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I. Hope
How can one pick themself up after having their life completely turned over, their existence manipulated into something unrecognizable, only to return to what once was in an instant?
That was the question Zelda faced when she transformed into herself after spending thousands of years as a dragon.
“Are you okay?” was the first thing Link signed as he lingered close, mere moments after catching her from the fall and bringing her to the plush green grass.
The feeling of grass… the texture of the blades held Zelda’s focus. She flexed her fingers and squeezed, the ends of the blades poking her palm.. The sensation felt new, yet familiar. She felt as if she’d just been born, but also as old as the earth itself. Needless to say, it was overwhelming.
It occurred to her that Link awaited an answer. She peered up at him, her jade eyes wild, still with a touch of that animalistic gaze she carried in her draconic state.
Words. She needed to form words. Her tongue weighed heavy in her mouth, dry and useless. She could only manage a small noise of struggle, and her eyes welled up with tears of frustration.
Link’s eyebrows knit together with concern and he pulled her into a gentle hug. She rested her chin atop his shoulder as tears rolled down her cheeks. Minutes passed until Zelda finally pulled away.
“Can you sign?” Link asked, his blue eyes patient and soft.
She looked at her hands then back up at him, and signed a simple “yes.” Her arms felt weak and flimsy, so she wasn’t sure she could put together a sentence.
Link tried to conceal his immense worry, his mind rampant with thoughts of how Zelda would handle the situation. A looming fear that she would take months or even years to return to herself hung over his head. But as he gave it more thought, he reached clarity far quicker than he had expected.
“I’m going to help you through this,” he moved his hands slowly to ensure that Zelda could interpret the words. “No matter how long it takes. I’m here for you. Just as you were here for me, for all those years.”
That was enough to evoke more tears from Zelda; within seconds she erupted into sobs, burying her head in his chest.
She felt… she didn’t know what she felt at that moment. She didn’t feel like a person, much less like an adult who had seen over a hundred years of life–in the form that mattered, at least. She was unraveled, only mere evidence of someone who once existed. She possessed all the aspects of a human being, but they were out of sync with each other. Like a clock whose gears stopped turning, stuck on one set time, frozen in place.
Speaking of time, she had no sense of how much of it passed until Link finally helped her up and began to lead her to a place to camp for the night. He considered Lookout Landing, as it was a reasonable distance away, but figured the presence of other people would be far too much for her. So he instead brought her to a small cave a couple miles away, just big enough to be comfortable, but not enough to house any monsters.
Evidently, the cave had seen past visitors, as it contained a fire pit with a cooking pot. Link picked some of the mushrooms scattered about and fetched a couple apples from his bag and cooked them. Zelda’s stomach growled as she watched.
He gave her an apple. He hoped it was sufficiently inoffensive, something she could manage to stomach despite her frazzled state. She took the fruit and stared as if she had forgotten what to do.
“Eat,” he gestured.
She gingerly lifted it to her mouth and took a small bite. At first she chewed consciously, analyzing its flavor and texture, its crunch and its crispiness. After swallowing the first piece, she decided that she liked it, and ravaged the rest with impressive speed. A smile grew on Link’s face.
The mushrooms gave her more trouble, so she ate them far more tentatively. She fought back a gag a few times, but she continued, which gave Link hope. The fact that she finished them shocked him, even though she took a long time to do so.
Link let himself eat after she finished.
The first night knew no words spoken by Zelda and no stirring as she slept. Link hadn’t expected her to sleep at all, much less peacefully.
“Would it be alright if I went out to forage? I wouldn’t go far,” he asked the following morning. “It’s okay if not. But we would probably have more of those mushrooms for breakfast.”
“Yes,” Zelda said through a raw throat, barely audible.
Link lit up, smiling wide. “I’ll be back soon. Stay here, okay?”
She nodded, eyes following him as he gathered some of his things and left the cave.
She drew a deep breath as he disappeared from her line of sight. Per his request, she didn’t leave the cave, but she sat at its opening and watched the outside world.
She watched the grass sway in the wind. She watched the sun cast shadows from the sky islands onto the ground, misshapen masses moving as minutes passed. She watched a squirrel scurry past, meeting its gaze for a moment before it continued ahead and began to dig up a nut it had buried in the dirt. She watched a dragonfly zip past, a bird too distant to identify fly above, a gust of wind carry some dead leaves through the air.
There was no sign of a great battle between dragons. All the gloom had vanished, too; Zelda concluded it must have relied on Ganondorf’s presence.
It was unsettling how quickly Hyrule bounced back after catastrophe. Not just from the loss of blood moons or other dangers, but also the decomposition of the Sheikah tech. Shrines withered away into mere dust, entire towers retracted into the earth. After the Calamity, when Zelda felt like a person again, she considered digging into the shrine sites to recover their contents. Her theory was that with the mechanism to enter the shrines withered away, all it took to find them was digging tunnels into their interiors—assuming they hadn’t collapsed internally, as well.
But that cost time and resources, and was far from essential to rebuilding Hyrule, so it never moved beyond a mere thought. Much of her research had to be put on hold while she prioritized reuniting Hyrule.
After Link’s return, Zelda asked him via sign what had happened to Hyrule while she was gone. She had seen much in her dragon state, but she had not the mind to process such sights, and grasping at those memories now and trying to make meaning of them felt like walking naked in the dark.
He was hesitant to tell her, though. Not that he would never tell her, but he didn’t think she needed to know about the struggles of the other tribes when she was still learning to breathe again.
But Link knew who Zelda was. She cared deeply—too much for her own good—and her curiosity came from this care.
He told her of the blizzard in the northwest, how Rito Village was near drowned in snow, its residents strewn few and far between as they desperately foraged for any surviving plants or animals to eat. He told her of Tulin’s bravery and undying optimism.
He told her of the awful creatures that wandered the Gerudo Desert, breaching Gerudo Town’s walls and forcing the people to take shelter underground, cramped and missing the light of day. He told her of Riju’s determination and devout loyalty to her people.
He told her of the thick sludge that poisoned the water of Lanayru, rendering the Zora weak and restricting their typical transportation, as well as harming the underwater ecosystem. He told her of Sidon’s drive to set things right, fueled by his love for his now-wife.
The Gorons’ story was a difficult one to tell. He told Zelda he had seen the Gorons turn into aimless zombies from their addiction, only motivated by their desire to get more of their precious rock-roast. He told her of Yunobo, who’d been manipulated in order to keep his people helpless. But he told her that once freed, Yunobo held his head high and marched forward, a far more confident man than he once was. A worthy leader of a worthy tribe.
All of this, of course, made Zelda cry again.
She had no control over her emotions. The once even-tempered, composed princess had fallen apart and been haphazardly stitched back together again, with none of the old stuffing recovered.
But despite it all, Link was there. She could see him suffering too, physically and mentally. His gloom-injured arm was hardly functional now that its replacement had vanished with Rauru’s spirit released from the world. His signing was stiff and painful, and he’d been doing quite a lot of it.
He insisted that they should not go to Lookout Landing yet for Zelda’s sake, but she insisted that they must for Link’s sake. She didn’t like the idea of leaving his arm unattended much longer. It was swollen and riddled with nasty gashes and colored a hue of red that made her try to remember the taste of wine, but she failed to do so. Despite the gloom being gone, its effects lingered.
Link acquiesced, and they arrived within the day.
It was impossible to not make a scene as Zelda, wobbling as she walked, made her first appearance after being missing, accompanied by a disheveled Link with an infected arm.
The next few days went by in a blur for both of them. Purah rushed Link to the underground shelter to prepare him for an emergency amputation. Zelda was flooded with questions and concerns until Josha swept in to rescue her, giving her refuge in Purah’s quarters (at her advice) and bringing her hot food that nourished her far more sufficiently than baked apples and mushrooms. She started with plain things, like unseasoned rice and watery vegetables, then slowly worked back up to food an actual person would eat instead of a somewhat spoiled Hylian Retriever.
Meanwhile, Link’s arm was chopped off. Zelda wanted to be there for it, but had not the words nor the competence to make it happen, nor the balance in her stride to get up and walk over there herself. Purah came to tell Zelda later that the amputation was complete, and that she could see him as he slept.
There was another room within the shelter where people recovering from injuries, surgeries, illness, (or those who just needed privacy) would sleep. Purah offered up one of the other beds in the room to Zelda, so that she could stay close to Link and have more peace and quiet.
She watched him for a long time, eyes following his chest rise and fall, his face tighten and twitch as he dreamt. The moon illuminated the night by the time Josha came in to deliver her a before-bed snack and advised her to sleep once she had finished it.
She obeyed, but she drew back the curtains between their beds and faced him so that he would remain in her line of sight and she would remain in his. That if she were to wake and forget who she was, where she was, or anything else about herself, she could look ahead and see the answer. That if he were to wake and be back in a strange place again, he could see Zelda and know that this was not the Shrine of Resurrection nor the Great Sky Island, because she was with him.
A few days passed until he left his bed. Zelda was doing a bit better herself, now capable of short verbal exchanges; she’d even spoken to people besides Josha and Purah.
Link was disoriented but his usual self—immediately trying to get moving, eager to get on his feet. He grew annoyed with the fact that he could no longer sign as efficiently, so he started to carry a notepad and pencil to jot down his words when it would take too long to sign them. The doctor who performed the surgery ordered Purah and the guards to keep Link from leaving Lookout Landing until fully healed. This discouraged him immensely, not merely from his own desire to get out but also his fear for Zelda as she was still adjusting.
“Immersion will be good for her,” Purah had argued. “And you can oversee my work on your new arm.”
Purah hadn’t asked him if he wanted her to make him an arm; she just knew. And she was right, because at those words his eyes lit up brighter than they had in quite awhile.
Zelda wanted to make herself useful, so she was cooking dinner with Josha as she occasionally glanced toward Link and Purah. Purah was on a tangent about how she’d never made prosthetics before, but she had already pulled aside some references from both Sheikah and Zonai tech to guide her. Link caught Zelda’s eye and smiled, and she returned it.
She was beginning to feel like a person again.
II. Want
Zelda hoped to reconnect her mind to her body, but it seemed an impossible feat.
Her mind was elusive, belonging to nature and not herself. It belonged to the clouds in the sky, the terrifying quiet of the thin air and sparse land. It belonged to the tears she shed all across Hyrule, manifestations of her spirit that she did not know how to reclaim. She dreaded the thought that she may never feel whole again.
Many nights she awoke in a cold sweat after dreaming of the sky. The fear did not end from her consciousness, as in the darkness she would think she had been hibernating, and she couldn’t remember how to use her body.
But then she would feel the soft quilt against her skin, and she reminded herself that dragons did not have quilts. Link would rise from the commotion, come over to her bed, and squeeze her arm with his only hand, a silent gesture: I’m here.
She felt relief from the fact that they had the private room so that the others would not have to endure her madness. She yearned for their home in Hateno, but still found gratitude from having anything at all. Now that she harbored hope in her heart, she knew that one day they would share that too-small bed yet again.
But that memory also hurt her, because her memories didn’t feel like memories.
When she tried to visualize what that home looked like, the picture in her head came out fuzzy, unfocused. She tried to recall her mornings spent with Link, but could not remember any of the things they did together. She knew that she grew close with the Hateno schoolchildren, but could not name a single one of them.
She understood that things had happened, but she could not remember them. It was as if an outside force had merely told her the events of her life, and all she could do was trust it to be true.
“How did you do it?” She asked Link weakly as they watched the sunset from the landing in front of Purah’s quarters. “How did you… reclaim your memories?”
His eyes softened with empathy. He scribbled a response onto his notepad.
Revisited the places.
“We don’t know how long it’ll be until I can do that,” she said softly, her gaze downcast.
You’re not being kept here. Only me. You could leave.
She was going to respond, to give him a firm no, but the words didn’t escape her mouth. She couldn’t speak. Even as she managed to hold longer conversations with people over time, sometimes she would just shut down, and mentally she became a dragon again, paralyzed and helpless. Some sort of thought would always trigger it: this time it was the idea of being apart from Link. She’d already spent thousands of years apart from him. Why would she ever willingly choose separation?
Link was learning to help Zelda through these moments. The first time, he attempted to gently grab her face, resulting in her jerking away and looking at him with an intense terror that he never ever wanted to endure again. What worked reasonably well, though, was him gently blowing onto her face. It was a strange enough thing that it confused her, and that confusion was able to pull her out of it, at least enough so for him to effectively communicate with her and help ground her.
This time was no exception, as consciousness returned to her eyes, and he was able to scribble I’m here and show it to her, then offered his hand. She took a slow breath, wiggled her toes, flexed her fingers, then accepted his hand.
They sat there for a while before Link pulled away to write again.
I’m here to help you remember, just like you did for me six years ago. I can’t give you everything, but I can give you our time together. You never have to be alone again.
She wiped a stray tear. “Selfishly, sometimes I… wish I didn’t have such a weight on my shoulders. It might be nice… for none of these things to matter,” she looked at him, her jade eyes forlorn and heavy. “If I could just go back to Hateno with you and we could live a quiet life… perhaps raise some cuckoos.”
“We could do that,” he signed, filling the gaps where he would usually need two hands by simply spelling out the words. “You’ve done enough already for Hyrule.”
She shook her head with a sad laugh and cupped his cheek with her palm. “I’m afraid that’s naught but a fantasy, my dear Link.”
He turned his head to kiss her palm. “I’m going to do my best to give as much of that as I can,” he paused for a moment before grabbing the notepad again.
I have a house in Akkala.
Zelda frowned, feeling her heart sink. She couldn’t help but interpret it negatively. “You left… our home behind? What has become of it?”
His eyes widened with guilt as he clearly hadn’t expected such a reaction, and frantically wrote a response.
It’s exactly as we left it, don’t worry. It’s not going anywhere. I hadn’t really planned to buy the Akkala home, it just sort of happened. But I could hardly spend any time in Hateno anyway. It hurt too much.
“It hurt too much… to be there without me?” She asked gently.
It felt horrible being there when I thought you were dead. But it was even worse when I found out you were the Light Dragon, in the same time, in the same world, flying above but unable to be there with me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being punished.
She wrapped him into a hug, squeezing tight as he wept into her shoulder. She could tell he’d been holding it in, feigning strength to support her. “You mean to suggest we flee to Akkala?”
“Just when we need it,” he replied, taking time with his words now that he had explained himself. “When you’re not doing your queen things. Even Hateno can get to be too much. People gossip, and it’s not as quiet as it used to be.”
Those memories felt like a dream she desperately clinged to, trying to pinpoint names and faces of neighbors and business owners and everyone in between. But that wasn’t what she wanted to address at the time. “I’m no queen, remember?”
He chuckled softly. “Right, I know. But you have the grace of one.”
Zelda recalled it now: a few years after the Calamity’s end, Zelda officially declared an end to the monarchy. Each tribe would elect ambassadors to carry out diplomatic relations, but not without assistance from their advisors and close allies. Purah had been elected the ambassador of the Hylians, but Zelda helped out so much that she might as well be sharing the role. Purah hadn’t originally planned to take on such a task, but she had found her passion as she helped Zelda rebuild Hyrule, and agreed to the responsibility as long as she would still have time for her scientific pursuits. The election process was relatively informal, as the length of the terms were yet to be decided, but it had worked well enough thus far. Some pre-existing laws that the royal family imposed were eradicated, some stayed, and some were modified, all by the vote of the people.
So Zelda wasn’t a queen, but she still had a duty to her people. She always would.
The monotony was beginning to get to Zelda.
She was happy to see Link recovering well, with Purah making significant progress with the prosthetic all the while.
She was able to get him to leave Lookout Landing–that was, for a short walk accompanied by a guard. But he stayed a few paces behind, keeping them in sight but giving them enough room to breathe a little.
They walked to a small patch of trees and sat in the soft, ribbon-like grass, listening to the sounds of nature. Zelda’s heart fluttered when she caught sight of a fawn grazing nearby.
“This makes me think,” Link began, to which Zelda tilted her head at him.
“Yes?”
He was growing more accustomed to signing with one hand now, though he hoped he wouldn’t need to much longer. “In a way, I somewhat began to accept the situation.”
Her mouth parted and brows furrowed. “You mean me being…?”
Link nodded. “Of course, I still wanted you back. But I tried to think about it as you becoming part of something bigger. That you were casting your light across all of Hyrule, including me. So in a way, you were everywhere. And knowing that you were immortal… it didn’t sound so bad that you could keep the world in your light forever.”
Zelda tried to blink away her tears. She didn’t know what to say, nor think, nor feel. “I…”
He watched her process the words before he continued. “I would visit you, when I was in the sky. Throw together contraptions with the Zonai devices so I could reach you. Sometimes I would sit on your back and let you fly me around for hours.” He rubbed his neck bashfully. “I had to figure out how fast you flew in order to track you. You would always circle Hyrule, and I determined how much time it took you to get from one place to the other so I could always know where you are. I eventually started using that to tell time.”
She stared, mouth agape. She knew Link loved her, but the fact that he dedicated so much time to see her and even catch flights with her when she lacked the conscience to appreciate it made something click within her.
He didn’t just try to accept her being a dragon, he began to adapt to it. He decided that she would still be a part of his life, no matter how vastly different it would be.
Since her rebirth as a Hylian, she went through her days always learning, always focused on doing better than the previous day. She wanted to walk again, to speak again, to read and write and contribute to society.
But she hadn’t let herself want again.
It wasn’t like Zelda had stopped being attracted to Link–but she was too busy to think about or act on it. But as she looked at him in that moment, the light passing through the canopy in fragments and reaching his face, she understood what it felt like to want and love again.
She grabbed the collar of his tunic and tugged him into a kiss. He kissed back eagerly, wrapping his arm around her tight, digging his hand into her hair. All her tension melted away, as nothing else could occupy her mind as long as she had Link like this. Though they were too enveloped in each other to notice, the guard tasked with watching them turned around.
When they pulled apart, Link looked at her with nothing but pure lovesickness, like his heart might burst out of his chest any moment. “I can tell you’ve been wanting to do that again for quite some time.”
He nodded and laughed sheepishly. “Yes. But I was happy to wait as long as you needed. I’d also be happy if you never wanted to do it again.”
Zelda pinched his cheek playfully, and for a moment he looked as he did years before, a shy boy who had not yet been chosen to bear the burdens of the world. The boy she had met a couple times in passing, who bowed too low and had no words to say. Though bittersweet, the fact that such memories had returned in an instant made Zelda’s heart swell. “Well, you won’t need to worry about that, my love.”
Something shifted after that day. Zelda wanted to show her appreciation to Link all the time, even when it wasn’t appropriate. She stole him away for chaste kisses on the hand or cheek, but sometimes she grew greedy and they disappeared into the bunker for a few minutes.
But her desire still scared her. During those moments together, she would freeze once the thought of doing anything further than kissing moved to the front of her mind. Link never asked anything of her, and he didn’t seem to expect such things at all, despite the fact that they had done them before.
“You’re a different person from before,” he had told her. “It’s the same as I said about the kissing.”
He was patient, understanding, and caring. She may be a different Zelda, but he was certainly the same Link.
During their final days in Lookout Landing, Zelda thought of her father.
It started when she took a short walk through Castle Town. Her heart weighed her down as she inspected the ruins, desperately trying to replace her grief with hope.
Lookout Landing was built not only as a means to reclaim Hyrule Field, but also as a loading spot for resources and workers that would eventually be used to rebuild one or several of central Hyrule’s villages.
Planning such an ambitious project took far more time than anticipated, so still the ruins remained, with only an idea of their future hanging in the air tentatively.
Zelda told herself that once she had taken enough time to recover from it all, she would ignite that flame once again.
Learning to put herself first was something that took her many years to do after the Calamity. Her father’s voice constantly bouncing around her head and criticizing her every move didn’t make it easy.
Once a guard had accidentally walked in on Zelda amidst a panic attack. This was during the peak of her stress about awakening her power, and that guard had gossiped about the incident, and it made its way up the chain of hierarchy and into Rhoam’s knowledge. He summoned her to his chambers to address it.
“If a tree falls in a forest, but no one is around to bear witness, does it make a sound?”
Zelda felt inclined to say yes, but had a feeling that it wasn’t the correct answer. She also would contest that the other trees would be able to hear it, and that would matter, but to her father that answer would only make her come off as a smartass. “I… I don’t know, Father.”
“It did not,” he replied, his voice level and eyes passionless. “To everyone’s knowledge, the tree never fell at all.”
“I assume I am the tree in this scenario?” She asked gingerly.
“Indeed. A princess must ensure that such shortcomings of character occur in complete isolation, for then the rest of the world does not know of them, and therefore they have not occurred. Is that clear?”
In that moment she had obeyed and soon ruined herself with her endeavors of seeking control over her emotions.
Over a hundred years later, or over several thousand depending on how one decided to count Zelda’s years of life, she asked Link that same question, and he was able to practice signing with his new arm.
“Of course the sound still happened,” he replied without missing a beat. “That’s a stupid question.”
Zelda chuckled, vindicated. She hadn’t expected anything different from him, especially given that he disagreed with Rhoam on most things, but there was something about hearing someone else dismiss it. “I agree.”
His new arm was a cross between the look of Sheikah tech and Zonai tech, with Purah having used some construct scraps in addition to her own parts. It had evolved into a group project with Robbie and Josha pitching in as well. He was adjusting to it rather quickly, to his delight. Purah told him to let her know if he ever wanted her to add special abilities to it that could rival Rauru’s. Link told Zelda in private that he never wanted anything like that ever again.
Purah also fixed the Purah Pad from the damages it had sustained in the wreckage of the final battle. He and Zelda were immensely relieved that they could warp to Purah’s lab in Hateno, eliminating the trip home. The Zonai shrines could no longer operate as landing locations, but they at least still had the towers and labs. After their goodbyes, and a strict warning from Link’s doctor, they left Lookout Landing.
The first breaths of the Hateno air made Zelda feel like she was a part of something bigger, and that potentially her journey played out the way it did for a reason.
III. Waiting
Their house was just as they left it.
Link was going through all the logistics of moving back in. They needed to stock up on food again, as all they had now were spices and other non-perishables. They needed to prepare for the winter, as the autumn trees had been looking especially bare lately, with their leaves covering the ground. He kept pacing, technically signing to Zelda but not really engaging with her.
“Link,” she said gently as she watched him from the dining chair. “Can we just… take a moment?”
He looked at her and his eyes softened, the sight of her snapping him out of a trance. “Yes, of course… I’m sorry. It’s funny… you were usually the one who worried about all that stuff. I guess it’s my turn.”
“It’s easy to be a floater,” she took his hands and smiled up at him. “Living in a permanent home takes work, but… it gives you something special.”
He sighed deeply and stepped closer to Zelda, hugging her and resting his head atop hers. She buried her head in his stomach and embraced him like he was at risk of running away. They stayed there, still, for a long time.
Zelda let herself want with all of herself that night. Link devoted all his energy to her, helping her focus on nothing but his love until she blossomed into pure ecstasy.
He held her as they fell asleep, his nose brushing against her, tickled by her hair.
She awoke later that night with a jolt, fueled by enough force to almost knock Link off the bed. He quickly gathered himself and squeezed her shoulder as she caught her breath. Moonlight peeked in from the windows, providing just enough light for them to see each other.
When she met his gaze, for a moment her irises glittered mint green, and the whites flashed blues and purples. “Did… did it all end that day?” She gripped his bicep so hard that the skin began to turn white.
Link blinked, mouth parted in puzzlement as he tried to understand her. “I don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Has this all been just an elaborate dream?” Her voice quivered. “Some tricks my brain plays on me as I lie, bleeding out on Blatchery Plain, with you already dead in my arms?”
He took a long, exaggerated deep breath, gesturing towards his chest puffing out as he inhaled. Zelda understood and matched her breathing to his. Some time passed as he simply breathed with her.
“It’s been years since then,” he began slowly. “We survived, and we survived it all over again, and now we’re here.”
“It doesn’t seem right…” she muttered through a tight throat. “Why did I come back…? I find it hard to believe that I’m truly here…”
“I don’t have an answer for that,” he replied, casting his gaze away. “But maybe we could come up with one.”
“Like what…?”
“Hylia herself intervened. You didn’t need to turn back, but she wanted to give us a chance to start things over. To bring you back to me.”
She sniffled, wiping her eyes as she let out the slightest chuckle. “You always did have a way of coming back to me.”
“Could have been by her intervention the whole time.”
She nodded, controlling her breaths as she tried to piece herself back together. “I think you owe yourself some credit, though.”
He shrugged. “Then don’t believe in Hylia’s contribution, that’s fine. Believe in my love for you, what I showed you hours ago, and what I showed you when I poured everything into the Master Sword to slay two different incarnations of the same ancient evil. You’re here because I can never let myself be parted from you.”
He held her for a long while, the sounds of the dying fire crackling and owls hooting filling the space.
It was the beginning of the rest of their lives.
It was so familiar yet so different as they integrated into Hateno once again, far more lively and mushroom-y than when they had done the same thing several years ago. People Zelda didn’t recognize would introduce themselves to her, telling her that they’d heard so much about her and welcoming her back home.
She hadn’t expected the Upheaval to spur so much travel. But knowing of all the incidents across Hyrule’s other major settlements, it made sense that people would move to a place they deemed safer.
The winter was harsh, but no one would let any of their neighbors go hungry. Link and Zelda had less time to prepare than they’d hoped, but others helped out where they could. The radish farmer gave them some of the less attractive radishes that wouldn’t be sold in the general store. The dairy farm up the hill sent them some tomatoes and cheese (to which Link introduced Zelda to pizza, which she loved). They had an advantage the others hadn’t, though. So to repay such kind acts, Link picked up a few things across Hyrule via the Purah Pad within one afternoon and redistributed most of his spoils, keeping all they would need (but nothing more) for himself and Zelda.
Zelda felt more connected as she rekindled old friendships and started new ones. Classes at school weren’t taught during the winter, but she would offer to look after children when she had the time. Taking the stress off their busy parents warmed her heart. They paid her for her trouble, too—which she tried to refuse, but they insisted. She figured she might as well not fight it anymore, given that despite Link accumulating a respectable amount of money from his travels, it wouldn’t last forever.
Monsters were fewer those days, but still not gone. No blood moons occurred since Ganondorf’s defeat, but like any creature, monsters still bred, and likely would never truly disappear.
One afternoon, as snow fell in large flakes, he proposed a new idea to Zelda as they shared a loaf of bread. “I got offered a job of sorts.”
“Really? Doing what?” Zelda raised her brows.
“Basically monster hunting whenever it’s needed. I would stick to this area, obviously.”
Her face sank, brows tightening. “But… I wouldn’t see you.”
He pursed his lips in thought. “I don’t think it’d be that often. I doubt I would be gone for a few days at a time. Maybe a week.”
Zelda felt ashamed of the tears that threatened to roll out of her eyes. “You can’t let yourself rest, can you…?”
Link set his bread down and sighed deeply. “It’s not about that. They asked for my help, and I want to provide it.”
“But they don’t need it. The monsters are more controlled than ever. We have capable warriors, and you’ve already done so much,” she reached out and held his prosthetic hand. “You haven’t even fought with this arm yet!”
He slowly drew his arm back. “…I do agree that I should at least train before throwing myself at any monsters.”
“Thank you,” her eyes softened with relief. “I know you want to make yourself useful. If you want to earn us some money, just ask around the village. I imagine we can get by running errands for others for quite some time.”
He nodded. “But we should try to spend some time apart at some point. You’ll need to get used to it again.”
She didn’t reply.
They spent the winter close. Toward its end, Link began to hunt game in the forests bordering the village, as a means to acquire food, earn some money, and practice using his new arm for combat.
Zelda secretly cursed Purah for making such a perfect arm, as his ease with using it for hunting meant that she didn’t have an excuse to reject his monster-hunting proposal anymore, besides her own anxiety.
Of course, she knew deep-down that he was right. But even as she adjusted to life again, her nightmares and dissociation were less frequent but far from resolved.
As the flowers began to bloom, the village prepared for an official celebration of Ganondorf’s defeat. Every household would contribute a food or drink, so Link agreed to make a few loaves of nutcake.
That evening, sundelion string lights and paper lanterns illuminated the village. Children played with their bellies full as their parents attempted to make a dent in the barrels of ale. Beetles buzzed in the temperate air, the sounds of laughter carried by the cool breeze.
Zelda and Link fixed themselves loaded plates and sipped from pints of ale, sitting at a picnic table as they watched the commotion. “So many are wearing flowers in their hair,” Zelda observed amidst her people-watching. “I feel a bit bare.”
“Well, I was going to wait until later, but it sounds like you’d prefer it now,” Link dug a small pouch out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Open it.”
“Oh my!” Zelda tilted her head as she pulled the drawstring open. She pulled out a hair clip with a crocheted silent princess attached, and a soft gasp left her lips. “This is beautiful! Did you make this…?” She peered at him with wide eyes. She knew he’d been practicing crochet, and had seen some of his projects, but didn’t think he had the skill to make something so detailed.
He rubbed his neck bashfully. “I wish. I tried to initially, using a pattern from Alma’s book of a similar flower, but… it looked really bad. So I ended up commissioning her instead.”
She laughed. “Well, regardless, I love it. That’s very thoughtful of you. And a wonderful alternative to wearing the flower while it’s out of season.”
Link gestured for her to put it on, so she tucked some hair back and snapped it into place. “How do I look?”
He grinned at her like an idiot. “Beautiful.”
“Well, thank you. We should get you some flowers to wear too.”
After finishing their food and drinks, they got up to look for some flowers. They settled on daisies; Zelda picked a few and tucked them into his hair. “Much better now.”
“Was I not cute before?” He teased, frowning, and she shoved him in retaliation.
They were chatting over their second pints of ale when an accordion suddenly joined the musical ensemble, stealing their attention.
“You made it!” Zelda rushed over to Kass, almost tripping over herself.
“I did. Thank you for inviting me,” he laughed heartily, effortlessly playing his music as he spoke.
Link joined Zelda’s side, and a warm smile painted his face as he waved to Kass. “It’s been a long time. It’s good to see you.”
“And you as well. Perhaps we can catch up when the festivities have died down. But in the meantime, I’m on duty. Do me a favor and take Zelda to dance, won’t you?”
Link turned to her, offering his hand out with a playful glint in his eyes. She took it without hesitation, and they moved towards the open courtyard where the others danced.
Zelda had never danced much. She learned an adequate amount of ballroom dancing for the one time in her life that Hyrule Castle held a ball, but she didn’t enjoy it. She felt stiff, too calculated, like she had to get everything right or she would make a fool of herself; fundamentally no different than her overall life as a princess prior to the Calamity.
She and Link had attended similar celebrations and festivities post-Calamity, and she didn’t quite know how to dance, but she tried. It ended up being a lot of bouncing around as Link gave her vague instructions to follow his lead. She discovered at that first party that Link had a natural talent for dancing. He couldn’t recall how or exactly when he learned to do it, but he knew it was related to his mother.
They fell into the same routine as before, Link taking the lead as she tried her hardest to keep up, her legs turning to jelly after an embarrassingly minimal amount of time. But he slowed down when she did, and checked in to ask if she wanted to stop, and she refused. It was the most human she felt since she came back into herself, from the way her feet cramped to the beads of sweat on her forehead.
The ale made her clumsier, her movements more varied, her balance faltering. Link had a better grasp on himself, but it was evident that he shared a similar tolerance to Zelda as he beamed ear to ear almost nonstop.
Link’s dancing earned some stares of admiration, and the jealousy that manifested in the pit of her stomach made Zelda feel foolish. It reminded her of something she asked Link a few years ago, laying in bed at home.
“Before you remembered me… did you ever… fancy anyone?”
He leaned onto his elbow and shook his head. “No.”
“It’s okay if you did, truly,” she said, though a hint of pain seeped through her voice. The idea that he might have a fling in the midst of his adventures was perfectly reasonable to the rational part of her, but her emotional counterpart hated it.
“You don’t actually think that,” he replied, but without a trace of animosity in his expression. Instead, he looked as if pleading for her honesty, the inner corners of his brows turning upward. “But the answer is still no. I was flirted with, but never had any urge to reciprocate it. The idea of that felt… wrong.”
She snapped back into reality to find Link staring at her intensely. “I’m right here with you.” He extended out his hand.
She accepted it and he led her through a dance, slower and more romantic than before.
Zelda told herself that she didn’t need to go back to where she’d been. She’d endured too much to fall back on old insecurities about her relationship with Link. He loved her, and he always showed it, and the same was true the other way around.
Later, the pair chatted with Kass for what quickly turned into over an hour. He had the most fascinating stories from his travels, and Zelda asked him if he could stay a little longer and tell those stories to the students at school. He agreed with the closest thing to a warm smile that a beak could produce.
As the hour grew late, people began to go home, bringing back their empty dishes. It seemed that taking down all the decor would be a problem for the following day.
“I’m getting rather tired,” Kass said with a yawn. “I should probably make it back to the inn.”
“It was lovely speaking with you,” Zelda smiled, her eyelids beginning to droop. “We’ll see you soon.”
They exchanged goodnights and split off, Link and Zelda heading back home.
Zelda made Link some tea to soothe his sore throat, and they sat in bed together as he drank it and Zelda journaled about her day. She’d taken it up in the past few months in hopes that it would improve her memory.
It upset her that she had to deal with problems in both her short and long-term memory; she always felt like she was reaching out for something, whether it was the sound Urbosa’s voice or what she ate for breakfast the previous morning. It wasn’t exactly getting better, but she was at least learning how to manage it.
“Do you think these things will ever truly go away?” She asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
He set down his tea on the bedside table. He could tell what she meant by the look in her face, as if a storm brewed in her temples. “I don’t know. But maybe you shouldn’t be asking that.”
“What should I be asking, then?”
“What can you do to live a fulfilling life, despite these things?”
After much deliberation, Zelda let Link take some hunting gigs around late spring.
He started with Marblod Plain, which only stole him away for two nights. Sleeping alone for the first time in months made Zelda uneasy, but she ended up sleeping okay after putting herself in a different headspace. She imagined that she was back at that private room in Lookout Landing, in which Link slept beside her, but in another bed.
Next was Loshlo Harbor, and she almost envied him for getting to camp on the beach. She made a note to suggest a beach vacation sometime during the summer. Link told her plenty about Lurelin Village’s restoration, and as the weather grew warmer, her excitement increased. The harbor took him away for four nights, and she soothed her lonely evenings by hosting some neighbors for dinner. She couldn’t cook as well as Link, and her mediocre dish upset her more than it should have, but her guests ultimately lifted her spirits.
After a few smaller trips in between, Rabella Wetlands kept him busy for quite some time. He had estimated a week, but seven days soon turned to eight, then to nine. On the tenth day, Zelda received a letter.
Dear Zelda,
Let me make it very clear: I AM OKAY. We cleared out the monsters, but I got a bad cut that became infected. I’m still taking treatment for it and I’m on the mend. That is why I haven’t come back yet.
I know you want to drop everything and come find me, but I must request something else instead: go to our second home in Akkala. You haven’t seen it yet, and I want to meet you there. As I’m writing this, I’m packing up to begin my journey there. I’m well enough to ride, and the others will accompany me until Riverside Stable to ensure my safety.
I should arrive in about a week. If you leave within the next day of receiving this, we’ll likely get there at the same time. Pack enough for at least a week (and pack my things too, please).
Warp to Ulri Mountain Skyview Tower then follow the path towards Tarrey Town. Our destination is on a hill past it, right above where the fairy fountain used to be.
I’ll see you there.
I love you,
Link
She sighed in relief and immediately began packing.
She warped to the tower the next morning, and made it to the house by the late afternoon.
Zelda took some time to admire the layout that Link put together himself. It was far more fleshed out than their Hateno home. Framed on the wall was a picture he took of her a couple years ago. When she looked at it, she burst into tears.
Not ten minutes later, the front door opened, but she was too absorbed by her catharsis to notice until a hand met her shoulder. She turned her head to see Link looking like a kicked puppy. “I’m sorry I worried you so much.”
Zelda shook her head profusely. “No, that’s… not why I’m like this,” she sniffled. “It’s the picture.”
His gaze shifted to the picture then back at her. “Do you know why?”
She nodded slowly as Link pulled her back up from the wood floor. “I needed proof that… that after such a tragic event, I could live again. Of course, I remember things from our time together after the Calamity, but… it all felt like puzzle pieces. I think part of me still didn’t believe it.”
He slapped his palm to his forehead. “I should have shown you those pictures. The old drives are all in storage.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself,” she gave his hand a squeeze. “Why would you know I needed something like that? I didn’t… not until now.”
A hint of a smile revealed itself. “So… this was a good cry?”
“Certainly.”
He wrapped her in a warm hug, stroking her hair with his calloused hand. “Thank you for loving me,” she said.
When they finally pulled apart, he signed, “It’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”