#also I am proud of myself for not going with the sliiiiiiiightly angsty route I had in mind.

[louwhose]

Happy belated birthday @mistresslrigtar! I wanted to do something in time for your actual birthday but it's done now! Some OoT Zelink that uhhhh don't think about when it is supposed to take place, but I hope you enjoy it!!

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“Link?” Zelda looked at the seven wrapped parcels in his arms. “What’s this for?”

He froze, staring at her with wide eyes. “I… thought I remembered you saying your birthday was today, back when we were kids. Did I get the day wrong?”

Her mouth fell open. She didn’t expect him to remember it, though she supposed he didn’t have seven years’ worth of memories for it to be buried beneath like she did. “You’re not wrong, but… one present would have been more than enough. I thought you said that Kokiri didn’t celebrate birthdays, so why did you get me seven?”

Link shrugged, and sat down so that he could more easily place them on the ground. Zelda sat next to him. “I thought the way you described it sounded nice. And I think the Kokiri would love birthdays, for the record, if they even knew when any of their birthdays were.”

She crossed her arms and leaned in towards him. “That is true… though I think I’ll have to choose a day to celebrate as your brithday even if we don’t know when exactly it is.”

“The day we met.”

Zelda tilted her head, uncertain she heard him correctly. “Hmm?”

“Let’s celebrate it the day we met,” he said. “I know from the Deku Tree that I was born sometime in spring, anyway. And…” He hesitated for a moment, looking back over to meet her eyes, the light catching his ears so that they looked redder than usual. “Honestly, that feels like the most important day to me. The one where I truly met the world.”

Now it was her turn to feel her face tinged with pink.

She looked down at the presents, and started picking at the twine holding one of them together. “You still never told me why you got me seven presents.”

“Oh!” Link sat up and gave her the goofiest smile. “Because I didn’t get to celebrate your birthday for all those years, either. And I may not be able to make up all the birthdays, but I figure we can at least try to celebrate them all today.”

“You didn’t celebrate ten before that with me, either,” Zelda teased. “Aren’t you going to get me presents for those years, too?”

His eyebrows shot up. “You’re right! I’ll be right back.”

He started to stand up, but she caught his wrist and pulled him back down to sit on the ground next to her. “It was a joke. You’ve already made this the best birthday ever.”

Link frowned. “But I don’t have any cake for you. And you haven’t even opened your presents.”

“Cake would feel extravagant when most people in the kingdom still struggle to find enough bread to eat. Besides—” Zelda leaned in and placed a kiss to his cheek “—I already have the best thing I could ever want.”