"Hi, I'm ZeldaElmo! I'm known for playful Zelink stories, but I have a knack for gut-punching last lines, too. You'll find stories for nearly all LoZ games on my Ao3!"
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To have a choice
"Would you have chosen a different path?"
Zelda finds the answer that Link gives rather depressing, but sometimes life deals second chances when you expect it the last.
One Stitch at a Time
Zelda is taking over the fabric store from her mother and struggles to balance traditions, new ideas, and financial problems. The last thing she needs in her sewing class is a guy who disagrees with her every word and threatens to ruin her favorite time of the year: Christmas.
The Promise (Rated Explicit)
An old promise forces Link into a betrothal with Zelda, the daughter of his father's friend and the center of Castle Town's rumors. At the end of the winter solstice ball, however, he makes his own, rushed promise to her. He soon discovers she might be worth holding it no matter the trouble that seems to follow them like a shadow.
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When you get a new fic idea, what does that look like in your mind? Does it play out like a film? Do you imagine lines of dialogue or a certain moment? Does a character just sit there staring at you?
(stell dir hier das gif von Leo, der dich über die Überwachungskamera in HdS anstarrt, vor. Hab's auf Tumblr nicht gefunden)
Hey und danke dir! 😊
Meistens ist es tatsächlich eine spezifische Szene, ein Dialog, eine Situation, die ich gern schreiben möchte, z.B. ein "stell dir mal vor, in der Kiste wäre kein Geld gewesen, sondern Diddl-Papier", und dann beginnt das Rumhirnen, wie dieses Szenario denn zustande kommen könnte und was es für den weiteren Verlauf bedeuten würde.
Manchmal beginne ich aber auch, im Affekt zu schreiben und mein Herz in Fic-Form auszuschütten, gerade, wenn das irl nicht geht.
My contribution to @zelinktines Day 3: The Bet!
Summary: Zelda and Link make a friendly Valentine's Day wager. Link has to bake (he's never baked before) and Zelda has to cook (she can't cook to save her life) Fluff ensues!
For @zeldaelmo for putting up with a month of me DMing her pictures of my attempts at baking her Loftwing Nest Rolls recipe from Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast, Love, and all her patient advice along the way. This fic is inspired by and based on the true story of my struggles. Also for @haste-waste, another fellow baking aficionado and foodie whose recipes are next on the docket to master. And finally, @summonerluna, who’s also shared several recipes and a great many tangential interests with me.
What better thing to do with your friends when you’re snowed-in than stoke the woodstove, read some zelink, cook, bake, and plan next year’s garden? Please consider this a combined Loftwing Letter and Zelinktine to the three of you! 😘 (Because the 1500 word limit wasn't gonna be enough)
I also need to thank the lovely @sparklyhyperbole for letting me Shanghai her into being my beta. She's a wonderful writing coach and source of motivation and morale and just an all-around amazing voice of encouragement (read: She stood behind me with a cattle prod and egged me on 😉😆).
Thank you so much for helping this turn out as well as it did and for making writing so much fun! 🥰
💧Share something romantic/hot from your WIP, or just something sweet if it's gen.
Most of the romantic moments from the current WIPs are also sad!
This is kind of long but it's cute and kind of romantic and is ALMOST hot. Post botw, pre-relationship.
He is…beautiful. Afternoon sun shining bright on his bare shoulders, his hair down and whipping across his face in the wind. His scars on display, and this time she thinks of them not with guilt, but with pride. He fought to his last breath for her, to be sure, but it was never just for her. He fought, in the same way that she did. For Hyrule. For a future. And he came back and fought again, despite having so few memories of what he was even fighting for.
She remembers a time, not long after they finally started to get to know each other. Her first visit to Spring of Courage–to any prayer spring for that matter, once she stopped seeing him as a mockery of her failure, and started to see him as perhaps the only other person in Hyrule who might actually understand the desperation she felt. They left the spring, and she wanted to take advantage of their location to see some of the shrines in Faron; it was so far away from anywhere else she had reason to go, and she figured it may be her only opportunity. Link did not argue–out of duty, or because he didn’t want to risk their tenuous friendship, she wasn’t sure, and a day later they found themselves at Lakeside Stable.
It stormed, while they were there. Not uncommon for that area, but this storm was particularly vicious, and while they were waiting it out a woman ran in, wailing that her child had run across the bridge ahead of her but never made it to the other side.
Link was on his feet immediately, and he looked to her–to her, silently asking permission to go help, and she stood as well. Told him to please, please be careful, and watched him disappear into the booming thunder and violent sheets of rain.
The storm raged. The woman, the mother, cried, and the stablehands offered comfort. Zelda knows she paid the owners an extreme sum of money so everyone present could have warm food, tea, and dry blankets, but she couldn’t say how much; all she could do was stand at the edge, rain splashing from the ground onto her boots, eyes never leaving the path her knight–her friend–had taken.
And then–a shadow, moving through the pouring rain. A figure–two figures–emerging. Link, carrying a child no bigger than Prince Sidon, and the boy’s mother tearing past to take her son into her arms. Link, raising his hand to the back of his neck in a gesture Zelda had come to recognize, as the woman pulled him into a fierce hug.
And Link, approaching the stable. Hair down and stuck to his face. Mud spattered from his knees to his forehead. She half ran through the rain to greet him, to make sure he was okay, and he gave her that same sheepish smile.
She is pretty sure that’s the moment she started to fall in love with him.
He doesn’t look sheepish, now. He looks comfortable. Calm. He is at home here, in the glow of the ocean, and she is more certain than ever, it is not his skill with a blade or speed with a bow that makes him a hero. It’s the awkward boy who would risk his life for a stranger, the same way he would for a princess. He is who the sword cried out for her to save.
“I…” she starts to say. She should have kissed him. That day in Faron, everyone in the stable watching be damned. The countless times he held her, while she cried in a spring, or woke from a nightmare. That day in the woods, as they ran from her burning home… He takes another step closer to her and she starts to lean in, just in time for another wave to crash into them, knocking both of them off balance and into the water.
Give me the shittiest soulmate scenario you can come up with but with a happy ending for zelink, please. 😆
hi zelmo!!!! happy birthday!!!!! i decided to go ahead and write your request (finally...) since its ur special day!!! when u said soulmate scenario i immediately thought of those tiktok povs so i tried to write something silly. I hope you enjoy!
For some reason, allergy-less Zelda found herself sneezing quite a lot during the spring. She knew she didn’t have allergies; when the problem first presented itself when she was a child, her father had her checked by the royal physician right away.
“No allergies.”
“That can’t be true,” her father, the king, argued.
“She may just be a sneezy kid. Children are not all that hygienic, you know. Princess Zelda will grow out of it.”
She remembered something else about sneezes, too, something from a long time ago when she was still a small child. She was sitting on her mother’s lap, rocking back and forth while being read a bedtime story when she had a sudden sneezing fit.
“You know, little bird,” her mother began gently as she closed the book, “I’ve heard a saying that when your soulmate sneezes, you sneeze too.”
“Does that mean it’s my soulmate's fault and not mine?” Zelda managed between achoos!
Her mother said nothing but only chuckled.
Zelda never did grow out of her sneezing, but she persisted anyway. Her determination to study the wildlife of Hyrule, including the flora and fauna that thrived only in the spring and summer seasons, overrode her debilitating sneezing. It was truly a shame that the most tolerable times of the year for her were fall and winter, when everything began to wither and die and her favorite flower, the Silent Princess, went away until the first melt.
On this particular spring day, the sneezing was pretty awful, but she insisted she venture out into the field anyway to study some of the Silent Princesses. She was determined to unlock the secrets of the soil, sunlight, and environment that helped them thrive so well. Every Silent Princess she had ever taken to her study had died within the night. Because of her insistence, her personal knight Link was forced to go with her as well.
“I won’t force you to eat a frog this time, I promise.”
He only smiled uneasily. It wasn’t the frogs he was worried about.
Link had what was possibly the most vicious and violent pollen allergy in all of Hyrule. When spring rolled around, he figured it might as well be over for him. Despite his great amount of outdoor duties, he did his best to stay inside, away from the flowers and the grass and all the budding greens that emitted pollen that could invade his system. Once he sneezed, he wouldn’t stop for a long while. It had gotten him in trouble during training one too many times.
But duty called, and he went out into the spring field with Zelda, that spring field teeming with malicious flowers and fatal pollen and the evil bees that spread it. When the princess told him the goal was to study some Silent Princesses, he would have fainted had he not been a disciplined warrior.
Zelda did notice his relentless sniffling from the back of her own horse, the way his grips on his reins tightened every now and then and his face contorted into something grotesque every few moments.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Fine,” he choked.
She shrugged and onward they went, deeper into Hyrule Field, before stopping at a single Silent Princess Zelda had spotted. Link stayed atop his horse, wary, fighting his inner mechanisms while the princess dismounted and cheerfully knelt near the flower. He admired her in a lot of ways, but mainly her capacity to appear unaffected by the pollen wafting into her nose as she examined the flower.
“Come down here, Link,” she beckoned, voice as light as a feather and full of wonder. “This one’s rare. The colors are switched around–how peculiar.”
“I think I will stay up here,” he said. “Better view.”
She groaned, shot up, and tugged on his sleeve to get him off his horse. He stumbled down and then he was on his knees next to the flower with her, noses nearly pressed to the petals.
ACHOO!
“Ugh, I’m sorry–” But Link was quickly cut off by– ACHOO!
And now she was sneezing too, and back and forth they went, practically taking turns, trading sneezes, until they finally mounted their horses and swiftly rode away from the field. Link felt less bad about sneezing now and let the occasional one out, to which Zelda would respond similarly into her sleeve.
Link wasted no time when they returned to the castle, apologizing profusely and interrupting with another apology anytime Zelda tried to speak. He put the horses in the stable and made sure Zelda had everything she needed before he sprinted away from her, still sneezing, into the barracks.
As she watched him take refuge in one of the castle structures, sneezing and coughing and covering his mouth with his arm, she remembered what her mother said as a small smile graced her face.
After falling off the map for a while, here's a drawing I did for @zeldaelmo's ZeLink Advent calendar fic! This is for day 15 (tomorrow), It May be Winter Outside (But in my Heart it’s Spring). Y'all should totally check it out when it comes out tomorrow because HOLY SMOKES IT'S ADORABLE 💜💜💜💜
HOLY CRAP I wrote something! For a prompt that was posted in August! But @zeldaelmo did say there was no deadline so, yanno, I made it eventually. Thank you for the prompt, Zelmo! This was super fun to do.
Anyways, please enjoy some domestic Zelink post BOTW fluff.
Memories After Midnight
Read it here or on ao3! (Gen, domestic fluff in Hateno, established relationship)
A storm was raging fiercely overhead, thunder and lightning echoing through the hills. Link had repeatedly assured Zelda that Hateno was used to such storms, that the warm summers on the coast often brought whipping winds and lashing rain. But even now, months after the Calamity’s defeat, the roar of thunder still gave her shivers.
Link had built up a small fire, and was busying himself making a pot of warm safflina tea while Zelda curled up on the floor cushions by the fireplace. He hummed to himself as he sprinkled a pinch of a Gerudo spice mix into the tea. Zelda smiled. He never used to sing, in the before times. Link had such a lovely voice; it was such a precious gift to be able to hear it every day.
She sat up as he walked over to her, two steaming mugs in hand. “Thank you, my love.” She smiled as he handed her a hand-made mug glazed with a deep blue lacquer. He had acquired a stunning variety of new skills in the time since waking up in the Shrine of Resurrection two years ago - throwing pottery, woodworking, sewing, among others. Every month it seemed she discovered something else that he’d made for the house they shared.
He sat down next to her, crossing his legs and draping an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into this familiar gesture of comfort. One of the many luxuries she was now content to freely indulge in.
“I never used to be scared of thunderstorms. But every clap of thunder just sounds too much like the roar of the Calamity...” A shiver ran down her spine, and Link pulled her in closer, tucking her more deeply into her blanket cocoon.
“You know, I often wonder if this is how Lion must have felt,” she mused.
“Lion?” Link’s brow furrowed. “Do you mean a lynel?”
“No, Lion. He was... your dog. Your family’s dog. Before...”
Link froze. “Oh.”
Zelda silently cursed herself. This was not the first time she had done this, accidentally stumbled over a painful reminder that everything from Link’s life before had been ripped away—the only exceptions being the scant few memories she had been able to leave with the Sheikah slate. They had both lost everything, but at least she still had memories of life before. Every time she’d done this before, they had both immediately dropped the line of conversation. But tonight, something shifted.
His voice was small, and so soft she could barely hear it over the lashing rain. “Can you tell me more about him?”
Her heart ached, but she blinked back her tears and swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “Of course. You told me about him on a night like this one, while we were camping out during a sudden downburst. He was golden brown and very friendly and absolutely terrified of thunderstorms. When you were a little boy, he would come running to you and curl up under your bed every time a storm rolled through.”
“Okay,” he said, his voice somehow even smaller than before. “Was there... Do you know anything else?”
“Link, we don’t have to talk about this if you don’t–”
He cut her off. “I want to.” Her mouth snapped shut.
“...Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I... I don’t know a lot about Lion. You only mentioned him a few times, but you would often come back from a visit home absolutely covered in dog hair. I remember Captain Rusl reprimanding you about it once. That was before we were friends.” She remembered laughing about it with her maids, mocking one of his few moments of carelessness. She regretted that, now.
“Hmm,.” he muttered, his eyes closed, safflina tea long forgotten on the table beside him.
“You told me he was big and friendly, and he would play with the children in your village.”
“Where was my village?” he whispered.
Zelda froze, steeling herself for what must come. “Deya.”
He nodded. “I... I had a feeling that might be it. There was something about it that hurt more than the other ruins.”
“Link, I’m so sorry...”
He slumped down to the floor, head falling into her lap as he stared into the fire. “Tell me about my family?”
She paused, stroking his hair and trying to dig up those little details that slipped out on long days in the saddle.
“Well... Your mother was named Gineve. She was a wonderful cook, used to make a freshwater fish fillet that you complained you could never get quite right when you tried to make it yourself. I think she learned it from the Zora, but put her own twist on it. You fed me several of your attempts at recreating it while we were on the road. I never got a chance to see your house, but you told me it was small. The other guards told me that when you got your own quarters after becoming my knight attendant, you were uncomfortable with the amount of space you had all to yourself. You shared a room with your parents and your little sister, Malia. She had just turned 10, before...”
She paused. Before the Calamity. Link had been frustrated that he wasn’t granted leave to go home for her birthday, but given its proximity to Zelda’s 17th birthday and the looming threat of the Calamity, the generals had determined that it would be “an inappropriate breach of responsibilities” for him to take leave at that time.
She couldn’t tell him that. Already she could hear him softly weeping.
“Do you want me to keep going?” she murmured, resting her hand on his shoulder.
A slight nod.
“Okay.” She took another deep breath, dredging up every possible detail she could. “Your father, Tonu, was a knight in my father’s service. Competent, but not high ranking. He was so proud when you drew the sword. I think he didn’t realize how much pressure he put you under, but he loved you so much and wanted only the best for you. I do know that he was particularly impressed with the pay raise you got when you entered my personal service.”
That got a laugh, though one that was admittedly quite damp.
“Every time you travelled, you would bring back something for Malia. I only met her once, at the ceremony for the champions we had at the palace. She was a squirmy little one, hair just like yours, but a little bit curlier. I had thought that she was going to try and run up to you in the middle of the ceremony. She wouldn’t stop fidgeting in her seat, I think it drove your mother to near distraction.”
Zelda smiled to herself as she recalled the story. She remembered Malia quite well, having been fixated on this fidgety blonde girl, half hoping she would disrupt the entire melancholy affair. She herself had done her best to disappear as soon as the ceremony was over, only rejoining the champions in the courtyard much later.
She shook herself out of that reverie. This was for Link, not her own musings.
“Whether it was Goron City or Gerudo Town, you always had something for her. A pressed flower, an interesting rock, a little toy from Rito Village. You always made sure to send something home, wherever we were.”
“I think...” Link started, pausing to take a few shuddering breaths. “I think I remember that. Being at the Rito general store, seeing a colourful little pinwheel, and thinking ‘this would be perfect for her.’ I couldn’t remember who ‘she’ was.”
“That must have been it.” Zelda said. “I remember you trying to figure out how to package it so it wouldn’t get squished in the post.”
Link was still gazing into the fire, but even from this angle, Zelda could tell his eyes had the glassy stare of a memory washing over him.
“My father died,” he said simply. “Before... before it all happened.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“...Yiga?” he asked, waiting for her confirmation.
“Yes,” she said, shivering. “It was the closest attempt they made on us after the desert. It happened while we were on our way to the Spring of Courage. Your father was in the scouting party that discovered their ambush...” she trailed off. Link looked glassy again.
“Funeral,” he murmured. “You held my hand, covered it with your sleeve so people wouldn’t see.”
Zelda almost laughed. She had been so afraid that someone might see them, but Link had looked so wretched. He needed some comfort, even if back then he couldn’t possibly have admitted it.
That was only three months before the Calamity struck. How small any other fears seemed in retrospect.
She reached down, lacing her fingers in between his own. “I’ll keep holding on to you.”
He brought their clasped hands up to his lips, pressing the softest kiss onto her knuckles. “Thanks, Zel.”
She didn’t sleep that night. Link was always exhausted after any memory overtook him, and he had nodded off in her lap not long after their conversation. She had gently lifted him out of her lap, shrugging off the blanket that had been around her shoulders and draping it over him.
She carefully started rummaging around in her desk, looking for... there it was! The sketch paper she had bought for making field notes and drawings. She knew she couldn’t rest until she finished this. He lost his memories in service to her. It was the least she could do to hold on to everything she could, to give back everything she still had.
Her hands trembled as she sketched under the weak candle light of the dining room table and occasional flashes of lightning. She was far more used to drawing interesting insects, curious mushrooms, and technical diagrams. This was a true test of her skills, and she cursed under her breath every time her charcoal went awry. She sketched and sketched, until her eyes blurred and the candle burned all the way down.
...........................
Link woke early the next morning, the sun just starting to peek through the shuttered windows. He stretched, turning to see Zelda slumped over, asleep on the dining room table. He smiled to himself. It was hardly the first time she had fallen asleep while going over field notes, or working on some project or other. He walked over to the kitchen to start boiling the kettle. She always appreciated some electric safflina tea to get her going after a long night of work.
He came back over to the dining room table, wondering what work she could possibly have been doing last night during the thunderstorm. She had a small pile of crumpled papers around her, evidence of what was undoubtedly a frustrating project. He leaned over to see what she had been working on.
He froze. There, outlined in rough charcoal, slightly smudged from where her face was resting on the page, was a sketch. A man in the uniform of the royal guard, sporting a mustache that couldn’t conceal a mischievous smile and a twinkle in his eye. A serious looking woman, strong from years of farm work, holding a little girl on her hip. The girl had curly hair valiantly held back by a couple of ribbons. She was holding a pinwheel in one hand, the other wrapped around her mother’s shoulders. And at their feet, a big dog with shaggy, mottled fur.
Link sniffled and wiped his eyes, suddenly aware that he was crying. Zelda, always a light sleeper since the Calamity’s defeat, startled awake at the sound.
“Link!” she yelped. “What time is it? Are you okay? What..?” She blinked the sleep from her eyes, focusing on what was in front of her. “Oh Link, I... I’m sorry, it’s not very good, I just -”
He cut her off with a kiss, and she melted into him.
“Zelda,” he whispered. “Thank you.”
She looked at him, green eyes full of grief and love that he knew all too well.
“The least I can do is try to give them back to you.”
Thank you @ladyhoneydee and @alucanid for betaing. Genuinely the fact that y'all jumped into this story for me after not having written anything for MONTHS means so much :') Also, if you love one shots, Dee is currently doing a month-long daily fic challenge and it's DELIGHTFUL.
