The Legend of Zelda: Link's Desperation

Chapter 16: New Information

Link and Zelda both climbed up the ladder to their house and entered. Link began to neaten up once again, since it did need a lot of that, and Zelda stood there, thinking.

"Um, Link?" She asked after a moment.

"Yeah?"

"Where am I sleeping?" Zelda looked around, and didn't even see Link's bed. She looked at the wall next to the door and noticed a ladder. Backing up, she saw two small ledge-type structures, connected by ladders.

"Well, I sleep up there," Link said, indicating where Zelda was looking. "You can sleep on the one beneath me." 

"But what about a mattress?" She inquired.

"I'll get some hay and make you one. Until then, you can sleep on the couch. It'll only be a night or so," he said. Hid mind flashed back to the lavish bed he slept in at the castle, and assumed hers must have been ten times better. He expected her to be disgusted at the thought of hay and object, but she didn't.

"I love the scent of hay," she said quietly and truthfully. Link was surprised but didn't let it show.

Zelda remembered being in the stables as a child, smelling the hay. She visited the stables often, but her father forbade her for reasons she couldn't remember. It was a very long time ago, nonetheless.

"Is this your dresser?" She asked, indicating a large wooden structure with drawers. Link nodded.

"I'm sure you can get all of my clothes to fit in two or three of those drawers, and you can have the rest." Link came over to her and began reorganizing the dresser, putting his simple work clothes in a fraction of the drawers. There were six in total, he took up two.

"Thanks," Zelda said, retrieving her clothing bag and starting to put things away. Link glanced over while he was unpacking the food and was shocked to see all of her clothes were clothes of commoners and working people.

"Why are your clothes so..." Link began to ask, but he couldn't find the words to explain.

"Rough?" Zelda finished for him.

"I was leaning more towards common," he said.

"I snuck out a lot," Zelda said. Link chuckled.

"No one recognized you?"

"Only the guards. But I paid them off," she explained nonchalantly.

"Wow..." Link said under his breath, and Zelda didn't hear.

"At least you'll fit in well." Link said positively.

~~~

By the time Link had cleaned as much as he could and the two were unpacked, it was nightfall. the couch had a think quilt draped over it, so when Zelda crawled in she neatly pulled it on top of her. Link climbed the two ladders and crawled into his own bed.

"No matter how awful this place is sometimes," Link began, "it is still good to be home." He didn't mean for Zelda to hear, and by the tone of his voice, when she did hear she realized the intention, so she didn't reply.

"Night," Zelda said after getting comfortable.

"Night," Link replied.

Zelda could sense that Link had fallen right to sleep. If she wanted to sleep, she could have, but instead she grabbed Hyrule Historia and began to read where she had left off when Bulbin came. She highly doubted that he was just looking for a fight, considering he knew Link's strength, but she trusted Link to tell the truth.

When he had asked what she was reading when they were in the hidden village, she said it was the bloody history of Hyrule. That was untrue. She was reading the legends of the Goddesses. After the experience the two had with the three women, Zelda was somewhat upset at the perfect picture that had been painted of them in most of Hyrule's history. Hyrule Historia was different though.