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Dappled gray light pours across the steep ridges of Necluda, overcast light flooding its valleys and blooming too bright against the snow-capped peaks of Mount Lanayru in the distance. The air smells thinly of the first hints of frost as autumn tilts to winter, the last of its exhales a brisk knell. The trees, only recently quite ample in their undergrowth, now bend overhead, gaunt in their hunched positions as they lean across the clay roofs to whisper through stretches of now-barren fingers.
Once upon a time, in a life far different than the one she currently leads, Zelda used to watch winter settle across her kingdom from the stalwart comfort of Hyrule Castle. She’d peer through one of its many windows, green eyes evading whatever fine text had been scrawled across the pages between her hands; she had often wondered what the solstice felt like in the furthest stretches of the country, if Lanayru and Tabantha felt even a fraction as somber as the castle did. In spite of the copious lengths of pine strung up through the castle, of the vast arrays of candles across numerous shelves and trestle tables, these months had always tasted sharply of solitude.
Here, a century later in the safe haven of their Hateno home, Zelda stokes an infant flame at the hearth. It crackles to life, chittering while it gnaws at the small pieces of firewood. The Princess of Hyrule crouches beside the cradle of heat and closes her eyes to savor its warm kiss against the apple of her cheeks.
“I’ll get you some more wood. Be right back, okay?”
She turns to find him in the doorway, cornflower blue eyes somehow every bit as incandescent as the fire upon the hearth. Link moves far less like an apparition these days, but the renewed sight of him still has a peculiar way of knocking the air from her lungs.
“That would be lovely,” Zelda whispers, voice cracking slightly with late morning chill.
Link idles in the doorway, weight shifting between both legs like there’s another thought he’d like to offer, and Zelda finds herself recalling a time in which he’d have never dared to share something unprompted (how grateful she is that that’s no longer the case). But he only smiles and nods curtly, disappearing behind the dark paneling of their front door.
Their front door.
That loneliness from those century old days is long gone. Even with the fragile melancholy of autumn, with the creep of winter and the quiet close of another year–even with the magnitude of everything they’ve weathered together— it’s impossible to shake optimism. Sharing a home with him, building a life—it’s a perpetual spring.
The finer details of such a life remain a little hazy.
At the hearth, a wash of dusky perfume curls up beneath her nose, and the effect is instantaneous—how delightful it would be to settle in for a nap by the fire’s glow, to be woken up with a cup of hot cocoa as pale afternoon light seeps through windowpanes glazed with cold, to be roused from sleep by a certain pair of hands brushing strands of gold stamped onto her cheek in sleep. The thought spears her core, a shivering heat running clean up her spine.
Zelda hears the first thud of the axe hitting the stump. Another, and then another after that. That delicate heat pulses up in her body and pushes her up from where she sits cross-legged on the ground, and she’s soon padding up to the loft, her feet chilled against the sullen wood of their staircase.
There’s a small window carved into the wall just beside the landing; from here, Zelda catches a glimpse of the vast vista of Hyrule; she can make out the way Necluda dips steeply beyond the hillside, can see the glistening top of the falls that tumble into Nirvata Lake. To the north, the imposing crags of Mount Lanaryu loom majestically, and, by the Goddess’ hand, can just make out the meager hints of Death Mountain’s angry summit. Somehow, none of it inspires her as much as the man in her yard, half-gathered hair falling past his eyes when he leans over and lines up another piece of wood on the cutting block. She watches his gloved hand at the base of the blade—watches as it slides down the length of the axe as he brings it down. A split in the wood, another pound that breaks it cleanly in two.
Inexplicably, Link lifts his gaze up to the house and meets her stare.
The embarrassment is so palpable that she swears it’s blotting her vision, and though her first instinct is to jolt back from the way their eyes meet, Zelda holds resolute, only swallows the exquisite burn down and gives an uncertain little wave. He responds in kind, smiling up at her and mirroring the motion, and though it’s endlessly endearing on him, she can feel heat crawling the length of her neck and pooling in her cheeks. Link turns to her fully and beckons her down with a smile that looks almost shy on him.
Her silent response comes as an earnest nod of her own, heart thundering against her sternum. She unhooks her sweater from where it hangs on the wall and pulls a swath of hunter green over her head, slips her feet into riding boots and meets him in the front yard.
“Want to give it a try? You seemed interested.”
All things considered, interested feels to be a bit of an understatement.
“Is it difficult?”
Link shrugs. “Tires you out a little bit after a while. C’mere.”
She’ll blame the way her nose gleams pink on the chill in the air and saunters up beside him.
“Spread your legs, bend your knees a little bit.” It’s frustrating, the way her cheeks flare up at such a command. Once she assumes the position, dark brown boots digging into the chilled soil of their front yard, he hands her the axe, delicately transferring the weight into her hands so she isn’t completely pulled down by it. “Careful now.” His voice is low, charred with the tender hues that he often reserves just for her.
Zelda raises the axe only an inch before Link’s quickly stopping her. “Dominant hand by the head. The other by the knob—yeah, just like that. Now, raise it for me?”
She does. “And then I…slide my hand down, right?”
His smile lights up, impressed. “I feel like you’re scamming me. Do they train all Hyrulean princesses in the ways of axe techniques?”
Zelda giggles at this, perhaps a little more foolishly than she’d hope for it to come out. “No. I just…well, I notice that’s how you do it.” An admission of sorts is carefully laced through the comment, quietly and without pretense; she wonders if the way the words falter in his throat are any indication he’s noticed it there. “Could you walk me through that motion first?”
Link nods. “Sure.” He circles her slowly, head canted slightly in assessment before he’s slowly raising his arms. “It’s…okay for me to touch?”
“Of course.”
He sidles up behind her, covers each of her hands with his own and helps her raise the axe above their heads. “Now go slow here…” it sinks down towards the stump in marked time, and as it descends, Zelda feels his hand guiding hers down, sliding along the length of the wood, four hands all congregating at the bottom as the blade comes to lay quietly atop the stump.
It all draws to a hush, save for the soft call of a lonely bird somewhere further out in the valley. In the shadow of the dying tree, encircled in his arms, the chill seems to evaporate.
The afternoon tumbles into a windchilled evening, and even doused in the warm comfort of a hearty meal and the soft glow of the yawning fire upon the hearth, there’s something rather sharp in the air, the sort of galvanization that has Zelda feeling like she’s discovering something new—like she’s watching some glittering thing make itself known to her for the first time. She finds herself almost too nervous to eat, the fluttering in her stomach palpable enough to push the flavors of Link’s neatly crafted dish to the side almost entirely—she hates the thought of his veggie cream soup and mushroom rice going unappreciated.
Only a few words pass between them afterwards. Zelda tucks herself away at the desk upstairs and settles in with a book she’s been promising the return to Purah for days now while Link stays perched at the recently cleaned dinner table, cross-legged and scribbling wildly into his leather bound journal.
An hour passes, and then perhaps another as well before Zelda hears footsteps dampened by wool socks at the top of the staircase.
“Sleeping soon?” She wonders if the fondness in his voice is something she’s manufactured on her own.
“Yes, I think so.”
He grunts in acknowledgement.
“You don’t have to wait for me, you know,” she reminds him gently, gathering long golden hair across one shoulder.
Link shrugs, lips twisted playfully. “I’d rather we go together. Take your time.”
Zelda bites her lip and nods, tries so desperately to turn her attention back to text about the changes to the trade routes in the last century only to find that every letter nearly blurs together, everything swirling into an incoherent, inky knot. She can only feign productivity for another five minutes before she’s letting him know that she’s ready for rest.
Rigid propriety follows protocol just as it does every night, and in usual accordance, Link moves to reach for the front door. “No, don’t,” Zelda starts, a flutter hitching in her voice as she calls down the length of the stairs, “it’s too cold out there.” Even in the dim light, against a backdrop of complacent wood and cozy shades of brown, he still appears heroic with his strong posture and chin gently tilted up in concentration. “I can do everything with the lights off. Don’t worry.”
There’s a poignancy to the expression that nudges its way on his face as he acclimates to the suggested break in convention; Zelda can’t quite make sense of it. If he does come across something, it’s quickly scuffed away with a slight clearing of his throat: “Okay.”
One word, hardly discerned but permissive all the same, spurs them into motion, Link extinguishing the lights on the first floor while Zelda tends to those one the second. Hidden beneath a new, dark veil, Zelda slips out from her woolen sweater, breath trembling as she reaches behind and unhooks her brassiere. She lingers beyond the window’s reach, tucked away in the shadows so that he wouldn’t be able to make out her breasts even if he tried to. Despite her best efforts, a thought yawns to life; down below, is he wondering about her, too? Does he shiver in the dark from something that’s more than just the early strains of Hateno winter?
“I’m finished.” Her voice floats down like a leaf on a sloping wind as she pulls flaxen hair through the newly donned collar around her neck.
Light footsteps press gingerly against the stairs as he makes his way up, slumped shoulders and tousled hair almost imperceptible when the shape of him sprouts into view. He sniffles, eyes meeting hers when he steps through the silver slant of moonlight that spills into their loft—they seem almost different, familiar azure set alight into something that feels like the sun bursting against her. Habit has Zelda turning away from him, eyes trained on the uneven stone molded around the window while the rustle of fabric and the scuffling of boots being kicked from tired feet hang in her ear. In the silence that follows, she perches herself on the side of the bed he’d designated for her, the one closest to the wall(he’d be less likely to wake her when the time for breakfast preparations came, he’d reasoned.)
“Are you tired?” It’s a silly question, but it grants her the balm of his voice all the same.
“Yeah. The cold isn’t helping.”
Zelda pictures his nose brushed pink behind her, the gooseflesh pricking up beneath whatever long-sleeved tunic he’s put himself in. Nervous fingers fiddle across her lap; they could weather the cold snap together, if he wanted to—could sidle up beside each other and let their arms wrap around one another. She could climb atop him and drape her body over his, hands roaming, friction building heat between them as her heat responds in kind to the call of his own.
“Agreed.”
She hears Link’s weight shift on his side of the bed, and perhaps he’s looking at her now, intrigued by the way her voice has grown impossibly smaller. There’s a noticeable quandry in the silence, and Zelda has to shut her eyes to squash the little voice in her head that tries so desperately to fill in the blanks for him. No, no, he’d never.
If there is a thought pressing up behind his lips, it never makes its way to her. She’s left with a stillness that crackles only with the gentle wheeze of the wooden bedframe bending beneath them and the crinkling of textiles as they make their way beneath the thicker sheets she’d dressed the bed with earlier that afternoon.
“Good night, Link.”
“Sleep well, Zelda.”
Legend has long spoke of the magic of those two syllables, her name more reverant than any besides Hylia’s herself—but the enchantment is never as palpable as it is when Link offers it in in the tranquil lull of his voice. It nearly breaks her every time she hears it, two simple tones that knock stars across her eyes as though it were his sacrosanct blade across her skin. Against her pillow, Zelda tucks both hands beneath her cheek, a nervous exhale heating the ridge of her knuckles. The thought of his skin against her face— his needy breath against her hands— flits away before she has a moment to fully entertain it.
From the other side of the bed, he clears his throat.
“Yes?”
“Huh?”
Zelda turns slightly, just enough to send her hushed voice back to where he lay behind her. “You sound troubled. Is everything alright?” The answer doesn’t come immediately, and Goddess, she finds herself ashamed of the way hope leaps up to knot at the base of her tongue. When he does manage to find an answer, she’s easily deflated by it:
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m…I’m okay. Good night.”
She nearly chokes on a disappointment she cannot quite name, and it sits on her chest so solemnly that it nearly wrings tears from her eyes. Zelda only gives an acknowlegdging hums and allows heavy eyelids to droop to close, and it is there, pressed up against the first hues of sleep where condescension comes to prod at her—foolish girl, what have you been hoping for? She’s unable to name it, whether by choice or at the fatigue’s aggressive hand. She buries her face into the hem of her blanket and tries to steady the frenzied rhythm of her heartbeat.
On the far side of the bed, from a distance that feels larger than any ocean, bright blue eyes peer aimlessly off into the dark, thoughts racing and his own heart thudding earnestly against his chest. Sleep doesn’t come as easily as Link hopes it will—only when apprehensive ears detect the soft pattern of Zelda’s dormant breath does it start to seem attainable; when it does come, it’s tinged with the ache of melancholy.
There is an ache that spades her, strikes the crown of her head and roots itself in the soles of her feet—it burns brightest at her core, where her legs tremble against petal-soft sheets. Golden hair whips around her throat like a chain of pearls, the lone ornament upon a stretch of nothing but porcelain skin. Beneath her, warmer hues vibrate in enthusiastic response, and huffing breaths grow labored and restless as magic sparks from her fingertips, from her mouth.
Every image sharpens through the ink of sleep— Tabantha wheat strewn across the rose gold blush upon his cheeks, an arched back rising towards the heavens, straining thighs gripped by delicate hands that have never known such hunger. And more of it comes into view—the scent of his skin, the whimpering sounds of a Hero made mortal, the warmth of arousal that sits so neatly in her mouth.
Oh Goddess, to know him like this. To have this man reduced to a pile of shivering muscle and desperate bone beneath her, to hear him, see him, feel him bend to her body. The pulse inside of her quickens, hasty and eager for more, heart pounding into double time when she feels fingers in her hair, nails curling against her scalp. Faster, and faster still, none of it nearly enough to satiate her entirely.
“You’re a natural, Zelda.”
Her body hums with pride, satisfied exhales tumbling into damp skin while his own sounds melt across the starry heap of their bodies. Two into one, united as one in a holy wash of vermeil light.
When thin morning sunlight tugs Zelda up from sleep, there’s a faint ringing in her ear, like the fading plea of a voice she had known a millennium ago. Limpid green lifts towards the wood overhead as the umber palette of the house forms around her supine body, and she’s hardly had a moment to center herself before a most ambrosial scent is wreathing around her nose and tugging her up from their bed.
Link is already gone from said bed, as he so often is when she wakes up. Those moments when he oversleeps—when she wakes first to find untidy hair across his slightly parted lips and is gifted moment to quietly admire the length of his eyelashes—she cherishes them more than she’d like to admit. It’s the most she’s ever felt to home.
She recalls that first night in Hateno, when they’d trudged up the hill and he’d fixed her that first divine meal, when he’d prepared her a bath before he’d even thought to tend to his own empty belly—she’d felt like such an intruder back then. And here, months later—even after she’d slipped so effortlessly into his daily routine, after she’d made the house a home and her heart had seeped into its walls and latched onto the dark wooden beams—she feels that same sensation creeping up through her neck again; she finds Link in the kitchen, that dark sweater she likes so much currently climbing up the length of his neck, and long, sandy hair tumbling towards his shoulders.
When his eyes finally fall on her, the corners of his mouth tip up in a way that has every muscle in her suddenly tightening—has her stomach somersaulting before she’d even managed to wipe the sleep from her eyes entirely.
“Good morning.” Her voice is shy, cloying and tempered with a honey that’s every bit as sweet as the aroma that wafts through the house. “What are you making?”
“Morning. I woke up craving pancakes.” He stifles a yawn. “What do you think?”
Zelda inhales, and her belly rumbles at the fragrance that chases her senses when she does. “That’s delightful. Cinnamon?”
“You know it,” he hums, sliding a pancake onto a stack that’s already waiting for her atop a plate bedecked with cobalt flowers. “C’mere. Yours are ready.”
Breakfast is a delicate little affair—it’s the the sweet swirl of cinnamon laced throughout the thickened fluff of the cake, the burst of strawberries that he’s braved the morning chill of the market for, glasses of orange juice set between the small vase of withering bluebells— pulp-free, exactly as she prefers it; it’s hushed, easy, and even in the quiet, when conversation fades and they are left with nothing but a shared, tender glance and the soft scraping wind against the windowpane, Zelda isn’t sure she’s ever quite felt such strength.
The haze of morning is soon gone, displaced with the resilience of the afternoon—there’s work to be done, she knows; but as he suits up for another session of wood chopping in the front yard, Zelda finds herself sinking into a sort of melancholy she hasn’t anticipated, missing him before he’s even out of sight.
“Can I help you again?”
Link cocks his head. “Really?”
“Unless you’d rather I didn’t, of course,” she speaks quickly, damage control flaring up in her. “I don’t want to be in the way…”
He shakes his head, and there’s a new smile rippling across his lips that has her heart aching—it’s endearing, as though he’s got a secret he isn’t allowed to share with her. “You’re never in the way. I like having you near.” Link doesn’t quite meet her eye when he says it, and Zelda’s unbelievably glad that he doesn’t. He doesn’t need to see the way pink dusts her cheeks and the way her lower lip curls in as she tries to catch her breath.
When they’re both properly suited, it’s out to the yard they go; bundled in their winter coats beneath an ashen gray sky, Link collects a few pieces of wood from behind the house while Zelda slips his gloves across her own chilled fingers. Early winter nips at their noses and ears, but she pays no mind—only watches as he sets up the wood in the middle of the stump, his usual stern expression somehow ravishing even in the most mundane of activities.
“Do you need a refresher?” he asks, handing her the axe.
Zelda shakes her head. “Let me try first. Then you tell me.” She silently marks the steps—feet like this, knees bent like that, hands here, slide down— and the firewood splits cleanly in two, clattering from the stump. She meets Link’s glance where he stands, his eyes widened and his mouth inspiredly tilted.
“You’re a natural, Zelda.”
As capable as she may be, there’s no stopping the way her body responds to the assertion, her mouth quickly drying out from more than just the crisp air and her heart battering up, up, up. She plays it over again in her, between each swing of the axe; it morphs with each repetition, the soft lilac of his compliment deepening into something far duskier until there’s an ache pulsing between each syllable. It’s golden wheat against her skin, blue eyes brought to a close by her tongue, hips tensing to keep from bucking up into her mouth.
A natural, she turns the word over in her head again. Between her legs, something throbs.
Zelda drives the axe into the stump once more before she requests a reprieve.
Out above their sloping bodies, her breaths come as hot patches, stamped out into opalescent air that sits on the verge of shattering should either move too quickly. Their communal pattern wilts, steady—a shared undulation of spilling waves cresting slowly. She writhes beneath him, desperate hips languishing beneath a mouth so avaricious it could cause the Goddess in her heaven to cast appeased eyes away.
Suspended around his tongue, she opens to him, an iris in the early summer; he consumes the wine of her—so pure, her elegant flavor like velvet spilling across his lips.
You taste so sweet, Zelda.
His tongue feels heavy when he slides it along her glistening pearl to carve an arch into her spine as she concedes to it.
Blood pounds viciously between his ears, pressure rising as bright white blurs the edges of his vision, a midwinter squall gaining traction as her body tenses around him. Quivering fingers find their way to his head, the bronze of his hair twining around her as she presses him closer to her.
Tangerine, he murmurs before the word is lost to the way he purses his lips and sucks at her in a splintered rhythm that’s marred with impatience. Far above him, her demure laugh is golden, knees falling further apart as compliments float up from where he whispers them against her seam. So sweet. Delicious.
He watches her come undone, piece by piece: her legs tremble around his ears, her toes curling at his sides, and when he finds viridian eyes suddenly peering down at him across the rosy peaks of her breasts, something snaps hard inside of him. Sunlight peeks through the gap between their bodies, glowing bright where a ruddy nose brushes against the silken gold between her legs. She rides her climax out on the echo of praise at his lips.
Link is entirely unaccustomed to waking up in an empty bed. There’s a hint of panic that flashes behind hardly lucid eyes before it’s quelled by the hiss of a stove elsewhere in the house. Not that he can leave her unattended for much longer anyways—the Princess of Hyrule’s inexperience with their amenities leaves him a little more cautious than ideal.
It’s when he moves to swing his legs over the edge of their bed that he’s fully made aware of the pressure against his trousers. It’s not uncommon to wake up this way (he’s only flesh and bone, after all), but it weighs on him differently this morning; faint images bleed up through his memory, a reflection of what had come to him in sleep that night prior. His Princess, golden and naked and submissive to his hands and his mouth.
Link shifts his weight as the memory blooms a little more fully, and it knocks against him with such gravitas he wonders if he’ll have to feign illness today. He has to allow himself a moment of quiet before he finally rises to full height and drifts downstairs.
There’s something so disarming about the image of Zelda working in their kitchen, an oversized sweater the color of spices hanging well past her hips and her bare feet planted firmly beneath her while golden hair hangs loosely from its tie. For all of her knowledge and her power, this domestic shade looks quite nice on her, too.
“Good morning,” he calls out, voice woolly from sleep.
Zelda whirls around, and he almost regrets witnessing the sight of her, because she’s even more divine this way—eyes bright and driven in a way he can’t quite pinpoint, almost lupine in nature. An interesting amalgamation, to be sure—but he likes it all the same, finds himself wondering if that were the look she might give him if he were to savor her in his dreams again tonight.
“You made breakfast.” He hopes he appears as grateful as he feels.
“Good morning to you, too. I did. I was feeling a little inspired this morning.” Zelda gestures proudly back to the stove where pepper and mushroom and onion sizzle in their pan, waiting to be tossed. “Certainly not as fancy as your meals, but…I thought I’d try to make us some omelettes. What do you think?”
“Sounds excellent,” he admits, stomach rumbling with more than just hunger.
It seems impossible that her smile could grow any brighter, and yet it does. “I’ll be done soon, I promise.” In previous days, the words would sound apologetic in her voice—sheepish and teeming with repentance–but he senses none of it here; they’re soaked in new conviction, one that has Link’s hair standing on edge and gooseflesh pricking at his skin; in the cozy wintertide of their humble home, it feels a little bit more like the sweet burn of a summer’s wind.
At the table, he makes note of all of her preparations: two plates, two sets of cutlery, two empty glasses before them. She’s taken to refreshing the vase in the middle of their mahogany table, perhaps the last few surviving flowers they’ll be able to gather before a wintry blanket of crystal snuffs them out for the year. Beneath the table settings lie periwinkle blue placemats and napkins, and the hints of her efforts leave him feeling touched, like she’s reached deep down inside of him and set a gentle kiss upon his soul.
When she’s settled all matters at the stove, Link looks down and finds a rather endearing omelette waiting for him—not as tidy as one of his creations might turn out, but appetizing all the same. He wouldn’t mind, he thinks, if it were to turn out rather bland in taste—he’d consume ten less than savory omelettes this morning if that’s what it would take to pay her a compliment.
Zelda gathers two slices of wheat bread on a smaller plate and sets it between them. “I hope everything tastes good,” she says, blonde brows rising high above her eyes expectantly. She nods at his food, and Link obeys the silent command—takes a bite and feels his shoulders droop when her food hits his taste buds, lush and savory.
He swallows. “That’s great, Zelda. You’ve really gotten a hang of this cooking thing. I’m really proud of you.” She blushes at the compliment, and pride swells up in his chest at the thought of making her tint pink as she does. Zelda reaches for the back of her neck, flattened fingers rubbing nervously at the baby hairs that poke up from the collar of the sweater.
“I also found something new in the market this morning—blueberry lavender jam. I know you’re more fond of jelly than jam, but I thought the flavor would interest you.” She’s adorable, he thinks, and if she’s intended on charming him completely this morning, she’s won her round with ease.
“Oh, there is…one more thing.”
Link swallows another bite of his omelet and watches as she moves to grab a pitcher from the kitchen counter. She grips the glass with both hands and moves gingerly, draws nearer to pour a bit into his glass. He studies her—her trembling hands, the burnished rose at her cheeks blossoming into something that spreads the width of her darling face.
“Freshly squeezed this morning…” she says, voice trembling like the blossoms of their fruit tree in the raw winter wind. “...tangerine.”
The simple word rings hollow in his ears, thin only at first before it’s growing tumultuous, and it’s soon deafening in its circular motion through the rest of him. It’d be impossible to try to meet her eye like this—if he were to find that sweet kelly green, he might come undone entirely, might slip out from his seat at the dining table and crash into the cold floor beneath them.
“I….” Zelda continues, but her voice breaks cleanly, and there’s a long, heavy pause that drags on for so long that Link finds himself needing to see if she’s still breathing—it’s a risk he has to take. And that stoic ocean of blue lifts to find her, all honeyed eyes and her cheeks marbled pink, and he has work to stifle a contented little sound at the sight of her. “I believe that you…quite like the taste of tangerines.”
It hangs thickly in the space between them, the cold snap made incendiary with the simplest of thoughts. Link knows he could defuse it—could shrug his shoulders and talk about fruits and the Hateno market and ask her something insignificant.
He does none of that; he studies the curiosity that’s so deeply set into her face, watches a spark ignite in her and finds himself distracted by the discernible swallow that makes its way down the column of her throat. Under his calculated stare, she shrinks, yielding and yearning for a thought on the matter. Link leans back in his chair, folds his hands across his lap and says: “I really do.”
Relief comes in the form of downturned eyes towards the plate she’s prepared for him, though who benefits more between the two of them he can’t quite say. Electricity pings back and forth through his chest, darting up before sliding all the way down to his toes; it’s satisfying, knowing he can have this sort of effect on her. Daunting, even—that a young woman as brilliant and beautiful and powerful as she can harbor such human feelings—that said feelings are placed in his capable hands.
Slowly, Zelda rises from her seat, and she circles the back of it slowly and glides over to where he sits. His eyes widen when she comes to stand directly in front of him, her sudden presence dizzying—completely disorienting when her fingers come to brush against the buttons that stipple her thorax. Pupils spread wide until dashing azure is nothing more than a sliver in his eyes as one button comes undone, and then another, and soft topaz soon parts gently to reveal the lily skin—the smallest hint blooming larger until Link can make out the hint of her breasts.
“I can stop,” she whispers, eyes betraying the innocent thrum to her voice; she won’t need to, she knows.
Link shakes his head, eyes sliding across her delicate face. “I don’t want you to,” he murmurs back in a voice just as soft, leaning forward in his seat, and he reaches out to set his hands on her hips. Greedy fingers curl against the black fabric of her leggings, willing her towards him, and before she can fumble with her lowest button, he pulls her onto his lap and savors the way her heat washes over him.
“I don’t want to, either,” she whines, and they’re the last words she’s able to get out before her voice is lost to him, before her trembling fingers bring his face closer to hers and she seals her mouth to his.
Link’s given in to his fair share of daydreams—of sweet moments with Zelda in their garden, whispers before bedtime, bright eyed glances shared in the village as they shop for home furnishings and decide on what to prepare for dinner; he never dares to let them devolve into whatever’s currently happening in their dining room. Heat runs rampant, pierces the quiet innocence of the domesticity that they’ve spent the last few months building. But when Zelda slides her hands to the sides of his neck and rolls her hips against his, it’s all suddenly so clear—it’s never been innocent. Not really.
Fingers press into her hips, savoring the way they move across his lap in a desperate bid for friction. Their mouths meet for the first time, frantic and desperate; Zelda sighs into his, a little jewel that he tucks away in the back of his mind to recall on harder days. Having her close, knowing her like this—their bodies like a grand symphony, tuning to one another, strings dancing around the woodwinds to find equilibrium—it leaves him breathless. Zelda breaks their kiss with a gasp and smiles down at him, brushes a sandy lock of hair from his eyes and tucks it behind a rosy ear.
“Can we go upstairs?” Her voice is plush, peony-soft.
His stomach tumbles. “Is that really what you want?”
The question tints her smile with something far more solemn. “For more than one hundred years.”
Link carries her all the way to their bed in haste, Zelda’s sweet giggles bubbling up in his ears between the bounty of kisses she swells into his neck. He sets her down gently on their soft blue sheets still mostly unmade from last night’s sleep, but neither minds very much; she gazes up at him with a face that’s brighter than any sun, sweeter than any flower. That face that he would slay any beast for, would conquer any terrain without a second thought if it might he might have a chance to see it again.
Words don’t come as easily up here in the loft. Seeing her here, intentions abundantly clear from one look alone, their little space now something to be consecrated. It isn’t though this is the first time, really—their shared dreams say otherwise, after all—but it’s different, so tangible, every thought, feeling, sensation a kaleidoscope of colors instead of the faint pastel of sleep.
Zelda must see the wince of hesitation in his face, because she’s pulling her sweater over head, revealing full breasts to him. “It’s chilly,” she declares. “Would you keep me warm?”
Link’s over her without a second thought, mouth crashing against hers once again while his knee comes to press between the apex of her legs and mimics the same undulation his hips might. “Can do,” he snarls into her mouth, peering down at her between drooped eyelids to watch the way she writhes in aching response. Something in him pushes him away from her mouth, down to nipples that stand tall in the cold, and he covers a bud with his mouth and licks at her, teases it up even further while she shudders beneath him with a gasp that sounds almost too high in pitch to be her own. He tries it again, a little firmer—rewards himself with another little cry from her—and again, teeth grazing skin and tearing her name from his mouth.
A most delicious reward.
He feels a tugging at the dark wool of his sweatshirt and breaks away to look up at her, and the strain in her face reads rather charming with golden locks smearing the mattress beneath her and her lower lip curled in above a tense jaw. Zelda pulls, a little mindless, and when he lifts himself up to return to her mouth, her frantic fingers are already at his waistline, tugging at the hem of his trousers and coaxing him closer.
“Off.”
Off they go, undergarments following suit, and a blushing Zelda wraps cool fingers around his arousal without ever breaking eye contact; it seems she’s well-practiced from their subconscious encounters. Link nods, unsure as to what he’s even approving—everything, anything. Somehow, Link has never felt more of a coward than he does now, watching desires long pushed away rise to surface. Every want that he’s drowned in declarations of responsibility, of propriety—everything he’s been terrified to face— it all comes tumbling from him as soft pleas and furrowed brows and gasping sighs. There’s no hiding behind that fateful violet scabbard, no monarchical eyes to cower from—nothing but her, and him, and a ruby want that tethers them together.
“Please,” she whispers, lips hardly even touching, reminiscent of the ways she would pray in the cathedral a century ago. To his fortune, the invocation sounds much different now. “Please, Link.”
He nods again, the once silent knight now merely a man who wants to make her feel more human than she ever has. Link reaches for the hem of her leggings and begins to pull them down her body, Zelda assisting with a swift lift of her hips.
She is radiant beneath him, bare limbs strewn out across his sheets, her hands nesting on a blanket of golden hair. The curve of her hips noticeable even in her riding pants, the impressive architecture illuminated entirely for the first time; even more impressive, her most sacred spot, cloistered by a spangle of gilded curls that shimmer with want. He sets flattened fingers against her and delights in the way she spirals beneath his touch, toes curling against him. A set of circles around that soft patch of skin, widening with each rotation, pace quickening until he catches sight of her thighs quivering feverishly. Link slows and pulls his hand away, licking the slick off his fingers while she watches on with a surprised expression that’s alloyed with satisfaction.
“My favorite.” Link’s quickly dipping down to taste from the source directly, sliding his tongue across her, zigzagging in a way that’s less than methodical; it’s what he intends—not yet, he hears in his brain. Not just yet. A part of him wonders if it’s the liquid gold of her own voice seeping into his own mind, dipped in impatience as it pushes him to forge ahead. Whatever the case, he’s happy to oblige—after all, there will be hours much colder than these that will need to be filled. He’ll draw them out, will spend every moment of those long winter evenings between her legs if she wants him to, will tend to her with his mouth as long as the moon’s strung up high in the midst of the indigo sky. Whatever she wants, for as long as she wants it.
Zelda’s made it clear what she wants at this moment.
Link stretches across her, the sweater he’s completely forgotten he’s still wearing rolled halfway up his torso to reveal handsomely toned abdominals. One hand aligns himself with her while the other kneads at her, coaxes her open for him, and when he’s ready, he frees a hand and threads fingers through her own. Breathe deep, love whispered into her neck when he settles his weight a little more evenly on her.
There are stars bursting at the edge of his vision as he slides into her, the soft sob of his name in his ear doubly enticing. Her fingers grip at his forearms, back arching as she adjusts for him. Goddess, it’s intoxicating—the way she feels impossibly perfect, the way it feels like their bodies have been designed with each other in mind. Zelda exhales, the heaviest of breaths brushing against Link’s cheek while her body melts into the mattress beneath him, and when she murmurs his name, her head tipping back reflexively as she savors the way he pulses into her, Link nearly chokes on a tongue grown lazy in his mouth.
“You okay?” The slurred inquiry barely makes it past his hardened jaw, and though the lilt of her sweet voice and the cast of her straining hips up towards his own makes her answer abundantly clear, the concept of her giving life to the thought squeezes at his heart, wrings every last bit of want and leaves lingering in desperation above her.
At the edge of the diluted late morning light that slips through their window, she smiles, inebriation on full display when she nods her head, sprawling limbs trying to find some semblance of stability when she threads her arms up below his own and presses him closer to her. “More than that. You feel—ah— you feel incredible, Link.”
He quirks an eyebrow. “More?”
Her head nods furiously against the bedspread. “Yes, please. Please.”
And more, he offers. Link cups the edge of her rear and gently pushes her up to grant himself more depth, and Zelda acknowledges this new angle with a broken gasp of his name across his shoulder. Heat rises up in him gradually, climbing up in him until stark white tears at the corners of his visions and shrouds Zelda in the heavenly glow her heritage already awards her. Slower, slower, he warns, and Link finds just enough control to bring fluttering fingers to her cunt and trace circles there. Her insatiable grip around him clamps his eyes shut, and Link has to fight to keep from bucking sharply into her.
There’s time, there’s time, he tries to remind himself, but Zelda gives voice to a dissenting opinion, eyes crinkled at the edges with something euphoric: “Please, Link. Let go.”
His release drags on, and for a fraction of a moment Link wonders if it might ever end—and when the spell finally does turn into a small, glittering flame in the pit of his belly, he turns his attention to his fingers once more. Tiny, ovate shapes are soon growing larger and larger until Zelda is sobbing his name above a tightening core and trembling legs, her body verging on collapse.
Instinctively, he bucks straining hips, and it all hits her at once. With a final cry towards the dark wood of their unassuming roof, Zelda reaches her pinnacle—around his fingers, around his cock stained with mutual desires. Every inch of him made hers; but as he watches the climax ripple through her, Link can’t help from smiling—he always has been, really.
Whatever plans either has had for the rest of the day are tossed aside entirely. The remaining hours are dedicated almost entirely to their lovemaking, save for the break to finish the meal she’d prepared for them and the occasional rest to prepare for another round of shared discovery. Link loses count of how many times he takes her that day; he learns what she looks like while swiveling her hips above him with candlelight flickering up against the curves of her breasts, discovers the insatiable view of her heart-shaped rear bent over the edge of their bed.
Zelda, on the other hand, learns that her body has kept many secrets from her; she’s never known herself to want so much before. In another time, many moons ago, she’d assumed that matters pertaining to romance had no place in her life. Only after she’d come to know her handsome young shadow had it reached up and made itself known, but even still—none of that compares to the tidal wave of emotion that’s pulled her into the undertow.
When all has finally gone quiet for the evening, they find themselves idling in bed, their naked limbs tangled between disheveled sheets while Zelda traces gentle circles on Link’s bare chest. Through the window, lunar laughter radiates from where the moon launches into the royal blue expanse of night sky. From somewhere beyond the incandescent glow of their home, a wintry owl coos dolefully from where it rests among the treetops.
“Market first thing tomorrow. I need to prepare an elixir.” Zelda taps gently against his chest, matching the andante of his heartbeat pulsing against her ear.
Link presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Sure. Whatever you need.”
“Whatever we need,” she reasons. “I’m positive that you aren’t hoping for a child right about now.” Zelda cranes her head to meet his eye, watching him with a curl of a smile nudging at her lips.
He only shrugs. “Raising a child with you sounds like a dream, to be honest.”
There’s something so effortless about the way he’s able to charm her. Zelda blinks, her smile thinning into something a little less playful and a bit more driven—it’s the same look she’d donned at the kitchen table just that morning, before they’d pushed thoughts of daily tasks aside in favor of each other. She reaches to set another kiss at his lips, her own bruised by the mileage she’s put on them over the last few hours. Her mouth moves deliciously slow against his, breasts pressing up against his torso as she moves to swing a leg across his waist.
“One more go before bedtime?” she huffs into the corner of his mouth.
“You sure you don’t want to read a bit of your book?” It’s hard to take him seriously when his hands seek purchase on the dip of her waist. She gives a teasing rock of her hips across him. “You haven’t picked it up once today,” he manages through a groaning sigh.
Zelda giggles. “It can wait until tomorrow.”
Link returns the expression and pushes up to cup the back of her neck, to hum into a renewed kiss and pull her down to know her once more. It can wait—it can all wait.
Outside, the first hints of snow quietly make their way down to the earth.