Chapter Text
There was always a celebration in Rauru and Sonia’s palace.
Every end, every beginning, every shift, every season. The first blush of grapes on the vine, the final squash of the fruit’s harvest beneath their toes. Spring’s earliest grizzlemaw nuzzling out of its winter cave, the return of fall salmon to their spawning rivers. The longest day of the year. The shortest. The coldest, the hottest. They were so enamored with their fresh kingdom and this unburdened, unplucked world where every branch was laden with ripe, dripping possibility. They were in love with the buzzing, heady potential that sweetened the nectar and brightened the sky. A thrumming optimism that, even after this entire year spent against its pulse, remained beyond Zelda’s grasp.
Now she was the reason the calligraphers were brought up from the library to pen invitations to the King and Queen’s dearest friends and closest allies. The vague “niece” of Sonia on her extended visit bringing the bounty of boars and berries in for the finest ancient chefs to transform into a decadent feast for hundreds. Her presence that sent the palace staff out into the forests and fields to gather fresh flowers and greenery by the wagon-ful, dressing the muted stone throne room into a conservatory of midsummer beauty.
Zelda knew better than to protest against this unnecessary opulence, commemorating an occasion that still felt catastrophic. Every night was another terror manifesting that smothering staleness of the Hyrule Castle chamber that had been waiting for her, festering for countless lifetimes; an immeasurable amount of time that she had, with the faint brush of hand, found herself blinked to the other side of. An ocean crossed with no memory of how. No way to chart back.
But suggesting that she’d rather spend this cursed day up in her room, making her way through the latest mountain of reference books from Mineru’s collection, would be insulting to her well-meaning hosts. They did try so desperately to make her feel at “home,” almost to a fault. She bristled at the insinuation that her presence was anything but temporary. It made it seem as if she didn’t have a true place, a place waiting for her, a place where she belonged. She wasn’t looking for a replacement life.
Which was why she kept herself at arm’s length from these joyful, light-dappled people that swarmed into the palace for any occasion that wine was poured and music was struck, despite how kind they’d been to her, a stranger adrift. They filled the room now as Zelda stood against the far wall opposite the entrance, nursing a glass of vibrant red wine and watching the curious parade of visitors stream in. She was bored, almost sleepy, until the broad sunlight in the towering entrance blotted out, and an unmistakable presence cast his shadow across the arch.
She clutched the glass tightly as she watched, her mouth going slack, as Ganondorf heartily shook hands with the lingering Hylian lords and gave a quick, cursory bow to Rauru. He beheld Sonia’s hand like a lotus blossom, kissing the petals as a blush pulsed to the points of her ears. He looked just as he had a month before, kneeling on these very palace stones, pledging faith and piety to the ruler whose name he couldn’t utter without sneering, his contempt too palpable to contain even for the sake of ambition. His fiery red hair and glints of desert gold that strained against his bulging chest and arms and calves and thighs, the ripple of crafted muscle at his middle, an indestructible core…
She squeezed her eyes shut, tossing the thoughts out with a violent shake of her head. The same delegation of svelte Gerudo warriors accompanied him now, a circle of women checking their spears at the door in a gesture of good faith. They were softened without their weapons, but still ferociously intimidating with their towering figures and sharp, cutting glances. Those green eyes that practically glowed as they took in the splendor of this, their first royal party.
The Gerudo women wandered away from his side, and their King was instantly surrounded by an airy froth of women in their short toga dresses and coifs of woven, braided hair, flitting around him like butterflies to just-parted blooms. She watched as he took a moment with each of them, their small hands wrapped around a single curled, jeweled finger as their eyes met and they froze, spellbound in his unnaturally gold-flecked eyes, pools in which the sky caught fire. Unbelievable. Only a few weeks prior he was poised to ransack Rauru and Sonia’s burgeoning kingdom; now he was suddenly Hyrule’s most eligible bachelor.
“I don’t know how long we’re going to be able to keep him in here.” Zelda flinched, well aware that she’d been caught gaping as Sonia crept up behind her. The Queen clutched a flute of sparkling wine that she tapped her nails against, flashing a knowing smile that mirrored Ganondorf’s cheshire grin. “The men are going to riot. Look how he dwarfs them all, even in their proud feathers.”
Zelda straightened her spine, gathering her thoughts back up from their clattering spiral amidst Sonia’s interruption. “I don’t understand why he’s here at all,” she muttered, trying to pass her concern off as disinterest. “It was scarcely a month ago that he sent those Modulgas full-force to attack us. Anyone can swear fealty; it certainly doesn’t feel as if he’s proved it.”
“Oh Zelda, it was a training exercise,” Sonia sighed, repeating the Gerudo King’s mealy-mouthed explanation trumpeted to the King, the Queen, the entire Court and Kingdom. “They had meant to warn us, but the scout delivering the message was waylaid along the highland pass. He felt terrible about the miscommunication and came to pledge his respect in court almost immediately. You can’t tell me that the future court of Hyrule has abandoned mercy and forgiveness, can you?”
She swallowed her answer. Talking about her Hyrule was something she avoided as much as possible. It felt fundamentally wrong here, in this past of hope and light.
This was a place where they’d yet to witness the unforgivable.
“He’s been asking about you,” Sonia drawled, tilting her glass toward the window to admire the rise and shimmy of bubbles.
“Me?” she repeated, incredulous.
“Mmmhmm,” she said, satisfied with the reaction. For the love of Din, she was playing straight into the clever Queen’s hand, indulging in this amusement she’d crafted. Sonia did love her tea, and she loved a story, and one wasn’t quite as good without a steady supply of the other. “My own Steward Construct delivered the invitation out to the desert, and endured a nonstop stream of questions for the better part of an hour all about Lady Zelda. It seems he was quite set on making sure you’d be here.”
“That should have been clear; my name is on the bloody invitation,” Zelda bit back, knocking the rest of the wine glass down her gullet, easing her nagging worry about appearances and what must be a tell-tale scowl across her face. “Or shouldn’t I trust his reading comprehension skills?”
“I think we should keep his fascination between the two of us,” Sonia shrugged, squeezing her “niece’s” shoulder as she moved to mingle away. “I wouldn’t want one of those maidens to hear you’ve caught his golden eye. They’re likely to tear you apart.”
She watched the Queen wander to greet and charm a small delegation of Zoras that had come up, their burgundy fins wrenching Zelda’s heart. So far down the bloodline from Sidon and Mipha, and yet, trim away the ten thousand years and they’d be almost indistinguishable from each other. It was hard not to look around the room and see nothing but ghosts—everyone in this room, long gone and forgotten by her lifetime; everyone to come, a reality only her own heart could conjure.
One of the waiter constructs splashed a refill into her glass, and she gratefully savored it as the music swelled and the crowd began to sway, forgetting this occasion’s purpose and in no need of her presence.
Following the columns on the far edge of the throne room, she languidly circled the perimeter, slipping away from the indecipherable crush of a hundred shouted conversations and the stale scent of too many warm, crushing bodies vying for the prime space between the musicians and the throne. With each step and sip she grew more incensed, the worthless waste of this celebration revealing itself as her mind peeled back each layer. How could anyone—least of all Rauru and Sonia—think that she wanted to cheer her first full year of imprisonment in another time? She’d done nothing, nothing all these months but lament missing home, so weak and distraught that she’d mentioned Link, the most sacred resident of her heart, to that gossip-mongering Queen…who wasted no time in dropping it into conversation with Rauru, sparking a little conspiracy between them to torture her with like a lovesick schoolgirl. And now with the preparations and pomp of yet another royal celebration there was another week lost from combing Mineru’s library and prodding through the scholar’s mind, a week she could be closer to being back home watching the sunset over Hateno Village, unloading these strange stories of an unimaginably old Hyrule as practical fictions instead of a smothering, indefinite existence.
Fuming she banked right through an open door, finding herself in the empty dining hall. The servants had utilized the space tonight to stage the food they were waiting to replenish, along with brimming kegs of wine that the crowd would never allow to go to waste. It was quiet here; no staff, no guests, only the brimming bowls of cut fruit and crispy, honey-drenched skewered boar.
Link would kill for this , she thought with a faint smile, plucking a skewer from the dish and pulling the meat free, cube by cube, savoring each bite of dripping, sweet and salty meat teasing her tongue. Food did seem much less desperate and scrounged in this epoch.
“Stuffing the guest of honor back in the pantry? Rauru and Sonia are as predictable as the tide.”
Zelda whirled around, her pork-stuffed mouth agape as Ganondorf leaned against the entryway, flexing his arms even wider against his almost-bare chest. His eyes bored down into her from his sharp nose, a striking feature that drew out the handsome, meticulous angle of his jaw. There was something indeed hypnotic about that gaze, not just the intensity of it, but the disarming familiarity within. As if he knew her better than she’d ever known herself. A feral, desperate instinct kicked in from the recesses of her mind, simple syllables it begged her to follow: Run. Hide . Scream .
But the curious, conscious fool froze and stared right back, too mesmerized by the advancing beast to mind the trap. He strode close in a few giant paces, all feline grace and doubtless purpose, plucking her hand from the table and lifting it to his lips.
“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” he said, affecting a sing-song royal accent, an impression of Rauru that most wouldn’t dare repeat within the king’s own castle.
This still isn’t proper , her mind reeled as the plush softness of his lips and scratch of his beard confounded her skin, and she swore she felt the faintest flick of a tongue just graze her flesh, tasting spilt honey. The wine, oh the wine, and that topaz stare peeking up from his bowed head, goddess she was grateful for the table to brace her back against, the grace of carved wooden legs when her own would surely give.
“Ganondorf Dragmire,” he announced, still caging her hand in his grip. “And you are?” He pried as the beats of silence dragged.
“Lady Zelda,” she replied.
“Lady Zelda who?”
“Just Zelda.”
“Curious,” he mused, squeezing her bones together ever-so-slightly. “And you are Queen Sonia’s…?”
“...Niece,” she filled in.
“Oh yes, of course. How could I forget that handy explanation. It’s simply strange, that’s all,” he said, barely able to contain his smirk as he beheld the Lady square in his sights.
“Strange?”
“I wasn’t aware that Queen Sonia had a sister.” That flash of fang grew wider, feasting as she squirmed in a riddle she hadn’t known to watch for. “I would assume on a fantastical occasion such as this, close relatives would be in attendance. Where is your mother, Lady Zelda?”
“She’s dead,” she said quickly. Not a lie, not the wrong answer. Ganondorf’s crimson eyebrow ticked up enough to betray his surprise—and the slightest whiff of deference.
“My sympathies,” he lied.
“It was a long time ago,” she lobbed back.
“Your father?” He pressed on, his eyes raking over her, feasting and charting, an map of possibilities unfurled.
“Also dead,” she said flatly.
“Convenient,” he sneered.
“Most would say ‘tragic,’” she pointed out.
“Why? You don’t seem to think so.” She felt her cheeks flare at that devastating accuracy, as if he could index her life purely from the crest and fall of light in her eyes. “Your mother, however. You miss her, don’t you?”
Zelda bit her lip, stained by the rich wine. She felt as if she was nudging up against another trap, the strings straining, ready to catch her in a truth she shouldn’t reveal or a lie he’d sniff.
“Did she give you this?” he asked, sweeping his thumb along her palm’s life line, one end to another.
“Give me what?” she whispered, feeling the tension of the snare as he set it, yanking it tight across her path.
“Oh Zelda. So coy for a girl who shines like a goddess.” His voice dropped with hers, the callous of his thumb pressing into the place where her light pulsed, even now, an invisible current. “Brighter than that worthless priestess, stronger than her simpering husband. An actual, worthy power. What draws that magic out, I wonder?” He turned her delicate wrist in his hand, a ballerina in a box. One fluid motion away from a crushing, curdling snap. “Do you have to be…threatened?”
She winced, and he dissolved in laughter, throwing his head back and sending his golden chest-piece rollicking in waves. “You’re missing your big day, my Lady,” he said, brushing her away from the table, toward the throne room once more. “You shouldn’t keep our benevolent hosts waiting. We’ll have to get to know each other better later.” She found herself scurrying back out to the crowd as if set in motion by a force outside of herself, vaguely registering that the Gerudo King did not follow.
Despite the open curtains, the star-cooled balcony, the thin sheets, the sweating carafe of cool water on the nightstand, Zelda could not sleep. The party was still whirring in the floors below, with most of those committed to traveling all the way out here set on drinking and buzzing with the music and laughter until they collapsed on the floor, a sprawling, snoring heap that would be tomorrow’s problem. But through the layers of stone and expanse of staircases, it was muffled enough to fade into the evening’s backdrop along with the staccatos of nightfall from a Hyrule that was, somehow, more wild than the one she’d left behind. Squawking geese, hollering crickets, harmonizing frogs. Rustling leaves and frolicking brooks bubbling over still-new stones.
After overthanking Rauru and Sonia for their marvelous evening and apologizing for her imaginary headache, she’d made a beeline for the respite of her private quarters, throwing her whole weight against the door and holding it there, savoring the solid block between her sanctuary and the raucous world. From there she stripped off the sweaty garment these ancient Hylians considered a “dress,” crude linen that held no shape and itched until her skin chafed. The night air hit the perspiration on her bare flesh, making her feel cool and cleansed from the mess below.
She slipped beneath the fresh sheets, lighter than the clothing prevailing this land but still much rougher than what she’d grown used to in the warm, cozy Hateno House loft. But they were crisp and clean and smooth, and after such a strange and exhausting day, they felt downright luxurious. As she fluttered her bare legs between the covers, she recalled the exquisite silk wound around Ganondorf’s hip, printed with the same patterns adorning his warrior’s plush pants. The same material she remembered draped around Riju’s throne. Dreamy, liquid softness. Rauru and Sonia’s Hylians were behind the curve.
Her eyes slid closed, and after all the wine and excitement, she was certain she’d drift right off to sleep.
And yet, she tossed.
And turned.
Rolling from one side of the bed to the other, rearranging her arms and legs about the blankets, switching from her back to her side to her belly and back again. She counted up and down to 200, and then again by twos, but rest eluded her.
She lashed onto her back and bucked the pillow with her head, her eyelids peeling back open to scan the darkened room. Two, maybe three hours must have passed since she came up here, the moon too high up above to see across the open balcony.
With a sigh she drew her hands up to her heart, tapping her chest in rhythm with her heartbeat. She was already another week behind in her research; she couldn’t afford to spend another day drug out, exhausted and useless. She wrapped her thoughts around her breathing, in and out, trying to slow it down. Draw it further and further out until she was finally comatose.
Her hands parted, absentmindedly wandering to her nipples, darkening as they puckered in the ever-cooling air. Their dusky points crowned her pale peaks, drawing even tighter as her fingertips brushed against them. She pinched them just a bit, enough to feel her blood rush at the touch and draw her hips writhing up as if tugged by an invisible string. She leaned up on her elbow, scanning both the closed entrance door and empty balcony before easing back into her soft, private splay. It was impossible not to feel self-conscious here in this borrowed bedroom, her raft in unmoored palace life. Satisfied with her solitude, she inhaled deeply, riding the curve of her rib and waist and hip to thrum gently at her anxiously waiting clit.
She kept her left hand cupped around her breast, kneading the pliant, milky rise, savoring the way her body yielded to her own touch like down feather. She loved this harmony, the way she could center her entire being into a single-minded instrument of indulgent, unrepentant pleasure at her mere command. Her mind thumbed through the memories she drew from on nights like this, a carousel of images and flashes that swiveled and melded together into one blurred, surging collage of want. The buttery leather of gauntlets like a second skin; the rough, biting wood of a stable door; her fingertips brushing hay as she bent over the gate; the quake of Link’s knees in his grasp as she tipped so slowly down his shaft, savoring his excruciating groan as his hands weaved through her hair, begging her forward. Her name through his gritted teeth a plea, a prayer, a promise that he’d make her pay just as dearly for this wicked torment.
But tonight the recollections dissolved as her clever middle and index fingers found their pace, and her mind was drawn instead straight back down into the dining hall, atop that table laden with impending feast. A clear-eyed vision, so visceral her nostrils flooded with the scent of roasted boar and ladled honey and split fruit leeching nectar. Her small of her back still pressed against the wood, her wrist locked in Ganondorf’s grip, and with his free arm he swept the surface of all its contents, letting the platters and plates and glasses and forks clatter onto the stone floor. He cupped her hips and lifted her up, easing her back down across the slatted boards, careful but resolute, drawing her knees up to drape open and expose the totality of her being.
“Not even a blush?” His voice echoed and ricocheted, as if being shouted from one end of a long corridor to the other. In her mind his expression had softened, filed down into something almost boyish—childlike, surprised and delighted by the spoils of his own cleverness, a key clicking into a lock. Not quite believing this could work until it did. His hands raked from the crest of her ass along her inner thighs, down the sweep of her calves to grip her ankles, her heels resting at the lip of the smooth wood grain. “You’ve done this already, haven’t you, Zelda?”
“Not with you,” she said aloud in the empty bedchamber, her fingers slowing slightly as the Gerudo King of her imagination leaned closer, his eyes flicking from one end of her body to the other, unsure which morsel he wished to taste first. It struck her as bizarre to be speaking aloud, even in this faint whisper, but the heady delight of her breathy, labored voice in her ear only heightened the craving wrenching her center.
“If you’re not a maiden, which of Rauru’s lackey-lords do you belong to?” he considered, leaning closer to trace the line of her jaw.
“I’m not a possession,” she said, her tone biting back. “I belong to no one.”
He threw his head back in laughter, cascades of long red hair tossed behind his mountainous shoulder as he leaned in closer, a sneer drawing his face into a carnival of pure, baited amusement. “How very modern of you, Lady Zelda,” he said, and suddenly the bridge of his nose and his sinking, slicked lips were languishing up and down her neck, pausing to nip right beneath her earlobe and drawing an electric shudder that practically sparked her straight off the table. “It’s almost as if you’re not from here at all,” he remarked, pausing to murmur into her ear, his hands pushing her breasts together as he sank his weight against the table, hovering just above her. “Where did you come from, Zelda?”
“L-Lurelin Village,” she stammered, the first and furthest name to bubble into her head.
“Lurelin…Village…” He squeezed harder, and she groaned as he lifted slightly, a glint of surprise shading his self-assured smirk. “I’ve heard of the Lurelin Sea, but had no idea an entire village had rooted at the shore. That must have happened rather quickly. A little too recent for you to be ‘from’ there, Lady Zelda. You know something I don’t,” he mused, keeping her breasts trapped in one massive hand as his other reclaimed her right wrist, swiveling her palm. “As if you aren’t from here at all. You’re strong enough to outshine your supposed relatives, and wise enough to bristle with fear at my approach. Why is that?”
“You’re not sincere,” she murmured.
“About pledges to Rauru? No, you’re absolutely right about that. It’s bewildering how little they seem to fear the future,” he said wistfully, drawing back and below, his gaze vanishing between her knees. “You poor, desperate little thing. Have you been this eager for me all night? I would have come sooner if I’d known.”
Her fingers slipped into her dampness as she envisioned that lying, plotting tongue teasing open the folds of her slit, taking a languish of eternity to outline her velvet walls, lapping up the decadent wetness that awaited him. “Mm, you taste Hylian, don’t you think?” he said, swiftly diving back up to her parted lips, sweeping her own gloss along her tastebuds as he kissed her, calming her cries of protest with his fingers making quick, fast work of her in his mouth’s absence. She could swear the ghost of sweet cream and golden apple filled her mouth as the vision of him, caressing her cheek as the kiss lingered, swelled in her mind’s eye. Her back arched up against him, grinding her hips hard against his hand until he knelt back to her apex, devouring her as that slippery thumb met the same nub her fingers worked at so eagerly in the bed.
“Al-most,” she breathed, the crest of the hill within her grasp, so close to tumbling into oblivion’s release.
“What are you trying to cull out of Mineru’s dusty library?” he asked, abruptly lifting his head, stilling his thumb but keeping it planted right on the edge of her nerve. Making her crumple in on herself with anguish. “Such a bright, beautiful young thing, at the end of a full summer, still as pale as you were at winter’s end.” He fanned his fingers across her stomach, tracing the goosebumps that rose. “Have you even been outside? I’ll give you a moment,” he said, relishing her mewling outcry.
“I want… to be powerful,” she panted, the confession hanging in the air, arisen from a place locked away even from herself. Was that really what she was hoping for? Not the power to overtake or control, no, that’s not what she wanted. Was it?
Except that her fall from the Castle floor had rendered her so defenseless, once again. Another impotent refrain repeated as her lifetime stretched through sleeping and stasis, a girl supposedly blessed with the ability to harness the essence of a goddess but whose fate was perpetually outside the bounds of her own will. She dug down for the power to transcend what had forced her here, to stare down fate and demand, bring me home. To him. Now .
“Then we do have something in common, aside from having to appease those crowned idiots,” he purred, gathering her up into his arms, holding her close against his chest as he sank down onto the end of the table in her place. “I’m going to unlock you, Lady Zelda,” he vowed as she clawed at those layers of scarves and silk, tucking her blonde locks behind her ear as she freed his rigid length from within his trousers. “I’ll draw out exactly how powerful you can be.”
She gripped the shaft at the base, sliding her hand up and down its smooth slight curve, his head lolling back at the unexpected strength of her touch. He was substantial; she couldn’t quite make a fist around him—he was more than she’d been accustomed to.
The realization snagged her from the daydream, guilt flash-flooding into her heart as her fingers stilled. What was she doing, fantasizing about not just another man, but a demonstrated monster? Right in the midst of all the work she’d been pouring into returning to the one who’d loved her so selflessly, who left her wanting for nothing? Who was perfect? One pittance of a year later, and her weak mind already strayed?
You have a pulse, just like every other woman in that hall, a faint, unfamiliar voice crept into the periphery of her thoughts. So much like hers. It had to be hers. No one else was here, after all, least of all in her own mind. Do you think any of them are denying themselves indulgence in the respite of their own imagination? Do you think Sonia’s mind hasn’t wandered out of Rauru’s bed tonight? You’re only human, Lady Zelda.
“I don’t need your help,” she said to the Gerudo King vision, envisioning shifting him into place as her knees locked at his sides, bracing herself against his chest as she inched herself down slowly, careful not to let the dizzying satisfaction of that thick fullness wrest the control from her grasp. She could see herself flicking the gold of his chest-piece, watching his eyes roll back as his jaw slacked.
“I thought…you were just…some pretty pawn…for Rauru’s ambition,” he groaned, his hands finding her ass and gripping tightly, so tightly that her skin could almost feel those sharp, talon-like nails of her fantasy dragged and scored into the plump cheeks as they rose and fell, the rush eroding her resolve, quickening the grind as she felt herself, once again, glimpsing the crest. Her walls tightened in quick, fiery convulsions, and she slipped her own fingers in just to savor her own kindled warmth. Feeling her tense around him Ganondorf nipped into the base of her neck, ringing her throat in scraped kisses. She clawed at that thick, scratchy beard, commanding him up and snaring his lip between her teeth. She wouldn’t have her rapture spoiled by more incessant schemes from that wicked, restless tongue.
In her room Zelda shuddered violently against the scratchy sheets, her cries of delight tapering off in shudders, and if she weren’t so sated she’d be worried about the sound ricocheting down the hall.
“You’re so lovely like this,” she swore she heard him sigh. The awful linen was almost as rough as that emptied table, her body poured out once again, all shallow breath and sweat-slicked flush and the faintest ethereal glow emanating from that telltale pulse on her palm. “Just like all those pretty, stupid statues littering this world.” The whisper drew close, straight into her soul. “Sweet sleeping goddess. You’re mine, and I’m not finished yet.”
Her hooded eyes, so close to slumber, flew open to meet the silvery suggestions of light still hanging in the chamber. Without thinking her hand swept away from its resting place against her thigh, back to her core, now spent and sore in protest. The vision flooded her mind’s eye once again, Ganondorf drawing her quaking legs up as he dragged her to the very edge of the table. He leaned forward, folding her legs back down like a paper crane’s wing, gripping her ankles tightly together as her knees sank into the softness of her breasts.
He rammed into her so deeply, she thought she’d ricochet straight off the table.
That spot, that spot so high and nestled she hadn’t even known it existed, hadn’t reached of her own accord… hadn’t been discovered by anyone…chafed again and again in quick succession as he pressed her body down in on itself and slammed forward, leaving her just enough room to breathe her ragged, labored moans while caging those ankles, running his tongue up her heel, biting down on the tips of her toes.
“That’s right,” he managed as he grunted, desperation hanging as she imagined the tinge of sweat gathering at his furrowed brow, driving toward an answer to the question he’d been mulling for eons. “There’s no fighting it, is there? I’ll find everything inside you.”
She didn’t even feel the wood scraping against her shoulder blades in the midst of ecstasy that didn’t so much peak as surge, writhing staccatos that jolted her against his chest, sending her bucking against the tight-knit cage of limbs and lungs, the jewels in his golden settings tinkling with each frenzied kick that he savored like a delicacy, swallowing her helpless euphoria with a satisfied Mmmm . She was so diminished after losing track of her mountain range of climaxes that she only vaguely registered his own, letting the weight of his shuddering body close around her like an animal hide in the midst of winter until the vision dissolved away to the nothingness from which it came, drowning her finally in the deepest dreamless sleep she’d had since the floor gave way beneath her.
Lunch was being served by the time Zelda dragged herself down to the dining hall, the sunlight making her squint. Her brain felt three sizes too big for her skull; she hadn’t realized that she’d drank so much the night before. In fact she hadn’t, but she wasn’t used to it. Not like Sonia, who was perched at the table as poised and put together as she’d been before the party even started. Zelda cast a rueful eye on the table that had manifested so clearly in her dreams, still emptied of any and all its burdens. The light meal of cut sandwich squares and shredded carrot slaw was thankfully presented on the opposite end of the room.
“Good mor—afternoon,” she managed as she sank into the seat across from the Queen. A steward construct was instantly at her side, pouring a tall glass of water from a clay pitcher tilted in its strange, artificial hands.
“My my, you look like you had quite a time last night,” Sonia said, peering at her ward over her teacup with so much mirth, she seemed fit to burst.
“I had trouble sleeping,” she said, instinctively reaching up to smooth her hair. She’d have to rebraid it; she could feel the mess and frizz from all the friction on her pillow.
“I should say,” said Sonia, raising her eyebrows to the ceiling. She lowered the cup to just below her sternum, tendrils of steam rising up to frame her grinning face. “Do you know Lady Elenna, the Zora?”
“I’m not sure that we’ve met formally, but yes,” Zelda supposed, putting no mind into her responses as she tried to force a small cucumber sandwich down her throat. She could feel her stomach rumble in protest as it lodged like a brick.
“Well. She arranged to stay in some of our guest quarters last night, to spend a few extra days here on the Plateau before she went back to the Domain,” Sonia droned on. “Apparently she was awoken at some unconscionable hour by the most curious sounds coming from just beneath her floor. She wandered down to find the Dining Hall door left askew, and the table right there—” Sonia nodded to the table beside them, “—occupied by the Gerudo King and the night’s Guest of Honor in the most compromising position she’d ever seen.”
Zelda felt her heart lurch down into the depths of her gut, racing with frenzied, irrational panic. “Lady Elenna thought she saw… that she saw me down here? With Ganondorf?”
“Don’t worry, I compelled her not to breathe another word, if she wants to keep her esteemed standing here at the Castle,” Sonia said, reaching a whimsically painted hand out to clasp Zelda’s own, a conspiratorial pact. “But my goodness Zelda, you must learn to use a little discretion! Society is still small here, you know. You have to put a little thought into your indulgences, or else they're easy weapons to be hurled against you.”
“Sonia, I swear on my mother’s grave I wasn’t down here last night,” she said, the sound of that racing heartbeat throbbing in her eardrums. “I had trouble sleeping, but I didn’t even go out to my balcony, much less the Dining Hall. I was in my chamber from the moment I said good night to you and Rauru both.”
“Zelda, you don’t have to be embarrassed! This might be the savviest move you’ve made since you got here,” Sonia said with a squeeze.
“I’m not embarrassed!” She cried, tearing her hand away. “It’s not about that! It’s… it’s the fact that she’s lying, and I’ve done nothing to draw such vicious rumors. Ganondorf and I went nowhere past introductions last night. I didn’t even realize he was still in attendance by the time I decided to retire. I was by myself,” she repeated, the lucid night in bed alone snapping into focus. The uncanniness of that one-sided conversation. The intensity of her touch.
Sonia drew back, her face softening in measured consideration. “That’s very strange,” she said, the taunt eased from her tone. “Lady Elenna was quite…detailed…in her description, so it’s difficult to call her shock and conviction into question. Then again, there are quite a few girls who look like you crammed into this castle, I will admit. She was just so sure it was you, without a shadow of a doubt. I did consider it out-of-character...a maiden with such a good upbringing," Sonia assumed, a narrative of purity and grace that the King and Queen had weaved around her since arrival, with occasional comments texturing the tapestry. The random oh she doesn't know about all that or we really shouldn't be discussing this in front of the Lady, even more cloistered than her true childhood had been. She ignored and didn't contradict it; the less anyone knew about her life in the future seemed to serve it best. How could they eventually miss what they did not know?
“Where is the King himself?” she asked, narrowing her gaze. “Shouldn’t he be the one subject to an interrogation, rather than all the blonde women in attendance?”
“He left before dawn broke,” Sonia said.
“Of course he did,” she muttered, not sure which conduit fit her rage: Sonia and her bored Ladies sifting for gossip, or her own inability to rein in her ridiculous desire, which gave this entire preposterous situation an undercurrent of guilt she couldn’t quite stomach. She stood up from the table, curtly nodding to Sonia. “Yet again, I’m reminded that your winemakers are infinitely more talented than those practicing the dying art in my Hyrule. And I’m going to spend the rest of the day dealing with the consequences of their wares. If you’ll excuse me.”
As she headed down the hall, she heard the familiar whir of a Steward Construct’s gears surging to catch up with her. “Princess,” the Construct addressed her in confidence.
“What is it, friend?” she asked, her jaw unclenching as the gentle machine considered her with its blank eyes, raising its timid fingers aloft.
“I overheard your conversation with Queen Sonia,” it reported. “I believe the Queen did not relay her discovery to you with ill intent.”
Zelda’s gaze drifted to the stone floor, still gleaming with polish and freshness. What did it look like now, in her Hyrule? Did it even exist, or had the moss and brambles reclaimed this very spot back into the earth? “I think you’re right,” she admitted.
“But you were also being truthful,” the Construct went on. “I observed you bid King Rauru and Queen Sonia good night at zero hour. At that time, you returned to your chamber, where you did not emerge until eleven thirty-seven.”
A sigh eased from her chest. “Thank you for confirming,” she said, taking another step toward her room.
“However,” it cut in, “at oh three hundred, I observed a being matching each of your body and aural signatures materialize in the Dining Hall. That individual was accompanied by the Gerudo King. I found it unusual, and scanned to confirm that you were still in your chamber. The scan showed both you and the duplicate lifeform existing simultaneously and yet independently, with heart rates and temperatures that fluctuated in tandem for approximately forty minutes.”
“Another girl?” Zelda asked, confused.
“Another you.” The Construct spun its wrist, revealing a small scroll of parchment in its grasp. “The Gerudo King approached me before he departed and asked me to deliver this to Lady Zelda. I felt it was best not to divulge any of the information I’d confirmed and gathered from the night before, even though he may have been a source of clarity in this abnormality. His behavior patterns indicate the potential to pose a threat.”
She gazed at the spool of paper, stunned into stillness. Shaking her head she ripped off the seal, the message unfurling in her waiting hands.
My lady, let’s see each other again soon.
So much left to unravel in the proper light.
Let’s find some place where nothing will come between us.
I hear Lurelin Village is lovely this time of year .