Melted

The crown secret

Zelda felt a headache incoming. Link had left almost an hour ago, and the steady pressure on her skull had increased from then; as if she needed another reason to beg him to stay.

The minutes had ticked away, and she felt her uneasiness grow, she had given up sleep after what had seemed like an eternity. It had been 43 minutes.

Sleep had been evading her since her father's dead, and when the invasion had come, it had become even harder to find.

She tried to forget Link's arms around her waist.

She sighed and sat up. She felt tired, but knew that sleep wasn't going to come. Life was an endless loop of being tired and not being able to rest. Especially for her.

She remembered Link's face before he left, and knew that if she did nothing to fix that, her work was going to be sloppy.

She scratched her letter time after time. Too snobby, too friendly, too regal, too stuffy. She shredded the paper between her fingers, relaxing her tense body. She was being too... too... she was not used to being worried so much about one singular person.

But then again, she reminded herself, he had been nothing but helping, nothing but nice, nothing but friendly towards her. He had saved her kingdom and had asked for nothing in exchange - yet -, he was a young boy who had suffered too much for her foolish mistakes. The least she could do was offer her friendship.

If he accepted a Lord title and a plot of land, then the nagging feeling of treason could - hopefully - leave her alone.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember what she had felt talking with him next to the fire. She had a letter written in a couple of minutes, she held to it as if it were a crown secret.

It felt like one.

As she exited her room, an errand boy - who probably thought he was totally surreptitious - moved hastily through the hallways and away from her. Her face betrayed no emotion as she nodded to the guards.

She walked towards her workroom and was disrupted by a noble.

"Your Highness," he greeted, as if he had found her by chance.

Zelda kept on walking, this was an old waltz to her. She was sure they had been dying to call for her. Link must have looked menacing enough.

"It is with great joy that I come to greet you, your Highness," he walked a number of steps behind her, enough to her right to be seen. Without a guard it would have been a slight to walk in a blind spot.

Zelda kept her mouth shut.

"Where has the young man who brought you here gone?" she couldn't understand how her not engaging in the conversation didn't deter any of them.

She nodded to the people who passed them. They eyed the man following her. He was a merchant, meddlesome, and with a knack to get on her nerves; but so far, harmless.

"Does her Highness wish for me to send that letter?"

She couldn't help the reflex of bringing the letter to her lap and look at him with harsh eyes. Meddlesome man.

He looked perplexed for a second, "I'll take that as a no, your Worship."

She stopped hearing his footsteps when she resumed walking. She puckered her lips, it was just a letter.

She sat on her chair, looked at the room. It had been kept fairly well. That, or her people had fixed it first thing. Either was possible; Zant hadn't been much within the castle, and her people had a respectful amount of fear of her.