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Twilight Princess, Ilia x Ashei fic

1270 words, G rating, no warnings

(My 100th fic on AO3!)

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The court musicians began to play, and the center of the ballroom gathered with couples. Ilia found an empty space on the fringes and watch the dancing. Back home in Ordon, she’d dreamed of attending a ball at the royal castle, but now she was content to play the role of wallflower.

“You look like you could use a drink.”

Ilia jumped when someone spoke to her. She recognized the woman from Telma’s bar. They’d only met in passing, when Ilia had lost her memory. But Ilia remembered her name—Ashei. She held two glasses of dark red liquid in her hands. Even at a royal ball, Ashei wore armor. The surface was polished to a mirrored shine but still had telltale nicks and dents from battle.

Far overhead the stars burn. Not us. We are inflammable.

“If Ashei could be likened to an unending winter, the likes of which blanketed her homeland - then Ilia was the coming spring, her spirit like the buzz of honeybees upon a bed of newly budded flowers, her smile the warmth of the sun come to bleed life back into the frozen earth. And, truthfully, that warmth was at first a sensation that frightened Ashei deeply.  But - she thought - perhaps it was one she could grow used to.”

A moment alone together, after the tavern has closed and everyone has gone to bed.