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Hyrule has always been a beautiful land.
Rolling hills that bleed into meadows. Verdant canopies of trees that shield and cover whatever creature that wanders beneath. Rivers that run wild into everywhere and nowhere, into seas that lead to places unknown. Mountains that seem to scratch the sky. Canyons that go so deep, one might think the core of the earth is visible from a bird’s eye view.
And Link, upon waking up from his long slumber, has laid his eyes on every inch of the land. Has seen it all through summer’s rage and winter’s wrath, underneath stone archways in front of mansions long gone, from behind overgrown vines that wrap around fallen citadels. He’s lost and found himself, time and time again, in the Lost Woods and the Hebra Mountains and the far-flung corners of Gerudo Desert. Has absorbed this land into his bloodstream until he becomes one with it, until he’s just another permanent fixture of the landscape—another mountain in Lanayru, perhaps. Or another river that flows through Faron.
But when all is finally said and done, and he has bled and bled in the bowels of the castle and in the field, and a golden light shines in the sky and descends gently onto the grass, he realizes, finds—
That there is just one more part of Hyrule that he hasn’t absorbed into himself at all.
And that part is living and breathing and sitting in the saddle atop her white stallion, riding alongside his brown mare. Her cheeks are flushed from the late summer’s heat. Her long blonde locks are blown back by the evening breeze, the top a little bit mussed up and the braids across her crown slightly loosened from the day’s hot journey eastward.
The urge to extend his arm outward and run his fingers through those tresses claws inside him.
He clenches at the reins a bit tighter instead.
They continue to ride.
To their right, Wetland Stable is all lit up for the night. Link has been there before, too. A few months ago, he slept in a cot underneath that very roof after he had chased down a particular landscape portrayed in an image on the Slate, hunting it all the way into the forest just across the river.
In the end, he had come out of it with a singed brow and an arm covered in burns—classic memento from the Guardians—and the haunting fragment of a memory from one hundred years ago, where the woman he ached to bring home had despaired and cried in his embrace, among the rainfall and the mud.
The woman’s voice is what slices through his thoughts.
“Gods, I’ve forgotten how muscles can ache from too much use,” Zelda says. “I think we should stop for the night and get some rest. What do you think?”
Link smiles at her. There is no mud nor rainfall on her face anymore—only a few beads of sweat that his fingers long to wipe away. “Yeah, I agree.”
“Shall we head to the stable, then?” she asks.
He turns his head to look at the stable again. It’s not especially crowded—Wetland Stable never is, unlike Riverside or Dueling Peaks—but he sees a few visitors sitting around the communal cook pot, sees some other patrons conversing with the stablemaster, and thinks that they’ve had their fair share of strangers’ eyes upon them for the past month in Hateno.
They’ll have more of that in their destination, too: Zora’s Domain is filled with people who know exactly who they are, beyond their unassuming appearance. People who know of the titles from their former lives, know of the hefty past that they carry upon their shoulders.
He wants to take her somewhere else. A place unknown to anyone else except for him. No prying eyes, no whispering mouths. Only boughs of trees overhead, the soft sloshing of water from leaping frogs, and the chirps of restless crickets.
Wants to share that piece of wilderness with her. Consume it together.
“There’s this spot in the cove of Crenel Peak,” Link says. “There’s a pond and a lot of trees and sometimes there are fireflies, too. We can pitch a tent and rest there.” He pauses. “If— if you want.”
Zelda’s lips curve into a smile—wide, dimpling her cheeks, and his heart twists and twists. “That sounds lovely, Link,” she replies. “Let’s go there, then.”
They change course, pulling at the reins to keep left on the dirt path, then turning at the intersection and heading a little further north. Past the quiet fields and open meadows and the unobstructed view to the castle—all black and gray and no wisps of crimson at all against the twilight sky—until they reach the base of Crenel Peak, where the hills part to reveal an opening to a tree-filled recess in the side of the mountain.
Link dismounts first, hitching his mare onto a trunk on the outskirts of the small forest before offering Zelda his hand—gloved palm facing up. He knows she’s more than capable of sliding off her stallion herself, but, well—he’d never pass up the opportunity to have her touch grace his skin. She takes it, and he feels her lean her weight onto his hand as she dismounts. Feels the warmth even through her glove, feels his blood rushing towards where their bare fingers meet.
When she lets him go to hitch her own steed, Link lets out a slow exhale through his mouth.
Blames his sudden breathlessness on the summer heat.
He unfastens their shared traveling pack and tent from their horses’ backs while Zelda takes the bedrolls. Lets muscle memory from a hundred years prior overtake his body because this—working together with her like clockwork, preparing themselves for a night in whatever pocket tucked away within the kingdom—is something even a long slumber can’t ever erase from him.
They walk further into the cove until they find a small clearing where the pond awaits, right at the base of the hill. He takes out the sheets of canvas and the poles, and begins pitching the tent. Assembles the poles, connects one end to another, then inserts each pole into its corresponding grommet. As he stakes the corners of the erected tent into the ground, he sees her build a fire in his periphery, steel against flint atop a bundle of wood. Orange sparks fly, and then their camp for the night is finally illuminated, ready for their rumbling stomachs and aching bodies.
And anything else that might unravel as the night progresses, a voice within him says, though he chides it, pushes it away.
Link unlaces the traveling pack and searches for some wooden plates and spoons. Fights off a smile from breaking across his face when his fingers brush over their tangled belongings—the clasp of his additional pair of pants catching the strap of her silk camisoles; her hairbrush that somehow got stuck to his robe.
Eventually, he finds those wooden plates and spoons.
He sets the utensils atop a nearby tree stump, places a cook pot on the fire, and says, “I think there’s plenty of mushrooms around. Do you want stew or skewers?”
Zelda purses her lips, mulling over his question, and something warm shoots through his nerves as if it’s the very first time he’s uttered such a question to her in this century. He supposes he should start getting used to this—asking mundane questions about nothing, about everything. Where to stay for the night, what to have for dinner.
“Skewers would be better, I think,” she replies as she settles on a fallen log in front of the fire. Gives her sweaty forehead a cursory wipe with the back of her hand. “It’s too hot for a stew, don’t you think?”
Oh, he really could get used to this.
“Yeah, skewers sound good.” He smiles at her.
So Link spends the next ten minutes foraging for Hylian mushrooms around the area, putting each that he has picked into a cloth bag Zelda had fashioned out of his worn shirt back in Hateno. In the end, he’s gathered enough mushrooms (and some Hyrule herbs, too) to feed six: one portion for her, three for him, and two for leftovers that can serve as a light lunch tomorrow for the rest of the journey to Zora’s Domain.
He returns to the cook pot, procures the jars of oil and crushed rock salt from their pack, and begins cooking their dinner. Pouring a little bit of oil, then hovers his hand above the pot, gauging the heat before pouring all the picked mushrooms into it. He stirs and stirs with a wooden spoon, trying his damndest not to look her way too much lest he makes a mistake and burns himself on the hot iron.
(But then any burn or cut is worth it when it’s for her.)
Once the mushrooms are cooked through, Link realizes that he doesn’t have the wood sticks, so he serves the food in the bowl and hands it to Zelda.
“This is just… a bowl of cooked mushrooms,” he says, bashful. “Don’t actually have the sticks to skewer them. Sorry.”
A laugh bursts from Zelda. “That’s no problem, Link,” she says, grinning. “I don’t think we would be eating the wood sticks anyway,” she adds, before reaching for the bowl from his hands. Covering his fingers with hers, pressing slightly before taking it away.
His breath becomes ragged in an instant, though he knows how to quickly regain his composure, because it has happened many, many times before. In Hateno, in their shared home and on the streets and every place in between. A lingering touch here and there, fire through his veins. The air turning heavy each time, but holding themselves back as they ride out the initial shock of being alive together in this century, as they parse through their grief and loss and shared wounds.
But now they are outside and there’s a certain lightness that percolates through him that he knows hasn’t been there in ages, and they are alone together—so alone—and he knows it will snap.
It’s just a matter of when.
So he shoots another smile at her and goes to serve a bowl for himself. Settles on the log next to her—the side of his thigh touching hers all the way to their knees. Feeling his skin sizzle even through the fabric of his breeches. Eats and eats with barely any words exchanged because their shared silence is as natural as breathing. When they break it, it’s for her to comment on his talent of making even just mushrooms seasoned with salt and herb taste good, and he replies with thanks and heat rising on his cheeks.
It doesn’t take long for them to finish their meals. It has been quite a long day, after all.
He takes the bowl from her and washes their dishes by the pond as she takes their pack inside the tent, fastens the flaps together, and changes into her sleepwear. With a rag he scrubs and scrubs the grime off the cook pot, averting his thoughts to anything else other than the sound of fabric rustling from beyond that layer of canvas, which proves futile anyway.
It’s painfully familiar, because he knows he’s been here before, regardless of the scantness of his memories. He’s felt this so often, if not always. A century ago, in other places, bearing skin with fewer scars but one that still aches to touch her all the same.
With everything cleaned, he sets them on the same nearby tree stump to dry. Takes a deep, deep breath, then takes his bedroll and pulls at the laces to unfurl it atop the grass, in front of the tent.
Link stares at it for a while, just as he has done for the past three weeks—the same bedroll set on the floor beside the bed in their home. Imagines two bodies atop it instead of just one, pictures two sets of limbs searching for one another and tangling and joining. Swallowing those images down his throat, where they sear until they settle inside his stomach, dormant and docile, before they come up into his mouth again the next night. Over and over and over, because he knows that they have all the time in the world now and all that’s left to do is wait.
And he intends to swallow them all down and wait again tonight, though something in his gut tells him that maybe, just maybe, the trees and the open sky overhead might catalyze a bolt from the blue.
There’s more rustling from inside the tent, so Link decides to distract himself by undoing his baldric and belts, taking off his gloves, carefully setting the Sword against a tree, and then sitting down and unfastening the leather vambrace from his right forearm. Then it’s the patterned strip of cloth that he peels off from his arms, unwrapping, unraveling, until he’s only in his Champion tunic with the cotton shirt underneath, his pants, and his boots.
As he sets his protective leathers aside, Zelda comes out from the tent with her cream-colored nightgown finally wrapped around her figure—loose and sleeveless, with the thin straps hanging on her shoulders and the hem falling down to her mid-calves.
The sight knocks all the air out of his lungs.
Then his eyes settle on her face and he notices the furrow between her brows.
“Why are you setting the bedroll outside?” Zelda asks.
Link gulps. “I’m here to keep guard.”
Funnily enough, even he can hear the slight question mark that follows that sentence.
Zelda actually appears surprised by his reply. “From what? Hot-footed frogs?”
“There were bears here before,” he feigns obliviousness. “When I found this place the first time around.”
“Which I’m sure you’ve dealt with since I don’t see or hear them anywhere,” she says. There’s something fond in those emeralds of hers, like she understands exactly the predicament he’s found himself in because she’s in the thick of it, too—in the knowing and not-knowing, wanting to end it in the most perfect way possible—softly, gently.
“I’d like to keep watch with you, too, then.” A shy smile forms on her lips. “If you need the additional set of eyes, that is.”
Link knows she isn’t talking about bears anymore, knows that she knows he doesn’t need the additional set of eyes, because protecting her comes as natural as the blinking of his eyes, as inherent as his fingers around the indigo hilt of the Sword.
He doesn’t need the extra guard; he just needs her.
“Of course,” Link replies.
Zelda makes her way to him, looming above him like the enormous Goddess statue he’d seen at the Forgotten Temple, all divine and larger than life but even better because there are miles and miles of flesh radiating warmth, and there’s nothing else he can do except give in and scoot over on the bedroll to make room for her.
She sits down beside him, legs crossed and hands clasped together on her lap. Her nightgown billows out around her, the chiffon fabric brushing his left hand atop the bedroll.
He fights the urge to turn his naked palm upward and gather the fabric in his fist as he would with the soft sand at Lurelin Village—just to feel the texture of it in his hands before it eventually slips through his fingers. Just to be able to touch it at all.
In front of them, the fire continues to crackle, slowly burning through the wood. Silence stretches and stretches, mottled by the chirping crickets, the soft hoots of owls from the branches overhead.
After a while, Zelda speaks up.
“Is this how it was like for you, before the castle? Just… fireside and trees and—” she lifts her hands from her lap to gesticulate at their surroundings, “—this.”
If he closes his eyes and ignores the fabric of her nightgown that still covers his hand, he can almost pretend that it’s just another night somewhere in Hyrule, with a body that has been through the wringer and a mind that wails at its missing pieces, feet in boots that have been mended too many times, and ears that long to hear her phantom voice again.
But then he cranes his head to the side, takes in the view of her—so close to him, licked by the firelight—and thinks that this is nothing like how it was before the castle.
His tongue stings sweet at the thought, rendering him next to speechless.
“Yeah, kind of,” Link manages to say.
“It must be nice to have all of this at your fingertips,” Zelda replies, her voice turning quieter. “To breathe in fresh air, to tilt your head up and be able to see the stars… it’s quite novel to me.” She pauses before meeting his eyes. “I think I might just be a little envious of you, Link.”
She’s smiling, but it sends a pang in his chest anyway, because it took her a hundred years to finally be out here in the wilds. Because he may have had eight months to wander around and see it all, but it was in her absence, so he might as well have seen nothing at all.
“I don’t think you should be,” Link says. “This…” you by my side, breathing just for the sake of breathing, “…this is new to me, too.”
“How so?” she asks, and there’s something hopeful with just a touch of nervousness in the way she voices those words, like she’s afraid that she would be met with reticence, and it paper-cuts at his heart. Makes him want to give himself to her, whatever it may entail—his thoughts and hopes and fears and all the silence in between. As if he hadn’t already given himself to her—willingly, wholeheartedly—the day he pulled the Sword, even though he can scarcely recall the moment.
So he gives it to her.
“Well, for starters, there was a lot more fighting,” Link says. “I rarely slept in a tent because I didn’t want to be caught off guard again whenever the blood moon came about.” The memory of that night in Safula Hill, just a few weeks after his awakening, flashes in his mind—of a moblin that he thought he’d killed ambushing him in his sleep with its spiked club. The scar on his inner thigh from that encounter smarts at the remembrance.
Zelda sighs before looking at the flames once more. “I’m sorry.”
Link frowns. “Wait—why?”
“Blood moons always occurred when that beast’s power reached its peak. When I couldn’t hold him back,” she says quietly, and it tears at the paper cut upon his heart, turns it into a gaping wound.
“Gods, Zelda—” Link shakes his head. “Please don’t ever apologize for that.” At that, she averts her gaze from the fire to look into his eyes again. “You know what? Blood moons weren’t all bad, actually.”
It’s her turn to frown. “Why?”
Words he’s been longing to spill begin to rise from the pits of his gut, and in that small window of lucidity, amidst her gaze that sets his mind aflame, he mulls it over. He can keep his lips pressed and let those words prick and sting his gum for no good reason other than to keep himself from unraveling, or he can let them escape past his teeth and find their new home in her ears, in her lovely head.
Link chooses the latter.
“Because,” his lower lip quivers, “I get to hear your voice.”
Zelda’s lips part, as if to inquire, but they close again.
He continues. “Your voice was all I had for a while. It was what kept me going, before more pieces started to come back to me,” he says, his mind wandering to those pieces, matching each to the reality that now sits cross-legged next to him. Her heart-shaped face. Her round eyes. Her brows—a few shades darker than her hair. “So I found myself looking forward to it, somehow. Even if it meant having to fight more.” He laughs a little, and is glad that it doesn’t sound as brittle as he thought it would.
Her face twists just a little—faint melancholy on the corners of her eyes, the trembling of her brows. On the edge of her voice.
“Oh, Link— I always wanted to speak to you, to let you know I was there with you every step of the way.” She fidgets at the hems of her dress, and his hands flex beside him—aching to take hers in his, though he does not give in. “But it took a great deal of power from me to do so, and I couldn’t do it as much as I wanted to. I didn’t want to let it know that you… you were finally awake.”
Link tries to imagine himself in her shoes, though he knows it’s mostly for naught because he was never there—in the Sanctum, fighting evil for one hundred years, waiting and waiting and waiting until her hope rises from his temporary grave.
And ever since her homecoming, she’s called him many things. Called him the Hero of Hyrule. Called him the light that had shone upon this kingdom once again. Thanked him, again and again, for all that he’s done. But now he gazes upon the woman in front of him, dressed in all white, golden hair pouring around her shoulders and down her back like honey, and thinks—knows—that he is no light.
He just happens to always be standing very close to the sun.
“I don’t know how you were able to do that,” Link says quietly. “All of that, for a century.”
“Well, there were things that I held on to,” Zelda replies. “Moments, pieces from different places…” She sounds shy, and her lashes flutter as if she’s deciding whether or not to look away from him, but she doesn’t. Her eyes stay locked with his. “It’s quite hard to explain, but for the longest time, while I was in that wretched cocoon of Malice… these things were all I had,” she says. “They were what kept me going.”
It dawns on him that she just echoed his words from earlier, and his heart immediately leaps to his tongue. All that escapes from it are three words:
“What were they?” he asks, voice low.
Something flashes through those greens, indecipherable, before she finally breaks their gaze, and he’s partially thankful for it because he doesn’t know how long he can stare at the sun before it starts to burn.
He sees her tilt her head skyward, squints her eyes—and gasps softly. A question is on its way to leave his lips—everything all right?—but then she finally faces his way.
“Link.”
Their eyes lock again, and then—
“Lie with me?” She worries at her bottom lip. “There’s— there’s something I want to show you.”
Beside them, the fire has died into embers, but it matters not, because he’s staring at the sun again, sitting too close to it, and it burns and burns but Gods, he doesn’t mind at all.
“Okay.” His reply comes out as a rasp.
Zelda unfolds her legs and scoots over on the bedroll to finally lie supine, her long locks fanning out on the pillow beneath her and her fingers laced above her stomach. There’s some space next to her, but his bedroll isn’t meant for two people to begin with, so he tries to even out his breath (to no avail) and settles down on that space, lying on his side, facing her.
Link tries to tuck his limbs to himself as much as possible—his left arm folded underneath his head and his right pressed onto his side to give her room, but she only shifts further on the small bedroll, closer to him.
Her hair tickles his cheek. Her upper arm is slightly pressed against his abdomen, and he feels the movement as she raises that arm and extends it toward the sky. Warmth zips up his spine.
Then she says, “Look up.”
Link finally tears his eyes away from her face, letting them climb to her elbow, her forearm, her wrist, until they meet her hand, the tip of her forefinger. Then he turns his torso slightly to let his gaze follow her line of sight, toward the sky.
The summer season has made the nights a little lighter, but he narrows his eyes and sees them—the few small patches of clouds, the stars that sparsely dot the skies.
“Do you see it?” Zelda asks, her voice soft. “That cluster of stars in the shape of a hand?”
It takes a while for Link to search for it—everything looks random to his eyes—but then he does find it. A group of stars that shine brighter than the others, forming a hand—or rather, the bones of a hand—seemingly reaching for something.
“I see it,” Link says.
“It’s the only constellation that is named after Hylia, apparently. Ancient astronomers called it Hylia’s Hand.” Zelda lowers her arm back to her side, and her elbow brushes his front again. “I learned about it long ago—it has been passed down as folklore for thousands of years, I suppose.”
Link listens. He has fully rolled to his side again, facing her, his eyes roaming all over her profile.
“But legend has it that it is Hylia’s hand itself, at least in its celestial form, forever reaching for the First Hero. Wanting to be with him,” Zelda says. “At the end of the day, stars are just that—stars. Just massive celestial bodies of gas. But,” her lips tremble before she continues, “when time seemed to stretch to no end and I felt myself fading, I’d look up. Past the ceiling of the Sanctum, past all that Malice and dilapidated brick. And if I were lucky, if the time of the year was right,” she inhales audibly, “that constellation would be visible. And I’d stare at it.”
Something in Link’s stomach coils and flips. His whole skin aches and burns and he knows the only thing that can alleviate that is to touch her. And that ache only grows angrier when she rolls over to her side to mirror him—her face only a few inches away from his.
But still, he waits. He waits and waits. It’s her call, always. She only needs to say it and he’ll do it. Whatever it is.
“I thought that—” Zelda licks her lip and Goddess, she’s so close that he can feel the gust of each syllable from her mouth, “—I thought that if Hylia could wait like that, for thousands and millions of years, then I could do it, too.” Her voice is almost a whisper, now. “I could wait for a century or a few more. I could wait for you.”
In between their brief bodies, her fingertips ghost over his—or perhaps it’s his brushing over hers—but then something glitters in her eyes and it knifes him so sweet and she lets out a loud sigh before covering his hand with hers.
Link’s mouth goes dry.
“Zelda,” he pushes her name off his sandpaper tongue, “I’m sorry— I’m sorry it took me so long. I’m sorry that I made you wait for so long.”
At that, her features wilt from sadness and relief and something inexplicably divine combined altogether.
“Don’t be,” she replies. “Goddesses, don’t be. I waited for you and now you’re here. You’re here.”
His palms turn clammy, but her grip turns firmer around his wrist and he thinks,
I’m sorry that I’m still making you wait even now.
So Link grabs her hand and brings it up to the sliver of space between their chests; gives her that little pull so she can push the rest of the way.
She does. She pushes and pushes, through her legs that now fold further so that her knees touch the front of his still-clothed thighs. Through her bare toes that run over his shins. And each time, Link feels the universe—in its singularity and multitudes—wherever they touch. Around his wrist and on the pads of his fingers and the front of his legs. More and more as she scoots closer, her elbows now truly pressed against him.
If Zelda touches him more, he’ll be gone, he knows. To be swallowed by the dark mouth of the night, plunging into the stardust.
“Link,” Zelda whispers. He’s never given the sound of his name much thought, but the cadence of it on her tongue makes him burst alight. Makes him think that he’s just as supernatural as her, no matter how silly the thought.
“Yeah?” he breathes.
“Tell me—” he sees her swallow, “—what did you think about, all those months? After you woke up? All alone in the wild?” she asks, and there’s that hopefulness mixed with hesitance again—still scared that he’d recoil and withdraw from her questions, from her—and he’s half of a mind to just lie there, all still and corpse-like, and let her poke and prod at him. Let her ease each gear and cogwheel out of his brain and inspect it. Be completely at the mercy of her beautiful mind and the questions that might come out of it.
But he likes touching her so much—Gods, he’s touching her right now, fingers intertwined and legs starting to pile together and he curses himself for not taking off his boots earlier—so he gathers the courage destiny says he’s always had, and unravels more.
“I thought of you,” Link says. He realizes it might sound like he’s just indulging her, but it is so terribly and simply true. “I thought of you a lot. I thought of your name.”
“My name?” Zelda’s fingers tighten around his hand.
“Yeah.” He squeezes her hand back. “I knew your name, somehow, before I even knew that it belonged to the voice I’d been hearing.” Suddenly, something rears itself in his throat and he aches to say more. So he does. “Your voice, in my head, in my ears.” A breath of a laugh escapes him. “This is why I didn’t find the blood moon so bad. You… telling me to be careful…”
Zelda laughs, too. “See, I might not be able to speak to you often, but I did see you often and you never seemed to heed my words.” She grins. “Honestly, I’d never seen you so reckless before. Back then, you were like that, too, but I think you… held back, somehow.”
“That’s because I was around you a lot.” A corner of his mouth quirks up. “I didn’t want to risk your life.”
“Well, you’re risking mine by risking yours,” she says, her lips set in a hard line, and the somberness of her tone punches his chest. So much weight behind those words; the brief return of that pain that they have broken down into bits and reflected upon and felt all of last month.
“I’ll be better, I promise,” he vows. At that, Zelda smiles—watery, shakily—and then does something that is even more devastating than her smile:
She brings one of his hands to her lips, and Link feels the exhale that blasts from her nose before she presses a kiss upon his knuckles—slow, lingering.
The click that sounds when she pulls her lips away is deafening in this quiet forest.
Link’s hand remains there, in her hold, a mere few inches away from her lips. He stays still but his mind is saying, push more, Zelda, please please please.
“Link?” Zelda half-whispers, and he hums in reply. “Tell me more.” She pauses. “Please.”
That please undoes a knot inside him—or maybe it just tightens it even more. Either way, he’s already done for.
Has been, for a long, long time.
“You’re right—there was a lot of this; trees, nature,” Link says. “I think I slept outdoors more than I did at stables and inns. Or at home, even.” The word home sounds so strange, slipping from his lips, because it has never been a home—not until last month when he crossed the threshold with her in tow. “There’d be weeks where I wouldn’t even run into another person on the road. It was just me and miles and miles of wilderness.”
“Did you ever feel lonely?” Zelda asks.
“Sometimes,” he replies. “But it’s not— it’s not in the way that I think you think. I felt the loneliest when I was at the stables, the villages; when I was with other people. And somehow, I felt the least lonely when I was outside. Alone.”
Zelda puckers her forehead, and it takes the world for him to not bring his thumb up to the space between her brows. To smooth the crease out. To kiss it. “How come?”
“I’m not sure it makes sense.” Link laughs nervously. “But when I was outside, just like this…” he inhales, exhales, then continues to pull, “I felt the closest to you. Like I could feel you there with me. In the trees, by the riverside, in the mountains.”
Zelda lets out one tremulous breath, and it gusts softly over his skin but passes through his mind like a squall, and he’s in the wind and he’s about to fall over.
“Link.” She makes another push and shifts closer to him until their foreheads almost touch. “You know I— I watched you often. And when I concentrated enough, when the beast didn’t put up too much of a fight… I could almost touch you. Feel your skin against mine. And that was what I had. The stars. You, from our time before. You, when you woke up.”
Then she lays a hand on his jaw, her thumb over his cheek, whispers, “Link, all I had was you,” and Link gives up.
Gives in.
He puts his hand on her waist, and even through her nightgown she feels warm, so warm, and so familiar.
Because he’s been everywhere on her body, he knows now. Her voice has filled his ears with sighs many times before through the winds. She has kissed him before, through the rage of the sun that tanned his skin. He’s caressed her so intimately before, has held on to her for dear life, evident from the calluses on his palms from holding on to every inch of hill and mountain as he climbs and climbs her. He’s flowed through her like blood through her arteries, out out out through every byway that led him to the edges of the realm.
And now, he has made it back into the very heart of Hyrule. In the middle of nowhere, lush trees surrounding them, underneath a sky dotted with stars. Her nose brushing his, their faces a breath apart. He feels the beating of this kingdom as his fingers dig into her ribcage, feeling her inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale.
And Link finally understands that it isn’t him who has absorbed this kingdom into his bloodstream—it is the kingdom, it is her, and she is surrounding him, swallowing him whole.
So into the stardust, he goes.
Link unfolds his arm from under his head to wedge it between the pillow and the crook of her neck. Zelda scoots even closer, her chest flush against his, and he deliriously wonders if she can feel the violent thumping of his heartbeat. He cradles her in his arms and grabs and presses anywhere he can, holds her tight as if the bedroll they’re on is in the sky and if he lets her go he’ll fall to meet the brutal ground.
“Zelda.” His voice breaks.
The crumpling of her face is the last thing he sees as his eyelids close, and then she’s pushing and he’s doing the same, and their lips finally meet in the middle.
No imagination nor fantasy that his brain could conjure up would ever amount to the real thing: Zelda’s lips, so pliant and warm against his. Unmoving and shy at first, but then he takes her bottom lip between his own, withdrawing a little before pressing with more urgency, and then she’s finally keening into him, too, and within a millisecond, he’s simultaneously lost and found and gone.
Amidst the overwhelming proximity of her to him, the intoxicating sounds of their lips detaching so slightly before seeking one another again—Link marvels at this peculiar confluence of novelty and familiarity. Marvels at the weight of her in his arms, compares it to the times he’s held her so close. In another century, another life, another body. Again and again and again, like an ending to a beginning, a beginning to an ending.
Then Zelda withdraws, and Link feels the cosmic rift that the parting of their lips creates.
He opens his eyes slowly, blearily, and meets the blaze of her viridian gaze, cast by moonlight.
“Link,” Zelda whispers. Her hands are cupping his face, a thumb ghosting over his lips. He kisses it. “I love you.”
It’s as if the constellation above is caressing his skin—Hylia’s celestial hand all over his body, setting him alight—but really, it’s just Zelda. It’s Zelda’s hands that now travel down to linger on his neck, where his vocal cords die for a moment from the sheer power of those three words coming from her. It’s Zelda’s legs tangled with his—the skirt of her nightgown bunching and crumpling around their limbs.
It’s Zelda’s voice—voice that he knows, that had woken him up. It’s the voice that resounds between his ribs, traveling down to his solar plexus before making a home in the depth of him.
It’s the voice that he hears now.
He wants her to say it again, he wants her to say it over and over and—
“I love you, Link.”
She knows. She knows me.
For the hundredth time tonight, Link breaks.
“I love you, too.” He brings his hand to her face, too. Kisses the corner of her mouth just because he can, and then breathes it to life again, “I love you, Zelda. Gods, I’m so in love with you.” Tears fall from her eyes and he kisses them away. “I loved you then, I love you now. I loved you even when I didn’t know you.” He can’t bring himself to stop, now. Kisses her again and again. “I felt you everywhere. Every step that I took ever since I woke up, you were there with me.”
Zelda’s face wilts and wilts, and only when she’s brushing her thumbs on his cheeks and feels it smear at some moisture does Link realize that he’s shed his own tears, too.
“I was always with you,” she whispers. “I was never not with you.” One of her hands is on his chest, above his heart; the other stays on the side of his face to trace his brow, the corner of his eye, his cheekbone, his nose. “But now I’m here. Truly here. With you.”
There’s desperation at the edge of those words, the way she repeats it like a prayer, like she can’t quite believe that she is speaking the truth; that she’s out of the castle and he brought her home and now they’re back to traversing the land together like they used to.
So Link resolves to make her believe it.
He closes the minuscule distance between their faces and presses his lips against hers again. Dares himself to swipe his tongue across her bottom lip softly, asking for permission.
At that, a dam bursts, and Zelda opens.
She surges toward him, her lips immediately parting to welcome his tongue and his breath and the torrent of her name that won’t stop flowing from his throat, and she’s pushing harder than ever now—fingers digging into his shoulders, a leg around his waist—pushing and pushing until his back is completely pressed against the bedroll and she’s poised on top of him.
There’s divinity in being held this way, Link thinks. To be kissed into the bedroll, into the earth like this. Her long tresses cascading around him, shrouding him the way a waterfall would shroud a cave. Her chest pressed onto his chest, her elbows on either side of his head, slender fingers weaving through his hair; every touch igniting wildfires in their wake.
But then she relaxes her lower body and fully settles on his lap, and he feels the weight of her right where he’s aching and hard.
Zelda retracts her lips from his, whispers “Link, please,” and he knows that she’s giving the reins to him now—wants him to push the rest of the way—so Link succumbs.
He grabs at her backside, hard, and hauls her up, up, up, until he’s sitting upright and cross-legged, and she’s straddling his thighs.
Zelda is seeking him out again in a heartbeat—eyes fluttering shut and lips zeroing in on his, and her solid warmth nearly makes him capsize and abandon all sense, but there’s a sudden rush of blood to his head; a sudden realization of the position that they’re in, and the inevitable path that they’ll walk on if they don’t stop now.
And though it tears him apart to pull away, Link does.
“Zelda,” he says. Presses his forehead to her forehead. Tucks a long lock of spun gold behind her ear. “Zelda, we don’t have to go further than this.”
A crease forms between her brows. “But I want to,” Zelda says. “Link, I want to.” Her emeralds bore through him with longing.
“Zelda…”
“Link, I want to so, so badly,” she whispers. “I have been waiting since before.” Her hands cup his face again, firm and trembling at the same time. “I have been waiting my whole life, even before I knew I was waiting for you.” He sees her swallow, and then she asks,
“How about you?”
“Yeah—” Link’s voice breaks. “Yes, I want to. I want you,” he’s saying. “Zelda, I’ve wanted you for so long, you have no idea.” Restraint is all gone now—devoured whole by the gaping maw of that want. He wants her in ways that transcend his understanding, and it seizes the last few morsels of his rationality, his sanity.
So he kisses her again, for that is as close as he could ever get to grasping that transcendence. Lips on her lips, her chin, her neck. “Zelda, I want you.” Grazes his teeth on the pale flesh before sucking. Presses his tear-stained cheek onto hers. Whispers against her ear, “Tell me what to do, Zelda, please.”
At that, Zelda bears down on him, seeking friction, and strikes the killing blow:
“Touch me.”
So terribly simple, those two words, and yet they harpoon through his mind. Leaves him undone.
Link runs his hands all over her back, rains down kiss after kiss on what expanse of bare flesh his lips can find. Mouths at her clavicle, traces it up to the delicate line of her jaw with his tongue. Feels the shifting of her shoulder blades as she pulls at his ponytail, freeing his wild mane from the bound of his hair tie. Feels the ridges of her spine through her thin nightdress, marvels at the understructure of her body.
Says, “You’re so beautiful, Zelda.”
“Link…” she breathes.
There’s so much of her, Link thinks deliriously. So much to touch, to feel, to surround himself with. And he knows he’s never been one to practice moderation, not when it comes to her; he wants to be overwhelmed, wants to fall over from the squall.
So he draws back to thoroughly take in the sight of her; the shadow casting hard lines upon her collarbone. The deep swell and fall of her chest—so pale and near-blinding underneath the moonlight. The gentle slope of her bosom, shimmering faintly from sweat.
Then his hands finally travel downward to meet the skirt of her nightdress—pooling around her thighs, the hem of it trapped between them—and Link pulls and tugs until it’s no longer stuck, until he can easily slip his hands underneath it. Sliding north to settle them on either hip. Grabs at them—hardened palms on smooth skin, bare smooth skin—only to have the realization absolutely punch the breath out of him.
“You have no—” Link clears his throat, “you have nothing under your gown?”
Zelda gives him a small smile, so innocent and shy despite the implication. “I… I told you I’ve been waiting.”
His heart rages inside his ribcage.
“You’re going to kill me, I swear,” he laughs. Presses his fingers into the skin, feels the give of it—of her. Soft where there’s more meat, firm where there’s more muscle, hard where there’s bone. “Zelda, Zelda, Zelda…”
He can do this for the rest of his life, he thinks. Just touch and touch and touch. Map the topography of Zelda’s body in his mind until it sticks, until he knows it by heart like the way back home to Hateno, or the way from the ruins of the castle’s gatehouse to what’s left of her bedchamber.
But now she’s sitting on his lap, refashioning his hands and arms into a newer, more sacred place to rest, and Link will never, ever be cruel to her, so he relents and places one hand between her legs, where he can feel them trembling ever so slightly.
As he slowly inches his fingers closer to the apex of her thighs, Link is torn between pressing his lips upon hers again and feeling the sounds that she makes on his tongue, or doing the exact opposite—leaning back a little so that he can see her face in its full glory. And he’s struck dizzy by that warmth again, because this is truly his life now—deciding where to stay for the night; what to eat for dinner.
What to do with himself as he touches her.
Link is on his way to choose the former, but then his fingers finally find the soft folds between her thighs, and Zelda’s lips part and her brows crumple and she looks so devastatingly, gut-wrenchingly beautiful this way, so he has to watch.
“Oh, fuck,” he breathes. Traces his fingers all over, feeling her wetness coat them. His heart hammers in his throat, blood and sense immediately rushing south. “Oh Gods, Zelda.”
Her name; starburst in his mouth. Zelda. Zelda; the woman he has belonged to since the day he was born, since the day he knelt before her. The first woman he’s ever touched this way. The only woman he’ll ever want to touch.
“Link, please.”
And she wants him, too—she wants me and she loves me and she’s here, she’s here with me—and that want bleeds out of her and he drinks them right in. Inhales her serrated breath, lets every inch of himself be set ablaze by her. Replies to her soft pleas through the movement of his fingers.
There’s no technique in his ministration, but Link tries to rely on the rudimentary knowledge that he’d picked up all those years ago from overhearing crude conversations at the barracks. Feels just how wet she is—how warm and soft. Trusts his guts and zeroes all his senses on her (as if they haven’t already been wired that way since the dawn of time), and pays attention to every little thing that her face and body give away:
The whimpers from her lips. Her fingers dimpling the meat of his shoulders. The slight shift of her body that causes his fingertips to brush against the crest of her folds—
Her thighs quiver around his hand. A harsh exhale leaves his mouth.
“Link.”
His fingers still. “Does that feel good?”
Zelda nods frantically. “Yes.”
So he seeks it out again; brushes his thumb over the bundle of nerves. Feels the tremor passing through her body—the flutter of her lashes, the trembling of her spun sugar lips. “Yes, Link, yes.”
Link thinks he could come just from that.
“I love your voice so much.” He drags two fingertips along the wetness pooling at her slit before returning to the crest. “I love the way you say my name.” Draws slow circles, tearing another broken moan out of her. Catches that moan into his mouth, feeling it reverberate and spark electricity through every nerve ending.
“You do?” she asks breathlessly.
“Yeah,” he replies, kissing her again. On his fingers, she’s so swollen and wet that something low in his stomach tightens painfully at that. “I love how you sound.” He lays his other hand on her shoulder, feeling the sweat that beads there. Slides it up to the side of her neck so he can feel her voice, feel the vibration underneath his palm, so it’s not just his ears that burn sweet with it. “I wanted to hear you all the time, all those months I was alone.” Lands another kiss on the corner of her mouth. “I still do.”
When he teases two fingers at her entrance while his thumb continues to rub, Zelda cries and shuts her eyes. Claws her fingers into his hair. “Link, I— it feels so good— I can’t—”
“What do you want?” he murmurs, and it sounds like a plea of his own because Gods, he needs to give it to her as much as she needs to receive it from him. “Tell me, Zelda.”
And Zelda replies by working herself against him, hips rocking, chasing and chasing together with him, and his mind keels over from the sensation, the realization that she’s seeking her pleasure with his hand. His hand. “I want you, Link, I want you—” her breath kisses his temple, her soft cries filling up his ears— “Just like this, just like this—”
“I’m here,” he’s saying. Puts a hand on her nape so he can pull her face down and lean his forehead on hers. Sends her careening skyward with his ceaseless fingers. “I’m here, Zelda, I’m here.”
Zelda’s eyes open, at that; tears spilling from those hazy emeralds, then Link feels her shake around him like the softest of earthquakes, so he slows down his fingers and lets her ride it out. And she does; she grinds and grinds until her mouth falls open, until she cries his name over and over again into the warm air, and he replies through murmurs—that’s it Zelda I’m here I love you I love you—and finally, she leaves him on earth for a few seconds among the stars.
Link stays. Breathes with her as if he just peaked himself, and gently reels her back down to land with the heel of his palm rubbing against her center—slowing down, slowing down. Kisses the sweat and tears away from her face. Welcomes the wilting of her body on his lap as a shore would welcome a crashing tide.
Then Zelda returns to earth and twitches against him, laughing breathily, and Link mutters a ‘sorry’ and withdraws his right hand from between her legs. Takes it out from the blanket of her nightgown and brings it closer to his face.
With not much thought other than to loosen the knot that’s still wound so tight in his gut, Link brings two fingers to his mouth and consecrates his tongue; licks her clean off his fingers, eyes staying locked with hers, because if this is the only thing that'll be granted to him tonight, he’ll die a happy man anyway.
But then Zelda’s breath catches and she seizes his face in her hands, immediately going for his lips, and Link has just enough time to pull his fingers away only for them to be replaced by her tongue—all tender and fury.
“You—” she cuts herself off by kissing him. “You’re unbelievable.” Teeth grazing his bottom lip. “Goddesses, Link.” Soft hands on his jaw. “I love you, I love you.” Those same hands, now on his shoulders, pushing him back. “I love you.”
His back hits the bedroll and they’re back to where they started—her hair pouring around his face, her breasts flush against his chest. “Zelda—” he starts, but she’s still kissing him, and he thinks that he has no qualms about going back to being mute if this is the cause. When she gives him a second to breathe, he does it in tandem with words flowing out of him again; “I love you, too. I love you.” And now it’s his tongue that’s in her mouth and she’s pulling him in and Hylia above he’s going to lose it right here, his last reserve of control—
“Zelda,” he calls out to her, her name muffled by their kiss. “Zelda, hold on a second.”
Zelda withdraws, looking so crestfallen that she has to do so, and it sends him into vertigo because it’s impossible that she wants him as much as he wants her, but she does.
“What?” she breathes.
“I promise it’s all right if we stop here,” Link tells her. “I don’t want you to—”
“I know it’s all right,” Zelda interrupts him. “But I’ve been taking elixirs for a week now.”
Link’s mind spins and spins.
He breathes for a few seconds before saying, “You have?”
Zelda nods—the motion sending her hair swaying around him. “Yes, I— I wasn’t lying when I said that I’ve wanted you for so long, Link.” She smiles, and Link thinks that the sun isn’t in the sky but right here—lying atop him, heartbeat pounding along his own.
So he kisses her again just so he can taste her light in his mouth. Tries to dispel the century-old longing inside him that has grown thicker than ever before.
It only makes him ache for her even more.
When their lips part, Link says, “I just feel like we shouldn’t do it here.”
“Why?” Zelda asks, then a grin slowly breaks across her face. “Is it because you’re afraid of us getting caught?”
Link chuckles; they’re miles away from the nearest civilization, cloaked by the trees, tucked inside a hill. There’s nothing else here except the wilds and them at the very heart of it.
“No, it’s not that,” he replies.
“Then why?”
“I don’t know,” Link says. “You… you deserve a bed with clean sheets. Inside a room with a roof overhead.” He tucks yet another wild tendril of gold behind her ear, caresses the apple of her cheek with his knuckles. “Not my bedroll that has definitely seen better days.”
Zelda leans into his touch, cranes her head just slightly to place a kiss on the base of his thumb.
His heart somersaults.
“I don’t care about any of that, Link,” Zelda mouths her answer into his palm. “Do you?”
Link huffs a laugh. He truly couldn’t care less.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I can have you anywhere.”
Zelda turns to knife him with her green eyes again, piercing the sweet blade through the very center of him before twisting it:
“Then have me.”
Those words leave him an open wound, and Goddess, an injury has never felt so good.
So Link pulls her back down, and with a fraction of his strength, rolls them over until he’s on top of her. Bleeds all over her through desperate kisses on her face, her neck, the slope of her breasts. Pulls her nightgown down with trembling hands to wrap his mouth around one rosy peak.
The moan Zelda lets out reverberates through her chest, right onto his tongue, and Link replies with a moan of his own.
“Link, please,” Zelda breathes, weaves her fingers through his hair. “Please, I want to touch you,” she tells him, but he’s not listening—he has his mouth and his hands full of her, mind drifting to the ether, until Zelda raises her thigh and pushes it up between his legs.
Link lets her go with a groan and meets her eyes.
“Will you let me touch you, my love?” she whispers, and Link has truly lost count of how many times he has wondered at the absolute power that her words wield; how they could deliver profound blow after blow after blow to his heart.
But there are more pressing matters at hand—the painful strain in his trousers, the earnest plea in her eyes—and Zelda has always been ineffably divine, so Link resigns to the abstract. Surrenders to her omnipotence.
“Gods— yes,” he breathes. “Yes, of course.”
With great pain, Link extricates himself from her to rise to his knees, take off his boots, and unbuckle his belt. As he undoes the laces of his trousers, Zelda surges upright—her nightgown all crumpled and pooled below her breasts—watching him as he shucks off the garment along with his underwear, leaving him only in his tunic.
Part of him is glad for the darkness because he must look quite pitiful this way—legs spread out and so plainly choked by his all-consuming desire for her—but then Zelda graces her hand on his knee and all remnants of coherent thoughts immediately perish.
Her digits whisper against his skin, hauling the power of a thousand suns, shooting straight through layers of dermis and fat and muscle to deliver warmth to his bones.
“I watched how your body stitched itself back together, all those years.” She traces her fingertips over the scars that crisscross his thigh, sending gooseflesh all over his skin. “I waited for you to wake up. I wondered how it would feel like to touch you.” Her hand travels north and north, resting on his inner thigh and squeezing lightly as if to test the firmness of his muscles, the realness of him. Link’s breath hitches. “And now you’re here, and I’m touching you,” she says, voice crackling at the edge from disbelief.
He can hardly believe it himself.
“Yeah,” Link whispers back. “Yeah, I’m here.”
Then Zelda leans in to press her lips on the corner of his mouth, wraps her fingers around him, and Link melts right through the earth beneath them.
She touches him tentatively, slowly, thumb curiously swiping across the head to smear the dew that has formed there before working him up and down, up and down—and he nearly lets his eyes fall shut and loses his hold on reality because it’s earth-shattering, how good it is—but he has to ground himself. He has to stay with her right here, look at her with eyes wide open.
But she’s keeping her pace, and there’s only so much willpower left in him to keep himself from hurtling off the cliff, so he stops the motion of her hand with his own.
“Zelda,” Link half-breathes and half-laughs. “I’m not going to last if you keep that up.”
“Me neither.” Her verdant gaze flits up to meet his own. She bites her lower lip before whispering, “I need you, Link.”
At last, the squall blasts at him, sending him into a free fall. And there’s nothing much to do except to concede to her, for she is gravity; the law of nature.
And he will gladly abide by it every time.
So Link takes her hand off him, gathers her in his arms, and kisses her into the bedroll, into the earth. Canopies her body with his own. Lets himself be held in the captive of her legs that press against his flanks. Hikes the hem of her nightgown to bare her thighs. Offers his flesh to her hands which are now slipping underneath his tunic, running all over his back.
When he’s too breathless to kiss her more, Link lifts his head to look into Zelda’s eyes. Runs one hand in the silk of her hair while the other traverses down, down, down, to the valley between their bodies.
For all that he’s uttered tonight, his tongue finally fails him—refusing to form the words of worship that thunder inside his brain—but it matters not. He has the rest of his life, long or short it may be, to repeat it to her.
“Zelda…” he whispers. The only thing he’s capable of voicing.
“Link,” Zelda breathes out. Fingernails debossing crescents into his shoulder blades as he takes his length and drags his tip along her folds. “Link, please.”
It takes him a few tries to poise himself right at her entrance, because he can’t look away from her face, not now—not when she’s panting beneath him, eyes glossy and wild and golden hair all tousled—but then finally Link pushes his way inside and they breathe and breathe together, and every atom in the universe converges into this one single moment of perfect alignment.
His eyes stay locked with hers. Her features contort so beautifully as she slowly welcomes more of him. His mouth falls open to inhale and exhale into her own. The hand in her hair holds on as the other squeezes her hip—grasping hard when he finally can’t go any further.
“Link.” Zelda breathes his name again, and the realization lands on him like the weight of a hundred Mount Lanayrus.
Because he’s right here. Inside her. Making love to her in the heartland of the country they’ve fought so hard to save. Making love to her when not long ago, she was just a voice in the breeze, a flare in his vision.
And she’s so warm and wet inside. Soft yet firm around him. Surrounding him, absorbing him.
As near as she can be.
“Zelda.” Tears fall from his eyes to her cheeks, mingling with her own. Every part of him is singing in joy, in pleasure, in pain—and he wants to say more than just her name but he can’t right now, he can’t.
But because Zelda understands him—she knows me she wants me she loves me, he thinks feverishly—she simply murmurs against his lips, “It’s okay, I love you,” and cants her hips up to urge him to go forth.
So Link does.
He eases out slightly before thrusting into her again—such a small movement—but it rumbles through him like an earthquake, and she must feel it, too, because his groan is immediately answered by a whimper.
His head falls into the crook of her shoulder. Breathes in the scent of her—lavender and warm safflina and wild—before pulling out and pushing in again.
Then, like the sudden break of a violent downpour, everything floods out of him.
“Zelda, I love you. I love you,” he whispers into her ear. “I love you so much. I feel so close to you.” His words are all frayed by the staccato of his hips driving into her, but Zelda doesn’t seem to mind—replies to him through her soft whimpers against his temple, through her arms that snake tightly around his shoulders.
She’s truly everywhere; under him and around him and in the air that he breathes. In the moonlight that illuminates the land and in the sky that hangs overhead. And Link realizes, amidst the painful exhilaration of it all, that there is no place that is more perfect for them than here—in the wild, atop a worn bedroll, the summer heat licking up their spines.
“I love you, too. I love you.” Her voice sounds more like a sob and something inside him shatters from that. “Gods, Link, please, please—”
She doesn’t even have to say it; he knows, he knows—that agonizing need for more, that wrathful longing to be even nearer—so he grabs the back of her knee and lifts one thigh up, and suddenly he’s thrusting even deeper into her and they’re both crying out into the night.
“Fuck,” Link sobs into her neck. Kisses her jaw, her chin, nudges her nose with his. Drapes her calf on his shoulder, begins to brush circles above where they’re joined with his thumb. Zelda lets out a moan that still rings so loud in the forest even though it’s immediately muffled by his tongue.
His other hand is still on her nape, holding on for dear life. Holding himself back because he wants to take her with him, to get there together. He’ll never go anywhere without her ever again.
“You don’t know,” Link mumbles into her mouth. “Fuck— you don’t know.” Lucidity is slipping through his fingers like sand, leaving him all loose at the seams. He can’t stop himself from crying. The words elude him. “I’m so— you’re—”
“I know, Link— I know.” The fracture of her voice is drowned out by the steady sounds of skin slapping against skin, again and again and again. Her audible breaths are serrated by each roll of his hips. “I’m here. I’m right here with you. I love you, I love you.”
She’s so close, he can tell. Limbs quivering around him, frayed at the edges. On her way to the ether once more.
He’s on his way there, too.
So in one last brief moment of clarity, Link pulls back just a little so he can truly look at her, fills himself to the brim with the sight of her, and begs brokenly, “Zelda, please look at me.”
Zelda opens her eyes; pupils blown, leaving just a sliver of iris around them that’s still impossibly green even in the dark, and he thinks, there it is.
All his love and hopes and fears and wonders; his past, present, and future; everything that makes up his life—all balanced and laid out between those eyes.
She cups his face in her hands. Whimpers her final benediction to him:
“Link, I’m coming.”
He sobs in relief. Carries her to the sky with his body. “I’m right here, Zelda.” Tears spill from her eyes; waterfall in his mind. “I’m right here. Come for me.”
She comes apart looking into his eyes—crying into his mouth as it washes over her, and he feels it everywhere—in the fluttering pulse around his length, in the strong clutch of her fingers, in the tremor of her thighs. And he doesn’t stop; he keeps his pace, and when she begins to wilt beneath him, he shoves his arms under her so he can pull her close, wrap her with his body. Leaving no space in between.
His hips falter as the rest of him unravels into oblivion. And amidst his ascent there, he feels her legs wrapping around his waist, her ankles locking on the small of his back. Hears the utterance mouthed against his ear, her voice slicing through his delirium—
“Let go for me, Link. I’m with you. I love you.”
It’s the voice that he knows, that had woken him up. The voice that he followed then, and will follow until the end of time.
So Link lets go that way; Zelda enveloped in his arms, tear-streaked cheek against tear-streaked cheek, heartbeat throbbing deep inside her, sobs breaking until they fade into nothing more than an open mouth ghosting her sweaty skin.
Silence falls over them, blankets their bodies. And for the first time in a long, long time, he feels light, weightless. There’s nothing else to say—at least not for the moment. All the words they have uttered—the echoes of their loud love—still suspend in the air like honey, steadily trickling into his mouth, into the cavity inside him in the shape of her.
They breathe together for a while. Letting the rush of their blood slow down. Coming back down to earth covered in stardust.
When he finally withdraws, he does so with a forlorn sigh, because truly, how can there be any other place for him now that his body knows her warmth? And he’s almost sure that he’s the only one who thinks so until Zelda pulls him back down to lay his head on her chest, pressing his ear above her beating heart, fingers twining with the dampened locks of his hair.
And there are things that they must do, Link knows. The world is still quite cruel that way—soon enough, they must untangle themselves from each other, clean themselves up. There’s exhaustion they must satiate with sleep. Armor that they must don again come morning light. Villages to visit, people to meet.
But for now, he inhales a lungful of her, and settles in the shelter of her arms—in the confines of this beautiful land—until they’re fused down to the marrow, until it proves impossible to tell where he ends and she begins.
Twin souls rebound at last, in the cradle of their kingdom.