New Home - BotW Link x Reader (Undergoing Revisions)

Chapter 42

I know you guys don't really need a warning, but there's some nice sexual tension in this chapter. Enjoy! ;)

The words still rang through his head, a full day later. He knew that they were still ringing through hers, as well. She stood from the throne once the last of the guests had left the hall, guards accompanying them. Link glanced over at her sidelong as she did. She was stoic, or at least appeared to be so.

Today, the townspeople weren't bickering over stolen goods or land. The farmers had come in hordes today, so it seemed. Their crops were dying. What little they could salvage from their blackened fields were rotten or otherwise unable to be eaten or prepared.

The people of Hyrule were suffering, and she couldn't help them.

Her father, the king, had already left the hall towards his own quarters to prepare for a series of meetings with the Sheikah people. He hadn't left silently. He reminded her that soon, she needed to be off for the remainder of the sacred springs. If he caught her interfering with the progress of the Guardians again, there would be consequences.

Those words didn't stick out to her, though. No, his words from yesterday still rang forth: "You are the heir to a throne of nothing... nothing but failure." Or so, he claimed, the "gossip mongers" said.

She smoothed her dress out and looked over at him, at her appointed knight. He met her eyes, as blue and serious as his own. Her eyes conveyed so much that the rest of her face didn't dare give away. Though things had gotten friendlier between them, Link could feel that she still felt contempt towards him.

He was, of course, a living reminder of her own failures.

But there was nothing he could do about that. He could only do what he was told, and that was what he was going to do until he was relieved from his position. Her eyes showed acceptance now, as if she accepted that she would need to work harder to achieve the power that her mother, grandmother, and every woman before her had to.

It was just being stubborn.

She stepped down from the platform and, instead of heading towards her personal chambers, she turned towards the opposite hallway and began towards it. He followed loyally after her. The corridor was lit from the windows lining one side, letting in the streaming midday sunlight. As he followed after her, a few paced back, he noticed the stiffness in her back, the result of many years of training in her youth to behave royally.

Her hair's golden color was enhanced by the sun's glow, and seemed to rival even the golden silk lining her outfit and ceremonial circlet entwined in her hair. She walked briskly, as if she were late, towards the library, where he knew she was headed before she had even stood up in the throne room.

She pushed the doors open once she reached them, and continued on towards her usual studying spot. He closed the doors behind them, and walked to meet her there. Many of the shelves were dusty, their books in perfect condition from lack of use. But some of the books were old, worn, and the effects of their repeated uses were clear. Ripped spines, soiled and bent pages and faded titles adorned them.

By the time Link reached Zelda, she was already sitting down in a wooden chair at a table facing a large window providing an excellent view of the castle's training grounds. She already had her nose in a book, her finger tracing the lines of the text. Link positioned himself by the window, and gazed down towards the training grounds where he, once, had spent nearly every day, training alongside friends and rivals under the best swordsmen the kingdom had to offer.