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etherealperrie · 16 days

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Peace

Link x Zelda | Zelink

Word Count: 1.7k

Contains: Link and Zelda being soft for one another | the "I would lay my life down for yours again & again if it meant being able to see you happy" kind of trope | excessive amounts of fluff | Link and Zelda being soulmates in every universe | Link and Zelda finally getting a peaceful, happy moment

Warnings: references to nudity, potential spoilers as the events of this fic take place after BOTW & TOTK

A/N: I've never written anything for this universe before, BUT, I've been playing copious amounts of botw & totk and have been thinking about these two a lot & how much I want them to be happy & be able to hold one another, so I wrote it! I hope someone out there enjoys <3

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There’s something on Zelda’s mind. Her lip pulled taught between her teeth, that all too familiar crease between her brows ever present. Link knows that look all too well. A distant look in her eyes, as if she’s not really here in the garden of their Hateno Village home, but somewhere else entirely.

Link knows not to question her, she comes to him when she’s ready, but he watches her intently. A habit he’s never really broken, whether he realizes it or not. His eyes are on her, watching as she breathes, letting her eyelids close, the summer evening breeze grazing her slightly sunburnt cheeks. Her hair dances with the wind and Link swears that for a moment, his heart skips a beat. He doesn’t bother to check, though, for he’s all too used to that feeling ever since it began when he first laid eyes on her over a century ago.

Sometimes he wishes he could remember everything. Every look, every touch, every word they exchanged with one another. To forget even one is a shame. Perhaps this is why he refuses to take an eye off of her now. Every day, hour, minute, second, is a chance to make up for the gaps in his memory. To put her at the center of his world. It’s easy work for him.

Zelda sighs and Link’s shoulders relax as she comes back down from wherever she’d gone. Sometimes she gets swept up into memories – some of them pleasant, others not so much. Link holds his breath for a minute more, waiting for her reaction.

She smiles and rises from where she sat beside the garden bed of carrots, closing the space between the two of them in a few steps.

“Another dream?” Link asks, looking up at her. She leans into him, collapsing onto his lap, her arms wrapped around his shoulders. He welcomes her, wrapping his arms around her torso, pulling her into him. She’s soft and warm, a soothing smell of grass and soap enveloping his senses, reminding him that they’re both here. Human. Solid. Real. Alive.

“Sometimes, when the wind blows over me like that, I can feel my mother’s touch.” Zelda hums, leaning her head against Link’s chest. At her words, he hugs her a bit tighter, wishing he could fill these empty parts of her. Zelda continues on. “Then, I think of Urbosa. I miss her.”

“Me too,” Link agrees. He misses them all. Urbosa, Mipha, Revali, Daruk. Back when he and Zelda were no more than a Princess and a Knight. He doesn’t wish to return to those moments, per say, he’s happy to be here with Zelda having survived the Calamity and the Upheaval. Happy that she came back to him after the draconification, that he can touch her again. How lucky they are to be here with one another. Some days the survivors' guilt is harder to overcome than others.

He wishes Zelda didn’t feel it, though. He wishes more than anything that he could absolve her of that guilt. Of every sadness. He’d bare it all himself, double, if it meant she would never have to feel it again. But here she is, reminiscing, sharing with him. Handling it with such grace, such beauty. She doesn’t know it, but her ability to carry on is what keeps him going, what inspires him to keep living despite it all.

The sun is just beginning to set now, beginning its descent behind the trees as she readies to exchange posts with the moon. The wind picks up, blowing a cool breeze over the two of them. Link watches a chill spread across Zelda’s exposed shoulder, her lip quivering for a brief moment.

For a moment he’s sucked into his mind, a memory washing over him. Zelda knelt in waist deep water praying to the Goddess Hylia – pleading, really – in hopes of discovering her power. He’d been ordered to stand and watch guard while she prayed, ensuring her safety. But, goddess, it took everything in his power to keep his back turned to her.

Link would never admit this to anyone, but that night he couldn’t turn a blind eye to the tremble in her voice. While she prayed, he turned over his shoulder to catch just a glimpse of her. Bathed in the glow of the moon, her porcelain skin reflecting the constellations above and the water below she looked, well, heavenly. More like a goddess than Hylia herself, Link had half a mind to fall on bended knee and worship Zelda.

Underneath, though, he could see her shivering. Her teeth chattered as she begged with the Goddess to show her something, anything that could help in their battle against Calamity Ganon. Her fists clenched, her shoulders heaved as tears began to spill over and trail down her cheeks. Link wanted nothing more in that moment than to rush to her side, wipe the tears from her cheeks with the calloused pad of his thumb and pull her from the water. But he’d taken a vow of silence. A vow to protect the Princess. He couldn’t act on impulse, on desire.

Link lets out a quiet laugh now, running his thumb over Zelda’s exposed shoulder, hoping to warm away the chills. She tucks into him, exhaling a breath at his touch. Foolish, he thinks, to have ever thought that desire for the Princess would ever disappear – he’s destined to love her forever, in every lifetime, in every timeline.

It’s a relief to be able to act on impulses now. To care for her in his own way, to warm her shivering body with his, to take her pain away.

Zelda feels Link’s eyes on her and she wonders what he’s thinking. She wonders if he’s just as content as she is to sit here, in his lap, forever. She wouldn’t doubt it, sometimes it feels as though he’d sit with her all day, if she would let him. She often has to remind him that she’s okay. That she’s not going to go anywhere. Though, she often has to convince herself of that fact first. They’ve been through so much in the past century, the past handful of years since the Calamity and the Upheaval. So much loss, that some nights she clings to Link in her sleep to keep her tethered to this reality, to prevent fate from taking her away again.

“I think we’ve done enough work for today,” Link says, moving one of his arms and sliding it under Zelda’s knees, lifting her into a bridal carry in one swift motion. Zelda gasps, tightening her grip as if she’s ever once had to worry she isn’t safe in his arms. She’s never felt more safe in her life, and that’s not an easy thing for the Princess to feel. Even if, goddess forbid, something were to tear them apart again, she knows that somehow Link will return to her.

The next few minutes between the Princess and the Knight happen in total silence and almost without thought. All Link knows is that he wants to make Zelda comfortable. So, a bath is drawn.

Steam rises from the tub as Zelda sinks into the water, the chill of the evening leaving her body. She tips her head back, the ends of her hair skimming the surface, as she rests her head against the wall, turning at the sound of footsteps approaching.

Link slips into the washroom, his eyes glinting at the sight of her – two lush green eyes set in a hazy glow of peach and pink. He smiles, elated to see her so relaxed, even more so to see her smiling back at him.

“Might I join you?” he asks, already slipping out of his tunic.

Zelda hums in encouragement, watching as Link lifts his tunic over his head. She watches with wide eyes, as if she’d never seen him like this before. Perhaps it’s because she doesn’t remember much of anything from her time in the skies, that she would be remiss to not take every moment with her knight as something precious.

She drinks in the sight of his muscled back, tan, naked skin marked with blotches of color – some yellow, others purple – bruises, from his endless battles. In the next second, he’s fully exposed and her eyes are mapping every freckle and scar, each with its own memory.

Soon, Link is standing just above her as she shimmies back, spreading her legs to make ample room for him to rest. It’s not often that she gets to hold him, so when his back is pressed against her front seconds later, his head resting against her chest, those crystalline blue eyes looking up at her from below, she feels as though her heart might beat through her chest. She’s certain he can feel it.

He can. And, goddess, what a sensation. The moment his bare skin comes into contact with hers, Zelda’s fingertips skimming up the length of his body from his hip, across his torso, and up his neck stopping to circle each mark, he is reborn.

Zelda asks about each one, tracing her fingers across Link’s skin again and again, desperate to know the story that led to every blemish. Link entertains her, his eyes falling shut as he recalls spats and battles, some she was present for and others not. He surprises himself with a few stories. He was certain he’d forgotten some, but with her hands on him, he recalls them with ease. Zelda smiles as she listens to him, the cushion of his body beneath her hand. She stifles a laugh when she notices a trail of chills following in her wake as her hand wanders Link’s body. It’s sweet to know the effect she has on him, she’ll never tell him that she knows, so she revels in the discovery while his eyes are closed.

They carry on until the water is tepid, their bodies having absorbed the heat of the liquid and of one another. They wrap in towels, drying their skin, unraveling from one another for just that moment before tumbling into their shared bed, naked skin to naked skin.

Peace is something the two of them are just beginning to know. Perhaps peace, the gentle feeling of loving one another, is the very thing they’ll cling to.

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