The Memories Between Them | ✔

10) Letters

⚔ In which Link reads letters from the past ⚔  

Link

Returning to Hateno was a welcome relief. I always looked forward to returning after exploring, the thought of having somewhere to return to reassuring to someone who didn't know where they belonged. And now it's even more so, now that I have someone else there with me. Although I've found having Zelda could make even the smallest tent feel like home.

Zelda assured me again and again she would've wanted to know about her father's grave, but I still felt as though I shouldn't have done it. She's been quiet, which scares me. Zelda's almost never quiet. I know she's working through it, like I had to work through so many things for myself, but I feel guilty for bringing her any kind of pain. I don't like seeing her like that. It throws me off course more than I'd care to admit.

But when we finally reach the village, she finally starts to perk up a bit. It's a relief for me that she's smiling at the locals, something she didn't do for the travelers and patrons at the stable we stopped at. We ride right to my house. We don't make any stops, exhaustion tugging at our limbs and eyelids. We're hardly able to put our horses away in the stable before tumbling inside. Zelda falls face first into the pillow and instantly falls asleep. I have to put the hammock back up under the stairs.

The hammock arrangement doesn't last long, though. Once again, Zelda starts to talk in her sleep. Anguished and panicked, and I can't sit here and do nothing. So I drag myself up the stairs and crawl up next to her, covering her with the quilt and wrapping an arm around her, pulling her close. She relaxes a little, and we fall asleep like that, peaceful as we can be.

I wake up at dawn. Zelda's still asleep, her hair awry. It's adorable, really. I go to make breakfast, but it's interrupted by banging on the door. It startles me, and Zelda jumps from the bed with a yelp and lands on the floor with a thud.

"You okay?" I shout.

"... Yeah," she replies after a moment.

I smirk and go to the door. Prima stands there, a picnic basket on her arm. "You're back!" she shouts, inviting herself inside after a hug. Zelda stumbles downstairs, still in her clothes from yesterday, and the quilt wrapped around her shoulders.

"Hope you're hungry," I sign to her. She smiles, nodding, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

"When did you get back?" Prima asks, setting her picnic basket on the table and opening it up to reveal fresh wheat from the fields, two bottles of milk, and three bottles of ale labeled PRIMA'S. DO NOT TOUCH.

"Yesterday afternoon. We've slept until this morning," I answer. I smile, taking the milk from the basket to use some in the scrambled eggs on the stove. Zelda takes the rest, putting it away before plopping at the table and laying her head in her arms.

"Jeez. Must've been one hell of a journey," Prima says.

Zelda huffs. "You could say that," she says, although it's muffled. I chuckle.

Prima and I talk about the trip a bit. Zelda doesn't lift her head from the table until I tap her shoulder, putting a plate in front of her. Despite her dampened mood, she grins with excitement when she sees the food. I put some in front of Prima too, who has a similar reaction, before sitting down myself. We talk about the Zora, my birthday party – which Prima says is incredible – and the Great Plateau, although we skip over most of that part. Prima listens intently, almost dreamily.

"I wish I could travel like you two do," she says when we're done.

"You can," I say. "All the monsters are gone or are completely out of their wits. Not a Lynel or Lizalfos in sight our entire journey, and the road to Zora used to be crawling with them."