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Zelda must often remind herself of what she knows about Link. Because her greatest fear is not knowing him—like she had for millennia. Her greatest fear is being alone, becoming a relic born of time’s ever-churning, ever-indifferent wheel. She gazes onward. The golden glare of the sun casts a beacon of light upon her knight. The evening hides behind Link’s figure, his shoulders orange and his wooly hair shining like polished amber.
Zelda doesn’t remember Link wearing his hair down, and the sight of it makes her want to cry. Every sight of him makes her want to cry. His worn hands, his full cheeks, his oceanic eyes. Zelda does her utmost to keep herself together, her father’s words ringing like uncanny scripture in her head—a proper princess like you has no time to waste with tears—but she finds it difficult. When Link so often avoids her gaze, and when the sight of his back has become as familiar as the sight of his face, she feels those stones stacking in her throat once again.
So Zelda reminds herself of the things she knows about Link whenever she’s lost on what to learn.
Link takes big steps. She can always hear him coming, the way his boots slam into the ground with spirit and commotion. The sound of dirt crunching under his heel used to put her on edge, but since having traveled and lived with him, she’s learned to love the sound. She likes to count his steps in her head. It keeps her somewhat grounded, if the pun may be excused.
Link loves to climb. He will scale a sheer cliff face just for the thrill of it and breach the top with a smile on his face. Climbing is one of the rare things that makes Link smile, anyway, so Zelda has no right to complain. To him, his callouses, though rough and dull as sandpaper, are his shining trophy for this sport. And he seems to be quite content with that.
There is nothing Link loves more than a warm meal. Good, bad, it doesn’t matter—he’ll eat it. Faster than Zelda can say bon appétit. The way he shovels food into his mouth like it’s going to grow legs and run away makes her wonder if that’s actually happened. Needless to say, he never fails to make Zelda giggle when he eats.
And Link—Link is beautiful. He is annoyingly beautiful, he is divinely beautiful, he is oddly beautiful, he is everything beautiful. If she’s ever known one thing about him, it would be that he is beautiful.
Zelda knows it’s silly, but she longs to hear his voice. His voice is soft and small, yet delicate like a late autumn leaf. It drifts quietly, like a whispering wind through a wheat field. She longs to hear his thoughts, his heart, his passions, and his jokes. And most of all, she longs to hear her name. She longs to hear just how simple and unassuming it would sound coming from him. She’d always hated the grandiloquence with which everybody addressed her. As if the very arrangement of those quite random five letters—Z-e-l-d-a—was sacred in and of itself. As if it emblazoned itself upon the breastplate of all who knew her, and her responsibilities no longer were her own—they were everyone’s. It was utter phooey, and it drove her right mad.
Link doesn’t see the five letters—he never did. Maybe because he never read much as a child, and perhaps he truly is just a little, tiny, wee bit stupid—only in a few certain aspects, of course—but she feels that is besides the point. Link only sees Zelda. Zelda as an intrepid researcher, Zelda as a girl with short blonde hair, Zelda as a fiend for flora and fauna alike—Zelda as a friend. It’s taken her long enough, but she sees Link as her best friend, and she’s certain he does as well.
Zelda had always loved the little things, and Link just happened to be a million little things amalgamated into one. She thinks about the way he looks at her over his shoulder, confirming that yes, she does still exist, and hasn’t popped into the twilight realm through some impish omnipotence. The way he offers his hand to help her to her feet, even when she is fully capable of doing so on her own; the way he shoves things into her arms when his get too full, the way he pushes her into the water when they’re walking the shores of Hateno. The way he hovers his chopsticks just above her leftover rice balls—squirrelish cheeks still stuffed with food, by the way—and waits for her to nod her head yes. The way he entrusts her with the Master Sword, the way he fixes her collar, and oh, the way he tickles the palm of her hand; the way he holds her against his chest so tightly, and she can feel the tremble in his arms, and then the way his fingernails leave crescent blood moons on her back—and the way they sting. The way he bleeds against her, the way he lets it hurt and drags her down with him, and the way his lips taste in the rain, when he wants nothing more than to just feel, and burn—
It’s all too much sometimes, but she’d rather drop dead in his arms than never be overwhelmed by all of him again. So she stares on, drinking in the sight of Link’s back, each stone stacking meticulously in her throat, damming the rushing waters that threaten to spill. A last ditch effort to swallow the sea.
One thing she knows of Link that is so impossibly true is just how much he’s learned to express himself. She remembers when he was first appointed as her personal knight, his face was an eternal blank sheet, its papyrus stillness a burning apparition in her mind. Zelda couldn’t believe how it was ordained by the king for someone to be so mindlessly reserved and subservient to the point of self-inflicted harm. Zelda even wondered if he had been abused into this reticent way of living—she knew it wasn’t uncommon—but she grew past the point of caring. His ever-unchanging face made itself the catalyst for her ire.
But of course, that was when she was young and immature and stupid and everything else one is before getting to know Link.
But now, as she looks upon him, she can see the very portrait of wilderness. A heart overgrown, sprawling and mystical, left to forever wander the woods in search of what’s not yet been found. Heath and backwoods alike, he adventures, the wind at his back and nothing but his instincts to guide him. And even when all is thought to have been discovered, he turns over another rock, climbs to the top of another tree, and unearths a new truth.
Zelda looks upon Link and sees the color green wreathing a halo around his head. He is the grass and the trees and summer which allows them to thrive. His mossed ribs enshrine an age-old heart, jaded yet still lush with the fruits of life. Zelda wonders how he maintains his youth so outwardly, and so admirably.
Link seems to catch his princess staring as he throws a look at her over his shoulder. He smiles, his cheeks and nose dusted with a rose-petal pink. His eyes gleam with the hope one feels when looking up into the vast sky. Zelda had roamed that sky for millennia—she wonders if that is the hope Link holds in his heart. Does he truly see her behind the clouds?
Link’s smile falters just a bit. Zelda wonders if she bears a weird expression—she most likely does. Apparently she makes funny faces, and while she is a little self-conscious of it, Link makes it easy to forget about, usually by making funny faces of his own. But Link’s face is quite serious as he furrows his brow, fostering a look of worry. Zelda only swallows the stones in her throat and douses the burn in her eyes.
“What…? What is it, Link?” Zelda asks, apprehensive. She knows he won’t say a word, as much as she’d like to dare him. He just stares at her in the manner he does, his face still but not still like how it used to be. Rather, still like the ocean at low tide; still like a silent princess resting on a grave. Zelda can see the emotion gleaming in each freckle, interconnected like a constellation. She can only stargaze in silence as Link remains unmoving, patient, quiet.
This is their song and dance—Link looks at her as she speaks, and if she’s run out of words to say, he looks at her still, waiting to hear more. Wanting to hear more. It’s hypnotizing. It’s a trick. And Zelda falls for it every time.
But right at this moment, she doesn’t want to be swindled. Lest she make a perfect fool of herself. Zelda’s lip twitches, and she blinks her eyes so many times so quickly that one might as well say she just closed them. Link takes a step towards her, his heel planting firm as a great oak in the grass, and his posture steady as such. She looks at him, and he tilts his head, like a puppy at the prospect of a morning walk. His eyes draw out more and more from within her, and she finds herself stumbling once again, saying a mess of words she knows could’ve sounded better if she just had the time to write them out.
“Link, ah… I think I am feeling… a little emotional. For some reason. For no reason. Actually. Um,” Zelda stammers, her voice quivering, her hands trembling, and her heart pounding. “I suppose that is all.”
Zelda wishes there was a handbook for this type of thing. There’s always a handbook. Why is there no handbook?
Link, always in good humor, looks to the sky for a moment, then looks back down at her. ‘Dragon stuff?’ he signs.
Zelda chortles, and despite her finding it funny, feels an onslaught of sentiment crash against her like a waterfall. She chokes on her laughter, a cruel twist of fate beset upon her by some fault of her own, and soon learns that the dam had been holding one drop of water too much. It bursts, and her tears flow. The stormcloud makes its home above her head, finally roused from its deep slumber in the hollow chasm of her chest.
She feels Link’s arms around her in an instant, one hand cradling her head. She closes her eyes and can’t help but feel the very first warm embrace she had felt after ten thousand years. Zelda feels herself falling, cutting through the sky and tearing its blue threads at the seams, feeling lighter than she’s ever felt in her life. The world cries around her, its tears glittering like stardust in broad daylight. She feels a burning joy which crackles through her bones like wildfire, but she must always be reminded that that joy would not exist without her endless sorrow. Link’s arms wrapped around her, protecting her, remind her of such.
When Link was first appointed as her knight, nobody had made her feel more worthless. That feeling still persists, even after millenia. But what she’s learned is that it was never Link’s fault for her feeling that way. It was her own.
She thinks of this as they embrace, her tears slowing, her heart rate stabilizing. She realizes in a sick bout of bliss that she loves Link because he, too, is imperfect. He is the only one still living who can know and understand what she’s suffered; and she him. She feels as if they have no choice but to love each other, because if they don’t, they’ll be nothing but broken pieces waiting for ghosts to put them back together.
Zelda pulls Link closer. She wants to share his heartbeat, she wants to breathe his breath, she wants to be his other half.
She feels Link’s chest rise dramatically and then sink in a hearty yet slow exhale. Zelda’s heart somersaults in her stomach, because she knows what that heralds—words. Words! She’s noticed it, every time Link chooses to speak: he must take a deep breath in, and collect himself. Zelda closes her eyes, a watery smile crossing her lips. Zelda is sure Link can feel its gentle curve against his neck.
“I…” he begins, quite audibly timid, the reedy rasp in his voice a stark tell of his nervousness. “I used to take naps… um, well—” Link cuts himself off, struggling to find the words. And being at an utter loss of context and sincerely confused, Zelda finds herself bubbling with weak laughter.
“What?” she says, her amusement outpacing her genuine curiosity.
“Nevermind,” Link whispers.
Zelda, baffled, backs out of the embrace. “No! Say it, please!” she pleads, her smile growing at the sight of Link’s blushing face. He scratches at the back of his head, sheepish and overwhelmed. The only reason he had probably spoken in the first place was because he can’t reasonably sign while in an active embrace. And now, since Zelda has full view of him, he has no reason to use his voice.
So Link shakes his head. Because of course he does.
“Please, Link! Do you want me to guess? I’ll guess! You used to take naps…? Er… somewhere? Maybe? A specific place?” She earns a small nod—and an even deeper blush. Cheeky. “Oh, alright. Okay then, um… I, uh… well, this is a little harder than I thought. Because really, I’ve seen you take naps everywhere. So that means… you would be confessing to something rather anomalous? I assume?”
Link, in a proper non-responsive response, has the audacity to take a step away from Zelda, and start walking. She gasps. “Don’t you run from me, you little coward boy, you!” When she catches up to him in an instant, her sweeping strides covering far more area than his little legs could hope to carry him, he breaks into a jog, and then a run, and then a sprint—and so all of the sudden, Zelda has found herself playing chase with the full-grown knight she prides as her partner.
“Damn you!” Zelda shouts through a smile as Link looks back at her, a wide smile of his own stretched like batter on his face, and his laughter a sweet and bountiful harvest of joy. His gaze lingers on her for quite some time, even as he runs. His eyes, so bright blue they almost appear white in the daylight, show he has not a care left in the world. He can resign himself to this happiness and let the world’s current carry him on his back.
Though clearly, this carefree attitude won’t allow him to run off scot-free. Before they both know it, Link is tumbling to the ground, having tripped most likely over his own feet. He lands chest-first into the grass, a mighty graceful thud announcing his fall. Zelda, instead of slowing, decides to tackle him at terminal velocity. He lets out a high-pitched shriek as she throws herself right atop his already-crumpled body, but he relaxes under her weight anyway with a puff of laughter.
Zelda grips Link’s shoulders, pinning him to the ground. She knows he could throw her off with a single flourish of his arm, a single kick of his leg, but he doesn’t. He never would. He almost seems grateful to be at her mercy.
As he continues to chuckle at Zelda’s forcible, nigh ticklish manhandling of him, she says with a great smirk, “Tell me. Tell me what you were going to tell me.”
Link quiets. His smile falters a bit, but it doesn’t lose its brilliance. His eyes attune to nothing, and his chest rises and falls with gravitas once again. Zelda watches, intrigued and fascinated and all in the back of her mind questioning if she should even be pressing him in the first place. But seeing him like this… she wondered how it took so long to fall in love with him.
“I used to…” he begins once again, this time with more conviction, voice no longer so sotto voce. “I used to take naps on… well… you.”
Zelda’s brow knits a fine thread of bewilderment. “Pardon?”
“When you…” he says. Hylia, his voice is so small. So delicate, but so soft, like if she were to touch it, it’d be downy as a lamb’s ear leaf. Just the sound of it brings a sting to her eye.
“Y’know,” Link concludes.
Like she knows.
And then he cranes his neck to look to the sky.
And then she knows.
“Your hair was very soft,” he says. “Insulated.”
Zelda finds herself losing breath by the second. Her field of view tightens at the edges—suddenly, all she can see, hear, and feel… is Link.
“You had a funny face.”
She feels tears coming again. So suddenly, too. And she thought she’d already let it all out. But Link’s sweet smile is a lesson to her: she’ll always have something—someone—to cry over.
“A… a funny face?” she asks through quivering cadence.
Link nods. “You always did, though. Wasn’t anything new.”
Zelda feels like swatting him. So she does—lightly, on the crown of his head, admonishing him for, quite frankly, a joke that has made her happy beyond reason. She falls onto her backside as Link sits upright, facing her straight-on, their legs awkward and akimbo yet tangled all the same.
Link had never before spoken those wretched three words to her: I love you. Not even in sign language. But his voice rang clearest in his actions, that much Zelda knew. She knew he loved him, despite those words never gracing the tip of his tongue. They instead emanate from the palms of his hands, etch themselves onto her lips when they kiss, curl around her when she's wet and cold. I love you smells like smoked porgy and pilaf, I love you is the hieroglyphic scrawl of scars on his back and chest, I love you is the wind and the rain and the salt in the sea. It is all around Zelda when she is with him. It’s in the cracks and details—the little things.
Link reaches forward and takes her cheek in his palm, his eyebrows upturned in a deep show of concern and frankly, adoration. He swipes his thumb over her eye, wiping a tear she wasn’t aware had even spilled. She breathes a gentle laugh.
“Will you ever tell me what I was truly like as a dragon?” she asks in earnest, her voice a distant whisper. “It all felt like a dream. I almost don’t believe it really happened. I suppose…”
Zelda looks Link in his lucent eyes—he averts her gaze, though he seems to be enamored with the rest of her. Her lips seem to be a keen point of interest. As he lingers, wordless and aloof, she thinks that the feeling of waking from a dream must be relatable to her knight. They always end up tumbling down the same path, anyway, whether they like it or not. But perhaps that is what had drawn them so near in the first place.
“...Do you feel like that, too?” she asks tenderly. Link’s amnesia had always been a delicate topic to his mousy mind, as she has never had a fleshy, extensive, proper talk with him about his experience. As much as she’d like to pry from him what it feels like to lose so much, she finds herself empathizing with him far easier than she ever has before.
Link doesn’t answer. She didn’t expect him to, anyway—she never does. He only leans forward, a humble thumb pressing the underside of her chin. He brings her into a kiss, tasting like raw honey and oats. Homely and hospitable.
They part, and Link looks at Zelda, the littlest of smiles etched onto his freshly-kissed lips. And with that smile, he says everything he’s ever needed to. Zelda can only smile in turn, reflecting back at him the unspoken love they’ve grown so content with.