Princess Zelda

​#🇩​​🇺​​🇹​​🇾​​🇫​​🇴​​🇷​​🇬​​🇪​​🇩 ( hero of the wilds ) ⸻ a private & mutuals only HERO OF THE WILDS LINK of Nintendo's Breath of the Wild & Tears of the Kingdom ( with an alternate verse for Age of Calamity ). written by Jess ( she / her, 42, pst ). est. March 2025. sideblog to wintersoverein. Crossovers are highly encouraged.

He didn't speak again right away. Words were not his way, and besides, he knew better than to fill a sacred silence. Zelda stood there, her hair tousled by the wind and her eyes still searching his, and for once, she didn't pull away. She didn't look past him or brush him off with a frustrated sigh. She looked at him. Truly saw him.

And Link ---Link had never felt so seen.

He took a slow breath, gaze flickering from the unconscious Yiga warrior at their feet to the woman he'd risked everything to protect. There was no pride in his expression, no need for thanks. Only a quiet, unspoken vow written in the set of his jaw and the steel in his gaze.

He watched her brush the last of the sand from her tunic, determined as ever to stand tall again, to prove that she wasn't fragile. Link admired that. He always had. But he also saw through it, he saw the flicker of doubt in her eyes, the guilt that gnawed at the edge of her pride.

She still believed needing help made her weak.

But he didn’t. Not for a second.

From behind his calm exterior, his thoughts surged like a river after the thaw. She's more powerful than she knows. But even the strongest don’t have to carry everything alone. He longed to say it aloud, to close the gap between her fear and his certainty. Instead, he simply stepped to her side.

"If you're still planning to go to the ruins…" he began, voice low but steady, "I would be honored to accompany you."

"Right...okay then." Her words were a bit stilted, but not out of irritation, as so often had been the case around Link. If anything, she suddenly felt...a little self-conscious of her own actions and the complete lack of animosity that he seemed to hold toward her. All he'd ever done was his duty, wasn't it? Why did he look at her so earnestly, so eagerly? Why didn't he have even a shred of resentment for the way she'd been treating him?

As they began to walk, the silence felt more and more uncomfortable. She had to break it with something.

"I think" she began slowly, "these ruins might hold hints to some of the secrets of Sheikah lost to time. The Sheikah who—" Wait, would he even know about this? Of course not, why would he?

"After the fall of Calamity Ganon, the royal family deemed it necessary to remove Sheikah technology completely, since it posed too much of a threat." She had her own thoughts about this, the more she learned about these events, but it must have been for the greater good. Right? "The Sheikah Clan was split on how they received this. Half of the clan gave up their technology willingly and settled in Kakariko Village. While ever servants of the royal family, they lived a quieter, more peaceful life." Though with the rising threat of Calamity Ganon's return, a few Sheikah had begun to rediscover some of this technology, like Robbie and Purah. But aas brilliant as they were, they could only do so much with the information available. So much of their history was gone now.

"The other half...thought this measure unjust. They denounced the royal family of Hyrule and retreated to this desert and swore to ally with Calamity Ganon and seek vengeance. They have lived here ever since. Only recently have we been...learning more about them. 'Yiga', is what they call themselves now." Of course, none of this research would be necessary if she could just unlock the holy power within her self but...that was becoming a distant dream more and more each day. She had to focus on what she could do.

Anywhere (pt 1)

>> next (pt 2)

*cough* more Zelink hehe. They're planting flowers at their peaceful little cottage and Neydra decides to fly overhead.

--

His gaze softens as he looks at her, the weight of his words settling between them. "This isn't just a duty to me." His voice lowers, and there’s a tenderness in it now. He steps closer, his eyes searching hers for a moment, as though trying to understand the distance she’s placed between them. Link reached out his hand to gently take her's and help her up. "I feel it deep inside, as fate itself pulls me toward you." His thumb gently brushed over her hand, holding her gaze, he could see the vulnerability in her eyes so much like his own, barely able to comprehend the force drawing them together. Something told him that this was the moment to speak earnestly. His voice dropped to a whisper, almost as though saying the words aloud was forbidden. "Our destinies are forever intertwined, princess." He spoke from his heart.

She'd never seen those sky blue eyes quite so intense, his gaze quite so earnest. The final whispered words made her own eyes widen. In any other circumstance, Zelda would be taken aback by the audacity of anyone saying such a thing to her, but in truth...she couldn't entirely deny it. Whether she liked it or not—and she wasn't sure she entirely disliked it anymore—he was right. They were bound together, by duty and perhaps something more. She didn't want to think about the latter too much, not when she'd failed to live up to what fate needed her to do so often.

But she couldn't deny the comfort of the sentiment that he would always be there for her, no matter what.

I think part of why they made Kohga extremely goofy compared to a way less goofy clan of literal assassins is to emphasise how even though the clan originally held some understandable beliefs, it has become a cult of personality over the years, and like most cults, the leader is way less charismatic than his followers make him out to be. Indeed, from the outside, it seems absurd how anyone could take Kohga seriously, let alone kill under his command, but from the inside, Kohga is the Beloved Leader That Guides Them Towards Victory, and anyone threatening him deserves to die.

In a way, yiga clan members feel like vulnerable, impressionable people who were enrolled into a cult and given a Big Family and a purpose (and a lethal weapon) by their lovable Master Kohga who wants the best for them… Except if you want to get out, then you’re a filthy traitor who also deserves to die. It’s especially visible when you beat him and they all get personally mad at you for killing him. They didn’t care about Ganon, they didn’t seem to actually understand the bigger picture, they only cared about Kohga.

It also shows how, like the rest of Hyrule, the Yigas are very much disconnected from their own history, seemingly holding on the grudge their ancestors held more as an excuse to continue to enact violence and perpetuate the cult of personality than fighting for a “noble” cause. Only Kohga seems to actually care about Calamity Ganon, and the rest of the yigas seem to be just tools to him. Wether or not he’s actually conscious of what he’s doing is unclear. Is he a fully aware con artist, or is he purely another product of Yiga indoctrination?

So yeah, to me it feels like a parody/critic/mockery of cult dynamics. It shows that this gang of assassins are indeed a real menace, but for seemingly no reason other than “that one lunatic they admire told them to” and “if they go away they get killed”. The reason why the clan was originally created becomes almost anecdotal. Under the current leader, no one is required to actually know what they’re doing, they just need to follow orders.

TOTK - Eternal (part 1)

The clash of steel against steel rang out through the stillness of the forest clearing. Link's hand shook ever so slightly, the weight of the pot lid in his grasp a reminder of the strange and unexpected weapon he had chosen. It wasn’t a knight’s shield nor a divine relic ---just the simple, battered lid of an old cooking pot he's grabbed. Yet, in this moment, it had proven to be more than enough.

A bead of sweat traced a path down his temple that he wiped away with his forearm. He exhaled slowly, feeling the steady thrum of adrenaline pulsing in his veins. The enemy, a Yiga footsoldier, was knocked unconscious by the recoil Link's unorthodox defense caused. Link watched two other Royal Guards drag him off. Zelda was safe ---for now.

His gaze flickered toward her, seeing the fear in her eyes fade as the immediate threat subsided. He could feel the weight of his duty upon him, but also a strange warmth rising within him. She was watching him, as always, but with less an expression of loathing and more ...something he couldn't place.

That was what she told her father. That was what she told Link—multiple times over the course of the past few weeks. The whole assignment had just felt like another way of reminding her how useless she was. How powerless. But this man was stubborn; not with his words, but with his actions. No matter what she said to him, he simply would not stop following her around.

But today, she had finally shaken him off. It was largely thanks to a small sandstorm in the desert that she had managed to do it all, but amidst the chaos, she'd slipped away to have some time to herself..

It was a mistake.

Not ten minutes had gone by before she was running from a masked man—one of the Yiga clan who clearly was intent on killing her. Just as she was starting to run out of breath, she stumbled and fell to the ground. Zelda only barely had enough time to put her arms up in a vein attempt at protection when she heard a loud crack.

When she looked, Link was there in front of her, and the clan member had been knocked out cold. Was that...a pot lid he was holding? He always had that sword with him, but she supposed a shield wasn't necessarily an every day thing. When he turned back to her, his words were almost startling—for how much she talked at him, he was never very chatty. For a solid three seconds, Zelda just stared up at Link with a mixture of leftover fear and newly-found awe before finally coming to her senses. She stood up as quickly as possible, brushing the sand off her pants.