#linktheacehero

Why not practice training in the courtyard, he’d asked her once, and she replied that practicing in the fields was more realistic and less confining.

In the end, it always boiled down to feeling trapped; and he couldn’t blame her. If he’d been trapped in a dark, dingy tower for weeks without any outside contact, he’d feel the same way.

The prince consort made his way outside Hyrule Castle and its limiting walls, making sure to don a cloak that would hide his identity, and ventured into the streets of Castle Town. He knew these streets well, remembering fondly the times he’d terrorized his citizens in wolf form and the mischievous laugh Midna would make when he did.

He checked the alleys with the cats, and she wasn’t there. He checked the band in the center of town, and she wasn’t there, either. He checked Malo Mart, Agatha’s home, the doctor’s—nothing. She was nowhere to be found.

Nervously he tugged on his collar and gulped. Only one last place to check: Telma’s bar.

It wasn’t the bar itself that made him nervous, no, but rather what Zelda could possibly be doing at the bar.

Drinking.

His wife was not known for being able to hold her liquor, and while the townsfolk liked their queen, he couldn’t imagine the whispers that would rise when he’d have to escort the drunk Queen of Hyrule back to the castle.

After winding his way through the alleys and descending into the small, stone brick courtyard outside the bar, he pushed the door open and stepped inside. In the middle of the day, the bar was always slow. The worst drinkers came out at nighttime.

“Link!” Telma called, her hands preoccupied drying a beer mug. “Welcome in. Didn’t expect to see you, fancy prince consort.”

“Hello to you too, Telma.”

His eyes flitted around the room before landing on a head of soft brown hair and a pale hand clutching the handle of a cup.

Telma smirked. “Looking for someone?”

“Yeah…”

He walked up to the brunette and sat down next to her. “What are you doing?” he asked.

The woman looked up at him. There she was.

Queen Zelda, red-eyed and holding a mug of beer.

“I should’ve known you’d come looking,” she groaned.

“I was worried.”

“Oh, please. You know very well I can handle myself.”

Link sighed and nodded.

“I needed to get away,” she said, taking a swig of her amber drink. “It’s too much lately.”

“The paperwork?”

“Yes. And meetings, and festivals, and events, and diplomacy. I need a break before I break.”

“I feel that way, too.”

“And yet you stick around!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Zelda glanced at Telma, who only smiled and disappeared from behind the bar and into the adjoining room, where the table once surrounded by resistance members was now empty.

“Don’t you feel trapped?” his queen asked.

He nodded.

“I imagine the feeling is worse for you,” she sighed. “You grew up in the forests. You travelled around all of Hyrule. What’s it like to truly be free, Link? I don’t think you’ve ever told me.”

“It’s… not something I can describe.”

“You’re even losing your accent the longer you stay here,” Zelda observed.

“I did not have an acce—”

“Yes, you did, and you do! But now you’re being tainted by all this formal talk.”

“Well, you don’t sound so formal yourself.”

“Should I be formal with you? My husband? My… hero?”

Link rolled his eyes as she giggled.

“But do you see my point? I’ve never known anything like that. I want it. I crave it. That’s why I leave so often.”

“Unannounced, because if you have knights with you, then you’re not truly free,” he realized.

“Exactly.”

Leaning back in her chair, she took another swig before Link promptly took the mug from her.

“You know you don’t drink well, and drinking won’t get you any freedom.”

“Fine,” she grumbled, crossing her arms. “Then how am I supposed to get any?”

“I’ll take you somewhere. Just you and me. We’ll start simple—an inn here in town, perhaps.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. When all these meetings and paperwork and events and diplomacy is over,” he teased.

“Tonight,” she stated. “We won’t go back to the castle until tomorrow and just have a day out.”

“And if people recognize you?”

“They won’t,” she chirped, putting on her dark cloak. “Shall we?”

“R-right now?”

“Yes, right now!”

Link stood from his stool and slipped on his own cloak. “I guess.”

She dragged him everywhere around Castle Town that day; to Malo Mart, to the hot spring water vendor, to every single flower stall, to Agatha’s castle; to the fortune teller, to the alley cats, to the STAR game tent, and even to the edges of bridges just outside the gates where they sat and watched the clouds roll by.

At night, they ended their escapade in a small inn on the edge of town. Side by side in bed, she asked him again,

“Do you feel trapped?”

And again, he nodded.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because marrying me was the last nail in the coffin, I suppose. Hylia’s sake, you were so free you turned into a wolf.”

“Well, that wasn’t exactly my choice.”

“But you see the point I’m trying to make. I was the deciding factor in whether or not you’d get to live how you want.”

She rolled over to face away from him.

“Zel…”

“I feel terrible about it. Every day. I really do.”

“I don’t.” His hand grazed her shoulder before settling flat upon it, a comfort to shockingly cold skin.

“You can’t even visit Ordon because we’re so busy,” she mumbled. “I can’t imagine what that feels like.”

“It doesn’t feel great, you’re right,” he agreed, “but I chose to be with you, Zelda, because you make me feel free. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He nudged her shoulder, forcing her to roll and face him again.

“Today, in Castle Town, I felt relaxed,” she admitted. “It was nice to just get away but this time get away with you.”

“Mhm,” he hummed, settling his face into the crook of her neck and his arms around her frame. Her hands found their home in his dirty blonde locks, rubbing soothingly.

“Thank you,” Zelda sighed.

The room was quiet, and he didn’t respond.

“Hnnnngh…..”

And he was snoring, just like every night. Again.