#thcctm

She waited.

He swallowed.

She glowered at him.

“Ohhhh,” he said with a strange little laugh, running a hand through his wet hair, depositing extra sand there with a wince.

“Do I take it we no longer have a boat?”

Link nodded and kept nodding, his hand having returned to his hair, and with a start, Zelda realized something else was missing.

“Where is the Sword that Seals the Darkness?” she asked, with a strange, dim sense of surprise at how small her voice sounded.

He peeked at her between the arm he’d rested on one knee and the hand still tangled in his hair as though steadying himself with it. “I dropped it.”

“How could you drop it?! It was sheathed!”

“I took it out. It was weighing us down.” He held a palm out as though to ward off whatever he saw in her gaze. “I had to.”

The Sword that Seals the Darkness.

Lost.

Like them.

“Merciful Goddess,” she whispered.

--

To his credit, Link had a lean-to built for her within the hour.

Zelda used the time to change into the spare shirt and trousers he apparently kept in his korok pouch. There was a small but very convenient freshwater pool with a gentle waterfall, and while she had reservations about drinking it without boiling it, she gladly rinsed the grain of salt from her skin.

She then began to check the flora and fauna around them against the slate’s compendium. They wouldn’t starve, at least—palm fruit and bananas appeared abundant, and as one paraglider cloth fluttered in the breeze behind her, Link deposited two large, round fruit unfamiliar to her on the other paraglider cloth she sat on. She frowned as he walked away, compelled, for some reason, to snap a picture of him with sand still stuck to his back. He’d discarded only his socks.

She indulged her compulsion. She then sniffed and pointed the Slate at the melons, which apparently were “cantaloupes.”

--

“Hylia’s sake,” Zelda fumed as she attempted yet again to force the Slate to emit an intermittent, high-amplitude electromagnetic pulse. “It’s not as though they won’t be looking for us,” she muttered (despite her uncertainty as to Link’s whereabouts, or whether he truly listened when she thought out loud), “but they shall most certainly begin on Eventide, and we are most definitely not there.” Her gaze rose to the horizon, utterly flat and entirely blue, which it shouldn’t have been in any direction on any island she’d ever seen from the shores of Hyrule. She shook her head, confounded. It was as though the gods themselves had sent that storm to hurtle them as far from home as possible.

Purah knew Zelda, and therefore would know to search for some sort of signal from the Slate.

How long it would take her to find the right one was the second question.

The first, of course, was whether Zelda could produce one before the Calamity came.

A clack and a spark drew her eyes to the firepit Link had dug. Zelda grimaced, as did he, at the humid wood and bark which had thus far refused to light. She imagined if Link had fire arrows in that magical pouch of his, he would use them only as a last resort.

--

Link’s footsteps approached her.

“You should sleep, Princess,” he said.

She squinted up toward where he must have been, her eyes adjusted to the screen, with only its meager light to illuminate him.

“I have yet to resolve the communication problem,” she said.

“It’ll keep til tomorrow,” he said. “You’ll think better on a night’s rest.”

She blinked as though it would speed her night vision’s arrival. “The longer I take, the longer til we are found.”

“You need to take care of yourself,” he said with a strange laugh. “If you get sick, I—”

There was a pause, and Zelda’s face pinched. She hugged the slate to her chest, attempting to see beyond it.

“—I don’t know what I’m doing,” Link said, “with that. I won’t be able to take over for you.”

It was more than he’d ever spoken to her in a day.

He crouched before her, his fingers steadying him just in front of the paraglider-mat, his face now strangely hollowed by the graze of Slate-light on his cheekbones.  “Please, Princess,” he said, holding a hand out to take the Slate from her.

She stared at it, rankling, somehow, at how reasonable a request it was.

She placed it in his hand and turned off the screen.

She curled up on the mat to the sound of him rummaging around, her forearm beneath her head.  Sleep arrived swiftly.

--

She awakened with a cloth rolled beneath her head and several more tucked around her body. She craned her neck to see korok and Rito designs alongside a rather childish-looking egg with pink spots adorning her, criss-crossing a bit in her bleary vision.

“Why do you have a myriad of paraglider cloths?” she asked.

A squelching arrived as though in answer, and she turned to see Link with his mouth expanded unreasonably wide around a kabob of roasted orange melon.

He stared wide-eyed at her, his face too occupied for speech.

Then he reached for another stick suspended over the meager fire, waved it in the air a few times, and held it out to her.

She sat up, stretched her neck, and accepted his offering with a plaintive squeal from her stomach.

The fruit was extremely wet. She did her best to conceal its sticky tracks on her chin.

Link was terrible at it.

--

While she pursued her critical task with dedication beneath the palms and the small shelter, and Link kept her dutifully fed and watered, she found herself increasingly distracted by his other pursuits.

He circled the immediate area at a brisk jog. She assumed him to be scouting (again), quietly approved, and paid it little mind.

He pulled a small shovel from his korok pouch and attempted to sidle away from her while shielding it from her with his body, disappearing into the treeline. Zelda sighed and tried not to think about what he was doing with it.

She later caught sight of him emerging from behind a huge rock far to her right and nearer to the ocean, side-walking on his toes, half-crouched, with his hands in the air.

She shook her head and returned her eyes to the screen.

When his feet invaded the upper right corner of her vision despite her attempt to concentrate, she looked up to find his head waggling as well. The slate lowered to rest in her lap as he made a sudden leap forward, then sprinted toward the sea. He stopped a few moments later, searching the area around his feet.

Zelda returned to her S.O.S. efforts when he began scratching the back of his head, and this time became quite absorbed. She lost track of Link entirely for at least a few hours.

When he reappeared, it was in the other corner of her eye, hauling a wide, dark, flat rock from somewhere in the trees far to her left down the beach. He dragged it further and further from the trees’ shadow, eventually letting it rest near to where they’d come ashore, almost directly between Zelda and the ocean. Link rose with his fists on his hips and a nod, and when he turned to walk back toward the treeline, he appeared quite pleased with himself. He also appeared to be sweating arrowheads. He’d draped his champion’s tunic on a nearby branch, but he was still heavily clothed.

“Sir Link!” Zelda shouted.

He squinted at her, the Sun beating on his face.

Zelda winced. He’d be quite burnt, wouldn’t he? “Your attire is inappropriate!”

His expression didn’t seem to change, but he broke into a jog. This seemed counterproductive if the objective were to cool himself down. Zelda opened her mouth to say so, then shut it. Surely, he knew this and was simply in a hurry to escape the sunlight. She returned to her work.

When he arrived, a flash of blue caught her eye once more: he’d taken his tunic from the branch. As it made its way over his head and onto his torso over his sweat-soaked shirt, Zelda’s eye twitched.

“Link?” she asked.

“Princess?” he said, panting a bit.

“What are you doing?”

His hands spread open at hip-height. Zelda had rather the impression of a shrug, though he hadn’t actually shrugged. “You cannot possibly be cooler like that,” she said.

His face mimed an “oh.”

“What did you believe I meant?” Zelda asked.

Link gestured at his front. “Well- I wasn’t in uniform.”

Her mouth went a little slack. It took her a moment to shake her disbelief free. “Did you- truly believe I value your formality over your health?”

His eyes shifted side to side and his face paled a bit, as though he thought himself in trouble.

“Sir Link,” she said. “You are overdressed and losing a significant percentage of your body’s water to sweat. I appreciate your extraordinary ability to rip palm nuts open with your bare hands—” (she truly did, he’d frightened her with the first one yesterday, it had cracked so mightily)— “and therefore keep yourself supplied with fresh water, but there is no need to exacerbate the problem. Those trousers are thick and heavy, aren’t they?” She blinked as he continued to stare at her, and a sudden suspicion struck. “They’re still the same ones? From the ocean?”

His throat bobbed.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You gave me your spare clothes,” she said—not that she hadn’t realized that—it’s not as though he’d handed her women’s clothing—"and kept yours on. Didn’t you? You didn’t change last night? Or bathe?”

The spooked look on his face was enough confirmation. She could only imagine the chafing.

“Sir Link, I order you to cease- whatever it is you were doing and take care of your clothing situation at once.”

“But-“

“The last thing either of us needs is for you to develop some-“ she waved a hand at him- “manner of- skin infection.”

He winced.

She sighed. Something about his expression almost made her want to smile, but that was certainly, absolutely not allowed. This was Sir-Knight-Who-Seals-The-Darkness, the bane of her every waking step, the shadow haunting each glance over her shoulder, the statue standing mute at her door in the night.

His usual stony silence seemed a far cry from the paralysis currently affecting him.

She sighed again, her face and voice softening. “Bathe, please. You’ll be glad you did.”

--

She shook her head when he emerged sometime later, his wet, presumably rinsed shirts and pants over one arm, and opened her mouth to say something about his extremely sunburned face—and failed to do so.

It hadn’t occurred to her how he’d look in nothing but trunks.

She should’ve known what kind they’d be, considering the spare undergarment he’d handed her. It was tighter on her, with her curvy shape, but it still clung to him—and he was all chiseled lines in muscle, everywhere (at least, everywhere she could currently see).

She turned her attention back to the Slate and flatly refused to look up when he returned to inspect the state of the (now nonexistent) fire.

--

She managed to keep her head down for a long time once Link walked off.

Then her sedentary status began to get the better of her.  She shifted her position to relieve the discomfort. She did so again—and again. She sat with one knee bent up and her elbow on that—then sat up on her knees, but that didn’t last long—then with both legs bent like all those prim court ladies riding sidesaddle. Eventually, she tried laying on her stomach with the slate before her face, and that was alright except for her bladder, which was becoming more and more difficult to ignore—and even more so in that position.

She rolled onto her back.

She managed to hold the Slate above her head for a while before that, too, became uncomfortable and she lowered it to her chest with a sigh.

There was nothing for it.

She rose, brushing the sand that had blown its way onto her mat from her (Link’s) clothing.

She quite liked the shirt. It was tight around her chest, but comfortable and soft owing to the close knit. She supposed she’d be too warm in it were she hauling rocks like Link in the sun, though.

She scanned the beach, then the trees behind her, for a sign of him, and saw none.

Zelda strode to the branch she’d hung her own things on and strapped her belts around her waist, then secured the slate at her hip. She’d not leave the Slate unattended, no matter how deserted the place seemed.

--

She emerged from the thick growth of low ferns she’d found feeling relieved but restless. Her muscles did not at all wish to return to her seat beneath the lean-to so quickly, so as she’d seen no sign of danger on the beach as of yet, she made her way what must have been northward, thinking to walk with her feet in the cool, wet sand at the ocean’s edge.

She jumped a solid foot into the air at the sound of “PRINCESS?!?!” being screamed at the top of Link’s lungs.

“Here, I’m HERE!” she shouted, her heart pattering like a rabbit’s hind legs and her right ankle in sudden pain from rolling on a rock. She hissed, her arms flying out for support, and caught herself on a thick, branch-like palm-stem. She already heard Link crashing toward her through the foliage, and she tested her foot, breaking into a sudden sweat of desperation not to appear as though she couldn’t take care of herself for twenty minutes without him.

She refused to be injured. Absolutely not—not in front of him.

Link burst from the ferns to her left, a rather spiny stick in one hand with the floppy remains of a ferny growth on one side and a wild look in his eye.

Zelda schooled her face practical despite his near-naked state and her ankle’s throbbing. “Sir Link—there is no need for panic. I am fine.”

He scanned the area, nodding and lowering his mostly non-threatening vegetation. He relaxed his arm and…stared at her.

She stared back.

He looked left, then right. Then back at her.

She raised her chin. “Something amiss, Sir Link?”

He waved his stick a few inches, still pointed toward the ground. Zelda once again had the impression of a shrug.

“You needn’t remain,” she said, still gripping the stem and assuring her foot flat on the ground despite its complaining.

His eyes drifted first to her hand, then to her feet. His head pulled slowly back, and though his expression didn’t change much, she suspected he suspected. “I should accompany you, Princess,” he said. “The area seems safe, but it’s better not to take the chance.”

She blinked rapidly, her chin rising even further. “It truly isn’t necessary. Have I ever been harmed on those occasions when I’ve- ah…”

“Slipped away?” he offered, one eyebrow twitching the barest fraction.

“…Indeed,” she said, his words considerably less inflammatory than the ‘escaped’ which had crossed her mind.

“…Not yet,” he said, voice flat as usual on the rare occasions he’d used it in Hyrule, but something grim lay buried in its lowered pitch.

Zelda gritted her teeth and doubled down. “And why should you expect this to be the first time?”

“I expect every time to be the first time, Princess.”

She paused at that, taken aback. “I- see. Then why have you allowed me to remain at the shelter unattended?”

“I’ve been keeping an eye out. But I can’t do that if I don’t know where you are.”

Her eyes narrowed at him. “I do not wish to be-“ she threw her free hand high in the air- “surveiled without cessation.”

His look became a cross between understanding and regret. “I- know, Princess. But I’m your appointed knight. I have-“

“A duty, yes, I am aware.” She glanced over his shoulder out of habit, expecting that glint of blue. It was missing.

He shook his head. “To you,” he said. “Not the sword.”

Her lips parted.

She hadn’t thought him so observant of her. Watchful, yes. Insightful, no. He had, after all, believed she wanted him fully dressed despite the risk of heat stroke.

She made the mistake of shuffling her feet.  Pain shot up her right leg and she jolted with a wince she attempted to pass off as a grimace at his words.

His shoulders slumped a little as he eyed her foot.

Zelda tripled down—she released the stem, both feet flat on the ground. It hurt—a good deal—but she’d had far worse sprains and a sense that this, while painful, would be fine.

She turned toward the ocean to walk it out.

She went step by step, far slower than her usual gait—he would know that, but her leg was usable, it wasn’t broken, and she wasn’t a child. She attempted to appear calm and as though she were simply inspecting their surroundings.

He stepped to her side—the injured one—his glorified twig in his outer hand and the other, she was certain, ready to grab her should she stumble—which, of course, she would not.

--

She walked down to the waves as planned and followed the edge of the wet sand, to and then past their little camp, all the way to where she’d seen Link drag the rock out of the trees, pain in every slow step, sorely tempted to seat herself and allow the water to soothe her foot. She didn’t.

Link accompanied her the entire way in silence.

The difficult part arrived when she turned to walk up the sloping sand toward the lean-to. It put extra pressure on that ankle, either to bend further back, to support the ball of her foot alone, or to turn sideways. She found herself stopping between each short step.

“Princess-“

“I am fine,” she said, flushing, as though those words hadn’t given the already-foolish game entirely away. She stood still a little longer, though she suspected the longer she did, the worse the following step would feel.

She heard Link shuffling beside her, and then a strange sliding sound. A furtive glance showed something bizarrely long emerging from the pouch belted to his hip. A moment later, he was holding a shining, silver spear exactly like those carried by the Zora guarding Dorephan’s throne room. He held it out to her.

“You seem like you’re getting a little tired, Princess,” he said. “I don’t have a walking stick, but this might help.”

Her hand curled around the shaft tentatively. It was cool and surprisingly light, with the tip well above her head. She leaned on it and took a step—it was more manageable.

“Thank you,” she said, and made her slow way to the lean-to.

She managed to collapse onto the paraglider-mat with some dignity and no sounds of surprised pain. She laid her bad leg straight out, then the other, and leaned back on her hands, rolling her eyes at herself behind her lids.

Link was rummaging again.

He pulled a knife from his pouch and began scraping the meat from half of a palm nut he’d cracked earlier. She watched him dully as he deposited the edible portion into the unscraped half, thinking she ought to get back to her work.  He then produced a blob of white chuchu jelly and placed it, the cleaned palm-nut shell, and his not-so-threatening stick on the mat beside her.

“If you’re hot,” he said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and his hair blowing in the perfectly pleasant cool evening breeze, “you can try the chuchu jelly. It stays cool a long time.” He then rose and disappeared into the treeline.

Zelda stared at the items beside her, sheepish. It took her several minutes to get over her embarrassment enough to burst the jelly into the makeshift bowl.

It felt blissfully cold on her ankle. She set the rest aside in reserve and propped her legs up on the rolled-cloth pillow from the previous night.

She returned to her work on the slate, picking for a while at the palm meat Link had mildly cooked, once again, over a meager fire.

About an hour later, he suddenly held a hand-sized meat pie between her face and the Slate. She goggled at him.

“You need a good source of protein, Princess,” he said.

The pie was very warm.

She stared at the fire, then all around her for a sign he had somehow constructed an oven.

And a rolling station.

And butchered a wild animal.

“Where did this come from?” she finally asked.

He pointed to his pouch.

“What?! How-“ she knew how, but- “how long has it been in there?”

He cocked his head, considering it. “About two months?”

“Two months?!” She thrust it at him. “Sir Link- that is- well beyond spoilage-“

He took it from her and took a hearty bite.

She fought a visceral revulsion sending bile up her throat.

He smiled a little and swallowed—then held it out to her.

The pie was not only warm—it was steaming inside. The filling appeared perfectly fresh—perhaps a wild boar or even beef filling with peas, carrots, and some manner of starchy root. It smelled not only edible, but wonderful.

“…How?” she asked.

“Magic,” he answered. “No idea how it works, but everything that goes in comes out exactly the same. No aging—no spoiling.” He huffed a small laugh. “No getting cold before you’re ready to eat it.”

He reached a hand in—and produced a second pie, nearly identical, which he held out to her.

She took it in a strange state of grateful shock and nibbled a corner. The pastry was excellent—flaky and deliciously browned. A larger bite very nearly produced a hum of delicious enjoyment, though she tamped it, feeling it would be somehow rude.

“Thank you, Sir Link. It’s- delicious. And fortunate, considering our situation. May I ask- ah…”

“How much I have?”

“Yes.”

He appeared to be fighting a smirk. “Way more than I should.”

He must have noticed her eyeing the spent sticks from roasting the melon. “It’s not infinite,” he said. “Better to go easy on it—once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

She ate her (quite satisfying) meal slowly as she worked, making it stretch. She endeavored only to listen to Link’s activity. He was busy with something at that flat, dark rock of his, but as long as he wasn’t turning it into a sacrificial altar, she wasn’t going to worry about it.

--

Zelda jolted awake, her arm flung haphazardly past her head, the Slate just beyond the reach of her fingertips, and paraglider cloth once again tucked around her. She could recall neither laying on her side to work nor intending to fall asleep.

The reason for her wakefulness protested with a throb.

She suppressed a groan as she sat up, gripping her injured leg’s calf to assist it. Her foot had been hanging uncomfortably, stretching the tendons in her ankle as it dangled past her other shin. Once righted, she reached first for the Slate—it read 2:37 am.

She used the screen’s light to search for the chuchu jelly. A dip of her index finger told her it was, indeed, still cool. She attended to her ankle (now visibly swollen) with a generous amount of the natural salve.

The moon must have risen recently, for the sea was lit in dim streaks rising and falling with the sound of waves. With a start, she realized Link was still sitting cross-legged before the firepit. She couldn’t tell if his eyes were open.

“Sir Link?” she whispered.

“Mm?” he hummed.

“Have you yet slept?”

He shook his head, his hair visible as a messy outline against the backdrop of the calm sea. “I can go a long time without sleep, Princess.”

She knew the truth of that. She’d been confused the first few times he’d taken a night shift at her door despite his daytime dogging of her footsteps. She half-supposed he slept standing up with his eyes open.

Seeing him sit there with his forearms balanced, wrists hanging over his knees, she rather thought that supposition to be at least partially supported.

“I… suspect I shall be unable to sleep for a while,” she said. “If your concern is to keep an eye out, as you’ve said, I have two eyes myself and am happy to use them. Two ears, even. Please, rest.”

“I am resting.”

“Sleep,” she clarified.

He took a swift breath—then another. “…Princess-“

“You have a duty,” she said. “I, too, have a duty as your sovereign. You are one of my people. Your welfare is therefore my concern. Please…take sleep while I am awake.”

“You’ve only gotten a few hours.”

“And you have had none. I insist,” she said.

He remained still and silent as the crests of waves grew from nearly-black to soft-blue-grey in the growing moonlight. She rather thought he might disobey her entirely, but at length he lay on his own mat, his elbow bent beneath his head.

She presumed he slept.

She allowed the Slate’s light to go out—she hadn’t the concentration to fiddle with its complex inner language—and found a less painful way to sit with her good ankle beneath her bad one. She listened to the sounds of the night, wondering that she wasn’t afraid of some creature stepping from the trees to menace her here.

They weren’t in Hyrule.

She had little idea what to expect, truly, and they didn’t yet know the size of the island—yet she felt unaccountably safe. She would not allow herself to sleep despite her impression. If she did so without waking Link up, he might never sleep another night, and she wasn’t willing to put him through that, regardless of his proficiency at standing, stone in a hall of stone, night after night.

Her face softened in the dark, as the waves seemed to in the fall of silver on their brief emergence ashore.

Surely, such attention from him personally was unnecessary, but she’d only ever spoken to him of it in the context of her own exasperation. What was his context? Did he believe her to be in extreme danger in her own castle? She’d rather thought-

She…

She scrubbed her face with her hands, trying to piece together a coherent thought from the wreckage of her feelings.

It didn’t work. Perhaps she was too tired.

The night’s gentle sounds made a gradual incursion against the noisy jumble in her head. She knew the Slate far better than she knew her knight, and she had yet to figure it out, either.

She settled for watching the sea, eyes as wide as she could make them, to catch whatever glimpse of light she could on the horizon. Inspiration would strike, Goddess willing.

~~~~~

Zelda’s head began to hurt shortly after 1:00 am. Link sat up almost as soon as she considered waking him, as though he’d sensed it. He crawled toward her and nearly desposited the cloth at her side, hesitating at the last second, peering at the rest of the collection on her mat. Then he folded the korok cloth and placed it under his tunic.

He held his hand out for the Slate. She only rankled a little this time, and only at her own lack of progress.

"Your ankle," Link said. His soft, sleepy tone surprised Zelda, somehow.

"What of it?" She asked.

"Wrap." He cleared his throat. "Before sleep."

"A- ah." Her cheeks went the slightest bit warm, then warmer as Link pulled a roll of gauze out of his pouch. "Goodness. Are you a medic as well as a knight?"

"May as well be. I can keep stuff clean in here." Other words lingered behind his still-waking eyes—they transformed his tiny smile into something wary, but too transient for Zelda to place. "Can I…?" He glanced at her leg.

Zelda nodded, attempting to keep her swallow hidden behind her chin. She was prepared, this time, for the unfamiliar sensations to travel up her nerves. As before, he slid a gentle hand around her calf and the other behind her heel, settling her foot in his lap. It was his calluses, she decided. They caught strangely on her skin and tickled. Yes, that was it.

As he wound the gauze around her ankle and arch of her foot, she distracted herself from the pain and ostensible tickling by attempting to assess the damage to the skin on his face and shoulders. The fire had burned down, leaving little but the Slate to see him by. Its blue glow lit the lean-to's cloth, the diffuse reflection striking Link's back. Zelda found it difficult to tell just how bad it was, so she flipped the slate to face downward, the bright orange light on its back mixing with the blue.

Link blinked, his head jerking up to meet her eyes, his face suddenly boyish, eyes wide and round.

"What is it?" Zelda asked.

His brow pinched for a moment and his head shook an instant later. "Nothing, Princess."

He returned to his work, and Zelda grimaced. The Slate's screen was far brighter than its back—she'd learned nothing new despite the fuller spectrum.

Link finished his wrapping job with a firm knot to keep it in place. Zelda lifted her foot, cautious at first. The bracing pressure did indeed seem to support her in a pleasant way. It seemed less likely she would awaken to any painfully overstretched tendons. "Thank you, Sir," she said.

"You're welcome, Princess." He hesitated a moment, then gave her another one of his not-smiles, the ones that didn't reach his eyes. He then assumed his quiet watch from the previous night, cross-legged, wrists balanced on knees.

Zelda settled a little more comfortably than before, but disheartened, wondering what had emerged to trouble her knight. Her thoughts wandered to his water-making contraption. She could easily see that being it, a mote of self-admonishment warming her skin that she hadn't considered that problem at first. Her last conscious thought was to wonder how well it was working, if at all.

It blended seamlessly into her first waking thought.

She sat up, seeking Link and his rocks and finding only the latter. She pushed the Rito-cloth off and lifted her injured leg experimentally. It was extremely stiff all the way up even to her thigh. She suspected prolonged immobility was to blame for the discomfort everywhere other than her ankle.

She shifted to sit with her legs curled to the side, the injured one on top, gritting her teeth at the offputting full feeling in that foot. Then a splash of color to her left caught her eye.

Link had left two spindly skewers of lightly roasted fruit—perhaps remaining bits of what they’d been eating the past few days. She lifted one of the creations, sniffing: palm meat, cantaloupe, and banana.

She had her doubts about roasted banana. They turned out to be correct—while roasting had improved the flavor of the others, it had merely made the banana slimy and much too soft. She ate her entire meal regardless of the offputting texture. It would be madness to waste food in this situation.

Makeshift skewers cleaned, she replaced them on the banana leaf and rolled to her knees. Link was still nowhere in sight. She crawled to see past the back of the lean-to, just in case. He wasn’t there. She wished again for her notebook, but in its absence and Link’s, she supposed the best way to avoid another ankle injury was to write in the sand.

This, it turned out, was easier said than done. She tried her index finger first, but the sand fell to fill in the shapes she made if they were too small, and when she tried to make the letters large enough to remain, her arm wasn’t long enough to write much from the same kneeling position. She grabbed Link’s spiny stick, which at least let her write further out. When she finished, she sat back to inspect her work.

IN BUSHES

PRIVACY

Deeming it readable enough, she crawled backward out one side of the lean-to, thinking to return quickly. She doubted the wind would suddenly kick up and erase her writing, but she could easily see Link stepping through it before noticing she’d gone.

She paused at the sight of royal blue, black, and white draped over the deep green of a thick, ferny branch. With an abortive glance toward her message, she decided she’d worn Link’s clothing long enough. Surely her less-angry ankle would allow her to manage the change now.

She anchored herself on the small, ferny tree’s trunk and managed to stand on her uninjured leg, though there was much scraping against its bark as she did so. She grimaced, the side of her which had pressed against the tree painful, but she would survive. She tested her bad leg, toes-first; the stiffness was extraordinary. Surely the tumble she’d taken dismounting her horse when she was ten had been more severe than this. Yet she doubted she could put weight on it without injuring it further, despite any advantage the wrap may have bestowed.

Shaking her head, she shook out her riding clothes (insects, after all, may have enjoyed the shelter of her sleeves), threw them over her shoulder, and hopped as carefully as one could with so indignified of a motion into the thicker body of ferns.

Her first order of business, while hard on her ankle, occurred without further injury, though she'd begun to sincerely appreciate the amenities of home (or indeed anywhere maintained by people with hygiene in mind). It took her far longer than she'd hoped, yet she'd heard no sign of Link moving about. Hoping he'd stay away a bit longer, she fully removed the Sheikah shorts he'd given her while still kneeling in the sand, intending of course to wash them at the earliest opportunity (she would not ask Link to wash them for her, or indeed for himself either—she had worn them, and she would wash them, too).

She then realized she'd made an error.

She examined the quantity of sand in the shorts she'd just removed. She had no desire to scoop sand up in her (relatively) clean underthings immediately before pulling them up. Were there either a suitable rock here or had she thought to bring a paraglider cloth, she could have seated herself on it and changed that way. As things stood, she would need to stand to avoid depositing sand in her nethers.

Alternatively, she could crawl back to the lean-to, of course, and either change there or retrieve a cloth.

She stared at the Sheikah shorts, grimacing more and more at the choice before her: accept sandy privates, or crawl back to the lean-to for a cloth and accept the possibility that Link might see far more than either of them bargained for. She tested the length of the tunic, as though it would magically cover her behind while crawling today, though it had not yesterday.

A wry laugh left her as she shuffled on knees over to the clothing she'd draped on one of those short, ferny trees, imagining what her knight might think should her note say "IN BUSHES" when the reality was "NAKED AND RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU." Well—half-naked, though the worse half for it to be.

She pulled herself up, standing once more on her good leg only and with only a little pain in her side. She removed Link's tunic.

This, of course, was when she heard footsteps nearby.

Zelda clamped her throat hard on a gasp and thrust her arms through the holes in her brassiere, pulled it over her chest and tightened the laces, tying them faster than she had in her life. The sounds moved behind and to her right, stopping at what she very muched hoped was within easy sight of her message.

She lifted her bad foot further to step through one side of her other undergarment. In her haste, her big toe caught on its edge, sending pain lancing up her leg, and if she hadn’t chosen to lean on the tree trunk, she was sure she’d have fallen again. As it was, she’d simply released an odd little peep.

“Princess?”

The stress in his much-too-near voice filled her with visions of another restroom-guard mishap. “All is well!” she said, her voice wavering.

His reply was silence.

She pulled the undergarment partway up her bad leg.

Then she stared at the other.

Then she began to feel supremely foolish.

How would she loop her good foot through?

Admonishing herself for not thinking to bring a cloth with her, she wrapped her free arm around the tree trunk. She made a little hop with a tiny grunt of erffort, her good foot hitting sand quicker and harder than she'd expected.

“Princess?”

“All. Well!” She was not a weakling. She could manage this.

With a deep breath, she lowered her undergarment, clamped her arm down hard, and brought her good foot up and through the other loop at utmost speed. She slipped partway down the trunk with a hiss of new pain, though nothing approaching what she’d expect were her bad foot to hit ground.

She met with both success and failure. Her garment had, indeed, made it up her legs, and her good foot returned to ground without pressuring her injured one in the slightest. Her side, arm, and armpit stung, however, and the grit of sand on her thighs was unmistakable.

A sound issued from her, part-growl, part-sigh, and part-groan.

“Princess? Do you need help?”

His voice had a soft rasp, didn’t it, even when he wasn't sleepy? At least he wasn’t shouting her into the atmosphere. “Not at present.” She pulled her undergarment partway down, shaking and wiping sand out, rolling her eyes at herself. She managed reasonably well, she thought. She then reached over to the fern supporting her white shirt, gathered it, slipped her forearms into her sleeves, and stopped short at the sight of bright red flecks on her right one. She shifted her highly-stainable shirt away from the blood, inspecting her arm, then her side where she stung. The cuts weren't deep, but the area was wide, a swath of her hip with tiny, red strips of broken skin. She re-hung the shirt and checked the rest of her, finding scrapes high on her ribs, the rear side of her armpit, and the underside of her bicep. She couldn’t help the groan.

“That’s it,” Link muttered. Ferns began rustling toward her.

“Privacy!” Zelda cried.

“Something’s wrong.”

“Nothing of particular import.”

“Some kind of import, though?”

“I-“ she swallowed, considering the minor nature of the wounds, yet their utter lack of access to any sort of care should something environmental manage to work its way into them. “I- wonder if you might have an antiseptic.”

“…Antiseptic.” His voice was very quiet; he must have been quite near.

“Yes.”

A tiny sound of brushing cloth preceeded a liquid sloshing. “How deep?”

“Barely at all.”

“How big?”

She made an uncertain sound.

“…Princess, can I help?”

“Sir Link, I am not- not-“ she floundered. “I am not dressed adequately.”

“I figured.” Some manner of large bird squawked above their heads as though in punctuation.

Link's footsteps resumed.

“S- Sir Link-“

“I won’t look.” Ferns parted to the right of her little tree. He emerged partway, his tunic in place once more, eyes shut with a dark bottle in one hand. “Where…?”

“I’m- here.” Her arms wrapped around her midriff and chest. When she wobbled, the midriff-one returned to the tree.

“Okay. Can you reach- everywhere you need to?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Here’s the bottle.  And…” his hand reached into the pouch with a brush of knuckles on cloth- “for putting it on.” He gripped a small square of light white cloth, bandage-like, daintily by a corner. “It’s boiled.”

Her eyebrows rose. “That- is fortunate.” His offerings were slightly out of her reach. “Would you mind- taking a few steps this way?”

He came closer than she’d thought. She swallowed, ignoring her pounding heart and jitters and reaching first for the bottle. She unstoppered it.

Iodine.

She took care as he had to handle the square of cloth cautiously. She applied the dark brown liquid, then returned the bottle to Link and began smearing her scrapes.

His ear shifted slightly toward her side as she raised her arm, the tilt of his head following her hand as it reached further, his brow knitting as it did.

“What happened?” he asked.

She held in a sigh. “I… braced myself on a tree to- to- change my undergarment.”

His face pulled into an extended wince.

She finished, awkwardly holding the used square. “What should I do with the cloth?”

He held out an open palm. She placed it there, though with reservations. He returned it to his pouch.

Zelda eyed her shirt.

Should she and Link manage to return to Hyrule, she doubted anyone would care if her clothing were ruined. Yet a vision again invaded her mind of Link seeing brown blotches on her to remind him just how useless a Princess he'd been saddled with.

"Princess?" A rustle signaled the bottle's return to his pouch.

Zelda eyed the as-yet impotent Slate laying beside the trunk. A hand entered her line of vision, palm-up and chest height.

"I'm a better brace than one of these tree trunks," he said. "It's… not like home. Not many branches, and the few around are pretty weak."

Zelda blinked her eyes wide and kept blinking. She would not allow tears to fall yet again.

"Princess?"

That word. He'd never spoken so many words in her presence. Would that fewer of them were that particular one. She'd not earned it. A shaking breath left her. "I- I'd managed. The garment."

He nodded his curt nod. His brow remained knit, and his lips had parted. "But… you're not fully dressed."

"…No." She couldn't bring herself to look at her bright white shirt. Perhaps she could wear only the blue cover? "One- one moment." She reached for the blue top—then realized the iodine would easily stain that, too, though granted with less contrast. She tamped a growl down hard, settling for an irritated grimace. "I- perhaps ought to wait. Anything I touch, I shall stain."

Link's head cocked. "I'll… live," he said.

Zelda had no idea what to say to that. "I- I just-" How could she explain she didn't wish to display a constant reminder of her ineptitude without bringing her ineptitude to the forefront?

He cut her rumination short by pulling his tunic off and tossing it blindly, his horrendous suburn suddenly on full and painful display.

"What?" she said—not so much a question as an expression of surprise. She blinked at his peeling chest.

"No tunic, no stains."

Zelda felt foolish yet again for failing to consider exactly what bracing herself on him would entail. "I- had- not-" There went his shoulders, again—drooping just a fraction. She was, indeed, learning her knight. "I- I thank you," she said quickly. "I'd- meant my own clothing, but yes, yours would stain as well," and she would, possibly, feel even worse to have ruined his.

Link's eyebrows flew up. "Oh! Oh. Um." He moved almost as though looking around wildly, but his eyes were shut. "Sorry. Sorry, Princess. Do you- I mean, I can put the tunic back on, no problem, I just have to find it-"

"No- no, it's alright."

"Are you sure?!"

"Wait!" she said.

"What?!"

"Your sunburn!"

"What about it?"

"It shall hurt!"

A corner of his mouth twitched just a little bit up. "I'll… live," he repeated.

"So shall I if I must wait a little while to finish dressing."

"Princess…" he sighed. "You're injured. Please-" a deep set of creases appeared on his forehead, and something in the motions of his mouth again suggested he wished to say something, but held is tongue. "I- am- happy to help. Any way you're comfortable."

Zelda once again found herself pulling tear-water back in. "Perhaps- the sensible path is- to fetch a paraglider cloth? I may finish changing on it."

"Done," he said.

He returned moments later, eyes still shut. "Princess?"

"Yes?"

He nodded and spread the cloth out in front of her.

And he held her hand while she hopped over, and helped to lower her down.

And he turned, opening his eyes just for a moment to fetch her clothing for her.

Once delivered, he turned again and picked up the Slate and his spare clothing.

"I intend to wash those," Zelda rushed to say.

His face did that half-pinch again, this time with his eyes shut. He opened his mouth—then shut it, nodded, and walked through the ferns.

She put her feet through the holes in her riding pants with a sinking feeling in her stomach. She waited a whie with her pants half-on and no shirt, allowing the iodine to dry fully, testing with an occasional poke to its edge. She still felt her white shirt would fare worse against it. She eventually rolled onto her back to pull her pants all the way on like a struggling turtle, then pulled the blue top directly over her brassiere. It felt strange to wear it so—the golden strips of cloth crossing her chest without the undershirt looked out of place, and she was sure they, the underarms, and the band below her breasts would chafe. And then there was the issue of being dressed so at all in her knight's presence. Perhaps it would provide the incentive her mind needed to sort out the confusing issues with the Slate.

She sat a long time, her face turned up to the wide, interlocking leaves far above. Were the Slate in reach, she'd have tried to take a picture of a large, colorful bird flapping its wings just within sight to the northeast. Something of its colors intrigued her—a darker blue than her expectations intertwined with a silvery-white underside, a hint of gold peeking through from somewhere.

"Princess?"

The word crawled down her spine from behind her. "Apologies. I…" was what? Relaxing? Thinking? It had been neither, truly.

His feet shuffled soft in the sand. He crouched beside her. His silence dragged her eyes toward him, and she found him studying her face, no hint of a smile. He did it again—almost said something, his mouth opening a fraction, then closing. It drew her attention to his lips. They had tiny, little lines in them, running in-to-out. They seemed slightly chapped. "Are you thirsty?" she asked.

One of those not-smiles appeared. "I can- deal with that in a bit." He pressed those dry lips together—then his nose wrinkled a little along with the undersides of his eyelids. "What- were you apologizing for? Princess."

Zelda found herself fascinated with the tremulous, boyish quality to that last word. She searched herself for an answer to his question, an answer slowly coming to settle deep in the pit of her stomach. "For my inactivity." Uselessness, truly. The bird released a chittering pattern of throaty noises.

A soft noise that might have been a laugh left him. "You could use more of that."

She frowned at him, questioning.

"I mean it," he said with a swallow, that boyish quality back, his eyes widening and hands coming up, palm-out like they had the previous night. "I… back home, I…" He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, and Zelda became acutely aware that her knight was once more expressing. "You never stop," he said.

"Stop?" she repeated.

"Whether it's prayer, the Divine Beasts, the shrines, the Slate, or just—all the other things. Normal- Princess-things," he said with a wince. "Dealing with all the stupid court people."

Zelda barked a laugh.

"Sorry, sorry-"

"Don't be," she said, a giggle leaving her that sounded quite maniacal. Perhaps she was on the verge of some manner of episode. Perhaps that was why she'd remained immobile here for however long.

He smiled with her a bit, and this time it reached his eyes again. It faded gradually as he searched all over her face. Zelda found her cheeks heating at the attention.

"No, I should be sorry," Link said.

Zelda's head pulled a fraction back. "What for?"

He seemed to struggle a a long time, whether for words or the courage to say them. When he finally did, his voice trembled. "I know you don't… trust me."

"That's- that's not-"

"I mean, you do with your life."

"Well. Yes." Zelda gestured all around them, to their entire situation.

He nodded, but it wasn't his normal nod. He kept bobbing. "But- you- mmm." He struggled again with some inner turmoil, shutting his eyes and curling his fingers. When he opened his eyes again, he focused them squarely on hers. "You didn't even trust me enough to say you were hurt."

Zelda's jaw slackened. "That- no, that's not-" she shook her head.

"It sounds like you're going to say that's not it," he nearly whispered.

"Well, yes!"

"But it is."

"I trust you," she said, defiant.

"You don't trust me not to be like them." His eyes glittered at her, shifting back and forth between hers. "And that's my fault."

Zelda squinted at him, trying to understand.

"I- I should've said something. Long before now. Should've told some of those- stupid- court people to shut up." He went pale, and Zelda could've sworn she saw him tremble, just for a moment. "I was afraid anything I said- could- make things worse, but it just doesn't matter now. If you die here because you won't let me help you, I'll never forgive myself."

"I have let you help me," Zelda said, her voice very small.

"Minimally," Link said with an off-kilter chuckle.

"You are the one keeping us fed and watered," Zelda said, her skin heating and brows turning down. "You treated my ankle, and helped me here." She waggled one hand at the ferns.

"Do you know what I would like to do right now, Princess?" he asked, a little heat in his voice, too.

"What?!" she demanded, in full-Princess-command-voice.

His response mollified her instantly. He paled, sitting back on his haunches, one hand hooking behind his neck.

Zelda shook her head, filled with a sudden shame, tears brimming again. She sat up, attempting to cross her legs and wincing when she couldn't. Leaving her bad leg straight out, she reached for the hand still laying in Link's lap. She folded hers around it, unsure what to do. "Forgive me." She swallowed. "Truly. That was- uncalled for. You have been nothing but kind and considerate, and- and prepared- and I have been-" tears finally fell.

"Hey- hey, no, don't-"

Zelda felt him lean toward her, and when one of his knuckles brushed a tear from her cheek, he burst a hole in some dam. Her belly shook, more tears fell, and he removed his other hand from hers to tend to each, as though a challenge—could he swipe every tear from her face before it struck ground? She hypersensitized to the touch, unable to remember when or if anyone else had ever done such a thing for her.

"I-" his voice sounded strangely throaty- "I don't want you to… beat yourself up here like you do in Hyrule."

A few high little sounds of surprise escaped her.

"I want to… pick you up, and carry you back to the lean-to. And then I want to open another coconut for us, and see if the crab I caught is done roasting yet."

Now that he said it, Zelda could smell it, just a little.

"And then—" he seemed to struggle again, and Zelda managed to open her eyes, finding tears streaking down his cheeks, too. She leaned forward without thinking, brushing his away, though with one hand—she couldn't keep balance without the other. As with her, the moment she touched him the tears seemed to flow without barrier, the corners of his mouth turning way down. "I really wish I didn't have to say this—I have to ask for your help."

Zelda laughed. "My help?"

"With the water," Link said. "I just—I'm not as smart as you," he said. "I haven't gotten it to work yet, and it's so important. I'm extremely sorry."

"You needn't be," she said, incredulous.

"No, I should be. I should've asked earlier." He swallowed. "I can't decide if I'm more likely to find a cookpot replacement or to get that to work, and with only one of us mobile, we can't pursue both at the same time."

Zelda sighed, deep and long. "If you should be sorry, I most certainly should be. I've been of far less use."

He shook his head vehemently. "You're the only one who can do anything with the Slate."

She gave him as flat of a look as she could manage with her tear-swollen face. "In your own words, I haven't gotten it to work yet, and it's so important."

He laughed a little. Her tears had stopped, but his knuckles still curled on either side of her face. "I… figured, when you didn't want me to see it."

Her head cocked between his hands. "What do you mean?"

"You turned it over last night," he said, "so I couldn't see the screen."

She shook her head, her hand drawn to curl around one of his wrists. "No. I wanted the orange light from the back. I was trying to inspect your sunburn."

He gave her an incredulous look.

"It is atrocious. Have you looked?"

"I can feel it. It's peeling."

"Indeed it is."

"…Okay," Link said, his face puffy, but with another of those almost-smiles that did reach his eyes. "But… next time… just ask? Princess," he said.

He said it with far too much of a return to that boyish anxiety. He moved as though biting the inside of his lower lip. Zelda bit hers as though driven to mirror him. "Alright."

A moment's silence passed, each studying ithe other's face.

"So… can I carry you back?" Link asked.

There were those flutters again. She studiously ignored them as she nodded and as he rose, his knuckles slipping away from her. He pulled her up, first, to her good leg—then he scooped her up, with no seeming exertion at all. Her arm automatically hooked around his neck; then she lifted it with a gasp. "Your sunburn!"

"It's alright," he said with a laugh. "I don't mind."

Zelda tried to ignore the butterflies as the skin on her side brushed his, as the unfamiliar sensations of his hands and arms pressing into her back, side, and legs made themselves newly known with each step. It only took moments for him to deliver her to the lean-to, but he made sure her leg-"pillow" was situated well for her, and that she was reasonably comfortable before tending to food and water.

The crab was delicious, though it was an ironshell (meaning Link did the shell-cracking for both of them) and a single one split between them was not a large meal. Zelda didn't mind—but she began to wonder how Link was faring. "Are you… eating enough?"

"I'm… okay for now," he said, digging some meat out of a claw and depositing it in one of the empty coconut shells.

"How long would you say that will last?"

He shrugged. "Once water's taken care of, I'll think more about food. Besides, there's the pouch."

"You mean your hoard."

Air puffed out his nose. "Yeah. I just don't want to take it for granted."

---