#zelink fic

[demiboydemon]

I’m writing this smut where Zelda and Link role play that he’s a Yiga Spy she’s captured. The plot goes, she interrogates him, she slaps him around a little, then they have sex. But when Zelda is like ‘okay prisoner, now we’re going to fuck’ he gasps and says ‘that’s so immoral!’ and it’s cracking me up

[michpat6]

“What if we made the portrait ourselves?” Zelda lowers her head and kisses below his jaw, smiling at how his pulse quickens under her lips. “It can be our way of making it real.”

“You’re forgetting, dear,” he tilts his head to give her more access, practically purring under her touch as she kisses her way down to his collar, “Neither of us know how to paint.”

“We can take our time,” she whispers, kissing back up his neck before turning his head so she can lick into his mouth, “We’re not King and Queen until it’s hanging in the Great Hall.”

OR

Two years after the Upheaval, Zelda and Link are finally ready to take on their promised roles as Queen and King Consort of Hyrule.

OR OR

I have a gift for @between-star! Link and Zelda learn to paint together 🥺🥺

[zellink]

all the bells say - chapter 9: She Attends, Blind

a pre-calamity zelink longfic. [M-rated // chapter 9 of 28 // Act 1 of 5] Final chapter of Act 1!

>>Read chapter on AO3 or start from the beginning >>here

Chapter excerpt:

“It’s been a long day.” “It has, hasn’t it?” Urbosa muses. After a while, she asks, “How have you been since we met at the castle, really?” Everything flashes before her eyes—Rito Village. A dream of a touch, a soft voice. Prayers that remain unanswered, again and again and again. The swell of strings on stage, a song that sings of the end of times. The scorching heat of Death Mountain, the burn in her throat and the heat upon her skin. His perilous gaze, blue, blue, blue. The finished portrait—his gaze once again. The breakaway among broken pillars, in front of a dormant shrine. They all claw at the insides of her throat, begging to be spilled free. But there’s an ounce of resistance in her left, even after all this time, so she bites them down. Keeps them in, where they have always belonged, for letting them out certainly means making a mess, and such a mess can only slow her down.

>>Read chapter on AO3

[etherealperrie]

Peace

Link x Zelda | Zelink

Word Count: 1.7k

Contains: Link and Zelda being soft for one another | the "I would lay my life down for yours again & again if it meant being able to see you happy" kind of trope | excessive amounts of fluff | Link and Zelda being soulmates in every universe | Link and Zelda finally getting a peaceful, happy moment

Warnings: references to nudity, potential spoilers as the events of this fic take place after BOTW & TOTK

A/N: I've never written anything for this universe before, BUT, I've been playing copious amounts of botw & totk and have been thinking about these two a lot & how much I want them to be happy & be able to hold one another, so I wrote it! I hope someone out there enjoys <3

...

There’s something on Zelda’s mind. Her lip pulled taught between her teeth, that all too familiar crease between her brows ever present. Link knows that look all too well. A distant look in her eyes, as if she’s not really here in the garden of their Hateno Village home, but somewhere else entirely. 

Link knows not to question her, she comes to him when she’s ready, but he watches her intently. A habit he’s never really broken, whether he realizes it or not. His eyes are on her, watching as she breathes, letting her eyelids close, the summer evening breeze grazing her slightly sunburnt cheeks. Her hair dances with the wind and Link swears that for a moment, his heart skips a beat. He doesn’t bother to check, though, for he’s all too used to that feeling ever since it began when he first laid eyes on her over a century ago. 

Sometimes he wishes he could remember everything. Every look, every touch, every word they exchanged with one another. To forget even one is a shame. Perhaps this is why he refuses to take an eye off of her now. Every day, hour, minute, second, is a chance to make up for the gaps in his memory. To put her at the center of his world. It’s easy work for him. 

Zelda sighs and Link’s shoulders relax as she comes back down from wherever she’d gone. Sometimes she gets swept up into memories – some of them pleasant, others not so much. Link holds his breath for a minute more, waiting for her reaction.

She smiles and rises from where she sat beside the garden bed of carrots, closing the space between the two of them in a few steps. 

“Another dream?” Link asks, looking up at her. She leans into him, collapsing onto his lap, her arms wrapped around his shoulders. He welcomes her, wrapping his arms around her torso, pulling her into him. She’s soft and warm, a soothing smell of grass and soap enveloping his senses, reminding him that they’re both here. Human. Solid. Real. Alive. 

“Sometimes, when the wind blows over me like that, I can feel my mother’s touch.” Zelda hums, leaning her head against Link’s chest. At her words, he hugs her a bit tighter, wishing he could fill these empty parts of her. Zelda continues on. “Then, I think of Urbosa. I miss her.” 

“Me too,” Link agrees. He misses them all. Urbosa, Mipha, Revali, Daruk. Back when he and Zelda were no more than a Princess and a Knight. He doesn’t wish to return to those moments, per say, he’s happy to be here with Zelda having survived the Calamity and the Upheaval. Happy that she came back to him after the draconification, that he can touch her again. How lucky they are to be here with one another. Some days the survivors' guilt is harder to overcome than others. 

He wishes Zelda didn’t feel it, though. He wishes more than anything that he could absolve her of that guilt. Of every sadness. He’d bare it all himself, double, if it meant she would never have to feel it again. But here she is, reminiscing, sharing with him. Handling it with such grace, such beauty. She doesn’t know it, but her ability to carry on is what keeps him going, what inspires him to keep living despite it all. 

The sun is just beginning to set now, beginning its descent behind the trees as she readies to exchange posts with the moon. The wind picks up, blowing a cool breeze over the two of them. Link watches a chill spread across Zelda’s exposed shoulder, her lip quivering for a brief moment. 

For a moment he’s sucked into his mind, a memory washing over him. Zelda knelt in waist deep water praying to the Goddess Hylia – pleading, really – in hopes of discovering her power. He’d been ordered to stand and watch guard while she prayed, ensuring her safety. But, goddess, it took everything in his power to keep his back turned to her.

Link would never admit this to anyone, but that night he couldn’t turn a blind eye to the tremble in her voice. While she prayed, he turned over his shoulder to catch just a glimpse of her. Bathed in the glow of the moon, her porcelain skin reflecting the constellations above and the water below she looked, well, heavenly. More like a goddess than Hylia herself, Link had half a mind to fall on bended knee and worship Zelda. 

Underneath, though, he could see her shivering. Her teeth chattered as she begged with the Goddess to show her something, anything that could help in their battle against Calamity Ganon. Her fists clenched, her shoulders heaved as tears began to spill over and trail down her cheeks. Link wanted nothing more in that moment than to rush to her side, wipe the tears from her cheeks with the calloused pad of his thumb and pull her from the water. But he’d taken a vow of silence. A vow to protect the Princess. He couldn’t act on impulse, on desire.

Link lets out a quiet laugh now, running his thumb over Zelda’s exposed shoulder, hoping to warm away the chills. She tucks into him, exhaling a breath at his touch. Foolish, he thinks, to have ever thought that desire for the Princess would ever disappear – he’s destined to love her forever, in every lifetime, in every timeline. 

It’s a relief to be able to act on impulses now. To care for her in his own way, to warm her shivering body with his, to take her pain away. 

Zelda feels Link’s eyes on her and she wonders what he’s thinking. She wonders if he’s just as content as she is to sit here, in his lap, forever. She wouldn’t doubt it, sometimes it feels as though he’d sit with her all day, if she would let him. She often has to remind him that she’s okay. That she’s not going to go anywhere. Though, she often has to convince herself of that fact first. They’ve been through so much in the past century, the past handful of years since the Calamity and the Upheaval. So much loss, that some nights she clings to Link in her sleep to keep her tethered to this reality, to prevent fate from taking her away again. 

“I think we’ve done enough work for today,” Link says, moving one of his arms and sliding it under Zelda’s knees, lifting her into a bridal carry in one swift motion. Zelda gasps, tightening her grip as if she’s ever once had to worry she isn’t safe in his arms. She’s never felt more safe in her life, and that’s not an easy thing for the Princess to feel. Even if, goddess forbid, something were to tear them apart again, she knows that somehow Link will return to her. 

The next few minutes between the Princess and the Knight happen in total silence and almost without thought. All Link knows is that he wants to make Zelda comfortable. So, a bath is drawn. 

Steam rises from the tub as Zelda sinks into the water, the chill of the evening leaving her body. She tips her head back, the ends of her hair skimming the surface, as she rests her head against the wall, turning at the sound of footsteps approaching. 

Link slips into the washroom, his eyes glinting at the sight of her – two lush green eyes set in a hazy glow of peach and pink. He smiles, elated to see her so relaxed, even more so to see her smiling back at him. 

“Might I join you?” he asks, already slipping out of his tunic.

Zelda hums in encouragement, watching as Link lifts his tunic over his head. She watches with wide eyes, as if she’d never seen him like this before. Perhaps it’s because she doesn’t remember much of anything from her time in the skies, that she would be remiss to not take every moment with her knight as something precious. 

She drinks in the sight of his muscled back, tan, naked skin marked with blotches of color – some yellow, others purple – bruises, from his endless battles. In the next second, he’s fully exposed and her eyes are mapping every freckle and scar, each with its own memory. 

Soon, Link is standing just above her as she shimmies back, spreading her legs to make ample room for him to rest. It’s not often that she gets to hold him, so when his back is pressed against her front seconds later, his head resting against her chest, those crystalline blue eyes looking up at her from below, she feels as though her heart might beat through her chest. She’s certain he can feel it. 

He can. And, goddess, what a sensation. The moment his bare skin comes into contact with hers, Zelda’s fingertips skimming up the length of his body from his hip, across his torso, and up his neck stopping to circle each mark, he is reborn. 

Zelda asks about each one, tracing her fingers across Link’s skin again and again, desperate to know the story that led to every blemish. Link entertains her, his eyes falling shut as he recalls spats and battles, some she was present for and others not. He surprises himself with a few stories. He was certain he’d forgotten some, but with her hands on him, he recalls them with ease. Zelda smiles as she listens to him, the cushion of his body beneath her hand. She stifles a laugh when she notices a trail of chills following in her wake as her hand wanders Link’s body. It’s sweet to know the effect she has on him, she’ll never tell him that she knows, so she revels in the discovery while his eyes are closed. 

They carry on until the water is tepid, their bodies having absorbed the heat of the liquid and of one another. They wrap in towels, drying their skin, unraveling from one another for just that moment before tumbling into their shared bed, naked skin to naked skin. 

Peace is something the two of them are just beginning to know. Perhaps peace, the gentle feeling of loving one another, is the very thing they’ll cling to.

...

[bliindingfaith]

I finally posted the first few chapters of my zelink fluff-fest. Im going to go hide in the closet now 😂

[sun-aries]

Weathering the Storm (TP Zelink)

Here's one for the collection! Just some good ole angst for the soul!

Navy flags snapped atop their poles, the glass of the windows shook against the iron grates, and the rain pelted against the shingles of the roof: an unsteady rhythm that harmonized with the crackle of the firewood. It was the kind of night that left the queen reluctant to return home to her empty chambers.  

But soon, her chambers wouldn’t be so empty anymore.

Zelda often wondered what it’d feel like, having him to come home to, to have his things mesh with hers, to crawl into bed beside him and see him dressed less than proper. Her face heated at the thought.

A long while had passed before he came to her study door, a knock so familiar under the weight of his hand that she knew it was him. At her clearance, Link entered with wet hair and a fresh set of clothes, but his boots were crusted with mud and flaking on the carpets. Training must’ve left him a mess during such a storm.

Unlike at his homestead in Ordon, knights didn't get to stay in on a rainy day. Instead, they worked twice as hard on the slick grounds and through the misty air. Needless to say, the knights were pushed to their limits and as second-in-command, Link was no exception.

“You look exhausted. You don’t want to turn in early?” She said this even though she selfishly wished he wouldn’t; she hadn’t seen him all day.

"Nah," he replied, but the tired undertone of his voice betrayed him. He'd had many worse days, of course, scouring through unforgiving temples and facing ruthless beasts. But a hard day was still a hard day, and even heroes were exhausted from time to time.

But now he had Zelda to return to, and after a nice hot bath, he was just glad to be back in her company. She was perched on the sofa before the fire, with her frayed blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a poetry book open in her palms. Her pale blue eyes were more radiant than the firelight, her small smile warmer than its heat.

The sofa shifted as he slumped into it and the fragrance from his bath oils filled the air. She set the small book aside and lifted the old blanket a touch higher. “Are you cold?”

His face stilted with a fluster. There was a pause before he smiled and carefully scooted closer. Warmth washed through him instantly, but it wasn’t from the blanket. Instead, it was the steady pressure of her shoulder and the accidental brush of her thigh against his. He often wondered what she thought of in a tender moment like this. Did it fluster her too?

Zelda turned her gaze back to the fire; though they were solemn, her eyes sparkled in the flitting flames, and her brown hair spilled over her shoulders, soft and dark in the shadows but gleaming like melted gold in the firelight.

His fingers found the frayed edges of the blanket and fixed it over his other shoulder. “Where’d you get this blanket?”

Zelda tensed. It didn’t seem like much of a question in his head but when he said it out loud, it fell heavy on the room like he’d dropped a brick in a still pond.

They were weeks away from marriage now. But there was still much about one another that they didn’t know: her status as queen had urged them to marry sooner, after all. It wasn’t typically a problem, especially on evenings like these where they could fill the silence with conversation.

But his question felt heavy in a way he hadn’t prepared for. He quickly threw more words out as if it’d ease the tension. “It seems like your favorite. Is it your baby blanket?”

She opened her mouth but nothing came from it. Instead, her pale eyes glazed over, going distant to a place he couldn’t follow. It took a moment for her to say, “No.” There was another pause, long and drawn out, where he thought she might leave it there. But instead Zelda said, “It’s from the tower.”

His mouth fell open then, the word “Oh,” slipping out without him really meaning to say it. It was a sensitive topic, and he’d never intentionally broached it. He’d seen the scars that riddled her body, fading into the smoothness of her skin; he’d heard her voice quiver with an uncharacteristic vulnerability when she spoke of it. “I’m sor-”

“It’s okay,” she interjected, clearly anticipating the apology. “It’s fine.”

But it wasn’t. Her fear still festered. It was in the screech of an iron door and the thud of heavy footsteps and the menacing torchlight pouring through a door or the raise of a hand or a voice. It was in the fall of twilight, when darkness dampened her contentment like a snuffer smothering a candle, and all she had was her blanket to shelter in.

Some irrational part of her was ashamed: thinking how foolish it was for the bearer of wisdom to be afraid of something that’s done and gone, or how inelegant it was for a queen to cower under her blanket at any unexpected noise. But until recently, she’d had the fortune of not disclosing it to anyone, of being alone at the worst of it in the privacy of her bedchambers.

Whether Link understood why or not, he’d already seen her flinch upon awakening in the desert. He’d learned that she’d suffered at the guard’s hands in the tower – and at times, she was certain he was just as fragile at the fall of night. She could share this with him.

“It’s just…one of the few things that brought me comfort. I couldn’t bear parting with it. When the time came to reconstruct the tower, I took it with me.”

Link’s hand fell on hers, sending that familiar trill from the Triforce rolling up her arm, and she suddenly realized she’d been tugging at a loose thread. “I get that,” he said; his voice had been so absent from the room that it almost startled her. But it brought her comfort instead. “I kept everything I found too.”

A skittish smile tugged at her lips. “You do have quite a bit of treasures.” When they worked out the logistics of it, he admitted he didn’t have much to bring when he’d move into her chambers. But he had a rather large trunk of odds and ends that he couldn’t seem to part with, one that started to gather dust in the back of his own closet.

He smiled sheepishly. “What else brought you comfort?”

She paused, giving his question a fair deal of thought before answering, “You,” she said. “And Midna of course. Knowing you were both defending this kingdom gave me a great deal of comfort. More than anything, for that matter.”

Guiltily, her words made his heart skip a beat. It killed him to think that she'd suffered all along, that he'd never considered it or done anything about it. They'd left her in the tower, thinking foolishly that she was safe there - as a princess ought to be - and carried on, while she stayed back and anticipated the inevitable abuse from the guard only steps away from her door.

And yet there was a strange consolation in knowing that Zelda thought of him – that thinking of him comforted her, even at the darkest of times. She’d relied on them to save the kingdom and at least in that he hadn’t failed her.

Looking down at their joined hands, he brushed her knuckles idly. “I thought about you too…” he admitted. “Me and Midna would talk about you a lot.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. Sometimes, she’d bring you up out of nowhere, but other times it was like she knew you were on my mind…” He shook his head, eyes fallen downcast, and when the fluster rekindled on his cheeks, he rose his bare hand to scratch it. “But I always worried about you. I just wish -”

She stopped him suddenly with a soft but firm kiss on his cheek. His hand froze against his face, eyes wide and staring blankly at the tapestry over her shoulder. Her lips lingered against his red hot skin; her breath filtered through her lips and carried to the hollow of his ear. “Wish nothing. You saved me.”

Her words sent his hand moving on its own accord, before he even realized that he’d broken free of his stupor, and thread into her hair, grasping her head and drawing her into an embrace. His face buried into her shoulder, catching whiff of her warm, familiar smell and holding it in his throat like it was something tangible.

“You’re safe now,” he agreed, his voice hitched with his breath, but she’d shuddered in his arms as he said it. It was a reminder – half-spoken to himself – a vow abridged to the ones they’d speak at the altar only weeks later.

When she regained some strength, she drew back far enough to find his eyes, alight with firelight - and maybe also his assertion, and said, “I know.”

[jadevalentine-writes]

Playing TOTK makes my brain go brrrgh so have some pre-BOTW ZeLink fic ideas that have been rattling around in my head for the last month:

Zelda POV on Link obtaining the Master Sword. Spoiler Alert: she kind of resents him for it. It's a study on how natural his talent is whereas she has to try so hard to unlock her own.

A counterpoint that she did not always resent him. Background of how Link came to be in the royal guard and that one time he stepped in when an undercover Yiga Clan member snuck into an emissary's entourage and tried to knife Zelda. How Link kept guard at her bedroom door all night and when she finally passed out in a chair, he plopped her in bed and slept on the floor near her door.

When they embark on Zelda's power unlocking quest together.

When they arrive at an inn drenched and there is only one room left with a small bed.

When they are ambushed on the road and Zelda gets kicked from her horse. Link yanks her onto his and they skedaddle. It's only when they stop miles later that Link collapses off his horse with a abdomen wound. Wound tending and alightly panicked Zelda my beloved while Link calmly walks her through a field dressing.

Awkward times at Zora's Domain (aka Link and Mipha avoiding each other and baby Sidon sticking to Link like glue).

THE POOL OF COURAGE SCENE

Zelda complaining of Link to a young Impa and that Shiekah poet she used to adore.

Post-BOTW: Mornings in Hateno.

[onthearrow]

writing erotic zelink scalp massages as a means of flirting because these two can't talk about their feelings like normal people

[farore-or-less]

WIP for Forgotten Instincts

I'm chugging along with this next chapter, I promise! This one is a tough one because I'm making sure I get a few things exactly how I want them, and as a writer it can be difficult to articulate certain scenes into the proper words. But we are on Chapter 16 now (my god, we're 16 chapters along already!!) and we're at that rising action stage to carry on the remainder of the story and I can't thank you enough for reading, commenting, and enjoying this fic I've decided to share with you all <3

You can read Forgotten Instincts on Ao3! (Mind the tags and rating)

Spoilers and teaser below the cut:

Excerpt from Chapter 16: Sands of Indisputable Time

The snowy cabin looked just like it did when they had first arrived—when they defeated Vah Medoh and spent their first night together as an unwed couple. Everything was well organized and put away, no fire burning in the fireplace and the bed was neatly made, but as Link ventured deeper into the cabin he found new evidence of her. When he pulled the blankets off the bed and pressed them to his nose, he could smell the flowers still layered in the sheets with the spice of lust and her. Even beneath the musk and severe cold that was slowly fading her away, she lingered like a memory on the cusp of being forgotten, but he remembered. And he would never allow himself to forget. 

As he explored the quiet cabin, he came across a handwritten letter sealed in an envelope on the desk—the same one he had stood over when he discovered Zel wasn’t her real name. The letter wasn’t addressed to him, but he opened it anyway. It read,

Dear Selmie,

I can’t thank you enough for allowing me to rent your cabin. The morning sunrises were the most beautiful I have ever seen and the nights stayed warm and cozy with a fire burning. I know you said you wouldn’t charge me for the stay, but I’ve left you a pouch of rupees to show my appreciation. I hope we can meet in Gerudo Town to go sand surfing some day. 

Your friend,

— Z

Placed beside the folded letter was a pouch that Link recognized immediately. Bulbous and made of black leather, the thin drawstring rope that held it together was frayed at the ends and pulled taut to keep its contents hidden within. Sturdy yet worn with age, it would dangle off her belt for easy access or she’d tie it onto Jassa’s saddle whenever they traveled from place to place, region to region. It was Zel’s money pouch, and it was loaded with rupees. All that she had possessed.

Seeing that overly-generous display made his heart ache and his feelings turned sour like spoiled milk. He knew what she was doing. Zel was punishing herself in more ways than one, offering up all she had because she felt like she didn’t deserve anything anymore, and it was all his fault. He made her feel like more of a monster than she truly was, had backed her into a corner of her own design and if he’s unable to make things right between them, she could get herself into tumultuous trouble and he would be powerless to help her.

So he has to find her… and soon.  

[tired-twili]

Babe wake up new chapter dropped

[weirdmageddon]

Cumpleaños chica, no hay que preocuparse

AO3 MIRROR

Fandom: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Rating: T

Relationships: Link/Zelda, Link & Zelda

Summary: Now seventeen years old, Zelda is finally able to step foot on Mount Lanayru. Link keeps a close eye on her at the Spring of Wisdom, the final spring she has yet to visit to hope at awakening her sealing power. Once again, she is unsuccessful. Canon compliant imagining of events earlier in the day before Calamity Ganon awakens as seen in Memory 15. One-shot.

Tags: Canon Compliant,  Pre-Calamity,  Selectively Mute Link,  he talks a little bit but he’s mostly quiet and terse when he does,  Developing Relationship,  Hurt/Comfort,  Zelda Needs A Hug,  Non-Explicit Intimacy,  Cold Weather,  Huddling for Warmth,  Character Study,  POV Multiple

Author’s notes: Inspired by a conversation I had with a friend. It tickled my brain that Zelda wore her bare-skin ceremonial robes on a freezing mountain, not to mention in the freezing water. The expression and movement Link makes towards Zelda when the Calamity awakens in the memory gave me the impression that he was worried about her state earlier in the day as well. This fic arose tying the threads of what scenario was most likely to have reasonably happened earlier that day, as well as whatever caused them to be suddenly comfortable being so touchy-feely with each other that entire day as seen in the memories.

Beta read by another friend. I hope you enjoy. I don’t write a lot, but I like to think that I have a talent for grasping the “voice” of characters.

Title is most people’s interpretation of a nonsense lyric from Tears for Fears - Listen. Give it a listen if you haven’t. Give it a listen even if you already have.

Today is her birthday.

However, instead of celebrating her seventeenth over fruitcake with friends and family, she’s standing with her skin nearly bare in frigid waters. Her white robes blend in with the snowy landscape of Mount Lanayru. She has goosebumps all down her arms, partly from the below freezing temperatures, and partly from the premonition she feels in her bones.

Her silent but loyal guard stands at the entrance of the spring, his back turned away from her to give her privacy. She still doesn’t feel that she has much anyway, for she knows he’s listening to her. He always has, but doesn’t make it known.

Zelda stands small in front of the stone statue of Hylia, smiling down upon her in a way she feels is patronizing at this point.

“Hear me now,” Zelda articulates with a tone of resignation, “Goddess of Wisdom, Nayru. I come seeking your strength. The spirit of your sisters have not answered my plea. I fear that you may be my last chance... and I hope that it won’t be too late.”

As Link looks back down the mountain, his mind isn’t empty. It’s filled with thought he tries to push out to numb himself, but today he’s stirring on a few things.

Before their ascent to the Spring of Wisdom, Link offered Zelda her winter coat, but she refused. She said that she needed to fortify her spirit by braving the cold as a display of her devotion. He remembered what Zelda had said to him the day before:

“Lanayru’s decree is very specific. It says, ‘No one is allowed, under the age of seventeen, for only the wise are permitted a place upon the mountain.’”

Her decision to forego her coat did not seem very wise, but he knew better than to argue with her. He packed it with him just in case. He does not enjoy seeing Zelda push herself like this to what seems like self-enforced punishment. Her actions appear to be out of desperation at this point.

Link’s nose is running and he wipes it on his sleeve. His ears are warm and snugly tucked into his hood. He briefly glances over at Zelda’s ears and observes that they are pink and raw.

“Today is my seventeenth birthday. Father made me begin my training ten years ago to this day. And today is the first time I pray to you.“

She gives a gentle chuckle, but it’s not one that makes Link feel warm inside.

“Ten years...” she says. “Ten years of my childhood wasted to being ordered to do something as fruitless as this. The Calamity draws ever nearer. It could awaken at any moment, and yet...”

Zelda looks down at her hands and examines their lack. Her fingertips are pink and raw.

“Nothing...”

She’s silent for a moment. The wind blows steadily and the water laps as she puts her hands back down.

“I have great knowledge of the ancient Sheikah relics that legends say brought Calamity Ganon to its downfall ten thousand years ago. If only Father would let me learn more about them I could help... since I can’t seem to do anything else of any good. Surely it’s better than naught?

“If so,” Zelda fumes indignantly, “wouldn’t this be a wise thing of me to do, then?!”

Zelda’s frustration is understandable and justified. Link has seen it evolve every time she visits the springs to pray. He assumes that they could have started as prayers, but since the time he’s been tasked with accompanying her, she seems to end up talking her personal thoughts aloud and venting.

“At this point, I honestly don’t even know if you’re real or not, but please. Give me a sign... a hint. Illuminate my path.”

It’s year ten and Zelda is met by silence yet again.

She balls her fists and curses under her breath. Even with a new spring, she didn’t have her hopes up. Her color looks paler against the periphery of her skin being tinged red from broken capillaries. Zelda begins to sigh, but stops when the frigid air burns her airway.

“This was my last chance...” Her somber tone hangs heavy in the air.

“So, I failed then.”

The silence upon the mountain is broken when a powerful, freezing gale of wind from the north blows Link’s hood in front of his face and causes Zelda to halt in place, grabbing her own arms with her hands for warmth. Link whips his head around, the wind chill making him finally decide to make a break for it. He wades into the freezing water and grabs Zelda’s hand.

“Link,” she snivels, either from the cold or her misery, he wasn’t sure.

Link responds with a soft affirmative grunt and pulls her towards the stone landing, indicating that she get out of the water.

Zelda doesn’t even bother trying to fight against his urges to get her out of the cold water. She knew this effort was futile. She hates herself for being so useless to everyone. For, in all her wisdom, not figuring out a way to her power by now, ten years later. The heir to a throne of nothing.

The water insulated her legs from the air, but now that they are exposed, her legs are frozen in place. They’re mottled from poor circulation.

Zelda chatters, “I... I can’t move them.”

Link’s eyes widen and he lets go of her hand, and instead kneels down, reaching his arms behind her back and knees, and slowly lifts her with a grunt. Carrying Zelda, Link walks her down the steps of the landing and places her on the flat frozen grass. He takes his hood off and gives it to her.

Link then grips the hilt of his Master Sword and lifts it out of the sheath. He runs to the nearest tree and plows his sword into it as hard as he can, gathering wood bundles and bringing them back to Zelda.

The bag that he packed for the trek sits on the ground next to Zelda. He pulls out one of the towels that’s been kept warm by red chuchu jelly. The towel is white and the royal crest is embroidered in the corner with golden thread. He quickly takes it out and wraps it around her. He takes the other warm towel that was packed and places it on the ground for her to sit on, which she does.

Link takes the red chuchu jelly that was warming the towels and places it on top of the bundle of wood he set on the ground. He removes the bow from his back, takes an arrow from his quiver, and shoots at the substance. The arrow piercing the jelly creates a small explosion of heat that sets the wood alight. He looks back at Zelda expectantly, and the two move closer to the fire, sitting beside each other. He holds her hand. Her hand is so cold.

A rare occasion, Link gently voices his thoughts. “It’s dangerous to stay in your wet clothes in this weather.”

In any other situation, he would be bashful about insinuating she undress with him nearby, but he’s dead serious on making sure she doesn’t get hypothermia, if she hasn’t already. He glances at her with a pleading expression.

Zelda understands. “Please don’t look.”

Link’s expression shows exasperation, as if he wouldn’t even think of it. He turns and covers his eyes.

Out of his sight and by the warmth of the fire, Zelda undresses out of her wet gown. She quickly wraps herself back up in the warm white towel.

“Okay.” She sits next to him again, her arms and legs shaking.

“...So that’s it,” she laments with a pause. “After all this time... it was a failure. I’m destined for nothing.”

Her thoughts guide her away from the present, remembering how cold she used to be towards Link because he executed his skills seemingly without flaw or issue. He was naturally talented at harnessing what he needed for his destiny from a young age. Even now knowing Link’s hidden struggles he confided in her, and knowing that he doesn’t despise her for her inability to harness the sealing powers of the Goddess, it doesn’t change the fact that she remains unskilled and aimless at unlocking them at seventeen. She thinks on how if this had happened back then, she would have rather frozen to death in her pretty white robes. Link is so warm, however. He always was, in hindsight. She was just plagued by her own shortcomings. Even if his expressions were cold, his heart was always warm.

Link brings her train of thought to a halt as if on cue, pulling her back to the present when he wraps his arms around her body and holds her close in the warmed towel. He doesn’t say a word, because he doesn’t feel the need to, but he also just doesn’t know what to say. He presses her icy arms close to him. His body is so warm.

Zelda breathes out, with a cloud of steam, “Link... I...”

Making a quiet questioning noise, Link pulls back slightly to meet her eyes.

“...Thank you. I’m sorry for my reckless behavior. I don’t want to be a burden on you.”

Link doesn’t respond in words, but he blinks; his eyebrows lower, and he has a pensive look in his eyes. He then rests his chin over her shoulder as he holds her. Clearly, whatever apology she’s given, Link has already forgiven before she even stated it.

Link quickly grew to care about Zelda beyond the scope of his bare minimum duty to protect her as ordered by the king. Despite being fearless and formidable in the face of physical threats, Link was afraid of one thing: getting pulled into any drama or causing anything that could foster gossip of his relationship with the princess. A random swordsman born to a line of soldiers from Hateno entrusted with being not only the captain of a royal’s personal guard, but being the exclusive one chosen to accompany her on her escapades was enough to get him looks, so he kept his mouth shut and kept a few steps behind her. It pains him that he can’t show her the affection he feels towards her due to the hundreds of eyes boring into him every day. He’s never been close like this to her before.

But right now, the moment is only between him, her, and the Goddess.

Link still feels her muscles are stiff and quivering. The towel may not be enough. He pulls out of the embrace and puts his palm out to signal her to wait a moment. He stands up and starts performing bodyweight squat-jacks.

Zelda stares at him in disbelief.

“What... are you doing?”

Link is silent and focused on moving, engaging his entire body. He continues the squat-jacks until he feels himself begin to break a sweat, grunting during the last one, at which point he stops.

“Generating body heat,” he huffs.

He stumbles, taking a seat beside Zelda again and removes his coat, panting out puffs of steam. He takes off his belts and blue tunic, now only in his off-white long-sleeved undershirt. This should transfer heat better, he thinks. Over his undershirt, Link puts the coat back on and wraps the sides of it around both him and Zelda to form a seal with it so that the air is contained. Link again closes the distance with a gentle but firm embrace. She can feel his heart thumping in his chest from the exertion against her arms which makes her a tad lightheaded and giddy, but his idea is working. The sum of the fire, the insulation from the warm towels, the heat radiating off his body as well as his breath confined by the coat, is warming her.

“Oh. Of course...” Zelda responds sheepishly to the situation, internally justifying his actions with reason. “Yes, that makes sense.”

He tucks his face into the towel over her collarbone and exhales heavily.

Even with his back turned when she prayed, Link always kept an ear open to what Zelda would say. He had escorted her to the Spring of Courage just a few days prior; he vividly remembers hearing how her voice broke as she asked the Goddess what was wrong with her, and it made him deeply uncomfortable to hear her so miserable. He had turned to face her and gently counseled her to wrap it up for today, with his superficial reasoning being that it was getting late, but the deeper reason being that he didn’t want to listen to her hurting. He wanted to hold her tight at that moment but was still worried about professionalism and politeness. There wasn’t much he could do. But currently, Link is feeling catharsis for that missed opportunity.

The two stay like this for a half a minute before Zelda breaks their silence.

“Link. I need to tell you something,” she says gravely.

Link’s ears perk at her tone. He nods, softly grunting in acknowledgment. His breathing is still short.

“Two nights ago, the night after we returned from the Spring of Courage, I had an unsettling dream.” Zelda’s eyes become distant, moving up and to the left, as though she were recalling the scene. “In pitch darkness, there was a lone woman haloed by a blinding light. She was beautiful. I could sense she wasn’t of our world. Her lips spoke urgently, but I couldn’t hear what she said. Her words failed to reach me.”

She looks back down to the top of Link’s messy head and frowns.

“I woke up from it filled with a feeling of dread... dread like I hadn’t known before. Since that dream, I haven’t been able to shake this sense that something terrible is about to happen. And whatever it is, I’m not prepared.”

A lump forms in Zelda’s throat. “And I’m not sure why anyone would believe this sense of urgency coming to me. After all, what have I to prove successful communication with the Goddess? Nothing. And yet...”

“I believe you,” Link replies.

He is actually biting his nails internally, but he tries to numb himself to it and it doesn’t show. After accompanying her countless times, he knows how observational Zelda is and can’t help but trust her intuition.

“Are you afraid?” she asks waveringly.

Link bites his tongue, unsure what Zelda wants to hear. If he says he’s not afraid, will she feel like she’s being undermined and overreacting to a major threat? If he says he is afraid, will she lose confidence in his ability to protect the kingdom? The pressure is also on him to perform, just as it is for her. Hesitantly, Link confesses to his stress with a whispered humph. His arms are still wrapped firmly around Zelda’s body, and he rubs her back comfortingly, feeling the beads of the towel’s fabric under his hands. The sensation of his chest rising and falling makes her feel safer.

Zelda instead seems relieved at his response. That he knows how she feels.

“I just feel that—it feels that at any moment something awful could happen.”

Link pulls back to look her in the eyes, hands on her shoulders for coat insulation. He wants to tell her they’ll get through this together but he is unable to speak, or even know if what he’d say would be the truth. Zelda’s too penetratingly critical to believe it, and he’s not sure he truly believes a pointless platitude either, to be honest.

Zelda also looks into his eyes. After being accompanied by him countless times, she has learned to read her taciturn escort’s subtle expressions. His tight-lipped face communicates worry and pensiveness, which paradoxically feels reassuring to her. Her face heats up when she begins to feel her eyes involuntarily water. She’s always been a strong girl. She held herself with dignity when her mother died eleven years ago. She can’t remember the last time she felt hot tears stinging her eyes, at least not in front of anyone else.

At least the fluids in her body were warm again, she tells herself.

Link notices. He wipes her eyes with the towel. She takes the towel in her own hands and lowers her chin, hiding her face. He pats her back gently as she gives a hefty sniff from her runny nose.

“Let’s head back,” Link says softly. She nods, face red from both embarrassment and the cold.

Beckoning Zelda to her feet, he hands Zelda back her dress. Unfortunately, she has no dry change of clothes besides the coat by itself, and neither of them want her to present herself naked in a towel in front of the rest of the Champions.

“Put it back on,” Link gestures to her ceremonial gown. “I’ll keep you warm on the way.”

With Link’s back turned and eyes closed, Zelda dresses back into her white gown. It’s still damp, but it is not dripping wet. A good portion of the water has evaporated next to the heat of the fire and in part due to the type of fabric it is woven from. The smoky scent of embers still lingers in the cloth.

At the same time, Link puts his own clothes back on; he dresses back into his blue tunic and fastens the belt around his waist and chest. Once Zelda gives him the okay, he turns around, takes her dry winter coat out and slips it on over her gown. He takes his hood back, packs away the towels into their bag, and stamps out the fire.

He glances down at Zelda’s open-toed sandals, her poor toes red. “Can you walk back in those?” he asks. Even down the slope of the mountain, the Naydra Snowfield poses as an obstacle before the clearing to Lanayru’s East Gate where the Champions await their return.

“No,” Zelda simply states, shaking her head. She knows she won’t be able to. She was able to power through open-toed footwear in the snow earlier out of a sense of expectation that her devotion would be heard. But that thread of hope has gone nowhere, and she has since emerged from the Spring of Wisdom with a slightly more impoverished state of mind from their initial trek up the mountain. Her feet are also icicles.

Guilt hangs heavy in her chest for telling him that she isn’t able to walk in her sandals through the snow now, though she could earlier. Even when she had just told him she doesn’t want to trouble him, and even when he addressed her worry in his typical silent way. When will she just accept the seemingly endless lengths he’d go for her? It’s literally his job, she reasons to herself. Get a grip.

Link doesn’t seem to give away what he feels about a situation. Directly knowing how people feel about states of affairs is how Zelda naturally feels at ease with others. Even now she still sometimes finds her imagination running wild at what his attitude is for any course of action or situation, wanting to make sure she doesn’t accidentally step on his toes if he truly dissents but never voices it. Since meeting Link, she’s had to learn to understand that he is actually a very simple person, much simpler than she had initially believed. He holds no strong opinions either way and seems fine, even functioning at his best, when sailing wherever the wind may take him. She’s amazed and even a little envious at how ‘okay’ he seems with things all the time, but her slight envy backpedals as she wonders if an existence like that ever feels aimless and numb.

Numb like her toes right now.

Shouldering the bag, Link kneels down next to her and slowly hoists Zelda up in his arms with a guttural grunt, holding her in the same bridal carry as before: his left arm supporting her back and his right arm behind her knees. When lifting her, he adroitly puts a slight twist on the fabric of the dress around the contour of her legs so that the cold air doesn’t have many opportunities to blow in from under.

Link’s stature is slightly shorter than Zelda’s by about ten centimeters, but he is still strong enough to carry her. She is repeatedly impressed by his physical strength for such a small, lean little Hylian.

“I hope I’m not too heavy,” Zelda coos, “I’m so sorry to make you do this, Link.” The guilt of burdening him with more labor just won’t quit no matter how much she knows he probably doesn’t care.

Link gives her a look, a mild but confident one accompanied by an almost imperceptible grin. More readily does Zelda identify his smiles from his eyes than his mouth—the way his bottom eyelid just ever so slightly moves upward. Seeing his expression brings her a faint sense of relief, showing her that he has it under control and isn’t struggling, and also that she needn’t worry about apologizing.

He kind of likes doing it, anyway.

After taking one last glance at the Spring of Wisdom, Link turns his back to it and begins to move down the mountain with Zelda in his arms. Zelda doesn’t look back.

                                                      • • •

The two continue their journey through the snow in silence. They’ve descended down Mount Lanayru from the Spring of Courage now. The late afternoon sky reflects off the snow-capped mountain behind them and the snowfield before them with a gorgeous pale orange glow, accompanied by contrasting blue-tinted shadows.

Link glances at Zelda, and notices her eyes are closed. He thinks about how exhausted she must be, yet so determined to get the answers she needs. He knows she will continue to push herself, and he is determined to keep up with and protect her. Under it all, his heart breaks for Zelda. It’s not fair. Time after time, she dedicates herself fully. Just like him. She puts just as much effort into her training as he does, yet gets nothing out of it but reminders of her inadequacy. Link was naturally born with a gravitation towards swordsmanship. He enjoys the thrill, making sense of and creating his own techniques, and seeing how he has improved. In this way, he thinks Zelda is even stronger than he is for having to put up with training she loathes and sees no progress out of for ten years. If she were able to freely chase her intellectual pursuits instead of being required to play her role as princess for the kingdom, Link is certain she’d have as much skill in her own niche as he does in his own, and would actually be satisfied with her own accomplishments. And doing this on her birthday no less? He wants nothing more than to cook something delicious for her today in comfort and safety. She deserves it. She deserves it so much. She pours hours into dedicating herself to the benefit of everyone. And for that, he feels himself bonded to her, and especially after today, a deeper sense of devotion and protectiveness towards her than he has ever felt before.

Without much thought, he holds her closer as he carries her through the afternoon-lit snowfield, hands squeezing her back and legs which causes her eyes to flutter open. The air is gradually getting warmer and the snow is thinning under his boots. He’s starting to tire a bit, but continues forward.

With grass now under their feet, Link puts Zelda down. The air is warmer here and Zelda is noticing she’s getting sweaty with anticipation. She takes off her coat and hands it to Link who promptly bags it.

Approaching the east gate, her expression becomes more and more pensive at the prospect of informing the Champions of her failure again and squashing their hope. They’ve given her so much encouragement. It’s only fair that they get something in return for the time and hope they’ve invested into her endeavors. She feels herself to be a hope sink. Not to mention, what is she going to tell her father back at the castle...? From behind her, Link sees her head bow slightly.

“Zelda,” Link speaks with that gentle breathy tone of his that he rarely uses. He knows Zelda doesn’t care for him addressing her with formalities such as Princess.

She stops and turns her head to him, knowing that it’s important enough for him to speak about. His expression is neutral but there’s an inhibited fondness behind it. “Yes?”

Link saunters until he’s caught up with Zelda, stopping next to her. He reaches from below and holds her hand, lacing his fingers between hers.

“Happy birthday.”

[demiboydemon]

Two clips of the same fic that are polar opposites:

Besides, he was in a hurry. He had a self-imposed, arbitrary deadline that he took very seriously.

And

It was quiet after the beast fell; not a peaceful silence, but the kind of silence that came from something terrible being over. Link wondered if the terrible thing was the monster, or his slaughter of it.

Edit: it’s finished! Here’s the link!

[viktorybell]

Growing Pains

Link x Zelda

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: self deprecating thoughts, gets pretty suggestive in certain places (wink wink nudge nudge) but nothing too explicit

a/n: this is insanely self-indulgent, not apologizing

Zelda came home at 6, dragging her weary feet across the village of Hateno long after the last child left the school house. She always does this to herself, staying until the last child is picked up by their parents. One of her coworkers even offered to let her off early today, their numbers lower than ever on the last day of school before summer. Of course, her perfectionist tendencies wouldn’t let her accept the offer, allowing somebody else to leave as she kept struggling with over thirty excitable children desperate to be done with school.

The walk home has never felt so slow and agonizing, the sight of her simple Hateno home never more comforting. Zelda slings her bag further up her shoulder as she bullies the old, creaky door open with a hip. Immediately she’s hit with the smell of something warm and comforting coming from the kitchen. The tension leaves her shoulders, nearly dropping an armful of student drawings and her long drained coffee thermos.

It’s usually a 50/50 shot whether Link will be home after Zelda finishes her shift at the school, her partner so prone to helping with one of a million tedious tasks around the village. His caring nature and drive to help others warms Zelda’s heart, usually setting it aflutter, but she can’t deny her relief at Link’s presence in their shared home. With a meal to boot? Zelda could kiss him.

“That smells divine…” She mumbles, trudging to their small kitchen table to add her load to a growing pile of clutter that’s began to form in the chaos of the last week of school. Arms free, Zelda shuffles over to where Link is humming over the stove top, his hips swaying in such a way that she has to refrain from gripping at them. Instead she settles for pressing her chest to his back, arms wrapping around his torso snugly as she noses along the nape of his neck. Link tries his best to act unfazed as she presses chaste kisses up and up towards his ear, watching it twitch slightly, the tip tinged red. As stoic as her knight likes to play, she knows the cracks in his armor and it makes her grin.

“I just finished cooking,” Link hums as he leans back slightly into his princess’ hold. On the stove is a steaming…disk? She’s never seen something of the like before, almost looking like the circular flat breads she enjoys with every other meal in Gerudo Valley. 

“What…is that?” Zelda asks almost nervously. She trusts in his culinary ability, knowing damn well she can barely manage to boil water herself. However, at the same time she’s seen Link choke down dubious concoctions of frogs and monster bits alongside actual goddess forsaken rocks. So it’s sort of a toss up.

Link chuckles as he carefully begins cutting the circular bread in half with a satisfying crunch. “Pizza.”

Zelda nods and hums in response, like she totally understands whatever the fuck Link just said. There’s silence for a moment more before she cannot physically hold her tongue any longer. “Is that a real word or are you just messing with me and this is going right over my head?”

“It’s new,” Link says, not bothering to hide his laughter at Zelda’s response as he quarters the pizza. “Koyin needed my help at the lake. Sent me on like ten different missions today, and ended with us getting more cheese than we can eat.”

“Cheese?” Zelda repeats, the word scratching at a memory just beyond her grasp. Something she must have read in passing.

She had been doing research into the culture and history of Hateno Village back when she first returned from her 100 year stint keeping Calamity Ganon down. It had been hard to walk out of Link’s meager home, the world around her new and strange and different from the one she once knew. Worse than that she was scared of the people. Her people. Scared of what they’d think, scared they’d blame her for their losses. Their princess, the goddess’ chosen hero of wisdom, missing for a century and somehow getting to show up again seemingly unscathed. It had taken her a long time before she was able to step foot into town. Months even. Probably would’ve lasted an entire year if Link’s home had not been truly desolate and mind numbingly plain. There was only so many times she could rearrange their three pieces of furniture before even the ridicule of her beloved people outweighed the boredom of staring out the same window for hours on hours as she waited for Link to return.

The town library had been her first stop.

“Yeah, cheese. Koyin even lent me an old recipe from her grandfather. Pizza,” Link explains as he pulls a quarter of the pizza apart from the circle. Long, steaming strings of cheese connect the slice to the remaining pieces. Zelda’s stomach growls where it’s pressed to Link’s back, both of them freezing up at the sound. Link sets the pizza back down and gives her a curious look over his shoulder. “Have you eaten at all today?”

Not wanting to worry her partner, Zelda immediately slips into damage control mode. She leans in, pressing another hot line of kisses up the side of Link’s neck. These ones are open mouthed and lingering compared to the light pecks from earlier, lightly dragging her teeth across a bruise she’d left there earlier in the week. Link’s ear twitches again, harder this time as his focus slips a bit, but he pulls himself together at the last moment. He turns in Zelda’s arms to give her a disappointed look.

“Did you work through your lunch break again?” Link’s brows are pulled together in worry as he leans back against the stove, putting enough distance between them to fold his arms. No matter how pretty she tries to bat her eyelashes, her stubborn knight refuses to budge an inch.

With a sigh, her arms drop from Link’s hips to fold around her own torso, defensively mirroring Link’s posture without realizing. “It was another half day at the school, and you know how many of the students show up to after school care when the day is over.”

“And nobody could cover you for lunch?” Link prods, still looking at her with those kicked puppy blue eyes that made her want to storm away and sleep the rest of the day away as if she were a teen again. Zelda hates that she makes him worry. Hates that she takes up space in his mind like that, hates that she takes up space in general. Hates being useless. Hates not being able to take a break. Hates constantly worrying that she isn’t doing enough. She doesn’t say it out loud. After so long at each other’s sides, she doesn’t really need to. Link sighs sadly. He doesn’t have to say it out loud either, but she knows he wants to shake her by the shoulders and insists she matters, that she deserves to rest.

“Come sit and eat,” He says instead, arms falling back to his sides. The tension brewing in Zelda dissipates immediately, her shoulders slumping like a puppet with cut strings. There’s a terrible ache in her lower back she hadn’t noticed until she stopped running about like a cuccoo with its head chopped off. She presses a light kiss to the corner of his lips as thanks, one he reels her in to return in full. The two only part from the kiss when Zelda’s stomach decides to make itself known yet again. Link chuckles against her lips, tapping her hip where his hands had slid up to hold her during their kiss. “Sit. Eat.”

“Unf, Link. You know how hot it gets me when you use caveman speak,” Zelda teases as she does as told, sliding into her usual seat at the table. Link sends a half-hearted glare her way, signing something along the lines of ‘go fuck yourself,’ before turning his attention back to their dinner.

As much as she adores giving her boyfriend a hard time, she adores every word to come out of his mouth. When they were younger, Link said hardly a word to her despite how many she hurled at him. Being seventeen is hard. Being the princess was harder. Being her knight was likely even harder than that. Zelda finds herself getting stuck on her treatment of Link, taking his silence for judgment. Judgment that he wielded the sword, a random knight from Hyrule goddess chosen and capable. Judgment that no matter how many days and nights she spent praying and begging for an answer, she was left in silence. Silence from the goddess Hylia, silence from her chosen knight. Expectant silence while everyone stared and waited for something incredible she just wasn’t capable of.

Zelda’s spiraling was interrupted by a plate pointedly placed in front of her. Link’s eyebrow is quirked in a silent question when she drags her gaze up from where it had been blindly boring holes into their wooden tabletop. A silent question from her no longer silent knight.

“Sorry, just lost in thought. This is perfect, thank you beloved,” She sighs, watching her love’s ears turn pink as he hurries back to the stove to grab his own slice. 

While no longer completely mute, Link still had his moments. They were becoming fewer and far between when it was just the two of them. Primarily when Link’s having a bad day. But Zelda’s found she quite enjoys his silence as well, now. Especially when its cause is sweet pet names that fluster the knight to no end.

It isn’t long before the two are seated and digging into yet another lovely home cooked meal from the hero of Hyrule. The pizza is unlike anything she’s tried before, but it’s something she could get used to eating. Her first bite is followed by a moan that nearly causes Link to drop his own slice. If that hadn’t proved to him how delicious the food was, the way they devoured the whole pizza in silence did.

“Link,” Zelda groans as she leans back in her chair. “You’ve truly outdone yourself. You must make this again.”

‘I’d make it every single day if you wanted me to, princess.’ Link signs the words to her instead of speaking them aloud, something he does often when saying something sweet. Zelda’s heart squeezes with affection, hiding a giddy grin by sipping from her water. It’s intoxicating to know she has such an effect on her partner. To reduce him to such a blushing, stuttering mess.

The air between them shifts, Zelda’s eyes going half-lidded as she stares across the table at Link as if she would devour him next. Which honestly, she thought to herself, wasn’t such a bad idea…

“The hero of Hyrule AND an amazing chef? How can I ever repay your valiant efforts toward the crown of Hyrule?” She teases as she stands from her chair and slowly stalks towards where Link’s staring with wide eyes. 

A strangled noise gets caught in his throat when Zelda turns his chair out from the table and then gracefully sinks to her knees in front of him. This isn’t anything new for the two of them, but Link is flustered and stumbling over his words like it’s the first time all over again. Unable to put words to his thoughts, Link settles on breathlessly whispering her name as her hands slide up his calves to his thighs. He shifts under her palms unconsciously, biting his bottom lip in anticipation.

“Ah, I mean - well…if you insist,” Link finally stutters out.

Zelda grins up at him wickedly. She flicks her short hair out of her face as she shuffles up closer, something she would soon regret as a bolt of hot pain radiates down her spine from the top of her neck. If she had been standing up her knees would have surely buckled underneath her. Her only saving grace is that she’s already on her knees and instead she falls forward and face plants into her partner’s thigh with a muffled ‘oof’.

The mood between them is shattered as Link immediately tenses up beneath her. Sitting up from his formerly slumped position, he gently brushes her hair out of her face. He’s nervous to move her and worsen the pain.

“Zelda?? Are you ok?” Link asks earnestly. It’s enough to make her face heat up and she turns away from his light touches and groans frustratedly into the meat of his thigh. She can feel him relax some as he gently runs his fingers through her hair. “You overdid it again, didn’t you?”

Both of them were aware of her tendencies to work until she, sometimes literally, dropped. Zelda liked to ignore it, which only made Link more persistent in his attempts at getting her to slow down and take a breath. Ironic, she thought, when Link was definitely the more overtly self-destructive of the two. Of course, she also didn’t see her overworking tendencies as self-destructive, though, which Link vehemently disagrees with. The two could go round and round about it until they were both red in the face and exhausted. Which sometimes they did.

“It was the last day of school, I couldn’t just…leave early,” Zelda sighs, turning her face enough for her voice to be heard clearly. It sounded like a weak excuse even to her own ears, which drooped down in shame.

“Are the other teachers really that bad at their jobs?” Link mumbles, starting to unravel the braids that circle Zelda’s head.

“What? No! They’re entirely capable, I trust them with the physical well-being of any of the children in Hateno,” She says almost indignantly, as if she’d dare let someone unqualified for the job risk the safety of a child.

“Then what’s the issue?”

That gives Zelda pause. She starts and stops nearly four different attempts at defending her actions, but still ends up short. Curse Link and his occasional wisdom. She hates when he makes sense.

“I worry…” Zelda starts, her voice small. “I worry something out of everyone’s control will occur. Whether that be a disaster of some sort? Another calamity? I don’t know. I just feel it all the time, this overwhelming dread like something bad is going to happen. Like…like…”

“Like the other shoe is going to drop?” Link finishes for her when she trails off. “I know. I feel it too.”

“But if I’m there, if I’m present, I can stop it. I can help them in ways other can’t, I can finally stop being so useless-”

Pausing where he was gently unraveling the plaits in Zelda’s hair, he gingerly takes her face in both of his hands. So light and gentle like she’s glass, like she’ll break apart into a thousand pieces so small they can’t possibly piece them together again.

“Calamity Ganon is gone. We’re safe. We have a home in Hateno. You’re princess Zelda of Hyrule. You love frogs and helping the village kids learn how the world around them works. You like pizza,” Link lists fact after fact about her until she finally looks him in the eyes and rests a hand over top of his, still cupping her face.

She recognizes what he’s doing. It’s a grounding technique she uses often when Link is suffering through a bad day. When he swears he can still feel the cold chill of the resurrection shrine, when he coughs with phantom smoke from Ganon’s putrid gloom.

“I hate when you make sense,” With another exaggerated groan, Zelda turns back to hiding her face in his leg, biting down lightly in retaliation. Link giggles almost giddily, his thighs ticklish as he struggles not to jostle his partner.

“C’mon. Stove’s still burning, I can heat some water for a bath,” Link offers as he finishes loosening the last of her braids. He runs his fingers gently through the wavy locks until the last bit of tension drops from Zelda’s shoulders. “Might help with the pain.”

Zelda doesn’t bother denying the soreness that’s truly settling into her muscles now that she’s stopped running about. There’s a dull throb along her back and her knees feel awkward and numb where she’s been resting all her weight on them for the past ten minutes. Taking Link’s offered hands, she lets her knight help her to her feet and pulls him up with her. He nearly stumbles into her, but turns it into an embrace at the last second. His arms are wrapped tight around her waist as he stares up at her through his messy bangs. 

While Zelda had been trying out increasingly shorter hair styles, it seemed like Link was content to let his own hair grow far past his shoulders. Not that she was complaining. The added length made it much more fun to tug at in…certain situations. Link’s breath hitches as Zelda reaches up to tangle her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. She’s got a firm but gentle grip, not pulling. Not yet, anyways.

“Only if you’re to join me, beloved.” Zelda hums. She’s all too pleased to see the mood may not have been entirely ruined, giggling behind her hand as Link ducks out of her hold and immediately rushes out to grab a bucket of water from their well out back.

It’s been years now since the two defeated the Calamity. It’ll be years in the future before they may live unburdened by the pain of their shared suffering. But Zelda finds herself not minding the aches and sore spots as much as she thought she would. 

To her it’s a sign of progress. 

Growing pains.

[zellink]

all the bells say

a pre-calamity zelink longfic. [chapter 1 of 28 // Act 0 of 5]

>> Read Act 0: "Genesis / Heavy" on AO3

Summary:

Rating: M Main Tags: canon compliant / angst with a happy ending / character study / romance / slow burn / all the goddamn tension. / mutual pining / self-doubt / following all the botw memories / Zelda is an unreliable narrator / Link is so hopelessly in love (until it's not) What will you do with what you've been given when the story forever tolls the same way? Link and Zelda, the Calamity, and their tale of inevitability and doom, and most of all, of love.

Notes:

Here I am, 7 years late to the party, 3 years after witnessing my boyfriend first play BOTW, with a Starbucks in hand and yet another pre-Calamity long fic that absolutely nobody asked for. But I have to do it. I have to bounce these two blonde elves in my head indefinitely and breathe life into my many, many headcanons.

All my love and thanks to my trench buddy and writing soulmate @1up-girl for all your invaluable beta'ing, brainrotting, and everything in between—I seriously owe you forever and ever. Thousands of thanks to the lovely @mustardcheesedog for your amazing energy and hype as an early reader and the daily zelink brainrot.

I also wanna to thank @milkywayes for doing the beautiful banner art for Bells; for understanding my vision and for all the conversations we've had about zelink—headcanons concocted in our DMs that I eventually adopted into this fic.

Fic title taken from the famous John Berryman poem, "Dream Song 29".

~~~ Please go to the fic page on AO3 and read the extended author's note in the beginning for warnings! ~~~

Anyway..... here's Act 0, y'all!

Act 0: Genesis / Heavy

There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart só heavy, if he had a hundred years & more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time Henry could not make good. […] Ghastly, with open eyes, he attends, blind. All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears; thinking. “Dream Song 29” - John Berryman

Link is no stranger to death.

At five years old, he’s already witnessed more than his peers ever would. Growing up at a farm can do that to a kid. Cows, lambs, cuccos—all to the slaughter for sustenance, for profit. He stations himself beside Father and Mother as they butcher them to sell at the family shop. He’s also seen Father shoot countless deers and elk during their leisure hunts whenever Father is back home from Castle Town. More often than not, Father would let him borrow his old bow, and Link would contribute to their hunt, too.

But then Link’s pet fish dies one afternoon—a fat white freshwater carp with gold and black splotches he named Goldie—and he weeps and weeps in Mother’s lap. Goldie was his friend. Goldie was always there in the morning when he would wake up, and was there at night before he’d go to bed. But now Goldie is floating in the pond, its tiny mouth agape.

Mother strokes his hair. “It’s okay, Link. Goldie is with the Goddess, now.”

“Can I be with the Goddess, too?” he asks. Snot runs down his nose.

“Well, no.” Mother huffs a laugh. “Where Goldie is… we cannot go there. But what you can do is pray.”

Link withdraws his head from Mother’s lap. He wipes the tears from his face with the heel of his palms.

“Can we pray together, Mom?���

At that, something unreadable passes through Mother’s face. Her blue eyes turn steely.

“You can pray, Link,” she says, something sad about her small smile. “I won’t join. But we can arrange a funeral for Goldie, if you would like that?”

So they spend the rest of the day gathering flowers from the brambles that surround their estate until Mother’s wicker basket is full of white roses, blue nightshades, and armoranths. Mother also allows him to use the small wooden box that sits atop her vanity—a coffin perfect for Goldie. Mother says that it’s a box that used to house a necklace she bought and gave to Father long ago, but that necklace is long lost, so she has no use for it now.

Link wraps Goldie in an old rag and lays it gently inside the box. Then, they dig a hole in their backyard and bury the box and Goldie in it. He cries again, but not as hard as earlier. He clasps his hands in front of his chest, shuts his eyes, and utters his prayers aloud.

“Goddess Hylia, please welcome Goldie in your loving arms, give it many, many worms to eat, and bring it back as a strong and healthy fish in its next life.” Let its next life start tomorrow, please, Link does not say aloud.

When they make it back inside the living room, Father is already there, sitting at the dining table with a cup of coffee. He asks about what they have been up to, and Link answers honestly. Father doesn’t press on, and he looks rather exhausted, so Link goes back into his bedroom and closes the door behind him.

He climbs into his bed and crawls toward the far end of the wall, looking out from the window and into the backyard. He sees it—a small grave by the shrubs, complete with a rock roughly the shape of an oval as the tombstone, with flowers surrounding the little plot of land.

He hears voices from beyond his bedroom door.

“I don’t think it is best for us to go soft on him.”

“Wha— soft? He is five and his pet just died!”

“And you helped him throw a funeral. For a fish.”

“Because he’s just a child!”

There’s a grating sound—a chair being dragged on the floor. “Well, he’s always said that he wants to become a knight. Then we must prepare him for such an occupation.”

“Being a knight does not mean he can’t feel emotions.”

“Eleana, being a knight is not easy. He will see hundreds of deaths in his lifetime. The next death he’ll witness won’t be of a fish, but of a comrade. I just want to prepare him for when he eventually becomes one.”

“Well—” a pause, “—then I hope, for Link’s sake, he never becomes one.”

Link, however, doesn’t pay much attention to his parents’ conversation. Instead, he imagines Goldie wiggling its way past the layers of cloth and wood and soil, flopping around the backyard until it finds its way to the pond again. Once everybody is asleep Goldie will rise up from its grave, he thinks. He prayed to the Goddess, after all.

But come morning, the pond is still empty, and Goldie remains lifeless in its little coffin.

And he never sheds another tear after that.

****************

Link is no stranger to death, and no stranger to funerals, either.

A year after Goldie’s humble funeral in his backyard in Hateno Village, Father must attend one of the most important funerals in the kingdom for as long as Link can remember.

(Well, six years is quite long for him, anyway.)

So here he is, holding Mother’s gloved hand, in the congregation at the Grand Chapel of Hyrule Castle. It’s a sad occasion, of course—everyone’s wearing black, all the women have their faces obscured with a veil, and he can hear sniffles from the crowd. But Link also can’t wait to tell his friends back home of his first real experience in the castle.

There are speeches, sermons, hymns, and many, many other long-drawn-out processions that he has no choice but to zone out on. But once the burial is over, Link is rather excited, because the Royal Guards (and by extension, Father) must accompany the Prince Consort to the Sanctum for an intimate reception.

The Sanctum is grand—big, luxurious, grand. Red velvet is draped everywhere—the thrones, the floor, the curtains, the banners. There’s also a lot of gold, and streaks of blue here and there. Link likes the blue the most.

When Father makes his way through the crowd to find Link and Mother, Link knows it’s time. He straightens his back, draws his chin a little bit higher, and follows Father.

“This is pretty exciting, right, Mom?” Link whispers. “Meeting the Prince!”

“The King,” Father corrects him. “He was the Prince, and now, without the Queen, he has become the King.” He sounds annoyed. “Please don’t make that mistake in front of His Majesty.”

Link clears his throat. “Sorry, Father.”

He gazes up at Mother again, but she’s quiet, and it’s hard to look past her veil.

They climb the grand marble staircase leading to the floating dais above the room, and find a large man standing in front of the throne.

Father and Mother immediately drop to their knees. Link follows suit.

“Your Majesty,” Father says, his head bowed.

“Sir William! Please, no need for this,” the King’s voice booms. Father rises, followed by Mother, and then Link. “I am very pleased to see you again, Lady Eleana. It’s been too long.” The King sounds friendly, but there’s a lot of sadness at the edge of his voice. That makes sense, Link thinks. He just lost his wife.

Then, the King sets his eyes on Link.

Link’s hands feel clammy, all of a sudden.

“And you, young boy—how you have grown! It was not that long ago when your father brought you as an infant to the Castle to celebrate my daughter’s birth,” he says. Link can only muster up a nod and a shaky smile. “Speaking of—” the King turns around to shoo something from his back. “Don’t just hide! Introduce yourself.”

From behind the King’s robe, a little girl emerges, clad in a black dress and a black surcoat. Her face, however, isn’t covered with a veil like the other women, and the first thing Link notices is how golden her hair is compared to the rest of her outfit. It’s almost blinding.

The second thing Link notices is how green her eyes are. Very green. Like grass, like trees. Like the forests that he likes to spend time in.

The girl extends a gloved hand. Palm facing down.

“I’m Princess Zelda,” she says. “Nice to meet you.”

Link takes her hand in a gentlemanly way that Father has taught him when greeting noblewomen. His thumb pad rests on her knuckles. His left hand rises to splay over his right breast. Then, he puts one foot in front of the other and bends his knees, bowing his head.

“Nice to meet you, Princess,” he says. “My name is Link.”

As he straightens up again, Link finds it hard to let go of her hand. The Princess doesn’t, either; her forest green gaze is still piercing through his eyes. It feels like vines are growing out of his wrist and twining around his hand and the Princess’.

“Hello, Link,” she says.

Oh, his heart is racing.

Father lets out a cough, and the vines vanish. Link withdraws his hand as if shocked by a jolt of electricity. The Princess lets her arm fall limp at her side once more, but her eyes are still on him. Mother grabs him by his shoulders, pulling him back to stand next to her again.

“Your Majesty, once again, Eleana, Link, and I would like to offer our deepest condolences for your loss,” Father says. “For this kingdom’s loss. The Queen is—was—a strong and wise monarch, and as a people, we shall mourn her absence forevermore.” His lips are trembling a little, Link notes. He’s never seen that on Father before.

“Thank you, Sir William,” the King says. “You were a steadfast presence in her life, truly.” At that, Mother’s grip tightens. Link tilts his head up to look at her, but is met with that layer of veil again. “Well, I must be on my way. Duty calls upon us all, after all.”

With one last bow from Father, Mother, and Link himself, the King makes his way toward the other end of the dais and descends the opposite staircase. The Princess follows, her back straight and steps never once faltering.

She doesn’t turn back to cast one last glance at his family, but Link watches and watches and watches. He’s still watching as she disappears beneath the grand archway that leads further into the castle.

On the walk back to Castle Town where Father resides, Link feels something heavy settling in his gut. Like his little inconsequential life makes sense, all of a sudden. Like being six years old doesn’t really matter because, in that moment, he feels like there are hundreds of ancient men residing within the confines of his bones. And all those men are whispering the same name over and over.

The name he heard just a half hour ago.

So he speaks up.

“Father, I think I’m ready to really train,” he says. “I really wanna be in the Royal Guard.”

Father laughs.

Mother, beneath her black veil, stays quiet.

>> Continue reading on AO3

[skyyknights]

Too Much

Ao3

Too much. 

It’s all too much. 

Zelda sets her quill down atop the parchment spread on the table before her, pressing her fingertips lightly against her forehead. The overlapping chatter of dozens of council members swirls around her, making her head pound, and the room is hot and stifling. She can’t think or breathe or focus, suffocating in a time loop of endless noise and chaos. 

Something has to change. She can’t take much more of this, trapped amid handfuls of other bodies, her brain threatening to implode from all the noises in the room. She can feel her body trembling as her heart beats out of control, as loud in her ears as the voices around her. 

Zelda comes to a decision swiftly, lowering her hand from her forehead and drawing a breath to steady her nerves. “Gentlemen,” she announces after a moment, her voice barely making an impact in the deafening room. She sighs and pushes out her chair, standing and bracing her hands on the table for added emphasis. “Gentlemen.” 

The chatter dwindles abruptly as every head in the room swivels to look at the soon-to-be queen. She clears her parched throat, gaze falling to the empty glass at her seat. It was emptied long ago, and in the chaos no one thought to refill it. “I think we’ve had enough discussion for today,” Zelda says, doing her best to keep the strained fragility from her voice. “We’ll resume this meeting tomorrow.”

“But Highness–!” one council member protests. 

“Your Grace, I must beg a private audience with you–” intones another. 

“Tomorrow,” Zelda enunciates firmly, stepping away from the table. She holds up one gloved hand as a third man tries to interject. “I have some– business to attend to at the moment.” Quickly she walks towards the door before her face can give away the lie. “I will see you at tomorrow’s meeting, gentlemen.” 

The door slams shut behind her, sealing away the instant burst of chatter that erupts behind her back, and Zelda paces quickly away down the hall, lifting her skirts and breaking into a run as she sprints through the corridors. There is nobody around her now, but still the voices swirl thickly in her head, loud and insistent, hot against her skin. 

Zelda peels desperately at her gloves as she runs, tearing them off and letting them fall to the tiled floor. She slams into one of the heavy doors leading out to the courtyard and shoves it open, stumbling out into the cool evening air before collapsing in the grass, arms braced in front of her as she pants for air. Too much. It’s too much. She can’t handle the constant voices and pressure and hot rooms and disorientation–

A door opens, then falls shut, and footsteps approach her through the grass. “Princess?” a quiet voice says, and Zelda blinks, pulled momentarily from the nausea threatening to overwhelm her. Boots appear in her line of vision, brown leather caked in mud. She swallows the sour taste in her mouth and looks up, greeted by a face she knows all too well.

“Link,” Zelda says softly, blinking and taking a breath before shifting position so her legs are curled beneath her. She doesn’t have the strength to stand again, and she knows he won’t mind her not rising to greet him. “What are you doing here?” 

The hero smiles gently, crouching in front of her and holding out his hand, in which he holds a glass of water. “I figured you might need this,” he says kindly, his soft Ordonian accent punctuating his words. “I know how hot those meetings can get.” 

Zelda stares at him for a moment, lips parted, before gratefully taking the glass with shaking hands. She drains the contents quickly and lowers it, exhaling slowly. “Thank you,” she tells Link, aware of the concern in his eyes as he looks at her. “I needed that.” There’s a pause, and then she frowns slightly, looking up at him again. “How did you know?” 

“Oh.” Link looks embarrassed, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and not meeting her gaze. “Well, I was, um, sitting outside the meeting room. I saw you come out.” 

“You did?” Zelda blinks, trying to recollect whether she saw him sitting there or not, but she can’t remember. The nausea hits her again, and she recoils, dropping the glass and wrapping her arms around her stomach. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles through gritted teeth, focusing on a patch of grass and trying to breathe deeply. “I’m usually fine with meetings, but today–” 

“That’s only natural,” Link is quick to reassure her, scooting closer. He lays a cautious hand on her arm. “You’re still recovering from the Twilight and all. Makes sense you’re not fully yourself.” 

“I suppose,” Zelda agrees slowly, sagging in relief as the nausea subsides. She just feels so tired, drained of all her former energy. Like she’s still trapped in the upper room of her castle, unable to do anything besides stare at the rain falling outside. She digs her fingers into the grass on either side of her and shuts her eyes for a moment, enjoying the feel of the fading sun on her face and reminding herself that Hyrule is safe.  

Link’s hand remains on her arm, a gentle pressure that grounds her to the earth. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Princess?” 

Zelda cracks one eye, glancing over at his lightly freckled face. “You can call me Zelda, for starters,” she says in a  serious tone, but her lips twitch upwards in the beginnings of a smile. 

Link laughs, his blue eyes crinkling with mirth. “I could, but I’m not going to,” he tells her with a grin, then frowns slightly. “Do you have more meetings today?” 

Zelda shakes her head in response. “No, thankfully. Tomorrow I will, but I can’t handle any more today.” She presses a hand to her forehead, her eyes slipping shut. “I’m just…so exhausted. And all of the people and voices and details, they’re just so much, I–” 

Link’s hand rubs gently up and down her arm, and Zelda leans into his touch. “It’s okay, Princess,” Link murmurs, voice soft and reassuring. “It’s going to be all right.” He pauses, clearing his throat before continuing. “Perhaps…if it would help at all, I could attend your next meeting with you?” 

Zelda’s eyes snap open, focusing on his face, which is swiftly turning red from his previous question. “You…would be willing to do that for me?” she asks slowly, feeling warmth rise into her own cheeks at his earnest nod. “I can’t tell you how much that would mean.” 

“Anything for you, Princess,” Link tells her quietly, mouth curved upwards in a smile. “As always.” 

Zelda has never been one for impulsive actions, but she can’t resist the sweet sincerity beaming in his eyes. She leans forward and wraps her arms around him in a tight hug, burying her face in the crook of his neck. She can hear his pulse beating rapidly against his jawline as he, after a long moment of silence, gently enfolds her with his own arms, returning the hug. “Thank you, Link,” Zelda mumbles against his shoulder, giving him a light squeeze and listening to the sound of his heartbeat. “You always know just what to do.” 

She can’t see Link’s smile, but she can hear it in his voice as he tightens his hold on her. “You’re welcome…Zelda.” 

[bliindingfaith]

Chapters 29,30 and 31 are posted 💕💕