The Legend Says I Love You | Zelink

Chapter 13: Slumbering Power

[a/n: are we getting into smut territory? Perhaps. As someone who's never written any of the kind before, however, please consider this territory completely uncharted lmfao anyway here's the chapter]

*

Zelda engages in a sacred ritual at the Spring of Power in hopes of awakening her sealing power, but she is overcome with the frustration and seeming futility of her dedication.

*

She had been in the water so long that the cold felt part of her now. Its iciness was a mere extension of herself, spreading outwards, joining her to the looming stone goddess before her. But, her silent prayers had gone unanswered. She clasped her hands more firmly, trying to grasp something else she couldn't see and had never touched. Was the Goddess even listening? She took a shaky breath before uttering the words aloud: "I come seeking help regarding this power that has been handed down over time," her voice felt too formal, clunky. Like stones being dropped into the spring's waters. "Prayer will awaken my power to seal Ganon away...or so I've been told all my life." Bitterness, like pollution, permeated her words. "My grandmother heard them—the voices from the spirit realm. And mother said her own power would develop within me. But I don't hear," she swallowed before continuing, trying to get around that dry blockage of onset tears building in her throat, " or feel anything." And like that, her words went from prayer to confession.

"Father has told me time and time again - he always says quit wasting your time playing at being a scholar," her voice rose to a crack. Even now, miles away at the Spring of Power her father's words to her echoed in her mind: heir to a throne of nothing . "Curse you," she swore, her hands finally falling from their clasp, and herself from grace, to splash the sacred waters. Curse you she had said, and had been unable to tell if it was directed at her father or the Goddess or herself. "I've spent every day of my life dedicated to praying, I've pleaded to the spirits tied to the ancient gods, and still the holy powers have proven deaf to my devotion!" The futility of it was overwhelming. She was only waist deep in water, and yet felt as if she were drowning. "Please just tell me," she begged, her voice turning to sobs. "What is it? What's wrong with me?"

The Goddess said nothing. She could only hear the sounds of water, splashing and tormented. She pushed it to the back of her mind. Or rather, that's where the observation slipped of its own accord: she felt so weak that she could barely focus on anything, except the absolute nothingness in front her. She didn't think to look behind.

Before Zelda could feel her knees give way and slip beneath her, a sudden warmth was around her, holding her up. "There's nothing," Link insisted, and she knew it to be true in a way he hadn't meant, "--there's nothing wrong with you, please--"

"The prayer, it hasn't finished—you, you can't be in the water," she protested, pulling away from him and towards the Goddess that didn't care if she lived or died.

"I don't give a shit, my Princess," Link muttered, before bundling her up and half dragging, half carrying her - kicking and splashing and the very opposite picture of devout serenity - away from the statue.

"I have to—!"

"You have to live!" he snapped, dropping her down. She had never heard him so angry before, even with her father. Rarely, did he act on impulse. And still, he held out his hand to her. Perhaps that was a hardwired impulse, too. She took it without a fight. He waded through the water to its edge with her in tow, then lifted her up onto the stone platform whilst he remained in the water below, looking up at her as she had done to the Goddess. His face was stern, his jaw set. His breath far too heavy and ragged for what little exertion carrying a princess would have cost him. "Tell me what's the point of freezing to death before you ever get the chance to prove your father or the Goddess wrong?"