The Legend Says I Love You | Zelink

Chapter 16: Return of Calamity Ganon

Zelda's efforts at the Spring of Wisdom bear no fruit. Upon completing her descent down the mountain, she and the Champions witness the awakening of Ganon.

*

Daruk and Revali had somehow remained oblivious to what practically the whole court bore witness to: the undeniable, less than appropriate closeness shared between the Princess and her Knight. Which was good, thought Zelda, because Daruk would have been overly congratulatory about it and Revali's opinion of both of them would crash lower than they thought it possibly could. Mipha's awkwardness and Urbosa's smug, knowing smile was all she could handle around the campfire, without running off to dunk herself headfirst in the nearby lake.

Despite herself, she couldn't detach the feelings of shame slowly but surely coiling themselves around her feelings for Link. It wasn't him she was ashamed of - it would never be him - but rather her own...negligence? Her own greed? Selfishness? She couldn't pinpoint it. Just that something about what she was doing was undoubtedly wrong. The only thing she knew was that now was not the time; to be worrying, to be distracted, to be wholly focused on Link when the world was wholly focused on her and her saving of it.

Maybe Revali ought to know. Maybe he'd berate some sense back into her, she thought darkly. She didn't doubt that he, like her father, would see her and Link's feelings as nothing more than a time-wasting distraction from the task before them. He grudged even having to set up camp at the base of the mountain, and saving the climb until morning. Bureaucratic nonsense, he had called it. We have to walk you all this way, just so that little Hylian can escort you up whilst we wait below? Urbosa had tried to shut him up, reminding him of honour and pride and serving the Crown whilst Zelda attempted to preoccupy herself with tending to the fire - and carefully maintaining her distance from Link, lest Revali have one more thing to complain about.

"Well I personally take my pride in being efficient," he drawled. "I could escort her up within a few hours at most. We could leave at sunrise and be down by lunch."

Daruk grunted in agreement, addressing Link directly. "I hate to say it, little guy, but he's got a point. I could make the descent faster, if ya need me, and clear the way downhill. You know, shake the snow out the way."

"There's a stream around the back of the mountain, too. I could swim ahead and make sure there are no threats," Mipha added. She was trying to be helpful but succeeded in only adding another weight to Zelda's chest, much like seeing Link with his sword had done early on in his appointment. Each of them had something that made them uniquely talented - something that would aid them all in the fight against Ganon. And yet all she had was them. What could she do, except go up the mountain and beg like her birthday had changed anything at all? All it had brought was her destiny, closer. Link, at midnight with a candle in a cake whispering in the dark. She'd blown it out and felt her future close around her like the night.

"No," Urbosa dismissed them all. "This is something the Princess can do on her own."

"Then why," Revali persisted, "does he need to go if that's the case? Oh, wait," he rolled his eyes. "It's because she can't."

Zelda turned her back on the campfire and surrounding Champions, pretending to busy herself with setting up a pot for dinner. So she got her verbal shaming after all. She willed her hands not to shake, but couldn't count on her voice remaining steady.

"I hope this time the Goddess takes pity on you," Revali said, his voice low and serious. "Otherwise she'll have to take pity on us all."

"What would you know of the Goddess?"