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1up-girl · 7 months

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Love Stayed With Me (2023)

Words: 9.2k Pairing: Zelink Rating: T (Heavy Angst, Suicidal Ideation, Eventual Happy Ending)

Or, read on Ao3 here:

[Spoilers for Tears of the Kingdom]

The obsidian of night begins to bleed through the silver veil of memory; ink through fine cloth. And when the world morphs back into shape around him, he finds that everything has grown colder—the sharp evening air rolling up against the seashore has very little to do with it.

In the breathless hush, he watches as the last remnants of her humanity dissolve into nothing more than droplets at his boots. Dread stretches its wretched fingers up through his chest, dragging its mournful cloaks across him just as deliberately as the soft stretches of morning that shall soon come to unfurl across the Akkala shore, and though the sentiments are threading together in his mind, the unbelievable truth of things declaring itself, his heart doesn’t need to be told. It’s known for a while now:

Zelda is gone, and Link cannot follow.

He gasps, and the blunted sea air that quickly fills his lungs feels a little like acid in his throat, and his breath catches so violently that he’s left suffocating on nothing but midnight. Gone. It’s only a moment more before everything is blurring again, his chest so tight he half believes that if he were to look down, he’d find a blade driven clean through it.

Gone. She’s gone . Forever lost. Dead to anything that still walks the earth beside him.

There is a dark and hollow place that Link has wandered once before—he walked its paths just over a century ago, when the blunted sting of loss and failure sank its fangs deep into his chest as he learned of his companions’ fates. That bleak day found him numb, left him piloted by nothing but adrenaline and a divine need to keep his charge safe. But this path Link walks is darker, and far more hollow—feels as though someone has taken a scalpel and carved him out, has left him with nothing more than a few aching bones and a half-beating heart. And when the feeling only threatens to subside, something more sinister sprouts up beneath it; he finds himself wishing for a blow to the head—something, anything —to make everything just stop.

There’s the faintest glimmer of hope as resilience tries to speak up past the sickening twist of his stomach, but its effort is in vain—it can’t hold its ground against the rumble that lifts Link’s frantic eyes to the heavens; the Light Dragon—no, his Zelda —serpents across the indigo of night with an electrifying roar. I’m here, Link , she seems to wail out across the eastern sky. I’m here. Come find me.

I’m here, Zelda. I’m…I—

Her call spades its way down through his body, and Link is lost. Her cry sends him to his knees among the taunting altar of azure flora. He can’t bring himself to look down at them—he’s lost if he does, lost to the memories of them tucked beneath plaits of golden hair, lost to the bouquets he’d assembled with his own hands on their anniversary. Lost to the blissful days spent hand in hand as they rebuilt their kingdom. So instead, he fixes his gaze upon her foreign, begrudgingly magnificent form as it sails across the full moon, the spun gold of her mane glittering against a navy sea. Even torn from her humanity, her beauty is unmatched.

Link has always carried her love proudly—quietly, yes, in the soft way that his soul calls out to her amongst the swell of life around them, but never without the deep honor it brings; he’s worn it as a badge of a courage, a piece of regalia far more precious than anything the monarchy placed upon him a lifetime ago. In this life, her love means more than any chain or tunic or sword. Her love. Nothing but an echo now—but even so, he crumbles beneath its might as grief and guilt coil up around him, their crushing grip so tight a vice against his chest that he thinks his ribs might shatter, the weight of her love so unbearable that a simple breath seems so far out of reach. Those three, familiar words crawl across the dry cavern of his mouth as he watches her go, and they slip from him, again and again, each iteration far more desperate than the last: I love you, I love you, I love you .

He’d give his other arm to unsee it all. He hates knowing the truth. That he knows what her fear looks like, what it sounded like. Hates that the last thing she’ll ever know of him is his panicked face reaching for her, his singed fingers just a whisper’s distance away. He hates that he knows what her body looks like contorting in agony as the stone steals the last bit of humanity from her and he hates that he knows that her last moments were spent placing confidence in him— the kingdom’s cherished Hero, the favored swordsman. Her favorite swordsman, whose failure deep below Hyrule Castle sealed her to a fate worse than death.

For the first time, in a long, long time, Link sobs.

His cries are almost as primal as her own lament some miles above the surface, and they burn their way down his throat with enough strength to knock him flat onto his back. He presses a hand to his head as he tries to stifle the growl that tears through him when it isn’t the leather of a glove that comes to meet his skin, but the intricate grooves of Rauru’s perfectly sculpted hand.

Gods, he wishes he were dead. He wishes the Goddess would steal what little breath remains in his lungs—that she’d tear the spirit she’d so neatly set inside his corporeal form and leave him as nothing more than empty husk upon the sand and let the tides carry him away.

If there really is a Goddess, she’d let me take your place.

A lifetime ago, he’d spent many sullen hours tempering his frustrations; he’d swallowed every curse to the Goddess down as they both silently watched on while the Princess trembled in the frigid Spring waters. None of it matters now—he’ll blaspheme Hylia to hell and back as long as he has to watch Zelda glide further into the night through a net of fluorescent petals, his gloved hand stretched out to grasp at nothing but briny air. Her name forms in his mouth like it’s the first time he’s ever dared to whisper it, two syllables crackling like dying embers at trembling lips. It has slipped from him before as a sigh against her ear and a prayer against her thighs. It is nothing but a eulogy now.

I’m so sorry. Please, forgive me.

It had all once been so beautiful, so full of promise; how had it all gone so horribly wrong?

Link doesn’t know how long he stays there, face turned up towards the grieving stars, but when sleep finally comes to claim him beneath the flowers’ vigil, he’s crying her name until the moment it all goes dark.

He’s never thought it possible, but Link finds that Zora’s Domain is even more miserable than he remembers it to be. A beautiful architectural feat, yes, but far too cold and wet and slick and not particularly comfortable for one without gills and a buoyant epidermis. And if those things had already deemed it less than hospitable long ago, the sludge blanketing it has him reeling even half a mile from the town’s perimeter.

If he hadn’t been so swept up in the shadow of his grief, the revelation that Prince Sidon has become engaged in their time apart might come as more of a shock. Link thinks he may have heard Yona’s name dropped before, but never in the languishing tones he’d expect in a lover’s voice. But who is he to judge? When his own love, a glorious love that’s imprinted across every hint of his being—threaded in each word, each touch, each look—once carried on as silently as the passing night?

The future Zora queen is kind and outgoing, already fully acclimated to the clamor her new title brings. Yona’s chartreuse skin is a lovely pop of color against a sea of muted tones, and Link wonders if she carries a shade that’s more commonly found in her homeland, a land he’s hardly heard of that sits across the sea—a place he and Zelda had once spoken of seeing someday. She will never see it.

Yona greets Link with a warmth that he’s been starved of—she must notice it right away, because she’s soon sprucing him up while she tends to her ailing companions in the infirmary. She provides him with a fresh piece of Zora armor and a hearty meal that he finds himself struggling to finish (when was the last time he’d been properly nourished?) and asks him to visit her soon-to-be spouse at the recently established ‘Mipha’s Court’ on the mountainside.

The reunion with Sidon is, understandably, not the most amiable of interactions. Given the torrent of mud spilling out overhead and the sorrow weighing down Link’s heart like a most wretched anchor, it’s hard for either of them to show any normal levels of enthusiasm. If the matter of the sludge isn’t disheartening enough, Sidon inquires as to the rumors about the missing Princess, and Link finds himself biting down upon the truth.

“Nothing yet,” Link says, vision blurring as he tries to lose focus on Sidon’s gentle, trying smile.

Sidon’s face falls. “I see.”

The rest of Link’s time spent in the domain passes in a hasty blur, the blues and greens of Upland Zorana and the luminous stone of the mountains and the damp purples of the subaqueous caves all smearing together. He moves through each motion as if wallowing in a dream, and somehow, after what feels like the hundredth expedition across Lanayru’s peaks, Link eventually finds himself scaling the great waterfall that opens up to usher him to the sky once more. He nearly fumbles from the billowing deluge when he catches sight of the length of a great beast migrating further south.

Wellspring Island is a most peculiar conglomerate of fractured stone. From the surface, he doesn’t give it too much thought—it’s a piece of an island chain, just like all the others he’s grown accustomed to—but when Link finds himself at the waterfall’s mouth to see Sidon already forging a path ahead, he’s overwhelmed at just how far up the archipelago extends. The sun is already bidding its farewell, its departure signaled by a swell of pink that cuts across the turquoise palette of the drifting ruins. Link follows, squinting up against its light, wet footsteps noisy as he comes up behind the Zoran prince. He notices, rather quickly, that his body has grown feather light once more, gravity nearly sapped at such an altitude, and he thinks that the experience might be something rather entertaining if not for the vile stench of muck slamming into him and the insistent grief that threatens to drown him entirely.

Sidon is speaking again, something about the task at hand as he designates an approach to the matter, but Link misses it—he’s a little distracted, glancing about the atmosphere for a glimpse of a flaxen mane. He only nods when his companion turns his copper glance on him and flashes that charming smile, and they set to work.

He’ll figure it out.

Link scales the ruins further, oxygen growing thinner with each new foot of altitude gained. He wonders for a moment, after he’s captured a bubble and ridden it up to a higher ledge, about what height he’d need to reach in order to slip from consciousness entirely. He wonders if he’d come to on the long way down to the surface—if he’d even notice the earth swallowing him whole.

The ascent towards the temple drains Link of what little energy is still clinging to him as dusk makes itself known across the sky. It takes longer than he anticipates, irritation ruffling him each time he passes a column to find the mechanized eye of a soldier construct flaring up as it registers his presence. A heavy sigh falls from him when he comes across the temple’s entrance — now it can start. He notes the structure's five gargantuan faucets, like a colossal pipe organ floating in the atmosphere. There must be a fog swirling about his brain, because Link finds that the layout of the half demolished temple doesn’t register so easily in his mind. He’s thrown off by the uneven surfaces, poorly adjusted to the scope of everything. It’s hard to persevere when his body wants nothing more than to shut down. He’s grateful for Sidon’s nudging commentary to keep him on track.

The engineer behind the Domain’s afflictions is a grotesque little creature, and Link finds himself enjoying his assault on it a little too much. It feels different now; each time he thrusts his weapon into the side of the anomaly it creates, a genesis of sludge and poison that Link is downright angry to be wasting his time with, the spearhead practically sparks with fury. They go on this way and that, the scourge catching its breath as Link navigates through the small, noxious waves that it splatters out against him, and when he watches its monstrous head scamper away across the temple’s atrium, he takes great pleasure in piercing its skin, over and over again, pinning it to the stone before its form shatters apart to leave a Secret Stone in its wake.

Link’s heard it three times already—the tale of the Imprisoning War. He hears Sidon’s ancestor speak, tries to distract himself with the way her voice rings vaguely with the darker tones of the prince’s elder sister long passed—it doesn’t work. All that he sees is Zelda, all that he hears is of her dedication to him. Link feels something tighten around his heart when he hears tell of how the Sage of Water bends the knee under Zelda’s acclaim just as all the others have. It comes as no surprise when Sidon vows to fight at his side, and Link is soon feeling that familiar surge of energy tingling through his fingers as their bond is forged. But this time, Link’s eyes are drawn to the back of his hand—to where time manipulation sits nestled right in the center of it. He’s suddenly lightheaded again, and it’s neither the sludge nor the elevation that makes it so: it’s her vow that’s been aiding him this whole time, protecting him. She’s everywhere, in everything. Her affection for him transcends time and space, her love like the stardust that’s painted the cosmos for an eternity. The thought smears his vision with fresh tears.

“Let’s head home!” Sidon’s excitement sounds distant—buzzy, as though Link’s head is submerged in the reservoir.

Link sniffles. “Nice work.” The swordsman quickly clears his throat and stretches cramping fingers, his grip still tightly clamped around his weapon and his jaw clenched. The compliment rings just hollow enough to wither Sidon’s enthusiasm down to a sliver of concern.

“Is something troubling you, Link?”

The swordsman finds his tongue thick with an unfamiliar venom, far too eager to dole it out to a Sidon who most certainly does not deserve it. Link may have a talent with swords and weapons and combat, but he’s learned that he’s powerless to one thing in particular—he can’t fight the way grief manipulates him, contorts every thought and ache until he no longer recognizes himself. Instead, he grits his teeth and shakes his head, glancing out across the horizon as dawn breaks against it. Sidon’s eyes soften, his usual optimism shining through the silence.

“Don’t worry, my friend—you’ll find her! After all, is there anything you cannot achieve? And when all is said and done, we shall have a splendid dinner, the four of us. Won’t that be lovely?”

Link’s glance fixates on an antiquated slab of crushed stone, his eyes cloudy and distant as long-held dreams of their future together shatter apart. Gods, how he’d like to crumple apart up here, rest his elbows upon blue ashlar and sob into his fists—collapse just a few feet to the side, slip from the edge and let gravity finish the job.

Sidon only smiles sadly.

Deep within the Tanagar Canyon, Link shares the truth with Impa. Carrying the burden all on his own has become far too difficult, and if anyone deserves to know the truth, it’s her. She might be the only one he can manage baring even a fraction of his soul to, guilt and all. When he spots the realization flickering in her dark eyes as he reveals the devastating truth, the muscles beside her eye twitching as her mind pieces everything together, it’s like there’s a knife twisting in his side.

“Can you reach her?” Impa asks after a long moment, her voice gravelly with more than just age.

Link swallows hard, biting back tears beneath her watchful eye. At her side, Cado must notice the effort—he feigns interest on a spot of stone elsewhere.

“I...I think so,” Link finally manages. “I don’t know.” He doesn’t like the way Impa’s forehead creases in response.

“ Link !” she bursts out, breaking fully, her jaw trembling open in a silent sob. “Go be with her, boy.” She sounds wounded, as though he’s struck her.

“I know, I…” he swipes at his face. “I have to. She…she has the sword. I have to go, but..I don’t know… I don’t know if I can do it.”

For a moment, he thinks she might lean up to strike him. “And have you not managed difficult tasks before?” In spite of her age, the spitfire of her youth bleeds to the surface, and new tears sprout up at the corners of her eyes, hot and angry. “If this… if this is all there is for her…for you both…” she doesn’t finish the thought. Perhaps it isn’t even fully formed. Link gets the point.

In truth, part of him wishes the feelings would go—that maybe, when this is all over, he could convince Purah to restore the Shrine of Resurrection—to place him in that pool and wipe his fondest memories from him again. (Perhaps, he thinks, there's a way for her to keep them from ever coming creeping back.) The mere thought of Zelda—her golden head scintillating beneath a sun that’s wholly eclipsed by her smile, her reddened nose beneath watery Hebran sun, the gentle touch of her lips against his ear—

Link crumbles, tears slipping from his downturned face to blot against the cold stone when they hit the rotunda’s floor, and it’s all the permission the Sheikah need to soon follow. Sobs and murmurs and soft prayers ricochet off the temple’s walls, splattering across Link’s ears to yet again remind of the cold, hard truth.

Impa, on the other hand, only allows herself a few moments of melancholy before sun-spotted hands are wiping away at her tears, and her intellect, as sharp as ever in her old age, is snapping back into shape. Determination flashes across garnet eyes, and in them Link sees hypotheticals and conjectures swirling about. He thinks his tears could start all over again; denial has claimed her much in the same way it had once done to him. He can’t be around to trace grief’s next steps again with her—he can’t be around to wither in her blind resilience.

He takes the rest of the afternoon off at Impa’s request and seeks a moment of solace in a glade on the Salari Plain, in the small clearing where the Serenne Stable once stood. If he hadn’t known it once sat there, he would have never guessed—overgrowth has concealed all traces of its foundation, new grass shrouding the soft echoes of its base that once imprinted upon the ground.

Link lays himself supine atop the grass, and as he shoves his hands beneath his head and sighs to the heavens, he wishes he could get his mind to just stop. He’s so tired of thinking—wishes his brain would allow him a few moments of peace. Instead, thoughts wash over him in the same way the clouds roll across Hyrule skies. He finds himself drowning in the ifs and shoulds and coulds .

“What do you think about this flower—black and gold?”

“Purah can sure be a little intimidating, huh?”

“I think Paya and Tauro have feelings for one another.”

Gods, living without her is the hardest thing he’s ever had to do. Each time a new thought strikes him, it’s her bright face that pops into view. It happens with each bit of knowledge that he learns, each observation that he makes, no matter how insignificant. He knows how her brow would crease and the edges of her lips would tip up in joy or how she’d cock her head to the side in contemplation of such matters—it’s all a hopeless dream now. How long will it take for her voice to fade from his memory, he wonders? How many years will pass before he loses the tempo of her pulse against his skin, the waltz of her heart as they twine fingers in the candlelight?

Link shoots up from the ground to keep from choking on a thought: if there is a Spirit Realm in which departed souls reunite, she won’t be there to greet him. There’s nothing more for her, nothing but the darkest of sleeps as she wanders the skies for the rest of time. It’s all his fault.

He presses palms against his eyes and weeps until evening.

Zelda had loved Akkala in the fall.

They’d spent the last two autumns tucked away in the northeastern crook of Hyrule. He’d surprised her with the trip both times, planned just early enough that they’d return to Necluda in time for the winter solstice. Both times were spent among the rich foliage, snuggled up beneath tentative storm clouds with cups of hot chocolate between their chilled hands. He’s carried fond memories of the region, but more tragic ones have replaced it in recent weeks. He decides, as he makes his way across the Ukuku Plains, that he will not dare to look at that wretched peninsula.

Link initially heads for Tarrey Town at Purah’s suggestion. He doesn’t even remember why she tells him to visit in the first place—but he soon wanders in, his step a little aimless, eyes glazing over a painted face upon the town’s entryway. (Something bitter has him wondering if this is a town or a cult.)

But the town is thriving, its population grown exponentially since the last time he’d passed through it. Hudson’s construction company has encroached upon the land just across the lake, a site fully built and ready for production. He’s recognized by several townsfolk including the Great Leader himself— Hudson and his wife, Rhondson, greet the traveler as an old friend, and he soon meets their daughter, the latest addition to the - son family, Mattison. He expects the child to be interested in a character such as himself with his array of weapons and shields, but what Link does not expect is becoming her keeper for the day—but he’s set to depart in just over twenty four hours, and there is not much else for him to do in the meantime, so a babysitter he becomes.

He learns that Mattison is preparing for a departure of her own—just as every Gerudo born beyond their borders, she’ll be making her pilgrimage to Gerudo Town any day now. She’s been keeping busy, threading her interest in her mother’s native tongue throughout the town; she tries to teach Link a few words, and though he already knows their meaning, he plays along. When they’re finished with her lesson, she asks him to color beside her on the balcony tucked against her bedroom. She takes her browns and her yellows and her reds and imagines the desert town—she’s not too far off, but Link won’t offer any advice on the matter; he doesn’t want to have to explain how he knows such things. She’s a bright child, with all the creativity and resilience that her parents carry between them, and when she’s finished with her art, he watches her curl up against a pillow and settle down for an afternoon nap. Link finds himself smiling when tiny snores fill the air.

And then it feels like something inside of him is snapping in half.

He hadn’t ever said it—not explicitly, at least—that he’d hoped to someday watch his own child fall asleep in the noonday shade. That he wanted to teach a child with wheat hair and jade eyes how to read and write, how to forage and cook and help around the house. That he wanted to see his Zelda lounging in their home, a book in one hand with the other settled atop her pregnant belly, wanted to see her eyes light up when he returned home from the market with another little one giggling upon his shoulders. Grief persists as it always does—as it always will, for as long as he breathes—but regret sidles up a little bit closer as he watches Mattison’s chest rise and fall.

Time had slipped away much more quickly than he’d realized, but they had duties to attend to, and thoughts of marriage and children were something to be saved for a different life, one that would follow after. But he saw the way she spoke of her students, of the way she would come home in the evening and recount their silly tales and their unfiltered comments—they would ooh and ah and insist that the Princess and the Hero from her stories surely must have married at the end of the tale. He remembers the way she would blush and lower her eyes and that’s certainly an idea and—oh Gods above, how could he have never asked her?

Before the misery has a chance to swallow him whole, the sound of heels clicking against wood pokes at Link’s ears, and he turns to find Rhondson craning her head over the last few steps, a smile spreading across her lips when she finds her daughter fast asleep. She dampens her footsteps, tiptoeing across the balcony and crouching down to brush a stray lock of fiery red hair behind her daughter’s ears.

“Is she behaving?” Her whisper darts over to Link.

“Yeah. She’s a great kid.”

Rhondson smiles warmly. “I think so, too.” She’s quiet for a moment while something plaintive fills her expression. “They grow so fast.”

Link doesn’t say much, his eyes focused on the sight of Rhondson’s fingers as they work through her daughter’s hair.

“It’s funny—we grow knowing our parents love us so very much. But it isn’t until you’ve had one of your own that you truly understand the depth of that love.” Rhondson pulls her hand away and begins to tidy up Mattison’s crafts. She huffs a whisper of a laugh and glances over at him. “You’ll know what I mean someday. Promise.”

Rhondson means so well—but Link would give just about anything to get her to walk away.

“Can I bring you anything for lunch?” Her voice cuts through the static.

Link shakes his head, any hint of an appetite fully extinguished by the familiar anguish of grief.

“Alright, then. You let me know if you need anything.” She’s gone just as quickly as she’d appeared. And though she’s gone, her words continue to ring in his ears for the next half of an hour, every iteration just as trenchant as the first time she’d delivered it.

You’ll know what I mean someday. No, he won’t know. He won’t ever know. He will never get to press a kiss to his daughter’s head, won’t ever get to comfort a small, teary boy. Zelda will never know the great, maternal love that Rhondson promises; the one she wears with such pride.

Existing, in its purest form, has never hurt so much.

When Mattison wakes from her nap, she wastes no time in zipping out to the square, missing the way Link hastily wipes at the wet corners of his eyes when she springs up from the ground. She sets out to test her neighbors’ knowledge of Gerudo vocabulary, though nobody seems to be truly as invested as she: he finds it sweet. But Link can’t think too hard about it, can’t think too hard about sweet children, smart children— of children who wish to explore the world. So he lets himself fade away a bit, in the same way he’s done over the last few weeks.

Their day together culminates in a hot air balloon ride overlooking the eastern sea with her parents beside them.

“Never forget that we are standing beneath the same sun.” Her mother's voice is as soft as cashmere, as delicate as lace. Link’s eyes are fixed out across the horizon, seeking out those impossible dreams that shall never come to pass. Wondering if the Light Dragon can appreciate the sun’s soft glow against its scales in the way he once did.

“The only distance that matters is the distance between our hearts.”

His throat burns.

They land upon the ground just as fate arrives at the town’s entrance donning glinting armor and a scimitar: Mattison’s time in Tarrey Town has come to an end. Hudson watches his daughter go, and even though she will be closer to woman than child the next time they reunite, he can take comfort in knowing that their paths will cross again someday—Link wants to share this with Hudson, wants him to see just how much fortune has smiled upon him in comparison. But he says no such things, only excuses himself and seeks out a patch of shade behind one of the houses to take several deep breaths.

Everything feels a little more muted once Mattison is carved out of the picturesque town. There is a longing that settles over it, one that carries a familiar ache—the one Link had felt when they had to leave the peaceful dream of their autumn excursions. Melancholy raining on him like blossoms off their vines, bidding him farewell with plaintive kisses as reality knocked them from their private corner of the world. He sees that same wistfulness in her parents, in her friends—he’s only a little comforted by their misery.

When Link crosses paths with Rhondson again, she greets him with a proposition: a fifty percent discount off of a new property, to be completed upon the hillside just south of the town. It isn’t until she’s tapping a finger against a roll of architectural plans than Link realizes he hasn’t returned to Hateno since discovering Zelda’s fate—he doesn’t anticipate returning to it anytime soon. He knows that he’s doomed if he goes back and rests his head upon the pillow and finds the scent of cherry blossoms still lingering there.

He spends his hour twisted in either direction—to reject is to remain complacent in his grief. But building a new home might imply something far more worse: accepting. Progression. A new life without her, one that he doesn’t want. But when it comes down to it, Link has more rupees than he knows what to do with, so he hands them over to Rhondson and pays the property a visit.

Grantéson waits for him on the patch of grass overlooking the sea, and even through the mist of grief, Link can tell that the purchase is a steal. They glance through a catalogue of units, Grantéson offering suggestions and pricing the solutions he comes up with. It all starts very small—a single room, a kitchen, a place to store his weapons. But as he glances through the catalogue, other units begin to catch his eye— a prayer room…a garden...a private study.

“You big on reading?”

“Yeah.” Link lies.

So it’s added to the plan, for no real reason other than it’s something she would want if she were still here. The plans grow and grow, and soon, Link finds himself agreeing to an outdoor dining room that seats four and a balcony across from the study that holds a small pond. Grantéson’s eyes twinkle as he looks the schematics over while Link studies the empty plot of land with a dim smile painted across his lips.

He wonders if he’ll ever return to see the final product.

Lookout Landing is in a state of panic when he returns to it. He catches sight of Rito warriors circling overhead as they retrieve information for the Zora emissaries contemplating matters between the settlement’s palisades. The Goron children have abandoned their sport in favor of the latest gossip that’s circulating: Princess Zelda has been spotted at the castle’s walls.

Link’s stomach drops at the thought, and when he spots her through Purah’s telescope, he ridicules himself for the soft gasp that escapes him. Every part of him knows that it’s an imposter that’s beckoning to him, one the deserves to feel his holy blade piercing its chest, but even so, when he finally reaches her after a long and frustrating chase through Hyrule Castle’s iron limbs, he could fall to his knees when it turns those jade eyes on him. His Zelda’s voice was always so full of promise; this one holds a threat. It speaks of days past, suggestive inflections all too telling as it concocts a replenished sanctum before his very eyes. It’s an incredible facade— he has half the mind to wonder if its skin would feel just as velvet soft, if her breath would feel just as warm against his neck, if she would sigh if he touched her in certain spots. And though he knows of its deception, he can’t keep his stomach from twisting when the puppet disintegrates into tendrils of red and black, hardly even registering the venomous words that the phantom behind the ruse spits at him.

Link’s fueled by pure rage as the spectral being divides itself, and in spite of all of the thoughts he’s had over the last few weeks he won’t allow Ganon to be the one to end him; he refuses to go by his damned hand. So Link fights as he always does, as though it’s all he’s good for. It isn’t an easy fight by any stretch of the imagination, gloom sickness working its way into his lungs and blotting his vision.

He catches sight of the teal forms of his allies around him as they launch their own attacks, puppets in their own right. They work in a flurry, their colors swirling around the dark wine of Ganon’s creations. Gods, this would be so much easier if he had brought the Master Sword. It’s a dangerous thought to have in the middle of combat—it nearly freezes him up entirely. Not now, he thinks, narrowly avoiding a thrust from a gloom spear that surely would have decided the matter.

When it’s all over, Link and the sages (who have rather impeccable timing) reconvene atop the wooden balcony beside Purah’s quarters to assess the situation. They’re only slightly rattled, which provides Link a little more comfort than he expects it to, but they’re quickly shaking off the simmering ache of adrenaline to draw up new strategies.

They speak of Zelda, deducing information that Link’s discovered long ago. He can feel the sharp sage of Riju’s knowing glance as it settles upon him, can’t help focusing hard on the splash of white paint underneath him, the royal crest of Hyrule lying flat beneath his boot. He clears his throat and draws his focus back as Sidon’s voice bursts with a revelation about a fifth sage. Purah assigns them each a bit of research, and though Link’s a little too numb to comment, autopilot mechanisms kick in to suggest that he’ll need to head south to Faron for his part.

When they break formation, Link nearly jumps from his skin when he feels something wrap around his wrist; it’s Purah, her scarlet eyes determined and apprehensive.

“And you need to get that sword. Now.”

A deep breath out into the early morning air. Something simmers low in his body, like a firecracker preparing to burst up into the night sky, and quivering fingers tug mindlessly at the bottom of a tunic that’s been threaded together with a love of cosmic proportions.

Link has spent the last few hours on the steps of the Typhlo Ruins Skytower with his head tipped up towards the sky. As skilled as he is with his body, it’s as though he’s inhabiting it for the first time, his limbs too long and his torso screwed on a little too tightly and his stomach tucked in a perpetual somersault from the moment he’d opened his eyes. The small ache in his neck has him seeking comfort on his back, but it’s impossible for him to remain that way for long—dread quickly begins to fill him up, and he’s at risk of drowning in it completely if he doesn’t hop back up to his feet. He takes a long walk around the perimeter, eyes glancing up the clear blue of the sky every couple of steps.

Deep breathes, in and out, in and out.

It’s nearly an hour to midday when his pace slows and his legs deaden and his face pales.

The Light Dragon is slowly winding across the eastern ridge, glowing as she emerges from the ivory peaks of Hebra. Link thinks he might choke on the heart lodged in his throat.

I can’t do this , he thinks. And how can he? How can he rise to meet her as she is now, how can he come to land upon a coffin that lives and breathes? To touch her back and yearn for the architecture of her soft spine when he only comes across corrugated skin? He watches as she grows closer and closer, her speed achingly slow as she moves across the sky, as if she’s giving him a moment to gather the courage that has coursed through his veins since the moment he’d been brought into this cruel world.

“For you.”

For him. Everything has been for him, for their people. If he does not go, it’s all been in vain.

The spark in his step explodes beneath his feet, sending him into the tower, sending him up into the stratosphere once more as the cold air bites at his body. He doesn’t breathe at any point on the way up, and only when he’s dangling from the paraglider does he finally remember to do so.

For Zelda.

He’s trembling. If he’s not careful, he’ll lose his grip and land in the swamp below. Tighter.

The first thing he takes care to notice is her eyes. Kaleidoscopic, haunting—wild and wide, hardly even registering his approach—so vastly different from the sleepy eyes that he would once press kisses against when she’d stir in the mornings. He doesn’t feel the sob bunching up behind his sternum, ready to burst as he grows closer and closer, and soon, he’s landing gently upon her nape—isn’t she always the softest of places for him? Trembling fingers move to touch her, and Link closes his eyes as he tightens his fist, buttercup fur slipping up between his fingers.

He recognizes this.

Link lurches forward and collapses against her, burying his face into her mane. Her smile flashes against dark eyelids, and up in the skies, he sees it all so vividly: her head nuzzling up against him while he presses kisses to her neck as her gentle locks fall across his face.

A soft smile breaks through his tears. If the Light Dragon notices him, she doesn’t acknowledge his presence—there’s no mumble of approval, no shake of her head, nothing. His cries are soon bursting into hiccups, and he rubs at the back of her neck. He’s flooded with memories, everything crashing into him like waves against the great cliffs of Lanayru, image after image knocking about in his mind. Everything jumbles and blurs, and Link cannot tell where he begins and where she ends. Her smile, her laughter, her tears, her old fears long put to rest. Zelda: beside the sea, riding across the plains, at the edge of their bed with a twinkle in her eye. This aching hardness, this unbearable weight that’s pressed down so heavily on him for weeks, dislodges and parts through the cloudy thoughts

Who then, if he is set to rest in the ground, will carry that part of her legacy on? The history books will tell of her—of her good nature and her resilience and her undying devotion, but what scholar knows all of her? Her most secret desires, her gripes and her quips and her mischievous sense of humor and every other thing that cements his love for her? If he goes, that part of her follows—if he goes, how can he remember her?

No, he cannot forget her of his own accord. He refuses.

“I’m here, Zelda,” he whispers through tears, stroking her still, ashamed that he’d even once thought to try and push her love away. “I’m here. I’m so sorry.” Though he should know better, a small part of him expects her to respond. A growl, a purr. Anything.

Atop her head, the Master Sword gleams, beckoning to him with wisps of gold and royal blue from beneath a layer of fur that’s twined around it. He hears its whispers in the same way he had a century prior, the way his soul has again and again throughout time and space. Its voice is airy and thin and soothing—familiar, threaded through his own soul. How wonderful to see you again , it sighs. Link moves towards it, and as his fingers coast along the hilt, the world goes silent. The sky looks on with bated breath.

Extracting the blade is no easy feat—Zelda buckles at the first hint of its removal, her body bending and crumpling as Link tries to tear it from her. His stomach lurches when he feels both feet lift off from beneath him, and when he anchors himself upon her, he tugs again, harder this time, guilt seeping into him when he draws blood from her. I’m sorry, I’m sorry . He grits his teeth and braces for a fall. A tremendous screech pounds against his eardrums as it fills the atmosphere, her jaw flung open and her body stiffening beneath him.

Everything goes stark white.

When Link opens his eyes again, he finds that the sky he’s spent months exploring is no longer here. Encapsulated by a celestial bronze, the air is still and silent. The fur around the blade quietly unwinds as easily as reeds bending beneath the gentle push of a stream, and Link feels something warm throbbing in his chest: she knows he’s there. She knows. Beneath the sweet glow of light, Link pulls the sword, as easily as he’s always done. He raises it to the sky, and colossally low tones vibrate up through his legs as the Light Dragon—as Zelda— hums in approval.

“And when you two next meet the Demon King…you will have my strength to help you, through her.”

Link opens his eyes, and it’s like being roused from a dream. He finds himself back in reality, in the sharp air of the South Hyrule skies. Sunlight has already faded; he’ll return to Purah in the morning. For now, he will rest. Link seeks refuge in the brilliant gold of Zelda’s mane and closes his eyes as her gentle, rolling breath trembles below him like a lullaby. He falls asleep, cheeks stained with old tears.

Beneath the dragon musk, her scent still lingers.

The world is safe again.

They save it, together. Link hasn’t yet come to terms with the fact that this is their last stand. He’s replaying the last few moments in his mind—Ganondorf’s draconic form disintegrating into a blaze of malice colored rays, the blood red sky yielding to the soft pink of late afternoon. And then, all goes quiet.

He knows what the legend dictates—Zelda is gone, and she won’t be coming back. And yet, Link can’t shake the image of the Light Dragon darting across the sky to reach him in his hour of need. Even as he stands in the wake of his victory, drenched in blood and dragon froth, Zelda is all he thinks about; she’s still in there, trapped, not completely erased as he’d feared. How might the Zonai have known the truth, anyhow? Perhaps they were not as all-knowing—not as godlike as they were claimed to be. And, even if they had been, who knows better of challenging the Gods than the Hero of Legend?

He knows he ought to squash the small ribbon of hope that wraps around his heart. It only tightens.

The Light Dragon glides along the wind unphased as though she hasn’t been snaking about the skies to aid her hero, unbeknownst to her as he may be.

And then, just as he begins to accept that this really is the end, his hand begins to glow.

It must be a dream. A vast space of sea green. Rauru. His wife, Sonia, who Link recognizes only from the faint hues of someone else’s memory. The Light Dragon slumbering beneath them. Raised hands, a warmth that rises through his body and erupts from his fingertips. Her . One last, knowing look. Shifting clouds that are soon shattered by the sudden, violent rush of wind.

The dream is no more, and Link is falling.

Panic slams into him when he realizes the endless sky is beneath his feet. And if that isn’t enough to stop his heart, the sight of someone familiar falling a distance below him might just be enough to. Her name rips through his throat, the air burning as it quickly fills his mouth. It only takes one sight of her before he’s crying, shifting his weight to try and match her speed. He closes the gap between him, tears flowing more evenly as he takes in the sight—her eyes gently closed, short hair billowing in the wind, arms gently outstretched as though she were napping beside the pond behind their home.

“Zelda…Zelda…” he’s whispering her name against the striking wind. A prayer. A blessing. And when he reaches her, and his skin comes to lay across her own, he begins to weep. He pulls her into his grasp, crying into her hair. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

It is a shock of landing when they hit the water, but Link pushes past it and quickly opens his eyes to find her golden locks splaying out around her. Beneath the lapping waves, he presses his lips to hers—oh Gods, he isn’t imagining this after all—and pulls her to the surface.

When he rises from the pool, it is more than just her limp form he carries with him. It is a renaissance of warmth and light that follows in his wake, the promise of a new life together draped across his arms. Link thinks he might explode if he dares to look away from her; he catches her soft inhalations, examines the tiniest hint of color splashed across her wind-bitten nose and admires the length of eyelashes fanning out across her cheeks. And when his feet have carried him away from the murmuring water, he kneels among the forget-me-nots and gently sets her down.

He watches her, his heart low and ready to burst, and when her eyes flutter open and he finds their illustrious color sliding across him, the soft lilt of the pond behind him crescendos into something symphonic, his heartbeat percussive and his breathe reedy and and the soft whine tying his tongue like the slightest shimmer of strings trembling to life.

Link cannot move. And Zelda, it seems, is almost as starry eyed as he is: less so, he ventures from the fact that she’s able to find some semblance of voice.

“Link? How are you…?”

There’s hardly a hint of power behind her inquiry as it trails off, and yet it strikes him like lightning puncturing a muddy haze of rose, and in the haze, every thought grows heavy on his tongue, each one far too tentative to push their way free—apologies and declarations and details of his journey and every single ache that’s riled up in him since the moment she was torn from his side. But still, nothing comes.

“I’m not still dreaming, right?”

How many lifetimes has she spent dreaming of him, waiting for him to bring her home? Link clamps his lips down around a new swell of emotion, his face crinkling up as he fights to suppress it all. Zelda speaks again, and as she presses on, Link finds that he can’t tear his eye away from the small sight of her pulse flickering as her voice flexes its long rested muscles.

“Oh, Link— you really did it!”

In place where words should be, soft shudders sprout, and he lowers his head to hide fresh tears. Zelda turns to face him as a familiar color returns to her face.

“Oh, Link…I’m home!” Her voice is like something tugged up from a dream.

Home .

He steps forward and crumbles into her, open mouthed sobs huffing against her bare shoulder.

“Oh…oh, Link…” he hears her crackling voice against him.

He pulls away to study her once more—she’s real. She’s real .

“I thought I lost you.” He finally manages. Zelda’s face is dressed with concern—he won’t realize until much later that it’s the first time she’s seen him swept up like this, broken and yet wholly complete. Before he can say anything else, she’s pulling him back to her, catching his lips between hers, their tears melting into one another’s. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” he whispers. Link runs fingers along her jaw as gently as though he were running them across porcelain.

Zelda shakes her head. “Nothing—” she presses her lips to him again, kisses his tears away, places another one on each subtle freckle across the bridge of his nose. “You have nothing to apologize for. I prayed for a kinder day, every day. I prayed for you to find me. And here—here you are.” Her cheeks are flushed, her voice hitched and unsteady.

Oh Goddess, how he loves this woman.

“How are you… how—?”

“I don’t care.” She swallows hard. “I don’t care . I’m with you again. That’s enough for me. It will always be enough.” Zelda closes her eyes and leans into the glide of his fingers across her face. They wander across her jaw and across the delicate slope of her nose and up to the curve of her ear, fingers soon grasping at a gold; even knotted by pond water, it feels like bliss against his skin. He watches her hair poke up through his grip in the same way it had done over the skies of Hyrule.

“You’re real. It’s you…I can’t…” he murmurs, leaning forward to collapse his forehead against hers. Her hands come to rest around his neck as she leans back, and the burn of them against him is so familiar and so lovely and something he’d never thought he’d get to feel again that he cries, new tears staining both of their cheeks. “I thought I lost you. I thought you were gone… I thought…I…”

Zelda’s lips part gently, and beneath wrenched brows she asks one, quiet question.

“Are you okay?”

He’s crying a little harder now, bare chest shuddering as he presses his cheek to hers. Link hears the way emotion swells up in her inquiry.

“I wasn’t, no.” Link doesn’t offer much more than that; but Zelda hears everything, verdant eyes soon glistening in the late day sunlight. She makes a soft, sympathetic sound.

Zelda wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. “And now?” she whispers softly, tilting his face to hers to study in the misty eyes she’d once believed she’d never see again.

“I’m so happy.” His voice breaks so crisply on the last syllable it’s hard to believe he speaks the truth. But he’s smiling, mouth twitching slightly as he controls the surge of emotion. “I won’t be able to survive losing you like that again.”

Zelda threads her fingers through his and squeezes. “You won’t lose me again. I promise.”

A novel thought crashes into the disorder of Link’s mind. Something that he suddenly can’t hold to himself, something that will tear him in two if he cannot voice it now.

“Marry me, Zelda. Please.” It’s unpolished. A little harsher than he hopes for it to be. He doesn’t care anymore—Hylia will have to reach in and set regret inside of him with her own hands. “I’m sorry, I don’t have a ring…but it can’t wait. I can’t wait.”

Zelda takes his hand and places a kiss upon his knuckles before she sets her chin upon them, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’ll never need a ring to be yours.” Her smile breaks through the soft sob, a kind sun poking its head through the veil of clouds after a storm. “Yes—yes, of course I’ll marry you.”

In her face, he sees a lifetime. The dreams he’d forced himself to pave over come flooding back. He will make his vows wherever she pleases, declare his love in front of whoever she pleases— make her his wife, bring her home to Akkala. Raise a child—two, or five or ten, if she wants— and follow her to the ends of the earth. Every shattered dream is suddenly recalled, the broken parts swiftly reattaching into something even more brilliant than they had ever been. He wonders how many wonderful things he’s done in his previous lifetimes to have received such a blessing.

They’re quickly wrapped up in one another again, sinking down to the earth below them, mouths entwined and heartbeats thrashing. There will be time to talk, to parse through all that has transpired, to worship the thread that ties them together and show their gratitude at its altar. But for now, they reacquaint themselves with one another as the afternoon calms to night, bodies tangled beside the pond until the stars are twinkling high overhead. Her skin is every bit as soft and enticing as he remembers it—her love even more palpable as she whispers his name into him again and again, as though her mouth is learning its taste again.

For perhaps the hundredth time in months, Link is left breathless.

And the first time, in a long, long time, he doesn’t mind.

#totk spoilers #totk #tears of the kingdom #zelink #loz #the legend of zelda #fanfic

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