#sky(link)

There was no time to dilly-dally, yet Link couldn't seem to rein in his fantasies, like soft breezes trickling into the window of his mind.

After all, it was the genotype of a sky child to possess a mind as open and wondrous as the sky they inhabit. But an open mind meant a poor defense against invading thoughts.

And Y/N had been an invading thought for him since he first met her. When she had decked him for petting her Loft wing without permission. He rubbed the phantom spot on his cheek where small fist had met flesh.

He looked down at Zelda encrusted to his chest, her head bouncing with every wave of turbulence. How had Ghirahim snatched her? Had the demon prince become more brazen this time around? Had he actually set foot on Skyloft?

And if he just waltzed into Skyloft and so righteously helped himself to kidnapping Zelda... What did that mean for everyone currently on Skyloft?

He couldn't be everywhere at once. Ghirahim... He was making Link's already nearly impossible duty as the hero incarnate insurmountable. A bubble burst in his chest, one that an average human would attribute to indigestion. But Link was familiar with this bubble, this geyser of acid shooting upward. It was rage. He had felt it once before when Ghirahim took Zelda the first time.

But this time it was different. Because it didn't just implicate Zelda. No, it now implicated what Link had deemed his.

In the distance, he could make out Groose's bulky physique and the frail, contorted image of Impa both looking downward at the Imprisoned's seal.

He swooped down before them, jumping off his Loft wing without allowing his feathered companion's talons to fully land on the ground.

"L-Link?" Groose's amber irises swelled larger than his inflated biceps. "Zelda?! You saved her!" He began to clap, slowly halting his hands to a stop as realization washed over him. "Oh, but if you have Zelda, that means that Y/N..."

"There's no time for me to explain. You will protect her with your life. Of that much I am certain." Link held his arms outward, offering Zelda to him.

"Wait, you want me to watch..."

"THE GODDESS?!" Impa bellowed, her bony knuckles clenched on Groose's wrist, her overgrown fingernails pinpricking his leathery flesh.

"Impa..." He inhaled. He knew this wouldn't bode well, having rehearsed mentally the whole flight to the sealed grounds. But Link, having been a people pleaser his whole existence, lacked the courage to say the word "no." For the first time in his life, he was swinging the sword of dissent. Whether that be to Impa or Hylia herself.

Y/N's life hung in the balance.

"Owowowowowowow" Groose pulled his hand back, shaking it free from Impa's death grip.

"Hero... this choice you are making it is..."

"Absurd? Brainless?" Groose rubbed his chin as he struggled to name suitable adjectives. "Idiotic?"

"LUNACY!" Impa screeched, forcing phlegm to erupt and splatter on Link's face.

"Hey old hag, careful now; the only person you are hurting right now is yourself." She shot Groose a glare, causing him to shrivel backward.

"Hero... your friend, the choice she made was one she knew the repercussions of. She did this for you. For the goddess. Your choice to risk the goddess's safety will make her sacrifice in vain. It is a decision of self-centeredness. ..."

"Um, grandma, see, you're failing to see that Link and Y/N aren't just friends and that is the whole issue. They just have a weird kink on denials and rivalry."

Groose's expression shifts to a rare show of worry. "Ghirahim... he really got her. Damn." He splays his hand over his heart. "Y/N... really embodies the spirit of a knight even to her last breath. I know we gave her a lot of grief... but perhaps deep down we were all jealous of Y/N. Not just her abilities as a knight in training but also her ability to admit when she was wrong and the courage to make it right."

Link felt his temple twitch, a pulsating that radiated down to his jaw. "I can't give up on her. I won't give up on her."

Sensing the finality in his declaration, Groose outstretched his arms as Link placed Zelda in them. He glanced down at her and back up at Link. "I will give my life. You have my word. But what do I say when she awakens? She'll be looking for you?"

Link remained silent. What was there to say? He couldn't very well say, "Tell her to seal herself away as she did before so I can save Y/N." The only sincere sentiment he could offer came out in a croak. "Tell her I said I'm sorry."

Impa hobbled over. "There is nothing I can say to change your mind. I suppose the heart is stronger than the mind, isn't it? Well, hero, for your sake and the sake of us all, may the goddess aid you on your quest."

It wasn't hard to miss the static of disappointment in the form of extra crinkles around her eyes that made her face droop with disdain.

"As for what to say...the goddess will seal herself away. She knows what her duty is. Her purpose. She will remain in slumber in the great past, awaiting her knight."

Fi springs free from his sword. "Master... we should proceed to Lanayru if we want to save Y/N." Link peers over his shoulder with a solemn nod, his divine accomplice accepting his decision with disguised defeat.

As Link turns to head back toward his Loft wing, a firm, sweaty palm claws into the fabric of his shoulder.

"Hey..." Groose stammers. "Y/N told me everything before she sought you in Eldin. But there was something that stood out to me, and I thought you should know. The person she cares for the most, the person she wanted to impress the most even more than herself... it's you, doofus. So go get her."

For a moment Link stands there, his heart currently the sorest muscle beneath his armor. With a quick blink of his tear-swollen eyes, he runs off.

Groose and Impa stand there with Zelda secure between them, watching as Link once again returns to traverse the skies.

But what they couldn't witness was the plump teardrops sliding down the hero's face and evaporating into thin air the same way Y/N had.

                                        🪽

The scorched sands of Lanayru come into view as the setting sun stains the primordial columns of the Temple of Time with infrared rays of honey and dusk. With the Gate of Time in the Sealed Temple still being active from the first time it was used, Link's only objective lies within the Temple of Time.

"Fi," Link called from over his shoulder. She remained inside of his sword, but he didn't need her response to know she was listening. "Is there a way for me to shift backward in time with control?" His question spurred her forth. "Master, I do not understand your question."

"I don't want to go back all the way in time, just enough to apprehend Y/N from reaching the Fire Sanctuary." He quietly adds, "Will she remember what she said to me?"

"Master...By returning me to the pedestal, you will activate the gate and return back in time, but I cannot control the flow or where it lands."

"Oh, that's right, I have to return you to the pedestal. So I won't even have you with me."

Link arches forward slightly, directing his Loft wing to begin descent. "What a mess. You've really outdone yourself this time, Y/N."

The sun sets in the north, but on Link's face, it rises in the south in the form of a sultry smile that rivals the golden luster of Lanayru's seas of sand. "But that's alright... I will win. Even if I have to fight with a tree branch. I will win, and when I do... I intend to collect what was promised to me. With interest."

Asleep in the crystal, frozen in time for thousands of years, her light dimming like the sky outside the temple as dusk falls. He can feel her warmth fading out of the room, the very same warmth and life and joy that has surrounded him since they were children. 

But now, like her, it is dwindling, and the room is growing cold. 

Link drags the back of one gloved hand across his face, catching the last few tears still staining his cheeks before he looks up at her a final time. Her face is serene, the gold of her hair accentuated further by the crystal, but he wants nothing more than to see her smile again. To hear her laugh. To look into her eyes again and dare to think he sees his own love reflected in their depths. 

But in spite of his wishes, she is still trapped within the crystal, and the temple is growing dark, and his heart has broken into a thousand irreparable shards. 

He turns away, boots scuffing on stone as he moves back to the main room of the temple where Impa still waits and the massive purple gate turns in endless rhythm. Impa says nothing, merely giving him a slight incline of her head and watching as he comes to a halt.

“It’s done,” Link manages to say, voice strange to his own ears. Ragged from screaming her name as the light surrounded her. Weary from months of travel, away from her side. Weak with longing for a heart that cannot be his. 

Not anymore. 

Impa’s eyes close for a brief moment. “You know what you must do, then,” is all she says, and Link can barely summon the strength to nod. 

The other side of the gate is no more comforting than the one he just came from. Groose and the old woman wait for him to speak, but Link just shakes his head numbly and goes to sit in the cool, lonely dusk outside the temple. He leans his head back against the crumbling stone wall and watches as the sky rotates through shades of red and pink and gold before finally it deepens to a velvety blue. 

Link sighs. He’s so, so tired. He wants nothing more than to curl up and sleep. Just five more minutes, and he’ll resume his journey. Just five minutes of rest. That’s all he asks. That’s all he needs, and then— and then… 

His head droops forward, eyes beginning to drift shut. He can feel sleep coming to guide him away into blessed relief free of consciousness. He is just on the verge of it when her voice rings out in his mind. 

I’m still your Zelda. 

Link starts, the echo of her words jolting him from his stupor. What is he doing? Tired or not, he has to keep going. For her. So her sacrifice will not be in vain. 

Come on, Link. Get up. You can rest later. 

Wearily he drags himself upright. Wearily he straps his sword and shield to his back again. Wearily he downs a potion so he’ll at least have something in his stomach. Wearily he moves forward into the darkening twilight, away from the temple. 

Away from her. 

“Still my Zelda,” he murmurs to the night, and keeps going. 

❀ ❀ ❀

She’s still his Zelda when he spends hours swimming through the flooded forest till he is beyond exhausted, till everything looks like a tadtone and his head is swirling. 

She’s still his Zelda when he gets crushed by a boulder and wakes in a Bokoblin prison with a splitting migraine and bleeding wounds, and is forced to spend the night searching for his stolen gear even when he wants nothing more than to rest. 

She’s still his Zelda when he finds the massive skull in the desert, abandoned deep in a canyon gorge where lonely winds blow. 

She’s still his Zelda when he learns that he has one more Silent Realm to face, though this one horrifies him so much more than the rest because it’s on his territory. His homeland. His Skyloft, where he and Zelda grew up together. Where he realized how much he loved her but could never find the courage to say so to her face. 

But even through it, even through the fear as footsteps hammer the earth behind him, even through the choking panic as blades slice the air at his heels, even through the wretched disappointment when he fails, again and again, and has to relive his failure over and over and over— 

Even then, she’s still his Zelda. 

He repeats it to himself like a mantra, till it is the only thing that gives him any purpose, till nothing more can keep him going through the blood and pain and exhaustion. Her smile hangs in his mind every time he snatches a few precious moments of sleep, and the memory of her laughter pushes him onward till at last he reaches the final dungeon.  

“Still my Zelda,” he whispers through cracked and bloody lips as he watches Sky Keep burst forth from the cliff in a shower of dirt and rocks. 

“Still my Zelda,” he pants as he runs through room after room, going in circles that lead him nowhere and make him hopelessly lost and confused. 

“Still my Zelda,” he croaks from beneath the massive foot of a Moblin, its leering face and putrid breath lingering above him as it drives its spear into his ribs. 

Still my Zelda, he thinks as he forces down a potion and cleans his wounds as best he can, because it hurts too much to speak. 

And when the crystal finally shatters, and her warmth and light fill his heart once more, his eyes flood with tears of joy. He can scarcely move. He can scarcely breathe. Because that’s his Zelda, and finally she’s awake. 

Finally they can be together again. 

“My Zelda,” he whispers as he catches her in his arms and cradles her to his heart. He sinks to the floor, fingers entwined in her hair, her scent surrounding him. She smiles weakly and hugs him as best as she can, ear pressed against his chest where she can hear his heartbeat thumping loud and strong. 

“Your Zelda,” she murmurs back, and fumbles to catch one of his hands, tracing her fingers over the scars that now crisscross over his skin. She looks like she wants to say something more, but tears are filling her eyes and she can’t speak. 

Link senses what she is thinking, smiling and bumping his forehead gently against hers as he pulls her even closer. “Don’t blame yourself like I know you are, because I would’ve done it a thousand times over,” he whispers. “In a million lifetimes.” 

“But why?” she murmurs, hands coming to cup his face as she looks at him with eyes full of love. “I’m just Zelda.” 

“Wrong,” he corrects her softly, brushing hair behind her ear. “You’re my Zelda. And me?”