Chapter Text
When Zelda had asked Link about kissing then dragged the two of them out of the canteen and into a quiet and abandoned nook in Gerudo town… well, it was understandable that Link hadn’t expected “okay, now put on a minimally threatening outfit” as her next words. He really hadn’t been expecting words at all.
Now changed into the Zelda-approved outfit of a blue lobster shirt from Lurelin, simple Hylian pants, and some amber earrings, King Link found himself standing in the Voe and You classroom. Because of course she couldn’t have been supply teaching for a cooking class or anything. But he didn’t regret saying yes. After she’d explained that she was teaching Ashai’s unit on communication and he’d agreed to help out in class, she’d whispered, “Thank you. I promise we’ll talk after class.” Then she leaned over and brushed a kiss on his cheek before grabbing his wrist and pulling him towards the classroom while he was still reeling from the feel of her against his skin.
At the front of the classroom, Zelda was writing something on the chalkboard while he stared at her shoulders in that halter top. Her shoulders had freckles. Link had never noticed anyone’s shoulders before in his life. He wanted to know when she’d gotten enough sun on her shoulders to freckle. He wanted to touch her freckled skin and see if it was as soft as it looked. He wanted to press a kiss where her shoulder met her neck and feel her hair brush his ear. He really needed to stop thinking about this before anyone else walked into the classroom or they were going to learn more about voe anatomy than he wanted to share.
He needed to think about something else. Anything else, but apparently he still had kissing on the brain because the first question that came to mind was, “Is anyone really going to ask me to kiss them?”
He wrenched his eyes from her shoulders as she turned to answer and was once again surprised to see green eyes instead of red. She shrugged at him, which did not help with his new shoulder obsession at all and he struggled to keep eye contact. “I’d be surprised if anyone actually asked for a kiss in this group, but you never know. They were practicing questions on the assumption that they’d be talking to a dummy and I have seen people get carried away and kiss those before. You can say no to them, though. They need practice with that too. Just try to be gentle with them.”
Then her students were filing in.
“Hello everyone! As you remember from last class, today we’re practicing asking for things we want. Voe can’t read your minds, and while sometimes novels make a big deal about partners who know what you want without you saying anything, we all have to remember that’s part of the fantasy of a romance story. In the non-romantic-fantasy world, there are many situations where communicating things you want or need is really important.”
Link watched her give the intro, how she moved her arms for emphasis. She was standing more like Sheik than like Zelda did in Yiga uniform. Moving a bit differently again, although maybe that was the clothes? He knew from experience that Gerudo silks encouraged different motions than Sheikah stealth gear. Link liked the bright tone of her voice as she talked about communication but he was lost in watching her shoulders and the muscles in her arms and had stopped really listening to the explanation she was giving to the students until she turned to him.
“Now, I know you all planned your questions for today assuming we’d be practicing with the dummies but I happened to run into Hyrule’s most famous voe and he’s agreed to help us out today if you want to practice talking with him. Welcome Link!”
There was polite applause. A vai wearing pink stood up immediately. “Oh, let me go first! The question I practised is even better with a real person!”
“Okay, go ahead Alys.”
“Link, would you please try my cookies? I’m thinking about changing my name to Alyson and opening a bakery in Tarrey Town and I’ve never had a voe try any of my baking before!”
Link smiled. Maybe helping out in class wouldn’t be so bad. “Sure!”
Alys pulled a container out of her bag and handed a cookie to Link. She watched intently as he bit into it.
“Mmm! Is that… spicy peppers with the cinnamon?”
“Yes! They’re great for nights here, but do you think it’s too much?”
And then they were off talking about baking spices rapid-fire while Alys passed out cookies to everyone else. Link watched Zelda’s reaction to the cookies out of the corner of his eye, trying to figure out if she liked them and if he should ask for the recipe to make more for her later. He wished he were close enough to hear what noises she was making because after that day in the desert he…
… really needed to stop thinking about that right now. Not that kind of voe lesson.
Zelda caught Link looking at her and it was hard to tell with the veil but he was pretty sure that was a smirk. Those strange green eyes met his and she made a deliberate “mmm!” noise of appreciation and he could feel his body react to her teasing. Oh, Link was quite sure she knew what he’d been thinking about, now. Hopefully no one else did. Zelda turned to look at the rest of her students. “Seems like Alys didn’t have any trouble with today’s exercise. Who wants to go next?”
A tall vai in white stood up next. He thought she was probably the same vai he’d seen in the canteen earlier with Zelda. “Link, would you please spar with me?”
King Link grinned. This class was way more fun than he’d expected. But Zelda was shaking her head.
“Aww, Zelda seems to think that would be a bad idea.”
Link looked at Zelda’s eyes. He was still getting used to the green. Beautiful but so different from Sheik’s red. Wait, she’d said something about there not being enough money for teachers. Had she been a teacher before? Was this identity older than the others she’d used around him? Before the Yiga? Or just a facet of her he hadn’t encountered yet? Link rather thought all of her identities were part of the complicated person he’d fallen in love with, but… was he seeing her eyes without a disguise right now? Had Sheik’s hair never been disguised?
His reverie is broken as Zelda explains, “Sorry, Barja, I don’t think there’s enough space in here for sparring.”
Link scrambled to get his brain back to thinking about the class. “Maybe we could spar another time, though?”
Barja lights up. “After class? Would that be okay Miss Zelda?”
Link glances at Zelda. “I… I have business with your Miss Zelda after class. But I’m pretty certain Chief Riju is going to ask me to deliver more gems for her project in a couple of days, maybe we could meet up then?”
There was an “oooooh” from the back of the class from the final student. Everyone turned to look. The poor vai was blushing fiercely.
“Sorry, I, um.” she stammered as her face got redder. “it’s just. Um.”
Zelda smiled at her, “It’s okay Maryu. Take a deep breath. Hold it. Okay, let it out now.”
Link looked away from the Maryu to give her a bit of privacy. It was just convenient that this gave him a moment to watch Zelda’s shoulder blades moving up and down and she did breathing exercises with her student. He wanted to run his fingers along the curve of her bones, along the skin where he could see a thin scar, likely from a blade. When did she get that? Link wants to know everything. He wants to know if Zelda would shiver if he ran his nails along those shoulder blades and down her back.
Maryu finally calmed down enough to speak. “Sorry, it’s your names. And. Um. Meeting after class. It’s just like in Lesson Plans. It’s, um. My favourite book.”
Link vaguely remembered that one from book club. There had been a teacher named Miss Zelda and a single dad named Link whose kid was having trouble at school. And when he arranged to meet the teacher after school to discuss accommodations...
He must have given some hint of recognition because Maryu clapped her hands. “You know it, don’t you! Oh, Link, could you re-enact the apple tree scene?”
There was some sort of long love confession that he didn’t remember very well except for remembering that Sidon had enthused about the symbolism of the kid learning to finally read and the dad re-learning how to love at their book club meeting. Oh, wait, he knew what the vai was hoping for. “Uhhh… I don’t think I can remember all of it but I think I remember the end? I need Miss Zelda’s consent, though.”
Maryu turned wide eyes to Zelda. “Do you know the book?”
Zelda shook her head. Maryu looked crestfallen.
Link met Zelda’s eyes. He delights for a moment in the lack of mask so he can read expression instead of body language; she looks more intrigued than worried, and she’s not sending negative signals. Still, she’d invited him here to role model respectful communication for her students so he could do that. “Zelda, the teacher in the scene doesn’t know what’s going to happen so it’d be in character if you don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’ll need to touch your hand for this, if that’s okay? And it is a romance novel.”
Zelda looked back at him and nodded, green eyes sparkling at him. She was always pulling him into similar playacting at the stables so this should be fun. Link couldn’t keep a grin off his face, “Okay, here goes!”
Then he’s grasping one of Zelda’s hands in both of his and going down on one knee with courtly grace borne of nearly forgotten muscle memory. He marvels for a moment at the feel of the calluses across her palm, probably from sword work, then brings the back of her hand to his face and presses a gentle kiss there And oh. Oh. Link is not prepared for how soft the back of her hand is. For some reason he’d been thinking that he’d touched her hand before so this would be fine but oh, so soft. Her skin just a bit cooler under his lips, the contrast between them electrifying.
He looks up to meet Zelda’s eyes. She’s gazing down at him, with her other hand to her mouth, fingertips probably touching her lips under the veil. He’s used to playful looks from Sheik, teasing looks, but this… She looks adoring. Besotted. Utterly focused on him. Is she acting? Had she been looking at him like this behind the mask all those times they playacted in the stables? Has he been missing these looks for months?
He lingers probably too long looking into her eyes before remembering he’s in a classroom with an audience and he’s supposed to be saying a line.
“Thank you, Miss Zelda.” he says. Link draws a blank trying to remember what goes next when all he can think about is the feel of her skin, the look of her eyes on his. He closes his eyes and takes a breath, only to hear Maryu whisper his missed cue, which breaks the spell for a second.
“You’ve changed our lives,” he echoes his lines, looking back up at Zelda. She hasn’t moved and he swears he can see a very slight blush forming at the top of where her veil covers. Link pulls her hand up to his face, closing his eyes and leaning his cheek against the soft skin of the back of her hand. He’s pretty sure the scene only called for a hand kiss but he just wants to keep touching her if she’ll let him. He opens his eyes to deliver the last line, “You’ve changed my whole world.”
There’s a quiet moment where he’s gazing into green eyes, then the classroom breaks into applause.
Maryu makes a squeal of excitement and gushes, “Thank you! That was amazing!”
Zelda pulls him up and gets him to take a bow. She looks a little flushed as she turns to Maryu and says, “Apparently I need to read this book, Maryu. Can you spell the author’s name for me?”
-⋇★✦★⋇-
The remainder of the class is a blur to Link, but soon enough it’s done and Zelda is pulling him over to the sand seal rental place. She punches him gently in the shoulder after he quips, “Let’s SEAL the deal!”
“If you’ve rented seals often enough for puns, I guess you can race me to the heroines.”
As they get ready to leave, he smirks at her and says, “If I win, do I get your seal of approval?”
Zelda makes a scoffing noise and takes off, leaving him to chase after her seal. There’s a moment where she almost manages to side swipe him into a cactus, but in the end he makes it to the giant statues first and she laughs and dismounts and says, “I see you’re a seal-ious racer after all.” and Link gapes at her for a second before he starts laughing too.
I love you so much, he thinks.
Zelda pulls herself up to a to a ladder near the base of one of the heroines and starts climbing up. “I want to climb to the top for the sunset. It’s one of my favourite views here.”
As the adrenaline from racing and some seal pun induced giggles wear off, Link finally asks, “After that whole class on communication I feel like I should actually check. Are we… okay? I know you told me you were going to be busy and I promise running into you in the canteen was an accident. If you’re not actually ready to talk yet I don’t want to rush you.”
“Was it an accident, though?” says Zelda in a gently teasing tone, as she turns to look down at him. She must see the panic in his face because before Link can stammer out some kind of denial she continues. “No, not you. I mean, I did send you to the desert while I knew I’d be teaching.”
“Didn’t find you those days, though.”
“Yeah… honestly it wasn’t until I was disappointed not seeing you that I realized maybe I had wanted you to find me, Link.”
Link absorbs that for a moment as they climb. He tries not to stare at her ankles as she ascends the ladder above him. But they look like nice ankles. Sidon is going to have a field day teasing him if he ever admits to this.
“So… you’re not mad?”
Zelda laughs, “No, you saved me figuring out how to take the mask off. It’s surprisingly ingrained, the anonymity of the Yiga.”
“How does a teacher wind up in the Yiga, anyhow?”
There’s a snicker in her voice. “What, you don’t think I just really hate the monarchy?”
“Well, I have been thinking a lot about exactly how much you hate the monarchy since we last talked...”
“Well, that was kind of the start of it. I lost my job as a teacher because the schools were running out of money. Symin had seniority so I got stuck travelling all over the place as a substitute. I was mad you couldn’t come in from the wild long enough to raise taxes and eventually I must have spouted off my mouth where someone overheard. Turns out Sooga wanted a teacher who might have Yiga sympathies.”
“And he what, kidnapped you?”
“Nah. He sent someone to hire me. Turns out some Yiga join up to get out of bad situations so they don’t always have much education, and Sooga thought bases would run better if everyone could actually read and understand warning signs and instructions.”
They’ve reached the top of the statue and they settle down facing west, sitting and looking in the direction of Gerudo Town. For all that the desert can feel very empty when you’re in the sands, there’s ruins and leviathan bones and fallen sky island pieces doting the landscape in this direction. After taking a moment to look out over the desert, Zelda leans onto his shoulder and says, “I missed you. And I’m sorry I had to disappear on you. Wasn’t just teaching, I needed to spend some time in headquarters figuring things out.”
A strand of her hair brushes against Link’s neck and he has a panicked moment trying to figure out what he’s supposed to do with his hands. They’re alone, finally alone. She’s not mad at him. He loves her. She missed him. He wants her to never miss him again. And she’s out of uniform. That halter top has been killing him all night. But they need to talk and he’s not sure how he’s going to be able to carry on a conversation if he’s touching her skin; he barely managed a handful of words after touching her hand in class, and he didn’t even have to make those words up.
Zelda moves a bit closer; he must have taken too long to react. “You’re panicking, aren’t you?” She shifts, grabs his hand, puts it on her shoulder, then relaxes back against him. “Take your time.”
Her skin is soft and warm and lightly covered in a sheen of sweat from climbing. Link takes a deep breath. Zelda’s hair smells faintly floral but not the way he expected. He’d been expecting her to smell like Sheik, and he has a flash memory of Sheik pinning him to a bookshelf in a dark corner of the library and the smell of nightshade overwhelming the smell of old books as Sheik leaned close. Link takes another breath trying to memorize this new smell as he gently rubs a circle on her shoulder, enjoying the feel of soft skin cooling as the sun goes down.
Then a thought occurs to Link, “It’s going to get cold, do you want something for the temperature, Zelda?”
“Oh! I came prepared this time.” She rummages in her pockets and pulls out a pair of ruby earrings and waves them at Link before moving to put them on. Her hands move to her veil and Link’s heart nearly stops as she doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t look at him before taking it off and putting the earrings on. She closes her eyes for a moment, tipping her head sideways and concentrating on finding the spot in her earlobe.
She just… just. Her whole face. Link resists the urge to look away, as if he’s not supposed to see, and instead drinks in the sight. Her eyelashes look huge with her eyes closed. There’s a flush on her cheeks from climbing. She’s lightly biting her lip as she concentrates on the earrings. The line of her jaw is calling to him to run his fingers along it.
Then she opens her eyes, catches him staring, and smiles.
She was beautiful before, but the force of seeing a smile on her whole face leaves him stunned. The warm light of the setting sun leaves her skin and hair golden and glowing. She could be some kind of magical being. She could be the sun all on her own. Some higher power, like he should be worshipping at her feet, unworthy of the full force of her light.
Zelda reaches over to cup his cheek. Link feels like he’s being lifted on the updraft of a dragon, spirit soaring. She’s here, and she’s real, and she took off her mask. She took off her mask. Abruptly, his brain stutters to a realization and he blurts out, “You’re saying yes?” And then his face flushes. “Sorry, I’m probably screwing up the moment.”
Abruptly, Zelda starts laughing. “I already swore at you when you asked me, I don’t think it gets worse than that.”
Link looks at her fondly. The laugh makes her differently beautiful, more human, more touchable. And suddenly that’s all he wants to do again. “I can’t believe anyone let us teach a class on communication. Let’s skip to kissing.”
He leans towards her and Zelda whispers, “That’s still communication.” But she leans too and then he’s lost in sensations. Her lips moving against his, her hands at the back of his neck, A tiny taste of cinnamon and spice lingering on their tongues. The soft noise of surprise she makes as he finally gets to kiss where her shoulder curves into her neck. He can feel the warmth of the rubies radiating from her ears and it feels like his own heart is surging to match that heat.
They don’t really get any more talking done that evening.
-⋇★✦★⋇-
When Zelda’s last day teaching rolls around, Link offers to pick her up in Gerudo Town so they can get dinner together to celebrate. In public. Because they can do that any time now.
“Counter-proposal. We wait until next planned bridge inspection and I show up sans mask and we make out under the bridge until the Lucky Gazette photographer conveniently catches us at it.” Zelda is grinning at him like it’s a dare, then she pulls out a notebook. “I have a whole pile of other options for taking this public if you don’t like that one.”
“Why is that one your favourite?” King Link has largely gone along with whatever she throws at him, at first because he didn’t know what else to do, and then because he wanted to impress her with his ability to roll with whatever, and finally because it became fun. He’s excited to be an active participant in planning rather than a chess piece she manipulates to reach her goal.
Putting the notebook on the table, Zelda counts off reasons on her fingers. “It’s funny, it makes the Yiga connection clear, it takes serious advantage of the name Zelda in context to ramp up speculation. Plus this way I let Penn get the scoop.”
Link is momentarily distracted by the way Zelda’s hands move. They look so delicate when not wielding a weapon. Although the social situations she’s engineering are in many ways more dangerous than any blade. The tiny frisson of fear as the back of his mind recognizes her as a skilled predator quickly pulls into a thread of desire, amplified as she brings her finger up to tap at her lips. He brings his eyes up to meet hers and he watches her smile slowly at whatever she reads from his expression.
“Mind, it isn’t the best option for your reputation.” Oh, she definitely noticed him looking at her hands because she’s pointing one at his chest and stepping into his personal space. He thinks by now he should be used to the way she darts between plotting and flirting but some animal instinct has him freeze the minute her voice modulates like that, the moment she steps close. It’s absurd that he can handle any sort of battle adrenaline but desire leaves him like this. Her eyes trap him and it’s completely different than the mask but still just a little bit unsettling. He wonders how long before seeing her bare face stops feeling so… intimate.
“It also paints you acting like a horny teenager when you’re way too old for that, but I’m pretty sure you can play along.” she purrs at him, gently trailing fingers down his chest. Link can feel his breath catch and he can tell she’s enjoying his reaction as she continues, “which is not going to slow down the late-onset-harem rumours at all, love.”
She winks at him and he can’t help the smile breaking on his face. He tries to shake off the haze she’s cast over his mind to say, “You could have worked the romance novel come to life narrative with a romantic dinner in Gerudo Town too.”
Zelda makes a pleased noise at his willingness to speak her language, but doesn’t relent. “Oh, we’ll work that angle eventually. But my plan that gives us more time to… discuss strategy.” She leans in breathe against his ear. “In private. After class.”
It was a very compelling argument.
-⋇★✦★⋇-
“So, can Zora queens be charged with sedition, Yona?” Zelda asked. “Because I think we’re going to have to make some changes to Hylian law.”
King Link flinched nervously from where he was across the room preparing tea with Sidon, but Yona laughed and answered, “Does yours count as a diplomatic marriage, given that your wedding will effectively mark a peace treaty with the Yiga? Because usually for diplomatic marriages there’s a certain amount of leeway for past actions…”
King Sidon nudged his bestest friend. “Quit worrying. Yona is hardly going to take offence now that you have finally brought your Yiga over. We have been waiting for this moment.”
Link smiled at his friend. “Thanks, Sidon.”
Then Zelda’s voice got a bit louder, “Wait, since I did the negotiation with the Yiga, does this mean we could interpret Link as the pretty sacrificial trophy spouse to unite warring nations? Because I definitely feel like I should get him an outfit for that…”
Yona gestured at Zelda’s latest notebook of ideas, “ooh, let me see...”
Sidon laughed. “See, they will get along just fine. This bodes well for the future of Hyrule.”
Link mock scowled at Sidon, “I’m not sure them getting along bodes well for me.”
-⋇★✦★⋇-
Of all the ways that King Link had imagined book club might go, he had not had, “Riju, Sidon and Zelda bond over a mutual love of tragic yuri” on his bingo card.
They’d gotten into some discussion about what the saddest part of today’s book was. “I think the saddest part was how they’d started as childhood friends and then after all they’ve been through, the Princess of Twilight has to sever their connection entirely just after the two princesses can finally spend time together again,” insists Sidon.
“No, it’s the fact that the Princess of Twilight is choosing her realm over the love she feels for the Princess of Light. If she hadn’t been a ruler she could have chosen her for sure, but as the one in charge she had to protect her whole realm even if it meant giving up her love.” insists Riju. “It’s the tension between her personal feelings and her responsibilities that is the biggest tragedy.”
“Ooh, both of those are good. But what about the fact that she couldn’t find any other choice beyond breaking the mirror? The Princess of Twilight has been so clever and so resilient working with her friends to save both realms, and then she feels so strongly that it’s the only solution for peace that she breaks the mirror without telling the Princess of Light or the Hero beforehand so they don’t have to bear responsibility for the choice.” suggests Zelda.
“And what about the symbolism of how they find each other in any form and any realm? Like they’re destined to be both opposites and together… but the universe just won’t let them stay together?” Sidon is tearing up so badly just talking about it that Riju and Zelda wind up leaning on either side of him for comfort. It’s adorable.
Apparently Tulin did not enjoy this book as much, because at this point he rolled his eyes and dragged Link and some others to the snacks table to talk about “literally anything other than sadness.”
“So Link,” Tulin asks, casting around for a topic, “Where are you going to have this wedding? Hyrule castle is mostly a haunted wreck.”
“I suggested Lurelin since that’s where we met, but Zelda thinks that we’d overwhelm the town and she’s definitely right about that. We need something reasonably large to legitimize things politically. She did agree that Sidon was the right one to officiate, both personally and politically.”
Tulin ponders, “I’d ask Dad about offering Rito facilities but I don’t think we we really have anything big enough either and it’s a bit cold for your Goron guests. Given that Sidon’s going to officiate I’m guessing the Gerudo Desert and Eldin Volcano are both not great options either.”
Yunobo wanders away from the sad side of book club, “We could try by Bedrock Bistro. It’s much more accessible with the train, but it isn’t exactly royal. You should see if Sidon and Yona want to host.” They all look over at Sidon who is still blubbering about the beauty of sacrifice. “Uh, maybe ask another day, though.”
-⋇★✦★⋇-
Kissing while waiting for someone to show up and take a photo turned out to be surprisingly awkward, so they didn’t actually manage to keep it up for long. That’s why, at the moment the photographer showed up, Link and Zelda were giggling under the bridge together. Link had just finished a funny story about the time that Tulin launched him directly into a snow-covered tree and he nearly fell on a deer that had been munching some greenery below when its meal was rudely interrupted by a giant oomph of snow and discombobulated Hylian falling from above. Zelda was laughing too hard to hear the photographer arrive but Link heard just in time to grab Zelda’s hands and press a kiss to her forehead before the first click.
Penn flapped down and nearly fell over in surprise when Zelda turned around.
“Zelda? Is that you? When did you cut your hair?”
Link startled. Penn and Zelda knew each other?
“Penn! Yup, it’s me. Cut the hair shortly after I stopped doing freelance editing for Traysi, actually. Did a stint clearing monster camps as my next gig and it turns out the long hair was not an asset.”
Zelda had previously worked for the Lucky Clover Gazette? That… actually explained a few things. Also, Penn recognized her? Link had been very certain the reporter was utterly face blind. But he didn’t have time to think about the implications because Penn was already asking the next question.
“And then… you joined the Yiga?” Penn gestured at her red outfit and the mask she’d left sitting beside her in case anyone missed the point.
“Nah, few other jobs since then. How have you been?”
Penn and Zelda caught up on their lives for a bit before Penn finally got around to asking, “So… Now that you’re apparently in the business of making news rather than editing it, I’m assuming you’ve got a story for me?”
Zelda beamed and reached over to grab Link’s hand. “Oh do we ever, Penn.”