Chapter Text
Zelda sees everything.
But during the mushroom risotto night, she would do anything to close her eyes.
Throughout Link’s entire journey, Zelda watches over him. She sees his victories, his failures, and all of the moments in between. She sees the frankly horrific number of times he accidentally blows himself up, all of his falls down cliffs, all of the times he eats bugs and guts and all manner of stomach-churning, dubious things. Everything.
Though Zelda keeps a close eye on Link, since she’s omniscient and bound to him, she tries to give him some degree of privacy, even though she’s aware of him at every moment, so it takes a concentrated focus to tune him out. The unfortunate part of watching over Link for months upon months is that she now knows the intricacies of his body habits as well as he does. Though pre-calamity they had travelled together quite extensively before he, well died, she did not get the up close and personal guide to the boring and embarrassing biological minutiae of Link’s day-to-day, since they both tried to give each other as much privacy as possible. Whenever Link unties or drops his pants of whatever strange outfit he’s wearing, Zelda does the divine equivalent of squeezing her eyes shut and clasping her hands over her ears, hoping that she opens her awareness again when he’s finished.
The same principle applies to when Link bathes, which is depressingly infrequent while he runs around Hyrule trying to free their friends’ trapped souls. Baths take a backseat to heroic duty. But when Link does strip down to wash himself off in a waterfall or river or at the old house he bought and fixed up, it’s very difficult for Zelda to time her awareness of him, since he doesn’t stick to a consistent time frame, unlike with bathroom breaks. Sometimes she miscalculates and gets an eyeful of wet skin and scarred muscle. Then, she’s forced to remember how much she wanted him 100 years ago.
And how much she still does.
Link is still as handsome and beautiful as he always was, and seeing him run around in his underwear, wear the tightest armor she’s ever seen, and dress as a woman in Gerudo clothes also does something to Zelda that she probably shouldn’t even be thinking about as she continues fighting the bloody boar she’s been battling for a literal century. God, even if she wasn’t all-seeing, in that Sheikah and rubber armor, she would still be able to see everything.
But Zelda carries on and tries her very best to ignore her own wants, to ignore Link’s revealing clothes, and to especially ignore anything embarrassing. Because she knows that Link would be mortified if he knew how much she sees. Ever since she met him, he was so afraid of what other people thought of him. His silence spoke for his fear.
He didn’t care about it in a personal manner, but he cared so much about the image of the hero. He cared about being dependable to others, to making them feel safe. Zelda noticed it every time he woke before dawn, every time he stood watch for hours without a motion or complaint, every time he trained until his hands cracked and bled. He gave himself away to his duty so that others wouldn’t live in fear.
They’d talked about it before, how afraid of failure they both are. How he was so afraid to disappoint her, to not live up to whatever expectations were forced upon his shoulders, even if they broke his back.
“I haven’t earned it,” he told her less than a month before he died. “I only pulled the sword; I’m no hero yet.”
Zelda levelled him with a glance over their campfire.
“Link, you have saved my life multiple times by now. Think about how many others you’ve saved too. Think about the kind things you do for others every day. Sword or not, saving Hyrule or not, you’re already a hero to me.”
Some emotion stirred deep within his eyes. Link didn’t say anything, but he took Zelda’s hand in his and squeezed it in thanks. The action burned in her chest warmer than the fire.
So Zelda settles into the routine of watching Link, having her heart race with every close encounter, trying to give Link as much privacy as she can while still attempting to keep him safe. The months bleed together as he travels throughout Hyrule, gradually building up his strength and helping the scattered peoples.
And then, on the day that Link remembers her trying to make him eat a frog on the plains of Hyrule, everything changes.
The day starts normally, with absolutely no signs that Zelda’s entire world will be ripped from its axis and then shattered. Link wakes in his house in Hateno with the dawn and a sigh that only can come from a place of bone-deep exhaustion.
He kills a lynel for its equipment, and harvests its organs. He upgrades his armor, which never fails to make both of them cringe. And when Link comes to an all too familiar tree overlooking the castle, so close and so far from her, he remembers.
Afterwards, his eyes close and he breathes very slowly. Measured inhales and exhales. Almost as if he’s trying to regulate his emotions. Or not cry.
Zelda wishes with everything in her that she could be there with him. That she could just ask him, or offer her hand to share and comfort if he couldn’t bring himself to voice it.
But instead, Zelda watches it all.
Removed. Divine. Powerful yet powerless. Silent.
Instead of sleeping at an inn or his house in Hateno, Link decides to stop in a clearing in the middle of the forest for the night. He’d already made a fire to cook dinner and he pulls out his bedroll from his pack to sit on. It’s such a familiar sight that her metaphorical chest seizes up.
She misses him so badly she aches. She misses running around Hyrule with him, she misses their deep discussions over a campfire, she misses his presence beside her and how he always made her feel safe and valued and happy. She misses everything about him.
Link throws mushrooms then rice in the pot, stirring in wine and cheese and spices. He’d always made such good food for them both when they travelled. His gentle humming lulls her into a soft trance-like state that lets her forget about where she is and why he’s alone in a clearing making food for one.
While Link lets the pot reduce over the campfire, Zelda grants herself a reprieve and lets herself slip into happy memories of him and their travels together.
---
“Can you show me how to make the risotto this time?” Zelda asked less than a week before the world ended. Before her world ended.
Link nodded. “Of course.”
She scooted closer to him on the mossy log as he took the ingredients out of his pouch and prepped the pot.
“Thank you,” Zelda said, hip only a hair away from his. “It’s one of my favorites.”
“Mine too. Here, you start with the stock. We’re going to get this to a simmer first.”
Link gave instructions and Zelda still couldn’t believe this kind, funny man was the same one who had been silent with her for so long. They’d both come so far in their friendship, learning to communicate as they also learned to trust and share.
“Stir it gently, like this.”
Zelda tried. It went about as well as Mipha drinking a noble pursuit.
Zelda’s eyebrows pinched together. “What could I possibly be doing wrong?”
Link laughed and shook his head. “Here, let me show you.”
And then his hand fit over hers and his other arm moved behind the log to brace himself and he pressed up so close that their thighs touched and their sides touched and his face was so close to her that his warm breath touched her cheek. Even in the chill of the night, Zelda was suddenly warm.
With his hand burning against hers, Link guided them in smooth motions around the pot. Adding the stock and then stirring. And all with their bodies and fingers touching.
His lips almost touched her skin when he broke the taut silence and said, “Here, see?”
Zelda gulped. “Ah, yes. That makes sense.”
In that moment, Zelda would have said that a cucco defeating the incarnation of evil made sense. Or guardians shooting happy bubbles. Or her father’s diatribes. Anything. With Link’s hand on hers and his body pressed to hers, even to a mind as brilliant as hers, there was no sense to be found. And for once, she didn’t mind.
“Good,” Link whispered.
The world skipped as his thumb stroked along her knuckles. Zelda’s heart stopped. Heat flooded her cheeks and chest and ended up somewhere in her stomach.
It was something that no one would notice if they weren’t looking for it. Such a small gesture, so easy to mistake. But Zelda knew it was intentional, impossible to ascribe to accident. Because Link never made any movement with his body that he didn’t fully intend.
And because he didn’t stop.
Zelda turned her head to meet Link’s eyes, dark and soft, faces less than a breath away. If she moved even slightly, she would have been kissing him.
“So, this is how it’s done correctly?” Zelda hardly even heard the words fall from her mouth over the roaring of her ears and the pounding of her heartbeat.
Link’s eyes flickered down to her lips and he took a harsh swallow. Neither of them paid any attention to the risotto. The spoon hadn’t moved since she turned her head.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”
Link’s thumb traveled down to caress the soft skin on the inside of her wrist. With a deep breath, he shifted slightly, pressing just a hair more against her.
In retrospect, it was obvious. Link was waiting for permission, wanting her to make the first move. He was telling her that he was receptive, that he wanted it if she did. But she had to be the one to commit, to break the final barrier at last.
She could have pressed forward, lips gently touching his. She could have placed her hand on his cheek, cupping it like it was precious. She could have moved her fingers against his, ghosting up and down until her intentions were as clear as his.
But Zelda couldn’t bring herself to do it. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was practicality. Maybe it was a refusal to believe that someone could love and want her after being berated for failure for years. And maybe it was a lifetime of denying herself happiness that froze her to the bone.
So Zelda pulled away.
The moment she moved, Zelda knew she’d made a mistake. Cold trickled down her neck and pricked her spine and landed in her chest, hard and chilling. She tasted the ice of regret.
Link’s thumb stilled and he froze against her before leaning away and pretending to inspect the risotto.
“I, er, I think it’s done now.” Link gulped and fidgeted with the spoon. “Let’s eat.”
Zelda pretended to not notice the bright red on his ears and the tension of his shoulders and the slight tremor in his voice.
They started eating in silence. Minutes ticked by and Zelda wanted nothing more than to jump into Death Mountain and save them both this torture.
Hoping it would help to fix the horrifically awkward situation, she rested her hand on Link’s knee.
“It’s absolutely delicious, thank you.”
Link’s face broke into a sweet smile and he ducked his head as a light flush spread across his cheeks.
“Thank you for helping.”
Zelda scoffed and lamented her cooking ability, which led them back to their normal mannerisms of friendship. While they spoke, the ice in her stomach started to melt.
As she was finishing up her bowl, scraping the bottom for the last little bit of rice, Link cleared his throat and glanced up at the sky. Almost as if he was praying or gathering up courage. Zelda liked to think she could read him quite well, but even she couldn’t decipher everything behind his soft blue eyes.
Answering her question, Link’s words tumbled from his mouth, “You know, you don’t need to learn how to make this yourself.”
Zelda raised an eyebrow. “And why is that, Link?”
He drew in air with a sharp drag and met her eyes. “Because I’ll always make it for you.”
Something about the look in his eyes made her helpless to resist bumping him with her shoulder and teasing him.
“But what if you’re not around? What should I do then?”
“Never.” Link shook his head so hard his hair flew around his face. But his eyes were as intense as the night sky above as he promised her, “I’ll always be here.”
---
But he hadn’t been. He died in her arms. He died for her and she hadn’t been able to save him. She hadn’t been able to unlock her power in time and spare him from this living horror, to save her friends and father and people. She hadn’t been able to face Ganon side-by-side with him. She hadn’t been able to fight, to win, to cry with him when it was finally over and they had their whole lives ahead of them to spend together, to be happy and free.
She hadn’t even been able to tell him that she loved him.
Zelda tries not to let her heart break, not to let any tears flow down her face. Any show of weakness would mean the beast would throw its evil magic at her harder, and she has to hold on until Link comes for her.
Link, unaware of Zelda’s longing and grief, digs into his bowl of mushroom risotto. Steam rises as the rich aroma wafts around his face. If Zelda was capable of being hungry, she would be starving. If her stomach was capable of growling, it would roar.
---
“I think that mushroom risotto might be my new favorite food,” Zelda said to Link the next morning when they packed up camp and started the long hike to the shrine.
“Really? Even more than fruitcake?”
“That’s dessert. This is a whole different category.”
Link grinned. “Well, if you like it that much, I’ll make it however often you want. Every night if you want; it’s not like there are rules about what we eat when we’re out in the wild.”
It’s not like there were rules about anything they did in the wild, but that went unsaid.
A bird chirped down at them as Link took her hand to help her over a large overturned tree blocking the path.
When they cleared it, Zelda didn’t let go.
“How about for my birthday?” Zelda asked, trying her best to be nonchalant while holding Link’s hand. “So that I can bow out of trying Daruk’s rock roast that I know he’ll bring.”
She flashed a quick glance to Link at her side, trying to read his face, trying to pick up on any nonverbal cues that he didn’t want to keep holding her hand. There were none.
Link squeezed her hand. “Deal.”
And, up until they stumbled across a lynel, he didn’t let go either.
That night, they had huddled together for warmth in her bedroll, breaths mingling as they held each other tight. So close to breaking and admitting it to each other, but still shackled by expectations, by propriety, by duty, by fear.
---
And now that all of the things holding them back are gone, so was he. And so is she now. They’re free from the burden of the past, but at what cost? And what pressures and responsibilities that brings still crushes her like the beast she’s holding back does.
After dinner, Link flips through the pictures on the slate until he comes to the photos she’d left for him. Instead of sleeping, he stares at the pictures for hours. Eyes narrowed, thick brows drawn together, lips pursed. It’s as if he stares at them long enough, he’ll force himself into remembering. If Zelda had a physical heart, it would shatter.
It must be at least midnight by the time Link clicks out of the photos, shuts the slate down, and douses the campfire. Before bed, he takes off the Champion’s tunic, folding it with reverence and placing it at the head of his bed roll to use as a makeshift pillow. Every time he goes to sleep, he sleeps with it. Zelda hopes that he does it to be close to her somehow, since it’s the only thing he has left of her. Her fingers had slaved over embroidering the white sword and geometric designs into the blue fabric. At first, she’d hated seeing him wearing all of those hours upon hours of her hard work, but then she enjoyed it. Link wearing something she created with her own hands made her feel close to him, like there was a part of her always with him, protecting him from harm.
But Link doesn’t settle onto his bedroll and close his eyes. Instead, he gives the clearing a quick glance, as if to make sure that no enemies are around, and makes his way to a large tree at the edge of the wood-line that casts deep shadows in the moonlight.
Zelda is confused. Proving that he is in fact a gross man, Link just put out the fire in a way that made her quickly cover her proverbial eyes and that he had never done when they travelled together. So he definitely doesn’t have to relieve himself before bed. Perhaps he isn’t feeling well? Did he use the right mushrooms in the risotto? He’s always had a tough stomach, and she’s never seen him sick, even after eating literal raw meat and monster guts and molten rocks, but there is a first time for everything.
While Zelda ponders this strange change in routine and tries to remember if Link ate anything so offensive that it might upset even his iron-clad stomach, Link drops the Master Sword on the ground beside the roots and then collapses with his back against the sturdy tree.
Sliding down to sit with his knees spread and his feet planted apart, he closes his eyes and breathes deep for a moment.
That’s when Zelda realizes.
Link’s pants have always been relatively tight. She’s not sure if it was because he didn’t want anything to get snagged during a battle, or merely because his hips and thighs are quite muscular even though his waist is small, which must make finding men’s pants difficult. She knows that struggle all too well and is eternally thankful to her seamstress, rest her soul. But Link’s pants are incredibly tight in a way that she’s never seen before, especially since he doesn’t have the long tunic to cover his crotch.
The reality hits her with the force of a lynel crusher.
He’s hard.
Zelda hates that she even thinks about it, even notices it, but she can’t help but take note that Link hasn’t touched himself since he’s woken up. Not that she’d really had any metric for Link’s masturbation habits before. Perhaps he simply doesn’t? Or maybe he has a low libido? That would be a bit surprising, since he had been about to turn nineteen when he died, and young men are usually quite, well, rowdy then. Or so she’s read.
But Link is not like any other man she’s known, so perhaps he’s different about this as well. Or perhaps the shrine of resurrection didn’t heal him completely. Though she has no reason to doubt the ancient Sheikah technology, Zelda wonders if his blood flow was somehow not restored correctly. That could certainly impede his ability to produce an erection, she rationalizes in clinical terms. If she’s thinking about his penis, she must be scientific about it.
Though she did notice that he seemed more at ease after his long baths, so he may have been multitasking.
Holy Goddesses, Zelda thinks, he might have been multitasking.
Before she can run through all the possible scenarios in her mind, Link undoes his pants. When he rucks up his shirt, pulls himself out, and pushes his tight underwear down his thighs, Zelda can’t even begin to think of the word multitasking let alone attempt to do it herself. All of her attention is elsewhere.
Be scientific, Zelda. Be scientific!
It’s better than she could have expected. Logically, in theory, she knew he’d be larger when aroused, but in practice it’s something entirely different seeing it for herself. He’s thick in his hand, large yet not overbearing and still proportional to his frame. The tip peeks out from his foreskin, flushed and leaking a tiny bit of moisture. Zelda wants to lick it off.
Science! Biology! Anatomy! Oh goddess damn it.
Using only the lightest touch, Link trails his fingers up and down himself a few times.
Well, I already know he’s ambidextrous. However, he wields the Master Sword and other weapons with his right hand, but wields this particular sword with his left. Fascinating.
Zelda’s so deafened by shock and arousal that her ears ring and she almost misses him speak.
“Oh, Hylia,” he breathes.
If she were able to, Zelda would gulp. Link’s light eyelashes flutter shut when he traces a single finger around the head. Another drop of liquid wells up and he swipes it off with his thumb and spreads it around the tip.
Thighs spreading and tensing, he rubs the foreskin over his head and squirms on the moss. It’s almost like he’s remembering what he likes, teasing himself to see what feels good.
This is private, she realizes. I shouldn’t be looking. This is wrong.
Guilt sweeps over Zelda and she tries to close her awareness of Link off, but she can’t anymore. It’s as if she’s stuck, locked in place. She can’t escape, can’t close her eyes because she has none, only an awareness. The only other times she hasn’t been able to turn off her awareness is when Link’s thinking of her, like that awful time he was looking at the slate and trying to remember her while sitting in the outhouse that she’s still desperately trying to repress.
But that can’t be the case now. He can’t be thinking about her. Sure, they’d had some strange undefined tension and possibly a mutual attraction, but he couldn’t want her. After her failure, Zelda doesn’t know how he– or anyone really– could want her in any way.
Zelda keeps struggling and trying to dull her senses, fighting to give Link some semblance of privacy after her invasion. But she can’t, she realizes after expending far too much energy that she can’t afford to waste. With guilt and shame flaming through her conscience, Zelda resigns herself to watching.
When Link finally wraps his hand around himself, he groans and squeezes his eyes shut. But something must not be quite right, since he tilts his head and bites his lip. Reluctantly, Link removes his hand so that he can spit in it and then bring it back to himself. That’s better, Zelda can tell, as he moans and shifts his hips against his slick skin and hand while he strokes himself.
In the cool light of the moon, he’s so beautiful it hurts. Lips parted in pleasure, freckled cheeks flushed, chest heaving, abs and thighs tensing. Noises fall from his lips, low and desperate, like he’s starving and sitting in front of a feast, unable to eat. Howls sound in the distance and Link balls his right hand up into a fist and shoves it into his mouth to muffle himself.
With his eyes moving underneath his eyelids, Zelda knows he must be imagining something. And she would give anything to know what. She certainly knows what she used to think about in the darkness when she’d choke on his name and come on her own fingers.
Moving his hand faster in short little motions by the tip, Link’s head thuds back against the tree trunk and his hips jerk up. The fist he’d stuffed in his mouth falls to the ground and tears into the moss that covers the tree roots.
Link hisses, “Fuck,” and it shocks Zelda to the core. In all of their time together, he had never sworn in front of her. He was always so polite and slightly uptight around her, even though she repeatedly told him to relax.
How she wishes she could help him relax now.
Zelda wishes beyond hope that she could be there with him, moving her hand with his along his cock. Or maybe she’d take her mouth to him, lick and tease him in all the way she’s imagined.
And then he’d take her on the grass, focused and gentle like always, as they kissed and moved together as one being.
“Oh Hylia, please,” Link whispers, thighs spreading farther apart and boots digging into the ground in order to thrust up harder into his hand. “Please.”
Zelda wants to sit on his lap, grab his shoulders, lower herself down on his cock. She wants him to buck up into her, push his face into her breasts, grip her hips, crane his neck up for a kiss, slide–
She wants all of that. She wants to be able to show her love for him with her words and her body.
But, most of all, she wants him.
Link twists his hand and rubs right beneath the head. “Shit, that’s good. So good.”
Apparently, Link has completely given up on being quiet. Not that he was actually that quiet to begin with. True, he never spoke during the start of their rocky acquaintance, but he was always rather vocal when it came to fighting and doing anything physical. Zelda may have wondered if the noises he made in combat would be similar to the ones he made while… having intercourse. There had been some interesting grunts of exertion during a fight with a golden lynel that had made Zelda’s face resemble a hearty radish.
Fascinating. An important auditory data point.
With the hand not stroking himself, Link reaches down to cup his testicles, brushing his thumb over the soft tightness that seems to be drawing up towards his body.
He shudders and whines. “Fuck, oh fuck, yes. Ah! Hylia!”
Little throaty exclamations of “Hah,” keep spilling from his lips, along with Hylia’s name. He keeps saying her name, which isn’t that strange, per se. It’s a common exclamation, but so are the other Goddesses’ names. And he isn’t saying any of theirs.
Is he thinking of the Goddess? Something about that thought makes Zelda heat even more.
Ever since she awakened her powers and spoke to the Great Deku Tree, she had realized the awful truth of her struggle: she hadn’t been able to speak to Hylia because she is Hylia. Or her soul is. Zelda doesn’t quite remember being the Goddess, but she has had flashes of memory about what she senses in her bones is from that life. Scars on his wrists and ankles, brave declarations and hushed whispers, the sweet sacrilege of touch. Pale eyes and sky and a crimson cloak and feathers and blood soaking through rough linen. Soaring through the sky with him in a life after that and standing above Hyrule with a sense of freedom and love that cut her down in intensity.
Does Link remember? Does he think of the Goddess when he falls into fantasy? Is he thinking of her divine form when he strokes his cock?
“Hylia!”
Sudden and desperate, Link launches himself up onto his knees and then hunches forward, planting his right hand on the clearing floor for balance. His hips snap into his fist and his hair falls down over his face while he furiously works his hand over his cock. It almost looks as if he’s thrusting into an imagined person.
He screams, “Zelda!”
Her name rips from Link’s lips as if he can’t help it. White droplets splash onto the moss and dirt and grass in front of him while his mouth drops open in pleasure.
At first, it doesn’t register. Time slows. Zelda can hardly think. If she was corporeal, she wouldn’t be able to breathe. Her heart would have stopped. The question Zelda can’t bear to voice, even to herself, is answered.
Moaning and gasping her name, Link’s shoulders tremble and his hips jerk. He keeps coming, stroking himself through it as his cock spurts and jumps in his hand. Something falls from his face and Zelda realizes that it’s tears.
There’s nothing she wants more than to be with Link in person, to have him groan her name into her ear, against her skin. To stroke the solid line of his back and kiss his neck while her hand works with his and makes him writhe. To whisper how much she loves him as he shudders in bliss.
“Oh Goddess, Zelda,” he murmurs again.
Thick fluid covers some of his hand and drips from his tip to splatter on the ground as he dredges the last bit of pleasure out from his body. Zelda’s not even technically alive now, but she’s the most aroused she’s ever been in her entire life. She’s never even found male anatomy particularly appealing on its own before, but the fact that it’s Link, that it’s him bringing himself to orgasm with her name on his tongue, makes her burn with want.
Then he whispers her name again, soft and reverent.
Liquid seeps into the ground as Link pants and tries to regain his breath. His breathing slows and he crouches back on his heels, runs his clean hand over his face, and shudders. With an extremely guilty expression on his flushed face, Link wipes his wet hand off on the ground and rips up some grass, throwing it over where he had come to cover up the evidence.
In the afterglow, it hits Zelda. How in the hell is she ever going to be able to look him in the eye?
Maybe she won’t have to? Maybe Link will defeat Ganon and she’ll die during the process doing something heroic and extremely badass. That would be nice. And then she’ll never have to acknowledge this happened or feel any guilt about what she’d seen.
I’ll just die. Perfect plan.
But Link had called her name. What does that mean? Does he remember her, care for her as she does for him? Does he want her too?
Zelda turns the questions around in her head over and over until they merge together in a tangle of anxiety. Even the pain of fighting Ganon wouldn’t compare to the pain of daring to hope Link returned her feelings and being wrong. Because that would truly be unbearable.
That night, Zelda watches over Link as he rests his head on the blue tunic and sleeps with a smile on his face.
---
When she sees Link again with her own eyes, Zelda takes back never wanting Link to see her again. Crushing emotion slams into her chest, filling her body with overwhelming feeling, battering her down like a harsh ocean wave.
She loves him so much she can hardly breathe, and one hundred years after he gave his life for her, he’s finally before her again. Alive and whole.
After she asks Link if he remembers her, his face is still and calm, like the glass of Lake Hylia as the sun rises. But then it ripples and his emotion breaks through like the dawn.
“I could never forget.”
He embraces her and it’s suddenly real. After over one hundred years, he’s real and solid and safe and with her again. He’s here.
She can touch him, hands clutching the hard planes of his back, grasping handfuls of the cloth she embroidered for him lifetimes ago. She can smell him, tucking her face into his neck and inhaling the scent of sweat and blood and campfires and him, that familiar scent she’d almost forgotten after being apart from him for so long. She can feel him, the sharp inhales of breath, his thundering pulse against her cheek, how his legs tremble and hands shake against the skin of her back.
As they hold each other, they cry together. For their friends and families and all the lives lost. In relief at finally being done, finally seeing each other again.
Zelda sobs when she apologizes for letting him die and failing him, and tears stream down Link’s formerly stoic face when he tells her that she saved him and apologizes to her for failing too. Their issues aren’t all solved and the crushing pain and guilt doesn’t magically disappear, but they take those first steps forward together.
When they gaze up at the castle, Zelda would like to think that their friends and family are looking down on them, able to rest and be at peace at last.
“Ready?” Link asks with one last glance at the castle, holding out his hand for her to take.
Perhaps she and Link can find their own peace as well.
Zelda grasps his hand in hers. “Ready.”
As the sun sets behind the castle and the weight lifts slightly from her shoulders, they walk away from the field together.