#presentstone

@presentstone zelimpa in no. 10 for you!

Ao3 link

Sweater Weather

A warm place to escape to from a cold world

Link doesn’t know the name of the place they have stopped for the night. It’s roughly halfway between the castle and Ordon. Simply a wide spot in the road, really. But tonight it’s where they will rest before moving on.

He wasn’t able to find a table near the hearth in the inn’s common room when they had dinner, and now he feels the chill of the evening nipping his ear tips. His fingers are interlaced with Zelda’s, and her fingertips are cold against his, as well. They sit in silence, passing time before they retire to the room for the night. They are together, but they haven’t been together, yet. Not yet. He hopes that might be soon, but until then, negotiating the sleeping has felt odd. They have both been cautious.

“Chilly tonight.” She notes, breaking their silence.

He nods and finds himself launching into a story. “I knew a woman in Lurelin. Everyone thinks of the warm days there, but when it rains, it’s cold and everyone just huddles together inside. Anyway. She called it sweater weather. This feels like sweater weather.”

He goes quiet. He hasn’t thought about Celia in a very long time. While he remembers the heat they shared on cold, grey days, he also remembers the way he failed her. He drops his gaze to his lap, shame creeping over him.

Zelda’s hand squeezes his, bringing him back to the inn. “What is it?”

“I wasn’t very good to her.”

“You were not the man you are now. You shouldn’t punish yourself now for who you used to be.” Her fingers brush his chin, drawing his face up to hers. “Your past brought you here. Acknowledge it, and step forward to who you are now.”

She looks deeply into him. It wasn’t that long ago that his first instinct would be to look away, and withdraw into himself. He is trying to be better, to live up to what the goddesses have seen fit to force onto him, so he stares back.

The world is a cold, hard place. Colder and harder than he understood. Yet she offers light and softness, even though she has seen who he really is. She is a refuge, a safe place to escape his harsh realities. His shame dissipates, replaced by a slow warming in his gut.

Impa had once lectured him about intimacy. It meant far more, she claimed, than taking a partner to his bed. He thinks he finally understands what she was trying to tell him.

He loves her. He has told her that, though she has not repeated it back to him. Yet. Perhaps she will see him as worthy of her if he accepts what she is giving him, now.

“I know.” He whispers. “But it’s hard.”

She leans across the table and kisses his forehead. “I know.” There’s a moment where she draws a breath as though she intends to add to her thoughts, but she presses her lips to his forehead again, before taking her seat instead.

They sit across the table from each other, fingers tangled together, eyes only for each other and the rest of the inn forgotten.

half a master is full mast

When I hit 300 followers, I decided to celebrate by taking prompts to write super short fics! I ended up with four, and I’ve collected them all here, please enjoy.

Falling Leaves for @fatefulfaerie who asked for middle aged BOTW ZeLink

Pumpkin Spice for @itcantbe featuring Skyward Sword ZeLink

Piles of Leaves for @wanderingnightingale with BOTW ZeLink

Sweater Weather for @presentstone who asked for my AU ZeLink (and thanks again for that!)

matt? doyle?

Thank you @presentstone !!! The link to the year end fic asks is here.

3 favorite line/scene you wrote this year

“Herbal. Please.” She rested her hand on her chin, elbow on the table. “You were snuggly this morning.”

He fumbled the tea infuser. It was such a small, fussy thing, though, that he might have fumbled it anyway. “What?

19 any new fics to start next year

I have two things I’m kicking about currently but I am not sure what their timeline will be. When I look back on 2021, most things I wrote were for exchanges and events and contests and stuff. Like a lot was for other people, and that’s fine but maybe 2022 will be fewer things, but stuff I’m more invested in?

I think my favorite thing I wrote all year (Reunion) was the one big thing that wasn’t a prompt or for something else, so maybe more of that.

23 fics you wanted to write but didn’t

I kinda wanted to rewrite Farore from Zelda’s point of view but I’m not sure that interests me as much anymore. It’s been more fun (for me) imagining other bits of her life or just some scenes from the original rather than a whole rewrite. Farore got written in a white hot I Have To Do This Thing in 2020 because I literally had no other ways available to cope with what my world was doing. I’m still amazed that the whole thing came out at all, never mind the way it got published.

Will we see stuff from that Zelda? Probably? My own world is about to undergo some big changes and I’m not sure where fic will fit in just yet.

24 favorite fic you read this year

There were so many but I really loved the fic of my fic that you wrote, Naive Melody. I’d gotten asked after things were assigned about backstory to my Zelda which got my curiosity way up, so I was pretty sure someone was playing in my big sandbox.

au where i stayed in pittsblurgh and u moved there for grad school

When he looks at Amy with that kind of wary love firing in eyes - sometimes, not always, but enough that it makes her guts turn over - he’s looking at someone else. It’s not Rose, or Martha. She’s not sure who it is, for a while, and lets it go. An eccentricity to worry over later, now there’s no time, now they’re running and exploring and lying on a beach on a moon somewhere with a glass sky and iridescent sand. Amy runs a handful through her fingers, wonders how she could ever possibly be more content, and listens to the Doctor name the creatures they see crawling out from the water in a fairy parade.

It’s years later, years she doesn’t always remember or hasn’t lived, or has lived double, that she realizes. Years of being left, looking at herself in the mirror of a home and a life she didn’t ask for and puzzling over the agelessness of her reflection. She’d seen herself old. She wonders what she’ll look like in this life, in however many years.