“Do you really remember me?”
It isn’t until she lays her head down on a rolled-up tunic of his in an attempt to sleep on that first night that she realises just how selfish of a question it was.
Her first question should have been “Are you alright?” or “Are you hurt anywhere?” , not a selfish confirmation that he knows her. He’d been bleeding from a slight laceration to his right cheek and favouring his left leg as he took those few unsteady steps towards her, but her heart had swelled at his confirmation that, yes, he remembers her.
He remembers most things, he’d told her haltingly, up to and including the moment he died. Her heart had ached for him, but the way he’d reached out to help her toward his poor, tired horse had soothed the worst of it as he declared that they should move on before the treasure hunters descend.
She’s aware of the treasure hunters, of course, having long watched over the castle; she has no desire to watch them swarm her former home like locusts, picking over the bones of the dead with irreverence and greed.
They shelter in the ruins of some old village that Zelda can’t recall the name of—but Link does, informing her that they’ve arrived at Mabe Village in a soft, wounded tone that has her heart squeezing. He wasn’t originally from Mabe, she remembers, but he’d had family here. Grandparents, if she recalls correctly, whom he and his sister would visit on his rare days off.
Good Goddess, his sister . She’d been in Castle Town, visiting with the rest of his family when the Calamity had struck. She’d only been nine years old.
“Rebonae Bridge is still intact,” he’d informed her as she bedded down for the night, covered by his worn travel cloak to guard against the night’s chill. In her borrowed tunic and trousers, the cloak and the fire are more than enough to keep her warm. “We’ll cross it tomorrow. After that, we’ll rest at Wetland stable before pressing on; it’ll be safe there.”
She hears the unspoken: They are not safe here . Though Ganon may be gone, his minions still roam the land, newly resurrected after the blood moon during the battle. Hopefully, now, the blood moons will cease and they can be put down for good.
“Where are we going?” she asks in a small voice.
“Kakariko,” he answers shortly. Then, in a voice so quiet she almost doesn’t hear it, “Impa will be relieved to see you well.”
She gapes at him. “Impa is alive ?”
“And Purah and Robbie,” he confirms. “Impa has a granddaughter now. Robbie has a son, too.”
They must all be so incredibly old … Zelda’s heart squeezes at the thought of her friends, ravaged by the passage of time while she and Link are still young and fresh. At least, in body.
“Oh,” is all she says aloud, staring at the stone ceiling of what was probably, once upon a time, someone’s kitchen or sitting room.
Another family that she’d failed. Another village of lives lost because of her inability to master her birthright, their bones long since turned to dust or desecrated by wandering bands of monsters.
She’s too exhausted to do more than lie there, mind echoing in the silence left in the wake of Ganon’s howling. It had been her constant companion for a century—to be without it now is… surreal.
The silence stretches on. What does one say to the man they cost everything ? Especially after he’d risked what little he had remaining to come for her?
“Will you not sleep?” she asks him, eyes on the ceiling.
“Not tonight.” He shakes his head. “It’s not safe.”
“But you’re exhausted,” she argues, and then yawns around her hand.
He looks at her; the cut on his cheek has clotted, the skin around it a warm pink. She wonders if it will scar, like the one that runs down his jaw. He’d received it during the Great Calamity, she remembers—a thrashing guardian leg that would have put an end to him on the banks of the Hylia River if it had gone even a fraction of an inch lower.
“You’ve had the harder battle,” he says quietly.
The wave of emotion is so sudden and vicious that it nearly chokes her. She pushes herself upright, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes in a valiant effort not to cry. She’s tired—she’s so tired, beyond the threshold of exhaustion, and all she wants is to succumb to the sweet relief of temporary oblivion after more than a century of consciousness.
So much is different , now. The world she knew has been shattered, broken to pieces and painstakingly reformed about the edges by the survivors. She doesn’t know how to live in this new world, where everyone she loves is gone.
Well, almost everyone. But how much have her old friends changed, over the course of the past hundred years? Are they still the same people? Will she even recognise them anymore?
She recognises Link, when she finally lowers her hands. She meets his gaze over the fire and is immediately swept back a hundred years, to that final night before the world as she knew it ended. The compassion in his gaze is painful to look at, given all that he’s suffered.
It hurts. It hurts to look at him when he’s looking at her like this. She lowers herself back to the ground, staring at the play of the firelight over the cracked ceiling. “Wake me in a few hours,” she insists. “You need to sleep, too.”
“Yes, Princess,” his voice is soft, almost drowned out by the crackling of the fire.
She closes her eyes. He doesn’t wake her.
In a way, the physical journey is just as exhausting as the battle with Ganon. Link tells her that he has a horse for her at another stable, but it’s out of the way; he’ll collect it for her later. She murmurs her understanding against his shoulder as they ride double toward Kakariko Village. It’s not comfortable, and they have to go slowly to spare the poor horse, but the only other alternative is for one of them to walk. With Zelda so exhausted, and Link injured, it’s not really an option.
The old, dirt road is gone, grown over from a century of disuse. Link is navigating the route from memory; once upon a time, merchants, pilgrims, and Sheikah had travelled this path. Now, it’s nothing but a grassy hill, bands of monsters roaming and harassing any intrepid adventurers seeking to brave the dangers of Central Hyrule.
Link dispatches them, much sharper after a night of sleep at the stable. Zelda barely remembers the place, so tired that she had fallen asleep the moment her head hit the pillow, and still not quite awake until she’d been fed and helped into the saddle.
She rides with her arms wrapped around his waist, comforted by the sensation of physical touch after so long of being incorporeal. She half expects the skies to cloud over red, to reveal it all to be an incredibly vivid hallucination that Ganon has her trapped in—to wake and find that they’ve lost, that she hadn’t been able to hold on, and that it’s taunting her one last time before putting an end to her.
But they wind through the small canyon and into Kakariko Village, and the world doesn’t turn red.
The villagers stare at them as they pass. They clearly know Link, if the way he nods and greets them is any indication. Of course they would; he would have come here to find Impa, to claim his Champion’s tunic. It had probably been one of his first destinations during his long journey.
He helps her down from the saddle with all the stately grace of her former station. She can hear the whispers of the villagers already, swarming around her like the buzzing of old court ladies. She’d heard condemnation in those whispers a hundred years ago. She hears it now, even without parsing the words.
“Princess?”
Link steps into her field of view, hand on her elbow. She starts, sucking in a breath and blinking at him. “I’m alright,” she murmurs, and allows him to steer her up the stairs to the home of the Sheikah chief.
The last time she’d seen Impa, her friend had been young and strong, leading her people in the defence efforts and coordinating refugees. The woman she’s met with when Link opens the doors for her is ancient; she looks frail, and Zelda can’t seem to reconcile the Impa of her memory with the tiny old woman she is now.
She had been valiantly holding her tears back for the whole journey, but the meeting eyes of her old friend is what finally breaks her. She bursts into tears in the threshold, stumbling forward and nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste to reach her.
She’s vaguely aware of voices floating over the top of her as she presses her face into Impa’s frail knees, warm hands gentle on the back of her head. She weeps for what feels like hours, unable to form anything more coherent than the occasional deep breath or hiccup.
She weeps for herself, for her kingdom, for her people. She weeps for Impa, who got old, and for Link, who did not. She weeps for her friends, who died due to her failure. She weeps for herself—for her lost, wasted youth; her failure to protect anything and everything that mattered a hundred years ago, and for the century-long battle she’d endured, with nothing but her faith to sustain her.
She weeps until the tears run dry and she’s left a sniffling mess in Impa’s lap. By the time she straightens, wiping her face with the handkerchief Impa produces from a sleeve, Link is gone.
Impa notices the moment she realises; she freezes, eyes frantically scanning the room. “Be at ease, child. He has simply gone to see to the horse.”
“Oh.” She shivers, wrapping her arms around herself. Link hasn’t left her side for more than a moment in the past three days, and only for the absolute necessities. She supposes it means that he feels this place is safe.
She doesn’t feel safe. She still feels like she may wake at any moment, to find him dead and Ganon preparing to devour her whole. She doesn’t settle until he returns, eyes scanning him up and down as he slowly limps his way closer.
Impa chides him for travelling with such an injury. He argues back, reminding her that there had been no choice; the fields are dangerous, with monsters everywhere.
He would never have answered back, before. The Link of her memory would have nodded, murmured an agreement, and allowed himself to be bullied into an infirmary. The Sheikah have no such facility, but he does submit to the tender ministrations of Impa’s trembling granddaughter without complaint.
Paya is a sweet girl, clearly smitten with him. Zelda can sympathise; for all that he is quiet, there is something about Link that draws one in. It’s not simply his good looks; there’s an aura of competency and approachability that he exudes that draws the eye, for as much as his quiet nature helps him hide.
They’re fed, watered, and provided with a room upstairs in which to sleep. The Impa of old would have insisted that Zelda remain alone, with Link taking a bed at the inn—but this new, elderly Impa merely looks between them and asks her granddaughter to set out a pair of bedrolls in her bedroom.
They take tea after supper, Zelda having eaten little while Link had managed three servings to himself. When it comes time for bed, Impa rests her hand on Zelda’s wrist.
“Rest easy, both of you,” she says softly. “You are safe in Kakariko.”
They rest for several days, long enough for Link’s limp to heal. On the evening of the fifth day, he gestures for her to follow him outside.
She’s been doing well, she thinks. She’s been functioning more or less normally, trying to focus on the fact that she’s free rather than ruminating on her long battle. Each day feels more real than the last, the earth beneath her feet and the wind on her cheeks grounding her in her new reality. The many eyes on her make her nervous, but she does her best to ignore it. Link is never far from her side; her stalwart protector, even now.
She gasps at the sight of the pure white horse that awaits her at the bottom of the stairs, outfitted in her old royal gear. “ Storm ?”
“Cloud,” Link corrects gently, sheepish. “I couldn’t remember Storm’s name when I found her, but it felt right to call her that,” he explains, placing a hand on the small of her back and guiding her down the stairs. “I found her out near Sanidin Park and left her with Outskirt Stable to be trained. One of the old men there gave me the saddle and bridle. Apparently, Storm escaped the guardians, and the stable worker’s grandfather found the gear sometime after the fires had died down and repaired it.”
Zelda bites her lip as they reach the mare, raising a trembling hand to run it along the horse’s muzzle. “I would expect nothing less from such a temperamental creature,” she says with a thick voice. As ornery as her horse had been, she had loved him. “She must be a descendant of his.”
“That’s what the stable worker thought,” Link agrees. “She’s got the wild strength and stamina.” He rolls his eyes. “It took me three days to catch her and take her down to the stable; she threw me twice.”
She gives a wet chuckle, pressing her forehead to the horse’s muzzle and closing her eyes. “I don’t believe you,” she declares. “Not this sweet beauty.”
“Just wait until you get into the saddle,” he says drily. “I asked one of the Sheikah to bring her here for you, and he says she tried to wander off no less than six times when he wasn’t looking. We may have to switch horses if she gives you trouble.”
“I don’t think we’ll have any of that,” Zelda murmurs, straightening and opening her eyes. “Thank you, Link.”
He ducks his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “I live to serve,” he mutters quietly.
And just like that, her fragile positive mood shatters. Of course he lives to serve; it’s all he’s got left .
“You don’t have to, you know,” she whispers. “We’ve fulfilled our duties.”
He blinks at her in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“You could… you could choose your own path, now,” she says, voice a weak, thready little thing. She doesn’t want him to leave her, but he deserves the chance. “You don’t have to stay with me anymore.”
Blue eyes look wounded. She wonders if he’s stopped wearing his stoic mask, or if he simply lets it fall with her. Probably the former, she chides herself. She shouldn’t be so arrogant as to believe that it has anything to do with her. He’s simply freer, now that he doesn’t have the eyes of an entire kingdom watching him.
“Do you want me to leave?” he asks softly.
“I want you to pursue whatever you think will be best for you.” She shakes her head. It has nothing to do with what she wants. “The land of Hyrule may remain, but its kingdom is shattered; your oaths no longer bind you to me as your princess.”
“But,” he smiles a little, cautious, “bonds of affection bind me to you as your friend. I would continue to serve you, if you would have me.”
“Of course.” She lowers her eyes, relief and guilt swirling in her gut. “But I… I cannot pay you, or compensate you in any way.”
He snorts. “I’ll sleep better knowing you’re safe with me. That’s all I need.”
That does it for her trembling grasp on her emotions: She bursts into tears in the middle of Kakariko Village, grief and relief and guilt swirling thick in her veins as he gently folds her into his arms. She feels sick with it, clinging to his slight frame and burying her face in his shoulder.
She’s vaguely aware of people looking at them, prompting her to cry harder; she knows he hates people watching him, and she can’t even pull herself together enough to give him even that little freedom. She stammers an apology for it, unable to stop her tears.
She allows him to usher her up the stairs and back into the house, vaguely aware of him murmuring something to one of the guards as they pass. She’s surrounded by Link, Impa, and Paya as they fuss over her until her sobs run dry.
“I think it’s time we left,” Link says quietly. “She needs peace and quiet, and too many people know her here. I’ve noticed the stares making her anxious.”
“Where… would you go?” Paya asks with wide eyes.
“I have a house in Hateno,” he says softly. “It’s safe, and private, and no one but Purah and Symin will know anything about us but our names. We could both do with some peace after everything, at least for a little while. And the Princess needs time before deciding what to do about… everything.”
“I agree,” Impa says, nodding with a small frown on her wrinkled brow. “What say you, Princess?”
Zelda sniffles. “Being anonymous sounds nice,” she whispers. “I’m sorry, Impa. You’ve been such a gracious host, and I’m forever grateful to the Sheikah for all they’ve done. But… but I…”
Impa pats her arm. “I know, child. Take all the time you need. Rest. We have waited a hundred years for your return; we can wait a little longer while you recover from your ordeal.”
“Thank you,” Zelda whispers, wiping at her cheeks with a handkerchief that Paya produces. To Link, she asks, “When do we leave?”
“As soon as you feel up to it,” he says. “Tomorrow?”
Zelda nods. “That sounds good. I’d like to see your home.”
Zelda has never been to Hateno before, even though it had existed prior to the Great Calamity. She remembers standing on the slopes of Mount Lanayru, on that last day before the world ended, looking down from on high while Link pointed out his hometown in the valley below.
Up close, it’s quaint, and quiet, and everything that Zelda has been needing. The villagers do stare at them as they ride past, but smile and wave politely at Link as he greets each of them by name. They’re stares of mild curiosity, rather than expectation, and Zelda finds herself weathering them well enough as they take a turn to follow the path up the hill behind the general store.
Link hums as they reach the bridge. “I’ll have to get rid of Bolson.”
“Who is Bolson?” she asks.
Link nods to the men sitting under the tree outside the house on the other end of the bridge. “The man in the pink trousers. He restored the house for me. Drained my wallet dry and had me single-handedly supplying him with enough wood to build five more, but it was worth it to reclaim my home.”
Zelda’s mind gets stuck on that word, reclaim . “So, this is the house you grew up in?” she asks as they get closer, casting her eyes about. The small pond with the tree hanging over it looks like a pleasant place to read, she thinks. Too bad she doesn’t have any books.
Link hums an affirmative. “I didn’t remember that when I paid for it, but a part of me knew I couldn’t just let it be torn down.”
“I see,” she murmurs.
She doesn’t get a chance to ask any more questions as they dismount. Link shuffles her inside before the two men sitting under the tree can call out more than a “ Yoohoo! ”, excusing himself for a moment and leaving her in the doorway of his home.
She can hear indistinct voices from outside; one Link’s, one the slightly effeminate voice that had called out to them. A third joins after a moment, and Link returns with a sheepish look. “Sorry. I had to ask them to leave. They like that tree, and I didn’t mind when I wasn’t home, but… the whole point of coming here was privacy.”
“Your home is… not what I expected,” she looks around. There are weapons everywhere ; some mounted on the walls, some stacked in crates—there’s a shield hung in the back corner that makes her gasp. “Is that Urbosa ’ s ?”
“Riju gave it to me after I freed Naboris,” he confirms. “I don’t know if it’s actually hers, or a recreation. Do you want me to put it away?”
“Not right now.” She shakes her head. “I… I just want to rest.”
“There’s a bed upstairs.” He nods to the staircase to the right. “I was here a day or two before the battle, so it shouldn’t be too musty.”
“What about you?” she asks.
“I’ll tidy up down here.” He looks around sheepishly. “I wasn’t expecting to have company, honestly. And then I’ll probably run down to the general store to buy something to make for supper.”
“Alright.” She sets her feet toward the stairs. “You won’t be gone long, will you?”
“Not more than an hour,” he confirms. “It’s safe here, Princess. Rest.”
The bed is quite comfortable. Zelda sleeps the rest of the evening, only waking briefly to relieve herself and eat… whatever food Link put in front of her. She doesn’t remember what it was, other than hot and filling.
The second time she wakes, it’s with a start in the middle of the night, alone in the loft. Residual panic from her nightmare grips her for a moment; where is Link?
Her heart thuds in her chest as she creeps down the stairs, finding the door wide open. Peeking through, she spies him on the ledge above the river, eyes turned to the northern skies.
“Link?” she calls.
He glances back at her. “Are you alright, Princess?”
“I had a nightmare,” she admits, feeling like a child. “Why are you awake?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” He shrugs, gesturing for her to approach. “Come here, let me show you something.”
She creeps forward, her eyes following the line of his arm as he points to the sky in the north. Stars twinkle above as she fixes her eyes to the very top of Mt Lanayru, on the blue and white dragon circling its peak.
“She was infected with malice the first time I saw her.” Link drops his arm, hands loose at his sides. “I had to chase her down the mountainside to free her from it.”
Zelda gasps. It’s her first time seeing a dragon. “Is that…?”
“Naydra, the spirit of the Spring of Wisdom,” he confirms. “I don’t know how long the Malice had her, but she let me knock a scale off when I freed her.”
They watch in silence as the serpentine body undulates through the air, then begins to descend the mountainside. It’s like her, she realises; something supposed to be both powerful and wise, trapped within a prison of evil before he freed her.
“She’s beautiful.” She folds her hands together, watching as the dragon dips low and vanishes from sight behind the ridge. “And I’m sure she’s grateful.”
She’s not sure whether she’s talking about herself, or the dragon. Her nightmare is still echoing in her mind—a warped recollection of that awful night in Blatchery Plain, where he died for good—as she wraps her arms around herself.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, turning to her solicitously.
Everything. Everything is wrong. Ganon may be gone, but so are their families, their friends, even their acquaintances . Impa is still here, and so are they, and Robbie and Purah, but none of them are really the same any more. The versions of themselves that they were when Ganon awakened are dead and gone, just like the rest of Hyrule.
She feels warm arms circle around her as the tears come once again. She clings to the fabric of her own nightgown. She’s so tired of crying. Will the tears ever fully dry up?
“It’s alright,” he murmurs into her hair. “You’re safe.”
“It’s not alright,” she sniffles. “They’re all gone , Link. All of them.”
“I know,” he whispers. “I miss them, too.”
She’s not sure how long they stand like that. The air grows frosty as the night progresses, until she’s shivering despite the warmth of his body against hers.
“Let’s go inside,” he murmurs, pulling back. “It’s cold out here.”
She sniffles and nods, wiping her face with the sleeve of her nightgown. She takes comfort in the warmth of Link’s hand at the small of her back as he guides her up the stairs and sits with her on the bed.
“Will you come to sleep now?” she asks, blinking at him with puffy eyes.
“Yeah, I’ve got some blankets I can pull out downstairs.” He runs his hand through his hair as he stands. “I’ll be warm enough.”
“What?” She stares at him, uncomprehending for a moment.
“Good night, Princess.” He gives her a tired smile, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder before turning toward the stairs.
Then, she realises that he’s intending to sleep downstairs, on the cold, hard floor. Her hand shoots out to wrap around his wrist in desperation. “No, Link—this is your bed,” she insists, scrambling off of it.
“It’s okay, Princess,” he soothes, taking her shoulders in his hands and guiding her to sit once again. She squints at him in the dark, scant moonlight not enough to illuminate his face. “I’ve slept in more uncomfortable places. I’ll be just downstairs.” He pats her shoulder. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“It’s not okay,” she insists, misery creeping into her tone. “Link, how can you stand the sight of me?”
It’s a question that’s been gnawing at her since even before the Calamity. When she’d first found out that he didn’t hate her, had never hated her, her first question had been why ? She had been so incompetent that it hadn’t been a question that she’d get him killed; and she did . He’d died, and it’s her fault, and she’d selfishly denied him the rest he’d deserved . She’d refused to let him go, and how he’s here, with nothing left but the duty he feels like he owes her even though she’s stripped him of everything.
Now that they’re both free… how can he even look at her, knowing what she’s done to him?
“What are you talking about?” There’s distress in his voice, now.
“I took everything from you,” she whispers, her own misery choking her. “Your family, your friends.” She covers her face with her hands. “I even took your death from you!” she cries. “How do you not hate me for it?”
He steps away, and her heart breaks. Her eyes follow him, a silhouette in the dark, as he opens a drawer and does something that she can’t see to the lantern on the wall—and suddenly there’s light, brilliant and dazzling, filling the space. She flinches from it.
He turns to her with a grim expression. Her heart quails at the look in his eyes.
“I do not hate you,” he says firmly. “I will never hate you.”
“You should,” she whispers.
“No,” he argues, coming to kneel before her on the bed. “You stole nothing from me, Princess. Nothing . Ganon is responsible for all that death and destruction, not you .”
“But—”
“But nothing,” he says with finality. He takes her face between his hands, fingers gentle even with the roughness of his callused palms against her jaw. “Listen to me: I’m glad you put me in that shrine. You gave me a second chance, Zelda,” he says her given name with reverence. She never wants him to call her anything else ever again.
“With none of the people you love waiting for you,” she sniffles, feeling tears slide down her cheeks.
“You are here,” he says, thumbs brushing them away with tenderness. “ You waited for me. And, Hylia help me, I would do it all again just to see you smiling and safe.”
Her lower lip trembles. His eyes are so open and earnest, staring into hers with complete sincerity. She can’t help but blurt, “I love you.”
It’s quite possibly the truest thing she’s ever said to him. She’d loved him back then, and she loves him now, battered and bruised as they both are.
Still, her face turns pink at the admission.
His eyes close, forehead leaning against hers. She feels his breath on her lips when he murmurs, “I love you, too. I have for a long time.”
And then he presses warm, slightly chapped, lips to hers. She reaches out to take a fistful of his shirt in her hand, as if afraid he’ll change his mind and pull away. A lone tear escapes as she closes her eyes.
They’re not okay. Not even nearly. Zelda still has guilt and grief swirling in her chest, and Link has so many scars that she can’t even begin to fathom them all. But the press of his lips against hers quiets the worst of the howling storm in her head, and she chases him when he pulls back.
“Stay with me,” she breathes against his lips, meaning the bed—but she’ll take forever if she can get it, too.
“Always,” he whispers, and she knows he means it.
