To the Moon and Back:
1. From the sun,
AO3 | Written for @zelinktines24 #5: sun. Reblogs appreciated if you enjoy!!
Fandom: Breath of the Wild
Rating: G
Ship: Link/Zelda
Description: Under the light of the sun, the moon, and the stars, Zelda and Link travel to the Spring of Wisdom so the princess can perform one last prayer.
Read the full fic below or on AO3.
Though the sun shone brightly in the clear, cloudless sky, Zelda couldn’t help the shiver that went down her spine. A chill hung in the air, persistent, pushing her forward so that she may sooner find warmth. They weren’t far from the mild and comfortable temperatures of Central Hyrule–Lanayru was not so different except on the mountain, which loomed ominously before the princess and her knight.
Link walked beside her, expression unreadable as always. Even though the sun illuminated his features, she had no semblance of what was going on in his mind.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Link had begun to speak ever since that day in Gerudo Desert where Zelda’s life flashed before her eyes underneath the blade of a Yiga scimitar. The first words he’d ever spoken to her were, “Are you okay?”
And it seemed that ever since then, anything and everything he said was about her, and this question was no different.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she mumbled, distracting her gaze with something in the opposite direction from her knight. She couldn’t bear to look at him, not in this state of hopelessness.
“You can tell me.”
His words were always short and direct. Zelda wondered if he ever had anything more to say, or if he just didn’t know how? Either way, she hesitated to respond, instead focusing on the gentle brushing of grass against her feet. The sunlight filtered through the trees above, exposing their path through the small forest at the base of Mount Lanayru.
“I’m… worried,” she mustered at last. Still she refused to meet his eyes though she could feel them on her, burning. They were questioning, telling her to say more. “I’m not sure if this will work.”
The journey to the Spring of Wisdom only filled her with more dread, more despair, at the silent reception Hylia would surely give her. It was the same at the last two springs she visited, so why not this one? What would have changed except for turning seventeen. Yes, today, the day of her seventeenth birthday, she was traveling to beg to her deity. On her seventeenth birthday, Princess Zelda would offer one last prayer to the Goddess.
“It will,” Link said, cutting through her thoughts. “It will.” A second time, like he was reassuring himself. But the only person who needed to believe it was her, and she couldn’t.
“And if it doesn’t?” She stopped midstep. “What then?”
It was rhetorical. She knew Link did not have an answer and neither did she and nor did anybody in the kingdom of Hyrule because that was not a possibility. It had to work, needed to work, by Hylia please–
Zelda took a deep breath and decided to save her bargaining and pleading for the spring. She began walking again and her loyal knight followed suit.
He spoke again.
“How’s your research going?”
“My…”
She almost didn’t know how to respond. How was it going? It was a mystery to her too since her most recent days had been spent in front of Goddess statues, praying to nothing, practicing what she would say to the great mother Hylia on top of Mount Lanayru. Her father had ordered it, saying this was their last and most important chance. He wasn’t wrong. Apart from not researching in a while, nobody had asked her. Everyone around her was focused on making it through, day by day, the looming doom plummeting Hyrule into a depression. She was no exception.
But she smiled at him anyway, eyes lighting up and perhaps rivaling the sun.
“My research was good,” she finished.
Was. As though she may never research again. As though those days were behind her and there would be no tomorrow after she prayed at the statue. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t.
“I recently uncovered a few more pieces of ancient literature,” she continued, and now the steps she took toward the spring were more bearable. “From the Sheikah, about how they…”
And Princess Zelda divulged the details of her research to her faithful knight for the rest of their walk, animated and smiling and giggling and so unusual for their circumstances but she allowed herself this grace, this one last time, to feel alive. To feel happy. To truly, truly be with Link and not her personal knight. Link, who would hold her when she cried; Link, who brought her tea when she couldn’t sleep; Link, who stayed by her side.
Until they reached the beginning of the Mount Lanayru trail.
He smiled back at her and squeezed her shoulder. Her voice tapered off and her smile disappeared as she gazed upon the dirt and the leaves and the rocks, worn from eons of pilgrimage to the Goddess statue.
Let’s go, he was saying.
“May Hylia light my path,” she replied, looking carefully up to the sun.
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