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The injured girl sitting around his campfire wasn’t anyone he recognized from his travels. But then again, neither was anyone else.
Link was never much of a talker, so conversation was almost nonexistent between the two of them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. She herself looked too tired to talk much anyway, simply staring into the fire, eyes still alight with wonder despite the clear exhaustion written across her face.
Link studies her injuries. A bruise on her cheekbone, the small gash on her arm that he’d helped her dress silently.
He’d found her facing a small camp of bokoblins. She held her own until the silver one approached, catching her off guard. He’d observed from a distance until it was clear intervention was needed. Then he dashed in, stepping in front of the girl who was on the verge of bracing for the end. He finished the monster off quickly, turning to her and offering a hand to stand.
Something about the look she’d given him then, like she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. Link simply chalked it up to the shakiness that a person feels after such an encounter. Injured and nearly defeated, saved by a stranger moments before the end. Adrenaline converts itself to shock, then all the energy plummets when the fire of the battle wears off.
She glanced up at him from across the fire.
“Thank you again, Sir Knight,” she spoke, voice rasped with tiredness and barely audible over the crackle of the flames.
Link simply nods, knowing words are unnecessary.
Eventually they lay out their bed rolls on opposite sides of the fire, lying back under the stars. Occasionally he’d glance over, check to see if she was sleeping, see her eyes shining under the stars. Finally, one more glance over and her eyes were shut, curled up under the cover of her bedroll, breath evened out and she fell asleep.
Just as he was going to turn over and sleep himself, something glinting caught his eye. Glinting in the low light, fallen from the inside of her travelling clothes, a pendant. His eyes scanned over it, a symbol he felt like he recognized, but couldn’t recall from where, a feeling he’d grown used to over the past months since awakening.
But this time the vague recognition sits differently with him. Something in his chest tightens, the same way it would seconds before he’d get those little glimpses of memories of moments from his past. Memories of the princess or the champions.
He waits for it to happen, for the memories to come flooding back just as they always do, but… nothing.
He takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly, trying to calm the beat of his heart, still not understanding the way it pounds.
Finally, deep, dreamless sleep claims him.
When he awakes the next morning, she’s already up, drifted away from their little camp over to the small stream they’d chosen to sit by for the night, sharpening her blade in the foggy morning air.
Groggily, he pulls himself from his bedroll and sits beside her, noticing her pendant has been tucked away under her collar again.
She glances over at him and the sun catches her eyes in a way that makes his heart stop for a moment.
She asks where he’s off to next, and he explains in few words the plan of his path. For a moment, he even considers asking her to join him before snapping back from his thoughts.
How odd.
Link knew his duties were vital to Hyrule’s continued existence, knew that his path would lead to dangers far greater than bokoblin camps.
But still, he wanted to know more about this girl with the pendant that stirred such emotions in him.
He looks away from her, over the field of tall grass, over at Epona and the girl's horse, grazing together, up at the sky. Anywhere but at her for fear that if he catches those beautiful eyes again he’ll say something wrong.
She tells him where she’s headed off to, Hateno, or some other area of Lanayru.
As the sun begins to rise higher, they begin packing up their things, prepping their horses for travel.
“Well,” she says eventually, with a look in her eyes that Link almost tried to convince himself wasn’t melancholy. “I’m sure we’ll cross paths again someday.”
Link gives a soft nod. They likely would, both travelling all over Hyrule. But he couldn’t brush away the ache in his heart that told him to stay with her, to offer her to come with him.
Before he realized, he was speaking, asking just that.
As the words left his lips, her eyes widened just slightly and Link almost began to curse himself before she nodded quickly.
“Of course, Sir Knight,” she said, the look in her eyes now hopeful. “That would be great.”
They mount their horses, continuing down the dirt roads of Hyrule, towards Link’s next destination (they’d decided the hero’s journey was probably a little more important than hers).
Slowly the fog settled into morning dew causing the grass to dip with the weight of the beads of water, clouds floated across the sky, rays of light shining through them. Occasionally they’d stop, deal with a monster or a shrine. Eventually, Link realized he had never learned her name.
He glanced over at her as she brushed her hair out of her face, both of them jostled by the gallop of their horses, sound other than the clip clop of hooves and the wind in their ears.
She met his eye then, blinking once before a faint blush settled across her cheeks at the realization that he was already looking.
Then he spoke, barely audible over the sound around them: “Your name?”
She didn’t respond immediately, and he could see the faint change in her expression, brow furrowed turned up just slightly, eyes flicking away for the briefest moment, hands clutching the reins just a bit tighter.
Nonetheless, she speaks her name moments later and Link nods, though he recognizes her name from somewhere, yet again, unplacable. He almost shook it off. Common name, maybe. But he had a creeping suspicion that something was different about this girl. The pendant, that feeling he’d had, a familiar name that he couldn’t place. There was just too much to say that meeting her was a coincidence.
But he kept his mouth shut, turned his eyes to the road and continued on his way.
Over the next few weeks the two of them traveled together through the wilds of Hyrule, slaying monsters, gaining information about the divine beasts, completing shrines (though Link did the last one on his own).
They slept under the stars each night, talking quietly about their travels. She had been all over Hyrule many times, well traveled in her own right, no missing memories concealing her past. He on the other hand had only been awake for a few months, something he explained to her one night. Quietly over a simple meal of fire-roasted fish, he told her of waking in the shrine of resurrection, his duties, what little he knew of his past. She listened to it all, nodding along, though something in her eyes read as recollection instead of learning.
Again, Link tried to tell himself he was just seeing things wrong, the dim lighting was distorting his vision, making the look in her eyes read as something else.
He dreamt of the calamity that night, and woke in a cold, trembling sweat after a scream rang out in his mind.
And she was already awake, knelt over him, leaving enough distance to breathe.
“Are you ok?” she asked him, her eyes wide in the moonlight.
He sat up, and she leaned back to allow him the space, though their hands sat close together on the soft ground.
He nods.
“You were talking in your sleep,” she said gently. “You’re remembering…”
She said it like she both hoped and dreaded that he would, and her expression grew distant like she was remembering herself.
His fingers flitted at his side, so tempted to reach out and grasp her hand, to tell her it’s ok, that he’s ok, that she’s ok.
But why wouldn’t she be?
“Do you remember princess Zelda?” she asked him softly, snapping him out of his thoughts.
He shook his hand back and forth. A simple signal for kind of.
“And her sister?”
Her sister.
Impa had mentioned Zelda’s sister, though not by name. And Link had seen glimpses of the two girls in his memory, walking hand in hand, whispering and giggling with each other, though the younger girl’s back was always turned away.
He repeated the gesture. Kind of.
“Less.”
And she nodded, a sad look in her eyes.
“Get some rest, hero,” she whispered, turning to return to her town bedroll.
Link makes a split-second decision and reaches out, grabbing her hand, his still trembling.
“Stay.”
She freezes.
“Stay?”
He nods. No further explanation.
“O-ok.”
She pulls her bedroll over, setting it beside his and lying down. They’re both on their backs, looking up at the sky. The silence between them feels like miles of space. Slowly, Link’s fingers find hers and she slides her palm into his, humming softly.
Eventually, her breathing evens out and Link lies still, watching the sky, listening.
His eyes close soon and he returns to peaceful slumber.
One day during their travels, she’s humming with excitement.
“We’re almost there!” she says, pushing her horse into a gallop, riding ahead of Link.
She’d been holding the Sheikah slate, watching the map as they rode when she exclaimed and said they were close to her favorite place in all of Hyrule.
A small smile played on Link’s lips. He nodded when she asked if they could stop by.
“We’ll have to be careful, there’s guardians all over the place there,” she notes.
Link hadn’t yet tried to approach the castle. Too many enemies. Too many memories. But he felt for her, he could try. This girl, he’s slowly come to realize he never wanted to be without. Of course, she didn’t yet know this.
They leave their horses in the crop of trees right outside of the castle town ruins, opting to sneak around on foot to decrease the chances of alerting the guardians.
They pass through the crumbled gates and she goes quiet, looking around for guardians for a moment before turning to him.
“We used to come here all the time, back when-” she spins around but then falters. “Sorry… I used to come here all the time.”
Link looks around, remnants of town stalls, shops, the fountain. His heart started pounding, his head spinning.
She watches him, her own heart beating in her ears.
And then-
A bright, sunny day in Hyrule, a city square full of people, merchants offering their wares, children running around.
Link, wearing the armor of the guard, is there to fetch the two princesses, to escort them around the town for the day. They would be there soon.
“Hello, Link,” said a gentle voice from behind him. He turns to see Zelda and her younger sister… her. The girl. The one he’s been travelling with for weeks now, the one he’s slowly fallen for without meaning to. It’s her.
In the memory, Link bows to the two princesses.
“Link!” says the younger sister. “It’s great to see you again!”
Link smiles, having always gotten along well with her, often helping her with innocent pranks on Zelda which would leave the three of them in fits of laughter when they’d culminate.
“Here,” she says, stepping towards him, her smaller figure fuzzy at the edges from the dreamy echoes of memory. She hands him a flower. “For your hair. Me and Zelda each have one too. So you don’t forget us.”
Link tucks the flower behind his ear, and the younger princess smiles, steps back and hooks her arm through her sisters, tugging her off in another direction. Link shakes his head softly, fondly, following them as the memory fades away.
As he comes back to his present mind there's a single word on his lips.
Her name.
He speaks it with such reverence that nothing else seems to matter in that moment, and he can tell when he meets her eyes across the castle ruins, she knows. She understands.
And she stands there, hair floating in the wind, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes looking terrified and beautiful.
She steps up to him, hands trembling at her sides.
“You remember,” she says, voice breaking halfway through.
He reaches out, cups her cheek gently, brushing his thumb over her cheekbone and tucks her hair behind her ear.
Her pendant is no longer tucked in the confines of her collar, and Link realizes why it was so familiar to him. The royal crest.
He thinks for a moment that he should bow. Take a knee. Address her as ‘your highness’ or something similar.
But he doesn’t.
Not out of disrespect, not out of deviance. But because his stomach is twisting and his heart is pounding and he doesn’t understand how she’s still here, still alive after a hundred years and he’s scared that if he moves or does anything that she’ll crumble away and disappear.
So he stares into her eyes. Those eyes so full of life and wonder and excitement.
“Took you long enough, Sir Knight,” she whispers, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes.
He leans in closer, resting his forehead against her and closes his eyes, breathing a laugh that’s far too shaky.
He tells her ever so gently that he knew something was going on the whole time, that something had struck him as suspicious, things he couldn’t place.
She smiles gently, and great Hylia, that smile…
“I thought about telling you so many times,” she says softly. “But I didn’t want you to treat me as just a princess again. I don’t want duty to come between us…”
He lifts her face to meet his eyes again, looking into hers with a silent plea, asking permission.
She swallows nervously but nods, face flushed.
And he leans in, pressing his lips to hers in a kiss that’s a hundred years overdue.
And she knows, she’s not just a princess to him. That duty couldn’t possibly stand in the way of what’s between them now.
“Come with me,” he whispers.
And she nods, lacing her fingers with his as they walk out of the ruins of the town together, not as knight and princess, but as Link and the girl he refused to forget twice.