Chapter Text
The sun spilled through the high windows of Hyrule Castle as I shifted in my bed and rose groggily. I glance across the room at the other bed, huffing in annoyance seeing the man tangled in his blankets, snoring quietly.
His golden hair fanned out over his pillow, face peaceful in sleep. It pissed me off.
I had no idea that the hero of legend would still be a factor when I began my training to become a knight, but when new came through the village that the hundred years of the Calamity's reign was over, that the hero had returned and slain Ganon, I realized that all the stories that my grandmother had told me were about to become my reality.
My grandmother served alongside him back before the world fell apart, guarding Princess Zelda herself. And she’d never held back about what she thought of him: stubborn, reckless, infuriating. My mother echoed those tales, and over the years I’d learned them by heart. He hardly spoke, and clung to the princess’s side like a puppy.
The princess returned and assumed her place on the throne, and I became her other personal guard. Alongside Link, of course, Hyrule’s savior.
Over the time I spent with the princess, we’d grown close, not only as her protector, but also as friends.
Some might argue that you shouldn’t be so close in a relationship like ours, but I don’t think the princess would’ve had it any other way. She was close to Link as well, which was very evident in the way they seemed to communicate almost without speaking at all.
So when I rose from my bed and dressed in my uniform, I headed into the halls, making my way to her chambers to greet her and have tea.
We sat and talked about current events in the castle town, the construction of Lookout Landing, what small errands she needed me and Link to run, the monster camps that were popping up every now and then.
Zelda set her teacup down with a soft clink , her eyes sharp despite the pleasant morning.
“Speaking of monster camps, there’s been some concerning reports from the Akkala region,” she began, folding her hands in her lap. “A monster camp has formed not far from Tarrey Town. Normally, this wouldn’t be urgent, but scouts believe their numbers are increasing.”
I frowned. “A raid?”
“That’s the concern,” she said with a slow nod. “Hudson and the townsfolk have worked too hard to make Tarrey Town flourish for it to be burned down by stray bokoblins. We need to eliminate the threat before it grows.”
I sat straighter. “I’ll head out immediately.”
“ You ,” Zelda corrected gently, “will head out with Link .”
And there it was.
The door behind me creaked, and I didn’t even have to look to know who it was. The quiet tread, the faint jingle of gear, the smell of morning air clinging to him, Link had arrived.
“Perfect timing,” Zelda said warmly. “I was just telling your fellow guard about your assignment. The two of you will travel together to Akkala and… deal with the situation.”
I risked a glance over my shoulder. He met my gaze briefly, gave the smallest of nods, and then returned his attention to the princess without a word.
“Of course,” he said simply.
I bit back a sigh. Of course.
Zelda smiled just a little too much for a simple mission briefing. “You’ll leave within the hour. It’s a long ride to Tarrey Town, so I’ve arranged for supplies and two sturdy horses from the stables. You’ll be back in a few days, I imagine.”
A few days. With him.
I forced a polite bow. “As you wish, Princess.”
We returned to our chambers where I changed into traveling gear and prepared for the journey ahead.
When I emerged from the wardrobe, Link was already geared up, checking over the contents of a saddlebag. His movements were efficient, practiced, like someone who’d been doing this for years, which, I supposed, he had.
“You packed for both of us?” I asked, raising a brow.
He glanced at me, then back to the bag. “Easier that way.”
I muttered something about him being a control freak under my breath and pulled my own belt into place. If he heard, he didn’t react.
We made our way down to the stables in silence, our footsteps echoing in the castle halls. Outside, the air was crisp and clean, the kind of morning that almost made me forget the errand ahead. Zelda was already there, speaking to the stablehands and giving instructions in that gentle but firm way she had.
Two horses waited, mine, a sturdy bay with intelligent eyes, and his, the familiar chestnut mare I’d seen him ride countless times. Supplies were neatly strapped to the saddles. Too neatly. I suspected Zelda’s “arranging” meant she’d micromanaged every detail.
“Remember,” she said, stepping toward us with that same faint, knowing smile, “this is as much about keeping Tarrey Town safe as it is ensuring you two work well together. Cooperation will make the task easier.”
Link mounted up without a word, waiting for me to do the same before nudging his horse into an easy trot. I followed, keeping a careful few lengths between us. The castle faded into the distance as we took the road east, the clop of hooves the only sound for a while.
Eventually, Link spoke, not much, just a quiet, “We’ll make good time if we cut across the wetlands before sundown.”
I shake my head. “So many camps of lizafos down that path,” I tell him. “Not worth it. We’d just wear our weapons down and put our horses in danger.”
He didn’t argue, just gave the smallest nod and adjusted his reins to keep us on the main road.
That was almost more annoying than if he had argued.
We rode on in silence for a while, the distant calls of birds filling the space between hoofbeats. I kept glancing at him from the corner of my eye, expecting… something. A sigh, a comment, a muttered complaint about the longer route. But nothing came.
Instead, he slowed his mare’s pace ever so slightly until she matched mine, keeping the horses side by side.
I pretended not to notice.
The air grew warmer as the sun climbed higher, the smell of fresh grass and wildflowers mixing with the faint leather-and-steel scent of our gear. The road wound through low hills, the open fields on either side dotted with farmers tending their crops.
It was… peaceful.
Too peaceful for a mission that was supposed to be urgent.
“We’ll need to camp before we hit the Akkala border,” Link said after a while. “The last stretch is rough terrain, better to tackle it rested.”
I glanced at him, narrowing my eyes. “Since when are you concerned about resting?”
A ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth, so faint I almost missed it. “Since I’ve had someone else to keep alive.”
I scoffed and didn’t respond, instead pulling back on the reigns as we neared an area I knew was cleared of monsters.
Link pulled out the Sheikah slate that Zelda had let him borrow for the trip. I knew she had marked most of the areas with dangerous monsters, lynels, hinoxes, and the like. I assumed Link was checking our location.
His eyes scanned the glowing map for a moment, his thumb flicking across the runes before he tucked the Slate away.
“Half a day to the border at this pace,” he said. “We’ll set up camp near the ruins. Plenty of cover.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Cover from what? The road’s been safe for months.”
He didn’t answer right away, just let the silence stretch between us. “Safe isn’t the same as empty.”
I rolled my eyes but didn’t push further. If he wanted to be cryptic, fine.
Still, I caught the way his gaze kept flicking to the horizon, scanning the tree line like he expected something to move.
By late afternoon, clouds rolled in, muting the light and casting the fields in a pale gray. We reached the old stable ruins just as the air started to smell faintly of rain. The roof had long since caved in, but the stone walls still offered shelter from the wind.
As we dismounted, I noticed something half-buried in the weeds near the doorway.
A small wooden horse, one wheel missing from the tiny cart it pulled. The paint was faded, chipped away by years of weather.
I froze.
It was the same kind of toy the little boy in Kakariko had been clutching the night I-
“You okay?”
Link’s voice was quiet, closer than I realized. He was standing just behind me, his expression unreadable, but his eyes… they lingered on the toy for a heartbeat before flicking back to me.
“I’m fine,” I said too quickly, shoving past him into the shelter.
The rain began to fall.
It started slow, but soon became torrential. I was thankful for the place we’d decided to set up camp as Link had been right. The ruins were ruins, but not so much so that we weren’t almost fully enclosed by the stone around us.
It seemed as though this was the ruins of a home before, as there was a cooking pot set in one corner. Link prepared a fire and told me he was going to go and find something for us to eat.
“In rain like this?” I asked as lightning struck heavily somewhere nearby, the rumbling thunder shaking us.
“I’ll be ok.”
I didn’t stop him.
Our horses followed easily into the cover around us, now knelt together across the room around us. I watched as Link patted his mare on the head. She was a beautiful, powerful horse that he called Epona. A pretty name, I thought.
He ducked out of our shelter and out of sight and I was left to my own devices until he returned. In the meantime, I cleaned my broadsword and counted the arrows in my quiver, ensuring I had enough for the fight. When on missions like this, I often start my attacks with ranged weapons and turn to melee after taking a few enemies our from afar. I was a sharpshooter, everyone in the guard knew I had one of the best eyes.
The rain was relentless, drumming against the stone in a rhythm that made the hours feel longer. The fire I’d coaxed to life spat and hissed whenever a stray drop made it through the cracks in the roof.
I’d just finished checking the fletching on my last arrow when the sound of footsteps splashing through mud reached me. A moment later, Link stepped back into the ruins, carrying two skinned wild birds, their feathers sticking to his soaked gloves.
“Not much moving in this weather,” he said, voice low, “but enough.”
I raised a brow. “You hunted in a storm.”
He only shrugged, moving to the cooking pot. “Easier. Animals can’t hear you coming over the rain.”
I watched him work, stripping the meat clean and setting it over the fire with a precision that told me this was far from his first storm meal. For someone so quiet, he moved like he’d already considered every possible mistake and avoided it before it happened.
We ate in near silence, the fire’s glow throwing sharp shadows against the walls. When the last of the meat was gone and our gear was stowed, we settled in opposite corners of the room, each wrapped in our cloaks.
At some point in the night, the rain eased enough that I could hear the steady rhythm of his breathing, until it hitched.
It was faint at first, a murmur. Then a whisper. Then-
“No-”
I opened my eyes. He was shifting in his sleep, his face tense, jaw clenched. His fingers twitched toward the sword beside him.
For a moment, I considered waking him. But something in me, some echo of nights I’d rather forget, kept me still. I knew that look, the haunted kind that didn’t go away when the dream ended.
After a few long breaths, his body eased. His breathing evened out.
I turned away, pulling my cloak tighter around me. The fire was burning low, and outside, the wind carried the faint scent of wet earth and something else, something sharp, metallic, wrong.
Morning couldn’t come fast enough.
Eventually it did come. And I woke to the sounds of the horses restless whinnying.
I sat up slowly, body aching slightly from sleeping on a bedroll instead of a mattress. Link was already awake, replacing his armor and gear after waking.
The smell hit me first, faint, but wrong. Metallic, like the scent that had lingered in the wind last night.
“What is that?” I muttered, pushing to my feet and crossing to where the horses stamped and tossed their heads.
Link didn’t answer at first. He was crouched by the doorway, fingertips brushing the damp dirt. When he stood, his expression was unreadable, but there was a new tension in his shoulders.
“Blood,” he said simply.
“Yours?” I asked, realizing he was wrapping bandages around his arm before pulling his sleeve down. He set the old bandages ablaze on the floor beneath him, stamping out the embers once they’d burned sufficiently. Never leave anything covered in blood. Monsters will find it and track you down eventually.
I froze for a moment, stomach twisting. “What… happened?”
Link didn’t meet my eyes. He finished adjusting the new bandages, tugged his sleeve over his forearm, and finally mounted Epona with the same quiet precision he always had. “Nothing. Just a scratch.”
I didn’t believe him. Not for a second. The faint red stain seeping through the soaked fabric, the way he moved as if testing the pain, it wasn’t nothing.
“Your scratch,” I said slowly, keeping my voice low, “is the reason the monsters could’ve-”
He interrupted with a hand gesture, small but firm, the kind that said stop . “We leave now.”
I gritted my teeth, tension coiled in my shoulders, and swung into my saddle. The metallic scent lingered, sharper now in the morning air. It wasn’t just blood, it was a warning. Something was following us. Something that had found him first.
The horses trotted forward, hooves sinking into the muddy road. I kept my eyes scanning the tree line, half-expecting to see a moblin’s silhouette emerge from the mist. Every snap of a branch made me flinch. Link rode ahead of me just enough to keep his presence steady, silent, but I caught the way his hand hovered near his sword hilt, alert, always ready.
I swallowed the worry knotting my throat. This is why he haunts the night in his sleep, I realized. Not nightmares from a hundred years ago. But from now. From what he protects, and what follows him still.
The Akkala border was still hours away and Tarrey town even further.
Eventually my annoyance simmered and stopped, I found myself admiring the shapes of the cloud as we rode on.
The wetlands gradually gave way to gentle hills, the earth firming beneath the horses’ hooves. The clop of our mounts echoed softly, the rhythm almost hypnotic. For the first time since leaving the castle, I let my shoulders relax slightly.
“Not much of a talker, are you?” I asked, keeping my voice low so as not to startle the birds overhead.
Link’s eyes flicked to me, just for a moment, then back to the road ahead. “Depends on the company,” he said finally, quiet and measured.
I smirked despite myself. “Guess that makes me part of the silent crowd, huh?”
He gave the faintest shrug, and for a heartbeat, his lips almost curved into a smile. “You’re persistent,” he said.
“Persistent gets things done,” I replied. “Besides, someone has to keep you in line. Can’t have the hero of legend wandering off into a bog because he refuses to speak.”
His eyes glanced at me again, sharper this time. “I know the bogs,” he said simply.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, yes, you do. But you still talk to me like I’m a stranger.”
He didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched comfortably, punctuated by the occasional snort of the horses or the rustle of reeds in the breeze. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer, almost introspective. “Sometimes words aren’t necessary.”
I narrowed my eyes, challenging him. “Or maybe you just don’t trust me enough to use them.”
For the first time since the ride began, he slowed his mare until she was perfectly aligned with mine, side by side. “I trust you,” he said. “More than most. But words… can complicate things.”
I studied him, trying to read the quiet intensity in his gaze. “Or maybe you’re just afraid of admitting what’s already obvious.”
His jaw flexed slightly, but he said nothing, simply nudging Epona forward with a light press of his heels. The hint of a smirk tugged at my mouth. He was good at saying nothing, wasn’t he?
“I know you,” I murmured, half to myself. “Even when you don’t speak.”
He finally looked at me, really looked, eyes steady, unflinching. “Then you know when to be quiet too,” he said.
The silence stretched comfortably again, the world around us simple and quiet.
Finally, I asked, “Ever miss the old days? Before… everything?”
His gaze flicked toward the horizon, thoughtful. “Sometimes. But the past doesn’t linger. Only what we do now matters.”
I smirked at the simplicity of it. “Practical as always. I should’ve expected nothing less from the hero of legend.”
He allowed a small smile this time, almost hidden, but enough to see. “And yet, here you are, keeping me in line.”
I laughed, low and warm. “Don’t flatter yourself too much. I’ve got my eye on more than just you.”
We rode on in companionable silence, the sun climbing higher, the wind gentle on our faces. For a little while, it felt like there was nothing but the road ahead, the horses beneath us, and the quiet conversation threading between us, a rare peace before the storm we knew was coming.