Chapter Text
Link blinks at the stable master. It’s a joke. Right? He’s kidding. Right? He has to be kidding!
Ember doesn’t get to the punchline, though. He just waits for Link to respond. As if Link has ever responded. As if he would have a response to what Ember just said. As if Ember isn’t kidding.
“Do you not have the rupees?” Princess Zelda asks him quietly, and Link nearly jumps at the question, because of course he has forty rupees, but how would she know if he did or didn’t? She meant no offense by the question, of course, but…
Link pulls out two red rupees and sets them on the table for Ember, who gives him a suspicious look in return. “Check out is 11 am.” His eyes flash between Link’s and Princess Zelda’s, as if giving a warning or attempting to intimidate them, but he nods, and the conversation is over.
She smiles brightly at him, too brightly for someone who hasn’t eaten or slept or experienced joy in a hundred years, and for just a moment, Link forgets what it was that had stunned him speechless before. Maybe it’s Hylia’s blessing, or maybe Princess Zelda just glows when she smiles, but she’s radiant, even when she’s exhausted, and her warmth is so tangible it eases the aches in his muscles.
“I suppose it’s this one then?” She says, approaching the only vacant bed in the stable.
Right. In the absence of her smile, the aches return with a vengeance. There’s only one bed. The soft bed, yes, but just the one. Never before has Link seen a stable with more than two patrons per night, but of course, on the evening that he and Princess Zelda slay Calamity Ganon and free all of Hyrule, Riverside Stable is suddenly the hippest joint in the entire kingdom.
He'll survive, he decides, feeling the soreness flare all over his body as he shifts his weight from one leg to another. He’s stayed up longer under more trying conditions. Sure, he had been looking forward to finally resting, to finally letting the tears in his muscles sew themselves together the way they should, to finally giving his body the time to cool down and recharge and repair instead of running from one fight to the next. He had been looking forward to how sweet sleep would feel after they had finally gotten the job done. But perhaps it will be good for him to stand watch over the princess’s first night of freedom. Perhaps the Yiga would attempt to take advantage of their exhaustion and attempt to seek revenge. Perhaps he anticipated rest too soon. Isn’t he used to pushing himself harder the more he aches? Ganon may be gone, but his vengeance is still an ugly scar that stretches across all of Hyrule in every possible way. A scar that wouldn’t be there, if not for Link’s failure 100 years ago. His work isn’t finished, won’t be finished until Hyrule thrives again. Why did he think there would be time for rest anyway? He hasn’t earned it yet, not really. It had been a silly fantasy, really.
Princess Zelda throws herself on the bed, letting out a sigh of relief. “Oh, I’d forgotten just how lovely beds are,” she says, her voice muffled by the pillow. It’s hard for him not to smile at her, because sure, he is tired after a fierce battle, but a hundred years is a much longer time to be fighting. Even one of the normal beds probably would have felt exquisite to her, but a soft one such as this must be divine. It’s a divinity he should have been able to give her a century ago, he thinks. Better late than never.
He would have nodded and left her alone with such a simple good night were her face not buried in the pillow. “I’ll leave you to your rest, then,” he says quietly, his voice a little scratchy, before turning to step outside the stable. The chill of the night air will help him stay awake, he figures. It will help remind him that perhaps the hardest part is over (he sure hopes it is), but his work is not finished.
“Where are you going?” She asks, and he turns to see her sitting bolt upright in the bed, staring at him suspiciously.
He pauses. He was going outside. Where does she expect him to go?
“Don’t tell me you’re going to stay up all night,” she says, crossing her arms.
He furrows his brow. What else would he do? What other option is there?
“There’s plenty of room for you here, come on,” she says, patting the bed next to her.
Link’s eyes drop to the bed where she patted it, then dart back to hers. It doesn’t look like there is plenty of room for him on there. His face flushes, he can feel how warm his cheeks are, but Princess Zelda just smiles easily at him, waiting for him to join her, like this is a disagreement they’ve had multiple times before, one she has always won.
“I think we both deserve some rest. Don’t you?” Her voice is soft, and even before he has given in to her persuasion, he feels the way her words soothe his aches. The bed would do even better. There’s a knowingness in her eyes, in the way she looks at him, that he wonders if she can feel his exhaustion the way he feels hers. It’s a phantom fatigue, easily overshadowed by the real thing, but he can still feel it. “Don’t make me make a scene,” she teases lightheartedly, and he cracks a smile, because he’s too tired to be stoic.
He sits on the side of the bed to take off his weapons and his gear. They must look quite the pair, he thinks, splitting the soft bed while she is still in her filthy prayer gown and him in his tunic smeared with malice. In truth, they really should bathe. Link’s skin was sticky with the dried sweat from the fight of his life. Zelda smelled like the castle lock up. But there would be baths tomorrow, fresh clothes tomorrow, anything and everything else, it could wait until tomorrow.
When he’s got all his gear off, he turns to see that the princess has already managed to wiggle under the covers, and she tugs at the part of the blanket he’s sitting on until he sits up enough to let her pull it back.
She’s making space for him. He hesitates for just a moment, because surely this is improper? Surely there is no circumstance under which he is allowed to sleep in the same bed as her, even if they had just saved the kingdom and were exhausted and there was only one bed…
“It’s getting cold in here,” she says, and he pulls himself from his thoughts to look at her. He supposes she would trust him, because she remembers him better than he remembers her. At least, she remembers a version of him. A version of him that let her down, that died when she needed him. But this version of himself, he was the one who came back for her, right? That had to be worth something.
The green of her eyes is persuasive, and it’s been a century and some amnesia and the hardest fight of his life since he has last had to resist her charm. He’s too tired to think on it any longer, he decides, so he crawls under the covers beside her, feeling his entire body relax at how heavenly it is to lay down.
As it turns out, there is not plenty of room for the both of them, but Zelda doesn’t seem to mind, scooting over so that her face is right in front of his. The tips of their noses touch, and Link is afraid to breathe.
Her eyes trace carefully over his face, studying him closely for some time, before they land back on his. He can’t look away, mesmerized by the green of her eyes, the way they glow, the way her nose touches his. His half-baked memories didn’t do her justice, he decides, but he could hardly blame them. How could the slate possibly capture the way she radiates warmth, the serenity that comes with her presence, the way her eyes reflect light like the finest cut emeralds? He had managed not to gawk at her then, he knows, but not now, because he’s too tired to try, and she doesn’t appear to take issue with it.
Before he realizes what she’s doing, he feels her fingers brush his hair back from his face, and he closes his eyes for just a moment at her touch. She’s gentle, so gentle that he has to stop himself from leaning into her touch, because his skin is on fire but her fingertips are hotter, hot enough to melt away any of the anxieties left jumbling around in his head…
“Thank you,” she whispers, and he opens his eyes to meet hers again, to pull himself out of the spell she unknowingly put him under, to re-process the words he misheard the first time around. She reads his confusion quickly, because she knows him better than he knows himself, and her palm brushes against his cheek as she pulls her hand away. His skin tingles where she touched him. “For saving me,” she clarifies, her eyes wandering over his face again. It must be the exhaustion getting to his head, because he thinks her eyes get caught on his lips, he thinks there is something akin to longing on her own features, but he must be mistaken. She is divine; it is only natural for him to be awestruck in her presence. But he in entirely ordinary, and someone like her could never…
“You saved me first,” he says, afraid to let his own eyes wander the way hers do. She can already read him so easily, he should do better at hiding the way his heart races in his chest and his thoughts get fuzzy and scrambled when he looks at her. He forgot how to mask his emotions, something none of his recovered memories re-taught him, so perhaps its too late for him to hide it now. Perhaps she already knows. If she does, it would seem she has forgiven him.
“Perhaps we should call it even, then,” she says, her voice a little breathless, probably from exhaustion, because surely sleep was rapidly approaching the both of them. He isn’t sure he could ever feel even with her. Can one be even with a goddess, or one of her daughters?
No, he’s pretty sure, but he won’t argue with her about it, at least not right now.
Princess Zelda closes her eyes, though, her breathing already slowing. It’s hard for him not to stare at her, this close, because she’s so real. She’s so real that he can feel the heat radiating out of her body, see the pores on her skin, smell the mud on her dress. He had been so afraid that she would come to him surrounded in the same blue-green embers of their peers, the other Champions. He had been so worried that he would be too late, that all he would have left of her would be those precious few memories.
He's thankful for the way the tops of her thighs press against his, the way he can feel her breath on his cheeks when she exhales. She’s real, she’s here, he knows it, but the reminder eases that tension out of his shoulders. He can relax when he can feel her like this.
Now, instead, he worries that he still might not sleep, despite how comfortable he is. How could he? With her so close to him? So close to him and so real and so alive? Will he ever be able to sleep again, with her this near? Like he’ll ever be this close to her ever again… It would be foolish for him to waste the precious limited resource of her nearness in sleep.
“Please, go to sleep, Link,” she murmurs, and he feels her breath on his face, and for a horrible moment, he holds himself back from leaning in to press his lips to hers. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
What a wonderful thing to look forward to, waking up next to Princess Zelda, he thinks. He curses his sleepy brain from the thoughts it sends through his mind now, such inappropriate things for him to think of right now…
“Promise?” He asks, before he can stop himself. The exhaustion is getting to him, he thinks.
Princess Zelda opens her eyes just a little to meet his, stopping his heart, before she tilts her head up just enough to kiss the tip of his nose. “Promise,” she whispers. “But you have to go to sleep now, please…”
So with his nose tingling where she pressed her lips against his skin, now matching the tingling in his cheek, he closes his eyes to finally, finally rest. He’s asleep before his heart returns to its resting rate.
Link is warm when he stirs from unconsciousness. The good kind of warm, he decides, but warm nonetheless. Warm and rested and relieved. Warm and rested and relieved and… at peace? He can’t quite place the feeling, perhaps because he has never before woken up in a Hyrule free from Ganon’s malice, but he has the feeling that everything is as it should be.
And then his pillow inhales long and slow, and he nearly flinches in surprise, until he realizes that it isn’t his pillow he’s holding so close to his chest.
He’s afraid to open his eyes, because he know what he’ll see. Closed eyes are safer, closed eyes let him pretend to still be asleep. As if the sleeping princess cares.
Her head is tucked into his shoulder, beneath where his arm wraps around her, pulling her into him. Her arm drapes lazily over his waist, her legs tangle with his, and when she exhales, he feels her breath on his cheeks.
It explains the good kind of warm, he thinks almost bitterly as he tries to figure out how best to extract himself from the bed before she wakes up. He figures the legs will probably be the hardest part, but that everything else should be smooth sailing, so he slowly begins attempting to pull one of his legs out from its knot with hers.
Her arm stiffens over his waist, and he freezes, because he’s been caught, and then her grip tightens on him.
“Not yet…” she grumbles, burying her face deeper into his shoulder, sighing somewhat dramatically, and he finally opens his eyes to take stock of his surroundings.
All he really sees is a mop of blonde hair and a mess of blankets. He sees the tips of one of her ears peeking out from the curtain of her hair. Her other arm looks like its hanging off the bed.
“You don’t have to get up yet,” he says quietly to her, but her arm squeezes around his middle again.
“Stay?” She asks, her voice sounding more awake this time, and he realizes that the more he argues with her, the more he will wake her up, so he’ll give up and let her sleep. Not that he needs much convincing. Or any convincing, really.
Because she’s just in reach, he leans his head over just enough to press a kiss to the crown of her head. She kissed his nose last night, right? Surely he’s allowed to kiss the top of her head. “Okay,” he agrees, closing his eyes again to let himself memorize how it feels to be this close to her, to feel her inhale and exhale steadily, to have her arm pulling him closer.
Hylia plays favorites, he concludes, because it wouldn’t be possible for him to have done something great enough to deserve this. To deserve her like this, even just this once. He should say a prayer in thanks for the blessing.
“You smell like malice,” Princess Zelda murmurs into his shoulder, softly, like she almost doesn’t mind.
“You smell like mud,” he says back, because his heart is light enough for him to tease her right now.
She finally pulls her head out from his shoulder, eyes half-open and a hint of a smile on her face. “You say that like you don’t like mud.”
Ah, so it’s far too late for him to hide his feelings for her. At least she doesn’t seem to mind.
“How long until 11?” She asks.
Link shrugs as best he can in their current arrangement. Based on how much light has flooded the stable, he’s sure it’s at least mid-morning.
“One hour,” Ember calls out from the desk, his voice a little gruff. “You have one hour.”
Link has to bite his lip to try to keep from smiling, and he sees Zelda hold in a laugh too. She takes a deep breath, averting her eyes from Link so she can compose herself.
“Thank you, Mister Ember, sir,” she says, her voice deliberately a hair louder than it needs to be. Since the whole stable has already heard as much.
Ember grunts angrily, but says nothing else, and Zelda squeezes her eyes shut and presses her face into the pillow to keep from laughing. “Is there a one patron per bed rule you neglected to tell me about?” She whispers to him, making no effort to change anything about their posture.
Link shrugs again, because he’s never made any attempt to bring another person to a bed he purchased for the night at a stable, but perhaps he can see why their arrangement may have upset Ember.
“Perhaps we should get up then,” she suggests quietly, and suddenly it’s Link’s turn to tighten his grip around her.
“He said we have an hour,” Link says softly, and Zelda smiles before resting her head back on his shoulder and closing her eyes.
“That he did,” she says quietly, and just when Link thinks she might fall back asleep, Ember lets out a deliberately audible huff of disapproval, accompanied by an even louder stomp of the foot.
Zelda muffles her giggle with his shoulder before pulling her head away again. “Maybe we shouldn’t test him,” she says, and Link thinks that of anyone, he’s earned the right to test Ember as much as he likes, but he won’t hold Zelda hostage simply to irritate the stable master further.
Link reluctantly pulls his arm away from her, and she sits up with a sigh. “Thank you for the bed, Ember, I haven’t slept like that in a century,” she says, perhaps in an attempt to get on his good side, but when Link sits up to look at the man, he’s still glaring.
Zelda waits a moment, as if to give him a chance to change his mind and be friendly, before she gives up on him, turning back to Link. “I suppose it’s time to make the journey to Kakariko, then?” She says, but Link isn’t quite ready to receive marching orders from Impa yet.
“I have a house in Hateno, if you wouldn’t mind stopping there, first,” he suggests casually.
Her eyes light up at the suggestion. “Does it have a bed?” She asks, and Link doesn’t try too hard to hide his smile.
“And a bath.”
She throws her arms around him, hugging him even tighter than she did right after they won, and Link briefly wonders if there is anything else he can mention about his house to get her to keep holding him like this.
“My hero,” she hums into his ear.
Goddess, he could get used to this.