Hi! This one shot is set almost immediately after the events of Portal 2 when Wheatley is reflecting on everything that happened. Wheatley is the narrator here.
To clarify, whenever I refer to GLaDOS I say She or Her since in the game she isnât really referred to by name.
Secondly, I decided to refer to Chell as âLadyâ since Wheatley usually calls her that. He doesnât know her name, considering she doesnât speak, and I thought it would be confusing if I referred to Chell as just âsheâ or âherâ like GLaDOS.
This was partially inspired by @shrimperiniâs Chassis comic, where Chell is reflecting on the events of Portal 2. Itâs really good you can read it here: https://www.tumblr.com/shrimperini/797588132972396545?source=share
Enjoy the one shot!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Arghhh! Why didnât she grab me? I mean, she couldâve. Sheâs always had that good olâ grip. But oh, of course it had to fail now at all timesâŠ
âŠI-I didnât think it would end like this.
You know, when I found her, I had expected her to die like the rest. I honestly did.
It wasnât like I had wanted her to die, no no no, far from it actuallyâ but the other 5 did. The conditions there are too harsh for those smelly humans.
Itâs so strange. One minute they seem unstoppable, but if you hit them in just the right spot, they either shut oïŹ entirely or work significantly slower. Sometimes they canât even move, itâs mad!
But back to the point, originally, all I wanted to do was escape. To leave that bloody place, yup. That was my goal. And she seemed to have the same. Er, goal, I mean.
She wasnât much of a talker. Probably due to the massive brain damage she had. Would barely even give me a nod, that one. Always focused on the goal in front of her.
She was diïŹerent than the other humans. No matter how bleak it got, she just kept going. And she refused to die as well. No matter what was thrown at her, she always found an way out.
I came to grow a liking to her of some sorts. I tried to help the best I can. Hacking all the doors and the passwords, acting as her guide around the place, Iâd say I had a pretty important job if I do say so myself.
But then, everything changed in that fateful moment.
Once I was plugged into Her mainframe, I felt incredible! Hugeâmassive, even! Like here I was a mere second ago, relying on Lady to plug me into things, bring me here or there, and to not drop meâ big responsibility there, not dropping meâ and now I was in charge of the entire facility! It was amazing, Iâll tell you that.
I could even speak in other languages! I was a genius! Iâm not entirely sure what I was saying, or even what language I was speakingâLatin, maybe? Not sure. But Iâm sure it was bloody impressive.
I hadnât originally thought of betraying herâI didnât, promise! It-itâs just, each time I did somethingâI felt so good. Like-like power had just walked on up to me and been like, âHey, there mate. Pleased to meet you. I think we could be good friends, you and I.â And I accepted.
I mean, who wouldnât? When Lady went inside the elevator, IâŠstarted getting these thoughts in my brain, thoughts like, âBlimey, she just wants to leave doesnât she? Thatâs it. No âcongratsâ or anything. Just⊠gone.â I mean, I had just gotten plugged into the bloody thing, why did we have to go already? I wanted to enjoy it just a little longer.
Thatâs when it clicked. We didnât have to. I mean, She was lying there, motionless, helpless, and I was in control. She couldnât kill us. And it wasnât like I wanted to either, at the time.
All I wanted to do was stay longer. Itâs not rocket science! Just give me a little more time to bask in my new power. I mean, honestly, is that so much to ask?
And then of course, She couldnât keep Her little mouth shut. Said I didnât do anything. The audacity. I mean, Lady mightâve not even gotten there without me.
After She said that, I started to get all these thoughts in my head, saying things like, âLady and Her mustâve been planning to betray you all along,â and âLady doesnât even care. She didnât try to catch you when you fell from your rail. You couldâve died and she didnât care. You should make her regret that,â or âHm, Ladyâs trying to take all the credit, eh? Bossing you around everywhere. But youâre the boss now. You control everything.â
And I listened to it. After I smashed the elevator downâ which I hadnât really meant to doâ I suddenly got this⊠this Itch to test. With Lady gone and all the other humans dead I really didnât have anything to test with, so I decided thatâ brilliant ideaâ letâs go ahead and combine a turret with a cube! They can walk on over to the buttons, and push them. They didnât workâunfortunatelyâbut then, Lady came back. With Her as well, but She was a potato now at least.
So I put them through tests, and ohhhh man alive, it felt good. It was like every time Lady solved a test, I got thisâ this happy codeâ and I wanted more and more of this happy code, so I kept testing her. But then it stopped coming. And I was like âNo, I need more happy code.â But regardless of what I did nothing worked.
That was when I found the Cooperative Testing Initiative. Two little robots specifically designed to test! If anyone could get me that happy code I wanted so much, surely it was them right?
As for Lady, I didnât have a need for her anymore.
Exceptâ maybe if I killed her, that would give me even more of the happy code. After all, She seemed to enjoy it, so why couldnât I?
I can say that that was probably the worstâ and I mean the WORST idea I had ever had.
I mean, I tried. I used Mashy-Spike-Plates, Spinny-Blade-Walls, and even The Part Where I Kill Her! But it never worked.
She was so resilient, it annoyed me to pieces.
Eventually, she made it back into my lair. I had a brilliant 4 part plan to destroy her, but it didnât work. In hindsight, it was probably because of the bombs. Very possible. Gave her the means to destroy me, hahahâŠ
ButâŠactually, now that I think of itâif Iâm being honest, Iâm sort ofâŠGLaD I did. Use the bombs, I mean.
Donât get me wrong, before it was bloody annoying that she kept using them against me. I was trying to destroy her after all.
I even booby trapped the Stalemate Button. Genius, if I do say so myself. Howâs that for a core who âwas designed to be a moronâ? Hm? Andâhereâs the best partâgot her. My plan had worked, it was brilliant! Except for the fact that she didnât die. That was aâŠmildly frustrating, to say the least.
But when she pulled that moon stunt, it was suddenly just me and her. I yelled and yelled, trying to get her to let go of me so I could pull myself back inâ I mean, I was still connected! Iâm sure I couldâve fixed it! But then She just had to knock me out of Ladyâs grasp.
My demands had begun to turn into pleas as that mechanical arm came closer and closer to me. Funnily enough, all of those ill thoughts I had towards Lady had begun toâŠstop. They just leftâthough that mightâve been due to the fact that they werenât exactly my highest priority at that time.
Finally, in those last few moments I saw her, I didnât see an enemy that I hated anymore.
I saw the face of a friend I had betrayed.
MmâŠyou knowâŠ
I wish I could take it all back. I honestly do. I honestly do wish I could take it all back.
And not just because Iâm stranded in space.
Anyway, you know, if I were to ever see her again, do you know what Iâd say? Iâd say âIâm sorry.â Sincerely. I am sorry. I was bossy, and monstrous, and I am genuinely sorry.
Hello! A while back I wrote this one-shot. Basically, the idea is that this happened immediately after Chell let go of Wheatley in space, and this is him reflecting on the events of the game (so this is basically happening while Chell is knocked out/talking with GLaDOS, etc.) but before the post credits scene where he apologizes.
Iâm still kinda new at this, so if you have feedback I would love it! :)
Hi! This one shot is set almost immediately after the events of Portal 2 when Wheatley is reflecting on everything that happened. Wheatley is the narrator here.
To clarify, whenever I refer to GLaDOS I say She or Her since in the game she isnât really referred to by name.
Secondly, I decided to refer to Chell as âLadyâ since Wheatley usually calls her that. He doesnât know her name, considering she doesnât speak, and I thought it would be confusing if I referred to Chell as just âsheâ or âherâ like GLaDOS.
This was partially inspired by @shrimperiniâs Chassis comic, where Chell is reflecting on the events of Portal 2. Itâs really good you can read it here: https://www.tumblr.com/shrimperini/797588132972396545?source=share
Enjoy the one shot!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Arghhh! Why didnât she grab me? I mean, she couldâve. Sheâs always had that good olâ grip. But oh, of course it had to fail now at all timesâŠ
âŠI-I didnât think it would end like this.
You know, when I found her, I had expected her to die like the rest. I honestly did.
It wasnât like I had wanted her to die, no no no, far from it actuallyâ but the other 5 did. The conditions there are too harsh for those smelly humans.
Itâs so strange. One minute they seem unstoppable, but if you hit them in just the right spot, they either shut oïŹ entirely or work significantly slower. Sometimes they canât even move, itâs mad!
But back to the point, originally, all I wanted to do was escape. To leave that bloody place, yup. That was my goal. And she seemed to have the same. Er, goal, I mean.
She wasnât much of a talker. Probably due to the massive brain damage she had. Would barely even give me a nod, that one. Always focused on the goal in front of her.
She was diïŹerent than the other humans. No matter how bleak it got, she just kept going. And she refused to die as well. No matter what was thrown at her, she always found an way out.
I came to grow a liking to her of some sorts. I tried to help the best I can. Hacking all the doors and the passwords, acting as her guide around the place, Iâd say I had a pretty important job if I do say so myself.
But then, everything changed in that fateful moment.
Once I was plugged into Her mainframe, I felt incredible! Hugeâmassive, even! Like here I was a mere second ago, relying on Lady to plug me into things, bring me here or there, and to not drop meâ big responsibility there, not dropping meâ and now I was in charge of the entire facility! It was amazing, Iâll tell you that.
I could even speak in other languages! I was a genius! Iâm not entirely sure what I was saying, or even what language I was speakingâLatin, maybe? Not sure. But Iâm sure it was bloody impressive.
I hadnât originally thought of betraying herâI didnât, promise! It-itâs just, each time I did somethingâI felt so good. Like-like power had just walked on up to me and been like, âHey, there mate. Pleased to meet you. I think we could be good friends, you and I.â And I accepted.
I mean, who wouldnât? When Lady went inside the elevator, IâŠstarted getting these thoughts in my brain, thoughts like, âBlimey, she just wants to leave doesnât she? Thatâs it. No âcongratsâ or anything. Just⊠gone.â I mean, I had just gotten plugged into the bloody thing, why did we have to go already? I wanted to enjoy it just a little longer.
Thatâs when it clicked. We didnât have to. I mean, She was lying there, motionless, helpless, and I was in control. She couldnât kill us. And it wasnât like I wanted to either, at the time.
All I wanted to do was stay longer. Itâs not rocket science! Just give me a little more time to bask in my new power. I mean, honestly, is that so much to ask?
And then of course, She couldnât keep Her little mouth shut. Said I didnât do anything. The audacity. I mean, Lady mightâve not even gotten there without me.
After She said that, I started to get all these thoughts in my head, saying things like, âLady and Her mustâve been planning to betray you all along,â and âLady doesnât even care. She didnât try to catch you when you fell from your rail. You couldâve died and she didnât care. You should make her regret that,â or âHm, Ladyâs trying to take all the credit, eh? Bossing you around everywhere. But youâre the boss now. You control everything.â
And I listened to it. After I smashed the elevator downâ which I hadnât really meant to doâ I suddenly got this⊠this Itch to test. With Lady gone and all the other humans dead I really didnât have anything to test with, so I decided thatâ brilliant ideaâ letâs go ahead and combine a turret with a cube! They can walk on over to the buttons, and push them. They didnât workâunfortunatelyâbut then, Lady came back. With Her as well, but She was a potato now at least.
So I put them through tests, and ohhhh man alive, it felt good. It was like every time Lady solved a test, I got thisâ this happy codeâ and I wanted more and more of this happy code, so I kept testing her. But then it stopped coming. And I was like âNo, I need more happy code.â But regardless of what I did nothing worked.
That was when I found the Cooperative Testing Initiative. Two little robots specifically designed to test! If anyone could get me that happy code I wanted so much, surely it was them right?
As for Lady, I didnât have a need for her anymore.
Exceptâ maybe if I killed her, that would give me even more of the happy code. After all, She seemed to enjoy it, so why couldnât I?
I can say that that was probably the worstâ and I mean the WORST idea I had ever had.
I mean, I tried. I used Mashy-Spike-Plates, Spinny-Blade-Walls, and even The Part Where I Kill Her! But it never worked.
She was so resilient, it annoyed me to pieces.
Eventually, she made it back into my lair. I had a brilliant 4 part plan to destroy her, but it didnât work. In hindsight, it was probably because of the bombs. Very possible. Gave her the means to destroy me, hahahâŠ
ButâŠactually, now that I think of itâif Iâm being honest, Iâm sort ofâŠGLaD I did. Use the bombs, I mean.
Donât get me wrong, before it was bloody annoying that she kept using them against me. I was trying to destroy her after all.
I even booby trapped the Stalemate Button. Genius, if I do say so myself. Howâs that for a core who âwas designed to be a moronâ? Hm? Andâhereâs the best partâgot her. My plan had worked, it was brilliant! Except for the fact that she didnât die. That was aâŠmildly frustrating, to say the least.
But when she pulled that moon stunt, it was suddenly just me and her. I yelled and yelled, trying to get her to let go of me so I could pull myself back inâ I mean, I was still connected! Iâm sure I couldâve fixed it! But then She just had to knock me out of Ladyâs grasp.
My demands had begun to turn into pleas as that mechanical arm came closer and closer to me. Funnily enough, all of those ill thoughts I had towards Lady had begun toâŠstop. They just leftâthough that mightâve been due to the fact that they werenât exactly my highest priority at that time.
Finally, in those last few moments I saw her, I didnât see an enemy that I hated anymore.
I saw the face of a friend I had betrayed.
MmâŠyou knowâŠ
I wish I could take it all back. I honestly do. I honestly do wish I could take it all back.
And not just because Iâm stranded in space.
Anyway, you know, if I were to ever see her again, do you know what Iâd say? Iâd say âIâm sorry.â Sincerely. I am sorry. I was bossy, and monstrous, and I am genuinely sorry.
Hello! A while back I wrote this one-shot. Basically, the idea is that this happened immediately after Chell let go of Wheatley in space, and this is him reflecting on the events of the game (so this is basically happening while Chell is knocked out/talking with GLaDOS, etc.) but before the post credits scene where he apologizes.
Iâm still kinda new at this, so if you have feedback I would love it! :)
â ïžTUMBLR'S TAKING CREDIT AWAY FROM ORIGINAL POSTS!!!â ïž Read to the end for ways we can help artists!
As it stands right now, an original artist CAN ONLY see: DIRECT comments, likes, and reblogs that came straight from their original post. *And any interactions on reblogs to THE ORIGINAL POST that don't add anything other than tags*
An artist CAN'T see: Comments and likes on ANY reblogged post and future reblogs that have ADDED something to the OG post. It also is difficult to keep track of future reblogs, and likes to any tag-only reblogs of the first reblog with the message will go to that first reblog with the message, NOT THE OG ARTIST.
â ïžWHAT I PROPOSE WE DO IN THE MEANTIME!!!!â ïž
Directly interact (comment, like, reblog (especially with tags only)) to the ORIGINAL POST. If you see a reblog chain, ALWAYS give a like to the og artist and comment there first!!!
MENTION the OG in interactions so that they can keep up with the discourse about their own art!!!
Now this is something different, not sure if it makes sense but give me your feedback: Maybe we can make posts that MENTION and LINK to a cool post of the og poster, like a franken-reblog, to help them with recognition but encourage direct interaction on their post???
Also reblogged reblogs are finicky and for now I can see that in Activity but not on my OG post's reblog button.
â ïžI'm leaving reblogs ON for this post so people can share it. Everyone send Feedback forms through the Help Center and then respond to the email they send you to really let them know we don't like this!!!â ïž
Hi! This one shot is set almost immediately after the events of Portal 2 when Wheatley is reflecting on everything that happened. Wheatley is the narrator here.
To clarify, whenever I refer to GLaDOS I say She or Her since in the game she isnât really referred to by name.
Secondly, I decided to refer to Chell as âLadyâ since Wheatley usually calls her that. He doesnât know her name, considering she doesnât speak, and I thought it would be confusing if I referred to Chell as just âsheâ or âherâ like GLaDOS.
This was partially inspired by @shrimperiniâs Chassis comic, where Chell is reflecting on the events of Portal 2. Itâs really good you can read it here: https://www.tumblr.com/shrimperini/797588132972396545?source=share
Enjoy the one shot!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Arghhh! Why didnât she grab me? I mean, she couldâve. Sheâs always had that good olâ grip. But oh, of course it had to fail now at all timesâŠ
âŠI-I didnât think it would end like this.
You know, when I found her, I had expected her to die like the rest. I honestly did.
It wasnât like I had wanted her to die, no no no, far from it actuallyâ but the other 5 did. The conditions there are too harsh for those smelly humans.
Itâs so strange. One minute they seem unstoppable, but if you hit them in just the right spot, they either shut oïŹ entirely or work significantly slower. Sometimes they canât even move, itâs mad!
But back to the point, originally, all I wanted to do was escape. To leave that bloody place, yup. That was my goal. And she seemed to have the same. Er, goal, I mean.
She wasnât much of a talker. Probably due to the massive brain damage she had. Would barely even give me a nod, that one. Always focused on the goal in front of her.
She was diïŹerent than the other humans. No matter how bleak it got, she just kept going. And she refused to die as well. No matter what was thrown at her, she always found an way out.
I came to grow a liking to her of some sorts. I tried to help the best I can. Hacking all the doors and the passwords, acting as her guide around the place, Iâd say I had a pretty important job if I do say so myself.
But then, everything changed in that fateful moment.
Once I was plugged into Her mainframe, I felt incredible! Hugeâmassive, even! Like here I was a mere second ago, relying on Lady to plug me into things, bring me here or there, and to not drop meâ big responsibility there, not dropping meâ and now I was in charge of the entire facility! It was amazing, Iâll tell you that.
I could even speak in other languages! I was a genius! Iâm not entirely sure what I was saying, or even what language I was speakingâLatin, maybe? Not sure. But Iâm sure it was bloody impressive.
I hadnât originally thought of betraying herâI didnât, promise! It-itâs just, each time I did somethingâI felt so good. Like-like power had just walked on up to me and been like, âHey, there mate. Pleased to meet you. I think we could be good friends, you and I.â And I accepted.
I mean, who wouldnât? When Lady went inside the elevator, IâŠstarted getting these thoughts in my brain, thoughts like, âBlimey, she just wants to leave doesnât she? Thatâs it. No âcongratsâ or anything. Just⊠gone.â I mean, I had just gotten plugged into the bloody thing, why did we have to go already? I wanted to enjoy it just a little longer.
Thatâs when it clicked. We didnât have to. I mean, She was lying there, motionless, helpless, and I was in control. She couldnât kill us. And it wasnât like I wanted to either, at the time.
All I wanted to do was stay longer. Itâs not rocket science! Just give me a little more time to bask in my new power. I mean, honestly, is that so much to ask?
And then of course, She couldnât keep Her little mouth shut. Said I didnât do anything. The audacity. I mean, Lady mightâve not even gotten there without me.
After She said that, I started to get all these thoughts in my head, saying things like, âLady and Her mustâve been planning to betray you all along,â and âLady doesnât even care. She didnât try to catch you when you fell from your rail. You couldâve died and she didnât care. You should make her regret that,â or âHm, Ladyâs trying to take all the credit, eh? Bossing you around everywhere. But youâre the boss now. You control everything.â
And I listened to it. After I smashed the elevator downâ which I hadnât really meant to doâ I suddenly got this⊠this Itch to test. With Lady gone and all the other humans dead I really didnât have anything to test with, so I decided thatâ brilliant ideaâ letâs go ahead and combine a turret with a cube! They can walk on over to the buttons, and push them. They didnât workâunfortunatelyâbut then, Lady came back. With Her as well, but She was a potato now at least.
So I put them through tests, and ohhhh man alive, it felt good. It was like every time Lady solved a test, I got thisâ this happy codeâ and I wanted more and more of this happy code, so I kept testing her. But then it stopped coming. And I was like âNo, I need more happy code.â But regardless of what I did nothing worked.
That was when I found the Cooperative Testing Initiative. Two little robots specifically designed to test! If anyone could get me that happy code I wanted so much, surely it was them right?
As for Lady, I didnât have a need for her anymore.
Exceptâ maybe if I killed her, that would give me even more of the happy code. After all, She seemed to enjoy it, so why couldnât I?
I can say that that was probably the worstâ and I mean the WORST idea I had ever had.
I mean, I tried. I used Mashy-Spike-Plates, Spinny-Blade-Walls, and even The Part Where I Kill Her! But it never worked.
She was so resilient, it annoyed me to pieces.
Eventually, she made it back into my lair. I had a brilliant 4 part plan to destroy her, but it didnât work. In hindsight, it was probably because of the bombs. Very possible. Gave her the means to destroy me, hahahâŠ
ButâŠactually, now that I think of itâif Iâm being honest, Iâm sort ofâŠGLaD I did. Use the bombs, I mean.
Donât get me wrong, before it was bloody annoying that she kept using them against me. I was trying to destroy her after all.
I even booby trapped the Stalemate Button. Genius, if I do say so myself. Howâs that for a core who âwas designed to be a moronâ? Hm? Andâhereâs the best partâgot her. My plan had worked, it was brilliant! Except for the fact that she didnât die. That was aâŠmildly frustrating, to say the least.
But when she pulled that moon stunt, it was suddenly just me and her. I yelled and yelled, trying to get her to let go of me so I could pull myself back inâ I mean, I was still connected! Iâm sure I couldâve fixed it! But then She just had to knock me out of Ladyâs grasp.
My demands had begun to turn into pleas as that mechanical arm came closer and closer to me. Funnily enough, all of those ill thoughts I had towards Lady had begun toâŠstop. They just leftâthough that mightâve been due to the fact that they werenât exactly my highest priority at that time.
Finally, in those last few moments I saw her, I didnât see an enemy that I hated anymore.
I saw the face of a friend I had betrayed.
MmâŠyou knowâŠ
I wish I could take it all back. I honestly do. I honestly do wish I could take it all back.
And not just because Iâm stranded in space.
Anyway, you know, if I were to ever see her again, do you know what Iâd say? Iâd say âIâm sorry.â Sincerely. I am sorry. I was bossy, and monstrous, and I am genuinely sorry.
Hello! A while back I wrote this one-shot. Basically, the idea is that this happened immediately after Chell let go of Wheatley in space, and this is him reflecting on the events of the game (so this is basically happening while Chell is knocked out/talking with GLaDOS, etc.) but before the post credits scene where he apologizes.
Iâm still kinda new at this, so if you have feedback I would love it! :)
Link falls ill with the aftershock of Ganonâs ghostly spell, leaving Zelda to pick up the pieces. Faced with upturned truths, both hero and princess must navigate new waters together, least either of them get lost to the tide.
(In other words, a sick-fic giving the LOZ Animated Series a second chance.) =D
Link to Chapter 2
Authorâs note: This fic takes place right after The Legend of Zelda: The Animated Series and has specific spoilers for episode 7 "Doppelganger," ep 12 "The Missing Link," and ep 13, "The Moblins are Revolting." Those three are the only episodes really referenced in this story, so give 'em a check if you're interested on YouTube or the wiki. Otherwise I think I summarized them enough so you can read the story without knowing the show... but it's worth at least one watch, ha! [This story is also a present tense writing challenge to myself wahoo] Hope you enjoy!
Do not repost this story but feel free to use the tumblr reblog button!
>>><<<
~Chapter 1~
Zelda trudges her way up the tower steps, letting her boots echo loudly against the hard grey stone. Secretly, she hopes that her clatter will shake awake the castle's guardian hero, who is presumably fast asleep at the top of the stairs.
Imagine. Snoozing the day away when he should have been up hours ago! A "hero's rest" he calls it. Hmph!
Zelda's heels clack against the landing as she stops in front of the old tower door. Three short knocks are all the warning she gives before raising her voice. "LINK! Up and at âem, hero! It's 10:30!"
She expects to hear the crash of a frantic swordsman struggling to untangle himself from his bed sheets.
She does not expect silence.
"There's no way..." mutters the princess. Link loves his sleep and can doze off on a dime, but he isn't a deep sleeper. He can't afford to be, sleeping right next to the Triforce of Wisdom as its last line of defense. He most definitely heard her, which can only mean...
Zelda pinches the bridge of her nose. "Link, you get your lazy butt over here right now and stop ignoring me!"
She can practically hear the sleepy, "Do I get a kiss for following those orders, Princess?" sliding out of that smug, stubbornly handsome face of hisâŠ
Except those words never come.
Zelda bites her lip. This is either one of Link's silly practical jokes, or something is actually wrong.
"Link?" she pounds the door again. "You better answer me right now, what's going on in there?"
Worry begins to soak through her chest. This has to be a trick, she argues with herself, wise to all the ways Link can fool her. But as much as she wants to turn tail and avoid embarrassment, she can't shake the unsettling feeling creeping up her spine. With the lives they lead, anything could lie on the other end of that door. A stolen Triforce, a missing hero... a grave injury.
The flash of crimson crosses her mind and flings her body into action. In an instant, Zelda's hand is on the door and she's bursting into Link's room like a hurricane.
She finds no battle, no bloodstains, no empty Triforce pedestal. Everything is as it should be... save for the wilted form of her hero, clinging to his bedpost and staring blankly into the distance.
"...Link?" Her voice is quiet now, her heart twisting in knots. He doesn't appear to have noticed her. His eyes remain glazed, haunted, and still, eerily fixed somewhere on the opposite wall.
"Link," she tries again, sitting beside him on the edge of his bed. "Link, what's the matter, are you sick?"
She puts a hand up to his scalding forehead, answering her own question but hardly earning a response. Gently, she lifts his head from where it leans on the bedpost, letting his cheek rest in her palm instead. His eyes drift to the floor.
Slowly, hesitantly, his eyebrows dip into a crease. "Z⊠Zelda... is that you?"
Zelda's heart quickens at his gravelly voice. "Of course it's me, Link!" More worriedly, she adds, "Can't you see me here?"
Link reaches for her hand on his face, but he misses it entirely. He grasps the air just under his own chin, moving with such sluggishness that itâs as if he can't feel his own body.
His next words stab Zelda's heart.
"Is... this real? Are you... am I real, Princess?"
This is wrong this is wrong this is wrong! The words pound in Zelda's head as she fumbles to catch his groping hand.
"Link... Link can't you feel me? Canât you hear me? I'm right here, what's wrong? I've seen you sick, t-this isn'tâ" She cuts herself off when her voice starts to shake. She is beyond terrified at this eerie behavior, but Link doesn't need more panic from her. He needs a cure for... whatever this is. Great Hylia, grant her wisdom. What must Link be feeling?
Something ripples in the back of her mind. A presence, cool and calming like a stream, flows across her worries and clears her head. The room glows a soft, underwater blue as the Triforce of Wisdom blankets them in its all-encompassing magic.
Fear not, dear child of wisdom and light.
Your presence has pulled him from the worst of the night.
"But... what is this night you speak of? What's wrong withâ"
A cacophony of chimes breaks Zelda's question in half. Speeding like a dragonfly, a ball of pink light shoots through the window, swerving just in time to avoid hitting the wall.
"Zelda!" shouts the tiny voice of Spryte. "Whatâs the hold-up? Is Link giving you trouble or somethâ"
The fairy's speech trips when she catches sight of the withered hero. "...Link?"
Her wings quiver. She drifts closer, her bright pink magic fading into a dull glow. Softly, she lowers herself onto his shoulder, placing her impossibly small hands on Link's face. He doesn't bat an eye.
"W-whatâs the matter with his magic, Zelda?"
The princess has never heard Spryte this scared. It almost distracts her from the fairy's wording, but she questions it anyway. "What magic? Link's not from this part of Hyrule, he never learned..."
Spryte shakes her head. "It's there. All Hylians have a little, even if they can't feel it without items to channel it with. But fairies can feel it. And you and Link have the strongest inner magic of them all! All warm and powerful. Well, normally. B-but now h-he's..."
Zelda's chest tightens as the fairy starts to shake. With featherlight care, the princess uses her fingertips to rub circles into Spryte's back. "Easy, Spryte. Easy. We can't give up hope yet. I know it's hard, but I really need to know what you see."
Through the fairy's hazy glow, Zelda can see Spryte gulp back tears. "It's his magicâhis spirit, it's all... all..."
"What?"
"Blurry! Skewed! Misaligned? Oh, Zelda, it's like..." Spryte's face twists as she fights for the right word. "Oh! Like a reflection in a pond! After someone's thrown a stone in. The reflection doesn't quite match the person it's reflecting anymore. But why? What happened to him?"
Zelda's mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Drawing a blank, she walks her mind back to the prior evening, searching her memories for anything that could explain this episode.
Link was fine last night, all smiles and corny jokes. Did he eat less at dinner? Zelda wishes she could remember anything past their silly table argument over the value of bows versus swords. Bless her poor father for sitting through that one.
But then, hadn't Link left the table early? And wasn't he quieter than normal before wishing her goodnight? She had assumed he was up to something, and was just about to call his bluff when heâd winked and opened his palm.
"Figured since you love me so much, I should make you something to remember me by, my heroic princess. Just in case you ever get lonesome for my presence."
There in his fingers was a hand-twined bracelet of Zelda's favorite wildflowers. Before she could even process how he remembered she liked those flowers specifically (or that he even was paying attention), the bracelet had already been tied to her wrist by his warm, calloused hands. Then, in a blink, he was gone, hopping away like a buck in the springtime.
Perhaps she should have been more concerned he didn't ask for a kiss goodnight. If he had... in the heat of the moment she's not entirely sure she would have refused.
Ugh, if he could only read my mind right now, she thinks, feeling warmth spread across her face. He'd pop out of his bed and start prancing around like an idiot. He'd be even more insufferable than when Ganon turned him into a ghost!
Zelda gasps, turning that thought over in her brain.
A ghost. A ghost! Can it be?
"What is it, Zelda?" Spryte asks, watching the wheels spin in the princess's brain.
Zelda lifts her chin high and turns towards the pedestal in the center of the room. "Triforce of Wisdom!" she demands. "Lend me your sight. Is this curse on Link's soul an aftershock of Ganon's spell?"
Blue light flows across the ceiling and rains down the cobbled walls as the Triforce begins to glow. Its mournful, feminine voice wraps around Zelda like a mother's hug, and though it sounds remorseful, it does not keep the princess from the truth:
Though Ganon's curse has come undone, its power lingers still.
Beneath the water's surface lies a violent tidal chill.
Now free to snatch, the waters sweep the hero's ship away,
But if given an anchor, he will be spared today.
The silence that follows the answer feels like it lasts an eternity. Zelda knows that dark magic's favorite hiding place is in loopholes, but Link had just seemed so... fine in the past months. Normal. Annoying, but normal. To think, this entire time, there was cursed magic lying in wait for Link to be weak enough to seizeâ
It's my fault crosses her mind before she can stop it, embedding in her heart like an ice arrow. Memories of a magic force field appear before her, and in slow motion she can see the curse bounce off her magic and hurtle towards her friend. He leaps away too late, face contorted in a scream of agony as his spirit and body are ripped in two.
Ganon's spell was a simple teleportation spell. It only went wrong because of the deflection. This only happened because I... It was meant for me, not...
Zelda's chest seizes up. Deftly, she can feel Spryte alight on her shoulder, her little arms hugging the distraught princess's face. But as much as she wants to scream, to crumple, Zelda doesn't let herself cry. For the sake of her sanity and Link's health she stuffs the suffocating dread far, far down, a problem to deal with later. An apology for later. She has to make up for this in action now.
"An anchor..." she speaks slowly, forcing herself to sound calm. "We have to be his anchor."
"H-how do we do that?" Spryte asks.
Zelda wraps an arm around Link's back, holding him to her. Letting him know wordlessly that she's here now, and nothing will take her away.
"Oh, Link... how do we keep getting ourselves into these messes? We just never seem to catch a break, do we?"
No answer. She didn't really expect one, but Zelda tries again.
"H-ha, hey, hey look at me, do you remember last week? When Ganon's goons actually overthrew him and tried attacking the castle themselves?" She pulls him closer, trying to see past his distant gaze. "They were so funny, trying to all lead at once! We laughed and laughed, remember? They kept foiling their own plots!"
...And then Ganon's Triforce was right in front of me and I didn't think to grab it, her mind adds unhelpfully. Oh Link, I got so upset at you for messing around that I missed our chance to save Hyrule for good. My fault again. Was I too harsh? I wish you could hear me, I wish I could say how sorry I am, how much Iâ
Link gasps.
Zelda jumps back in surprise. Her heart soars as she sees his eyes flutter, as if some part of him is finally fighting back.
"Link!" she shouts, a bit too loudly. "Link, Link, that's it, you can hear me, can't you? Fight this, Link!"
Link's breaths are uneven, his lip twitching with words unspoken. His brow twists in confusion or maybe pain, and his eyes squint shut.
"...Link?"
Just as Zelda is sure he's about to speak, Link falls forwards, hands tangled in his hair and breaths coming heavy.
Zelda moves quickly. She reaches under the bed, pulling out the (thankfully empty) chamber pot and placing it between Link's trembling knees. She and Spryte are just in time to pull back his long, thick hair before his body shakes with a retch.
Somehow, she's not as bothered by the action as she thought she'd be. Her concern for her friend... maybe more than friend... drowns out her repulse.
When her hero coughs nothing but dry air, she wordlessly motions for Link's washcloth. Spryte understands, flying over to rinse it in a nearby bucket before floating the towel back. Zelda lets the cool water wash over Link's face, studying his expression.
"There... how does that feel?" she asks, surprising herself with how small her voice sounds.
Link is even weaker than before. Shaking, he nearly drops the chamber pot before Zelda catches it and sets it on the floor. He starts to tip backwards. The princess takes the shoulders of her ill, swaying hero, guiding him to lie back on the bed. She tucks him in, murmuring gentle assurances that she hasn't left his side, but nothing she says can unclench Link's white-knuckle grip on the front of his nightshirt.
"Whatâs the matter?" she asks, trying aimlessly to open his fist with her own.
Link's mouth makes a series of jumbled sounds before he can breathe out, "F-falling..."
Zelda pushes violently against a torrent of panic. "Falling? No, no, you're just laying down, here with me, Link!"
Spryte is flying at dizzying speeds above their heads. Her chimes are warnings in fairy-speak, but they cannot help here, and only make the princess queasier.
"Link!" she cries, abandoning her shallow attempt to seem calm. "You're not... you're not...!"
The Triforce's light flows against Zelda's back, and all at once, the princess feels her body awash with its presence. Her desperation melts away as quickly as it came, and in its place, a seed of hope is planted. And so is an idea.
"Actually... yes. You're right, you are falling."
Spryte rings frantically, "WHAT? Princessâ"
"You're falling... like a feather," says Zelda, brushing a strand of dark hair away from Link's face. "Floating, gently. Just as a feather sails from a bird's nest, never in any danger."
Her heart leaps as his breaths begin to slow and deepen. Spryte glows brighter as she catches on.
"Zelda... it's working! Keep going!" the fairy whispers.
The princess nods slowly, circling her thumb against Link's cheek. "You float down, slowly, right onto your bed..."
A memory of Link's longing voice flickers through her head, and she amends her sentence, "Right onto a bed of leaves and moss, surrounded by a forest blanketed in light."
A sigh escapes her hero's lips, deep and content, and his eyes slip shut in bliss. His fingers on his chest loosen and twitch, seeking something he cannot grasp.
Zelda winds her fingers into his, her other hand still brushing away his tangles. "I'm right here with you, Link. Can you feel me here? Spryte's here, too, just by your head. We're all together. Can you feel us?"
Spryte's wings flicker in that nervous buzz all fairies do, and through the ball of magic light, Zelda can just make out tiny hands braiding Link's hair.
"We're not going anywhere, either," Spryte chimes, determined as ever. "You rest up now, Linkie!"
Just as it seems Link is almost asleep, something pinches in the hero's brow, and Zelda knows him well enough to see a complaint is coming.
"Th... T... Triforce..." he breathes weakly, hardly louder than a whispering fairy.
The princessâs chest tightens. Call Link what you willâboastful, headstrong, maybe a little cheesyâbut that hero's spirit was a fire in him that would never die.
Zelda swallows away her worry. "It's here, Link. Here in the forest with us. It's safe, we're all safe. We're all safe together, and that's real."
His hand squeezes her own, and after a long, breathless moment, his frantic heart begins to slow.
"Safe..." comes his breath, "...w' my girls... All safe..."
Zelda can't help but smile at his wording. It's such a "Link" thing to say, and she's more than relieved that some part of him finally sounds as it should.
After a few careful minutes, Zelda turns to Spryte. "I think we're finally out of the woods here."
"Shh!" Spryte whispers. "Don't say that in front of him, we just got him into the woods! Besides my arms aren't big enough to block his ears."
Despite herself, Zelda laughs, the quiet bounce in her chest warming her entire body. "No, no, you're right. We should let him get some proper dreams."
Spryte watches Zelda's hand stroke through Link's hair again, and the little fairy rolls her eyes. "Should I grab you some food and books while you're up here pining after him, Princess?"
Zelda's face flushes. "Spryte! Really, you know I can't leave him alone like this. It doesn't mean... I-I'm not... I'm just taking care of him!"
"Riiiiight," Spryte twirls in delight. "Sooo... books and snacks? Yes? No?"
Zelda covers her blush. "...Yes. Thank you. Oh, and please tell my father and the guards what's happened, and why I'll be absent today."
"Can do!" Spryte floats over to hug Zelda's head, then over to Link. She pecks the sleeping hero on the forehead, whispering, "Get well soon, Linkie. We miss you!"
After the fairy has flown away, Zelda lets out the biggest sigh of her life. Her eyes trail over Link's sleeping face. It's so relaxed, so different from the eerie numbness that once consumed it, and she reaches out to it again to make sure it's real.
His breath warms her wrist as he exhales, ruffling the wildflowers still tied there.
He's ok. He's ok, she assures herself. Not back to normal just yet, but I'll get him there. That's the least I owe him after all of this.
Overcome with reliefâand after she's made sure Spryte isn't spying on themâZelda lets herself lean down to gently kiss her hero's forehead.
Somewhere in Link's sleeping face, Zelda sees the ghost of a smile.
>>><<<
End of Chapter 1
Link to Chapter 2
Author's Note: Some of this was slightly inspired by a few scary fevers some of my younger brothers had when they were kids. A few got so bad they started hallucinating, and as a bystander it feels awful knowing thereâs not much you can do but care for them and wait. Also magical side effects/illness is a fun writing trope to mess around with >:)
Extra Note: I am a childrenâs book/family friendly author, so please keep all comments Safe For Work (no swearing please!) I want to do my best to make this a place for everyone. Have fun!
Link falls ill with the aftershock of Ganonâs ghostly spell, leaving Zelda to pick up the pieces. Faced with upturned truths, both hero and princess must navigate new waters together, least either of them get lost to the tide.
(In other words, a sick-fic giving the LOZ Animated Series a second chance.) =D
Link to Chapter 1
Author's Note: This chapter is much longer than the first but has plenty of scene breaks. Enjoy!
~Chapter 2~
A figure slips down the side of the tower, cloaked in inky black against the twilit dawn. The shadow slides past ivy and cobblestones effortlessly, dropping onto the top of a nearby castle wall with hardly a whisper. Anyone smart enough to look up just then would catch the glint of something shining from underneath the cloak. A good guard would have likely sounded the alarm.
Luckily for Link, he's already the best guard the castle could ever have.
Grinning at his brilliance, the hero scales the side of the final castle wall, dropping into the fresh embrace of nature and freedom. He breathes deeply, letting the scent of the dew-speckled earth open his airways. He can practically taste every flower the mist has swept past on its journey to his chest.
Finally, finally he can breathe again!
Link raises his arms in an enormous stretch, humming with delight as the cool air brushes past his face. His cloak falls backwards to reveal his sword glistening at his hip.
He lets out a huge sigh, arms swing freely at his sides. He stays lost in blissful stillness for a few more moments before glancing down and patting the Crissword.
"How 'bout you and I get some distance from the castle?" Link murmurs, only half to himself. He remembers Zelda reading something somewhere about magic swords and spirits inside them. He's still not entirely convinced it's more than a fairy tale, but hey. Stranger things have happened. And as Link wanders through the waking forest, he canât help but notice how the rubies on his blade sparkle and dance in the light of the fading stars⊠almost as if they are alive.
Stranger things have definitely happened, he thinks with a contented grin, and breaks into a jog.
It doesn't take him long to find a place to train. Itâs one of his favorite spots: a grassy clearing in the middle of a ring of oak and birch trees. Various tree stumps and targets lie scattered in the grass, and to the east, the tree line opens onto a clear view of Lake Hylia, where the first colors of dawn paint the distant water's surface.
Turning his face from the watercolor sunrise, Link grimaces at the mess he made the last time he trained here. The wooden targets are rotting from water damage, some with arrow shafts and scorch marks still littering their surfaces. He makes a mental note to clean up after himself before he leaves today.
"Yikes," he says, setting up some of the less-damaged targets for practice. "Maybe Zelda and Spryte did have a point with all their nagging about chores..."
His words trail off as those names echo in his head, twisting his gut into guilty knots.
Zelda and Spryte...
Link unsheathes the Crissword, peering at his own troubled face in the mirror-like flat of the blade. He really does feel awful about sneaking away from them like this. Hylia knows they've been nothing but kind. They've just been so unbearably clingy ever sinceâ
Stormy waves, falling, falling, drifting from his own body, alone, spiralingâ
Link heaves an icy gasp. He nearly drops his sword as he staggers back, blinking rapidly as he fights to remind himself where he is.
It's over! It's over, I'm FINE! he shouts into his head.
The last thing he's going to do is admit that Zelda was right to be worried about him. Itâs been a whole week since he started recovering from that illness. He just... needs to do some sword drills.
Yeah. Cabin fever. That's it. He's been holed up in that stuffy castle for too long and just needs the outdoors.
He lets his body fall into autopilot, stretching his muscles and rotating his weapon, moving with it until it becomes one with him, an extension of his own flesh and spirit. He breaths in, calm, measured, purposeful, letting every piece of swordplay advice he's picked up from his travels across Hyrule seep into his body.
Link exhales.
This is what he needed. This is living. In the quiet meditation of the hero and his sword, he becomes aware of everything at once. The sounds of birds alighting into the skies. The wind chasing away the dreary mist and rustling past the trees. And then the sun, rising in steady strokes through the peach-tinted sky, laying its soothing warmth down the back of the Guardian of the Triforce.
Zelda would love it out here, he thinks softly. Despite the princess's commitment to her castle, she loves the outdoors almost as much as Link does. Link smiles, still pleased that he knows all her favorite wildflowers.
I bet she didn't even realize I was paying attention to all her botany rambles. I may not know all that crysantheus... hippocampus... genus-species-whatsis talk, but I can sure as heck tell a clover from a rose.
He can still see her face, flushed with joyous surprise as he slips the wildflower bracelet he'd woven for her onto her wrist. She'd taken to it a lot better than he'd hoped. In fact, now that he thinks on it, he's not sure she's taken the bracelet off ever since.
A month ago that fact would have sent him over the moon.
It doesn't, now. Not after everything thatâs happened.
In the stillness of the slowly waking morning, Link closes his eyes and frowns. With his grip on the Crissword grounding him to reality, he lets his mind turn back, back to Zelda, just hours after he'd begun to recover.
Six days agoâŠ
>>><<<Â
Sheâs reading when he finally stirs from his daze. So absorbed is she in the pages of her book that she doesn't notice her hero's eyes sliding open to groggily scan his own bedroom.
Several books and medicinal items are scattered around his bedside, things that certainly weren't there when he'd gone to sleep. The room itself, he notes, is much neater than he left it, most likely the work of Zelda's compulsive cleaning.
How... how long was I out? Wait, am I sick?
The massive ache pinning his body to his bed is enough to answer his own question.
Ugh. Great. But at least... I have some wonderful company.
He really should be more worried about his illness, but only half his brain is really moving, and thereâs no way heâs going to pass up this opportunity.
"Did I die, or are you just an angel on earth?"
Zelda yelps at his raspy voice. Link squints, the shrill sound clanging around in his muddled brain, but he smiles nonetheless.
"Gotcha."
"Link!" Zelda blubbers, her shock so great that she trips over her own words. "You... You!"
Oh boy, here comes the lecture.
"Y-you're awake...!"
Link's eyes fly open. The quiver in her words is enough to make his stomach drop, and he suddenly finds himself desperate to study the princess again.
Zelda's face is not scrunched in the cute, false-scowl he expected. Instead, she is covering her mouth, eyes turning red, and staring at him like he just came back from the grave.
Her voice... He's never quite heard her speak like that, save for the few times... she thought he was dead.
Why was I out? How long was I out?!? he suddenly asks himself, trying and failing to squash down his fear.
"W-whatâs the matter, Princess?" he attempts a joke and a smile. "Do I have drool on my face or something?"
Zelda remains frozen for a moment more before blinking herself out of her daze. She closes her eyes, pursing her lips into a line that eventually worms its way into a smile. "No, no Link. I just... I'm just really glad to see that youâre awake."
Link frowns. Zelda sure looks glad, at least on the surface, but thereâs something behind her expression he can't quite name... something that doesn't belong in her eyes.
His thoughts are snuffed out by the soft brush of her hand against his face, the sweet smell of her flower bracelet pouring into his lungs.
Whoa, Link flushes.
"How do you feel, Link?"
Like I just hit the jackpot, his heart patters. Maybe I should try being sick more often!
He opens his eyes an inch to see Zelda anxiously watching him, and the more rational side of his brain wakes up.
Oop, that's right, she's still acting weirdâ
"Link?" Zelda asks again, her eyes darting between both of his. "Hey, can you answer me? How are you feeling?"
"Like a dodongo chewed me up and then used me as a chair," Link jokes, reaching for the princess's sense of humor. It isnât exactly a lie, either. His body does feel pretty horrid.
He feels much better when he hears Zeldaâs laugh ringing in his ears, though thereâs something subdued about it. Itâs full of relief, sure, but it almost sounds... sad? Is he imagining that? Why would she be sad?
There are words trapped behind Link and Zelda's lips as they stare at one another. Oh, how Link wants to tease them out of her with a grin, and finally get an answer to why his nerves feel like theyâve been fried by an electric keese. Before either of them can so much as inhale, though, something pink and blindingly bright shoots through the door.
"LINK!!!" Spryte hurtles across the room, circling at impossible speeds above Link's head as she chimes in excitement, "You're awake, you're awake!"
The hero coughs on the magic dust glittering down from the fairy's wings. He squints, trying to follow her path with his eyes, but he only succeeds in giving himself a headache.
"Ugh, Spryte," he mumbles. "'S good to see you... but I'm kinda gettin' dizzy down here."
The fairy scoots to a stop immediately. "Oh, sorry!" She backs out of his space and takes her place just above Zelda's shoulder, hovering with the same nervous relief that still lingers on the princessâs face.
After a moment of awkward silence, Link decides heâs fed up with being out of the loop.
"Alright, spill," he rasps. "What happened to me?"
"Oh, it was awful!" Spryte exclaims. "We hadn't seen you all morning so Zelda and I came up here to check on you, and then we found out that you wereâ"
"Very sick," Zelda interrupts, sending a pointed look at Spryte.
The fairy and the princess glare at each other for so long that Link begins to feel uncomfortable. Heâs never understood silent arguments, and he sure as heck isnât about to get in the middle of this one. Instead, he sniffs discreetly, turning his gaze to the ceiling and letting his mind wander.
I wonder what Spryte was about to say before Zeldaâ
Uh-oh.
Maybe that sniffle hadn't been the best idea.
An enormous sneeze echoes across every inch of the room, startling everyone there. The force of it yanks Link's body forwards, and he groans pitifully as pain seizes his muscles. Every inch of him throbs as though he's been shattered, the sharp, broken pieces biting into his head, throat, and chest.
Zelda and Spryte are at his side in an instant. Petty argument forgotten, they work together like clockwork, fetching cool rags, water, medicine, and anything else they believe will ease his pain. And boy, are they good at it. Link melts under the cold rag draped across his forehead, murmuring half-intelligible âthank-youâs from behind his daze.
"He's still pretty feverish," Zelda mutters, her fingers cool against Link's skin.
He frowns as she frets over him. She's making that face again.
Link wishes he was well enough to piece it all together, to know what exactly had upset her so. She's seen him sick plenty of times and has never been this anxious about it. So many questions swirl in his head, but for now, all his brain can push out is a shaky, "How long was I out?"
Zelda bites her lip, sending an uncertain glance to Spryte. The fairy bobs in the air, and reluctantly, Zelda answers, "...About two days. S-since youâve been this lucid, at least."
"Whah?" Pure confusion sweeps over the hero. "But... I just... It was yesterday?"
"Iâm not sure Iâd call this lucid," Spryte whispers, and Zelda shoos her away.
Link can't help but feel like heâs forgetting something important, despite Zelda's assurances that heâs fine, just ill. It was something about falling, something scary, like a forgotten nightmare. And the way Zelda stares at him now, as if heâs made of cracked glass and sheâs the one who broke him...
Why is she acting like this? Can he fix it? Make her go back to normal? Or is his sick brain just playing tricks on him when in reality sheâs perfectly fine?
Link grimaces as his head swims and throbs, too muddy to even think through his own questions.
His discomfort must show on his face. Zelda quickly tucks his covers more tightly around his shoulders, then dabs at his forehead with another wonderfully cool cloth.
"Take it easy, hero," she says softly. "You've still got a ways to go until you're all better."
Even in his daze, Link's heart flutters. He loves her. Really loves her. He wants to see her smile again. So, through half-lidded eyes and the fog of illness, he stares lovingly up at his caretaker and remarks, âY'know... a kiss might cure me faster."
Eww! You're sick with the flu, Link. No way! is what he expects, hopes to hear. He sees it, too, flashing behind her hazel eyes in a flicker of mirth.
Instead, she simply gives him a sigh. "Just... try and get some rest, Link. Please?"
He suddenly realizes that he is, in fact, exhausted. Even now, his eyes feel unfairly heavy, depriving him of the sight of his princess.
"Whh dz sleeping make m'tired?" slurs Link, already nodding off.
Zelda's small laugh rings through him like music. "Because you're sick, silly. Now sleep and have good dreams. Spryte and I are right here if you need us."
"Yep!" The fairy chimes.
Link relents, letting his eyes slip shut again. However, as he surrenders himself to slumber, he can't help but wonder why Zelda's laugh wasnât as bright as it once was. With his mind slowly melting into the inky hug of sleep, one last question haunts his mind:
What happened to the princess?
><Â
Several days pass before he asks himself that again.
The second time he wakes from his stupor, Zelda is radiant. Her spirits are high, higher than ever before, and the determination in her bright eyes tells Link that yes, of course he was overreacting before. Zelda is fine. Zeldaâs always fine. Better still⊠she has a new habit.
As if by some magnetic pull, Zelda is always by his side these days, tending to him, talking with him, and casually brushing his hair out of his eyes. His heart soars when he succeeds in getting her to laugh, and though their contact never goes past a few gentle hand brushes, Link feels positively enraptured by her presence. Sheâs a light in his life, and theyâre back to their normal banter. Sheâs fine.
The chance of a Ganon attack is virtually zero, too, thanks to his minionsâ coup sufficiently weakening the wizard. And being bed-ridden, Link doesnât even have to worry about his endless tasks and chores. Zelda hasnât pushed the issue even once! Itâs a new development for sure, but sheâs smiling. Sheâs fine.
Link can hardly believe his luck. Zelda practically insists he stay in the comfort of his room, where sheâll then pull out a game to play, or open a book and tell him all about some interesting subject she's just read about. And then he will sigh, ramble on about how she loves to ramble, and for a moment, itâs as if he was never sick. In those moments itâs just the two of them, bickering and teasing, Link lazing about as Zelda engrosses herself in her latest educational fixation. And as much as he pretends to complain, he loves to listen to her talk. Heâll never quite understand all the things she says, but goodness, sheâs smart, and he loves her for it.
He loves being next to her, watching her fiddle with the bracelet he gave her, not a care in the world between them. He loves it when complicated things go back to normal. Zeldaâs fine, heâs fineâbesides the fluâand as far as Link is concerned, everything is perfect.
Itâs fine, the way Zelda starts to disregard the duties Link knows are piling up between the both of them. Heâs sick, after all, and sheâs helping.
Itâs normal, Link tells himself, how Zelda smiles all the time, even when it seems more like a haggard grimace some days. Theyâre supposed to be having a fun vacation week together, right? Whatâs there to frown about?
Everythingâs fine, when Zelda is always changing the subject when Link asks about the feverish black-out that started his illness. She probably just doesnât want him to worry, because Zelda is fine and awesome like that.
Itâs ok that even when Linkâs pain turns into a dull ache, and his scratchy throat and nausea fade, that Zelda never stops keeping watch over him like a hawk. Itâs normal that her presence is starting to feel forced and suffocating after so long. Itâs fine to feel a cold, sinking feeling when he looks too closely at her tight, tired face, like he's just remembered an important item he forgot in a dungeon somewhere, and thereâs something missing something that sheâs not telling him and sheâs hurting sheâs too much too different and this is wrong this is wrong sheâsâ
Zelda is not fine.
Itâs as if a veil is lifted. All at once Link can see the sleepless bags beneath her eyes, the permanent crease in her worried brow, the nervous flicker of her gaze over his healing body. Her smile is too bright, unnaturally so, and Linkâs heart nearly stops from the guilt of how easy, how safe it had been to overlook what heâs known all along.
This isnât like her at all.
His Zelda, his heroic princess, is sassy, confident, well-spoken and boldâshe doesnât tiptoe through eggshells or treat him like heâs made of glass. His Zelda doesnât force herself to laugh at every dumb joke he cracks; she wouldnât let him get away with half of what he had, andâhe realizesâhe doesnât want her to. Sheâs like an anchor, grounding him whenever his behavior becomes too turbulent or brash. But now...
Black and red robes and pale, clammy skin seep through Linkâs memories like a stain. Ganonâs puppet Zelda was a puppet in every sense of the word, created to manipulate, to cater, to give Link everything heâd ever wanted, not out of love, but out of deceit. She was nothing more than an illusion made by Ganon, a hollow shell, and what had Link done? Blindly accepted her fake affection, ignored all the warning signs, all to get what he wanted. He used her just as much as she used him.
And what had he really gotten from it, in the end?
Nothing but a chill in his stomach.
Empty pleasure, fleeting gain.
It makes him sick.
Because even if the princess tending to him now feels hollow, too, deep down she is still his Zelda, the true Zelda, the living, light filled princess whom he's fallen in love with.
And ever since he first met her, what has he done but take advantage of her, too?
><Â
The nightmares return the night of that dreadful epiphany. Deep in his mind, a string of terror breaks containment, and all at once, the chilling, out-of-body episode from the start of the week slams itself into the front of Linkâs memories, demanding to be remembered. Heart hammering in his chest, Link can tolerate his stoney cage no longer. The woodland animal in him longs to escape back into the forest, back to the trails and hills and blessed openness he was born into. Away from the people his selfishness might have clung to, away from the sickeningly sweet, empty platitudes of a broken and worried princess. He needs to scale those high stone walls, tumble from his prison, and return to a life in the elements, just for a few hours, at least.
For as much as he loves his princess, something new is coming to light inside his bones, and he is afraid.
How can he stay still, with all the memories of falling and floating haunting his mind? How can he remain here, when the walls are closing in around him, when the bottom has dropped out from all he thought was true about his own character?
Is he somehow the reason Zelda is the one who is shattered, now?
A note is folded and slipped under his bedroom door to the outside stairs. The curtains are drawn. The door is bolted shut. A sheet sweeps gently over the Triforce, then a cloak over the armed hero, and finally, out the window he climbs.
The new window shutter clicks securely behind him, sparking with a magical seal.
Pushing all his fears into the back of his mind, Link forces himself to smile, forces all his doubts under the banner of "cabin fever," and free-falls into his much-needed escape.
>>><<<Â
HYYYYYAHHHH!!!!!
The sound of wood splintering crackles around the now well-lit clearing.
Link breathes heavily, teeth gnashing as he surveys his surroundings.
All his fear, anger, and confusion lie strewn across the grass. Expelled from the raging fire in his blade and the bite of its canine edge, it has decimated all of the wooden targets and scorched a few of the surrounding trees. His hands shake from the effort, or perhaps from the remorse of striking the "bystanders."
Lungs heaving, his body still recovering, Link sinks to the ground.
He's so, so tired.
He hates that he doesn't really know why.
A weak cough rattles out of his chest. Fine, so Zelda was right, he thinks, too exhausted to ramble to himself out loud. Maybe... maybe I should go back?
His body refuses to budge. He can't face her newfound attitude of "Link can do no wrong, except when heâs not caring for himself" again. He knows very well that Link can and has done wrong. He's messed up too many times to count. And he's not really sure what to do with himself now.
But Zelda... something about his sickness has changed her, and he hopes, prays that this new headspace of hers isnât permanent. Should he be the one to snap her out of it? But what can he do to fix it if he doesn't even know where to start? He can't exactly just ask... can he?
Link moans and drops his head into his hands. Why is life so confusing all of a sudden? Why can't it just go back to normal? My brain isn't big enough to handle this.
He briefly contemplates laying down in the grass and letting the earth consume him. That is, until he hears a distant SNAP!
His body forgets its weakness. In a flash his sword is raised, his stance is spread and his ears are alert for an ambush. I said the earth can have me, not your crummy monsters, Pig Face!
However, instead of Ganon's forces, a very different kind of opponent comes his way.
"Link? Link are you over there?"
To Link's dread, it is Zelda's voice that filters through the trees and into his hollow. His gut chills and drops...
And he immediately feels guilty.
Since when did her presence fill him with dread? What's happening to him? Is he being selfish again, sheltering his own ego by avoiding her? Or is it more selfish to want her near him?
UGH! I hate this! Why can't someone just tell me all the answers?!?
His mental flailing leaves him unprepared for the sight of the princess stepping around a large oak tree.
She's found him.
"Link!" she exclaims, practically melting with relief, as if he was a child who'd wandered off. "There you are!"
"How'd you find me?" he bites back, harsher than he means to.
She flinches slightly, and Link looks away in shame.
"...That glittering sword of yours is practically a beacon," Zelda continues, slowly. "You know you can see it for miles when it's glowing, right?"
Link stares accusingly at the blade in his hand. "Traitor," he grumbles. The sword seems to gleam even brighter, completely unfazed.
Zelda's eyes now trail across the wooden carnage in the hollow, widening as she pieces things together. "What are you doing here? Link, you're still recovering, this level of practice... what did you even do to all these targets? And the trees... You're working too hard again, you need to rest!"
Link tunes out her words, too exhausted to argue with her anymore. She's probably right, anyhow. His energy sapped, he drops to the ground again, facing away from her and towards Lake Hylia.
Idly he watches a few deer lingering on the shore, sipping the cool water before the sun gets too bright. It must be mid-morning, he realizes dully.
He hears Zelda sit beside him, words trapped behind the lip she so often bites nowadays. Link doesn't even have to look up to know that there's a dreadful worry line etched between her brows.
The wind blows silently between them.
"...Link?"
His pulse skitters with unease.
"Link, are you ok? Did you hurt yourself?"
He doesn't want to answer her.
"I... you just look woozy, I don't want you to push yourself too hard..."
Seems like youâre pushing things too, Princess.
"What did... Link, please, I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?"
His heart drops with heavy guilt. No, He wants to say. No you didnât, Zelda. Iâm the one who keeps messing things up⊠taking you for granted⊠Did my actions turn you into this?
"Would..." she pauses for a long time.
Link can hear the blood pounding in his ears as he waits for her to finish her thought.
"...Would a kiss make it better?"
Link's body feels like it's been slammed into an ice wall. The chill of a memory crashes over him, the evil, loveless mirror Zelda flickering across the edges of his mind. A cold sting rakes across his lips and through his heart, and for the first time in his life, the thought of a kiss turns his gut inside out.
A kiss... That's all that witch had wanted... not for her own happiness, not for love, not real love... just for me to jump at the chance of a smooch so she could fool me and get the Triforce. Did I even realize how much I truly loved Zelda back then, or was I so fixated on that kiss that nothing else mattered? Boy, look where thatâs gotten you now, Link. Idiot.
He turns to the real princess very, very slowly. Can he even still call her that? This woman beside him, this "new" Zelda, has become so similar to her mirror, offering him everything he could ever want, and just like before, it felt... empty. Her offer came not from her heart, but from something else. Not something malevolent, never that, but itâs something he isn't wise enough to comprehend or name.
Link's brows knot together. He does not ask her to kiss him.
"Zelda, are you ok?"
Those four simple words seem to physically knock her backwards. She freezes, her brilliant brain stuck trying to process this unexpected answer. Link can't fault her. He's realizing with a growing dread how predictable his selfish thoughts can be, so he watches silently as Zelda fumbles for her words.
"Am... am I...? But you always..." Zelda blinks with a sudden clarity. "Of course I'm fine!" A glimmer of her former fire shines in her eyes. "I'm not the one who got sick and just worked himself to exhaustion. Wh-what are you even talking about? I'm here because I want to know if you're ok, Link!"
She flicks a strand of golden hair out of her eyes, and Link's heart sinks for the millionth time that day when he catches sight of her wrist.
His flower bracelet still clings to her, dead and wilted.
Link sucks in a slow breath. This wasn't going to be easy. "Princess..."
"I'm fine."
"Princess. Look, I know I'm not as smart as youâ"
She startles. "Linkâ?"
"âBut even somebody like me can see something's bothering you. What's wrong?"
"I... I... It's not something you need to worry about."
"Yes it is."
"Link."
He grabs for her wrist, jostling the bracelet.
"Link!"
"Tell me what the matter is!"
"No. Now let go, you'll breakâ"
"Just tell me!"
"Just drop it, ok?!?"
"No! You're hurting, why can't you talk to me?"
"I can'tâ"
"Why?!?"
"I almost lost you!!!" she cries and rips her wrist away, finally snapping the flower stems in two.
The forest becomes silent again.
Link goes cold as the gravity of his illness strikes him. It... was more than just the floating feeling? He leans back in a quiet daze, arms shivering just beneath the skin. "H-how do you know?"
"The Triforce said so," Zelda's voice wavers. "I-I don't know if that means we would have lost your mind or if you were... were about t-to..."
Die, Link realizes. His lungs feel like lead. No wonder Zelda had seemed so desperate.
"âŠOh dear goddesses, it was all my fault, Link!!!"
The hero jumps as his princess crumples into herself, burying her head in her arms. She's crying... crying with such breathy, uneven, wavering intensity that Link goes stiff. His heart races, his hand reaching out then drawing back.
Terrified, he realizes has absolutely no idea what to do.
So he does what he does best.
He wings it.
"A-aww, c'mon, Princess," his voice shakes. "I... I'm ok now, see? You did that. You're a great healer. And what do you mean, your fault? How on Farore's green earth is this your fault, anyway? Ganon's the one who waltzed over here and fired on us!"
"On me," Zelda bites out. "On me, Link! Not you! With a stupid... t-teleportation spell! That magic only damaged you because I deflected it and... and then you... you were falling, and I almostâall I could do was watch as you...!" Zelda crumples again, shaking under the weight of all her pent-up stress.
Link wilts. He lets her cry silently, his arm brushing against hers as each of her sobs cuts deeper into his heart. They feel like daggers, like double edged blades. It hurts to hear his princess cry out in so much pain, and it hurts twice over knowing how easily he'd overlooked it.
Link's eyes squeeze shut. He may like to talk, but aside from his wit and sarcasm, he's never been good with the sentimental. But he can still feel Zelda shaking against his arm, and in that moment, he realizes that, for her, he has to try.
"It's... not you who should be apologizing, Princess."
She stares up at him in confusion.
"You looked after me. Went above and beyond, 'cause you're sweet like that. But me?" Link shakes his head. "I saw you hurting, Zelda, and I couldnâtâdidn'tâdo anything about it, especially when you started doting on me. It felt so great that I..." his face burns, "...I blocked out everything else. I just... wanted things to go back to normal, y'know? Itâs the only way I could âfixâ it for myself, telling myself everything was fine."
He finally looks at her, taking in all the tears staining her cheeks and turning her eyes red. The sight boils his blood, and he growls at himself as he keeps speaking.
"But heck, here you are, and you're all torn up about something I never blamed you for anyway. And I let you stew in it because I wasn't strong enough to see past the... the illusion." He shivers as icy lips dance through his memories. "And it's made me realize something."
Zelda tries to speak, but Link sits up straighter. His dark eyes bore into hers, and all of a sudden, a kind of courage he never knew he had bursts out of him.
"I've been selfish. Ever since we met, there, I said it. Don'tâno, don't deny it, Zelda, we both know it's true, even if itâs just now hitting me. And I'm sorry. I don't... want to be this anymore. I hate it, hate that it hurts you, âspecially because of how good you are to me!" He swings out a hand. "You always tell me when I'm too much, and I know I complain about it, but Iâm grateful for that. âCause when I was sick and got whatever I wanted? That's when I finally saw that... maybe... I wasn't as selfless or-or as nice of a guy as I thought. And you kept up the caregiver act anyway, following me around even when it all got so stifling I ran awayâ"
Link hangs his head, and the ferocity of his words dies away. "That wasn't fair. Not fair to you. You don't have to do these things to apologize, Zelda. I know I'm not always the easiest person to hang around, but you did it anyway, forced yourself to, because I let you, because you thought you had to atone for something... pick one, I don't know, I..."
Link is surprised when his voice breaks. "I... care for you, Zelda. Really, genuinely care. Even if I have a lousy way of showing it. S-so don't keep doing this to yourself for me, ok? I don't need you to be something you're not. I-I just need... I need you."
His chest feels like it's on fire. Some mixture of sorrow and embarrassment rages through him when he feels tears welling in his eyes, and he forces them back.
"Oh... oh, Link..."
Zelda's sweet, sorrow-filled voice envelops him, and he leans forward subconsciously. Her hands smooth away the traitorous tears that have escaped his eyes, and he is so mentally and physically drained that he doesn't bother to stop her.
"That... that was probably the sweetest thing you've ever told me,â her voice quivers. "Thank you. It means... more than you know. But Link. Oh, Link, I wasn't 'forcing' myself to care, I-I mean, maybe I took things too far, maybe I tried too hardââ
He gives her a look.
Zelda sighs. âOk. I did push myself a little too hard. But I promise, I promise I just wanted you better! You're not 'selfish' for not noticing how badly I was hurting. I tried to hide that from you. I'm so sorry, I just... I didn't want you to have to deal with the pain, too."
"Princess..."
"I s-swear I never meant to cling, either! I was just... you were so sick! I thought if I left you alone for too long y-you'd... I've never been that scared in my life, Link..."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault."
"It's not yours, either."
Zelda hiccups, contemplating that or a long moment.
"Maybe... weâre both overcomplicating things, arenât we?" she asks with a weak smile.
Link laughs wetly. "Yeah. Could be."
Their eyes meet, and for a moment, Link is completely lost in the soft, swirling colors of her moss-tinted hazel. Their heads are angled down, foreheads close to touching, and the moment is so tender and new that Link barely dares to breathe. He can see Zelda feels the same, but there are words dancing behind her glittering eyes, and Link knows her well enough to see a question is coming.
"...Link?"
Knew it, he smiles.
"About what you said. I don't think you're as selfish as you think you are."
Link draws back immediately, ready to retort, but now it is Zelda's turn to cut him off.
"Ok! Ok, so you've definitely had your... moments." she concedes. "Especially when we first met, but that was a long time ago. Even if you've lapsed here and thereâ"
"All of last week," he mutters.
"Link."
"Excuse me, your highness."
Zelda sighs and shakes her head. "My point is, you're growing. Isn't what you just told me proof of that? And look at who you are for a minute."
Link frowns. "I thought I was...?"
Zelda shakes her head again. "I won't deny you can be stubborn," she ruffles his hair and smiles as he swats her away, "but you're more than your faults. You're devoted to the kingdom's protection, devoted to your friends, and devoted to me... even when I get clingyâ"
"Zeldaâ"
"Shh," she puts a gentle finger to his lips. "You may not be who you want to be just yet, but for now... I think you're actually pretty sweet."
She drops her hand and fingers one of the wildflowers growing around them in the grass, and Link feels his whole body dissolving into mush. He looks away to hide his burning face.
Sweet, huh?
The flowers catch his eye in the same moment an idea forms, and he flicks his gaze over to Zelda. She's hiding her face from him as well, watching the distant shore with far too much fascination. Link bites back his grin and begins twisting the flowers together.
"Those sure are some mighty compliments, Princess," he says to distract her. "You better be careful with words like that. They could make a guy all sorts of bashful."
"Bashful? Ha," she grins, still not looking at him. Her hand covers half of her face. "I've got to be careful not to give you a bigger head."
"Ouch, hey, I said I'm working on it, remember?"
He sees her flinch a bit. "Right. Sorry."
"...Hey," he pokes her arm. "Stop that. I'm just messing with you. Even though I am working on it."
"I know, I know."
Link frowns at a stubborn stem and weaves it back where it should be.
After a moment, he hears Zelda sigh. Her head is on her knees now, her eyes on the grass.
"This sure isn't where I expected the day to go," she says with a low chuckle.
"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?" Link slips another flower into the braid.
A soft breeze brushes through Zelda's hair as if the forest itself is taking a breath. She breathes it in like a sail filling with wind, just before its ship sets off on a new journey.
"A good thing, I think," she says after a moment. "It almost feels counterintuitive, but I actually feel a lot better now."
Link smiles softly. "I'm glad, Princess. I'm really glad."
His fingers slip into a steady rhythm, winding the stems together just as he'd taught himself to as a boy.
White wildflowers... she likes these little violets too... and they both fit right in beside these pink ones...
"What are you doing?"
Link jumps and hides his hands. "Nothing!"
Zelda quits trying to peer over his shoulder and raises a brow. "You're really awful at lying to me, you know."
"Only because you've gotten better at seeing though my plans. How's a guy supposed to give you surprises anymore? Now look away, I'm almost done."
"Huh? With what?"
"A surprise!" he says. "No. Peeking. Don't you trust me after all we've been through?"
Zelda laughs, but she nods her head, politely crossing her legs and turning away.
Link breathes a sigh of relief, quickly finishing off the last bits of the stems. Then he hesitates. Is this a good idea? After everything?
But then, Zelda's words come back to him. Despite their semi-argument, heart-to-heart, whatever it was that just happened, he feels... better. She feels better. Plus it's kinda too late to chicken out now. She's already snooped.
Link turns around. "Close your eyes."
"This better not be a frog," she smiles, doing as he asks and holding out her hands.
White and purple and pink and green spiral together around her wrist, somehow more beautiful in this morning light than anything he's scrambled together before. Or maybe it's because his princess is the one who's wearing it.
"You... probably know what this is by now, so you can look," Link says, scratching the back of his head.
Zelda gasps as she takes in the new bracelet, quietly studying the intertwined petals.
"If it, uh, brings back bad memories, you don't have to keep it, I just... the old one was dead. Figured I'd make you a new one."
Zelda's eyes glisten with tears.
"Ah! Oh no, gah stupid, I'm sorry, this was poorly timed, please don't cryâ"
She shakes her head vigorously. "No! No, I'm not sad anymore. This... thank you. I love these. Especially from you. I-I told you you're getting better, see?" She holds up her wrist, then smiles at Link as she brings the flowers to her nose
Link deflates with relief. "Ok. Just... promise me you won't let that one get all wilted and dead like the last one? I can make more. Teach you how, if you want. There's plenty more flowers where those came from."
Zelda sniffs and nods, her emotions spilling out all over again, but at least this time Link knows she's full of joy. She scrubs away the tears, looking up at Link with her hands propping up her chin. Her face looks like it's glowing.
"Y'know, Link?" she breathes out after a moment, collecting herself. "For the record, I think you're an amazing hero."
His heart flutters. "Y-yeah?"
"Mmm-hmm. And," something mischievous sparkles in her eyes, "you're ten times the man that stuck-up Prince Farce-Face was."
Link snorts out a laugh, clutching his sides at Zelda's creative nickname for her vain, would-be suitor from a few years back. She giggles beside him, the laughter contagious, and they soon find themselves dissolving into dizzy fountains of noise. Worn out from their emotions (and still slightly sick, for Link's part), they fall on each other's shoulders, still tripping over scattered wheezes and snickers.
Link briefly registers that his head is resting atop hers. He can't help but smile.
Something has shifted in the air, leaving him feeling impossibly light and deeply rooted at the same time. He could blame it on his recovery, but something at his core tells him differently. He looks down at the young woman still resting against his shoulder, and when she looks up, it's as if he's being drawn forward by a string.
"Princess..." his voice is softer than it's ever been before. "If I asked, would you..."
"Kiss you?" she smiles, and oh, there she is. Link's heart leaps like an eagle and flies around his head, because there's that gorgeous, sassy smile he's fallen in love with, so close now to his own face.
A prickle of autumn wind calms the flames in his chest, however, and he sighs, walking his passion back.
He wants to do things right this time around.
"Actually..." he can't believe he's about to say this, it goes against everything he's known, "would a hug work instead? J-just for now?"
Link wishes the court painter was here to capture the look on her face. He smiles, praying to the goddesses that all his good intentions are shining through his eyes, for he's not exactly well-versed in the silent, subtle language of women.
Thankfully, thank Hylia, the shock in Zelda's eyes melts to a kind of fondness he's never seen before, a fondness so true it melts his own heart. Part of him snaps grumpily at another lost kiss, but he shoves it away, and opens his arms instead.
Zelda crashes into him. Link fumbles, caught off guard, before he squeezes her back with just as much desperation. As she buries her head in the crook of his neck, his heart begins tugging and yearning in ways he never knew it could, and the hole in his chest from all those "missing" kisses fills to the brim. Perhaps it's even spilling over. He's too engulfed in the moment to tell.
He isn't perfect. He's known that from the start, and he's still not sure he's worthy of all of Zelda's praise. But feeling his princess resting wholly within his arms, as an equal, as something worth protecting... it gives him hope.
Hope for a brighter horizon, and plenty of room to grow.
Hope for a future where peace prevails.
Whatever lies ahead, whatever Ganon and his monsters do next, well. That evil will have its work cut out for it, now that the hero and princess are on the same page. Like twined anchors, they keep each other steady, their interwoven chains reaching deeper now than they ever had before.
Let Pig Face come with all his forces. Link dares him to try. Heâll never win.
With Zelda fighting at his side, Link knows that the two of them can overcome anything thrown their way. He sighs, still locked in her secure embrace, his mind clear and his heart steady. Finally, after far too longâŠ
Everything feels right.
>>><<<Â
End of Fic.
Link to Chapter 1
Authorâs Note: In my eyes, this fic marks the end of Link and Zelda's animated series shenanigans and a start to their maturity. I imagine things getting more serious from here--old legends uncovered, a third Triforce lying hidden away, keeping both the heroes and Ganon from achieving full power over the other. Link and Zelda's relationship is branching somewhere new as Link reassesses his own behavior and duty as a hero, and Zelda comes into her own maturity and restores her faith in Link and herself as well.
Of course, we all know they'll get that kiss in the end. ^u^
[ALSO This Link is so interesting to write from a Linked Universe perspective, because heâs sort of like the perfect balance between Legend and Warriors: Heâs got the sass and wit of Legend, and Warriorsâs charm and tendency to wear a mask of charisma to hide his feelings.]
Extra Note: I am a childrenâs book/family friendly author, so please keep all comments Safe For Work (no swearing please!) I want to do my best to make this a place for everyone. Have fun!
For the 40th Anniversary of the Zelda series, I sketched every single mainline Link! (and one Zelda <3)
I started this ages ago, and went back to it recently now that Iâve played every single Zelda game. Drawing all of them took me so long! But I feel like Iâve gotten better at art during the process, and Iâm proud of the result.
Now I can go back to working on the Wisdomverse Zelda comics đ
Hereâs to four decades of this series we all love!
This is part 2 of my excerpt of chapter 6, âTo Err is Humanâ from @britishsquidward âs âOrange Skyâ! Apologies if some words are a lil hard to understand, I had recorded some other things before this too so towards the end of this excerpt my voice was just dead. But anyways I hope you enjoy, if you do please send the author (@britishsquidward) lotsa love!
Also please comment below what you think of Chellâs voice, Iâm having trouble figuring out how to differentiate her from the narrator so if you have any ideas lemme know!
blakekathryn
theartofmadeline
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
