#linkloz

“That smells divine…” She mumbles, trudging to their small kitchen table to add her load to a growing pile of clutter that’s began to form in the chaos of the last week of school. Arms free, Zelda shuffles over to where Link is humming over the stove top, his hips swaying in such a way that she has to refrain from gripping at them. Instead she settles for pressing her chest to his back, arms wrapping around his torso snugly as she noses along the nape of his neck. Link tries his best to act unfazed as she presses chaste kisses up and up towards his ear, watching it twitch slightly, the tip tinged red. As stoic as her knight likes to play, she knows the cracks in his armor and it makes her grin.

“I just finished cooking,” Link hums as he leans back slightly into his princess’ hold. On the stove is a steaming…disk? She’s never seen something of the like before, almost looking like the circular flat breads she enjoys with every other meal in Gerudo Valley. 

“What…is that?” Zelda asks almost nervously. She trusts in his culinary ability, knowing damn well she can barely manage to boil water herself. However, at the same time she’s seen Link choke down dubious concoctions of frogs and monster bits alongside actual goddess forsaken rocks. So it’s sort of a toss up.

Link chuckles as he carefully begins cutting the circular bread in half with a satisfying crunch. “Pizza.”

Zelda nods and hums in response, like she totally understands whatever the fuck Link just said. There’s silence for a moment more before she cannot physically hold her tongue any longer. “Is that a real word or are you just messing with me and this is going right over my head?”

“It’s new,” Link says, not bothering to hide his laughter at Zelda’s response as he quarters the pizza. “Koyin needed my help at the lake. Sent me on like ten different missions today, and ended with us getting more cheese than we can eat.”

“Cheese?” Zelda repeats, the word scratching at a memory just beyond her grasp. Something she must have read in passing.

She had been doing research into the culture and history of Hateno Village back when she first returned from her 100 year stint keeping Calamity Ganon down. It had been hard to walk out of Link’s meager home, the world around her new and strange and different from the one she once knew. Worse than that she was scared of the people. Her people. Scared of what they’d think, scared they’d blame her for their losses. Their princess, the goddess’ chosen hero of wisdom, missing for a century and somehow getting to show up again seemingly unscathed. It had taken her a long time before she was able to step foot into town. Months even. Probably would’ve lasted an entire year if Link’s home had not been truly desolate and mind numbingly plain. There was only so many times she could rearrange their three pieces of furniture before even the ridicule of her beloved people outweighed the boredom of staring out the same window for hours on hours as she waited for Link to return.

The town library had been her first stop.

“Yeah, cheese. Koyin even lent me an old recipe from her grandfather. Pizza,” Link explains as he pulls a quarter of the pizza apart from the circle. Long, steaming strings of cheese connect the slice to the remaining pieces. Zelda’s stomach growls where it’s pressed to Link’s back, both of them freezing up at the sound. Link sets the pizza back down and gives her a curious look over his shoulder. “Have you eaten at all today?”

Not wanting to worry her partner, Zelda immediately slips into damage control mode. She leans in, pressing another hot line of kisses up the side of Link’s neck. These ones are open mouthed and lingering compared to the light pecks from earlier, lightly dragging her teeth across a bruise she’d left there earlier in the week. Link’s ear twitches again, harder this time as his focus slips a bit, but he pulls himself together at the last moment. He turns in Zelda’s arms to give her a disappointed look.

“Did you work through your lunch break again?” Link’s brows are pulled together in worry as he leans back against the stove, putting enough distance between them to fold his arms. No matter how pretty she tries to bat her eyelashes, her stubborn knight refuses to budge an inch.

With a sigh, her arms drop from Link’s hips to fold around her own torso, defensively mirroring Link’s posture without realizing. “It was another half day at the school, and you know how many of the students show up to after school care when the day is over.”

“And nobody could cover you for lunch?” Link prods, still looking at her with those kicked puppy blue eyes that made her want to storm away and sleep the rest of the day away as if she were a teen again. Zelda hates that she makes him worry. Hates that she takes up space in his mind like that, hates that she takes up space in general. Hates being useless. Hates not being able to take a break. Hates constantly worrying that she isn’t doing enough. She doesn’t say it out loud. After so long at each other’s sides, she doesn’t really need to. Link sighs sadly. He doesn’t have to say it out loud either, but she knows he wants to shake her by the shoulders and insists she matters, that she deserves to rest.

“Come sit and eat,” He says instead, arms falling back to his sides. The tension brewing in Zelda dissipates immediately, her shoulders slumping like a puppet with cut strings. There’s a terrible ache in her lower back she hadn’t noticed until she stopped running about like a cuccoo with its head chopped off. She presses a light kiss to the corner of his lips as thanks, one he reels her in to return in full. The two only part from the kiss when Zelda’s stomach decides to make itself known yet again. Link chuckles against her lips, tapping her hip where his hands had slid up to hold her during their kiss. “Sit. Eat.”

“Unf, Link. You know how hot it gets me when you use caveman speak,” Zelda teases as she does as told, sliding into her usual seat at the table. Link sends a half-hearted glare her way, signing something along the lines of ‘go fuck yourself,’ before turning his attention back to their dinner.

As much as she adores giving her boyfriend a hard time, she adores every word to come out of his mouth. When they were younger, Link said hardly a word to her despite how many she hurled at him. Being seventeen is hard. Being the princess was harder. Being her knight was likely even harder than that. Zelda finds herself getting stuck on her treatment of Link, taking his silence for judgment. Judgment that he wielded the sword, a random knight from Hyrule goddess chosen and capable. Judgment that no matter how many days and nights she spent praying and begging for an answer, she was left in silence. Silence from the goddess Hylia, silence from her chosen knight. Expectant silence while everyone stared and waited for something incredible she just wasn’t capable of.

Zelda’s spiraling was interrupted by a plate pointedly placed in front of her. Link’s eyebrow is quirked in a silent question when she drags her gaze up from where it had been blindly boring holes into their wooden tabletop. A silent question from her no longer silent knight.

“Sorry, just lost in thought. This is perfect, thank you beloved,” She sighs, watching her love’s ears turn pink as he hurries back to the stove to grab his own slice. 

While no longer completely mute, Link still had his moments. They were becoming fewer and far between when it was just the two of them. Primarily when Link’s having a bad day. But Zelda’s found she quite enjoys his silence as well, now. Especially when its cause is sweet pet names that fluster the knight to no end.

It isn’t long before the two are seated and digging into yet another lovely home cooked meal from the hero of Hyrule. The pizza is unlike anything she’s tried before, but it’s something she could get used to eating. Her first bite is followed by a moan that nearly causes Link to drop his own slice. If that hadn’t proved to him how delicious the food was, the way they devoured the whole pizza in silence did.

“Link,” Zelda groans as she leans back in her chair. “You’ve truly outdone yourself. You must make this again.”

‘I’d make it every single day if you wanted me to, princess.’ Link signs the words to her instead of speaking them aloud, something he does often when saying something sweet. Zelda’s heart squeezes with affection, hiding a giddy grin by sipping from her water. It’s intoxicating to know she has such an effect on her partner. To reduce him to such a blushing, stuttering mess.

The air between them shifts, Zelda’s eyes going half-lidded as she stares across the table at Link as if she would devour him next. Which honestly, she thought to herself, wasn’t such a bad idea…

“The hero of Hyrule AND an amazing chef? How can I ever repay your valiant efforts toward the crown of Hyrule?” She teases as she stands from her chair and slowly stalks towards where Link’s staring with wide eyes. 

A strangled noise gets caught in his throat when Zelda turns his chair out from the table and then gracefully sinks to her knees in front of him. This isn’t anything new for the two of them, but Link is flustered and stumbling over his words like it’s the first time all over again. Unable to put words to his thoughts, Link settles on breathlessly whispering her name as her hands slide up his calves to his thighs. He shifts under her palms unconsciously, biting his bottom lip in anticipation.

“Ah, I mean - well…if you insist,” Link finally stutters out.

Zelda grins up at him wickedly. She flicks her short hair out of her face as she shuffles up closer, something she would soon regret as a bolt of hot pain radiates down her spine from the top of her neck. If she had been standing up her knees would have surely buckled underneath her. Her only saving grace is that she’s already on her knees and instead she falls forward and face plants into her partner’s thigh with a muffled ‘oof’.

The mood between them is shattered as Link immediately tenses up beneath her. Sitting up from his formerly slumped position, he gently brushes her hair out of her face. He’s nervous to move her and worsen the pain.

“Zelda?? Are you ok?” Link asks earnestly. It’s enough to make her face heat up and she turns away from his light touches and groans frustratedly into the meat of his thigh. She can feel him relax some as he gently runs his fingers through her hair. “You overdid it again, didn’t you?”

Both of them were aware of her tendencies to work until she, sometimes literally, dropped. Zelda liked to ignore it, which only made Link more persistent in his attempts at getting her to slow down and take a breath. Ironic, she thought, when Link was definitely the more overtly self-destructive of the two. Of course, she also didn’t see her overworking tendencies as self-destructive, though, which Link vehemently disagrees with. The two could go round and round about it until they were both red in the face and exhausted. Which sometimes they did.

“It was the last day of school, I couldn’t just…leave early,” Zelda sighs, turning her face enough for her voice to be heard clearly. It sounded like a weak excuse even to her own ears, which drooped down in shame.

“Are the other teachers really that bad at their jobs?” Link mumbles, starting to unravel the braids that circle Zelda’s head.

“What? No! They’re entirely capable, I trust them with the physical well-being of any of the children in Hateno,” She says almost indignantly, as if she’d dare let someone unqualified for the job risk the safety of a child.

“Then what’s the issue?”

That gives Zelda pause. She starts and stops nearly four different attempts at defending her actions, but still ends up short. Curse Link and his occasional wisdom. She hates when he makes sense.

“I worry…” Zelda starts, her voice small. “I worry something out of everyone’s control will occur. Whether that be a disaster of some sort? Another calamity? I don’t know. I just feel it all the time, this overwhelming dread like something bad is going to happen. Like…like…”

“Like the other shoe is going to drop?” Link finishes for her when she trails off. “I know. I feel it too.”

“But if I’m there, if I’m present, I can stop it. I can help them in ways other can’t, I can finally stop being so useless-”

Pausing where he was gently unraveling the plaits in Zelda’s hair, he gingerly takes her face in both of his hands. So light and gentle like she’s glass, like she’ll break apart into a thousand pieces so small they can’t possibly piece them together again.

“Calamity Ganon is gone. We’re safe. We have a home in Hateno. You’re princess Zelda of Hyrule. You love frogs and helping the village kids learn how the world around them works. You like pizza,” Link lists fact after fact about her until she finally looks him in the eyes and rests a hand over top of his, still cupping her face.

She recognizes what he’s doing. It’s a grounding technique she uses often when Link is suffering through a bad day. When he swears he can still feel the cold chill of the resurrection shrine, when he coughs with phantom smoke from Ganon’s putrid gloom.

“I hate when you make sense,” With another exaggerated groan, Zelda turns back to hiding her face in his leg, biting down lightly in retaliation. Link giggles almost giddily, his thighs ticklish as he struggles not to jostle his partner.

“C’mon. Stove’s still burning, I can heat some water for a bath,” Link offers as he finishes loosening the last of her braids. He runs his fingers gently through the wavy locks until the last bit of tension drops from Zelda’s shoulders. “Might help with the pain.”

Zelda doesn’t bother denying the soreness that’s truly settling into her muscles now that she’s stopped running about. There’s a dull throb along her back and her knees feel awkward and numb where she’s been resting all her weight on them for the past ten minutes. Taking Link’s offered hands, she lets her knight help her to her feet and pulls him up with her. He nearly stumbles into her, but turns it into an embrace at the last second. His arms are wrapped tight around her waist as he stares up at her through his messy bangs. 

While Zelda had been trying out increasingly shorter hair styles, it seemed like Link was content to let his own hair grow far past his shoulders. Not that she was complaining. The added length made it much more fun to tug at in…certain situations. Link’s breath hitches as Zelda reaches up to tangle her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. She’s got a firm but gentle grip, not pulling. Not yet, anyways.

“Only if you’re to join me, beloved.” Zelda hums. She’s all too pleased to see the mood may not have been entirely ruined, giggling behind her hand as Link ducks out of her hold and immediately rushes out to grab a bucket of water from their well out back.

It’s been years now since the two defeated the Calamity. It’ll be years in the future before they may live unburdened by the pain of their shared suffering. But Zelda finds herself not minding the aches and sore spots as much as she thought she would. 

To her it’s a sign of progress.