Chapter Text
As the last embers of the battle with Dark Beast Ganon fade to scorch marks across the field, Link drops like a stone and laughs.
Gasping, hysterical, clawing at the grass. The sound is surprisingly high and cackling, before it dissolves into strained wheezes that get swallowed by great, heaving breaths. A short distance away, Zelda stands on wobbling legs and stares, stunned silent. She has never heard such a noise come out of him before. She’s barely ever even heard him laugh in the regular sense, as far as she can recall. It’s utterly unnerving, but she can hardly blame him; there’s a similar hysteria crawling its way up her windpipe the longer Link laughs. The sound rattles her bones, yanks something visceral out of her ribcage until she’s sinking down beside him and joining in.
Her laughter is softer, quieter, more awed. Fingers sunk into the warm earth, Zelda thinks, it’s finally over . She’s dizzy with relief, and perhaps the side effects of 100 years of incorporeality. She slowly, slowly tips over until her sight is filled with an endless, cloudless sky. The sunlight burns her eyes, but she refuses to close them. The view is divinely beautiful. I’m alive, he’s alive, it’s over.
Somewhere to her left, Link’s laughter cuts off abruptly, replaced by a horrible retch. Zelda bolts upright, overshooting it and falling clumsily forward as the world spins.
“Are you alright?” she asks urgently, pushing herself back up with some difficulty. Her vision clears just in time to watch Link spit in the grass, waving her off.
He flops over bonelessly, rolling until he’s lying flat on his back next to her. All the manic energy of moments before seems to have been exorcised, leaving him small and gasping for breath in the grass. She hovers, concerned, and finally gets her first good look at him in a century.
Zelda’s slightly ashamed at how fast her brain shifts from concern into observation mode, cataloging all the differences from her admittedly somewhat faded memory. What she finds startles her. On the surface, she’s looking at all the same familiar features, and yet somehow they fit together to make a whole that is nearly unrecognizable. The uncanny feeling of looking at a stranger persists. Her mind scrambles to discern why.
His hair is longer, for one, and wilder, curling into tangles at the frazzled ends in a way he would have never allowed before. Through the grime of battle, his skin is tanned and spattered with faint new freckles. A mole that was never there before dots his forehead. A nasty sunburn paints him red across the cheeks and nose, noticeably peeling. A fresh bruise on his jaw adds purple to the palette. His lips part to reveal a slightly chipped front tooth. Is that what it is, all these little details adding up, telling stories she doesn’t know?
And then, of course, there are the scars.
Her brain chose to catalogue them last, as if to shield her. The most striking of them is the one bursting across the left side of his face, stretching in tendrils across his cheek, down his jawline, through one eyebrow. There’s a chunk of his ear missing on the same side, the remaining cartilage red and mottled. All of a sudden, she recalls the moment the Guardian’s laser clipped him with such clarity she has to wrench her eyes away before she too upends her stomach onto the grass.
Her gaze finds the Champion’s Tunic he’s donning instead. It’s a bit more worn and patched than it had been, but still intact. There’s something grounding about that. It’s all familiar blue, blue, blue until it’s soaked through with red.
It occurs to Zelda that Link has just fought a very difficult, very corporeal battle.
“Oh, goddesses above, you’re injured!” she exclaims, crawling closer. Link screws up his face stubbornly and curls up like a pill bug, one hand covering the wound and the other waving her off again. She easily recognizes the sign he makes: Okay. His hand is noticeably trembling.
“No, it's not! Let me see,” she demands, reaching her hands out. She’s not exactly sure what she’s going to do to help; her limbs are still uncooperative, and she hasn’t got anything on her besides this infernal prayer dress, much less medical supplies. What does she want? To check it’s severity? To know exactly how close history is to repeating? “ Please. ”
The desperation in her tone must reach him, because he reluctantly uncurls, removing his hand. Closer inspection of the wound reveals Link was mostly right; though it wraps alarmingly around his torso, the gash isn’t too deep, and seems to have done all the bleeding it’s going to do already. He seems mostly free of other injuries beyond bruises and scrapes. It’s miraculous, really, that he clawed his way out of a cosmic fight to the death relatively unscathed. Still, the fact that he was cut like that at all rankles her. If it had just been a bit deeper, a bit closer to something vital— well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Besides, that’s what elixirs are for, right?
“The Slate,” she says, rocking unsteadily back on her heels. “Do you have medical supplies stored in it?”
Link seems steadier as he sits up. He gives her a flat look, pulling the Slate from his belt to flip through it with sure hands. The implied who do you take me for? is palpable, though it feels good-natured at least. Zelda blinks, a bit taken aback. She was used to pointedly blank looks from him, but this level of attitude towards her was relatively new. She files that knowledge away for later, vaguely proud. She never could quite get him to fully drop the formality before.
She takes it as a good sign. Maybe, perhaps, she’ll get to hear his voice again too.
From the depths of the Slate, Link produces a fairy tonic and a stamina elixir. He offers the latter to her, which she gratefully accepts, and keeps the former for himself. She watches in mild fascination as he pulls the cork out with his teeth, spitting it out into the grass before downing the whole tonic in one go. She takes a more conservative approach with her elixir, wondering with some amusement where exactly his knightly manners have gone. It’s only a moment later that she realizes what a silly thought that is. Of course she knows where they went.
The shrine took everything , she reminds herself. That means everything.
And yet, she watches him grimace minutely through the pain of his side stitching itself back together, and the expression is so familiar it feels like her vision is overlapping. She can’t help but wonder, isn’t there something left? The question sits impatiently right at the tip of her tongue, and Zelda has never excelled at restraining her curiosity.
“Link,” she starts, and then falters as his eyes slide unflinchingly to hers. Blue as ever, but fever bright where she distinctly remembers their oft-unsettling dullness. He seems wary. She wars with herself over whether she should proceed, but her tongue gets the better of her, as it often does. “Do you really remember me?”
Unfortunately, the way his face instantly shuts off is also familiar, and it makes her stomach sink. She still has no idea how he manages that expression; completely blank and yet so obviously stricken at the same time. He opens his mouth as if to speak, and then closes it just as quickly. His hands twitch as if to sign, and then fall still. The silence hangs limply between them, curdling the air.
Well, that’s one kind of answer. No need to make them both suffer further. Zelda gathers all of the disappointment and sorrow and rage bubbling up inside her and tucks it neatly, pragmatically away into a little box.
“Goddesses, how terribly rude of me. Nevermind, forget I said anything,” she blurts out, clasping her hands together. She aims for casual, but she’s not quite sure she hits the mark. Her smile feels strained even to her, pulling uncomfortably at the muscles of her face. Link himself freezes, but his expression is unreadable now. “The battle’s only just ended, and here I am, making you sit in this field all covered in grime! There will be time for talk later. For now, let’s make a plan for where to go from here, shall we?”
It occurs to her as soon as she says it that she’s assuming an awful lot. What obligation does Link have to follow her? His task is finished. He doesn’t even remember her. Stupid, stupid girl. But before she can despair too hard about putting her foot in her mouth back to back, Link simply nods and dutifully pulls out the Slate again. Zelda grinds to a halt mid sickening spiral, caught somewhere between joy and abject confusion.
K-A-K-A-R-I-K-O or H-A-T-E-N-O ? he signs, fingerspelling each. In her distress she takes a moment too long to register, and he has to repeat himself. She knows they had name signs, once upon a time, but Zelda is ashamed to admit she doesn’t recall. Is there anyone left that does?
On that note.
“Is…is Impa alive?” she asks, somewhat fearing the answer. Link’s inscrutable expression softens a degree as he nods the affirmative, and Zelda feels a rush of relief so powerful she nearly topples again. “Oh, that’s wonderful to hear. Kakariko first, then, if that's alright.”
Another quick nod. He seems to have suddenly slipped back into the role of obedient knight rather naturally. It’s making her queasy. The thought of bringing it up feels insurmountable. She tries to think of more positive things instead. She’s free. They have a plan. Link isn’t leaving her yet. She’s going to see Impa. Things are better than they have been in over a century.
He shakes the Slate at her, and then forms one efficient sign: Travel?
Zelda briefly recalls the feeling of warping, her physical body dissolving into scattered light again, again , and the whole of her being recoils. “No,” she says, too quickly. He raises an eyebrow at her, and she swallows down bile. “No, I think I’d rather prefer the scenic route.”