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A plotting princess

Link stroked your hair gently, staring down at your peaceful face as your head rested in his lap.

It had been so long since he had seen your face bereft of fear or hate or the intense look you had when fighting something. Seeing you through the eyes of monsters was like a weak bandage applied to a broken bone – it only healed surface-level damage and did nothing for the pain beneath.

Watching you from the eyes of monsters didn’t do much to quell the fire within him, but it was the best he could do given the circumstances. The infernal princess was holding him back, just like she had done all those years ago when all he wanted was to take you into his arms and comfort you. Dry your tears. Hold you in his arms as the world collapses around the two of you.

He didn’t care much about Hyrule or what little it had to offer – all he wanted was you, you, you, and while you might be a little afraid of him now and might hate him here at this moment, Link was sure that a few years with no one else for company would change your mood.

You’d learn to love him again just like you had done all those years ago when you chattered to him to get him to open up. When you bandaged his wounds and scolded him for being reckless. When you covered him in fights defending that useless princess.

You were everything he wanted and more, and soon, he’d be free.

Free to take you into his arms and love you until you could breathe nothing but his love.

“Soon.”

The Lynel watched you as you made your way down the North Akkala Foothill. It wasn’t in the usual threatening stance Lynels generally stood in when anyone encroached on their territory, and you eyed it wearily. The more intelligent part of you knew that Link and the Calamity were watching you through the creature’s eyes, and you tried to pay it no mind, but the shiver running up your spine told it exactly what you were feeling. You had just left the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab after buying a few bundles of Ancient Arrows to help defeat the scourge of Vah Naboris and were now just wandering aimlessly.

‘He knows,’ you couldn’t help but think as you glanced back to the Lynel to see it still watching you, posture stiff but not threatening. ‘Link and the Calamity know I came to get more Ancient Arrow, and they know I was going to Naboris straight after.’

Your hand skipped to the blade on your back; the creature made no move to attack or do anything other than stare at you.

‘I think I prefer being attacked than watched.’

There was no way you could conquer any of the remaining Divine Beasts – the Calamity was probably already prepared for your arrival, and you didn’t want to risk it – you could wait another day or so until you went up to do battle with them.

Taking out the Sheikah Slate, you clicked a random shrine in the Hateno area and braced yourself for the warp.

After successfully landing, you made your way away from the more civilised areas and towards Firly Plateau, where you’d make your camp for the night. The Great Plateau was another choice to stay at, but you couldn’t bear it.

The Great Plateau was where you had woken up after a century of sleep, and while it was beautiful and the perfect place to gather your bearings, you hated it. There wasn’t anyone there to tell you about what happened all those years ago since the late king didn’t think it was wise for you to know just yet – you never liked him for how he treated Zelda, but this made your dislike grow stronger: Who was he to decide these things for you?

The silence and isolation of that plateau made you feel worse, and you remembered leaving it as soon as you could, unable to bear the silence for a moment longer, and your fair land of Hyrule was far more comforting than the silence up there. Yes, the various wildlife and monsters up there spaced out the dreadful silence, but there were no people, no travellers, no friendly faces you could occasionally converse with when you needed supplies.

Now that the king was gone, there was no one else up there, and you didn’t quite fancy being the only Hylian up there, so to Firly Plateau, you went.

The afternoon had passed to the evening when you eventually arrived, and you barely had enough energy to bring out your bedroll from the slate and to start a fire with a bundle of wood and a piece of flint, but you somehow managed. Lying down, you flicked through the slate, idly taking note of what you had that would be useful in your fight with the Divine Beasts.

The one haunting Naboris would most likely be the most difficult to defeat. It led you to buy many bundles of Ancient Arrows from Robbie and Cherry, and you had decided to use them with your Savage Lynel bow, which somehow fired multiple arrows despite consuming only one. You didn’t understand it but weren’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, as the saying went.

Medoh would most likely be easier to defeat, and your shock arrows and ice arrows would make it easier for you to close in for the kill, and your mighty elixirs would hopefully help you deal more damage when it came time for melee combat with the beasts.

Sighing, you returned the slate to your wait and turned to look up at the stars.

“The stars are quite beautiful.”

Jumping, you whipped around to see Zelda – Zelda, Zelda, Zelda – sitting on the log across from you. Your mouth opened and closed several times as you fumbled with what to say to her.

You had planned to say so much when you finally rescued her, but seeing her in front of you, a golden projected image of herself and not the real her, you didn’t know what to say.

You settled for staring at her, your eyes greedily drinking her form in as this was the first time you saw her in decades.

“I… They are beautiful,” you managed after a while, and she smiled at you, making your heart flutter.

She was still wearing the same tailored robes she had been wearing to the Spring of Wisdom a hundred years ago when the Calamity had burst free, and you felt less than her in your Sheikah Armour set… but that didn’t matter – you weren’t alone!

“I miss you,” you said after a moment of silence, and the blonde smiled.

“I miss you too.”

You scooted to her at her words and raised your hand, unsure of your movements, but Zelda moved too.

Her hand came to hover near yours, fingertips brushing yours gently.

She wasn’t solid, and you weren’t sure how to describe it, but the best you could explain was that it felt like walking through water. And she was so warm, unlike Daruk and Mipha, who were so cold.

“How are you holding up?” you found yourself asking, unsure of what to say, what to ask your best friend of many years. You couldn’t even remember the last full conversation you had with her in person other than the warnings she sent you telepathically.

“I’m well.”

You raised an eyebrow, scoffing at that. “Zel, you and I both know that’s a lie.”

Zelda smiled again, and it stabbed at your heart.

“It is rotten work, but it’s what I’m destined to do,” she said before turning her gaze to meet your eyes, “and how fares your quest?”

You exhaled heavily, reluctantly tearing your gaze from her form and staring into the fire and sighed, rubbing at your eyes.

Zelda’s suddenly solid hand cupped your cheek and turned your face back to hers, and you couldn’t help it. You broke down into sobs.

You hadn’t realised just how touch-starved you were until her gentle hold on your cheek sent all the hastily but carefully built walls inside of you tumbling down, and you wept in the arms of the only person in Hyrule who possibly understood what you were going through.

Zelda’s arms around you were a wall blocking out the rest of the world, and all you could hear were her gentle, soothing noises and her heartbeat.

It was so strange that his projected image of your best friend had a heartbeat.

You wanted nothing more than to drown yourself in her heartbeat, the unshakeable safety that her arms brought, and the soft sound of her voice murmuring into your hair.

Eventually, your tears dried up, and you pulled away, furiously rubbing at your eyes.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” you whispered, trying to make yourself presentable, but she only smiled gently.

“Y/N, you had seen worse from me all those years ago,” her voice rang with honesty, but you couldn’t remember for the life of you. Though, what you had gleaned from your conversations and interactions with the late king of Hyrule, you figured that the man wasn’t the best father even though he may have been a better king.

“Still, you came all this way, and I started crying on you. What kind of a friend am I?” you joked, and she smiled again, shaking her head gently.

“You know I’ve been watching over you when I can.”

You nodded, feeling a flare of warmth in your chest at her words. The weight of her gaze watching you occasionally brought much comfort to you, and it was so unlike the cold stare of the various monsters that roamed the land and Link’s hungry gaze that shined through the coldness of the monsters’ eyes.

“I always felt that you staying away from civilian areas was so noble of you,” Zelda’s hands came to clasp yours gently, “you were always trying to do what was right by others, never being selfish.”

You flushed, glancing away bashfully, before turning your gaze back to her.

“I’m only trying to keep them safe. They shouldn’t suffer for my mistakes.”

The princess’s green gaze hardened, and you felt a shiver run down your spine.

“This wasn’t your fault.” She spoke firmly, the golden light flickering around her pulsed brighter for a moment. “I know it, Mipha knows it, and Daruk knows it. The only one who doesn’t know it is you.”

You sighed, heart weighed down by everything that had happened. “I can’t help but feel it is. I wish I had known then what I know now.”

Zelda hummed, rubbing a thumb over your knuckles.

“I’ve spent decades wishing the same,” she spoke, and you flinched slightly – how could you have forgotten that she’d spent a century fighting this fight while you had rested. “But there’s nothing I can do to change it, and there’s nothing you could have done to change what happened.”

She was right.

You had thought these same thoughts and turned them around in your mind, mulling over them like you did when waiting for an omelette to crisp up nicely in the pan before it was ready, but hearing it for Zelda, Zelda, Zelda, seemed to confirm it.

Zelda had spent so long fighting, and who better to confirm those thoughts than the one currently holding the Calamity and Link at bay?

“You’re right.” You said eventually, and she smiled, warming your heart. “I just wish there was some way I could physically help you….”

“Oh, Y/N,” Zelda’s soft expression made your heart flutter as her hand came to cup your cheek gently. “Continuing to fight inspires me, and that is enough.”

Sitting under the twinkling stars with the one you cared for so deeply made your heart swell with hope, and hope continued to flourish as the campfire embers slowly died during the night.

Zelda startled, coming back to her senses.

She was back inside her and the Calamity’s prison and sighed gently, rubbing her upper arms for warmth even though it didn’t do anything. It was neither cold nor warm here, and it was always dark asides from when she used her powers. The only thing that broke in the darkness where the handful of disembodied eyes surrounding the fallen champion of Hyrule.

“I see you went to see our beloved.” Link’s voice broke the silence, and a coil of anger curled around Zelda’s heart.

“Our beloved? Oh please, you don’t love them.” She snapped back, barely restraining her anger, but it was true: Link didn’t love you, not like she did.

Link merely wanted to have you; otherwise, he wouldn’t have fallen to the Calamity’s machinations. If the swordsman had truly loved you, he would have stayed on the true path and courted you the traditional way instead of dooming all their friends and Hyrule’s populace to a miserable fate.

“Ah yes, because you know what love is,” Link scoffed, and she clenched her fists. “She’s not yours either.”

“Then-”

“She wouldn’t have chosen you,” Link taunted, but Zelda held back her fury – she knew what he was doing, and it wouldn’t work. Frantically, she forced the memory of comforting you in her arms into her mind’s eye. “You were only a means to an end.”

“Ah, yes, because you’ve known her for as long as I have,” she shot back, restraining her fury.

Think of Y/N. Think of her smile. Think of her voice. Think of Y/N-

“Why would she want you? Having to deal with the conformity of royalty and those rules-”

“What could you have offered her? The life of a housewife waiting on a husband whose constantly away? You and I both know how those stories end.”

That must have hit a sore spot for the swordsman, judging by his twitch.

“You’re acting as if I’d stay and play protector for you back then; I’d have done anything to make her happy.”

Zelda raised an eyebrow, “And dooming her to this fate is making her happy?”

Link fell silent, and Zelda hummed, thinking.

What exactly did the Calamity promise to Link all those years ago? The blond was always resolute, so what had made him fall?

A proper conversation with the man himself was needed before going forward.

Raising a hand, her power glowed, destroying the malice, maws and eyes around the swordsman.

“Link, please listen,” she began. “It’s about Y/N.”

He turned to face her head-on, both eyes their usual blue rather than one being taken over by malice.

“What did the Calamity promise you?”

Link scoffed, “You already know that it promised me Y/N after it took over-”

“Do you really think it’ll keep its word?”

Link fell silent, eyeing her as he turned her words over in his head.

“Where are you going with this?”

“Do you?” she prompted.

“Yes.”

“Y/N and I won’t stop fighting, ever. You know her well enough to know she isn’t going to give up easily. This story ends with your defeat, whether tomorrow or the next year – you know how this ends.”

Link stiffened, eyes staring straight through her, but Zelda continued.

“But, if you join us, I can guarantee I will advocate for your forgiveness….”

Zelda could almost see the cogs turning in his head and pushed forward.

“I’m not willing to let her go, and I doubt you are… But if we joined together….”

“Y/N would be ours.”

“Exactly.”