Chapter Text
She wakes to the sensation of lazy lips dragging up her throat.
Zelda hums, pulling the owner of the lips closer to her as she feels him stir against her thigh. It is something she knows she will never tire of, and she knows they have important things to do once the sun rises but a clever mouth is sucking on the sensitive patch of skin near her ear as the owner's hands start to drift up her rib cage.
"Link..."
He hums as well, but doesn't stop.
"We have to get going... We told Purah we would be heading to the Castle at first light."
"We did," Link murmurs against her throat, hand now dangerously close to the curvature of her breast, "but first light is a few hours away."
He continued his lazy ministrations, leaving her breathless and waking more and more with each electric touch, and she arched into him when his deft thumb grazed her pebbling nipple.
"Wha - so you decide to wake me before dawn?" She gasps when he bites down on the tendon in her neck at her shoulder. "I could use more beauty sleep before our adventure under the Castle..."
Link hums again as he rolls her onto her back. Zelda opens her eyes for the first time, meeting his gaze in the dim early morning light. His lids are heavy, but his cerulean eyes are still brighter than the sea at dawn as he stares at her with that adoring gaze saved for her in these private moments. He rests his chin on her sternum and splays his hands on her breasts. He cups them, gives them both a squeeze, and smirks at her. She could feel his arousal pressing against her thigh and she did her best to ignore it in favor of meeting his challenging look.
"No amount of rest could make you more beautiful," he remarked in that matter-of-fact tone he used almost exclusively. "I just feel it's a good way to start the morning."
"As we do many mornings."
"Especially with what we may face today."
She drew out her sigh as her fingers card through his mussed hair, unbound and tousled from sleep. "We have a time table, my knight. We must be punctual."
Link hummed again, dismissive but still acknowledging, and his clever, clever mouth made its way to the spot recently occupied by his right hand. He held her gaze as he dragged his sharp teeth against the pebbled skin, challenging her to object, and the spark it sent to her toes gave him all the answer he needed before he started moving down her body.
Zelda supposed they could be a little late...
It has been twenty-two days, six hours, and forty-three minutes since Zelda landed on her back in a sprawling green field. The shell shock of finding herself in the distant past, a time of legends in her own era, face to face with the king and queen that founded this era's Hyrule, had distracted Zelda more than she could articulate. Sonia, an absolute delight, has been as helpful as she could be in comforting Zelda in the moments she was lost or turned around in her own thoughts of how to return home. Rauru, in the time he could spare with ruling, has been nothing less than stalwart in his support of her studies and research on how to get home. Between the monarchs and Mineru, a found friend and kindred spirit, Zelda at times could see herself living in this era until the end of her days.
At least for a few moments before her heart remembers the swordsman that had been left in her own time while she was dragged here.
Her thoughts are almost exclusively consumed with Link's wellbeing. There was absolutely no way of her knowing if he was dead or alive, and it terrified her. In truth, because of her presence in the past, he was stuck in a paradox in the future - neither living nor dead but also both living and dead because he didn't actually exist with her here in the past. Until she returned to the future, there was no way for her to know and he simply existed at both extremes until she got back. It was hard for her to explain or rationalize in her brain, but Sonia seemed to understand her dismay and reassure her that Link was simply paused until Zelda could return to the time she had been plucked from, essentially.
"One year here could be a minute for him by the time you get back," she had said over tea one afternoon in the courtyard behind the Temple of Time. "All you need to do is focus on getting back. Our times do not exist on a congruent line, so you will continue to move until you catch back up to where you can."
"How do you know that's true?" Zelda frowned when Sonia was silent, urging her to continue. "How do you know that the three weeks I've been here haven't transpired as three weeks in my era? There has to be a reason why I arrived here, in the exact time I did and in the exact space that I did. Where I fell was not where I had been in my time. It makes no sense!"
"Time makes sense to none when it exists whether we acknowledge it or not," came Sonia's cryptic reply. "So if you believe that our timelines are existing congruently, and that now three weeks have passed in your era, do you feel that rushing here will make any difference in what transpires there?"
"If that is the case, the sooner I get back to my era, the sooner I can help Link."
"Zelda, dear," Sonia started in her soothing voice that always seemed to scratch Zelda's brain, "while I truly feel you may be onto something, stressing yourself out over something out of your control can be detrimental. Especially if you neglect yourself in the process."
Zelda's eyes burned with unshed tears. "What if I'm wasting time and everyone I love is dying or already dead?"
"Then you can assure your actions here can make waves that are ripples in their favor in the future," Sonia remarked with a kind smile. "Wisdom - "
"- takes time, I know." Zelda frowned and her fingers began breaking her pastry into pieces. "I've already spent one hundred years waiting for him. We were both stuck in a stasis of sorts then. Now? It's completely different. Will time ever allow us to just be together or shall we always be torn apart by it?"
Sonia gave her that soft smile and held her trembling hands, stopping her from destroying the innocent pastry any further. "Zelda, I feel we can get you back to your era soon. Back to Link and safe. I can promise you that."
Zelda could only smile as tears spilled from her lashes and fell into her teacup. No amount of time powers could stop her drink from being ruined.
Forty-seven days, twenty-three hours, and forty-five minutes since Zelda landed on her back in a sprawling green field, and she thinks she may be going crazy.
Voices had been tickling her mind, some her own and some sounding like Sonia or Rauru, but when she turned around she could not find the source of the sounds. Perhaps she was truly going insane. Perhaps being in the wrong time period was finally destroying her mind after it had been so frayed in the century in Calamity's embrace.
Sonia found her in the library, pouring over a genealogy book in an attempt to silence the voices.
"Ah, my family tree."
Zelda looked up from the pages and met Sonia's strikingly familiar eyes. The same as hers, the same as her mother's.
Sonia smiled and sat down. "I may have been born a priestess, but my family lineage goes back all the way to when Hylians first settled on the surface. The Zonai may be from the sky in recent memory, but legends say the Hylians had been there first at the command of the great Goddess. She raised parts of the Surface above the clouds to protect her people, and after a long war they finally returned and brought human life back to these lands. Others may have wandered to our shores, but it was the Hylians who truly gave the kingdom life."
Interest piqued, Zelda leaned forward. "Your ancestors were a part of this group?"
Sonia hummed and her fingers traced the roughened edges of the page. "On my mother's side. My family has always been dedicated to the worship of the land and of the Goddess. The Three may have shaped this land and given it law and life, but the Goddess protected that life with her own. A fun family rumor is that she founded our line and that her blood is within me."
Zelda couldn't help but smile at that. "The rumor continues into my era. Sometimes, I would be called the Goddess-Blood Princess, though I never felt quite like any goddess when my powers did not manifest."
An eyebrow arched and Sonia gave her that knowing, soft smile. "And now?"
Zelda's fingers toyed with the secret stone notched at her throat and she shrugged. "The power does not make me feel holy or divine. I feel like a conduit, but then again those powers dwindled after their purpose was served."
"Tell me more about what they felt like."
Zelda looked out the window, towards the field that she knew in many millennia would house a great battle between a roaring monster of malice and flame, and her beloved knight with a now-broken sword.
No, not now. He's frozen in time, for her, and the sword is still intact theoretically. Or not. It was still hard for her to grasp the concept.
She sighed and continued to stare into the distance. "Not like yours or Rauru's, but something wholly different. Or perhaps a mixture of different aspects of the two. We called it a sealing power, but it was so much more than that. I was able to keep myself corporeal, bound to malice and smoke without aging, and keep the beast sealed within the Castle until Link could come to break our stalemate. I felt burning, golden oppression, that bowed everything to my will, but it was not like when I use my time powers. Or even similar to when Rauru used his powers against those Molduga. In all honesty, it felt separate and different than anything I've seen or felt in this era, yet the same."
Zelda paused and her voice softened. "In my studies and prayer, I had learned stories of the Goddess Hylia. How She had given up immortality and yet returned to divinity after Her mortal form had passed on to the afterlife. She exists at the edge of time, knowing all and doing all She can to shape events in the world to protect Her people. For all I know, this is Her will and I am just Her puppet."
"There are always going to be more questions than answers, dear Zelda," Sonia replied, causing Zelda to tear her eyes from the fields beyond and meet her warm gaze. "Perhaps this sealing power of yours is what manifests as the powers within many generations of magic, like Hylia intends. You are a culmination of what was needed to save your era. Do not think it to be a fluke or chance. Aspects of your power calls to me - like calls to like, my dear. Rauru feels it, too. Your ruminations may be onto something, and all you can do is work with it. There is so much more than what we gave you. Millennia of power has found its way to you, and all you can do is learn how to control it so you can get back to your era."
Zelda nodded, and a twinkle sparkled in Sonia's eyes. "And of course, back to Link."
When Zelda's cheeks warmed, Sonia closed the book and took Zelda's hands, clasping them over the hard cover. "I promise, I will help you as much as I can. And not just with your powers."
After a pause, Sonia squeezed Zelda's hands again. "How are you feeling?"
A humorless, very un-Princess-like snort forced its way out of Zelda and she had to try hard to not smile with equal humorlessness. "Like I was pulled thousands of years into the past with no way home."
Sonia shook her head. "No, physically. How does your body feel? Do you feel well? Unwell?"
Zelda took stock of herself, not noting anything different except the ever-present churning that had been steadily building every day since she arrived in the past. "I... well I don't feel sick. Just... off. But that's been getting more and more prevalent since I arrived. My body and my soul know I do not belong here, so maybe my body is rebelling."
A thoughtful look crossed Sonia's face, and Zelda was about to question it when Sonia asked, "And your monthly? Have you had it since you arrived?"
"My what?"
"Your monthly?" Sonia's head tilted in curiosity. "Your menses? Your cycle? You've been here for almost two moons. It would be hard to not have one at this point."
Zelda paused, her stomach still churning and bile rising in her throat. She hadn't...
"I... well..."
The churning grew and panic started to settle in her belly like a molten rock from Death Mountain. She had completely forgotten her cycle. Her mind had just been so preoccupied…
"I -"
Concern grew in Sonia's eyes and Zelda shook her head, dismissive of the first thought that flitted to her mind. "I've missed cycles before. The Castle midwife said it was because of stress and malnutrition, but my father would deny the last part wholeheartedly. In actuality, I rarely ate because I was stressed. And since the Calamity, especially in recent months, I've been so caught up in thoughts of the restoration and of the increasing threat of gloom, and of course coming to the past where I have no one but you and Link is dead for all I know and - "
Zelda stopped dead in her rambling, and her mind went to the morning of her fall.
She never drank her contraceptive elixir.
Bile rose in her throat and Zelda keeled over to vomit all over the floor.
Forty-eight days on the dot since Zelda landed on her back in a sprawling green field, and Zelda realizes she's pregnant with Link's child.
She is currently throwing up into the toilet bowl while Sonia rubs her back and dabs her forehead with a cool rag. She had called for a midwife construct - because those existed - and they were waiting for it to arrive. The moment Zelda heard the methodical beeping of the construct as it entered the room, Sonia had aided her to her feet and led her over to lay on the bed.
The midwife construct wasted no time in scanning her abdomen, pausing particularly close to her pubis, and then it said, "Fetal heart confirmed. Estimated gestational age of eight weeks and four days, plus or minus three days."
Sonia dismissed the construct and waited for Zelda to speak, but the younger royal could not form words. Tears burned in her eyes and as soon as she met Sonia's soft gaze, the dam broke.
Almost two months of suppressed emotions bubbled to the surface and she cried and cried and cried.
The morning of her fall, Link and Zelda managed to lay together twice before taking a bath, then a third time before using the Purah Pad to transport to their designated meeting spot where Purah agreed to meet them. A prototype transportation medallion had been placed a few days beforehand, and the lovers had arrived mere minutes before Purah did with a dondon and their supplies in tow. Purah had given them instructions on returning to the Lookout tower transportation medallion, and soon they had been descending into the gloom-infested darkness.
Zelda had forgotten her elixir, and after that she didn't remember much aside from the murals, the corpse, and the floating hand that held what was now her secret stone.
Why didn't she take the elixir?
More tears fell.
Because she thought she was going to have more time. Link had insisted on taking one himself, but the ingredients for his elixir were much harder to acquire nowadays since hearty durians were starting to disappear. Zelda's was easier and quicker, so she insisted just as hard. And always won.
Except she forgot it that time.
She had been so good since they started their physical relationship. A year after the Calamity fell and she was back to her body, Link made the first move under the full moon with a belly full of stew and rich Goron wine. She reciprocated wholeheartedly, and for four years they had been exceptionally careful. Her hunger for him never waned with her cycle, and that had been so sporadic that it was hard to calculate the riskiest times for them to make love, but she didn't care. She had him finally.
And now she was never going to have him back except for the tiny piece that was flickering inside of her.
"Oh Zelda, dear. I'm sure we can take care of it. I believe I do have some mugwort and chamomile tea somewhere for situations like this -"
Zelda's crying ceased and she sat straight up. "No!"
Sonia's eyebrow curled in a curious arch. "No?"
Zelda swallowed, her throat thick and raw, and she shook her head. "I... this is not... unwelcome. Link and I... well we were normally very careful, but we never said we didn't want to share something like this together. The conversation wasn't explicitly had but we both knew where we stood on children. It just never was the right time, with his memory loss and restarting a whole kingdom, and all."
Understanding and empathy warmed Sonia's features and she petted Zelda's head. "Dear, we are on the precipice of war. Our meeting with the would-be Usurper is tonight. Do you want to risk your life and the life of the fetus in this situation? We can always devise another strategy... Perhaps let Rauru know what we are planning? Or have you somewhere safe while I confront the Gerudo?"
Again, Zelda shook her head. "I'll be fine, Queen Sonia. We have our mission and I cannot back down, and I will be extra careful." She lowered her gaze to her lap and more tears fell. "If I cannot get back to my era, this fetus is all I have left of Link. I must protect it in every way I can. Even if that means participating in preventing that man from destroying Hyrule and everything we stand for."
Sonia cupped Zelda's cheek and gave her a little squeeze. "I'll be able to help you, dear. Let's get through tonight and afterwards we can discuss all the things you need to know so you're prepared."
Seventy-one days, fifteen hours, and nine minutes since Zelda landed on her back in a sprawling green field, and she's all alone. Sonia had been dead for three weeks. And Rauru managed to seal away Ganondorf, but sacrificed himself in the process. She had no one.
Mineru was dying. Her physical body incapable of fighting off the decay that the Demon King's powers inflicted on her. Sonia's cousin was taking over ruling the kingdom until Rauru's and Sonia's child - Princess Aurauru - could return to the kingdom from a pilgrimage she had been doing in the far West. It had been a shock to learn of her existence, but knowing it now explained Sonia's kind heart, striking maternal instinct, and knowledge of Zelda's pregnancy before she even realized herself.
The Sages all retreated to their safe havens to recover and to tend to their people, while Zelda was left on the Great Plateau, alone. The Castle where Sonia and Rauru's thrones sat was mostly destroyed, save for some empty hallways and rooms that led to more empty hallways and rooms.
Zelda stood in the courtyard of the Temple of Time and imagined what it would look like in the millennia to come. Her mind projected images of what would stand there before and after the Calamity, and then her eyes drifted to the Dueling Peaks - still one mountain in this era, and then over to Mount Lanayru. It was there that she shared her first kiss with Link, huddled in a cave feeling lost, desolate, hopeless, and afraid. Just like she did now.
She would never kiss those lips again. She had no way of going home, no way of freeing herself from the torture of knowing Link's child was within her and he would never know.
Going through the heavy doors of the Temple of Time made her heart feel even heavier, knowing what she knows now. There was no way to tell Link what she knew of Ganondorf - if Link was even alive, for that matter - and there was still no way for her to get home. The best she could do now was tend to Mineru, keep herself safe, and raise a child alone in this harsh era.
Without Link. Without his love and without his knowledge of their child.
A warmth at her throat stilled her thoughts and Zelda looked beyond the mechanisms of the inner Temple, drawn by an invisible force to the back courtyard that overlooked the ravine.
"You're telling me... That Link is safe?"
"I know why I am here..."
"I'll be forever changed..."
It was a risk she would have to take. Mineru advised against it. The Sages, when they learned of her condition, begged her to not go through with it. But Zelda had made up her mind. She left clues, set the pieces in place, and she made all the necessary preparations to have everything ready for Link in their era.
All she had to do was swallow the secret stone, hope it didn't destroy her fetus, and pray that someday she could return the restored Master Sword to Link and hope that he could figure out a way to reverse the draconification without harming their fetus.
Or maybe, just maybe, find a way for her to go a little longer and deliver the baby, leave it in the care of Queen Regent Sophia, and pray that the child carries on her legacy either with Princess Aurauru or someone else.
When Mineru called upon her, Zelda knew she didn't have enough time to wait.
"My body is about to die," Mineru told her that evening in a weak, wet voice. Tears were building in her somber eyes and falling down her shallow cheeks as she continued, "I can no longer feel the light, and I fear that my soul cannot be tethered to something else if I delay any longer."
Zelda nodded in understanding. "The Purah Pad should be sufficient for you. I've made modifications to its power source, and it should withstand time without dying, thus allowing your soul to live on within it until it can be given back to Link in my era."
Mineru closed her eyes, accepting, and she nodded once. "Very well. I think I can stomach one more meal, then I must let go. We need to ensure my secret stone is hidden in my temple. It cannot fall into the wrong hands, lest they use it for nefarious purposes."
Zelda let a tear fall, mourning what she was going to have to do. "Of course."
"And if I am to be untethered from my body, it is probably best for you to go through with it sooner rather than later." Mineru paused, sighed, then added, "I know at this point I cannot change your mind. What draconification does to a soul and to the body is unresearched in our time, it's entirely uncharted territory. The dragons that still live from the process cannot be approached, so all we can do is hope your swordsman can save you."
"Even so," Zelda started with a safe smile, "if Link cannot reverse the draconification, I will live my eternal life knowing I did it to save our people. A necessary sacrifice for the greater good. And I will have a piece of him with me for the rest of my existence, however long that may be."
Ninety-nine days since Zelda landed on her back in a sprawling green field, and she was once again standing in the back courtyard of the Temple of Time. The Master Sword laid on the pedestal in front of her, her secret stone a heavy weight on her neck, and her mind on the man she was risking all of her existence on. He was her salvation once more, and in the thousands upon thousands of years that waited for her, where the Master Sword would slowly heal and be imbued with her sacred powers, her entire intentions would be on him..
She instructed the Sages what to do, of the need to raise the Temple of Time into the sky after she had done what she needed to do. She told them of the need for support for Link, for the presence of a Sage to aid her knight in saving Hyrule. She told them of what the Master Sword had told her was waiting in her era for Link. What he did when he woke, what Rauru's spirit did for him and his destroyed arm. What the Master Sword told Link before he willingly put it in the portal that ultimately brought it to the distant past and into Zelda's hands. What brought all of this to be.
The clues she left would be likely gone by the time her own era came around, but she could only pray that it would be enough. She hoped that the Purah Pad kept some of the pictures she took, so he could hunt down the locations and find information like he did with the Sheikah Slate when he first woke a century after his fall.
She prayed that somehow, she could show him Rauru and Sonia and Mineru and all she learned about Ganondorf, so that maybe Link could be prepared enough to defeat the Demon King in their era and save everyone once more.
She prayed that he would figure out a way to restore her once this was all over.
Her mind went over everything she recalled about the Sword that Seals the darkness, of her powers, of the choice she was about to make. About Mineru. The Purah Pad was heavy in her hands before she handed it off to the construct and she watched as it retreated back to the Temple of Time, lingering for a moment before she looked back to the Master Sword.
Her vows to Link were unheard to all except herself. A flicker of movement in her belly caused her to pause, but she could not falter. Not now. Not when there was so much at stake.
Zelda at last pulled the secret stone off the necklace Sonia had made for her, stared at it for a long moment, and sighed.
"You must..."
With another sigh, she tipped the stone into her mouth and swallowed it whole. Her last thoughts were on her love, on the life she had, and the tears that started to burn in her eyes as her body burned with holy light.
Knees fell to the sand, the light of a dozen Silent Princesses glowing against his dirtied pants. His hands were shaking, throat swollen with unimaginable pain, and the cry of a glowing dragon pulled his gaze to the sky. His hood fell as he looked up and watched the lithe and titanic form of his lover fly low over him, her second cry shaking him to his bones.
"Zelda..."
She continued to fly away, her consciousness unaware of his longing and desperation at the newfound knowledge of her sacrifice. He ran, belayed by the sand until he reached the shore, still watching her fly away. Her forehead glowed, trailing light behind her like a beacon.
His stomach churned and he gripped it hard, the knowledge of her now tearing him up from the inside. He emptied the contents of his stomach onto the shore, heaving until his body shook and his vision darkened. By the time he was finished and looked up, she was cresting over the citadel ruins.
As the sun set behind him, Link pulled out the Purah Pad and found the closest tower. He was going to launch himself into the air and hope it was high enough to reach her.
tbc.