. Zelda was studying the frogs, not playing with them. The kids would play with them.

…It would be so cute.

He sighed. He would resist. Little mats? For the cute little frog houses he’d already made with the sticks and stuff? Sure. He could make frog-tents, too. It was always light in the habitat. They probably needed someplace dark they could go hide in sometimes. Yes!

Link got to work, realizing pretty quickly he didn’t have all the tools he needed. He wandered back to the flap.

“Hey, Zelda?”

“Yes, Link!”

“I need some thread and some long, thin lengths of leather. And more rectangles of leather. Maybe…” he thought for a moment. “Thirty-six pieces.”

She stared at him. “Thirty-six?”

“Yep. Just to be safe.”

I am extremely concerned that Hylian mental status is negatively affected by enclosure within my cargo shorts’ lower-right pocket, Zelda wrote in her research journal.

As Link expressed his hunger despite his frankly gargantuan intake of food, I recalled that items retrieved from Link’s pouch emerge exactly as they went in. Food does not spoil. Vegetation does not wither. Animals do not perish. And indeed, nothing has occurred to harm the frogs we’ve placed in the habitat for study. Yet one would think if time stood still, they would not hop (etc.). Clearly, whatever magic occurs is complex.

I would be merely curious rather than concerned had Link not proceeded to eat sassafras wood (notably unhealthy). Indeed, for each piece of wood I passed to him after that, he thanked me profusely. He then appeared to develop an insatiable craving for soft leather! Is he unable to appease his hunger if he enters in a hungry state? And was Link willing to eat these items because he was truly that hungry, or has the space had an effect on his thinking?

I oughtn’t allow him to go back in. It took a good deal of convincing to get him to come out. He insisted he ‘wasn’t finished.’ I had to lower a rope in and ask him to climb it to test the effect of our gravity vs. that of the gravity within the pocket as he climbed. I was quite relieved when he agreed.

“Morning, Zel!” Link chimed from the kitchen—Zelda had made her way partially down the steps to the alluring aroma of honeyed flapjacks.

“Good morning, Link,” she said, her smile a little more tired than it should have been considering her large amount of sleep. She breathed deep. “That smells delic…ious.”

Zelda stared at the low table along the far wall. “Link?”

“Yep?”

“What are those?”

Link followed her gaze. “Oh! Yeah, the leather was a really good idea. I’ll bring those ones in with me today.”

She blinked, shaking her head. “You… what?”

“Into the pocket today,” Link said, flipping one of the pancakes. A few dark spots revealed wildberries embedded in it. “I’ll bring them in with me.”

“Link- I… was thinking perhaps you shouldn’t go in there today.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Well, for one thing we’ve other concerns. We are overdue for our visit to Rito Village. I know Tulin has been anxious to discuss his Zonai stone, and we shouldn’t put that off for any of our modern-day sages. There ought to be- some manner of succession, or-“

“Zel,” Link said, a quizzical look on his face as he slid the honey and blackberry flatcake onto a plate. “This… is nothing new, and none of them are…” he shrugged, waving his pan and his spatula- “old, or… sick, or anything. It can totally wait.”

“It’s not as though the pockets can’t wait.”

“Zel, you literally just started testing them out yesterday.” He squinted at her. “You were worried about just keeping frogs in there without understanding how the fake environment would affect them. Right?” He waited.

“Well… yes.”

“And they just plain old don’t like our little L-shaped pond thing. Right?”

“…They do not seem to particularly enjoy it, no.”

“Because they leave.”

“Yes.”

“So you can’t just take the little guys out and put them in our pond.”

“Not if I expect to see them again.”

“And you like frogs.”

“They are fascinating,” she said. “Not that other creatures aren’t – they certainly are – but, at least in our time, their effects on speed, strength, and stamina were poorly understood, though of course we can make some elixirs from them, and now with these sticky frogs having sprung from the caverns opened in the upheaval, there is so much more to learn. It’s not even just the frogs, it’s-“

She stopped at the huge, dimpled smile on his face.

“What is it?”

“You,” he said. He replaced the pan on the wood stove and dolloped some batter in it—then he circled the table and wrapped her up in his arms. “I love how curious you are,” he said.

“Even after all that time,” he said, far more quietly.

She’d snuggled into him, but his tone had her pulling back, examining his face; his smile had vanished. She traced his lips with an unthinking fingertip. “Link…”

He tried and failed to smile under her touch.

She stroked the subtle hollow of his cheek. It disturbed her a little that he even had a hollow of his cheek, with all the food he took in. He never used to. He’d had rounded cheeks, always.

“Sorry,” he said. “It hits me sometimes… how long you waited. For me. Because I-“ he swallowed. “Because I missed.”

She shook her head and crushed him to her, pressed his face to her shoulder. “No, Link. No. Truly. It wasn’t like that. It was as though…. a long dream.”

He nodded against her. She’d told him before—many times—yet it continued to haunt him, evidenced by moments like this. Sometimes she thought he didn’t believe her.

Sometimes she suspected hethought about it far more than he let on—wondered if the occasions on which he acted strangely were fueled, somehow, by that fall of hers into blackness and its consequences.

Not for Hyrule. He’d saved that.

But she’d spent eons and eons so very far not only from him, but from her own consciousness—and self-recrimination kept surfacing within him for it.

Zelda thought of his months-long korok obsession. Of his need to have hundreds upon hundreds of ‘seeds,’ and that need utterly overriding his usual (over)protectiveness of her, even to the point of him going when she specifically requested he stay.

There had been no pocket to affect his thinking, then. Perhaps an oddity of the flow of time had nothing to do with his behavior.

She worried at her lip and thought of the scraps of leather lined up on the table partway behind her. “…Link?” she asked.

“Yeah, Zel?”

His voice sounded thick.

She stroked his hair and took a deep breath. “What is the leather for?”

His eyelashes fluttered against her skin. He lifted his head to look at her. “Frog tents.”

“…Frog tents?”

“And mats and blankets, and I was thinking of making cute little sets of leather frog armor, but I figured that was just me being a little bored and not actually something that would spruce up the habitat, though the kids would sure enjoy it. Maybe we should get them to make some.”

Zelda breathed a sigh of relief. “You-“ she shut her mouth. Should she say something?

“Zelda?”

She smiled, her thoughts turning. “Link- you… you worried me yesterday. Considerably.”

He looked nonplussed. “I did? How?”

She gave him a look, then patted his shoulders—he released her. She walked over to her hung shorts. She reached into one of the storage pockets and removed a birch branch.

She returned to Link and held it out to him expectantly.

He just stared at her. He flicked his eyes to the branch once. Then he stared some more. “Uh.”

“What… would you do with this if I gave it to you?” she asked.

Link scratched the back of his head. “I mean… usually I’d whack a bokoblin with it- ONLY if it was red, mind you. But now with the pond, I could give it to the frogs like all the other stuff.”

She blinked at him. “You could… what?”

“Yeah, I can arrange it around the pond- well… it’s really in the corner, I didn’t want to put it right next to the water. It looks pretty neat already but it’s not even close to finished yet. It’ll be like a little frog village. Little log seats and tents, and an itty bitty frog campfire for them to sit at, and little mats for them to sleep on, and…” he trailed off at the look on her face. “What?”

“You haven’t been eating these?”

He stared at her.

Then he burst out laughing. “What?!”

She spread her arms wide. “You have been- taking bites of wood, and bark, and even rocks—though granted this is not the first time I’ve seen you eat rock-“

“Salt’s a rock.”

“That is beside the point, Link, the darling, obtuse love of my life.” She gripped his shirt with two fists and put some of her weight on them. It made him lean over with a bit of a droll smile on his face. “You were displaying- extraordinarily odd behavior once more. Please, please, explain your actions if not to sate your seemingly inexhaustible hunger while inside the pocket?”

“You thought I was eating wood because I was too hungry?”

“Of course!”

He huffed a laugh. “Why wouldn’t I just ask you for actual food?”

“I wondered the same thing!”

“You could’ve asked me why.”

She blinked, drawn up short.

His thumbs drew gentle shapes on her biceps. His eyes wandered all over her features. One eyelid twitched just slightly more shut. “Why didn’t you ask?” His voice had softened so much.

Her mouth opened and shut, her fingertips on his face again. She made a study of his features with them, moving from place to place.

Link’s nostrils flared a second before she noticed the burning smell.

“Sh-!” he leapt almost comically over the table (comically except that he was Link, so the leap itself was graceful and perfectly executed to place him directly in front of the stove). “Ahhh, this happens so much…” He flipped the offending flapjack with a flick of his wrist. The underside was, indeed, rather burnt, but she knew he’d finish cooking it anyway.

He didn’t turn around.

His shoulder blades shifted as he jiggled the pan.

Zelda circled the table, arriving at his side, his nearer hand still on the pan’s handle. “Link?”

His face turned toward her, and while he showed no outward sign of tears, she knew that face on him. They weren’t far off.

She caressed his bicep, his hairline where his head and neck met. “What is it?”

He half-laughed, shutting his eyes and leaning into the hand at his neck, just for a moment. “You tell me. You… didn’t answer my question.”

Her cheek came to a slow rest at his shoulder, her eyes on his, at a loss to explain. She didn’t know where to start.

Her silence seemed to hurt him, almost bodily. He winced. He moved the pan onto a thick potholder. He pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut. He took a few deep breaths before returning his eyes to hers.

“Well, you wanted to know what I was doing, so… I was just trying to make you laugh. At first, I mean.” His smile was very, very weak. “The joke didn’t land, huh?”

Her eyes had widened a little. “I.. thought-“

“It’s okay,” he said. A small smirk touched his face. “I’m funnier when I’m not trying.”

A small laugh puffed out her nose.

“Oh ho! Yeah, see? I thought so.”

“I am sorry, Link. I thought it was hunger because you were simply insatiable all morning.”

He flashed his eyebrows twice.

She giggled. “That is not what I meant.”

He smiled anyway.

“You devoured breakfast, lunch, and every other piece of food I passed to you while you were in there!”

He shook a little in a laugh, though his face remained far less than jovial. “How is this unusual?”

“Do you realize how much food it was?”

“OH yeah.”

“And you were still hungry?”

“I’m always hungry. I can literally always eat.”

“You say that, but your stomach must be of limited size.”

Link shrugged.

“I’d begun to wonder if I the space you were in was affecting you.”

“Well, again… I don’t understand why you didn’t just ask me.”

The shadow she’d been seeing in him became all the more obvious.

“Link… you always say you’re alright.”

He shrugged. “I always am.”

“No, you are not,” she blurted, surprising even herself. “Link… I see it in you.” She pressed her hands to his face, cradling him. “You’ve not been- you’ve never been the same since I came back,” she said, almost whispering. “I see it there, in your eyes- and more than that. It’s a change in your entire body, your full self. Yet you always insist you’re alright. I do not ask because-“ she just realized it herself- “you would not tell me truthfully.”

She could see him floundering, but her mouth would not stop. “You have been acting strangely. For months, you were collecting korok- seeds- with such fervor, willing to leave me for long stretches of time, which had up to that point been quite unusual for you—and you refused to tell me what that was about, too. And then-“ she snapped her fingers- “nothing. No more.” She softened at the odd twitching which appeared in his left cheek—she’d no wish to come across as harsh—she simply could not contain it any longer. “Your night excursions worried me at first, too, and then especially when you mentioned the forest.”

“But,” he cut in, “you know what it was about now, right?”

“Yes, obviously now I know,” she said.

He shook his head, then cocked it strangely at her. More quizzical than she’d ever seen him be—there was another word for it. She couldn’t quite place it, perhaps because she’d never seen it on his face.

“So… why are you… still worried?” he asked.

She ducked, seeking his eyes from below. “How can you not know?”

He splayed his hands wide, face up, shaking his head. “I- don’t!”

“Link. You spent months feverishly collecting pellets of korok dung!”

He blinked. A lot.

Then he looked somewhere straight above Zelda’s head.

“Oh,” she sighed, her face in her hands. “I- I am sorry, Link, it was obvious you didn’t know, and that in and of itself wasn’t my concern. Why- why collect them in the first place? Even if they were seeds in the literal sense?”

Link groaned. Then he grabbed her biceps and rested his forehead on hers with a flabbergasted smile. “Wow. Wow. Okay, so, yeah, I didn’t know they were turds. Holy Hylia, I could kill Hestu.”

“Who is Hestu?”

Link shook his head. “Tell you later. No, you know what? I’ll introduce you later. We can shake the maraca tree together.”

Zelda opened her mouth, but Link shushed her with his fingerpad on her lips. “I get it. Why you thought I was nuts. Because that’s what this is about, right? You thought I was losing it, so you didn’t want to ask me, because of course if I was really insane I wouldn’t know anyway, so the answer doesn’t matter. Does that about sum it up?”

Her eyes welled with tears.

“Hey- hey- no, no no no, please. Don’t cry.” He kissed both her eyelids with a loving smile. “Yeah, I’d’ve thought you were losing it if you were collecting feces without it being some kind of study.”

She burst into a tearful giggle. “But not if it were a study.”

“No, pff! Of course not. You’ve studied nastier things. But that’s kind of my point. Like- I really thought I had given the game totally away when I told you I didn’t have enough seeds.”

“I… don’t understand.”

“Did I never tell you this?? Hestu- who you will meet- is the guy who does the magic to expand the pockets. And you have to pay him in korok seeds to do it.”

“What?!”

“Yeah!”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“That’s absurd!”

“He’s a trickster. Now I know!”

“What would he possibly want them for?”

“His maracas.”

“His what?!”

“His maracas! He sticks them inside and shakes them around and does this ridiculous dance and BOOM—expanded pockets! He can even make spaces within the spaces which is how I can keep all my swords separate, and my bows, and… and…”

He must have seen the look on her face.

“So…” she said, “if anyone is mad, it is this Hestu.”

Link snorted. “I sure hope so. Because if not, then it’s still me who’s lost his hold on reality.”

Zelda smiled at him. “I would love you anyway.”

He took his time folding her into his arms. “I know.”

“I… am still surprised you were willing to leave me for such long stretches of time. I was becoming lonely. At least, now, I know the entire ordeal was with the aim of creating a truly spectacular pair of shorts.”

He shook with silent laughter against her. “Yeah. Though… I was also trying to leave you alone.”

Her arms pressed him extra-tightly for a beat of her pulse. “Why?”

Two puffs of air exited him quick, fluttering the hair near her temple. “Because it’s been so hard to.”

The shadow in his eyes had risen to the surface, bared for her.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said, soft, her lips near his, her eyes treating each of his to touch after touch of her sincerity.

Link cupped her face and kissed her, his lips a bare brush, a gift of pure emotion, nothing taken. “It was. Shhh- I know. I know what you’d say, but it was my fault. I dropped. And it wasn’t because I couldn’t stand. It was because-“ a disgusted laugh left him- “it hurt.”

“Link,” she said, aghast. “The gloom killed your arm while still upon your body! It took even your shoulder. You were in agony-“

“But I could have stayed standing.” The loathing in his unfocused stare found her shrinking, though she knew it directed toward himself. “It would’ve saved me about half a second. When you fell. And I’d have caught you. As it was, I felt the air from your fingers as I missed.”

She couldn’t stop shaking her head, touching his face, his hair. “Please. Please, my love, do not do this to yourself. Do you not see…?“ She straightened. “You do. You do see. For if you didn’t, you would never be willing to leave me alone for a single instant of the rest of my life, ever. Yet you already have. You’ve intentionally forced yourself to do so. And why?”

His eyes shut under her hands’ ministrations. “Because I don’t want to drive you nuts.”

She nodded, her forehead against his so he could feel it despite his shuttered eyelids. “Which means you recognize constant, incessant vigilance is unreasonable. And if it is unreasonable under normal circumstances, it is certainly unreasonable in the case of an agonizing injury—one single moment in relation to it, and that is all.” She kissed his cheek. “It is not. Your. Fault.”

A tear met the bow of her lip.

“Oh, Link,” she said, kissing it away.

“It feels like it is,” he said on nearly no air, his diaphragm having already crushed the rest from him.

She took him against her shoulder as he shook. Saltwater jumped in fits and starts between the peach fuzz at the nape of her neck. She stroked his hair. “I know,” she said. “I know it does. We will work on this together, Link. Alright? When you feel this way, please speak to me.”

He nodded against her, the movement slowed by a nuzzle.

“And also… I do not at all mind you being my barnacle.”

A laugh burst from his mouth, cooling the freshly laid tracks of moisture on her.

“Please,” she chuckled. “Do so as much as you wish. In fact, do so even more, for I enjoy the unique sensation of my strides riding entirely upon yours.”

“You got it,” he said, his hand running warm over her back, as though he were the one comforting her.

She returned the gesture.

When Link recovered enough for his stomach to rumble, she insisted he sit. She served him the one flapjack he’d successfully cooked. She made the rest, and she did quite a good job of it, too (though in fairness, Link had already prepared the batter—by far the trickier part of the task).

They ate on the same side of the table, always touching. While Link had been right—she did want to study the pond-pocket carefully, and sooner rather than later—the day's priorities had changed. She decided to forego her investigation in favor of bed, where Link enthusiastically joined her.

Late at night, Link burst to wakefulness, shooting upright with a cry.

“Whhhhfauuha?” Zelda said, bleary.

“They’re all in on it!” Link said in horror. “Every last one of them. Every single korok.” The look he turned on Zelda might’ve been lucid.

Or he might’ve been sitting up in his sleep.

She just laid the flat of her forearm on his chest and pushed him down, snuggling back up to sleep. He didn’t resist.

“Hi, Hestu,” Link said, his smile completely relaxed.

“Link! It’s good to see you. Did you bring any more seeds for me?”

Link’s smile widened. “Actually, today I brought the Princess to see you.”

“The PRINCESS?! Shakala!!!” Hestu waved his maracas in a ponderous mockery of semaphore.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Hestu,” Zelda said. “Now please, in no uncertain terms, explain precisely why you manipulated Link into delivering thousands upon thousands of korok droppings to you in exchange for your inventory expansion services.”

The maracas went utterly still.

Zelda’s smile remained pleasant.

“Mmmm?” rumbled the Deku Tree’s voice. “What has my grandson been doing?”

Hestu remained balanced on a single, awkward, stubby leg, maracas-out, his only movement a slight shivering of the leaves in his branches. Then something hit the ground with a deep thump.

“I- I’ll be right back!” Hestu said, his wood-moustache shivering as he scampered with all the grace of a land-manatee down the path toward Mido Swamp.

Link stepped forward, feet shoulder-width apart, eyes groundward. He nodded with a sniff.

“What is it?” Zelda asked.

Link tilted his head. “Well. You know that saying about shitting bricks?”

Zelda peered curiously past him. “Oh. My.”

“Yeah.”

“Well.” She clasped her hands. “Perhaps we should collect it.”

Link took an extremely long moment to turn and look at her.

The corner of her mouth twitched.

Link burst into relieved laughter.

“I couldn’t resist,” Zelda said.

#zelink #tears of the kingdom #totk #post-game #post-totk #legend of zelda #loz #fanfic #romantic comedy #humor #fluff #hurt/comfort #midna's merry mixup #established relationship #link's house above tarrey town #frogs #a little unhinged at ponts

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