A Pirate's Life For Me; Zelink, Pirate AU (The Legend Of Zelda)

Chapter Eighteen

Faster than Zelda could have ever imagined, her one month was gone.

Even the solace of traveling across her beloved ocean could barely combat her growing anxiety.

That month leading up to her own wedding had been a month she would've rather never happened. If she had the ability to bend time she would have broken it into an endless loop so she could simply stop. Stop the relentless force that brought her farther and farther from the life she truly wanted.

But now she wasn't so sure what she really wanted anymore.

She did know, however, that she could rely on Link. Zelda had certainly learned that through the month. Amidst her incessant worrying and her constant anxiousness, Link had been there. They'd talked and became close in those weeks.

The anxiety that she felt was not focused upon the man she was about to become entwined with for the rest of her life, but instead, on a dark, foreboding premonition that something terribly wrong would happen. She didn't know when, where, how, or even why she felt this way... but she knew better than to just ignore a feeling like that.

She had told Impa about it first, but her first mate had insisted that there was nothing they could do. To try and calm her fears she confided in Link, who listened to her anxious and vague explanations that she was spouting. And through it all he was patient and kind with her. At times she even got annoyed with how perfect he seemed. Was he acting like this because of her troubled past? Did he feel like she deserved his understanding because of it?

She did not want to be coddled. She wanted someone to understand her fears and not brush them aside just because she had nothing to prove it was actually grounded.

The land of Faron was far brighter than she had expected. With her premonitions of evil she half expected the country to be dark... but it was so full of life. The trees were tall and the sun shone through the high canopy to hit the castle stones in a dappled pattern that she found she loved. The castle itself was also not meeting her 'scary' expectations. They arrived one week before their set marriage date.

Once she was settled in, Link wasted no time in showing her the places he had played as he was growing up. She had to admit she was enchanted. And as the days passed in the company of kind servants, and proud trees, she found that her worries were lessening, if only slightly. It was certainly an improvement from her fears only growing with time.

Zelda sat back against the tree as she hummed a forgotten melody from when she was little. To her relief, her fears had settled down inside of her and were dormant. She hoped they would stay that way.

"Feeling better?" Link asked.

She opened her eyes and saw him standing in front of her. She smiled and nodded.

"I don't hear you sing often."

She shook her head and then shrugged. "I only hum when I'm happy."

"And you aren't happy often?" he said with a raised eyebrow.

"No, it's not that. It's just... I'm usually overcome with worries."

"When I first met you, I thought that nothing could ever overcome you. Especially something like worrying."

"Only worries that can't be solved with a sword," she said and then brushed the fallen leaves off of her skirt. The leaves here were always green, or so she had heard. It was already winter, but it was still as green as if it were spring. It was also as warm as spring; no frost gripped that land. She still marveled at how different Faron was from Hyrule.

Link smiled. "Ah, always my Pirate Princess," he said as he sat down beside her and leaned back against the large tree.

After the following silence, he opened his eyes and echoed the same thing he had said one month ago. "So... We're getting married."

She smiled. "Yeah."

"Are you still worried?"

"...No. I don't know. It's definitely not as bad as it was before," she replied as she looked down at her hands.

"What are you worried about?" He had already asked before, but she had never given him a full answer. 

Zelda didn't know it herself.

"I don't... It's like..." She shook her head. "It's not anything to do with you. It's something... dark. The caverns..." She bit her lip and sighed.

"The Underworld Caverns again? Why do you worry about a superstition?"

"Because the war was started after the cave was explored again. What if that team of miners woke up some sort of evil down there? I still don't understand why my father would agree to send me here..."

"But... you do like Faron, right?"

"Now that I'm here, yes, of course, I do. It's just that before I even met you... my father insisted that he wouldn't let Faron take me away from him. And then for him to change his mind like that? He didn't even give me an explanation for it... I'm just worried... and I know, somewhere, that it's probably just nonsense but..."

Link shook his head as his hand pressed down lightly against hers. "Don't doubt yourself," he said. "We'll be extra careful tomorrow."

"At our wedding..." she said slowly, as though testing those words in her mouth.

"At our wedding."