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'the merry dancers' - an orcadian and shetlandic term for the aurora borealis
Zelda was a scientist.
Ergo, she should be handy with a little carving knife.
That’s what she would have thought, anyway, if she’d ever been allowed to do things like dissections or get up close with the Guardian research to brush away dust and dirt with one of those delicate little archaeology brushes.
But she hadn’t.
So, she wasn’t.
She’d been getting decent with her sword fighting basics— taught by Link, though she had a sneaking suspicion he was a too-encouraging teacher and was praising her more than she had earned (but, then, she also knew that she was overly critical of herself, so maybe Link’s praise was warranted?)— but the elegance and ferocity needed to wield a short sword was far different from the decisive precision needed to handle a carving knife.
But she was trying anyway.
And she was having fun, too.
She had cut the bulbous heads from several silent shrooms, and was now delicately— if a little clumsily— cutting wing-shapes from the petals of a bundle of slightly-wilted blue nightshade blooms.
Link was out in the forest, trying to hunt down a few grouse for the town’s banquet, and Zelda was determined to finish their decorations by the time he got back.
She’d been saving up empty honey and jam jars since the beginning of autumn for these things.
The seller at the market gave her odd looks every time she came by.
(To be fair, she and Link got through a ridiculous amount of honey. He’d been kind of obsessed with cooking honey glazed everything the last month, and Zelda liked honey in her tea, and she drank at least three cups a day.)
She gave the beekeeper plenty of extra rupees to cover the cost of keeping the jars. They had a surplus anyway, but Zelda did feel a little twinge of guilt at having kept so many for so long; the etiquette was to clean and return the jars once they were empty, so they could be reused.
And she was going to return the jars…
…Tomorrow.
Or maybe the day after, actually. She’d have to clean them all out after this.
Finally, she finished cutting the last of her little petal-wings. They were all different sizes, some jagged, others lopsided. They all had that handmade charm to them, and Zelda was quite pleased with her handiwork.
The last step was easy- dab a bit of paste onto the edge of each wing and stick two to the back of each mushroom head.
Soon, she had about thirty little things done and ready.
She’d already stuffed a little bit of moss and the remains of the petals, shredded into tiny specks, into each jar, and now all she had to do was wrap her little creations with string, and dangle them from the top of the jars.
That… took a while. It was surprisingly fiddly.
But she got it done.
Now all she needed was for Link to get home so that she could borrow the little hand-pulled wooden wagon he’d taken with him— he needed a good few birds for the banquet, and was always on the lookout for other ingredients, too— and wheel her little decorations into town and dot them around the square; in secure spots, both on the ground and high up, out of the way of clumsy, excitable, dancing feet.
She already had a checklist made of every location she’d be putting the little jars, to make the process of both setting up and clearing them away faster.
Though, the thought of clearing them away was a little sad.
There was something just a little melancholy about the celebration, wasn’t there...?
Zelda hummed to herself as she checked everything else was in order.
Yep— a big wooden bowl full of roasted pumpkin seeds, sprinkled with Goron spice; a platter of miniature cheese and vegetable sandwiches, cut into little triangles, a picnic blanket and a cute woven basket that Zelda had made herself (it was a bit wonky, but she was so proud of it!), and a little flint striker, some kindling, and warm outer clothes.
All ready; all perfect.
They were set for their contributions to the village-wide banquet table, and for their own little private picnic to watch the sunrise together.
Something really didn’t feel quite right, though.
A little knot twisted in the back of Zelda’s throat.
Having no clues as to its origin, she chalked it up to nerves.
This wasn’t just her first Winter’s Moon since the Calamity— nor was it Link’s— but it was the first one they’d be spending together.
Zelda had always celebrated the holiday in the castle, at some stuffy, ostentatious banquet table opposite her father, joined by nobody else except the stoic guards at the door, as the advisors and butlers and Zelda’s ladies in waiting all were given the night to go and spend how they pleased.
Which was only right and fair, but Zelda had always shifted miserably; uncomfortably, under her father’s gaze. As he tried to partake in festive conversation and impart well-wishes for the future, but such chatter always turned to lectures and long silences and terrible arguments that had Zelda— especially in her younger-teen years— storming all the way back to her room to cry so hard she’d miss Naydra’s merry dance across the twinkling sky more often than not.
She’d always wanted to celebrate the new year properly.
With one of the big feast tables that sprawled throughout a market square and a dance or two— or seven, or eight, or however many— that the entirety of the village partook in.
For while the hearth of her father’s preferred dining room was always lit and blazing and warm, fighting off the wintry chill that soaked throughout the castle, it was hardly a cozy affair. Both she and him had always sat in the same stiff, cold silence— save for the awkward attempts at familial conversation— or in loud, angry disputes.
Maybe that was it.
The nagging, sad, bleak feeling.
She’d sat through so many awful Winter’s Moons— eleven, to be exact; they had been much nicer when her mother was with them— that her body was tensing; assuming that this would be another one.
‘Well, body,’ Zelda thought, absently picking at the bowl of pumpkin seeds- a snack she’d recently discovered a love for- ‘get ready to be wrong.’
Link returned shortly after, with a small yelp of indignation as he walked in through the front door to see Zelda picking at the snacks they were meant to be contributing to the village-wide spread.
“They’re good,” she said with a cheeky smile, though she stopped nibbling, “You get your grouses? Grouse?”
A slight frown tugged at her eyebrows.
‘Greese?’
Link nodded, and Zelda peered around him to see. Three fat birds lay in the pull-cart, shot expertly through their eyes, ready to be plucked of their feathers, and otherwise prepared for the feast.
They’d be roasted by the communal pots at the celebration itself, but Zelda knew Link wanted to make sure they were well seasoned, and stuffed with aromatics before they left.
So, she made herself busy, tidying up the scraps from her crafting, piling the rest of the food and other stuff into the cart once Link had taken them over to the kitchen table to sort them out, and… one more thing.
A little gift. For Link.
It wasn’t much, but it was traditional to get those closest to you a little something or other.
Long gone were the days her father would press an exorbitantly gaudy necklace or something similar into her hands, pretending he knew or cared one mote about any of her actual interests. (Well, he knew, but only remembered when he could use such knowledge to punish her for being distracted by such things.)
Long gone were the days she’d hand him a beautifully crafted quill or a new set of gemstone rings, having not spent any gentle, father-daughter time with him in years, and thus having no idea where to even begin in terms of gifts.
(Long gone were the days where, whenever they next saw each other after that year’s Winter’s Moon, Urbosa would present her with a beautiful new leather-bound sketchbook-journal, the first page already adorned with a handwritten message wishing her well.)
By the time she was done covertly wrapping the gift in a soft cotton sheet, it seemed Link was, too. His deft hands had made quick work of the birds, and he was just finishing up wrapping them in waxed paper and tying them with twine ready to take down to the square.
She pulled on a cloak— already otherwise dressed for the wintry chill— and, after hiding the little gift inside the cloak’s interior pockets, she also donned her snow boots and a cozy muffler.
She also grabbed Link’s warm exterior clothes from the pile. For all he insisted that a skewer of meat cooked in an absurd amount of Goron spice was enough to keep him sufficiently warm for hours, she didn’t quite believe him, and would much rather he stay frostbite-free with the tried-and-true method of appropriate clothing.
And while he did stick out his tongue in faux-indignation as she slipped a fuzzy pair of earmuffs over his head, he didn’t actually complain.
Link added one final thing to the pile of stuff in the little wagon. A long; thin package wrapped in brown paper. ZELDA :) had been scrawled onto a slip of parchment in Link’s cucco-scratch handwriting, and secured to the parcel with a sliver of handsome sea-blue ribbon.
“Are we ready?” Zelda asked, and when Link nodded, she threw the door open with a delighted flourish, and declared, “Let’s go!!”
With the two of them alternating on who pulled the wagon, they made their way across the bridge, down the hill, and into the snow-laden town square.
In the warm orange glow of twilight, the frost sparkled like magic, a never-ending ocean of twinkling white.
The strange hollow feeling had followed Zelda all the way down from the house, even as she wound up with a pack of the village kids following her, and they took the majority of her little fairy-jar decorations to put up, she couldn’t quite shake it.
Was it hunger? Nerves about the new year? A strange kind of agoraphobia since, admittedly, she was still quite a newcomer in Hateno?
None of those seemed to quite fit.
She left the kids with her list and the jars, and sought out Link, at the community cooking pots, as he was roasting the grouse and some carrots that he’d drizzled with honey and sprinkled with salt. It smelled delightful.
Spotting Zelda over his shoulder, Link sneaked her a half a bread roll slathered in warm goat’s cheese and a spiced blackberry preserve. He ate the other half in one bite as Zelda nibbled on hers, both content for the moment to just be in the company of the fire and each other.
As the sky dimmed more by the second, the centre of town grew busier and busier. Last minute decorations were strewn about through trees and lamp posts and laid out on doorsteps and flagstones, pumpkins were picked and wrapped in big leaves and placed near the fire to roast (after being gutted of their seeds and stuffed with meat and vegetables, of course), some eager youngsters were already running about with gifts they’d been allowed to open early, and a little band was beginning to gather on the green outside the inn, right by the Goddess statue- which was laden with gifts of fruit and flowers and small whittled figurines.
From her spot by the cooking pots, Zelda gazed up at the statue for a long moment.
That funny feeling in her gut— chest? It was everywhere, it seemed, scampering about in her innards like a rat— twisted tighter as a silent princess bloom within the statue’s newly adorned flower crown began to softly glow in the evening blue.
Zelda hadn’t put anything by the statue.
As far as she knew, Link hadn’t either.
That, at least, made her feel a little better.
She finished the last of her little snack and dusted the crumbs from her gloved hands, and rose from her half-lean-half-sitting position, feeling the tiniest bit better as she noticed her little fairy-jars begin to glow, too.
Link looked up from stoking the fire, a question twinkling in his eyes, and Zelda smiled tightly.
“Perhaps I should take a quick walk…” she said, and Link raised an eyebrow, “I’m nervous. It’s silly, I know.”
Link shook his head, no, it’s not, and waved her off with a smile.
Though she barely took a step away before he yelped for some reason and she turned right back, afraid he’d burned himself.
He hadn’t.
He… beckoned her closer, and simply brushed some loose hair behind her ear.
Zelda felt her face flare, and not quite because of the blazing fire.
Her cheeks bloomed even warmer when Link produced a candy pink blossom from inside his cloak- the head of some warm safflina- and slid it into place behind her ear.
He smiled brightly, as if this was the most normal and casual thing for him to do.
“Right. Thank you.” Zelda said, stiffly; primly; far too formally, though her voice was wobbly, and far higher pitched than normal, “It’s lovely.”
And then she turned and speedwalked away before she exploded. Or combusted. Or said something embarrassing. All of which would be equally terrible fates, she presumed.
‘Good job reacting normally,’ she inwardly chided herself, ‘You weren’t strange in the slightest…’
As she walked through town, to the edge of the village pastures, she thought over the situation.
It had been a good few months since she and Link had vanquished the Calamity for good (there was that twinge again!) and though she’d been living with him; in his house; sleeping in his bed, she still wasn’t sure how to define their relationship.
The stories and ballads told about her all said she’d had eyes only for her knight, before everything. And… well… did she? Had she?
Her memories of the days and weeks leading up to the disaster were muddled. Blurred and decayed by residual fear and newfound grief.
Whether she’d liked Link like that back then felt irrelevant; whenever she tried to unearth her true feelings from that time, it was all clouded over by a hollow ache. She couldn’t think about then without thinking of Urbosa, or Mipha, or Daruk, or Revali, or her father…
Oh.
‘That’s…’ Zelda sank to her knees beneath a scraggly, leafless apple tree, and gazed up at the streaked orange and ink-blue sky, ‘Oh.’
Right.
That’s what it was.
Snow began to fall, and the clock-bell that hung in town chimed, echoing across the fields and the snow, probably even audible out in the fields that lay before Fort Hateno.
Zelda pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, suddenly all too aware of the cold.
She may not know exactly how she felt about Link, but it was pretty clear how she felt about the rest of the Champions.
She missed them.
She missed them so hard it hurt.
She missed them so much that the grief clawed at her throat, had the winter chill boring right into her bones, and the celebration felt almost worthless for the moment.
What right did she have to celebrate a new year that her friends would never get to see?
And not just her friends—countless lives had been destroyed by the Calamity, the castle staff, the guardian research team, the citizens of Castletown and Deya village, the guardsmen stationed at the exchange point or the gatepost town. Her failures had led to so many deaths; only a handful of people were displaced, as most had died where they stood or as they fled.
How dare she?
The frivolity of the Winter’s Moon felt so small in comparison to all the ruin Zelda had allowed to pass. This was just…
She buried her head in her knees.
How could she?
A small, pointed cough from only a couple of feet away startled Zelda, and she sat up, wiping her eyes furiously.
Link was stood there, a bowl of hot food in each hand. He nodded at the tree root beside Zelda’s spot, a question in his gaze.
She shrugged miserably, but moved along to give him more space.
He sat down, after folding his cloak to be underneath him, and passed her a bowl.
A wooden eating spoon was already nestled inside, and the steam rising from the delightfully scented meat-and-pumpkin stew was warm and spiced, and managed to lift Zelda’s spirits just a little bit, even before she took a bite.
Link was eating his already, though with uncharacteristic slowness. Usually he practically inhaled his meals, but this time he was being slow and deliberate with each spoonful.
Bemused, as Zelda took a bite of her own, she peered a little more carefully at Link.
There were deep, bruise-purple shadows under his eyes. He always had those, but they seemed more intense than normal. His shoulders were drawn up just a little bit tightly. He paused just slightly too long between bites, swirling his spoon around thoughtfully, as if he was hesitating to keep eating.
Suddenly, Zelda felt quite silly. He was just as melancholy as she was. But in typical Link fashion, had kept it well hidden.
Zelda shuffled closer to him, letting their legs bump together, and felt herself smile as Link leaned into her, ever so slightly.
He sighed, out through his nose, a deeply tired sound, and though his gaze flickered to Zelda for a moment, he then returned to staring up at the sky, and the stars that were beginning to twinkle above.
“Do you miss them?” Zelda asked, her own voice surprising her, as she followed Link’s eyes upwards, knowing him well enough to be sure that he was thinking about their fallen friends, too.
He shrugged, mouth stretched wide in a grimace for a second, and then turned to Zelda, an eyebrow raised.
“Of course I do,” she said softly, “But you…”
Link’s face fell, and he turned back to the sky.
“You’re allowed to, you know,” Zelda continued, placing a hand on his arm, “Even if your mind doesn’t remember them well, I imagine your heart still aches with loss.”
He shrugged again.
Zelda frowned.
‘Deflecting...’
“You know,” she said, a small, teasing smile on her face despite the gloomy mood, “You may act different than you did a hundred years ago, but you’re still my Link. I still know you.”
He tensed, and shot a glance back her way.
“If you’re upset… if you miss them, or…” a thought occurred to her, “Your family. That’s okay.”
For a long moment, he was still, and Zelda began to worry she’d been completely wrong. Maybe he was just cold, or maybe he was eating slowly to be polite, or…
He nodded.
It was a tiny thing, barely perceptible, but Zelda caught it.
She laid both their half-eaten bowls of food gently on the snowcapped grass, and then wrapped her arms around Link.
“It’s so hard to see everyone else celebrate with everyone they love when so many of our loved ones are gone,” Zelda said, finding her own hurt becoming lighter with her words, “Sometimes, I feel so jealous it turns to actual nausea. Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t been born Princess. I wish I’d never had such a horrible burden put upon me. I wish, sometimes, that I’d never known the Champions, or you, or perhaps that I was born now, in this era of peace.”
Link nodded along, but Zelda continued, spouting off whatever came to mind, including strange revelations she was having in the moment.
“But… if I hadn’t… if I hadn’t been born me, I’d never have met you. I’d never have felt Urbosa’s kindness, known Mipha’s passion, seen Revali’s determination, or laughed with Daruk… For all the horrid things we’ve been through, Link, I think, at the end of the day, I’m glad, at least, that I got to know you, and those amazing others. My life is so much richer because of you all.”
She sniffed.
“Once, when I was young,” her hands twisted in the fabric of Link’s cloak, “In the days after my mother passed, I was inconsolable. I was desolate, and I was angry.”
Link’s head lowered to rest in the crook of her neck, Zelda leaned into him.
“I threw a fit whenever I was asked to do anything. How could anyone demand things of me when everything was so undeniably horrible. I knew I had to do my duties, and I wanted to, but I just felt… like the world had ended.” She paused, “Then, one of the handmaidens- a washerwoman I barely knew- came and sat with me, and she just held me and sat with me and sang to me, and she said, ‘grief is love that has nowhere to go,’ and… I don’t know. Would it be better if we had never met those people from before? Would it be better to not know their loss, to not feel it so deeply in our bones? Maybe…”
Link huffed in vague agreement.
“But… I do think it’s better to have known them and loved them.”
Link shifted, and though they were so close, their eyes met.
“It’s proof they really did exist,” Zelda said, “In a way, they live on through us. Even if we can’t remember every little detail.”
Admittedly, Zelda felt rather cheesy saying such things, but the way Link’s eyes seemed to regain some light, some warmth, some hope, diminished those doubtful feelings immediately. She hugged him tighter.
“And I’m still here.” She said quietly, and felt his arms tighten around her, too, “And I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon.”
She leaned back to grin at him, cheekily, “You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid.”
Link managed a chuff of laughter, a cloud of fog bubbling around him as his breath met the frigid air. Zelda’s heart fluttered with affection, and she took his hands in hers.
“Do you want to finish eating, and then we can go back to town?” she asked, and Link nodded, though his cheeks reddened slightly, and he tightened his grip on Zelda’s hands, “Hm?”
Gently, he pulled her to her feet, and after a moment of bashfully looking down, nodded in the direction of town, where music had begun to play. Jovial and festive, bright with brass and woodwinds and bells.
It took Zelda a moment to understand what he was asking, but when she did, she felt her own cheeks flush.
“I’d love to dance with you.” she said, managing a much more natural voice than she had after he’d put the flower in her hair.
Link’s face split into a wide, red-cheeked grin, as if he’d just been told the best news of his life. The very idea that Zelda was so precious to him set her heart aflutter.
So, they finished off their bowls of pumpkin stew. It had become lukewarm and slightly congealed after sitting in the snow for a good few minutes, but was still perfectly nice. Spiced and warming, with tender, savoury meat, and chunks of sweet, earthy pumpkin, all in a rich (but not overwhelming) broth.
Link insisted on carrying their bowls back to town, stacked together, which he placed with the rest of the used dishes in a little crate by the cooking pots (tomorrow, the pair of them would return to town and help the rest of the village with tidying and washing up the square).
Since Zelda had left, a large table, made up of several regular dining tables, had been dragged into the square, and it was laden with bowls and plates aplenty, each covered with a cloche or clean cloth to keep them warm and protected from the delicate snowfall.
Each dish was labelled, and there really was something for everyone, stews and soups and stir fries, cakes and crepes, rice balls and curries and deep fried everything.
Link’s three grouse lay, pride of place, in the middle, with carving knives beside each one. Slices had been taken from the birds, and one was already missing both its drumsticks, and at Zelda’s questioning glance, Link looked away with faux-innocence twinkling in his eyes as he whistled non-suspiciously.
The festival was in full swing. It was dark enough now that Zelda’s little fairy-jar decorations were glowing a beautiful, soft blue colour, and people were admiring them as they enjoyed themselves.
Though a thin air of sadness hung over them, Link and Zelda shared a smile, and leapt right into the festivities.
The band finished up a seasonal number, and began an upbeat foxtrot. Zelda and Link joined hands, and skipped their way around town, twirling and leaping and tapping as best they could— neither were good dancers, but this was about fun, not skill.
They danced and sang and ate, wept and laughed, and enjoyed the celebration and each other’s company openly.
At points, they were pulled into separate conversations, but always found their way back to one another.
Link brought Zelda a huge slice of fruitcake.
She brought him a crepe stuffed generously with wildberries and sweet cream.
They barely managed to finish the desserts before they were pulled into a village-wide snowball fight, with the teams split into women against men.
Zelda giggled, aiming most of her snowballs at Link, managing to nail his face on several occasions, leaving his hair sodden and heavy. He landed a revenge shot, and as Zelda was wiping frost from her eyes, she realised she’d lost track of him in the crowd.
Everyone seemed to be focussing primarily on their own friends and loved ones, rather than it being a free-for-all like it appeared, so Zelda was left unwatched as she backed her way against a tree, in an attempt to prevent Link from sneaking up behind her with a handful of powdery snow.
And yet, he was full of surprises.
Zelda heard a small rustle in the branches above her, and managed to look up in time for Link to give two of them a hearty yank, sending a waterfall of fluffy white flakes down on both of them.
Once she’d shaken the snow out of her hair, Zelda saw Link pouting up at the tree, as if he’d expected it to produce even more.
“Let’s call a tie,” Zelda chuckled, dusting some off his shoulders, “It’ll be midnight soon.”
He smiled, face red from both the chilly weather and the warmth being close to Zelda brought, and nodded, and bashfully offered his hand.
With a smile as bright as the moon and cheeks as pink as the petals in her hair, Zelda took it.
Hateno was one of the final spots in Hyrule to see Naydra’s dance across the sky each year, at about twenty minutes after midnight had passed.
Zelda and Link gathered up their wagon and the picnic supplies that still rested in it, and made their way a back to the house.
They turned right at the door, though, and headed down to the big tree at the ledge, and the little fishpond by it.
Zelda laid out the thick blanket at the base of the tree, and Link set out their picnic foods.
Light things, easy on the stomach after the rich fare in town.
Little sandwiches, roasted pumpkin seeds, baked apples, and spiced wine kept warm in a metal flask.
They settled together, backs pressed against the trunk of the tree, dishes laid out on the blanket before them, taking turns sipping at the flask.
Link moved first, pulling his gift from the wagon. He carefully laid it in Zelda’s lap, and his smile turned shy as he gestured for her to open it.
Carefully, she did.
Undoing the knotted twine and unfurling the paper to reveal:
“A sword?” Zelda blinked, carefully lifting it from its wrapping and scabbard and gazing at it.
The hilt fit perfectly in her hand, and it was the perfect weight for her to lift. The blade was a gleaming silver, and the guards were elegant and classy, yet still perfectly efficient.
On the pommel, a single sapphire lay, surrounded by five little opals. And engraved around them, the petals of a silent princess.
Zelda couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips as she carefully ran a hand across the gems.
The scabbard was equally beautiful, lightweight and perfectly fitted to the sword, it was engraved with vines and feathers and every flower she could think of. Looking closer, she could even see little details clearly meant to symbolise other things— little gears and pen nibs, quills and books.
Finally, she spotted a little folded note amongst the wrapping paper.
In Link’s rough scrawl, it simply read: PROUD OF YOU! YOU DESERVE A SWORD OF YOUR OWN. AND A LOT MORE ALSO. THANK YOU FOR BEING WITH ME HERE STILL :)
FROM LINK
Zelda tucked the note inside her cloak.
“Thank you,” she said, turning to Link, who was pointedly staring at his boots, “I love it.”
She felt a little shyer about her gift, now.
But, damn it, she’d faced down the literal embodiment of evil. She could hand a gift to the boy she liked so very much.
“Here.” She said, softly, pulling the little package from her cloak, “It’s… well… I hope you like it.”
She figured he probably would. Link was the kind of person who seemed to have fun with anything. Any hobby, whether it was pumpkin carving or sand seal racing or cooking or sword fighting. Still, she couldn’t help but feel nervous as he tore through the wrapping as delicately as he could.
It just felt rather… mundane.
A journal.
Handbound by Zelda herself, with thick, soft, cotton pages. Dark blue leather covers, embossed with a drawing of a chuchu (Link insisted they were cute, and Zelda had eventually agreed), with a clasp to keep it securely closed. And alongside it, a little box of watercolour paint pellets, and a pair of soft horsehair brushes.
Link stared at it for a moment, and Zelda’s heart sank.
At least, until he tore off a glove, grabbed a fistful of snow, let it melt into the empty water slot on the watercolour tray, and began smearing colours onto the first page, a huge, childlike grin on his face.
Zelda peered over his shoulder, clutching her new sword to her chest, and watched as he amateurishly mixed blues and whites and reds until he got an approximate match to the inky sky above them, and then he froze, in the middle of checking the colour, and pointed.
With a small gasp, Zelda sat up straighter as she followed his finger, to look toward the flash of white and cyan that had appeared in the sky above them.
As Naydra flew, twirling and spinning, the sky behind her lit up in a thousand colours.
Sunset orange, noon-high blue, sea-glass green… pinks and whites and yellows and lilacs in shades Zelda couldn’t even imagine.
It was as if Naydra was pulling the last year, its memories, its feelings, its very breath, along with her.
Zelda’s hand found Link’s free one, as she spotted whispers of a heavy red among the aurora. She glanced to him, curious what expression he’d be wearing, but instead found him continuing to paint, glancing up at the sky in between brushstrokes, but completely focussed on his art.
A large white gash spotted with indigo and green had bloomed in the painted sky, surrounded by a hundred slightly muddy colours.
Link was doing his best to capture the night in front of them, and Zelda smiled again, feeling her nerves melt away at the sight of his enthusiasm.
This year had been strange and awful, and yet wonderous and new and bright. She’d awoken to a world that had survived in spite of everything, to people who endured and thrived and enjoyed living. She’d awoken to Link, who was the same in many ways and different in even more to who he had been a hundred years ago, who had held her hand through trepidation when all she could imagine was loss and pain and the broken world she’d seen as she’d walked into darkness.
He brought her home, to a real home, filled with joy and love and peaceful mundanity.
He said her voice throughout his journey, her companionship despite her lack of physical presence, had given him energy; hope, that it was a journey that would end in victory and, eventually, peace.
He said that her presence these days brought him joy, that seeing her comfortable and calm, seeing her geek out openly about her interests, seeing her grimace over his more experimental cooking, seeing her pout over pushers in the market, or fret over his scrapes when he came back from a “foraging” trip that had turned into a bokoblin massacre… made him genuinely happy.
He taught her to fight with a sword. Caught her a new horse. Listened to her rambles.
Zelda could hardly fathom just how much Link meant to her.
And as a researcher, this should have frustrated her.
But it didn’t.
This was something she was willing to simply let be.
Link was still here. She was still here.
Many things were missing and gone from their lives, and many more had blossomed. Not in replacement, but beside them. Making those missing pieces feel softer; less jagged, even if they still hurt.
Naydra crested the cliffs and dove down, toward the ocean, bringing with her the colours of dusk and dawn and everything in between, and Link added the final touches to his soaking wet, very first, watercolour painting.
A pair of silhouetted figures. Hand in hand, on the ground, watching as the messy visage of Naydra flew overhead.
He showed her the finished, still-dripping page with a triumphant smile. And Zelda giggled, and tried not to grimace as he clapped the book shut with a victorious nod, clearly very proud of his first painting.
Carefully, delicately, he placed the journal in his lap, and turned to Zelda with his face tinted pink. His hands— he’d taken both his gloves off to improve his dexterity while painting— were covered in splotches of colour, and Zelda took hold of both of them.
Curled together, they watched the last of the colours dance their way across the sky.
Whatever this new year; this new life as a whole, was going to bring… they’d face it together.