Work Text:
He keeps bringing her things.
Zelda isn’t sure when it started, but lately the Hero of Twilight has been coming into her office every morning, placing a gift on her desk, and leaving her to do her paperwork once she thanks him. They’re usually trinkets of some kind, like the warped metal that looks like flowers from the blacksmith’s forge he gave her last month that sits on the corner of her desk, or the ‘cool rock’ he found on one of his usual walks through Hyrule Field that’s shaped like a star which she uses as a paperweight after he handed it to her yesterday.
All of his other gifts line the walls of her office, placed upon shelves she asked him to install for her once it became clear that this would be a daily occurrence, and now when she wakes up the thing she looks forward to most is their little five minute meetings before they start their schedules in earnest.
This morning, when there’s a knock on her office door, Zelda pauses in reading a trade agreement with the Traveling Merchants Union to tell him to come in, knowing it could only be Link who’s awake this early and courageous enough to disturb her.
He steps inside, bowing his head as he quietly greets, “Good morning, Your Majesty.”
“Good morning, Link,” she smiles at the sight of him. He always looks so dashing in his green tunic, and this morning is no different. The rising sunlight that filters through her window makes his sandy hair gold and his eyes like the glittering waters of Lake Hylia. “Did you sleep well?”
“I slept all right,” his charming Ordonian accent always comes out strong in these early morning hours, and it never fails to make her heart stumble before it melts at the sight of his smile. “And you, ma’am?”
“Just fine,” Oh, how she wishes he weren’t such a gentleman and would call her by her name. He has her express permission to when they’re alone, he knows it’s fine, but still he treats her with the respect of the commoner he was before drawing the Master Sword and saving her kingdom. “I came to give you something.”
She’s already summoned Shad and Ashei to ask what it could possibly mean, to figure out why Link is bringing her all of these things, and it was Shad who had answered with a push of his glasses up the bridge of his nose, Link was in the form of a wolf for a long time, Your Majesty. I’ve noticed that he’s retained some…characteristics, if you will.
What? she had frowned. What do you mean? I’ve known him for two years and-
Pardon my interruption, Ashei had cut her off, but you got to know him after the wolf left his body. We knew him during, and I can’t help but agree with Shad. There are some things he would do as a beast that’ve translated over to his actions as a man.
Like… she had faltered, Like what?
She had learned that day that Link still has an overly keen sense of smell, something she thought came from his time growing up in the countryside hunting. He still growls when he’s angry, the sound coming from low in his throat, something she always wrote off as him being, well, a little strange. He is, apparently, a bit colorblind, which explained that time she caught him at a castle party telling a noblewoman he liked her blue dress when she was wearing purple.
You two think that him bringing me these things is a lingering effect of his time as an animal, Zelda had slowly concluded.
Um, well, Shad pushed his glasses up his nose again, yes, Your Majesty. Dogs do tend to bring those that they, ah, love toys or other things to show their affection because they can’t communicate it with words.
It’s been keeping her up at night for weeks. Zelda has only known Link for two years but she’s loved him for what feels like a lifetime, since before she was coronated as queen and he was helping her pick up the pieces of her kingdom, acting as a voice for the people in her stuffy meetings about repairing the infrastructure with out-of-touch nobles and then acting as her voice when the people thought her an incompetent leader, defending her name with the same ferocity he used to defend Hyrule from Ganondorf. How could she not fall in love with him after that?
Link’s boots clomp against the floor like a horse’s hooves as he approaches her desk, reaching a gloved hand into his pocket. “Here you are.”
He places a small white pouch in front of her. Zelda picks it up, opens it, and gasps at what’s inside, tilting it over so the contents, a handful of chocolate-covered coffee beans, spill out onto her hand as she gushes, “Where did you find these? I thought the merchant that sold them was from outside of Hyrule!”
“He is,” Link ducks his head to hide a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of his neck, “I took a trip with Epona last night.”
She pops one into her mouth and sighs, relieved, at the sweetness of the chocolate and the bitterness of the coffee bean melting on her tongue. Coffee has been hard to come by in Hyrule since the invasion, and for Link to venture out to find some tiny but of it just for her?
“I’ll see you later today,” he bids her goodbye, turning around and walking to the door.
She can’t live like this anymore. She has to tell him. She has to-
“Link?” Zelda asks, mustering every single ounce of confidence in her body.
His hand pauses on the doorknob. “Yes, ma’am?”
Her voice still shakes when she confesses, “I love you. You…You must know that, right?”
Link stares at her, and she stares back. She eats another coffee bean to try and silence the pounding of her heart with the sound of her chewing, wishing the Triforce of Wisdom gave her the power of telepathy.
Finally, he smiles. He smiles, and he tells her, “I love you, too, Zelda,” before he leaves her alone in her office to gape at the closing door.