What One Does to a Sleepover | For The Triforce FicFight Event Fic
*note, art is not 100% fic accurate :p
https://archiveofourown.org/works/87744266
@forthetriforce And entire fic under the cut as well!
Zelda had it all planned out; the perfect sleepover was going to happen right here, right in her very room. It was going to be the greatest sleepover she, and her two sleepoverers were going to ever have!
At least, that was Zelda's hope. She never even had a sleepover before, if you didn’t count the times her cat snuggled up to her in bed. Or if you didn’t count those times out in the wild, cuddling up with Tri as she tried to get a brief respite from Null’s hunt for her.
Good thing she never was sleeping outside for long. She always had a bed back then, with an Ignizol echo nearby for warmth, too. And now that whole mess was all over with, she was back in her impeccably soft bed with the comfiest pajamas in all of Hyrule!
And the only trial this princess had to deal with now was to make sure that the “perfect sleepover” was to go off without a hitch. She had done her due diligence in sleepover research—snacks from various domains, a list of spooky stories curated by Impa and Lefte, various crafting materials, board games, and more.
She might've prepared a bit too much for the sleepover. But, too many options were far better than too little! They were going to have fun, Zelda and her friends, she was going to guarantee it!
A knock sounded on Zelda's door as she was going over her sleepover plans, ruminating over a checklist at her vanity.
“Yes?” Zelda called out as she hopped off of her stool. A guard opened her bedroom door, saluting at her.
“Princess!” The guard shouted, “Your friends have arrived at the castle! Your father—th-the king, I mean, he should be greeting them in the throne room right now.”
“Yes!” Zelda cheered, “Thank you for informing me, guardsman. I’ll be out in a moment.” She had to put her pajamas on, after all.
The guard than left, saying that he’ll inform her friends of that statement. After the door closed, she quickly changed into her sleeping garments, doing a little spin after once properly for the night's events.
The sun was setting, and her excitement only grew.
“Sir Catsalot, Head of Room Security,” Zelda addressed her cream colored cat that sat sleepily upon her bed, “I trust you'll be watching over us when the sleepover occurs, correct?”
The cat meowed back at their human, earning a few loving pets from the princess.
“Very good! I’ll be returning soon—watch over the room until then!”
Another meow from the cat, and Zelda was out the door.
She spun down the halls in glee, greeting the guards as she made her way to her friends—and to her father too, of course.
Entering the throne room, Zelda saw her friends chatting with her father, Impa, and General Wright.
“Zelda!” They cheered upon seeing her, with the exception of Impa and the General, who cried, “Princess!” instead.
“Hello!” Zelda waved as she skipped her way down the room’s red carpet, towards her father and her friends.
“You're wearing your silk pajamas!” Dohna giddily exclaimed, “Look! I'm wearing mine too.” And that she was, doing a small spin in her glee.
The king laughed, “Ah, how wonderful it is to be matching with your friend, my dear Zelda. It was a good idea to let them change before the sleepover party. Although…” he looked over at Link, who was wearing a simple white under tunic and trousers.
“Well, it’s a good enough sleeping outfit for anyone, I suppose!” The king laughed again, with the General joining in. Link looking like…well, how he always looked—slightly angry. So he was likely feeling just fine.
“Maybe we can get you some silk pajamas of your own, Link,” Dohna suggested, “But it won’t be easy! You’ll have to earn the comfort. I’ll have the soldiers create a trail just for you!”
Link looked extremely determined to earn said comfort, and a giggle escaped Zelda's lips.
Impa spoke up, “I hope you all will have a grand time, children,” she said, “I hope your ‘perfect sleepover’ will be as perfect as you imagined it to be, princess.”
“Thank you Impa,” Zelda replied, “and it will be perfect! I promise.” She aimed the last words towards her two friends, who looked excited.
Honestly, Zelda was getting more nervous from that excitement. Would this sleepover actually be as perfect as she promised? And if not, would her friends be disappointed with her?
“Follow me Dohna, Link,” Zelda then proclaimed, ignore her internal panic, “The perfect sleepover awaits!” Zelda did a spin, and trotted over to her room, the footsteps of her friends pitter-pattering right behind her. Not to mention her also telling the others goodnight, before she left.
Opening the door to her bedroom, she exclaimed, “Welcome to my room! Make yourselves at home here!”
“Ooo,” Dohna murmured as she looked over the room, seeing the various boxes and items strewn somewhat messily about. Link was already examining the boxes, finding things such as board games and snacks within.
“I see you’ve prepared quite a bit for our sleepover,” Dohna noted.
“Ha ha, yes, I did,” Zelda nodded, “Although, I think I might've done a bit too much.” It was definitely too much, now that she looked at it all.
Dohna set a hand on her friend's shoulder. “Nonsense!” She claimed, “It's just more opportunities for fun to be had.”
Yes, Dohna was affirming her! And judging by the way Link was going through the boxes and items, he seemed rather excited about the preparations Zelda made, too.
“Now then!” Zelda skipped over to her vanity, grabbing her notebook where her plans laid written, “Let’s get this sleepover started!”
The two looked over at her, until both of the girls attention shifted towards Link, who was halfway in a box, with a hexagonal chess board sitting atop his head. A very giggle-worthy scene.
“Do we want to start with chess?” Zelda asked, “I was gifted a three-player board for this sleepover specifically!”
“Oh! What fun!” Dohna clasped her hands in glee, “Although, I can’t recall the last time I played a game of regular chess…”
“Don’t worry!” Zelda assured her friend, “I can teach you both how to play as we go. Link, have you ever played chess before?”
Link crawled out of the box and set the board down on the floor. He shook his head no, before returning to the box and fishing out three bags full of chess pieces—a green one, a red one, and a blue one.
“Now,” Zelda started to explain as she took the blue bag, “three-player chess is a bit harder than two player, but I’m sure it’ll be fun!”
It was not very fun. It was okay, but trying to explain how the game and trying to remember how it worked—she had to go on a brief but fun hunt for the game's rule book—led to Zelda having a less than ideal time, personally.
But, it was definitely worth it. Link and Dohna seemed to enjoy the game—even though Link was the first to get out. And seeing Dohna’s eyes light up with as much glee as it did when she won was a blessed sight.
“Since you won the chess game,” Zelda said to Dohna, “Would you like to choose the next activity?”
“Oh, that sounds great!” Dohna replied, “But, I do wonder how I’ll be able to choose only one thing in this vast array of boxes.”
“Oh! Well, um…we have snacks! And various other things we could do instead of just board games.”
“It seems like our adventurous friend has already found some of those ‘snacks’ you speak off.”
Sure enough, Link was innocently munching on some thin pretzels, ones that Zelda helped make with the Royal Chef a few days prior.
“Ha!” Dohna laughed at Link’s visage, “It seems that the snacks are quite tasty, eh, Link?”
Link nodded as he started to munch on yet another pretzel.
Zelda snorted. Then she suggested, “Would you like a smoothie? I have many smoothies.”
“I’d love one! Do you have any smoothies made with Warm Peppers this time?”
“Of course I do!” Zelda quickly fetched three Golden Piping-Hot Smoothies, “They’re made with Golden Eggs too!”
“Golden Eggs!” Dohna repeated with a gasp, “Those are hard to find!”
“No kidding. Link, would you like a smoothie?”
The swordsman nodded, confident in his spice tolerance. Too confident, one might say, but he managed to drink the whole thing. Even if his face was a tad concerningly red and wet.
The group then partook in a few more games, a few snack breaks, and some crafting activities too. Origami was a wonderful thing that Zelda was glad she stumbled upon in her research of activities they all could do.
During the fun, Zelda even set up a—modified—Gizmol to play music throughout the night. Although, upon seeing the wind-up automaton, the other two wanted to see the rest of her mechanical contraptions.
Unfortunately Zelda only had one Clockwork Key, and had to explain with deep sadness in her heart that it was a one-of-a-kind item, so only one automaton could work at a time.
That did not stop the twos drive to battle a Roboblin. So a brief battle did then commence, before going back to the regular sleepover activities. Zelda would have to get Dampé to fix it, after how badly the poor automaton was pummeled.
The rest of the night passed by without much sadness, the trio of friends enjoying their time with one another. And as the night went on, the sleepier they all became. But Zelda wanted to do at least one more game before she could put this sleepover to rest.
“There’s this card game I found,” Zelda began, an air of mystery in her voice as she fished out a small, rectangular box from the box pile, “One that came from a faraway land.”
“What land is it?” Dohna asked, which was a good question. Zelda looked over her notes, and after a solid minute, realized that she did not write down where this game had originated from.
“It appears the origin is unknown, to me,” Zelda sighed, “However, we can ask Impa about it tomorrow.”
Zelda dusted off the small box, then opened it from what she figured was the “top” of it. She gathered the three to sit in a circle as she dumped the colorful cards onto the carpet floor.
“This game is called ‘Uno,’” Zelda stated, “And from what I've been able to gather, it means ‘one’ in its mother tongue.”
Dohna hummed and nodded as she looked at the cards, with Link grabbing all the green cards he can see.
“And how do we play ‘Uno?’” Dohna asked as she held up a card.
“Well, to win, you need to get your cards down to zero. But, you have to say ‘Uno!’ once you get down to one card.”
“Ahhh, that’s how you deduced that ‘uno’ means ‘one.’”
Zelda beamed with some pride at Dohan’s recognition of her reasoning. Link seemed to approve of it too, if his surprised yet determined look was anything to go by.
Zelda then explained the rest of the rules to her friends, before shuffling the deck—to marginal success—and dealing the cards with the side “Uno” etched onto them facing upwards, seven cards for the each of them. Zelda looked at the rule pamphlet that Minister Lefte had diligently translated for her, satisfied that she’d done things mostly right so far. She'd taken the role of dealer prematurely, but that shouldn't affect the actual game too much.
Zelda looked up at her friends, who were examining their cards with great interest. There were still face down, however.
Zelda got their attention, then said, “You can look at you cards now, but! You can’t let anyone see what they are underneath the ‘Uno’ side, alright?” The two muttered an agreement, and everyone took their cards.
There were no yellow cards in Zelda's hands, but she had at least had two of each other color, with an additional Wild card!
“Everyone understands what their cards do, yes?” Zelda asked. Link was squinting hard at his cards, before then grouping them all into one hand and gave Zelda a thumbs up.
“I…suppose,” Dohna murmured, “Can I take a look at the rules you have there?”
“Of course!” Zelda gave her the pamphlet, “You’ll also start first, since you're to my—the dealer's—left.”
“What joy!”
Zelda then flipped over the top card of the draw deck, with a yellow “one” card starting it off. Did Zelda have any ones, at least? No, she did not, but things could change in her favor before her turn arrived. She wanted to save her Wild card for a while longer.
“I’ll play…” Dohna slowly drew out a card from her hand, then quickly slapped it down on the discard pile. “A yellow seven. I believe it’s your turn now, Link.”
Link slid out a card and set down a green seven. Good, Zelda could save her Wild.
“A green five,” Zelda said as she placed down her card. Next, Dohna placed a green eight, then Link with red eight.
“You don’t have to change the color every time, you know,” Dohna told Link. Link looked at her with a fire in his eyes, like she had accidentally set off a kind of challenge in his mind.
A challenge he had lost on his very next turn. His sullen face was perhaps not entirely congruent with the fact that they were playing a simple card game. It seemed that, just like Zelda, he held no yellow cards in his hand. Dohna had played a yellow eight, and Zelda was forced to play her Wild.
“I chose blue!” Zelda announced. She had blue Reverse and a blue Skip card, her only non-Wild action cards in her current hand.
Dohna smirked, “Well, if you're so confident with blue, then how about you prove it!” She slammed down a blue Reverse, and Zelda had to hold back her immediate smirk.
Zelda retorted, “I’m very confident with blue,” as she then slapped down her own blue Reverse. Dohna gasped at the card unexpected to her.
Dohna glared at the card Zelda played for a moment, before placing down a blue three. Link sadly placed down a blue one, Zelda skipped Dohna's turn, and Link played yet another blue. And so, the game went on in silence, with no more actions cards being played for a while.
The Uno game was going well, for everyone but Zelda, having somehow reached ten cards now. Her luck with games during this sleepover wasn't going that well, even if she played as smartly as she could. Honestly, it was a bit frustrating. But it was still fun, and her friends were having fun, so it was all worth it. A little frustration was all worth it if everyone ended up happy in the end.
“Uno!” Dohna shouted, triumphantly holding up her final card. Link had three more cards, and Zelda was nowhere near winning.
Link gave Zelda a look of regret, before he played a red skip. Zelda gasped at the betrayal, but a smile still tugged at her lips. Mainly because even if she was feeling not the greatest during this game, Link being so dramatic over it definitely elevated her mood.
But now, the fate of the game was held within Dohna’s fingers. If she had a red or a Wild card, then she would win the game.
Dohna looked at the card in the pile, then at her, and back again. After a few seconds of debate than kept both Link and Zelda on edge, Dohna sighed, and drew a card.
Link placed down another red card, leaving two left in his hand. Zelda thought hard about what possible cards he could have in his hand, and what cards Dohna could have. Zelda still didn’t have a yellow, but she did have a card she pulled earlier that she kept for later use…a Wild Draw Four. The first one to be played this game.
It would be risky to play it now, especially if she was called out on having a playable card in her hand. But, the others could possibly not remember that they could call her out on that. Although, they could also question her on why she didn’t play it earlier…
Time was of the essence, and if she spent too much time thinking, that could spell trouble for her. She had to make her decision.
“Draw four, Dohna!” Zelda played the card and awaited her friend's response. Her friend gasped sharply, appearing offended—which did make Zelda feel bad—but she didn't challenge the card, drawing the four cards she was cursed with.
“I can’t believe you would do this to me,” Dohna huffed as she drew, “Now Link’s going to win! No offense, of course.” Link gave her a nod, before turning his gaze to Zelda.
“…Oh! Right!” Zelda snapped her fingers, “The color is green, your color, Link!”
Link confidently placed down his next card, a green nine; he had a smug smile on his face as he held up his final card.
The issue of what card to play next bore heavy on Zelda's mind. She knew for a fact that Link didn’t have a yellow, but neither did she. Hopefully, Dohna had that in mind as she played her card, but Zelda? What should she do for this turn…
Dohna then suddenly spoke up, getting Zelda out of her own head.
“Aren’t you supposed to say ‘Uno’ once you have one card?” She questioned, “And I believe that the penalty for not doing that is to draw two cards, no?”
Link looked shocked, and pointed over at the rule pamphlet, that was still at Dohna’s side. She gladly gave it over to him, and Link stuck his nose right in it.
“Well,” Zelda said, “That's correct, but we don’t have to play by those—” Link held up a hand, stopping her. He sat up and gave the rules back to Dohna.
“Next time,” Link told the two, voice scratchy as he spoke. He grabbed two cards, and now Zelda was a bit less worried about the game ending so soon.
The game went on, and Zelda was slowly chipping away at her cards, and gaining more info on what her fellow players don’t have. For one, Dohna definitely doesn’t have a red. Even with the with the four cards Zelda made her draw, only two of them seemed to be reds; one of those reds was also a Skip card, so only one more red Skip was in play.
Link could have some yellows in his hand now, but he ran out of blues already. Zelda had at least one of each color—except for the titular yellow, of course.
And then, at last! Zelda got down to a singular card.
“Uno!” She cheered. Then, her gaze shifted towards Dohna, who held two cards in her hand. With a smirk, she placed down one of her own cards.
“Uno,” Dohna said.
Sweat was pouring down Zelda's face. If she didn’t win, then Dohna would. Not like that would be a bad thing, Zelda had to remind herself, but she felt a competitive urge to win.
It was rather late in the night, with only a few lamps scattered about, barely setting the room alight. Perhaps that aided in the tension. Or perhaps she was simply tired from the time and all of the activity beforehand.
Link set down a green six, and all Zelda could feel was dread. With the best poker face her sorry state could manage, she looked down at her hand.
A blue one.
She drew a card with a shaking hand, gaining a yellow card at last. She only looked at Dohna after calming down as much as she could in the span of two seconds. Zelda had to remind herself that this was just a silly little card game; a silly little card game, and nothing more.
Dohna had to draw a card herself, and Zelda nearly cheered.
A quiet, soft voice sounded out, “Uno.”
Link had set down a green Skip, and Zelda felt ill. Which was stupid, she reminded herself, but the reminders didn't help to change her mood.
“Uno,” Dohna said as calmly placed down her card with the most serious expression Zelda had seen her have all night. A blue Skip.
Zelda had a choice to make. She always had a choice to make. She could play her blue card, or her yellow card. Her yellow Skip.
She had to deduce the cards her opponents had, and quickly. Dohna played a blue Skip, what was the chances of her having another blue? And Link, he also had poor luck in gaining yellow cards, but what if gained a yellow earlier, like Zelda had?
The yellow Skip was the safest bet, to her, but even if she survived to the next round, could she even win?
Somehow, that realization that her chances of winning were rather slim, helped lifted a weight off her chest. She became one with the world, and knew only one purpose—to have as much fun as she could. This, and her friends’ enjoyment, was all she needed for the perfect sleepover. How blind she had been before…
“Zelda?” Dohna called out her name, taking Zelda out of her enlightenment.
Zelda blinked a few times, then a small grin reached her face.
“Sorry Dohna!” Zelda giggled, “Uno!” She flung her yellow Skip down towards the discard pile, the card barely landing on it. She quickly fixed the pile so that all the cards were aligned with each other. It had been bothering her before, but now she had to fix it.
Dohna had pouted at Zelda’s play, and after Zelda had fixed the cards, the two girls looked over at what Link would do next.
Link drew a card. He played it and…!
It was a Wild card. A Wild! If Link called out “blue,” than Zelda could win this! She could actually win this!
Zelda gave Link the most pleading eyes she could muster, hoping, praying that Link would somehow understand the exact color she needed.
“The rules state that any card-play suggestions to other players causes the suggester the draw two cards,” Dohna stated plainly, a faint smile on her face.
“I’m not saying anything!” Zelda retorted, “Link can do whatever he wants!”
Link nodded, then said, “Green.”
Zelda almost swore. She grumpily drew a card instead. Yeah, she was losing, one hundred percent she was.
“Time to win, Dohna,” Zelda nearly sighed out.
Dohna laughed. “It appears so, huh?” She played her final card…a Wild Draw Four.
“I’ll say that color’s red, now,” Dohna announced, even though she already won—choosing a color Zelda did not have. “Lets see which of you wins between you both!”
Link drew four cards, and he still ended up winning against Zelda, in the end.
“How did I lose so badly?” Zelda questioned to herself, “Did I use up all my luck on my adventure?”
“Maybe!” Dohna laughed, “Maybe not. But I had fun, but that might be because I had all the luck tonight.”
“Hogged it,” Link stated. Zelda laughed, it did seem that Dohna hogged all the gaming luck tonight. Well, for at least a few of the games, at least.
“I had fun too!” Zelda cheered, “I think this was a great sleepover too!”
Link corrected her, “Perfect,” he said in an even more scratchy voice than earlier.
“It seems like someone should go to his voice therapy lessons, hm?” Dohna pointedly stared at Link, who looked at her directly in the eyes and shrugged. Zelda giggled again.
“But yes, it was—” Dohna yawned, “—the perfect sleepover.”
Zelda yawned as well. “And now,” she told her friends, “it’s time for the sleeping part of the sleepover!”
They all cheered, sleepily, sending each other into a fit of giggles. Zelda got out the sleeping bags for the three of them—her cat was to keep her bed warm—and they all got into the bags, drifting off to sleep.
A perfect sleepover indeed.