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It is widely documented that the first Harvest Festival in Hyrule took place in the age of the Hero of Men—although some records suggest that the tradition was brought down to the surface by the ancient sky-dwellers, and coincided with the founding of the Kingdom of Hyrule. Whatever its origin, it is an occasion for merriment and thanksgiving, and though it has changed over the generations, as all traditions do, it has always felt timeless to Zelda.
All of the citizens attend, Gerudo and Goron and Rito and Zora alike, arriving with the year’s harvest and countless tales to share around the bonfire after dark. One of Zelda’s earliest memories is chasing the young Princess Mipha under the tables, giggling each time they were caught by unsuspecting diners. The food, in particular, is a sight to behold: palm fruits and wildberries lie side-by-side on the feasting tables; meat-stuffed pumpkins and honey-glazed meat skewers are roasted over open fires; the scent of fresh seafood paella, a specialty of Lurelin Village, permeates the crisp autumn air; plates stacked high with baked apples seem to occupy every corner.
Zelda has always liked it, swept up in the sensation of a joy and contentment immortal, in imagining the steps her mother and her mother’s mother might have danced to the ancient ballads, laughing and singing and falling in love. What she has liked less in recent years is being made to wear clothes in the Skyloft style.
She will admit, it always does give her a good laugh to see her father in the long orange robe and red scarf, wearing an enormous leather belt and a pair of brown sandals, hair tied in a bun. He looks less like the intimidating regent of their kingdom and more like a benevolent villager who might doze in the shade of an apple tree. But she knows better.
Since she turned fifteen, she has been expected to wear the princess’ garments: a pink woolen dress, brown boots, and an accoutrement called a “sailcloth,” which was made to sew herself. She’s never been terribly good at sewing, and so, when the time had come to make the cloth, she had beseeched one of the young chambermaids to do it.
Zelda had resisted the dress with all her might that first year. She had shut herself in her study despite her father’s well-intentioned but ultimately misguided attempts to convince her, crying out that wool was too itchy and why could she not continue wearing the dress Mother made for her, refusing to come out until long after supper. She winces with embarrassment when she recalls her behavior now—but the truth of the matter is that wool has not gotten any less itchy, and that she has not gotten any fonder of pink.
This year, her eighteenth, her father brooks no truculence; he orders four of the oldest, sternest maids in the castle to descend upon Zelda’s room before the sun is up and wrestle her into the clothes before she’s possessed of the wits to fend them off. They yoke the laces of her needlessly complicated belt so tightly around her waist that it crushes any semblance of appetite out of her, and so she elects to skip breakfast and head straight to Castle Town to begin supervising the preparations. She arrives, in a terrible temper, just as dawn has settled over Hyrule Field and the wood-sparrows have begun to sing.
She intends to make herself useful, but the infernal belt has other plans. She winds up in the string band’s tent with half-crushed ribs and a dozen curse words pinned under her tongue. The musicians are out, or else she wouldn’t dare to make such a spectacle of herself: bent awkwardly forward, jaw clenched as she wrestles with the laces.
She almost doesn’t notice the opening of light on the wall when someone pulls back the tent flap. She almost doesn’t hear the soft intake of breath. If it were someone else’s lungs, maybe she wouldn’t—but she recognizes their shape, their withholdings; she could recognize them in her sleep.
“Oh, Link, have some decency!” she snaps. “You can guard me perfectly well from out there!”
She’d hoped, stupidly, that she could outrun him this morning—that he’d be distracted by some other preparations, rehearsing for the ceremonial swordplay, sneaking fish pies out of the kitchens. No such luck. She wonders, sometimes, if there’s some invisible rope that ties her neck to his, and wherever she goes, he’s pulled along unresisting.
With a huff, she turns around to face him. Her hair must be a mess, and her face red and sweaty from effort. There he stands, wide-eyed in the entrance to the tent, his right arm bent under the flap, still holding it open, as if he’d forgotten himself mid-motion. The morning light follows his edges like a crease. He’s wearing green.
“Is there aught you need?” she demands, throwing her hands up.
Link only stares at her with something in his eyes she can’t decipher, halfway between recognition and sadness.
He gets that look quite often. Zelda has learned it is better to let it pass unaddressed than attempt to understand it.
“You don’t have to say it. I feel like—like a trussed-up Eldin Ostrich," she blurts out crossly.
At this, Link lifts a loose fist to his mouth, but she still catches the sparks of mirth in his eyes and flushes, indignant.
“Don't you dare laugh! I could make the case for treason!”
Link clears his throat as if to dispel his amusement. His mouth is crumpled with effort at withholding what Zelda knows perfectly well is a smile, but for some reason, she can't bring herself to feel resentful.
She narrows her eyes warningly at him before busying herself again with trying to adjust the belt again. It's a futile effort to be sure—she hasn't the faintest idea how they even expect her to walk in this, let alone lead the first dance at sunset (with Link, she remembers grimly)—but she tries nonetheless.
"It's not as though you're much better off," she huffs, fingers fiddling with the knotted threads at the base of her spine, elbows sticking out inelegantly. "Parading about in that nonsense. I hope you'll pardon my bluntness, but green absolutely does not suit you."
Link touches the hem of his tunic almost self-consciously. It's a long olive-green thing made of wool, accompanied underneath by a layer of light chain mail and a high-collared white cotton undershirt. It's far more traditional than has been strictly fashionable in Hyrule for quite some time, although the richness of the legacy behind it makes up for the sight in Zelda’s eyes.
“I see you elected to forego the hat,” she continues, raising an eyebrow at him. “That's a rather important part of it, you know.”
He shrugs sheepishly.
At the image of Link in one of the long, traditional hero’s stocking caps, Zelda almost has to rein in a chuckle. That sort of thing was likely considered quite grand-looking in times past, being the first knight’s uniform in recorded history, but the most she can think of it matching now is perhaps a set of pajamas.
“That's no surprise,” she says, and then, as one of the laces slips from her fingers yet again, lets out a loud growl of frustration unbecoming of her mature age. “Oh, Hylia’s sakes, do they expect me to be buried in this blasted thing?!”
Link steps forward, and Zelda almost leaps out of her skin when he moves behind her and takes the laces in his hands. He makes short work of them, loosening the belt to exactly her liking and neatly tying it off within a matter of seconds.
Zelda remains perfectly still throughout, fists loosely curled at her sides, head bowed, breath caught in her chest. There is a sudden heat at the back of her neck despite the autumn chill. She almost expects his touch to linger, a warm presence at the low curve of her back, but it doesn’t, and she feels foolish.
She remembers something.
“Your mother,” she murmurs. “She was a seamstress.”
After a moment, Link quietly hums his affirmation.
“Yes,” Zelda continues, lifting her hands to fiddle with her fingers, a habit her father has long since given up on trying to break. “I remember now, she—when you came to the palace for your initiation into the Royal Guard… you wore a tunic she had made you, just for that occasion. You said it had taken her nearly a month to embroider the pattern around the collar.” She turns her head just slightly, hoping that her wan smile reaches him despite the elusive angle. “Blue, the same as your eyes. That did suit you.”
She can tell that her comments have made him bashful. He ducks his head and sways on his feet, eyes cast evasively to the side. She can’t understand how she ever thought he was so inscrutable, nor can she understand how very little time it took her to recognize the slightest variations in the way he conducts himself and the sentiments that lie beneath them, the ones he will not voice.
She remembers how he had looked, in that throng of other young men from across the kingdom—nothing about his appearance had indicated anything special, and in fact there were other boys more noticeable, with their braying laughter and fancy clothes, but Zelda’s attentions had been ensnared from the moment he passed through the door to the sword’s chamber, and in their own way, they have been ensnared ever since. She is gripped day after day by a conviction that she has seen him before, has known him a hundred times over, and it is one so deep and strong that it clutches at her heart, as though reopening an old wound.
It is just as her mother once told her would come to pass when she met their generation’s Hero, but the veracity of that prediction has only added to her frustrations, for oughtn’t she come to know him on her own terms, without being forced to? What good is fate if it propels you toward something you may not deserve?
But Mother, what if we don’t like each other? she had asked, time and again, heart wrung out with worry.
You don’t have to like each other, dearest, her mother would reply each time, and she would gently take Zelda’s right hand into her lap, tracing a shape onto the back of it that Zelda had not recognized until she was gone. What matters most is that you understand each other. You bear the same burden, the same grand destiny. Whatever weighs upon you will weigh upon him as well. You must remember this, above all else: yours is a fate that is always shared.
“Thank you,” Zelda says to him now, smoothing her woolen skirt to busy herself with something other than staring at him. “It fits much more nicely now. I suppose I won’t be ending this festival by suffocating after all.”
Link chuckles politely at that, and then lays one hand across his chest, tucking the other behind his back, and sets his heels together, bowing.
“Oh, stop it,” Zelda says, doing an expert job of concealing her grin. “Let’s not get carried away, I’ll be taking it off myself, thank you.”
The moment the words escape her mouth, she regrets them, blushing ferociously; she catches a flush creeping up Link’s face, too, all the way to his ears. Goddess Hylia protect her. Who ever thought it was a bright idea to give her the power of speech?
“I-I should find Father,” she stammers, fussing with her hair to avoid looking at him before hurrying out of the tent. “The sun is crawling high, after all, we—I must make sure the preparations for the feast have been completed, and—well, yes.”
Link makes a noise of agreement from behind her, and she can so clearly picture his firm nod, his almost comically wide eyes. She hears him fall into dutiful step in her wake, the legendary sword thudding rhythmically against his back.
Her racing heartbeat slows to match it, no longer at her throat. The moment passes unremarked. There is much to be done.