Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For my tater tot, who keeps me from drowning

She’d purchased already a necklace for her mother for Yule, and now she sits among the crowd waiting for the auction to end. The necklace is a pretty thing, made with sparkling, dark sapphires, and shining, well cut diamonds that glitter under the lights. It is breathtaking in its simplistic design, but she didn’t think much of it when it had been brought out beyond that it would complement her mother’s pale skin nicely.

She could just leave and pay for the item she’d won, but something holds her back. Something tells her that she ought to wait just a bit longer. As paddles jet up amongst the crowd, and the auctioneer babbles off the jumping price of whatever is on stage, she lets out a long yawn.

It’s not until Lot 4627 is wheeled out does Zelda Nohansen straighten in her seat. The item is a small mirror encased in an ornate black frame. The surface gleams under the lighting, etched with an intricate geometrical pattern. The pattern isn’t the only interesting thing about it though. The mirror itself is asymmetrical and oddly shaped – like a puzzle piece that has been separated from the rest of the picture.

Hey there, Princess.

Immediately, Zelda is enchanted by the piece, and she can’t even say why. It stirs something in her heart – a sort of familiar ache that she can’t quite explain. The lights flash across the mirror’s surface as it’s put in position for display for the auction, and to Zelda, it feels almost as if the mirror is winking at her, whispering to her: Why don’t you take a closer look? We’ll spruce you up, make you shine, make you sparkle. What’d ya say, Princess?

Zelda shakes her head, because mirrors don’t talk.

Her breath catches in her chest on an exhale. Hello, hello, the mirror says, winking at her once more, and she breathes it back. We'll run the town, Princess. You and me. So why don’t you have a look inside? I’ve got lots to show. We’ll make you irresistible.

We’ll make you complete.

Not even caring what the cost is, Zelda raises her paddle to bid on the item and doesn’t stop until it’s hers.

Let’s have some fun, Princess.

::

Growling, Midna Dahl slams the stack of files on the desk, and Link Coutts finally snaps out of his stupor. “Wake up, will ya?” she barks at him. Link only groans in response as he leans back in his chair. “You have a meeting in twenty minutes with that Baker woman. Her file’s on top.”

Link, pinching the bridge of his nose, gripes at her, “Do you have to yell in that annoyingly high pitch?” He drags himself out of his chair and stumbles over to the makeshift bar by the window. “It’s like you’re hammering nails into my skull,” he mutters as he pours himself another shot of whisky – this one’s to help curb the throbbing hangover.

Midna rolls her eyes. “Maybe if you – oh, I don’t know – cut the fuck back on your drinking, you could function as a half-decent human being.” With that, she storms out of his office. The door slams shut, rattling in the frame, and the quick flash of worry strikes Link that the window will shatter. The window, however, once again miraculously endures Midna’s abuse, and Link wonders if there will ever come a day when it will finally give and break.

With his drink in hand, Link sighs and sinks back into his chair. His right leg hurts, and he snorts into the glass as he raises it to his lips.

Ironically, the drinking is what keeps him functioning as “a half-decent human being”. Without it, Link doesn’t know what he’d be doing, where he’d be. He probably wouldn’t be doing this job, that’s for sure – which means Midna would be out of a job.

He sets the drink down and pulls the Baker file Midna so lovingly dropped for him. With one hand fisted, he leans over and raps the false shin of his right leg, trying to shake the phantom pain so he can better focus on the double type on the file. Sometimes it works, other times not so much. Today seems to be one of those not-so-much days, as the stinging pain of a ghost limb still persists.

The pain goes on, and he can’t get the damn words to pull together to something legible.

Link Coutts served in the Hyrulean Navy for three years aboard the King of Red Lions during the war until a piece of rogue shrapnel cost him half a leg. His right leg was amputated from just below the knee, and at twenty-one, Link was given a medical discharge from the Navy and sent home from the front lines. Good riddance, he kind of hated being on the open sea, truthfully. The discharge did nothing though to ease the nightmares that plagued him in both the waking and dream worlds. A year later, the war ended, and he was still sitting in a wheelchair at home like no time had passed. A broken, shell-shocked veteran.

At least it was just a leg, he muses. A prosthetic limb lets him get around these days, and so long as he wears trousers, people don’t pay mind to his slight limp. He’s not sure what he’d do if he’d lost an arm or a hand like some other sailors he knew. A prosthetic doesn’t give the ability to write or type or grab something.

Eventually, the Baker woman strides into Coutts Investigative Services, and Midna shows her into Link’s office where she’s less than pleased with his results.

It’s not that Link can’t do his job because he’s a drunk, no, he’s actually quite good at it. Link has found that he has a knack for seeing the ugly in people, and he has no problem documenting it. The problem is that people like Mrs. Baker don’t like to see the bad and the ugly. They don’t like being told something they don’t want to hear, and what Mrs. Baker doesn’t want to hear is that her husband has been seeing some floozy secretary two to three nights a week for at least the last ten weeks straight when her husband claimed that he was working late at the office on a project. She started to suspect something when she phoned in to his office one evening and was told he left at closing time. Her husband wasn’t even on the project team he claimed to be working on – which, by the way, had been completed two weeks ago, thank you very much.

The pictographs are laid out right in front of her in all their black and white glory, but Mrs. Baker turns the other cheek to it. “It must be some misunderstanding,” she insists, and Link rubs his forehead. Ugh, oh Farore, this woman is not helping his raging headache.

Link doesn’t care what she does with the information he’s gathered on her husband, so long as she pays, and when Midna comes into play, all bets are off. Which is great, because Link cannot deal with the woman much longer or his head might split open like a wee cucco egg.

“I don’t get it,” Midna grumbles after Mrs. Baker pays her fees and skitters out the door. “What’s the point of hiring us if you don’t actually want to know the truth?”

Link shrugs, reaching over for the whisky bottle. Midna quickly strides around his desk and snatches the bottle away from him.

“I mean,” she goes on, waving the bottle around. The amber liquid sloshes around, and Link stares at it like a man seeing water for the first time in days out in the middle of the Gerudo Desert. “Honestly, it’s such a waste of money.” Quickly, she adds, “Not that it’s a bad thing for us, obviously.”

Link reaches for the whisky, thinking her not paying attention, but again, she’s quick to pull it out of his reach. Damn her. Her heels click on the floor as she walks to the other side of the desk and sits down in the chair previously occupied by Mrs. Baker.

"Sometimes,” says Link, eyes still locked on that beautiful, wonderful, tantalizing, bottle of alcohol, “they think they’re ready to hear or see it, but when the time comes they’re not actually prepared.”

Midna scoffs.

“Could I please have the damn whisky back? It’s single malt.”

Midna looks from Link to the whisky in her hand. “Are you fucking serious?” she spits. “The last thing I want to deal with is you stumbling around like a drunk fool when you have meetings this afternoon.” She leans forward and her elbow slams down onto his desk. One finger pointed at him, she snaps, “You look like shit. Clean yourself up a little, will you? And I’d like to remind you, that you hired me as an assistant, not your partner.”

Taking the whisky with her, she gets up from the chair and turns to leave. Midna stops in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob, and says to him with dripping exasperation, “And for Nayru’s love: shave.”

Growling to himself, Link leaves his office, catching his redheaded secretary stashing the whisky bottle out of client eyes under her desk. He heads into the washroom and closes the door behind him. Midna was right – Din dammit, she always is – he looks like shit. Dark circles surround his eyes, the slight hint of bags coming in. He hasn’t had a decent sleep in about a week now, but he shrugs that off. It’s out of his control. What is in his control is the scruff lining his chin and jaw that Midna so delicately asked him to take care of.

He opens the medicine cabinet, saying goodbye to his reflection, and roots around in the spare shaving kit he keeps in the office. “Should just get a tub installed,” he says to himself. He brushes the shaving cream over his budding beard. “And a bed.”

He tries to get his hair in order. As usual though, it doesn’t behave. It never does. Link gives up on it and exits the washroom as he runs a hand over the wrinkles of his shirt. Yawning, he asks if there’s breakfast. Midna slaps the paperwork in her hands down on her desk. “Little late for that, and this isn’t your apartment,” she says, getting up. She undoes Link’s tie. “I can go get you a sandwich from Telma’s,” Midna tells him as she reties the tie and cinches it up to his collar, “but promise me you’ll lay off the sauce. You don’t need it today.”

But he does. Every day, in fact, thank you very much.

"You’re being awfully nice,” he comments instead.

She gives him a flat look and frowns when she receives a cheeky grin. She smooths out his shirt at the shoulders and adjusts his suspenders. Link jokes, “Are you finished yet, Mother?”

She whacks him lightly on the head and pulls her coat off the coat rack. “You’re the face of this business, jackass.” Midna draws her coat over her shoulder and shakes her long red hair out over the collar. “Act like it.”

"I thought that’s why I hired you,” he calls after her, but she just slams the door behind her.

Link sighs to himself, rubbing the back of his neck.

Goddesses. His leg hurts today.

He strides around Midna’s desk, stealing her chair, and brings the bottle of whisky to rest on his lap, considering it. As much as he’d like to go stone cold sober for Midna, Link knows he doesn’t have it in him, and so he twists the cap off and takes a swig straight from the bottle.

Sorry, Midna.

Link takes another long drink of the whisky before screwing the cap back on and putting it back where Midna placed it. He rolls up his shirt sleeves, and then from his shirt pocket, he snatches a cigarette. Link has to pad his pockets some to find a book of matches. He lights the cigarette, and the smoke curls up from the end.

Midna… If only he isn’t such a fuck up.

::

The cool January air bites at her face as Midna strides down Castleton’s 5th Ave towards Telma’s. “Bastard better pay me back,” she grumbles to herself when she reaches the intersection.

He’s not so bad, actually.

Sober.

Midna sighs.

She knows Link is never going to pull it together, she’s worked with him long enough. If it wasn’t for his work… Midna hates to think about it. Grumbling and hoping for a light change, she considers that Link is actually quite a gifted pictographer. Though it’s clear to her that he has absolutely no desire to chase the curtails of a dream of being a great pictographer. Even if he had an interest in pursuing a more artistic endeavor with his pictograph skills, that requires putting yourself out there, which Link has been downright incapable of doing since returning from war. It makes Midna wonder if he was that way before losing half a leg. She didn’t know him before the draft. The real shame, Midna thinks, is that he’s wasting a talent on something as stupid as a salary man shoving his tongue down his secretary’s throat.

At least the woman paid up.

As she crosses the intersection, Midna thinks not for the first time that she’s not much better than her employer. She doesn’t have much going for her other than work. It’s almost laughable. She went to university for a few semesters, and like many other young women, she ended up dropping out – just not for the same reason. Most girls quit when they get married.

That just isn’t Midna’s style.

It’s when she’s waiting on Link’s sandwich that she notices a man that looks eerily like her stupidly handsome employer staring at her. He’s not fair like Link; there’s no blond hair, no blue eyes. Instead, dark hair falls over ruby eyes. She shoots him a flirtatious smile but otherwise doesn’t engage him, because Link’s sandwich is up.

No. Marriage: that’s not Midna’s style at all.

::

There’s work to be done, but Link’s still idle at Midna’s desk, cigarette smoking and half laying in the chair while bemoaning to himself about the phantom limb, when the door to the office bangs open. Link’s startled from his daydreams of Midna and snaps to attention. A slightly portly man enters the office, and frantic eyes takes in the still slightly disheveled Link. “I’m looking for Coutts,” he says hastily. “Link Coutts.” He removes his hat from his head and begins to twist it in his hands in an anxious fidget.

“Well… um, that’s me.”

The door swigs shut, blinds rattling against it, and the man rushes over to Link behind the desk.

“My name is Daphnes Nohansen,” he babbles. “Please, please – it’s my daughter!” Link stiffens when Nohansen grabs him by the shoulders, shaky hands steadying themselves on Link. The veteran glances to the side as the door opens again. A tall, slender man slips in and shuts the door again, much more gently than Nohansen had.

Link pauses for a moment, eyes falling back on the man before him. “Sorry? You-your daughter?”

“Yes!” Nohansen gasps. “Her name is Zelda. She’s been missing since January 3rd!”

Chapter Text

Head in her hands, she leans over her desk, wondering if she’s crazy. Zelda rubs her eyes. She’s stayed up too long now pouring over books, and she knows she’ll pay for that later considering this isn’t the first night in a row. She meant to call it in early, catch up on that missing sleep. She runs her hands over her face and then up to her hair. It’s a bit greasy, and she thinks how nice it’d be to slip into a warm tub to soak for a bit.

What? And drown? Don’t be silly.

She pauses.

That black cloak of unease and stress drifts over to drape itself over her shoulders. All the better to continue haunting her.

Zelda unlocks the top drawer of her desk, because she has to be sure. The semester will be starting up soon, and she keeps trying to soothe herself that she’s ready. The documents sit, ready to go for her. ID, extra cash, birth certificate. She wonders for the billionth time if she’s missing something, but she paws through everything to be sure it’s all there.

Gonna make yourself gray there, you know. Maybe even give yourself some horrid wrinkles.

But Zelda can’t help the worry that washes over her.

Don’t you worry, when you’re complete, you’ll be unstoppable. Remember? We can run the town, Princess. It’ll be so fun so fun so fun so fun so-

She slaps the drawer shut and locks it. Locks, she tells herself with bitterness, only keep out honest people. Zelda picks up the letter resting on her desk and turns it over in her hands. No return address, of course, who’d be so stupid? Yet something is nagging her.

You remember that Gerudo, right? OH, and the Other?

Yessssss-

At the auction, when the mirror was brought out, Zelda hadn’t been the only one enamored with it. Many people bid but quickly conceded until it was a battle between Zelda, an overbearing Gerudo man, and some sickly looking thin man. Thinking of it, she wonders if the man was a Twili, considering his unusual pallor.

A knock sounds at her door.

Hastily, Zelda tries to gather up her notes and the letter and shoves them in her pencil drawer, lest anyone see. The knocking is insistent. Not Impa. Not Father. Not Mother.

A dreadfulness sails tumultuously through her as if riding on stormy waters.

She hesitantly opens her door, and Zelda finds to great (but expected) grief and disappointment, that she was exactly right when she guessed who’d be on the other side.

Misko, not waiting for an invitation, pushes her door aside like an annoying gnat and strides in. “Just what have you been doing? Your break is almost over, and you’ve done nothing but hide away,” he sneers.

The distaste laces her tongue, but she holds it, remaining still by her bedroom door. Leaving, she thinks, might actually be the best thing ever.

He wanders by her desk and starts picking at her things. Fear claps through her bones like thunder. Her hand on the knob begins to perspire, making the metal slick.

Don’t let him open the drawer, Princess. Can’t let him know your SECRETS.

Idly, he picks up some of the books she’d been reading and, scanning the titles, scoffs. “Is this really appropriate material?” asks Misko as he turns the book around in his hand. Dissatisfied with it, he tosses it carelessly back on her desk as if it’s nothing more than a piece of trash.

“I’m more than capable of deciding that, thank you,” says Zelda, trying to keep her voice steady, but his hands are too close for comfort to that unlocked pencil drawer.

You got eyes? Are you seeing this? Don’t let him in don’t let him in don’t let him in don’t let him-

“Really now, you’ll be leaving for Domain soon, and you’ve cooped yourself up all break.” He steps away from the desk - and the contents within it - to her great relief. “You think your tone is also ‘appropriate material’?”

Certainly.

“If you’re just here to argue, leave.”

In a few long strides he’s up on her, and Zelda resists the instinctual urge to move back.

Good girl, don’t show weakness.

Her cheek blooms with fire, and she stumbles.

“Have your way for now then. Come apologize when you adjust your attitude,” snaps Misko, and he stalks off.

Gods, she hates him.

She slams her door shut, wondering how she’d ever gotten into this mess.

When the mask comes off, all bets are off, and his is slipping. Hanging on by just a little thread.

 Definitely is.

He’d been nothing but pleasant initially. Well versed in poetry and literature, they chatted for hours about what they’d read.

Silly girl, you think he wants a well-read wife?

Now though, he felt safe. Comfortable. Secure. He has no need to keep the mask fully on around her, because he thinks he has her locked in. He’ll let it slip with her, but no one else. Completely pleasant, kind, and understanding when speaking to her mother or father, so how could she be spinning such tall tales about such a dutiful man?

She quietly seethes about the encounter. The fury in her boiling in her veins, and she sucks in a breath, ready to wrench the door open and- and- and…

Losing your spunk now? What are we going to do with you?

The knocking startles her.

Her heart booms.

Then she realizes, it’s not the same knock.

Like knocking is ever actually an ask.

No, she agrees, fighting that resurgence of hate in her. She breathes in deep to calm herself, because whoever is on the other side doesn’t deserve her venom.

Zelda opens her door, and she finds none other than young Tael standing outside it. “Oh! Hello Tael,” she greets, now feeling a bit shameful and shy.

“Everything alright, ma’am?”

She swallows, trying to keep her face neutral.

“I’m perfectly fine,” she assures him. “Just a bit tired tonight, thank you.”

He stares at her. He has these wide, owlish eyes that look at her, so much like his older sister, and right now, she kind of hates it. It’s the weird way that he is looking through her that she doesn’t like. He nods at her and wishes her good night, and Zelda watches as he speeds away down the hall. The twins have always had this strange aloofness to them, but they watch, and Zelda thinks they always know far more than ever let on.

Zelda closes the door and turns the lock.

What was that now about only honest people being deterred by locks?

She mutters as she stalks across her room, “Shut. Up. I know.”

She drags her desk chair over and positions it up under the knob to act as a catch. Then, at long last, Zelda throws herself into her bed and sleeps.

Giggles float across her room.

::

When Midna arrives back in the office, she’s surprised to see Link with an unscheduled appointment – or hear, rather. While the door to Link’s office is open, she can’t see who’s in, but she can hear the man he’s speaking with talk with haste. Sighing to herself, yet again, Midna pulls the bottle of whisky out from under her desk. Briefly, she scrutinizes it. Link had to have had some while she was gone.

She clucks her tongue and waltzes into Link’s office like she owns the place (which is essentially true in all but name).

Her entrance startles the clients, but since Link pays her no mind – even when she unceremoniously plops Link’s sandwich on his desk – the older man seated in one of the chairs and younger leaning against the wall by the door to Link’s darkroom ignore her as well. The whisky in hand, she grabs a couple of glasses off the small bar cart and pours a bit of the whisky into the glasses for the two men. Midna sets one glass down in front of the older man, and he thanks her quietly, creating a break in the conversation. The younger man, however, refuses her offer with a slight sneer.

She eyes him, and she thinks there’s something off with him as she sets the glass aside on Link’s desk, knowing Link will kill it soon enough. The man seems fit enough, sure. He has those telltale Sheikah traits of the silvery white hair and deep maroon eyes. At first glance, sure, he’s handsome, but she can see something in his eyes that betrays his cool demeanor.

“This is my assistant, Midna,” Link says as he pulls the sandwich towards him. With one hand, holding a smoking cigarette, Link gestures to the man. “Midna, Daphnes Nohansen. His daughter’s been missing a few weeks now.”

An eyebrow raises. Midna hums and takes a seat on the corner of Link’s desk as she gets a good look at the distraught older man with pink cheeks and puffy eyes. His clothes are much fancier than the young man’s in the sense of quality. That old money air. A folder is in his hands, and she thinks with a mix of cynicism and jadedness that it’s nice that he at least came prepared.

“Where was she last seen?” she asks.

“Union Station… that we know of,” Link says. He taps the cigarette, ash falling off into the ashtray on his desk. With the other hand, Link unrolls the sandwich from its paper cocoon. “She caught the train and went back to her university in Lanayru on January 3rd, but she never showed up once classes started up on the 5th.”

“This is her,” Nohansen croaks, and slides a pictograph on Link’s desk toward her.

Midna takes the photo in hand. A pretty girl with fair hair (probably a blonde) smiles back at her, hair curled and pinned back. It looks like a high school picto. “Pretty,” says Midna lightly. “When was this taken?”

She hands the picto for Link to see. It’s fleeting, but she swears his breath hitches. There’s a flicker in his eyes that she can’t name as he looks over the pictograph, the cigarette barely hanging onto his lips. The young man also seems to catch it, and he stares intently at Link. Makes the hair stand up on her neck. Gives her gooseflesh.

“About four years ago. I have others that are more recent,” he tells her, and fumbles with a folder in his lap. “That was her senior portrait.”

She holds up a hand. “It’s fine. We can take a look at the rest later to find the best ones to reference.” She turns to Link, picking up on his subtle cues. Odd. He’s uncomfortable. There’s a stiffness about him as he stamps out the cigarette, and he finally sets the pictograph of the girl down. “So what’s your plan?”

Link holds up his hands to her. “Working on it, love.” Whatever he’d been trying to think about though she’d disrupted when she handed him that picto, she knows. He looks tired, and she thinks the alcohol is probably already slowing him down.

Luckily, Nohansen doesn’t know Link like she does, and he carries on, unknowingly giving Link a break. Quietly, Nohansen says, “The constables have been looking into a competitor of mine: Ghirahim Zaman.”

The other man scoffs. “Daphnes,” he interjects, “do you honestly think they’re up to the case?” Midna frowns. A low growl of a beast in her chest sounds in her head, and she feels her blood pressure rise just a tad bit. Oh. OH. So this guy is one of those people. She knew she had him pegged at first glance. The man gestures to her employer (who definitely snuck a couple more drinks while she was out). “He can’t even make himself presentable.” Okay, okay, no yeah, she’d give him that, but dammit. He doesn’t just get to insult Link like that! (That’s her job, dammit.)

But Midna doesn’t need to come to Link’s rescue, because Daphnes Nohansen does it for them. The older man immediately starts shaking his head at his companion. “No, Misko. I’ve asked around,” he insists. “I don’t care what he looks like if he’s the best.”

It’s subtle, but Midna picks up on the slight raise of Link’s eyebrows when he looks over at her. Huh. Wow, so there are people out there that don’t hate Link’s guts once he gets them results. Who. Woulda. Thunk?

Link waves a hand, as if saying, “Hello! I’m here!” and to disperse the bad juju in the air expelled by the young man, Misko, leaning against the wall. “Either way,” he says, looking directly at Nohansen and pointedly ignoring Misko’s existence, “is there any reason that Zelda might have decided to disappear?”

Nohansen is startled by this suggestion. He falls into a contemplative silence, eyes downcast, as the young man pulls away from the wall by the darkroom. He straightens. “No. She wouldn’t.” Misko’s voice is strong and insistent, and Midna hates it. Judging by the little quirk of Link’s lower eyelid, he doesn’t like it or the man either. The two exchange a momentary glance, and a knowing, silent agreement passes between them. They both want to squish him like an annoying bug.

Link continues to ignore Misko’s interjections, and he looks only to Nohansen. Nohansen seems to shrink a little, and Midna thinks it must be Link’s eyes. He’d been born with heterochromia, and she’s wondered on more than one occasion if he is actively aware of its intense effect on people. Nohansen looks away. “Mr. Nohansen,” he says gently, “she goes away to university, that’s a decent part of the year that she’s not at home. What do you know about what goes on there? Any issues she’s mentioned in the past related to university? What do you make about any of this?”

Midna makes the idle wish that Link would just dress down the young Sheikah with a look.

The older man licks his lips. “I don’t know,” says Nohansen carefully. “The constables asked me the same thing, you know, but it’s just… None of this is like her.” He pauses. Sniffles. “She was very insistent that she finish her education, even used to talk about getting a master’s.” The younger man snorts, and Midna resists the weird, irksome urge to shove her fist down his throat to shut him up. Like talk about bad vibes. “She’s always been a very studious girl, so I can’t believe that she’d run off when she’s so close to graduating. It’s really like a dream come true for her.”

Thus, the delicate girl in the pictograph comes to life, and Midna picks it up again. When most girls drop out of college to get married, after going there to find a poor schmuck to marry her, and become the homemaker – it makes Midna gag – Zelda wanted to finish before getting married. The girl loves learning and soaks up information like a sponge, and Midna can see the pride swelling within Nohansen as he speaks about his daughter. The man doesn’t believe for a second that anything could pull Zelda away from her studies. Midna thinks she hates the man’s asshat companion a little more when she catches the minute roll of his eyes as he listens.

The pretty girl smiling up at her in the picto is definitely too good, too smart to be relegated to just a housewife. She hates the thought of this young woman existing like a bird with clipped wings. The picto is grainy, but intelligence oozes in her eyes. She catches Link’s eye over the picto, and she wonders if this is what he felt looking at her. Some sort of eerie camaraderie with her.

Midna purses her lips into a tight line.

She puts the pictograph down on Link’s desk. His eyes flick to it.

When Link inquires about the fiancé, big whooping surprise: the young man, Misko, that Midna and Link have a shared distaste for is the fiancé. Interesting. Interesting. What a turd.

Link nods, and his eyes drift the sandwich with longing. Considering how much the man eats, Midna thinks he might be dying. “I see. What about that fellow, uh… Ghirahim Zaman? You mentioned they’re looking into him. What’s his deal?”

“Our businesses are in direct competition with one another. He’s a cunning man with a deeply cruel streak.”

“So you think he has the capacity to do something to Zelda?”

“I do.” Nohansen heaves a heavy sigh. That silent exchange between Midna and Link once again tells her that they’re on the same page: Ghirahim Zaman isn’t the vibe for this. Midna can’t pinpoint why though, and she’s sure that Link can’t either. How annoying. “I just couldn’t tell you the reason for it. I couldn’t say what the benefit would be.”

Midna suggests, “There’s always blackmail.”

“I suppose, but I’ve heard nothing. No ransoms, no threats. Nothing.”

Link says with a click, “I see.” He pulls his sandwich, not caring to wait any longer, and Zelda’s pictograph towards him. Taking bite out of the sandwich, he studies the picto. “Looks like we got our work cut out for us, Midna.”

::

 January 4th: Zelda Nohansen walks down the street. She huddles a little into her coat, feeling the winter night air nipping at her skin. She keeps her hold on her bag tight. She doesn’t dare lose it. While it’s still early, the winter days pass fleetingly and the darkness has nestled into the city. Plenty of people still roam about, but that something that kept Zelda rooted at the auction starts to pull at her again.

This time, instead of telling her to stay put, she feels it telling her to keep moving. To keep going. There’s something out there stalking in the night, and she’d do well not to let it catch up to her. This is the third time.

She feels the prickling of sweat at the nape of her neck.

Not again!

She got lucky the last two times in Castleton. She isn’t taking any chances, she can’t, but she can’t help but think in some small part way in the back of her mind under all the growing panic she’s been experiencing the last few weeks that she should have taken her time a little bit more. Seen what she is actually up against.

The beginnings of paranoia are eating at her, and Zelda starts looking at everyone with suspicion. If she’d tried to make a point to look before, maybe she could have connected some dots. She would have seen, she would have known right in this moment, but she didn’t so Zelda is left practically clueless in the dark. She swallows the lump in her throat as she comes to an intersection. She waits at the corner for the light to change, trying not to be bothered by the nauseating waves of regret and anxiety. The little red man across the way is still flashing when a man stops next to her. Nerves prickling, she turns her head. The man meets her gaze and gives her small smile, but he says nothing and turns his attention back to the walk light. All height, no weight. He’s tall and thin with a face to match.

You paying attention there?

The green man flashes and the red man disappears, so Zelda steps off the curb and onto the street. Each beat of her rapid heart sounds like the chaotic clashing of thunder in her breast. Her knuckles must be white under her glove with how tightly she holds onto her bag.

The man steps off the curb with her.

Easy there, Princess. Give yourself a heart attack that way. Don’t want that, don’t want that-

She starts to quicken her pace, her eyes locked on the little green man on the walk sign. It begins to flash. She steps up onto the curb. Time is running out.

The man’s footsteps match her hastening pace.

THIS IS IT! THIS IS IT!

Zelda drops low, and the felling swoop of the man’s hand blows overhead. She bashes her elbow backwards with all the force she can muster. Adrenaline pumping through her, she’ll just have to feel the aftershock later of her elbow striking the man’s shin.

On your feet, Princess! How do you expect to run the town? Let’s make a show now, whaddya say?

Praying to the skies and heavens above that she won’t trip in her heels, Zelda bolts down the street as fast she can, never daring to look back at the man. She tightens her grip on her bag.

Don’t you think it’d be easy, Princess? To snuff out a light?

No.

Zelda half sobs. Her lungs blaze painfully in her chest. Her legs start to burn. Her luggage is weighing her down like an anchor.

She doesn’t have it in her.

OH.

But THEY do.

Then it’s a good thing she’s prepared. Zelda beats down the block in the night. Instinctively, or maybe she’s just following instructions, she skitters around a corner into an alley. She weaves around and around. Eventually, harried and completely out of breath, she just ends right back at Domain Station.

She looks around her wildly, but doesn’t see the man she’d hit or anyone else that seems suspicious.

Why don’t you take a little trip?

Yes.

Ohhh, it’ll be so much fun. Princess, you’ll see. A little game to play in the meantime is afoot.

That’s what she’d been preparing for, after all right? To take a trip, that is, but the idea of it being a game makes her uneasy. Shakes something deep in her.

Zelda stops a young man in the station uniform standing near the platforms. “Excuse me,” she calls to him breathlessly. “Do you know what’s the next train out?”

He checks the time on a pocket watch first. “Southbound,” he says, and shows her the schedule he has on hand.

“The booth still open?”

“Definitely.”

“Thank you.”

It’ll be an adventure!

Glancing around, but still seeing no man or other danger, Zelda purchases a new ticket.

Chapter Text

This is it, she thinks with a heavy sigh. She straightens, sucks in a deep breath, and strides into the department store with the "HELP WANTED" sign in the front window. Loose strands of chocolate locks come free from her messy bun, and Tetra nervously pushes them back behind her ear. She looks around the store. Colorful displays have popped up to welcome the coming spring with pastels and floral patterns. She catches glimpses of clearance racks toward the back walls trying to usher out the dark, dreary winter items.

Tetra turns around.

With the way little flakes float down lazily outside, Tetra doesn't see that happening any time soon.

This time, when she looks around, she eyes the employees. She'd been rejected already from the bakery, the grocery, two bookstores... The list goes on. With no work history to her name, finding work is much more difficult than she had originally imagined.

She sucks in her breath once more to help steel her nerves. She squares her shoulders and approaches one of the employees. "Excuse me?" she calls. The man turns around and gives her an expectant look. "I saw the sign out front, and I'm interested in a job."

The man looks down his long nose at her, then starts to ask her the question she's come to dread: Where have you worked before? When she gives him the honest answer, he sighs, then asks if she's any good at math. Tetra quickly says yes but then stops short. She can't tell him she went to university. Can't tell him she knows how to do calculus or algebra. Can't tell him anything truly real about herself, she realizes.

The man stares at her in a way that makes Tetra squirm. He sighs. Then he asks her to follow, and for the first time in a while, Tetra starts to think that things might be looking up.

Let's go for a ride.

::

The absolute opulence the Nohansens live in startles Link. High ceilings decorated with ornate moldings. Intricate carpets laid out to run the length of hallways. Zelda's room might be close to the size of his whole flat. The dark hardwood floor is polished to perfection in her room. Bookcases line a whole wall opposite of her bed with a loveseat sofa positioned under a lamp to read the litany of books she's collected in the bookcases. On the opposite corner of the bookcase wall, she has her desk.

Link thinks at nighttime the room must be comfortably moody with the deep navy walls that stretch up high. Even the ceiling is the same navy color. In the daylight though, the room doesn't feel cramped or small from the dark color she'd chosen since the windows on the exterior wall extend high up and lets in all the midday light to flood the room. The plushness of Zelda's bed, drenched in cream sheets and blankets to contrast her dark walls, looks decidedly enticing to him, especially when compared to his own old, lumpy mattress.

But he's not here to catch a cat nap on her bed. Link is here to snoop through her things. Anything to find a clue to where or why she might have gone off into the ether. Nohansen seemed doubtful he'd find anything, but Link hopes if he can stick around the house – or mansion rather – he might find a person with useful information. Snooping around her room is more personal curiosity. Not that he'd admit that aloud.

Personal interest aside, he figures it wouldn't hurt to snoop around her room though. So far, nothing of real interest (outside his own poor man's fascination of how nice and luxurious and not squeaky her desk chair is) has cropped up though. Link is perusing her bookcase currently, mulling it all over and barely reading the titles on the book spines. So many, they start to blur a bit into one another. He had searched through the closet and wardrobe when he first arrived in Zelda's room, but they contain nothing but summer clothing and a few fancy gowns that she left behind when packing to go back to university. He pulls one book out, a fat one known as The Book of Mudora. Basically items she would have no need for while away were left behind. Her remaining shoes tell a similar story.

He slides the book back in its place and keeps scanning the bookcases. Everything is annoyingly dull so far, he thinks, and that bothers him. The porcelain figurines sitting on a shelf in one of the bookcases of delicate women only creep him out upon closer inspection ("Her grandmother had set aside one figure for her birthday each year until her 18th," Nohansen had said when he first showed Link in and his eyes had lingered on them), however, what he holds in his hands now as he flops back on that very comfortable, oh so soft bed are some odd books that had been hastily shoved on the shelf right below the figurines that he had gotten off of the bookcase when staring down their little, beady eyes. She didn't take care to stack these neatly upright but let them lay horizontally and a bit messily. Not perfectly aligned and organized like the others, so she must have put them up in a hurry, he thinks, or at least these must have been ones she'd been reading recently. He takes a liking to this little messy stack of books as well, because he thinks of her as a meticulous sort of girl. Staff keeping the room clean is one thing, but even her desk drawers are neatly organized, and that's not exactly the staff's job. They also would not take care to organize her books seemingly by genre, author, and then considering the book's actual height and depth on the shelf.

As he flips through the books, Link has to wonder if maybe dear missing Zelda is a bit of a conspiracy nut. It's a bizarre little collection. A book on time travel theory, other worlds, parallel worlds, a couple on ancient artifacts lost to the ages... Time-space continuum shit even that makes his head hurt. This one, he finds, she had dog-eared a single page (basically sacrilege – so she's clearly some sort of godless heathen), and when he flips to it, he scans over the information. "A mirror?" Link wonders aloud. He picks up and inspects the edges of the other books, all with pristine pages, and not a single dog ear to be found. He goes back to the bookcases and also checks more random books there, and all the pages are just as pristine. If he hadn't been told what an avid reader she is, he'd think she didn't even read any of these books. She cares for her books like they're delicate treasures. What did she think was so special about a mirror that she had to mark it with a blasphemous dog ear in this book?

Just as he's about to pick up another book off the shelf to be sure of his theory, he catches a glimpse of one of the maids running by in the hall. Quickly, Link hurries out of the room to catch the girl as she barrels down the hallway. "Hey! Excuse me!" The girl stops in her tracks and looks back at the private eye speeding after her. "I'm sorry to bother you. You work here, right?" he asks her.

The girl blinks owlishly at him. Wide eyes with a bit of knowing stare him down, and it makes him a bit uncomfortable as she lets the silence drag. "Sure," she quips. Aight.

"Good. Sorry, what's your name?"

"Tatl."

"Listen Tatl, I'm trying to figure out if there's any reason Zelda might have run off on her own. Did she have any issues with her parents or other family?"

The girl considers for a moment. "No."

Link sighs. "Okay, so everything's gravy in the family department. What are some places that she might go to outside of the house?"

"I dunno."

He studies the girl for a bit, but she only stares back blankly at him. It rubs Link the wrong way. Finally he simply asks her if there's anything that she can tell him about Zelda. Still with the blank owl-like eyes, Tatl says, "... Nah."

"How long exactly have you been working here?"

Shrug.

Okay. Weirdo.

Link sighs and begrudgingly thanks the girl only for her time. He turns to head back to Zelda's room, when impulsively he stops and decides that if he wants info, he might fare better talking to the house staff after all like he'd initially hoped before he sidetracked himself. He didn't find any diary of sorts in her room, and according to her father, she didn't keep one. Link supposes if she did keep one, it would have left with her anyway.

Before Link closes the door to Zelda's room, he spies the book with the dog-eared page sitting on the bed, waiting for him. Something about a mirror interested her, and an instinctual call to look into it bites at him. His little detour around her room left the damn thing as a single clue. Link swipes the book, shuts the door, and takes off down the hallway to find someone (hopefully) of more help than the stone faced Tatl girl.

He finds various members of the house staff and through several brief interviews, he gains nothing of real value. She's a bright girl, well read (as also evidenced by the national library she keeps), and excels in mathematics and science according to the staff. She'll be the first woman in the family to graduate university, they tell him with pride. He tries asking for information on mirrors and the book, but none seem to know of a connection – until he speaks to Tatl's much more outgoing and engaging (snort) twin brother, Tael.

The boy sniffs, scratches his nose. "Oh yeah, she bought a weirdly shaped one at an auction before Yule," he tells Link, nodding. "I brought it in for her from the car."

"What was wrong with the shape?"

The boy shrugs. "It didn't look like it was whole, you know? Like it was just a piece of something bigger."

"Did you talk to her often?"

Tael says no. "But she had a routine, and when she brought the mirror home, she didn't do all the things she normally did."

"Like a schedule?"

"Yes."

Eager, Link pushes him. "What changed?"

"She locked herself up in her room most of the day. Usually likes to go out when she's home on break. I saw her just staring at herself in the mirror sometimes when the door was open," Tael says. He pauses, thinking. He adds on, "She stopped her routine totally when a letter arrived, completely shut herself in. I handed it to her. Didn't have no sender."

A letter? Link thinks back to her room, and he mentally goes through what he'd seen. A letter doesn't come up. "Anything besides the lack of return address?"

Apparently, the letter wasn't thick, but not thin either, and from what Link could decipher from Tael's contradictions was that the letter wasn't just a sheet or two written on it. Tael mentions that the letter felt stiff in his hand, and Link's thinking jumps to the letter not being handwritten or typed. He gets a sinking feeling.

"Hey, how often did she go out during the break before the letter?"

Tael thinks hard on this, and Link tries to be patient with him. The kid hums and then says with some uncertainty, "Not a lot, maybe like two or three times? She usually is out and about almost everyday."

"Did she not get along with anyone?"

Tael's mouth stretches into a grimace. He looks around, and verifying they're alone, he leans towards Link and answers quietly. "She doesn't like her fiancé," he admits at just above a whisper. "I heard her griping about him. Thinks he's a disgusting pig."

"And he's the young Sheikah, right?"

"Misko."

"What do you think of him?"

Tael does another check around them. "He sucks." Very apt.

"My understanding is that this was arranged?"

"Well, she agreed to it, but he was nicer then."

"Like he changed?"

"Yeah. One of the last days she was home, I heard them fighting."

"...About...?"

Tael shrugs again. "Think it was about how she was staying in. I dunno."

Link, thinking there probably isn't much else to get from the kid, thanks him for his time and turns to leave, but Tael calls him back, and leaning close to Link, he whispers, "I don't like him."

Link has to silently agree with him. The man's arrogance grates him the wrong way. Link pulls away with a nod to Tael, but boy isn't finished.

"Right here." He taps his cheek with a finger. "Checked on her after he left."

Link freezes. Link's expression hardens. "I get you," he tells Tael gravely.

Okay. One last stop: Go back and search her room for that letter... and maybe repay a favor to Misko for a second.

::

Tetra managed to land the job, much to her relief. Standing on her feet in heels all day make them ache, but she is glad to have the job all the same. She needs the money desperately to keep herself afloat, because what savings she has, she finds are quickly dwindling.

She had to make some budget cuts. She stays in an inn for now, which she can cover with her weekly wages, so it's not exactly luxury and certainly a downgrade from the hotel she was staying in before, but it seemingly will do for now. The woman working the front desk is nosy, but otherwise does not seem keen to share information, and simply keeps it for her own amusement. Being a woman, seemingly traveling alone, Tetra doesn't need too many prying eyes, so she keeps hope the woman will keep her small secret.

A gentleman who was staying in the next room to her for about a week had tried to ask her on a date, which she staunchly refused. He didn't seem to like her answer, and when she went to the front desk to complain, the woman switched her rooms with no fuss, which makes Tetra feel a bit safer about her whole ordeal. She doesn't need anyone's attention right now, and she figures if necessary, she might be able to slip out with none the wiser.

Coming back into her room after working her shift, Tetra kicks off her heels and flops on the bed. She reminds herself that this will be temporary. It has to be. Just like the dye she picked up from the corner drugstore on her way back from work.

She sighs, and Tetra drags herself onto her aching feet to grab her purchase. She heads to the bathroom and gets a look at herself in the mirror. Long locks of dull, chocolate brown hair cascades from her chest and shoulders all the way up to shockingly blond roots. The roots have to go. She slips out of her dress and gets to work preparing the hair dye.

An hour later, Tetra emerges from the shower with refreshed brunette hair. She pads her long hair with a towel before setting it aside and wrapping herself up in a robe. She tosses out the leftover hair dye and supplies.

Once her hair is mostly dry, she decides to grab her coat and sit outside for a bit for a smoke. The late February air is crisp, but not too brutal. The last couple of days have been unusually warmer than typical. Tetra doesn't mind too much, and she heads outside to enjoy some fresh air. She sits down on a chair on the porch outside the room and lights up.

A burst of orange and blue comes out from the match head, and she sucks the cigarette, drawing the flame around the end.

"Excuse me," a man calls out, and she freezes. She turns her head and sees a tall, thin man walk towards her, bags in tow. "Would you mind if I borrowed a light?"

She pauses for a moment, and then offers her match book to the man.

The man gratefully takes it and lights up his cigarette. "Thanks," he says handing the match book back to her.

They smoke in silence for a minute, before the man speaks up again. "By the way, is that your dog?"

"Huh?" Tetra shakes from her waking daze.

"Yeah, the little one," he says. "Waiting on it to finally do its business?"

Tetra, confused, responds, "I don't have a dog."

"Oh."

She pulls on the cigarette. "Where'd you see a dog?"

The man gestures over by the strip near the road. "It's over there sniffing around. Thought it was yours. It's a bit close to the road."

"Huh." She takes a drag on the cigarette. "Guess I'll get one."

Tetra throws her cigarette on the ground, stamping out the smoldering end with her shoe, and heads across the lot to where the man had pointed out. He calls out to her, thanking her again for the light, and she waves back.

She scans the snowy strip of land, but the lights from the inn don't reach this far, and she finds it difficult to see in the dark. She looks down at her feet, and sure enough, little divots have been left all over the snow.

Then she catches the slight movement in the dark, mixing with the blackness of the road.

Tetra whistles.

The wandering lump stops, waits.

She whistles again.

Sure enough, the little thing comes bounding toward her, almost tripping over itself in the snow. The snow isn't very deep, but the small pup is clearly struggling. Tetra crouches and reaches out a hand, but the pup jumps back. Its little jaws chomping about in the air. She chuckles and wiggles her fingers. "Come here little baby," she calls. She waits, still in the frozen night. The puppy bounds around her, not daring to approach her too closely, but seemingly trying to engage her in play. Tetra plays the waiting game though, and when the little thing gets close enough, she clamps down on the wiggling creature with both hands. "Gotcha!" she exclaims and pulls the pup to her. It squirms against her chest, but she holds it tight.

She just barely manages to get the pup back to her room without it escaping from her, but it's a close call as she fumbles to get the door unlocked. Once inside the room, with the door shut, she plops the little dog down and it immediately flies across the room. She laughs, watching it skitter to a stop to turn around and then charge back to her. The pup rips through the room while she grabs her purse and digs for her wallet. She counts out her money, telling the dog, "You're lucky I got enough for the both of us."

She corrals the dog to the bathroom and shuts it in. As she pulls on her gloves to head back out into the February cold, she hears it press its nose to the gap between the door and the floor and give a small huff. "You'll just have to wait, little one," she says.

When she returns sometime later, she enters the room with dinner in hand for herself and the puppy. She pulls out the bowls she purchased from her shopping bags and opens the bathroom door. It'd relieved itself on the floor, but from its small size (no bigger than a cat, she thinks) and boundless energy, she'd guessed it was a young pup so she's glad she'd shut it in the bathroom before leaving. She sets out the food and fills the second bowl with water and sets both down before she sets about cleaning up its waste.

The dog is without a collar and is very eager to eat. As she wipes up the mess, she watches it quickly gobble up its food. "Ought to slow down, little one," she chides to it, but of course the pup pays her no mind. It makes her wonder if the thing had anywhere to call home.

Later, with both their bellies full, she lies on the bed with the pup. A boy she'd found out, and he is very comfortingly lying on her chest. In his slumber, she hears him woof softly. "Shh," she says, running a hand down his back. "I don't think you're allowed."

She smiles at the little thing, admiring him. Soft features as little pups are wont to have. She feels a twinge of sadness at the thought that he'll lose that softness soon enough. She rubs his long ear and drifts into a dreamless sleep.

::

Link feels he's at some sort of crossroads with the case of Zelda Nohansen.

And also that he might just be going mad.

He pulls out the set of pictographs her father had given him, the senior picto on top. Link can't explain it, he's pretty sure he's never seen her before, but when Midna had handed him the picto initially, it was like getting dunked into the frigid ocean waters. It makes his heart pound with an ache so deep. He'll never admit it to Midna, but he thinks this is much more than just a job. Missing person, sure, very important, yes, of course, but it was like a light clicking on seeing the picto for the first time, and she'd been missing from his life, and he'd already been looking for her. Or something of the sort. It's totally absurd. Never seen her before in his life, he swears, but gods, he knows her.

And he can't say why.

It's making it hard to think.

Her father suspected foul play on behalf of Ghirahim Zaman. The man is certainly a scumbag, Link could agree, but at the end of it, Link couldn't pin him as a kidnapper or murderer or whatever, and he and Midna tabled Nohansen's initial theory. That wasn't particularly his brand of scumbag. Obviously, he wouldn't have directly participated – that'd be real fucking stupid of him - and he was out in public for events the first few days of the year, which was heavily documented in newspapers and gossip rags. While that alone would seem like a scumbag trying to make sure his alibi is airtight, Link just doesn't get the feeling that's the case. Besides, big public figure? Ghirahim Zaman wouldn't actually need to arrange such a thing himself; he goes out and paparazzi flocks. Link thinks if they're going to find some thread of connection to him or anything else, he'd do well to get his ass out to Domain City to look for it, so that's exactly what he plans for a next move.

That Nohansen hasn't heard a peep from anyone further drives Link and Midna's whispered conspiracy theory that she'd left of her own accord. They'd also whispered between themselves about what the letter she had received might have been about. If she'd left on her own, as Link and Midna suspect, their best guess as to why lies with Misko Yamada. He learned from the house staff following his conversation with young Tael that they'd bonded initially over music and literature, so she consented to the engagement, but then the more she got to know Misko after formalizing the engagement, the more she disliked him. It seems to Link, even from his own couple of short conversations with the pompous ass, that he has a very carefully crafted mask, and her distaste stemmed from how he'd been letting it slip with her. He considers the engagement a lock, so he has no need any more to keep up pleasantries with her and instead has started moving on to more underhanded and overt exercises of control and abuse.

Why not just end it? Break it off?

He doesn't really dare ask Nohansen (he's not that stupid), but he thinks there are probably some legal ramifications considering the engagement had been formalized.

And then it goes right back to that damn letter that nobody seemingly knew where it came from or what it contained. A real godsdamn mystery, and it annoys him. He didn't sign up to be in some Kafei Dotour mystery novel after all.

His last half-baked theory cooked up with Midna was that she'd found someone else (because we all agree, Misko sucks, right?), and this someone else wrote the letter. And Link's now also given up on that idea. If there was another man, that would have surprised everyone he'd spoken to.

He never found the supposed letter. Maybe she took it with her to the university. He doubts he'd be able to get access – at least legally – to her dormitory at the school if she had even made it there. It might be worth the trip though. It seemed likely that she took the mirror that Tael mentioned she purchased with her. Why leave it behind if she was apparently so obsessed with it after all? He verified with her father that she had indeed purchased a mirror. Nohansen commented that it did seem like an odd purchase, but she seemed so enamored with the thing, he didn't comment on it. Just let her be.

Nobody who willingly spoke to him about the mirror upon his return at the mansion for questioning had a clue what was so enchanting about it. From what he gathers, she'd gone to an auction about a month before Yule and purchased two lots. One lot was jewelry which she gifted to her mother for Yule, and the other was the mirror. Tael described it as being maybe two feet tall. Others also made mention of its odd shape and etched designs, same as Tael had. Even if it was part of a larger mirror once upon a time, the etching made it clear it had some sort of purpose, but what?

He'd taken from Zelda's room some more of the books she had with Nohansen's permission after swiping the one with the dog-eared page. Sitting in his office, a glass of whisky in hand, he leans back in his chair, running through his mind all the things he's looked at in her home and the people he'd spoken to, and props his feet up as he begins to read through the section that seemed to interest her so much.

When Midna later walks in and begins to chastise him about slacking, he grumbles at her. "I am working, thanks," he tells her. He holds up the book in one hand and wags it at her. "See? Zelda Nohansen was reading this before she disappeared."

"You think it's that important?"

"Might be," he shrugs. After a beat, he adds, "She apparently hates her fiancé as much as we do."

"Knew it," she mutters to herself.

To Link, she says, "Those two idiots Mikau and Darmani both called to find out if you're game for poker, by the way."

"At Ashei's?"

"I guess?"

Link groans, throwing himself back on his chair.

Midna frowns at him. "Just call them back and tell them fuck off then, if you don't want to go." Midna plops herself into one of the chairs across from his desk. She doesn't say anything for a while, which is making it damn hard to read this stupid book.

It's... suspicious.

"What."

Those rubies gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling slowly slide to him. She waits, expectantly.

She wants something.

Link tosses the book onto the desk.

"You're such a child," she quips.

"I'm the child?"

"Well, I'm certainly not the one that gets all irritable when sober." She adds after a moment of consideration, "Or just kind of tipsy."

"Really?"

"Why don't you go to those meetings down at the community center?"

"I don't need them."

"I think you do."

"I know."

"They won't hurt you."

But deep down, they would. He'd have to remember all the terrible things of the war he was trying to drown in drink.

"Don't you think you've done enough to yourself?"

"I'm missing a leg, Midna," he snaps and picks up the book again.

Midna snatches it right out of his hand like a striking viper. She wags it at him, mimicking him. "You know, there could have been something here, but you only care about drowning yourself."

"Came real close more than once on that front," he spits, and Midna pauses. He'd never said much of anything about his service if it didn't relate to him bitching about his damn leg. She knew the facts of his service, and his lengthy complaints about the amputation, but most of it, he keeps closely guarded.

"You did?" she asks. Softer. More gentle. Much kinder. Not a side Midna lets be seen very often.

Link looks away from her and turns in his seat. He chews his lip. "It's paralyzing," he croaks. "You know, down there in the deep. No night or day. Like time is in a vacuum."

Midna lowers the book to her lap.

He wrinkles his nose. "The worst is when you're playing cat and mouse, but you really have no idea if you're the cat or the mouse." He looks at her now. Desperation swims in his blue pools.

Midna had always thought his eyes were his most... unnerving quality. The way he looks at her now, makes something shake in her. They're both blue, but she never liked the way the lighter one on the left could pierce through people. Electric almost. Looking at her with his left side facing her feels like a dressing down, and she wishes that he'd turned to his right instead. The darker steely blue one isn't so striking. Isn't so intimidating.

"It was hours, Midna," he implores her. "Days, even. No talking, because gods forbid they hear you."

"Hear you?" she balks.

"Yes."

She doesn't have a reply.

Finally after some time, Link continues, "They're listening. You're listening. Any sound could pop! and that'd be the end of it." He looks away finally, and Midna can exhale without that scrutinizing eye on her. "You can't talk. Definitely can't play any records. You're just... stuck. Waiting. Do nothing but listening.

"The worst is just being stuck in that darkness, Midna. Just way down there in the depths, because you can't even turn the lights on since you need to save the power. You're waiting in the dark. Maybe it's a false alarm. Maybe it's not."

How ironic.

The thing he'd hated most when he served was the quiet waiting. Yet here he returns home to... what? Sit idly. In a wheelchair. Missing half a leg. And now he spends his days doing work that requires just that. Lots of waiting around. Sitting around in the car, on benches, at restaurant and café tables. Standing around on the street, in quiet alleys. All to catch that one moment of evidence with some well-timed pictographs.

What the fuck.

Midna, for her part, having only ever heard small whispers of what he went through aboard the King of Red Lions previously, softens when she speaks next. "Link, I- I had no idea." Her eyes lower, almost in shame. "I mean, you never talk about it."

"I don't want to."

"Really though," she implores, "don't you think it'd be better if you did?"

He turns even further away from her.

The clock in his office ticks the time by, and Midna, trying to be patient, trying to be understanding, waits for him.

He swallows. "I don't want to go. How could I put myself in the hands of some stupid higher power when I've seen for myself how the gods abandon us?"

"Link-"

"They weren't there that day," Link snarls. The venom in his voice shakes her.

Midna opens her mouth to speak, but then thinking better of it, snaps it shut. She looks down at the book Link had been reading. She closes it over her hand to take a better look at the cover, and then she lets it fall back open to where he had been reading. Idly, she turns the pages, forwards and then backwards, just casually soaking in the information.

She hands it back to him, and Link takes it from her.

As she moves to step out of his office, she tells him, "That's a Twilight mirror, by the way. They're supposed to open portals if your little book hasn't mentioned that."

"Hey, Midna?" he calls. And almost as if he didn't hear her and if he'd never even poured out a shred of his experience at sea, he tells her, "You know, some idiot is going to love it when you boss him around at all hours of the day. That idiot was just never going to be me."

A snort (so Midna) is the only response he gets. Midna closes the door between them without another word.

Chapter Text

The puppy is growing too fast, Tetra laments to herself as she gets dressed for the day and brushes out her newly shortened hair. She’d cut it again the night before, and while it feels pleasantly weightless, she thinks the back of her neck is much too cold. She misses her long hair at times, but after spending some time working in the shop, she realized how odd her long hair was when every other young woman her age kept it in a short bob, and she’s slowly been cutting it shorter and shorter since.

There’s no sign still of an owner for the puppy, but she keeps checking the papers and keeps an eye out around town for any posters. It’s discouraging and thrilling. She slips her shoes on to head out for that particular daily ritual: getting the newspaper from the front desk.

Tetra got the puppy all the necessities he’d need, and when the woman at the front desk had taken her money after she first brought the dog in, she counted it out, and then said, “You’re short.”

"Oh? I’m sorry, I tho-”

"It’ll be an extra five a week, if you don’t want me to say something about the dog.”

Ah.

Of course. She did tell the pup he probably wasn’t allowed.

"Um,” she hesitated, “if it’s alright, I can bring that by tomorrow.”

The woman had eyed her for a moment. She flipped her newspaper open blocking her face from Tetra’s view. “If it makes too much noise, it goes.”

So Tetra took that as an agreement. She’d meekly asked for the classifieds section of the paper, and the woman had obliged, and now it’s a daily thing for them. This morning, Tetra opens the door, and the classifieds are sat on the counter already waiting for her, no need to ask at this point. The woman is working through a crossword puzzle from the paper, brow knit as she thinks over a clue. She looks up as Tetra approaches. Tetra thanks the woman, taking the classified section. Usually, she says nothing about the pup, but today, she says very plainly, “I’d call it a lost cause.”

“Excuse me?”

“That dog,” she clarifies. “Ain’t nobody lookin’ for it.”

"I suppose, but…” But what? It’d been a (frustrating) month, but would she even give the pup up at this point? Tetra’s not sure.

"You name it?” the woman asks conversationally, but her expression is uninterested.

"No. I’ve just been calling it ‘dog’ mostly, to be honest.” Naming him makes it more permanent. The attachment at least.

“Just name the thing.”

Tetra hums thoughtfully. Nothing immediately comes to mind, so she says, “I’ll think on it. Thank you, again.” She holds up the classifieds. “For saving this.”

She returns to her room to comb the classifieds with the puppy at her feet. The puppy, she has to admit, has become extremely attached to her despite her trying her best to not to do the same. She half-heartedly scans the classifieds for anyone looking for the dog, a dog, any dog, but as the woman had pointed out, it’s been too long to have seen absolutely nothing about a missing pup. Tetra doesn’t dare post her own ad and information though. The idea of being found makes her squirm. She feels better if there was someone actually looking for the pup that she could answer, but no desperate calls to return a lost puppy are to be found in the classifieds again today.

She considers that the woman might be right. It’s been too long.

“I’m told you ought to have a name,” she tells the puppy as she makes one last scan of the classifieds.

She lets the newspaper fall and looks down on him, rolling around on the carpet. He’s grown quite a bit in the last month but is still so very young. She feels exhausted. Constantly running the little thing out to relieve himself and hating the way he cries when she shuts him in the bathroom to go to work. She doesn’t dare let him roam the room while she’s working lest he pee on furniture she doesn’t own. They’d get the boot then for sure, and Tetra has no idea how she’d pay for any damages the inn might claim.

He grabs her slipper and begins to whip it around violently.

He’s a young, little guy for sure, but Tetra can’t help but feel a bit more secure with a friend by her side at the very least. The size doesn’t matter.

Until he rips the slipper, that is.

Bad boy.

::

Link is growing frustrated. He’d stopped taking other cases since Nohansen was more than happy to pay him and Midna well for their services. By this point, he’s finished up with his other cases to where Midna can handle the rest, to her great annoyance (“You hired me as an assistant, remember, jackass?” she says but then just takes care of it, so you know, she’s literally the best), and he is now left to focus on finding Zelda Nohansen. Her father is growing more nervous each day, but whenever Link checks in on the man, he says nothing still has come up as far as ransoms or other demands. Link thinks that’s a win, at least. A slight one.

As Midna had so ineloquently put it, “High society girl like that you don’t kidnap except for money.” They leave the other very depressing and morbid option unsaid.

He sucks in a deep breath and then lets it out in a slow exhale. He pulls out a flask from his pocket and takes a long swig of it. The alcohol burns down his throat as he caps the flask.

Gotta think.

Run through it all again (before you pick up the receiver, now). What is it that he’s missing? Is he missing something? Because if he picks up the receiver and says that all he’s got is pure instinct for being out here, he is going to get diced.

From what he’s found so far, Zelda did get on the train from Castleton out east to Lanayru, and considering her folks watched her get on the train and they all waved to her with her waving back (very sweet, very nice) in the train’s window as it pulled off from Union Station in Castleton, she didn’t just hop off immediately and take a different train out of Castleton. Link chews the inside of his cheek. So the question then, if she didn’t hop off the train at an earlier stop, is where’d she go next after getting to Domain? He followed her out to Domain City on a great leap of faith that she didn’t get off the train early. He staked out the train station in Domain, interrogating various staff, until one man miraculously had remembered seeing the pretty young woman from the pictograph. He’d sworn she took off on a southbound train, or at least he recalls speaking to her about going south. He thinks. That’s where the memory gets fuzzy and unclear.

When he’d gone prowling at Lanayru University, he’d swung by her dormitory, and putting on a mask much like the damnable Misko Yamada, he’d easily charmed the young women into chatting with him. They, of course, knew Zelda, but none had seen her since before the winter break (“Oh yeah, isn’t that weird?”), and eventually Link had to accept that she’d never come back to the university at all.

When testing his and Midna’s other theory among her peers, well, that also fell flat. Very, very flat. She doesn’t have a boy, don’t be silly, they’d laugh (“Or wait, do you know something?”). So they don’t even seem to know she’s actually engaged, let alone that she apparently doesn’t much care for the man, and the idea that he and Midna concocted that she’d found someone else was an even bigger crapshoot at that point.

Link guesses he’d probably do the same in her position. Her school was an escape, so why muddy the waters with a problem like Misko?

Okay. So. Gets on the train in Castleton. Right. She got on the train to go back to Lanayru, arrives at Domain Station at the very least, and then possibly without leaving the immediate area, hopped on one going south? Supposedly. Maybe. Possibly.

So here stands Link on the most wildest of guesses at the hub in east Necluda, pushing coins into the pay phone. He glances at what’s going on around him outside the booth, watching the people hurry to catch their trains before they take off or waiting around for loved ones or later trains. Bags and other luggage in hand. Coats and hats on, scarves blowing when a gust hits.

The operator picks up, and Link asks her to connect him to Castleton. He waits on the line until Midna picks up at the office.

“Midna-”

“Look who’s still kicking.”

“Yeah, thanks, love. Listen, I need you to wire me some more money to Hateno.”

“Hateno?”

“Yeah.”

“… The fuck you doing down there?”

“Well, Zelda Nohansen’s probably not in Lanayru.”

“So you don’t even have concrete proof she’s in Necluda.” Like a vulture, he swears, she can smell dead meat. His previous assumption that his gut feeling doesn’t count is woefully correct, despite that being his more driving force than any of the logic he’d worked out.

Link sighs. He rests his head on the glass of the pay phone booth, hoping Midna also at least buys into the path he’d worked out. Midna’s like a bloodhound with him, he begrudgingly thinks, she’s gonna know. “Well, this is crazy, but it feels like this is the right move. I can’t explain it, really. But I didn’t just fly off down here on literally nothing either, I swear. Nobody from her dorm had seen her return,” he says, starting to list off the points he’d just gone over with himself. He feels like a child trying to prattle off excuses for why he doesn’t have his homework. “And when I had talked to the staff at the station, I did find one that recalled seeing her. It’s not much, but I otherwise got nothing to go on.”

“Hm. So Hateno?” Midna says absently. All that. For that.

“I’m staying at the Great Ton Pu Inn.

“The guy at the station remembered a southbound train,” he continues on with his original thought, “but not what train specifically. Granted it’s been a while, too, since she went through Domain Station.”

“Sure.” And then quietly to herself, she repeats, “Great Ton Pu…” She’s writing, he knows.

“So looking at the schedule,” Link continues, ignoring Midna’s small interjections, both of them speaking aloud their passing thought trains with little regard. “If her train from Castleton was due to arrive in Domain at 6:43 PM, the next southbound train out at Domain Station is to Hateno at 8:10 PM.” He pulls away from the glass, clicking his tongue. “I checked around the businesses outside of the station, but nothing, so if assuming they didn’t see her and considering she never bothered to show up on campus at all, she didn’t leave the station area and was probably eager to get out of Domain City. Hateno is probably the best bet then.” He sighs. Thinking. Hoping. Pleeeease. “Otherwise, she might’ve sat around until early the next morning to get the first train down to Lurelin. If she actually went south, that is.

“So yeah. That’s uh… where I’m at.”

“Perfect. Amazing. One of a kind,” Midna deadpans, and Link is sure she was half listening to him despite all his anxiety. “Are you going to tell me specifically where to wire the money or not? What’s the address for the telegraph station there? Also how much do you need?” Link reads out the address for her, hearing her jostle the phone receiver to write it all down. “You call Daphnes Nohansen this week?” she asks.

“No,” Link says. He rubs the bridge of his nose. “I’ll send him a telegram tomorrow probably. You can tell him that if he’s calling on you and asking though. Rather not speak at this point. Less questions, you know?”

Midna snorts on the other end. “Alright.”

“Those last two insurance cases- Mid, are you listening?”

“Ugh, yes. You’re talking about Bates and Cole.”

He snorts. “Did you develop the pictos?”

“Yes,” she says in that annoyed tone that makes him want to poke the bear further. “You know I never get the contrast as well as you, but they should be fine. I have them drying in your darkroom right now, actually.”

“Good. Just send them off for me tomorrow.”

“Sure,” clips Midna. “If you’re all the way out in Necluda though, do you want me to just break down everything in the darkroom then?”

“Yes,” he says after a brief pause to think, realizing he’s not quite sure how long he’ll be chasing ghost trails. “And can you send the money as soon as possible, please?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks, Mid.”

She grumbles on the other end, maybe an annoyed “Gods.” It was as close to a good-bye as he was going to get from her before she slams the phone down on him, so he simply hangs up the phone and exits the booth.

Link meanders slowly back to the inn he’d booked a room at, mulling over the information he had so far, but the main things that this center around with Zelda are the mirror and mysterious letter.

He can’t be sure that Zelda traveled alone on the southbound train, and even that she was on a southbound train was mostly a hail Nayru on a random stranger’s fallible memory. Honestly, it annoys him that he doesn’t have anything concrete to go off of. Doesn’t like that. Wasting time like that. But it is as if this woman just simply swooped off up to the heavens and disappeared, though Link just stupidly feels like he’s making the right move. Link kicks a stray rock, thinking of the timeline all over again. She was last seen in early January, so it’s been more than two months since she disappeared. She’s just a girl of a twenty-one, he muses. She can’t be that good at disappearing.

Could she?

He’d seen the books on her shelf. Well-read is an understatement. Driven by her studies. Clearly intelligent, and from what he’d been told, well spoken. Maybe she doesn’t exactly have street smarts, but if she’s got brains, she probably could hide well enough on her own.

But then why leave?

He snorts to himself. Always with the why. Why. Why. Why.

His mind drifts back to the mirror she’d bought at auction. She’d been obsessed with it, staring for hours into the mirror. Almost like she’d been scrying. Creepy.

And Link personally does not like the idea of this mirror. Midna was correct when she said the section Zelda had dog-eared in her book was on a Twilight mirror. Twilight mirrors were supposedly huge though. Over two meters tall. So it’s not like Zelda waltzed home from the auction in November with a full-on Twilight mirror (don’t be insane), but from the descriptions he’d gathered, he wondered if she managed to acquire an actual shard of one. It would explain the strange shape everyone in the Nohansen household had mentioned. Even the kid Tael thought it was a piece of something, not a whole, complete thing. So it’s a piece, but was it the real deal?

Link realizes that the other books that were stacked with the dog-eared one were there for a purpose. Not as a particular sign or clue she meant to leave behind, but she had them together because she was looking at them together. As Midna had offhandedly mentioned to him, the mirrors are rumored to act as portals. Portals to where? Gods know, but Link thinks that might have been what Zelda was trying to work out.

And that there, friends, is what makes Link’s stomach squirm.

Pocket universes, parallel worlds, alternate timelines.

It makes his head hurt.

Link takes a sip from his flask.

Definitely couldn’t be the drink.

Stupid quantum physics or whatever.

He walks the streets of Hateno, bustling with the life of early spring. Being so far southeast of Castleton and near the Necluda Sea, the town is at least getting warmer weather than he’s used to at this time of year. It kind of reminds him of Ordon. The outskirts of the town are farmland, but the town center is fairly bustling now that they are out of the deep throes of winter and has long been a producer of fabrics and dyes. Children play along the sidewalk that stretches along the river that runs through the town center, but with the afternoon drawing to an end, they’re saying their goodbyes and getting ready to hurry home for dinner. They make hasty apologies for almost running into him, and he waves them off.

Soon the creaking sign of the Great Ton Pu Inn appears. Outside the inn stands a large apple tree, where he spies a man sat at the base of its trunk. Link pauses to wait for a truck to drive by before crossing the road to the inn. He eyes the man as he trudges through the muddy snowmelt-soaked grass and lot. The man seems to be watching him as well. Odd, but nothing that sets off any alarm bells for Link, so Link decides to just keeps an eye out for him.

He stops off at the front desk of the inn where a woman sits reading the day’s paper. “Hey Prima,” he greets. “Any messages?”

“For you?”

Obviously.

She shuffles her papers to check for him. “Nope, sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“Remember breakfast is at seven.”

Link nods and walks out of the front office.

He yawns. Lazily strolling down to his room, he sees across the lot a woman trying desperately to get her dog to go onto the grass, imploring it, begging almost, but the thing refuses to budge. He laughs to himself at the sight. The dog refusing to budge, the woman clearly at the end of her rope. It almost makes him feel a bit bad for laughing until he sees the dog finally lift a leg to pee on the lot’s asphalt, next to the grass, to the woman’s chagrin. She deflates like a dying balloon but still praises the dog.

Opening his room, Link pauses, but not feeling or seeing anything amiss, opens the door up. He shuts and locks the door, plunging the room into a mild darkness. Light filters through the thin curtains that are drawn over the windows, but it’s not enough. It’s still too dark.

He hates that.

Link flips the light switch, sheds his coat, and then he goes and starts checking the room. He sets his flask on the nightstand. He checks first under the bed, then the closet, the bathroom, even pulling the curtain to the shower back. (Because you can’t be too sure, you know?) He double checks the window curtains in the bathroom and the room are also completely drawn to avoid anything from peeping in. He leaves the light on in the bathroom, and he turns on bedside lamps before he sinks onto the bed.

Good goddesses. His leg.

Sitting on the train, and all the walking he’s done has made his stump ache. Link sighs, sits up and frees himself of his prosthetic and lies back down again. He pulls out his pocket watch and checks the time. Early evening. Might be worth limping along to a diner or something for a bite to eat for dinner. His hand and watch slap onto the bed.

But Link doesn’t go to dinner. Instead he reaches for the flask he left on the nightstand and pops it open.

::

Courage, she had decided. He must weigh at least a stone by now, she thinks. He seems to have grown longer by the week as well. His little perky ears stretch skyward like keese ears. They seem to grow bigger and faster than the rest of him, too, to her amusement.

Still, she’s getting tired. Real tired. When she’s not working, she is mostly hiding in the room with him, but he still forces her to take him out every two to three hours or risk him peeing on something inside not easy to clean up like the bathroom tile. At least the snow has melted, she thinks. When the snow had covered the ground, they’d go out, he’d pee, eat the snow while she desperately tried to discourage it, because if he ate the snow, they’d be outside 20 or 30 minutes later to repeat the process.

Puppies.

She almost wants to cry.

But Tetra needs friend. As much as Tetra wants to dump him off in the Necluda Sea at times and never look back, she knows she’d worry hopelessly if he even so much as disappeared for a minute.

“Guess we found each other at just the right time, huh?”

 Courage sniffs the ground while she waits, slowly eating her patience up. Sometimes he takes just forever to go. Today is one of those days. She’s learned that he hates the rain and will refuse to go out in even the slightest drizzle, but he loves nothing more than frolicking about with his short legs in the snow. But also Din forbid, his wee feet get wet, which leads to today’s conundrum. No rain, but the grass is soaked in melted snow and early spring rains.

Absolutely cannot touch it.

Not a finger.

Disgusting.

How could she even suggest it?

Tetra looks around, the inn and road it’s on at this time in the evening are quiet. Earlier when she’d taken him out, she saw a new man staying at the inn, laughing at them as he walked to his room. Definitely not embarrassing, dog.

Eventually Courage deems it appropriate to pee on the very edge of the grass, again, since there is not a dry patch of grass to be found and then begins jogging back to their room with Tetra trailing behind. His large, perky keese ears flop with each bouncing step. The little shit.

Tetra loves him all the same.

She isn’t too familiar with dogs, but he’s got energy and intelligence, that’s for sure.

The man that laughed at them from earlier opens his door and steps out as they near the inn. He’d cleaned up from his traveling, appearing to be freshly shaven, and dressed now in a clean green plaid button down, dark slacks, and brown leather suspenders. His blond hair though remains an untamable mess. Neat, slick back hair has become popular among young men, but she has the intrusive thought how the messy hair is more… him.

Seeing the newcomer, Courage surges forward before she can stop him, plowing himself straight to the man, jumping on his leg to claw attention from him. “Off,” he sternly shoos the dog.

“I’m sorry!” Tetra calls hurrying towards them.

The man casts an annoyed glance down at Courage, excitedly circling his legs. “Young fella,” he says, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with a match. “How old?” he asks Tetra as he pockets his match book.

“Oh, um, I’m not quite sure exactly,” she admits. “But I’m told maybe five months now?”

He lets out a sharp, barking laugh. “You’re in for it,” he says, and Tetra sees a glittering humor in eyes.

“You wouldn’t believe,” Tetra laments. “I- Oh! Doesn’t that hurt?” she exclaims seeing Courage practically gnawing on his leg. She crouches to pull the dog away, apologizing profusely.

The man shrugs, strangely unbothered. “Teething,” he grunts. “It’s what they do.” Sticking his cigarette in his mouth, he pulls out a flask as Tetra lifts the dog up in her arms. She’s about to apologize again, when he stops, his hand on the cap. His eyes root her in place.

Tetra has never seen eyes like his before. Breathtaking almost with their intensity. A shiver runs down her spine as he studies her. Two different blues stare her down, and awkwardly, she tries to excuse herself from the scrutiny of them. There’s a weird unshakable sense about him though. Familiar almost…? She can’t place it, but familiar? Hah! No. That’s silly.

Apart from seeing him earlier at the inn, she’s sure she’s never seen him before, let alone met him, spoke to him.

She gives him a polite nod, ready to head back to her room.

“Wait,” he calls. “I didn’t get your name.”

She looks back at him, hoping to hear anything. Anything at all. Any time now. Hello?

Yet nothing comes.

“It’s Tetra,” she says finally.

The man waits, as if expecting her to give her family name, but when she offers nothing more, he returns the favor. “Link.” He takes a drink from the flask and spins around back to his room leaving Tetra standing outside with Courage in her arms.

“Nice to meet you,” she mumbles to the empty night. It feels unnecessary though.

Who has time for that?

Opening the door to her own room, she steps in and only once the door is closed does she let Courage out of her arms. He prances off, hopping around the room, and tossing a rope toy about.

Something doesn’t sit right with her encounter with the man two doors down, but she doesn’t think he meant danger. She’d have heard something when speaking to him, she concludes, and she’d heard nothing at all about him. Nothing! Right?

Maybe you should ask him to go dancing. We’ll go for a little spin.

Throwing her head in her hands, she groans and tries to clear her mind.

Just you wait. He could make your world go round and round and round and-

“Shut! Up!”

Get yourself all dolled up, Princess.

Tetra blindly reaches out and grabs the pillow from the bed. She hurls it at her bag across the room, scaring the puppy. Courage scurries to the bathroom.

Don’t be so mean, Princess. After all, men like ‘em nice, don’tcha think?

::

Link shuts the door to his room and turns the lock. He takes a second to try and catch his breath. (Why the hell is he panting?) Lead sits in a sickening swirl in his stomach. She said her name was Tetra. The woman had brown hair cropped into a bob, but when he looked into those eyes, he’d been struck by a sense of familiarity so strong much like when he’d looked at Zelda Nohansen’s pictograph. He has to be sure his own eyes weren’t playing a trick on him. He doesn’t want to make the wrong move.

Link sets the smoldering cigarette on the ashtray by the bed then grabs his travel bag and quickly digs out the copies of the pictographs of Zelda Nohansen. Her father had said her eyes are green, blonde. He stares intently at the senior picto of her. In the black and white tones, her fair hair is clear, but not the green eyes, and he tries to will colors to the picto to bring her to life. He also tries to put a dark auburn in place of the light grey tones.

He glances through the other pictos. Long hair in all of them. Easily cut, of course. And dyed. But she also had a soft smile to complement her equally soft features. Oval face. Large, bright eyes.

So what’s he to do?

He drops the pictos and strides to the window, pulling back the curtains slightly to look out. With night having settled in on Hateno, nobody else is around. He can’t shake that sickening feeling, so he unlocks the door and sticks his head out, and of course, Tetra is gone by now.

He checks his pocket watch, and seeing the time, Prima has probably left the office.

Alright then.

Maybe the little mutt is a blessing in disguise.

A thought nags at him though.

Zelda never had any pets that he knows of. Nobody ever mentioned it for one. He saw no evidence of pets at the mansion, and obviously, she wouldn’t have been able to take one to school with her. But the pup was young…

Five months.

A Yule gift?

He wracks his brain. When is the last train here? Can he make it to the telegraph office in time before closing?

Link grabs up the pictos, putting them inside his coat pocket this time and hurries out the door. Once again scanning the quiet inn and seeing nobody about, he hopes he’s quick enough and takes off running the best he can on his stupid fake leg.

He manages to make it to the telegraph office just before closing time, to the attendant’s annoyance. Link gives him the message, pays his fee with a little extra for urgency’s sake, and leaves the attendant with the delivery address. “I’m at the Ton Pu,” he tells the man. “I expect there will be a reply tomorrow. You can the leave the message with Prima up front if I’m not in on the morrow.”

“Understood. Have a good evening.”

Link thanks the man and hurries back to the inn.

Coming up to the inn on the road, he pauses seeing a figure this time in the dark. It makes him pause before crossing the road, but he wonders if it’s the same man he saw earlier still hanging out under the apple tree.

Link crosses the road, and rather than head straight to his room, he strides over to the tree. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s the same man as before, dozing against the tree trunk this time. Link nudges him with his foot. “Oi, mate,” he calls, waking the man. “We’re not fully out of winter yet.”

“Gaun yersel,” the man blubbers.

“What?”

“What you want?”

“I’m not the weirdo hanging out all day under a tree.”

“Checkin’ everyone out. Never stops.”

… Okay.

“With your eyes closed, mate?” Link asks him skeptically.

The man doesn’t answer him. Instead he nods towards the inn. “Ain’t you staying at the inn?”

“Yep.”

He hums. He looks away from the inn and back to Link. Giving him a once over as he stands up himself, and the man nods at Link. “Well, guess you check out.”

“You’re… checking people?”

“Checkin’, yeah. Gotta check out everyone that comes through here.” The man crosses his arms. Little defensive. Okay. Can work with that. “Might be some suspicious folk that come through.”

Link stuffs his hands in his pockets. Be open. Cool. Unguarded. “Right, right,” he says, nodding, hoping the strange man responds in kind to Link’s demeanor.

The man squints at him a little and then drops his arms. “Yeah, you get it,” he decides.

“Hey, if you’re out here… checkin’, you seen that brunette with the dog?”

“The little yapper? Yeah.”

“She’s staying at the inn, right?”

The man eyes Link, suspicious once more. “You checkin’, too?”

“I mean, I thought that was your job. I was just asking the expert.”

“I suppose,” he mumbles. “It’s a volunteerin’ thing.” Link nods in understanding (“Mm-hm. Right, right.”). The man looks Link up and down again, just in case something changed in the last minute (y’know?), and then says, “Yeah. She’s staying at the inn.”

“Know which room?” The man points to the door two down from Link’s. “Nice.”

“I guess. As far as beauties go though, she’s got nothing on Prima.”

Ah.

“Oh, you know Prima?” Link asks conversationally.

The man nods. “I do.”

“Think she’s left for the night, mate, but I’m expecting a message in the morning.” Then, slyly, he offers, “Want me to leave her a message for you? You look awfully tired.”

“Why? You gonna be checkin’?”

The hell is “checkin’” anyway? They’ve said it so much in this short, queer conversation that Link is starting to question if he understands Hylian anymore.

“Oh, I don’t mean to be stepping on any toes here. Sounds like what you’re doing is tough.”

“Aye,” the man agrees. This time when he crosses his arms, his chest puffs with pride. It’s not a defensive move. “It is a tough job. I know I’m over here making it look easy.”

“Right, right.”

“Not just anyone can do it.”

Link nods in understanding once more. Checkin’ is definitely not for the weak willed, let’s be real here. “Sure. But you are just hanging out under a tree. In the dark. That sounds weird.”

“Man, your job is weird. Whatever you do.”

Ironically, in simplest terms, Link’s job is… checkin’.

They stand, silent, for way too long in Link’s opinion.

“Manny.”

“Link.”

“Say hullo to Prima for me?”

“Yep.”

“Right.” Manny dusts his hands. “Full report,” he insists.

“Right, right.”

With that, Link ends probably the strangest conversation he’s ever had. Manny walks off down the road, mumbling to himself, and Link glances over at the front office, little suspicions in his head mixed with sympathies.

He sighs, not meaning to have taken on any additional nonsense, but here he is.

Link enters his room, and after checking (checkin’?) to be sure he’s alone in the room and double checks the door locks, Link pulls up a chair to the front window of the room and adjusts the curtain. Just slightly so. Enough for him to look out. Discreet like. For checkin’.

Link eases back into his chair, and he pulls out his flask of whisky. Giving it a little shake, he’s disappointed to find it getting low. He hopes the money wire comes through quickly, though he knows Midna would be absolutely raging if she even thought he was spending a single rupee on more booze.

Whatever.

Ship has long sailed.

Like the King of Red Lions down to the depths, he thinks bitterly.

His stump gives a painful ache.

Link takes a swig from the flask and goes about checkin’.

Chapter Text

It’s first thing in the morning when Daphnes Nohansen receives a telegram message. Impa, the head housekeeper, accepts the delivery, thoroughly vexed that it dare interrupt her. When she hands it to him, he’s pleasantly surprised to find that it’s a message from Link Coutts – who is now apparently in Necluda of all places? He takes the printout from Impa, thanking her and quickly reads it:

From

HATENO, NECLUDA
25 BURLINGTON RD

30 MARCH 1922 AC 9:52 PM EASTERN STANDARD

Received

CASTLETON, CASTLETON
225 S. CANAL ST

30 MARCH 1922 AC 8:59 PM CENTRAL STANDARD

NOHANSEN –(STOP)-
FOLLOWING LEAD NO WORRY QUESTION IF DOG GIFT FOR YULE HURRY

COUTTS

“’If dog gift for Yule’?” Nohansen muses aloud. What was that supposed to mean? But then it quickly clicks. “Impa,” he calls, catching her before she leaves his office. She halts and looks back. “Link Coutts seems to be asking if Zelda received a dog as a gift for Yule? I never considered that.”

"I don’t recall hearing any such plans either,” she replies. She waits, watching as Nohansen thoughtfully scratches at his greying beard.

“You hear everything,” he says finally.

Impa rolls her eyes. “Not everything,” she corrects him. “But no, nothing about a dog, sir.”

Nohansen tuts. “Link Coutts wants a quick reply,” he tells Impa, and she smartly turns on her heel and pulls out a notepad. She strides back to Nohansen at his desk. “Send it back to the address in Hateno here,” Nohansen says, tapping the sending address on the telegram printout.

Impa peers at the address and jots it down. “I think that’s Hateno Station,” she says briskly. She’s all business, as usual, he thinks, but then she mentions, “Purah will send a telegram from down that way on occasion.”

“Ah, Purah! How is she?”

“Back in Akkala from what I know. Still working for the lab.”

“Lab?”

“She studies all that ancient Sheikah tech, remember?”

“That’s right, apologies,” Nohansen says quietly. Though he quite likes Impa’s sister, Purah, Nohansen has always thought the two of them are like oil and water. Purah, therefore hasn’t visited in ages, which suits Impa just fine.

"Message?” Impa scrawls out the message Nohansen dictates, quickly reads it back and when Nohansen nods in assent, she clicks her pen and puts it and the notepad back in her pocket. “I can send it off immediately, if you want.”

“Thank you, Impa.”

“There’s one other thing, actually, I’m in the middle of trying to attend to,” Impa clips. “The safe in the cellar was found open.”

“Open?” Shock riddles Nohansen face. “You mean, it was broken into?”

Impa click her tongue on her teeth and answers, “Yes, but not by force. Paya noticed it wasn’t closed all the way correctly. So it was opened and then shut. I’m having her keep watch for now.”

Nohansen sighs heavily, feeling the years shedding off of him as if he were some snake molting its skin. “I assume something was missing?”

"I took count of the cash in it, and it’s short by about a couple of thousand rupees. The sapphire diadem that was in there is also gone.”

Nohansen’s mouth thins. “I see,” he says simply.

“So would you like me to send this now, or I can go back to the safe matter…?”

“Impa, there is no one else I trust more on staff here,” Nohansen says. Thinking it over quickly, if Impa’s daughter Paya is keeping watch, then he can afford to spare her. “Send the telegram first, then we’ll deal with the safe. Have your Paya keep watch on it, so it’s not disturbed further in the meantime.”

“Of course.”

Nohansen nods at her to dismiss, full of weary and exhaustion.

She nods back thoughtfully at him, feeling sympathy for the man. The absolute sickness he’s driven himself to over this whole affair has worn on him. She’d noticed the other week his hair beginning to thin from the stress. Today, she swears the grey is a little more white. The wrinkles are a little deeper. The poor man’s eyes though were a sore sight.

She’d served the Nohansens all her life, but never has she seen Daphnes in a worse state.

Impa quietly leaves the man to his misery and, after relaying her delay to Paya, speeds to the closest telegraph station.

::

Nothing had arrived for Link this morning, and though he’d stayed up by the window for at least two hours before he began nodding off. The woman called Tetra and her dog did not appear again. Still low on sleep this morning, he bathes and changes, all the while checking (ahem, checkin’) to see if she’d emerge, but nothing.

When he exits his room, he toys with asking Prima about her, but she strikes him as the type to not as easily offer up information like Manny. He might have to work her a bit more if he wants something out of her.

But speak of the devil…

Link meanders over to the apple tree where Manny stands, looking out over the inn. Hands in his pockets, they both wait a beat before Link speaks first. “So are you… checkin’?”

Manny almost scoffs at him but catches himself. “Suspicious folk,” he insists. “That’s what I’m doing. Report?”

“Nothing to report.”

"Nothing?” he pushes. “Prima?”

“Heading there now.”

Manny harrumphs to himself, crosses his arms and leans back against the tree.

"What about that brunette?” Link asks. “With the dog?”

“Weren’t you checkin’?”

"Ah, sorry,” Link says sheepishly, rubbing a hand on the nape of his neck. “I took a break when I saw you’d come back. You know, so I could shower,” lies Link easily.

Manny straightens a little.

Link decides to push his luck a little more. “Wouldn’t want to scare off Prima, right?”

"Thought you were checkin’ the one with the dog.”

"Right, right.” Then, when Manny doesn’t respond further: “I just thought, y’know, if I was still a mess from travel and whatnot, it might not reflect on you as well to Prima, y’know?”

Ya.

Know.

“Well.” Manny clears his throat. He taps a foot in thought. “That’s cool, that’s cool.”

"Sooo…”

"Okay. Yeah. Haven’t seen her. But y’knooow…” Manny leans forward, and mirroring him, Link does too. Like two conspirators. Or whatever the hell this is. “Find out what kind of gift Prima would want.” He leans back and clears his throat again. “Y’know. For a friend. Not for me. For my… buddy’s friend.”

Who might also be a the friend of a buddy’s pal-

“Right, right.”

They stare at each other.

“What? You need anything else?”

"Nah,” Link says, and he turns on his heel.

He kind of wishes Midna was here. His two conversations with the strange Manny probably would have sent her to an early grave out of sheer frustration, but she probably wouldn’t have gotten through one conversation. The thought makes Link chuckle as he walks across the lot to the inn’s front office, eager to see if anything’s come in.

Though it’s a bit early, Link wants to be sure. He greets Prima at the front desk where she’s doing a newspaper crossword, as appears to be tradition. “I’m expecting a message this morning. Anything come in yet?” he asks.

“Sorry, Mr. Coutts. Haven’t gotten anything at all.”

Link nods.

He thinks of Manny waiting outside.

“Sir? Did you need anything else?”

“Yeah, ah,” Link stutters a bit. He really should have made a plan for this ridiculousness before walking in. Shit. Fuck. Whatever, just do it. Get it over with. “You know, this place is really great,” he says. Lame. Ugh. He pivots, just a bit, to look her head on.

“Oh, well, that’s very kind of you,” Prima replies. She’s definitely unsure where this is going. Her eyes dart away from his, clearly uncomfortable now by the turn in conversation.

“I know this is a little out of pocket, but I was wondering what you like?”

"Wha-what I like?”

Fucking Manny.

Prima glances around. “Is this a joke? You know April Fools’ is tomorrow, right?” she asks.

"Sorry, I never had much in the way of charisma,” he tells her and shoots her a grin. “Just wanted to know what some of your interests were.”

She’s clearly not buying it. Link can’t blame her. He did not come in here with a plan. Not that… well, whatever nonsense he’s doing with Manny is actually important. Link sees the panic on her face, clearly scrambling to come up with anything to tell him. “Uh, restless crickets,” she says at last.

They both know she’s lying.

Restless crickets. How stupid. But okay. Sure. Cool.

"Nice. Thanks for checking the messages. I’ll stop by later for it.”

Prima, confused, weirded out by his behavior, and utterly relieved for him to be leaving, picks her newspaper back up to hide behind it again as Link steps out. Following up for Manny definitely killed him on asking anything about Tetra or Zelda Nohansen.

Fucking Manny.

He strolls past Manny under the apple tree. “Restless crickets,” Link tells him with a wink.

Poor Prima.

Manny nods.

“You keep checkin’?”

Manny nods again.

Good man.

With that, Link takes off into town.

::

It’s late morning when Link returns, alcohol blissfully in hand to replenish the flask, and he stops in to check in with Prima since he finds Manny suspiciously not at his post under the apple tree. Fucking Manny. Seemingly having brushed off their awkward conversation from earlier this morning, Prima cordially greets him and lets him know that the message he was expecting did arrive.

Score!

Link thanks her and takes the telegram print out. He reads it as he walks back to his room.

From

CASTLETON, CASTLETON
233 S. WACKER DR

31 MARCH 1922 AC 10:02 AM CENTRAL STANDARD

Received

HATENO, NECLUDA
25 BURLINGTON RD

31 MARCH 1922 AC 11:06 AM EASTERN STANDARD

COUTTS –(STOP)-
NO DOG BOOKS INSTEAD YOU HAVE CALL MORROW 19:00

NOHANSEN

Fuck.

But just as Link thinks his luck can’t turn around, Farore smiles down on him, and the door two down from his opens up. Out bursts first the little puppy that had clambered for his attention. The puppy, remembering him, bolts at him and excitedly dances on his back legs for his attention once more.

"Oh, I’m sorry again,” Tetra says coming out from the room and rushing over to collect the dog. “And hello,” she greets, a bit sheepish as a light flush creeps over her cheeks and nose. She tries to shoo the dog down, but then the puppy rips off away. “AH!” But she only goes one step further before he comes flying back towards them. And then right past again.

Link quickly bends down and grabs the zooming pup by the collar and scruff of the neck on his next pass. “Like an absolute cannon,” he laughs at the dog, who wiggles now in his grip.

Then he thanks the lucky stars for this hyperactive pup, because just like he thought, the dog is just the in that he needs. Stuffing the telegram print out into his pocket, he tells the brunette, “You have to teach them how to relax, but it takes time.”

"Oh,” she says with slight surprise, and she scoops up the dog from him into her arms. “I honestly had no idea.”

"It doesn’t come easy,” he tells her, and she listens with rapt attention. “You have to keep working at it. Give them treats and praise when they’re calm or at least when they’re still. If you get them to sit still or lie down, eventually they relax. They don’t ever really get what relaxing is, but you give them the tools, so to speak.”

“I see. You know, I never had a dog before,” she admits, soaking in his advice appreciatively. Her pale cheeks bloom into a deeper pink. “He just kind of… fell into my life here. Another guest saw him wandering along the road,” and she nods over to that grass patch that separates the inn’s lot from the road, “but I don’t think anyone’s looking for him. I keep looking and there’s no missing ads or signs.” The pink now fully blossoms into a hot, deep blush that creeps further across her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I’m rambling,” she says as the blush stretches out to the tips of her long ears.

“It’s fine.”

"So do you, um, know a lot about dogs?” she asks.

“Grew up in the country. Kept guardian dogs, but they weren’t really my responsibility,” Link says. “Lots of things from the woods like to come out for the livestock and crops.”

Tetra chews her lip. “Link, right?” she asks, remembering his name.

“Mm-hm.”

Exasperation is written over her face. “Do they ever stop peeing so much?” she asks.

Link doesn’t stop himself and lets out another laugh. “Give it a bit more time. Couple months at most. Looks like you got an Ordonian though.”

This perks her up, a whole light exploding in her face. “OH! So you know them?” she asks brightly, and she’s seemingly fascinated when he admits that, yeah, he’s originally from Ordon.

She shifts her weight on her feet and adjusts the dog in her arms. His black, overly large ears bounce about with the movement. She complains, “He’s getting so heavy these days.”

The pup is pretty heavy as is, Link thinks. Dense little guy. Maybe a stone, which is surprising for his small size. “They’re bred to herd and keep the goats and cattle in line,” Link says, thinking back to his younger years out in little Ordon. “Real smart little buggers, too. They’ll jump on the backs of livestock if need be to herd them where they need to go.” When a fleeting look panic flashes on her face, he assures her, chuckling, “They have a lot of energy, but he’ll calm down eventually. He’s just got puppy energy right now.”

She nods. She smiles down at the little pup, scratching his head. His long, perky ears shake. Link’s breath catches in throat. Like glass shattering, it all comes tumbling around him in a shower of little puzzle pieces. He doesn’t just suspect now. He’s seen that smile. It’s her. Definitely her. She cut her hair, dyed it, and took a new name. But why? His mind starts to whirl. He motions for her, and she turns that soft smile to him. His stomach wrenches, not believing his luck, because of all the damn places? Might actually get Midna to believe in gut feelings.

Don’t fuck up.

His heart pounds, and he wonders if it could break his sternum.

He wonders.

And wonders.

Would it even hurt?

He walks with her out to the grassy patch, which the dog stubbornly refuses to touch still as she bombards him with questions on dogs. The pup won’t go on the grass still, which makes Link laugh a little despite the anxiety beating on him. Shyly, her hands on her pink cheeks, she explains to Link, “He hates the rain. Doesn’t like his feet getting wet either.” She sighs. “It’s honestly driving me up the wall.” Her cheeks flushing even more out of sheer embarrassment at this point, she tells him, “I think it was you that was laughing at us before, right?”

Link chuckles. “Stubborn little man,” he says, watching the dog pace the edge of the inn’s lot, clearly hoping there’s a patch of grass not soiled by foul moisture that will attack his delicate, sweet, little feet. That simply cannot happen. He might be a while, Link both laments and celebrates, because he’s eager but needs to think. He also thinks, looking up at the clouds rolling above that it might rain, so maybe the pup will hurry it along if he feels the first hits of a spring drizzle.

She watches the pup, waiting for him to go, and Link watches her, waiting for… something. The oval face. The smile. The eyes. The pale skin. The gut punch. He feels her pictographs burning in his coat pocket, but he has no need to reference them now to make sure it’s the same person. He knows it deep in his gut that it’s her. Cut her long fair locks, dyed them a milky chocolate, and then she got a new name to not be recognized. He puts his hands in his pockets. He ponders how if she’s moving about so freely, this can’t be something orchestrated by someone else. And what he’s gathered from Manny is that she’s likely alone apart from the dog. So he’d been right about her trying to disappear on her own. That’s all he can conclude. So it goes back to the why? The letter. The mirror. The fiancé. What?

She comes from old money, and she wears nice clothes from fancy designers in the pictos in his pocket – according to Midna at least, since he knows next to nothing about designers. He is at least well aware of quality differences. She seems to have thought of that angle when she thought to dye her hair. Eyeing her clothes, they’re simple pieces with no frivolous design work or stitching. The fabric isn’t exactly the high thread count you’d expect from expensive designer pieces, so she got a new wardrobe at some point to better hide. The cloche hat and frock she wears are woolen, to keep the early spring chill off her bones. Not a lot of details to the structuring either. His eyes travel down. Those aren’t silk stockings, he thinks. Must be rayon with the way they wrinkle a little at the tops of her feet. They’re a bit too shiny for silk as well. Silk has that soft luster to it. Her heels are a bit worn, too, maybe something she picked up second hand.

He's a bit impressed.

Twenty-one or not, she’s thought about this pretty thoroughly.

Cutting off her long locks for the short bob, too, was a smart move. It’s a fashionable and common haircut among young women these days. Women like Midna, who keeps her hair long and also tends to wear it down, are more noticeable (flaming red color aside in Midna’s case), but Link can’t think he’s seen a young woman down here with long hair. If they did have long hair, they’d done the work to style it so it looked like the short bobs. The bob hidden under the cloche she wears makes her blend in all the better. Just another young woman people won’t think twice about.

Her nose wrinkles when she thinks the dog will finally go, but he’s stubborn and hasn’t given up hope yet for dry grass. She glances at Link when the dog continues on and rolls her eyes at the pup. Link’s heart makes an extra hard thump.

Silly.

Her eyebrows, he realizes. Too light to be a natural brunette, of course, and he thinks that maybe she darkened them a bit with makeup. He chides himself for not noticing that sooner. It’s a good indicator that her hair is dyed like he thinks it is.

He didn’t think when looking at the pictos and hearing Nohansen’s description that her green eyes would be so vivid though. He thinks that they have a deep kindness to them that Link wishes he’d had himself sometimes.

His mouth is dry for a drink.

“What’s your dog’s name?” he asks, trying to soothe his frayed nerves, lower the volume of the blood pumping in his head so he can think. Fuck. What’s he to do?

She giggles a little, sending him reeling. “Courage.”

He’d be dumb to try and confront her at this moment. Like… really? Out in the open? Here? She could run. Hell, she would run. She definitely, absolutely, totally would run. She disappeared on her own accord for a reason, and Link would be immediate threat to whatever freedom she thinks she’s achieved here. He glances at the wide road leads into the town center one way and up the outer hills of Hateno the other. It’s too open for him to catch her, and even if he did then what? She’d probably fight, and there could be eyes like Manny watching, and if she gets into the busier areas of town… it’d mean more people. More eyes. Link isn’t sure he could outpace her on a prosthetic either, and the thought of sprinting after her alone makes his stump ache in protest. Forget possible jail time here.

Oh, but the dog!

There’s the dog though? Would she leave the dog behind if it came to it? Or would she try to fight him to grab the dog and then run? If he positions himself between her and the dog, he’d force that decision on her, but it’s risky. Stupid leg. He’d be back in that position where she either fights and runs or just plain runs, and he doesn’t have two full legs.

Link considers that the question of why is still unanswered though. Why she felt the need to disappear would be pivotal in turning a non-physical confrontation his way and maybe prevent escalation to the point of her bolting off. But he doesn’t know that still, so trying to reason with her to head off her running from him probably isn’t going to work.

Ugh. This is messy. He hates that.

In contrast to his heavy thinking, he says lightly, “Bit unusual, yeah? Courage.”

“Ah, but he’s anything but, ironically,” she laughs. Very much at ease. “Scared of everything, I mean,” she clarifies.

He has to trap her like a damn rat. No good. Nope.

He wonders if she’s a fighter after all.

Eh, some people don’t know they are until push comes to shove.

So missing leg and all… can he take her? It would be game over if she manages to mess with his prosthetic. She doesn’t know he’s missing a leg, but it’s not something he could guarantee he can hide in a scuffle.

Link’s eyes follow the dog as he keeps desperately looking for dry grass. Still time to think at least.

He’d fare better though with his leg if running is completely taken out of the equation.

His mind keeps turning, feeling heavy and weighted despite the extremely light and easy conversation he’s having with her. The answer is there, but he doesn’t want to do it. Doesn’t want to acknowledge it.

He can’t just waste time either. Can’t spend forever trying to mosey up to her to earn enough trust for a more amicable confrontation. He’s got bills to pay back in Castleton after all. Her father is clearly antsy. If he’s following the letter of their contract, her father wants her found, but the spirit of it is to bring her home.

And if she flies off on him, he’s back to square one with her.

He really doesn’t like this. Any of it.

He also doesn’t like the idea of letting her old man down. In part because he’s kind of feeling like a bleeding heart for the poor man, since he was in absolute shambles when they’d met at Link’s office, but also her family is old money. And that means influence. Lots of influence. He has a less than stellar reputation to start with thanks to the booze (if we’re being honest), but as Nohansen had implied on their first meeting, it’s also known that he gets the job done, and there’s his little gold star. Bit of a hot mess but would pay him to stalk someone again. A+.

The puppy finally accepts there is no dry blade of grass to be found and pees, once again at the edge of the lot, not daring to touch the grass.

He sighs to himself, feeling the whole situation as one big, daunting mess, and he’s running out of time. If Zelda Nohansen disappeared of her own volition, she likely would never willingly return to Lanayru University or Castleton then. She left for a reason, an unknown reason, a messy reason for a messy situation. He’s running out of time.

Fuck.

He really can’t think of anything else. Link decides that he has to trap her like some wild animal. He has to contain her before anything else. She’s not likely to go down without swinging either. She’s got a lot of moxie to make herself disappear after all, so she must be spunky enough to get her hands dirty if need be. But she’s a little thing, not overly tall but still willowy almost. No distinct muscles that he can tell through her clothing like some well trained Gerudo fighter, but ugh, gods, that also doesn’t mean she can’t clock him good.

The flip flopping in his brain is making him sick.

She’s a bit of a nerd though, would she have had time to learn to fight?

Link wonders if scrapping about at port with other sailors is an actual advantage or not. Ah, but… he did have two legs then, too.

Farore.

The brown haired Zelda, who masquerades as a Tetra, picks up little Courage once more in her arms. She huffs with effort as she jostles him up close to her chest.

Link feels his heart slam in his chest again. It’s almost painful the way it reverberates through him, bouncing between ribs, and rolling over flesh. For a wild, dumb moment, as it ripples through his muscles and bones and right to his core, he’s convinced it’s love.

Oh, now that’s real stupid.

Get it together.

She asks him, “So um, are you staying in Hateno long?”

Probably not now, he thinks to himself wryly. “It depends,” he says, trying to hide his nervousness. (can’t think can’t think can’t think can’t think) “Out here on a job I’m working on. What about you?” He asks with feigned skepticism, “Holiday out to Necluda Sea this time of year?” That’s insane, for one, since who wants to swim in frigid March waters? Yeah, it’s warmer here than Castleton, but still. Brr.

“Oh no,” she says, answering him seriously. “I’m just staying here right now… at the, um, inn. I don’t really have an actual place to stay here yet. Like a flat.” She gives him a little shy smile as they walk back across the lot. “Still kind of getting settled in a way.”

"Yet”. Okay. So she was planning something long haul? Coooool, definitely decided to just bounce off by her own choice, Link thinks, because she really must have planned to just kill Zelda Nohansen off and be someone new if she’s thinking of permanent arrangements in Hateno like getting a flat to live in.

They’d reached his room by this point, and Link’s out of ideas and out of time, but she’s invested enough in their conversation to stop at his door with him. Plus one point, way to go, old sport. There’s still some apprehension in her posture, though he’s sure she’s no idea all the stormy, tumultuous thoughts that have been raging in his head this whole time. She’s just trying to think how to end their conversation. And that shyness she displays is one he’s grown to be cognizant of. He’s not the dumb, ignorant kid he once was.

So what is wrong with him? Why can’t he think? The blood pumps painfully loud and clear in his veins (surely, she must hear it?), but he stamps it down. Link steadies himself, suddenly feeling light-headed and unbalanced on his prosthetic. He tries his best to keep his voice even when he speaks next. “I see,” he says taking out his room key, pleased that his fingers don’t shake and give him away to her. It slides in the lock with ease, and the lack of resistance in the lock makes her relax a bit more. Just another sign that he belongs here. He’s no threat. Just another traveler. “Just upped and moved out here then?” he asks.

Time’s ticking.

Do something! Damn.

"A little while ago. Thought a change of scenery would be nice,” she lies smoothly and easily. Practiced almost. “Just got this urge to get out of my dumb life and do something different.” If he hadn’t known the actual facts at hand, he would have been convinced that was the real truth of the matter.

Tch. Change of scenery. Yeah. Alright. SURE. Okay.

She’s still here, amazingly, and it strikes Link to wonder if maybe she had that same startling spark seeing him from the first time that he felt when he saw her in the picto and in person. He’s not sure if such a fleeting connection is enough.

Don’t be stupid, he reminds himself.

He'll just have to make do. No other way.

“Nothing better than being close to the sea,” he quips to her cheerfully. His door cracks open. “I think you made a good choice. Hateno’s a nice place, good weather.”

She’s choosing to linger. On purpose. Nothing accidental about it.

That’s a mistake, love.

Looking up at him, innocent smile on her face (too much like those pictos he has of her), there’s a pleased, friendly glint to her eyes, and maybe she mistakes his own lingering hesitation outside his unlocked and slightly opened door as some sign of mutual attraction. Link steels himself. He’s disarmed her for the moment at least. “Yeah? You think?” she replies, and he thinks this is all very wrong and a very, very, very bad idea. But he’s going to go through with it. Because he’s stupid. The trusting ease that’s grown in her demeanor over their conversation makes him feel guilty, makes him hesitant slightly, but, hey, maybe she can forgive him.

"Nah.”

And he yanks Tetra, Zelda – whoever the hell she and the dog are - into his room.

Chapter Text

She shakes on the bed, clutching Courage to her chest. Fear washing over her like a great oceanic tide, but there was nothing that alarmed her about this man. Why was there nothing being said about him? So many opportunities that she’d just been met with silence over. He quickly locks up the door, grabs the chair that’s sat by the window and pulls it towards him. He sits in the chair, studying her, and she’s painfully aware that he sits between her and the door. She’s not just walking out, so why is there nothing?

The bathroom?

There’s a window in the bathroom. Could she make it and get both her and Courage out? But it’s small. It’d take too much time to get through, and that’s why he’s unconcerned about it. The easiest exit is the door he’s actively blocking. The larger window by the door is a better option than the bathroom, but still, he’s right there so there’s no hopping out there.

She’s trapped.

She feels even the puppy shake in her arms. Or is that just her, too?

She swallows the hard lump in her throat. Why? Even now, there’s not a peep. Not a single one? It’s too quiet. WHY IS IT SO QUIET?

Getting yourself worked up there, Princess? comes the sleepy response. Did it just YAWN of all things? Guess it makes sense. Handsome young man and all. Looks fit. Nice choice. Approval granted.

NOT that.

She also definitely does not need another’s approval either, thank you very much.

So stubborn. Now you’re just being silly.

… Silly? SILLY?

Her breath shudders.

She’d just been kidnapped, trapped with this (not so) strange man and BY THE GODS SHE’S SILLY?

Don’t lie, Princess. You’re being dramatic. Not what you want.

LIE??

Don’t most girls dream of getting swept off their feet? Oh! Isn’t there that story where a beast keeps a young woman hostage in his castle?

THIS ISN’T THAT!

Denial is hell of a drug. Maybe you need a drink. The beauty married the beast in the end, right? What’s a little hostage situation? Live a little.

This has to be some sick joke.

You don’t like a little spice of danger?

It’s definitely a sick joke.

We don’t joke about the fine things in life, Princess. Don’t be gauche.

She. Is. Not. Thank you very much.

For some reason, her mind latches onto another old fairytale. A mermaid, desperate to impress a prince she’d rescued from the sea, makes a deal with a sea witch for legs to walk the land to him and be his bride. But in exchange for it, sacrifices her voice and every step she takes is like walking on hot, sharp knives. Such a painful existence, and the dumbass prince thinks another saved his life, so hey, he marries that woman instead. All that painful alteration just for him, and he goes off and marries another, triggering the sea witch’s curse. She turned to sea foam.

Your point?

SEA. FOAM.

Maybe don’t make deals with sea witches then.

Maybe, she doesn’t need to listen. She’s not going to let herself be turned into sea foam.

Dramatic.

He says nothing to her, just watching, studying. That easy air of casual kindness from him that left her with a strange sense familiarity she couldn’t place before is gone from him. No gentleness to be found in his face anymore. His steely expression and sudden rigidness is intimidating. Eventually she finds her voice. “Who are you?” Quieter than she meant. Too much like a squeak. Too weak.

“Could ask you the same,” he says simply but sharply. It’s cutting.

“I asked you first,” she whispers.

He shrugs. “Link.”

She swallows. “No, really. Who are you? Don’t lie to me.”

Silly girl. You don’t need his name. You could jus-

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHU-

“Link.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Finally, he breaks eye contact with her. It breaks whatever spell is over her, and she feels like she can at least exhale. He digs around in his coat pocket and pulls out a leather bifold wallet. He yanks a card out of it and tosses it on the bed towards her. When he doesn’t make any more moves and she’s sure he won’t… like… strangle her or something, she reaches out to grab it, still clutching little Courage to her chest.

She looks at the card, then at the man, and back again. It’s a driver’s license. He’s the same man as the picto on the card to her surprise.

LINK COUTTS
DOB: 21/06/1895
300 N STATE ST UNIT 303
CASTLETON 20500

So his name really is Link?

Oh, oh, look, and he’s ooolderrr-

Stunned, she blurts, “Why didn’t you lie about your name?”

Link pulls out from his coat the small flask she’d seen before. This time, without pause, he undoes the cap, and shrugs. “Why lie?”

“This is, well, kidnapping!”

“By all means, scream louder then.”

Utterly unconcerned. Where fear had washed over her to drown her in a stormy ocean just minutes before, sizzled to almost nothing under the white hot spark of anger that strikes her. And he was making jokes?

What’s wrong? Don’t like a man with a good sense of humor? Maybe if we get to talking, he could appreciate-

This wasn’t a sense of humor, it was- it was-

SICK.

Did we not agree to not be dramatic?

After receiving nothing in response from her except a strained look torn between the fear, the confusion, and the fury, Link takes a sip from the flask and says, “So why don’t we play a questions game, Zelda?”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, that’s your turn,” he says teasing. He caps the flask, slips it in his pants pocket and shrugs off his coat. “Mine: What exactly are you doing down in Necluda instead of sitting your butt in those very expensive classes you’re signed up for at Lanayru University?”

Wait.

He’d called her Zelda.

She didn’t deny.

He knew he got her hook and line then. The smirk on his face told her so.

She brings her other hand back up to hold Courage, the nervous little leaf he is. Her knuckles pale as she clutches the man’s license tighter.

Thank Nayru, Courage had just peed outside, she thinks offhand. She might’ve needed a change of clothes otherwise.

And this man knew she was supposed to be in Domain City.

She can’t meet his eyes. They’re too knowing and strange. She answers him all the same. “I can’t be found, and I’d be very easy to find at school.”

She doesn’t elaborate, and unexpectedly, Link doesn’t push for further details. “Okay. Your turn,” he tells her instead.

Zelda tries to swallow, but her mouth is too dry. “Um, could I have some water, please?” she croaks.

“You’re really bad at this,” he deadpans and rises from his seat. “No sudden movements.” And Zelda swears for a second she hears the whisper of the word “Princess” there, and it makes her stomach churn over in a nauseating flop. She stays rooted to her spot on the bed as Link walks to the bathroom, grabbing a small cup from his nightstand. She notices that the light in the bathroom is already on. When he quirks an eyebrow at her as he passes, she stubbornly looks away. She doesn’t look at him, but she can feel him watching her as he fills the glass from the bathroom tap, making sure she doesn’t try to escape.

He holds out the glass for her, patiently waiting for her to take it, and eventually when Zelda feels she’s relaxed enough to loosen her hold on Courage, she takes the glass from him. She thanks him softly but reminds herself that momentary kindness can mean nothing. He hasn’t hurt her yet. And it’s a big yet.

Some people ask for that, you know.

Her cheeks flush hot again.

“You know, I don’t think that brown’s your color,” he comments idly, turning away from her.

Zelda looks around the room a little more carefully now. Courage relaxes a bit himself but stays glued to her lap. License card, still in hand, she rests that one on his back, stroking his black fur the best she can with her hand fisted. “Hey so-”

“Ooo,” he chides her, “you used your turn.” Link plops back down in the chair, once again blocking the exit. That casualness he has is returning a bit, and it’s enough to take the edge off the intimidation. She rolls her eyes and then takes a long sip from the glass, trying to down the simmering panic in her. She wrinkles her nose. The water in Necluda definitely doesn’t taste like it does back in Castleton or Domain. She misses home. “I have to ask, you’d have had to run out of funds by now from what I understand if you’ve been living out of an inn for… what? Like two-ish months at least? Plus getting a dog? Where have you been getting money from?”

“Well, I did get a job,” she answers to her glass. She hates how meek she sounds.

Link snorts. “No way you did as Zelda Nohansen.”

And he’s right. “Tetra Bosphoramus did.” Without further prompt from him, she adds, “I had the whole thing done. Faked a new birth certificate, license, grade school records... Everything, you know. What I would need to be Tetra for the rest of my life basically… if need be.”

Link nods, taking another sip from his flask, and she realizes that while he’s thinking over her answer, he’s also waiting on her. She stares at the flask. “You always carry that?”

“Yeah, basically,” he admits. Almost a bit too readily. Since she treated him to some extra information, Link apparently decides that he’ll return the favor for it. “Served in the Navy during the war. I was on the King of Red Lions.” He wiggles his jaw a little till he gets it to crack the way he wants. “Just uh… didn’t come back the same way.”

“A lot of men didn’t.”

“Hard not to if you’ve seen combat.” He said it lightly, too casually, but for Zelda, she hears it a second time in her mind, and it sends a striking shiver up her spine. She could only guess at what war atrocities this man might have seen, even committed himself, and while sympathetic to his self-medication, it sparks that sense of danger in her again. She knows now he’s capable of so much more than she’d thought originally. Yet, why is there still such silence?

King of Red Lions though... She’s heard the name before, but it’s not her turn, so Zelda keeps turning it over, trying to remember where she’d heard it. What it is specifically, even.

“So what’s your favorite food?”

“What?”

“Favorite food,” he repeats. He cracks a smile at her. She thinks he may have meant to disarm her with the question, but- well, she supposes it did. Disarm. Distract. Unnerve her. And the stupid grin isn’t helping.

“Fruitcake.”

From the brief confusion that flickers on his face, he didn’t know that was going to be her answer. At least he doesn’t know everything. He mutters “fruitcake” to himself as if to commit it to memory. “Why fruitcake?” The question is to himself rather than to her, but if he wants to play games… well.

Just games? You could take it up a notch. Let’s do it! It’ll be real fun real fun real fun-

With a sharp inhale, Zelda draws herself. “That’s cheating. Isn’t it only one question at a time?”

“It is,” he concedes. “But that was yours.” Now she’s just irritated. Mostly since she should have seen that coming, or that he won’t truly play by his own rules. “So why fruitcake?” he asks again.

Zelda glances around the room once more, at a loss. Wanting to scream. Wanting to strangle him. What is going on? “I thought being kidnapped would be a lot more sinister,” she says instead and growing more unsure than terrified about the situation.

Link, as if to tease her, makes a big show of considering that. “I mean, if you’d prefer, I could tie you up,” he suggests. It irks her that he’s careful to keep it as a statement. Bastard. “Or,” he says with emphasis, “send a super spooky, mysterious letter to your old man.”

She bristles.

“Who are you really?” she asks. “And not your name. Like what are you doing here? Your purpose.”

“Oh no, no. You still have to answer for fruitcake.”

She huffs, exasperated. “I just.. do?”

“Oh come on, that’s not an answer,” he teases. The wide grin on his face completely transforms his demeanor. She could almost believe that he’s some carefree man, and not one that she felt threatened with by a mere look.

Oh, don’t lie to yourself.

He waves a hand around. “I mean, I got to redeem myself here after that incredibly awful exchange I had with Prima earlier. ‘What do you like?’” he laughs to himself.

“Prima?”

“You know, the woman that runs the front desk.”

A little embarrassed now, she admits, “Oh, I didn’t know.”

“She’s wearing a name tag.”

And she’s been living here for weeks. She should’ve known.

“Well, it’s not like that hard, gross Yule fruitcake,” Zelda says. “It’s the one with the sponge cake layers. And- and whipped topping. Impa, our housekeeper, always made it for me for my birthday. She’d put strawberries between the cake layers, and she’d top it with whatever fruits she could get like blueberries.”

“Wow, blueberries in the fall.”

He knows her birthday, too. She finds that annoying.

“How exactly did you find me?”

“Ah, you asked me who I was,” he reminds her. “I’m a private investigator. Nothing nefarious.” He pauses, considering their current situation, and then amends, “Mostly.” He pulls the flask out and drinks again from it. “Basically your old man hired me back in late January when you hadn’t shown up for your classes still. He’s got a case open with the constables, but well, we all know how they can be in Castleton sometimes.

“But I’ll allow a twofer for you,” he says with good humor. Stupid smug bastard. “Finding you was mostly dumb luck. People’s memories are so fragile and easy to manipulate. I hung out in Domain City for a while - I’m sure you could assume - chatting up your classmates, particularly from your dorm, but also people in and around Domain Station. Unfortunately for you, I found the one guy that remembered you hopped a train southbound and didn’t remember wrong. Guesswork from there.”

“Not Ruto Spratt,” she groans suddenly. “Please say you didn’t talk to her.” Ruto probably has the biggest mouth in all of Hyrule.

Link huffs a bit, laughing. “A friend, right?” She nods. “I didn’t really take names,” he says, unedningly amused by the embarrassment and horror on her face.

He clucks his tongue. “Probably should have considered one of the spots closer to the beach instead of the station here.” Link shrugs one shoulder. “For future reference.”

“O’ wise one,” she grumbles, but he takes it in stride, laughing at her.

“Got about five years on you.”

“All in the experience?” She kicks herself. That was a question, and judging by the glint in his eyes, he caught it, too.

“Of course not,” he says quickly. “Really that’s just what you get for not putting your shoes in sport mode.”

“Ah, yes, I did not have them in sport mode.”

“Could have been a clean getaway otherwise.”

“Appreciate the advice.”

Well, she supposes, he’s not out to stab her. She falls back on the pillows, jostling the puppy, who’d managed to settle and fall asleep. He stretches, his little fox like tail slowly wagging.

“You want to talk about that letter you got?”

“Not really.”

“Fair enough.” He’s trying to be gracious with her, but she feels the stirring of some sort of trap.

As I recall, you were a bit too ready to walk into his trap earlier.

She drinks her water as Courage plops forward to sleep again next to her. He must not have checked in too long ago. His bags are still mostly packed, with only a few essentials scattered. A couple bottles of whisky sit on the dresser. Oddly, the closet doors are completely open. Another glance over to the bathroom, she sees the shower curtain pulled open wide. The strangest thing to her though is that every possible light in the room is on, despite it being the middle of the day, with natural light still readily flowing through and around the drawn curtains.

Well, if he can cut her a break, Zelda decides she could do the same and not ask about the actual situation at hand. “May I ask why your room is like this? Lights all on, everything open.”

He tilts his head to the side a bit. “I’m going to break the rules here a little,” he says with a heaviness that she didn’t expect. It dampens the light and airy mood he had about him when he was joking and teasing her before. “Do you recall at all the King of Red Lions?”

“You got me. I was trying to think of where I’d heard the name before.”

“King of Red Lions was one of the more infamous Hyrulean submarines. Sank about six years back.” He swallows. Drinks. Eyes downcast, and somberness in his tone, he goes on. “We’d been submerged for as long as possible, and while still knowing there were likely enemy Yiga about, we had to resurface. Oxygen when you’re down under in the depths of the sea is so precious. You have about 36 hours give or take, and we were coming up on it. Heard it hit on the sonar too late, and we struck a mine on the descent up.

“Funny,” he says with a shaky breath. Clearly there’s nothing funny at all. “My very infuriating assistant has been needling me about the drinking a lot more lately.” He shakes his flask. “Said that maybe I should talk about the war more. Might do me some good.”

“And is it?”

He shrugs. “What I’ve told her and what I’ve told you are all I’ve really said about it. To answer your question though, I don’t like the dark.”

She blinks.

This makes him laugh again. “Yeah, she didn’t get it either.” He sniffs, his expression sobering again. “See, when you’re submerged that long, hiding from enemies, you don’t get the luxury of lighting up the sub. Power must be conserved.”

Oh…

“I’m sorry.” And it’s genuine. Stupid. She probably should have known. In hindsight, it seems obvious that a shell shocked war vet would have some quirks borne from trauma. “I really had no idea. That was insensitive, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Don’t worry about it.” His was soft once more.

He rises from the chair, moving it back to where he’d had it by the window.

“Why don’t you have the curtains open then to let the light fully in?”

His expression is inscrutable, but somewhere in there, she sees his humor again. “Now you’re just asking me to be vulnerable.”

She giggles at this.

Wait, the door-

She yelps, startled, water sloshing from her glass, when he flops down on the bed next to her on the left. Courage, also disturbed from the sudden earthquake, wakes and begins complaining, but he rolls over on his back and squirms a little and is right back off to dreamland. A paw twitches.

“You can go, if you want,” he says. “Not trying to go to prison or nothing.”

“Seriously?”

“Very sealious.”

“Are you making a seal pun?”

“What else is serving in the Navy good for?”

She looks over at the dog, already back to snoring.

“Please don’t tell anyone.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to be found.”

“Why?”

She smacks him this time, albeit lightly.

“People are after me, because I bought this mirror at an auction,” she says, stopping short. “Hold on.” Zelda reaches over and sets her glass down, scooting off of the bed. Courage snores again, stirring slightly when he snorts. She hands Link back his license at last and turns to leave.

True to his word, he doesn’t stop her from leaving the room. She has the brief thought she could run off right this moment, but then… well she’d leave the dog behind. She wonders if he thought of that and walks down to her own room, huddling into her coat.

And stops.

A man dressed in mustard yellow is leaning against the apple tree across the way. Watching.

And yet, once again, not a peep. All quiet on the front.

Nervous still, she continues to her room to retrieve her bag. She, too, keeps her stuff mostly packed. Just in case. She’d never know when she’d need to leave, right? Stepping back outside of the room with her bag in hand, the man under the tree watches her still.

Still there’s silence.

So maybe not like a Bad Guy™ but just a weirdo. Both of them.

She double checks the lock on her door though. Just in case.

Walking back into Link’s room, he sits up a little, somewhat surprised by the sight of her luggage in hand. “What? Moving in already?” he asks. “Look, you should know, there’s optics. I can’t possibly have my virtue in question.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Hey, I’m not rich like you. I can’t be going around ruining my marriage prospects.”

“Oh? Got a girl?”

“Nah, just a spitfire of an assistant.”

“She pretty?” Zelda asks, opening up her bag.

“Very,” he says. Then: “She’s got the most unbelievable red hair. But ugh- she’s so mean.” Something about that makes Zelda giggle again. The tone. The joke. She doesn’t know. “I don’t think I’m up for a lifetime of getting a verbal beat down,” he says honestly.

“So you admire her looks, but not so much the personality?”

“Oh don’t get me wrong, I do admire the personality. She puts up with me after all. Got that strong… abrasive like personality. She gets shit done.” He sits up again to look at her. Zelda comes round to sit back on the bed with a large canvas bag in hand. “Hey, you’re smart.”

“Am I?”

“I snooped around your room.”

“Right,” she says with some exasperation.

“In university. Studying… nerdy stuff at home.” She folds her hands waiting for him to ask his question. “You really think those like parallel universes or alternate timelines and… whatever exist?”

“It’s possible,” she says. “And honestly after the last couple of months, I think it more and more true.”

She looks at him, and while he’s looking at her, she can tell he’s looking through her.

Eventually he stirs from his deep thought and finishes the topic. “I’d never survive her here,” he says almost like a whisper. More jovially, he jokes, “Maybe we’re together in one of your parallel worlds.”

“That’s also possible.”

He hums, and she can see him reconsidering immediately. “I suppose if that were true, one of us is dead then. Probably me. Or you know, at least we’d be halfway there fighting.”

She chuckles. “Your assistant must indeed have a strong personality. What’s her name?”

“Midna. She’s like a steel fortress. Totally impenetrable.” Link clicks his tongue. “You could cut yourself just looking at her.”

“Then what are you looking for?” she asks him so boldly.

“I lost track of the turns, but I know you’re going twice.”

Zelda rolls her eyes, and she begins untying the knot cinching the bag closed. “I thought you’d called the game off when you let me leave.”

He grunts, watching her struggle with the tight knot she’d made. “I guess, I don’t know. Need someone softer? More understanding. Be sober.”

“You or the gal?”

“Both, I suppose.” He looks at her face now as she frees knot. “That’s like one of them steps right?”

“I couldn’t say. I’m not a drunk.”

“Tch, burn.”

“You know, you don’t look drunk,” she tells him.

Are we taking advantage of an indisposed man?

“That’s because the real trick is being some level of drunk all the time.”

“And you just… go to work and... everything completely sloshed?”

“Being sober means being left alone with myself,” he says as if that’s the most obvious answer in the world, and how could she not get that? She doesn’t understand though. But she also didn’t go to war and survive a sinking submarine.

They fall silent as he waits for her to open the bag. For her part, she feels that nervousness prickling again. She licks her lips.

“Um.” Ooo, she hates the way it makes her shake. “Were you looking out the window before?”

“Hm?” He glances over at the chair. “Oh yeah. After I thought that maybe I recognized you, but you didn’t come out again for me to catch.

“This little meet cute here was unplanned,” he clarifies.

Isn’t that the point of a meet cute?

We could arrange something else more daring, if you prefer.

She ignores his flirtatiousness. “There was a man outside watching me,” she tells him, and she pulls out the mirror from the bag.

Link’s mood shifts palpably upon seeing the mirror, and all focus is on it. The joking gone once more, and a more heavy seriousness falls about him. She turns and presents the shard to him. “Do you know what this is?”

“Twilight mirror,” he breathes, immediately caught up with it like she had been. An insect in the mirror’s web. “Oh shit, you really did get the real thing.”

“Wait, what do you mean? How do you know it’s the real thing?”

“You, uh, don’t feel it?”

Zelda licks her lips again. “You mean the pull?”

“Yeah.”

“Magnetic, almost, right?”

Link doesn’t reply, but his mesmerized gaze tells her everything.

“It um…” she wiggles a little, feeling stupid to admit it, “talks to me?”

Link looks up to her face now. His brow pulls tight.

“Like, I hear a voice. Ever since the auction. Like it was calling to me then, just begging for me to buy it. And you know, now, I can’t stop hearing the damn thing.”

He looks back down at the mirror shard in her hands. “Well, I don’t hear anything. What sort of things does it say to you?”

“I- I don’t know.”

That’s the way to do it, Princess. Just lie.

“You know how people will… like… talk about a devil on your shoulder?” She struggles to find her words. “Kind of like that, I guess?”

Come on, now. Don’t you want a good time? It’d be so easy, so easy-

“It’s uhm, ugh.” She scoffs. She tries to shake it out of her head. “It’s really annoying sometimes.” She adds, “Especially annoying right now.”

And suddenly there’s a mischievous gleam in Link’s eyes that she just doesn’t care for. No, sir. Not one bit.

You’re just spoiling it for yourself, you know, Princess.

“But… uhm, I’m trusting you,” Zelda says, with more strength behind her words than anything else she’s said to him before. “When there’s something amiss, it does warn me. I mean, it has actually talked about you quite a bit, but,” she sighs, “not to warn me away from you or anything like that. I guess it doesn’t see you as a threat. If that makes sense.

“It’s just been annoying instead today. No alarms.”

“Oh, but now I’m curious, you got to tell me the hot tea it’s spilling about me.”

Know what goes good with tea? Honeeeeey-

“Shut up!” she hisses at the mirror.

“Chatterbox?”

She looks at him, a bit startled, but neither of their expressions betray anything. Or so she hopes so on her side.

She didn’t mean to speak aloud there.

The stupid mirror sometimes feels more like an utterly embarrassing parent, teasing her. It’s like torture. At least with her father in her younger years, she could screech she hated him and slam her bedroom like the petulant child she was. She can’t get away from the mirror though.

“I was expecting more of a fight from you, to be honest. Like I was ready to be nursing some injuries.”

“Maybe if I didn’t have this damn thing,” she says. Her voice is laced with bitterness. “Would have been a free for all.”

“We wouldn’t be here then.”

Oh. “No, we wouldn’t, would we?” she half-laughs.

“What’s it do when it warns you then?”

She hesitates. “It’s- well it it’s pretty explicit. Like it tells me exactly what to do and where to go when I’ve been in danger. I could do without all the extra sarcasm, I think, but like I said, it’s very clear when I’m in trouble and talking to someone I shouldn’t. It’s not worried about you like that, so… I won’t be.”

He considers her for a bit. Maybe thinking she’s crazy. Who knows? “Alright.”

“I’m not afraid to cut a man,” she says quickly.

“Sure.”

Oh don’t kid yourself, Princess. You’re in trouble alright. Big, big trouble. He wants someone soft. That could be you.

“I’m sorry, I’m putting it away.” Zelda hastily grabs the bag and, still mindful of its delicateness, shoves it in and cinches it closed. With a breathy, shaking laugh, she says, “I feel like sometimes it’s louder uncovered, or the closer I am to it at least. But it never fully goes away.”

Link hums. He glances towards the covered window. “So about the man outside that was watching you,” he starts.

“Yes,” she says with a curt nod. She gets up to put the mirror back in her travel bag. “It’s the same with him, basically. He’s watching me, like definitely watching me, but it says nothing about him to me.”

“Black hair, kind of pudgy, yellow shirt?”

“The man? Yes.”

“Manny,” he says. A mix of annoyance and exasperation hits his face.

“Manny?”

“Yeah. Weird, but harmless, I guess,” Link says.

“You know him?”

Link holds his hands up. “He fell asleep under the tree and with the nighttime cold, I woke the guy up. Does have super weird vibe, I won’t disagree. He’s pretty enamored with Prima, which is why he hangs out there to begin with so much, I suppose.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever noticed him before,” Zelda says. If she didn’t notice him before, who else isn’t she noticing?

“Oh that’s probably my fault.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, he’s out there, checkin’ already, so I asked him about you.”

“Uh, ‘checkin’’?”

“Yep. Checkin’.”

“What uh- what is that?”

“Oh, he says it’s for suspicious people, but he’s checking out Prima’s competition. You apparently qualify for that, by the way, but don’t get too down that you’re not in Prima’s league.” He gives her another cheeky grin and nudges her. “You’re still a dime to me.”

“You set some weirdo to watch me?” she exclaims.

“Well, did you expect me to be checkin’ 24/7 here?”

“Stop using that word!” she snaps, and that hot feeling of her face flushing rolls up her like a tide coming in. That he won’t stop smiling seriously grates on her.

Courage snorts himself awake, but, not ready to wake from his nap, doesn’t move further.

Zelda leans back on the bed once more, just accepting defeat.

They lie there together, side-by-side, feeling the afternoon slipping through their fingers as they stare up at the ceiling. Suddenly feeling more relaxed than she has in months, Zelda feels like she herself could almost doze off. Now that she isn’t concentrating on a conversation with him (or worrying he’s going to stab her), she notices that Link has a sort of woodsy smell to him. Pleasant, she’s loathe to admit. With the occasional whiff of his whisky, too.

Maybe have that little drink yourself, Princess. It’ll loosen you up.

She wretches her eyes shut, trying to find a way to silence that stupid mirror.

Once the room grows darker, the natural light fading away, leaving them to lie under the glow of the room’s electric lights, it’s Zelda that finally speaks. “I apologize,” she says softly into the quiet room. Link hums in a soft response, and she wonders if he nodded off. “Never introduced myself, did I?” She holds out her hand to him, rolling a bit to offer her right, and Link takes it. “Zelda Nohansen.” His hand is warm and calloused, and his grip is firm. But something about it… Zelda can’t pinpoint it as they shake hands. “So weird,” she breathes.

“It is weird,” he agrees, letting go of her hand.

Not realizing she’d said anything at all, Zelda says, “What?”

He turns his head to her. Whisky wafting under her nose. “Do we know each other?” he asks, brow furrowed.

“You’re like five years older than me.”

“You forget I’m actually a country bumpkin,” he says, immediately understanding her. “We wouldn’t have gone to school together even if we were the same age.”

“When did you move to Castleton?”

“Towards the end of the war,” he says. Towards the end? She doesn’t reply, but she wonders why, if he’d been in the Navy, he’d not still have been conscripted to the end? Was it because of the sub sinking? Wouldn’t he have been just reassigned to a new vessel? There was a draft in effect after all.

She turns to look at him fully now and admits, “Your eyes kind of freaked me out before.”

“The heterochromia, right?”

“I guess.” She taps her cheek below her left eye. “The lighter one is very striking.”

“Ah, I see,” he says. “They couldn’t both be same blue or I’d be too powerful.”

Genuinely, they both start to bubble with laughter. Courage, by her feet, groans from the disruption and rolls, which sends them into another fit.

Eventually, when their giggling subsides, Zelda, too, asks, “So do we know each other?”

Link, taking another hard look at her, insists, “No way. Never seen you in my life.”

“Same.”

“Why do we know each other?”

At this, Zelda gasps, startling Link. She puts a hand on his chest. “Parallel world! Maybe we’re like best friends in a parallel world!”

He’s joking, but he says, “Oh, just friends?”

Zelda hears the mirror chuckle.

Chapter Text

Later on, as the evening grows, Zelda having dozed off, Link leaves her to rest and kindly takes the little dog out for a bathroom break for her. He rouses the dog, and tries to get him moving, but the pup is not having it. The dog yawns, loudly, mouth stretching wide. He then stretches out his back legs and then slides back to stretch out his forelegs are far as possible as Link opens the door for him. “Who told you to have such short legs, little man?” he says, keeping his voice low to not disturb Zelda as the dog very slowly decides to step outside.

The dog, predictably, doesn’t reply.

Now all stretched out, little Courage follows Link very dutifully to his grass patch with a prideful gait. Link looks round to the apple tree and sees the silhouette of Manny still hanging around underneath it. Once the puppy’s business is done (still staunchly refusing to let his precious, tiny feet touch the wet grass), the puppy trots back over to Link, and together they approach Manny by the tree.

“Still checkin’?”

“I got a plan,” Manny says with a nod. He gives a good searching look at Link, and he quips, “I guess I misjudged you a bit.”

“Misjudged me?”

OH.

Yeah. Uh. That.

“Good luck with Prima,” Link says quickly, and he leads the little dog away.

“Hey!” Manny calls out. “You still need something?”

Link waves the man off. “NOPE.”

When he opens the door, the puppy flies back into the room, suddenly re-energized. Link sees Zelda bent over, frantic, and apparently trying to put her shoes back on. She stops when she sees that it’s him and the dog coming back into the room, and relief comes over her when the puppy hops up against her knees.

“See, if you had them in sport mode, you’d be ready to go,” Link deadpans as the puppy zooms around.

She sits up to look at him, her smile wry. “Still haven’t learned my lesson, then,” concedes Zelda. She bends back down to the dog when he comes back around to her, his tail whipping about and happy as can be. She gives him a good rub down from his head to his butt.

“It’s getting a bit late,” says Link a bit impatiently. He taps the tip of his shoe on the ground, feeling his stomach cramp up. He prays to Farore, if she’s actually out there somewhere, to save his wretched stomach.

“Yes, I’m so sorry,” she says quickly. The words just come tumbling out of her mouth. “I didn’t um, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so intrusive.” She bends down this time to finish putting her shoes on.

“Unless you’re putting those shoes on to go grab a bite with me, forget it.”

She looks back at him.

“Changed my mind on the open door policy,” he says curtly, crossing his arms. If only just to annoy her for his own amusement, which he’s clearly done.

She snaps back, “You can’t be serious.”

“That’s sealious, love,” he tuts at her, his tone heavy and grave. More lightly, he adds, “Also, yeah, remembered I still have a job and need money. Can’t have you wandering off now that I found you.”

“Wow.”

“Your father expects me to call him tomorrow at eight as well.” Right? Stupid time zones. “… I’ll double check that actually,” he grumbles.

She looks away. Her lips purse.

Link plops down on the bed’s edge next to her. “He sent a telegram this morning,” he tells her, pulling it out of his pocket. He waves it around a bit, checks the time Nohansen wrote, and then tosses it aside onto the nightstand. Bumping her shoulder like an old-time friend and not some radical stranger, he asks, “What’re we telling him?”

“You’re not just going to say you found me?” asks Zelda, genuinely stunned.

“We could talk about that letter you got instead.” She scoffs at him, eyes rolling. Bingo.

“No thanks.”

They sit, once again falling into comfortable silence. Try as he might to remember them meeting previously, Link swears they haven’t. He hates that, because it’s been gnawing at him ever since he was handed her pictograph back in January. All he could think of is that they could have had some sort of chance encounter at some point in Castleton, but wouldn’t either of them remember it at some point?

“You should put him in the bathroom if you don’t want him chewing up everything,” she says finally, and Link realizes she’s talking about the dog. Obliging her, he goads the puppy in like a matador and shuts the door on him.

“Well, I’m dying. Let’s go.” And in only a few long strides, he reaches the door. He pauses with his hand on the knob, and Link turns back to her. “Oh, I told Manny to bugger off on you.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, but he definitely thinks we spent all day being inappropriate.”

She’s not amused, and the flat look she gives him verges on venomous. “Now I’m definitely not going out with you,” she sneers.

Link gasps. “You knew my honor was on the line. Who will I say is the mother?”

“Drama queen,” is what he thinks she mutters. Begrudgingly, Zelda stands up, and puts her cloche and coat on. Link opens the door for her, taking the cue, and she snaps at him as she walks out, “Take me to court.”

She stops short though, seeing that Manny still stands across the way. “Sealiously,” she says to Link’s great amusement, “what’s his deal?”

“He’s just checkin’.”

“But what is that?”

Link gives her a sidelong glance as he locks up the room. He offers her his arm. “Take it or don’t.” She does, and that’s when Link seizes the opportunity to lean down close, the hot whisky tickling her neck. “And it’s women, sweet summer child.”

“I was born in the fall, remember?” she retorts. “I seem to recall your license saying you were born in June.”

He chuckles. “Right on Summertide.”

They stand there, looking out at Manny, Manny looking back.

“I don’t know where I’m going, by the way,” says Link finally.

She looks up at him, annoyed, and Link can’t help that swell that suddenly rises up within him. For just a moment, it makes him falter as Zelda starts to lead the way. Like he is having some sort of episode of déjà vu.

“You’re sure we don’t know each other?” he asks.

“I mean, we do now?” But she sounds uncertain.

“Not everything,” he mumbles.

When she looks back up at him, he meets her eyes, and whatever façade he thought he’d been wearing, he is sure fast crumbling away as they walk down the road towards the direction of the station.

Wanna go for a ride?

“What?”

“You sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, but what’d you say?”

“I didn’t say anything,” she insists as the come to a stop at street corner together. The red light of the man on the walk sign holds steady, so they wait at the corner for their turn to cross as vehicles go by through the intersection.

Across the way, he sees their reflection in a dark window. Zelda, looking off away from the window, watching the traffic move by, and him staring at his own dumb, dazed reflection. Like a fucking idiot. In the reflection, they stand together arm in arm, comfortable like they’d been a couple for years rather than the pair of awkward strangers that they were in reality.

He seriously thought his impromptu and absolute crazy move earlier today would have gotten him socked at minimum, and instead she took it in stride, and now stands on his arm like everything is totally fine.

Like who does that? Any of this?

Dummy.

Zelda points out that the walk sign is green, and he moves as she commands.

His head hurts. His leg hurts. And Link feels that desperate urge again of a man dropped in the middle of the Gerudo Desert, lusting for a drink. He rubs his mouth with one hand, feeling all the moisture being quickly sucked from him.

They don’t converse much through their meal at the diner Zelda picked. The occasional comments between them being of more mundane things with them both furiously trying to think in the stretches of silence, because really. What. The. Hell.

Link almost swears one or both of them are lying when they insist again that no, they don’t know each other. No way. No how.

Link pays the tab once they’ve had their fill, and they head back to the inn together without further conversation or incident. Manny is gone from the tree, Link notes when they return, and he wonders a bit if he might actually be doing something with restless crickets as they head over to his room. He opens up his door and asks her again, “Moving in?”

“You have my dog, but not my toothbrush,” she deadpans back.

He shrugs and then steps inside, to her complete surprise. Like she didn’t really expect him to leave her alone. But then again, he’s got her dog. Sooo… good luck with that. He opens the bathroom door for the little bugger, and right out the pup prances, ready to go. Kind of cute, he admits to himself, and the two of them take their little stroll outside. Zelda is waiting for them at his door when they return with what Link thinks might be the last of her belongings in hand.

“Thought you’d been here for a while,” Link comments absently, noting how few loose items she has with her.

“I wasn’t sure how quickly I’d need to leave,” she says. “Most of my things I keep packed.”

She digs through her luggage once inside, watching him check everything over in the room. “There’s no boogeyman,” she assures him, closing up her bag. She’s making a joke, so he tries to smile back at her in response, but it feels hollow.

She readies herself for bed in the bathroom, and when she exits, Link is already lightly dozing. He’s curled on the far side of the bed facing the drawn window with the dog comfortably plopped in the middle of the bed and against his back.

She reaches for the bathroom switch. Thinking better of it, she doesn’t turn it off and asks, “Do you sleep with the lights on, too?”

“You mind?”

She crawls into the bed, grabs the pillow, and slams it on top of her face. He can hear the resigned sigh through the pillow as she throws her hands down on the bed.

Softly, eyes still closed, he says, “Thank you.”

He shoos the dog over a bit with one hand so he can settle in fully as well. As he drifts off, he swears he hears something of a whisper.

::

The next morning Link goes over what Zelda’s done as he downs his first couple of drinks. He looks over the documents she’d had made to make Tetra a real person. He finds the fakes pretty impressive, actually. Ah- well, yeah, money. That would do it. Get what you pay for and all. She really could just be Tetra forever if she wanted, he thinks. She’d mentioned that she struggled a bit with getting a job to keep paying for her room, and as he tosses the documents aside, a thought hits him in that vein. The water from the shower beats down in the bathroom, and he calls out to her at the door, “Hey, if you’d gone to such lengths to make a whole new identity, why didn’t you just lie about your work history?”

“LINK.”

Fine. Whatever.

Seeing his opportunity while she is in the shower, Link snags it to take a look at what’s in her luggage. He’s a professional snoop, after all. In her luggage he finds clothing mostly, a couple of books. Blah, blah, blah. Boring stuff. What he really wants to find is that damn letter that she refuses to speak about. He starts to open an interior pocket. Almost as if she knows he’s up to no good, he hears her calling out to ask him what he’s doing. Like knowing a guilty, troublesome child is one you can’t hear. He leaves the pocket alone.

When she exits the bathroom, however, he’s lying down on the bed, the perfect picture of innocence - apart from the fact he’s on drink number three, that is. She still looks at him with suspicion.

“Hey, who did all that paperwork for you, by the way?” Link asks, distracting her. “It’s actually really well done.”

Zelda hesitates, and then she says, “I never met him directly. Thought it might be best not to.” Guilt works its way through her face. “I kind of bullied this girl Paya to from the house staff to handle it,” she admits. “Shy girl, and a bit naïve, I thought she wouldn’t think too much of it if I gave written instructions and she just… did the deliveries between us.

“The guy that made everything is this real shady bloke known as Purlo. He’s kind of well known in the southern Castleton districts.”

Purlo, Link thinks. “Name does sound familiar,” he murmurs. “Can’t say I ever met him either though.”

Dressing for the cool spring weather, Zelda wears a woolen skirt and opens her bag to dig out and throw on a sweater over her lightweight shirt. The navy color looks nice on her. It makes Link think of her moody navy bedroom walls at home. “Can’t believe it’s officially April,” she mumbles, adjusting the sweater. She should be a little more than a month away from graduation, and Link hears that twinge of hurt in her voice.

The puppy for his part, though, is trying to find a cool spot to nap again instead of looking for extra warmth. Amused, Link sees the dog roll and settle on his back on the bathroom floor, feet up and little white belly splayed for all the world to see.

Zelda sits down on the bed, fingers combing through her short, damp hair, and asks, “So what’s the plan?” She works out a couple of knots more delicately.

“Well, I had asked Midna the other day to wire me some money, so as soon as that comes through today, I can get us some train tickets back to Castleton with it.”

“I can’t go home though,” insists Zelda. “They’ll find me.”

Link throws a hand up. “Then stay with me or Midna, your pick. Just can’t have you wandering off now.” He puts the glass down on the bedside table. “Trust me, though, she’d be like having a rabid guard dog if it came down to a fight if you’re worried about that sort of thing.”

Zelda snorts. “And you called her mean.”

“You know, she’s also one of those dogs that won’t just hurt you by biting.”

Zelda tries not to laugh at that, and she asks, “And my father?” Her hands fall from her hair.

“Oh, I don’t know, following a lead. Whatever you want, really.”

She sits wringing her hands together, her brow knit, and not even thinking about it, Link reaches out to her and pulls her down to him. She lies back with her head resting on his stomach. That queer sensation of déjà vu hits him again. Like they’d lain like this a thousand times over. He’s honestly getting sick of it.

But maybe that’s also all the booze. You know. If we’re actually being honest.

Quietly, she says, “I don’t know you.”

Does she have telepathy…?

Nah, can’t be.

“What do you want to know?” he asks.

“What’s your favorite food? You know mine.” Fruitcake, but not the gross Yule fruitcake, yes. The good kind. The cake kind. With the light sponge cake layers, specifically. Strawberries. Blueberries. Maybe some orange slices. Whipped topping to slather on… actually sounds good, to be honest.

Oh. Right. Hm. Favorite food. That is hard. Link stills, thinking it over for way too much time. She quirks her head towards him when he takes too long to answer. “Apples?” he says finally, but honestly, he’s still thinking about cakes and indulging that inner sweet tooth he has.

A little afternoon delight, you might say.

… A what?

Zelda laughs. “Is that a question?”

Link looks around briefly.

That’s not déjà vu… Is it?

He’ll look it up in a dictionary or encyclopedia or whatever later, he decides, and Link says instead, “You can do so much with apples. Eat them raw, cook em’. Add all sorts of spices to them. Butter them. Good with honey, too.” And back to sweets it is.

“Do you like to cook, Link?” she asks, giggling a little.

“How else am I going to eat my way through life?” He feigns exasperation at the thought. Really though, he was always a big eater, but after the amputation, he’s become much more ravenous. Midna swears if he ate like a regular man, he’d save more than half his money. “You?”

“It’s not really my thing,” she says, her cheeks suddenly glowing pink. She admits with a tinge of shyness, “I’m not exactly a star chef either, so I eat a lot at the mess hall when I’m at school, and then well, we have staff that makes the meals at home.”

“What about Tetra Bosphoramus?” asks Link as a joke.

She rolls her eyes. “A lot of basic sandwiches, if you must know,” she says. “Not like there’s an icebox in the room to keep food either. I get the real salty meat you don’t need to keep cold.”

“I hate to tell you this, love, but we’re gonna be eating for the rest of our lives.”

“The horror.”

“Just saying, that’s a lot of mediocre meals if you don’t shape up.”

“If you care so much,” she retorts, “I guess you’ll have to retire from the PI business to be my personal chef.”

“Are we talking about a paid gig?” Link asks. “I still have a lot of meals to pay for before I die.”

“It’s a reverse kidnapping,” she says simply, and it makes him snort a bit with laughter.

Hating himself for having to bring it up again, Link changes the subject. “Zelda, I need to know about the letter.”

“Your job was to find me, consider me found.”

“Zelda.”

“Your job’s done.”

“Clearly not.”

“I made a whole new person, Link.”

“Reverse-reverse kidnapping, right?”

“Mr. Coutts.”

“I went to war,” he says, “I’m up for the job.” Is he? He doesn’t really know what the job is now.

“I don’t know what the job even is.”

Link frowns. Reverse the previous conclusion then. “You have got to stop that.”

“Excuse me?”

“Reading my mind.” Because that’s the weird thing in this whole situation.

Yep.

Nothing else.

Natta.

Not one other thing.

“If only.”

Zelda, apart from her fidgeting fingers, stays perfectly still as she thinks, which is perfectly fine for Link, since he’s been dying for a lot of naps of late. Good sleep is so hard to get, you know? Besides, what else is there to do at this point except cash in on some lost and bad sleep? He’s almost grateful for the night train they’d planned to catch since it’s just another opportunity to doze off. If they took the train in the daytime, Link would just end up a total wreck by the time they pull into Union Station back in Castleton. It’s the kind of train ride where all you got to do during the waking hours is drink.

“I’ll stay with you,” Zelda says, which surprises him, but he guesses he shouldn’t be. There’s some sort of stupid magnetic pull between them, and it irritates him to no end that they both can’t explain it. “I said I’d trust you,” she mutters. It’s almost petulant, but he tries his best not to laugh at her tone.

“I did claim I was up for some unknown job,” he jests.

“We stick together,” Zelda insists, which Link thinks might be impossible at this point to… well, not do. “You and I.”

“You got it, love.” Because he’d probably chase her to the ends of the earth, but good gods, that’s nuts.

Maybe he should look into some electroshock therapy. Clearly, shell shock has scrambled his brain more than he’d thought.

She turns towards him fully now, rolling on her side, and curls up under his arm and against his side like a small child would. “I out bid this Gerudo man,” she tells him, and Link is trying his damn best to turn the volume down on the pumping in his ears so he can hear her properly. “Link, he wanted the mirror as much as I did. There was a second man bidding with us, but he gave up sooner than the Gerudo.”

And quietly, she tells him about her mad dash around Domain before catching the train to Hateno. She didn’t get a good look at the man in the darkness, but she claims he was a tall, lanky sort of figure. Not the Gerudo she’d remembered. Much too thin to be him. The Gerudo was everything under broad and foreboding. A large man.

“And before that, twice while I was still in Castleton, and I dared to leave the house. I know it was him, the slim one, following me then, too, trying to get me. I hate it. The stalking, knowing they’re coming, but not actually who, but the mirror wouldn’t shut up about it. It kept telling me where to go, to pick up the pace… It never got to be as close of a call in Castleton though as it was in Domain.”

So she really had been scared off, Link thinks. Drawn to purchase this piece of a creepy as all hell mirror, but so were others instinctually drawn to it and lured in, and they were desperate to do whatever they could to get their grubby mitts on the weird thing. Link doesn’t like the way the mirror is seemingly alive, sucking people in and leaving them mesmerized. He felt it when she’d uncovered it, and for such a small thing, it sure demands a lot of attention. Almost like it was feeding off of it, and he doesn’t care to take a second look. He thinks of the books he looked at from her room. “Think they also believe in it being a portal?” he asks, because otherwise, he would have been more than happy to pitch the accursed thing at them if they wanted it so much.

She’s a bit startled by the question. “I wouldn’t doubt,” she answers slowly. “That’s what makes me nervous. If it can open portals, where do they want to go? Or what do they want to let in here?”

“Could always just get rid of the thing and be done with it,” he suggests, but deep down, he knows that’s not an option at all to her. She’d never.

And the scoff she gives him just verifies he’s right about that. “I don’t like the idea of them having it,” she admits. “They come after me like they have, and you think they’d just be fine with having it as some sort of decoration?”

“Could always just toss it out into Necluda Sea.”

“They’d find it,” she grumbles. So sure of herself. He supposes he doesn’t doubt that either. The only safe place for this dumb mirror is in her possession, and just… ew. “Besides, if it wanted to go with them, why would it lead me away from them?”

Link thinks that there is the worst part.

So how would someone go about opening a portal? And a portal to where? He wonders if you could choose. Pick a location, use it to do some sort of crazy science-fiction teleportation. That’d be real wild. No more drunk train rides.

He wonders, too, what exactly makes the mirror so alluring, because objectively? Run for the hills. It’s creepy, makes gooseflesh sprout on his arms when he thinks of it, but when he’d actually seen it, all that gloom and doom he’d thought about it went right out the window behind him, and its shiny surface commanded his total attention, unwavering awe, and absolute devotion like an actual living thing… like it’s some sort of god, even. If it’s alive in some sort of weird supernatural way, he ponders what the thing wants itself. It must want something, because then why else bother with trying to manipulate people into being desperate to possess it? Why draw them in so absolutely?

His question about the mirror acting as a portal does get Zelda to finally speak about the letter. The letter, it turns out, was a direct threat to hand over the mirror. Link recalls Tael saying it was stiff, and Link had thought the stiffness was likely due to the glued type text. No handwriting. Zelda confirming that and having dove deep into mirror’s related effects and listened acutely to its alarm calls, quickly planned then to take the mirror and just disappear for as long as possible, if not forever. Become someone else. Become Tetra Bosphoramus.

“I hate that stupid mirror,” she tells him. The exhaustion of dealing with the weirdo thing wears on her face, and she tries to hide her growing color behind a hand. She bemoans to him, “It just won’t shut up.”

Link wonders for a fleeting moment if the mirror is loud enough for him to hear.

“Are we crazy?”

“Certainly feels it,” she says. Not helping.

His leg throbs.

“Cool, cool.”

“You were looking for disagreement?”

“A talking mirror that might make portals? Us knowing each other?”

“Since forever?”

“You being psychic?”

“I’m not.”

“Fine,” he pouts, “don’t tell me your secrets.”

::

Later that afternoon, Link leaves to check on the wire transfer he’d requested down at the telegraph station. He victoriously returns with sandwiches for them both and train tickets back to Castleton for that night. They’ll be heading out soon, so he has a quick end for the call with her father if need be.

And Zelda doesn’t question it further. She watches on as he stands in a phone booth speaking with her father. She stands at Hateno Station with the dog and their luggage by her feet and feeling all sorts of apprehension about her return to her hometown. Castleton, being the capital, is at least far bigger than Hateno, so it’s not like there’s no hiding in Castleton itself, but if she wants to avoid people she knows, she’ll have to stick with Link and his assistant and keep out of the financial district and the fancier parts of the city. She could still easily hide back home, but she’ll just have to be mindful of where she goes. No familiar places.

She can’t hear a word Link is saying to her father with the booth closed and the station buzzing around her loudly. The longer the call goes on, the more the guilt comes to eat away at her. It gnaws on her flesh, feasting like it’s at a Midwinter buffet. Her heart can’t take it though, and she knocks on the booth to just end it. Link, glancing at her, understands immediately what it is she wants, and wordlessly, Link opens the booth for her, hands her the receiver, and steps out to stand with their luggage and the dog.

Zelda brings the receiver to her ear. “Papa?”

Stunned silence stretches on the other end of the line.

“Papa, I’m sorry. It was me. I made Mr. Coutts lie to you.”

“Zelda?”

“It’s me. I’m sorry, Papa,” she says again. “I don’t want to be found yet. I can’t be found.”

“Wha- Zelda, dear, please. When did he find you?”

“Just yesterday afternoon.”

She could feel the growing anger boiling, but he says nothing. Possibly, she thinks, he doesn’t want to say anything he might regret, and another sharp pang stabs her between the ribs.

She insists to him, “Papa, I can’t come home yet.”

“Zelda, whatever it is that’s the matter we can handle it.” He’s desperate, and it makes her heart wrench in two.

She shakes her head, despite him not being able to see the gesture. “No, you can’t,” she says sternly. “And the law can’t help me either. Papa, please.” A quick glance out the booth and Zelda sees Link glancing at the station clock to keep track of the time. Courage tugs at his right pants’ leg, but Link miraculously pays him no mind. He doesn’t mind the burden she brings either.

Tentatively, she asks, “Papa, would you be willing to send me some money? Mr. Coutts will set up an account for me that you can wire it to.” She hears her father hum lightly, that boiling anger quickly lowering to a simmer. “This is something I need to solve on my own or it’ll bring you too much trouble, and I can home once it’s done, okay? I’m asking you to trust me.

“I’m going to put Mr. Coutts back on.

“I love you.”

Not waiting for her father’s response, she opens the booth and hands off the receiver to Link, and he steps back into the booth. After another minute or so, Link ends the call and exits. He stuffs his hands into his coat pockets, and they exchange a glance.

He nods at her.

Together with Courage, they wait the last bit of time left for their train back to Castleton to arrive at the station and begin boarding.

Chapter Text

Midna meets them at the station when they finally arrive back in Castleton. She helps them wordlessly with their luggage to the car and then up to Link’s third floor apartment.

When Link walks into his apartment, he breathes in deeply the familiar scent of home. Midna strolls past him like she owns the place, grabbing up next to his feet his and Zelda’s bags and dumping them in his bedroom. Zelda looks around as Link and Midna go about turning on all the lights. It’s not an overly large place, perfectly adequate for a young bachelor, but he’s got no more extra room in his flat than Midna has at hers. He prays for his back for all the coming nights on his couch.

The pup is eager to inspect every little speck in the place. At least he’s staying busy.

While the lights need to be turned on, Link notices Zelda mentally noting that already all the doors have been opened, or they’re just missing from their hinges all together like for the closets. He thinks there’s something weird about that. Not her, though. Him. Maybe they’ll never explain it or figure it out, so he thinks he’ll just have to accept that they, uh, conceptually know each other, but paradoxically that they’re functionally strangers.

He loathes how the feeling nags so deeply at him that Zelda might not know his favorite color, that he thinks jazz is stupid, that getting a po’boy at Telma’s is his favorite choice for lunch, or that he’s even missing a leg, but she still knows him better than anyone. Midna included. That makes him shiver.

He doesn’t particularly want to presume the reverse, but considering Zelda never socked him for Hateno, it must be. She treats them turning into this weird partners in crime kind of deal with far too much grace.

Midna rounds on Zelda. “Keep an eye on him. If you return him to me covered in piss and vomit, I will gut you alive,” she snaps. Zelda’s mouth bobs open and closed like a fish.

“Really, Midna?” Link gripes, a drink already in hand. “I can handle it.”

“Don’t be stupid, bye.” And with that, Midna strides out of his apartment without another word, shooing the dog out from the doorway, not even wanting to hear Link’s gratitude.

Link shakes his head and sets his drink down on a small side table. The lamp that sits atop the table makes the glass shine and sparkle, and the amber liquid glows with invitation. “Don’t mind her,” he tells Zelda as he sinks into the armchair next to the table.

He groans and leans forward but then pauses. “Hey,” he calls softly.

Zelda’s eyes flick to the investigator. “Yes?” Her hands wring together. Tight. Nervous.

“Don’t freak out.”

Her mouth falls open, likely about to ask what he means when he quickly jerks his pant leg up. Just as swiftly, he frees himself from his prosthetic limb and tosses it to the side of the chair. She gapes at the sudden loss of his limb as he leans back and sighs with relief. Noticing her stare, he chuckles, “I warned you.”

“I- I’m… I’m so sorry!” she stutters, averting her eyes. Zelda claps her hands over her red, embarrassed cheeks. “That was so inconsiderate of me!”

Link laughs and picks up his glass of bourbon from the side table. “Well, I think you’re a terrible psychic,” he says. “Surely you must have known with your damn telepathy.” He raises his glass to her. The ice clinks, and the liquor sloshes a bit. “Cheers, now we’re both inconsiderate asses.” He gets a nervous smile and a small giggle in return.

Hesitantly, she asks him, “Are you sure you should be drinking?” He shrugs and raises the glass to his lips. The fiery liquid burns its way down his throat. “I um, just… that was your assistant, right?”

He pauses. Link looks over by the wall that blocks the entryway as if Midna will somehow reappear in the hallway and come round the corner. The glass would be knocked out of his hand, and she’d smack him one. Five across the eyes. Link sniffs and sits a little straighter in the chair. “Midna relishes her job security a little too much.”

That gets him a little snort of laughter. Her hand claps to her mouth but too late to stop the sound. Her green eyes glitter with humor.

Dimly, he realizes he’d been doomed from the moment Midna had handed him Zelda’s pictograph.

He offers up some bourbon for her. It’s obvious though, that Zelda would have to pour herself a glass. His missing person stares at the bottle for some time, but judging by the look on her face, Link takes it to be indecision that keeps her rooted. Link takes his time sipping on his own glass of bourbon. It’s a long journey to the bottle if Zelda doesn’t help him.

It’s also a long way down the bottle.

Her bones crack when she finally rises. Soft tups sound each time her heels strike the rug, then clack with every footfall on the wood floors like the soft rumbles of thunder and cracks of lightning. The bourbon sloshes into the glass. To his surprise, she pours more into his glass before leaving the bottle next to him.

“Now she’d be really mad,” he chuckles and throws back a swig of the drink. “You’re just encouraging me, love.”

Zelda shrugs and settles back on the couch, just mindful enough of the liquid in her hand to keep it from sloshing onto the rug. She kicks off her shoes and then tucks her feet to one side on the couch. “Doesn’t seem like she does too much to stop you either,” she states.

Link snorts.

“Have you ever wanted to stop?” Her voice is quiet. The harshness of judgement that he usually hears is completely absent, and it takes him aback for a moment.

If he’s honest, truly, he hasn’t ever really, really considered it. He swears off drinking in the mornings when his head is pounding and the mere sight of food makes him want to vomit, but then soon enough, another drink is in hand. The one is just to curb the sickness, he’ll tell himself. The second to keep the pain of his phantom limb at bay. He probably could be dropped naked in the heart of the Hebra mountains, snow swirling about, and still be sweating if he went ten minutes

“I’m sorry,” Zelda says when he doesn’t answer.

“For what?”

“Missing a leg is kind of a big thing to overlook.”

“Oh, so I should take my pants off for strangers a lot sooner?” That gets her to choke and sputter on her drink. She coughs, hitting her chest as Link, seeing the dog sneaking about, tells the dog to get on. He growls at Link’s prosthetic, making Zelda’s cough turn into peals of laughter. Link, grabbing his leg, shakes it at the dog, and he backs up but doesn’t let up on the verbal assault.

“Little shit,” Link says and laughing to himself. Link sets his leg aside again as the dog continues to snap his teeth at the air in its direction in distaste.

“You keep the lights on all the time at home, too?” Zelda asks him, her laughter finally subsiding.

::

Everyone holds their breath as they dogpile into the front of the submarine. Quite literally, there are some fifty odd men aboard, squashed in this tiny area or close to it as possible. Thirty-eight seconds is all it takes for the submarine to become fully submerged and untraceable. They each count it slowly, and then when the submarine sinks deep enough, the men are ordered to continue their shifts. For Link, this now means returning to bed for the next ten hours and sleeping. If you are sleeping, you are using less oxygen, and they’ll be submerged for at most the next thirty-six hours if the enemy keeps tracking them.

They’d cut the electricity to most of the sub to conserve power, so Link is careful, watches where they’d put the glow paint on the pipes to find his bunk in the dark at the other end of the sub. He lies down and pulls up the blanket. Nobody speaks. Waste of oxygen. And worse, you might be heard, and then it’s BOOM!

At least in the dark, he doesn’t need to think too much about how the bunks are like coffins in this hellish death trap.

The rest of the men not on duty climb into their own bunks or return to their stations to listen to the sonar.

It’s hard sometimes to sleep with the sound of the sonar going forever in your head, but eventually Link drifts off into an uneasy sleep, counting the sonar beeps likes sheep.

Eventually he is shaken awake to start work. He trades the bunk with the man that woke him. On the sub, there is one bunk for two men, so they have to hot bunk it. He heads further into the middle of the sub to take his position, following the glow paint on the pipes to make his way in the darkness.

When he’d been drafted, nobody asked him if he knew how to swim or if he was any good with machinery. Link simply had all his limbs and a heartbeat, and he could nod on command. That was good enough. And thus, he was quickly reduced, like so many other young men, to his family name and a serial number, and then told, “Congrats, you’re submarine material!”

It was a draft after all. Getting the bodies was more important than assessing what they were most suited for.

Another recruit had mockingly told him once that it didn’t matter if they could swim or not. It’d be better if you couldn’t though. You wouldn’t prolong your creeping death. Link thought, as the man laughed off his poor joke, how unfortunate he is then: Link can swim.

For the next ten hours, Link is on duty, feeling that simmering panic. He sits listening on the headset for any sound that might whisper danger. Sometimes he hears the soft, echoing, moaning calls of a whale in the deep water.

Twenty hours.

For the next ten, once more, Link is relegated back to the bunk. Link actually prefers being on shift, since trying to relax is now so foreign. His nerves have been frayed too much by times like these where they’re quietly listening for the enemy, knowing that the enemy’s doing the same. Lying in the dark on these tiny coffin bunks, still listening to the sonar in his head, and somewhere there are the phantom echoes of the sea mine explosions – it all makes for uneasy sleep. Who could rest with the threat of sea mines and other enemy ships about?

The submarine at this point is just a giant soup of the same air they’ve all been breathing in and out for the last twenty hours. If you don’t have a headache by now, you’re the weird one. With the power to the bare minimum, the air circulation is poor. Humidity at record levels. Link always feels a bit damp on the sub as well, but he always feels like a weird slick amphibian whenever they are underwater for so long. The stagnant humidity is also sort of a problem when the chef is on his last mental leg and finding mold again on the wrong ingredient may just be the thing to send him over the edge.

Link hears the rebreathers kicking on in the sub. The mechanical hum, maybe reassuring elsewhere, only serves as a reminder to him that he’s stuck on the sub. Trapped. Meters and meters underwater.

When Link is shaken awake next, they’re still submerged. They’ll need to resurface in a few hours. He returns to his post. Listening. Watching. Waiting.

The enemy though, is still out there. They’re coming to a crossroads though: It’s resurface and maybe die or stay submerged and definitely die.

Link never much considered himself a religious man, but Farore must be smiling down on him this day. Forced to resurface, they don’t catch the sea mine until it’s too late.

The subsequent explosion is unbridled chaos.

Water begins to flood the submarine. Alarms everywhere.

Trying to get up from his seat, Link struggles, but he can’t figure out why. One of the larger crewmen aboard, a burly man named Groose, whose main duty is to load the torpedoes, catches Link underarm to help lift him out. “What’s wrong?” he yells over the panic.

And when they look down, Link realizes that a piece of the submarine wall is lodged deeply in his lower right leg.

Link isn’t quite sure from that point how he got out of the sub exactly.

Breaching the ocean surface, he gasps desperately for air, and together, Link and Groose hide themselves from continued assault under another piece of debris. Groose keeps them both afloat under the debris as Link bobs in and out of consciousness. He puts a makeshift tourniquet on Link’s leg. He flags down their allies to pull them from the water.

Link has Groose to thank for saving his worthless ass.

::

He was filled in later on how close to death he’d been in those frigid waters. Groose had managed somehow to catch the attention of allies, and they were mercifully extracted from the wreckage without further injury, but Link has no memory of it. He’d been on the sub one moment, sick at the sight of the shrapnel lodged in his leg from the sea mine explosion, feeling that desperate gasping of air when he and Groose surfaced the ocean waters, and the next he’d just woken up alone weeks later as an amputee, shell shocked, and tacked with an honorable discharge.

Zelda, to her credit, listens with rapt attention. Too horrified for him to interject, really.

“They’re claustrophobic, those subs,” Link tells her. He downs the last of his drink and sets the glass aside. Even if you didn’t step on a sub with a claustrophobia problem, that long metal tube will certainly make sure you step off at port with it. “Sleeping with the lights on everywhere seems weird, I know, but if I have to lie in the dark, all I hear is that sonar, and I can’t relax thinking any moment there might be the explosion of a sea mine going off.”

She doesn’t say anything out loud, but the green orbs that look at him say everything.

He left for war at eighteen youthfully idealistic and whole and came back home at twenty-one an amputee, shell-shocked from the experience, and most of all, utterly broken. The worst of it though is that despite having been cut off nearly six years ago, the damn leg itches.

::

Link grumbles about the dog, with whom he’s found himself locked in a battle of wits throughout the summer. For as smart as the dog is, he’s well… dumb. There was a period of time in the late spring when Link had chained up the icebox after Courage opened it and made himself sick snacking on whatever he pleased. The time he figured out how to open Link’s dresser drawers and helped himself to Link’s socks drove him off the edge, but Link at least laughs about it now if it gets brought up.

When Link puts Courage out on the balcony to give himself some peace (because things like the broom, the ironing board appearing, the baskets of laundry to take down to the wash-a-teria showing up at the front door, and the bags of rubbish from the kitchen… and, well, everything is suspicious and therefore they’re mortal enemies), he finds himself trying to complete a task but then is suddenly besieged by a single active puppy trying to sound the danger alarm. Zelda caught Courage once, and learned his secret, but she doesn’t tell Link.

It's kind of funny after all. At least to her it is.

Courage gets back into the flat from his balcony prison through the screen. Link doesn’t close the door, just the screen to let the air flow in, but Link doesn’t know that right next to frame and at perfectly perfect Courage height, it’s broken. An imperceptible slit in the screen right next to the frame that even Zelda didn’t know it was there until she watched him closely while sitting at Link’s small dining room table. Maybe the dog did it, maybe it was already like that, she doesn’t know. The real funny part though is once he sticks his little nose through that hidden gap, walks sideways to get the door open, he goes right back and closes it the same way.

So poof! There’s the dog.

She never thought a dog intelligent enough to commit to gaslighting a man, but here it is. “I put him out, didn’t I?” asks Link, brow knit and confused.

Zelda says, “I didn’t let him in.”

Link tosses his hands up at the dog.

Courage had also taken for a time, a real joy in grabbing just the very end of the toilet paper and yanking it through the flat. More than once, they’d walked in, turn the corner of the entryway to find the paper streamed and shredded about like some wild party had occurred in their absence. Zelda thinks it funny, of course, but Link not so much. Link decides to combat the problem by filling a cup of water and leaving it on top of the roll. They leave, come back, and no evidence of a party hosted by Entertainer Extraordinaire Courage remains except for the cup and the pool of water on the bathroom floor. Courage decides that he’s better off leaving the roll alone to Link’s great relief.

On and on the two go, and Zelda sits as a mere referee between them to Link’s frustration. “You indulge the boy too much,” he complains.

Zelda doesn’t think so, to Link’s chagrin. Courage is innocent. Perfect. Just a wee baby angel.

Link does as she asks and sets up a new bank account for her but only after fighting about it for what seemed to be ages. “Well, I can’t have it in Zelda Nohansen’s name! And I can’t tie Tetra Bosphoramus to me or my family – that was the whole point of being Tetra!”

Link, for his part, is the practical one by arguing, “You forget that we’re actually strangers! We put it in my name, what if I just take off with the whole thing? You’re going to be okay with that?”

“I’ll just create another missing persons case then,” she threatens back primly.

“Whoa, dark.”

They settle on setting one account up in his and Midna’s names (“That’s called an internal control, Link.” But internal what?), and he hands off the wire details to her father. Her father, after some time, decided to do as she asked and trust her, extending a great leap of faith. She’s grateful for both of them. Each week, her father sends over an allowance for her, Link drains the account, and then they put the cash in an account for Tetra Bosphoramus that they set up at another bank. It’s a pain in the ass, in Link’s well vocalized opinion, but it’s the best way they can come up with to keep Zelda off some books while still socking away a bit of money for her. Because Zelda Nohansen is missing. Zelda Nohansen has no need or means to access a bank in Castleton. Zelda Nohansen walked off the face of the earth in January 1922 as far as anyone should be concerned.

When Link speaks with her father, Link assures him over the phone that Zelda’s fine, alive, and in good health, but that she refuses to return to Castleton despite her very much being there. Although Link has actually fulfilled his end of their contract and located her, her father also still sends Link a small stipend, which Zelda has to continually implore him to accept. She knows it’s her father’s way of acknowledging Link’s continued involvement with her since he knows they’re in some sort of communication.

The days are long though as summer heats the city. Sometimes Link is out late, or all night even. He sticks to himself for the most part, Midna being his closest confidant in life. He has other friends, who come round knocking on the flat looking for him, but she does as he asks and doesn’t answer for anyone but Midna. It sort of makes her feel bad. Like he’s missing out on things. He stubbornly even refuses to do a single thing for his birthday. The idea of Link missing out makes Midna snort though. “Link?” she scoffs. “Unless it’s a bar, he’s not going out, and even then, he cares about totally different things from his friends.”

Zelda thinks of her own friends, and she wonders if they even care she’s disappeared. She had friends she enjoyed spending time with at university, but she always felt a bit outside of the circle. Two at least, she can count on to miss her. She has a friend named Ruto Spratt, descended from Zoras, who is kind and engaging. Her fatal flaw though is that she spends more time talking than breathing. Her friend Malon Lonlo is also a pillar in her social circle. A hardworking and grounded girl with skin tanned from long hours under the sun and flashy red hair, and only half as chatty as Ruto. As a joke to herself, she supposes her absence is also okay since Ruto talked more than enough for the both of them.

She wishes she could send a postcard, telegram- anything really.

She might also get a novel of gossip back in return from Ruto, who probably would be too busy gushing about everything she’s missing out on to clock that Zelda’s missing and being contacted by someone that’s missing is a Big Deal. That would be fun to read though.

Zelda’s on her own for lunch, but for the most part, Link makes an effort to return in the evenings at least to make dinner since he complains how utterly incompetent she is at cooking, which she has to begrudgingly agree with him on (she did tell him so after all). Her and the dog both tail him in his small kitchen, watching intently as he cooks, and he tries to teach her to do more than fail at boiling water. Sous Chef Courage, though, is there for any rogue scraps that might fall his way and is constantly being moved out of the way with an exasperated, “Excuse me, sir.” Sometimes, Zelda wanders to Link’s office for lunch instead, and she and Midna go somewhere for a bite together when Link’s out. And it’s just nice. Makes her miss her friends even more.

When she’s stuck in his flat while he’s out working or meeting with friends to at least make the appearance, Zelda takes to at least trying to be somewhat helpful when she’s not trying to look into the mirror. She thinks he must spend very little quality time at home, because she wouldn’t consider him unclean, just chaotically disorganized. She spends her free time trying to earn her keep by keeping the flat clean for him. It annoys him at first, because he is so used to his careless and lazy mess that once she’d cleaned and then started organizing, he can’t find what it is he wants. She even sorts items to toss or donate for him, but he gets suspicious about the number of socks she’s suddenly found holes in. (She’d never admit her part in it, but maybe leaving his socks out and not expecting Courage to snatch them was just entrapment, so the whole case against Courage should just be thrown out, thank you very much.)

In the hall closet by the front door, she finds his wheelchair, and then he spends the evening annoying her with it by trying to get everywhere in the flat by popping it up on the back wheels and threating to tip himself over. “When was the last time you even used that?” she asks, trying to ignore his childish shenanigans. He shrugs.

Once he felt confident and (mostly) comfortable walking on his prosthetic, Link ditched the chair completely, but he insists on keeping it around, despite her never mentioning getting rid of it. “Useful for those times before I got my leg all nice and right and fit, and what if I have to go through that again?” he complains. “Legs don’t last forever.” She learns, too, that it was nice to have when the leg was bothering him after he first got the prosthetic and just couldn’t deal with walking.

She knew cheating spouses is probably a big draw for a PI, but she finds out there’s lots more for them to do. Midna tells her what may be half the work for her and Link is related to insurance scams or doing various kinds of background checks or even location work for process servers. “So missing persons like me aren’t all it, huh?” she jokes.

“Girl, please. This is not some mystery novel,” quips Midna.

Sometimes, Link takes her along on a job. It’s completely and stupidly juvenile how giddy she gets when he invites her along. She realizes by the way he asks if it’s out of some sort of necessity or not. He never says much about the actual job he’s taking her out on besides a basic run of what they’ll be doing if he has actual need of her to tag along. Usually, as a functioning alcoholic, he’s just too drunk to drive the car and Midna’s over it, so Zelda is now the de facto chauffeur.

Other times, the optics of having her around make for a good excuse for his own loitering in the case of others’ watchful eyes. So maybe they’re going to go spend a few hours together sitting around at places like cafes, like he’s taking her out on a date. Occasionally, he has her pretend to model for him while he sneaks the pictographs he actually needs, which is apparently so much easier this way since he’s not just some weirdo out alone with a pictobox but a seemingly professional working to get scenic shots with his model. When he’s just looking for company, there’s no big fanfare on what they’re doing, he simply tells her to get her shoes on, they’re going out.

She promises him, to his good humor, that they’re in sport mode.

Midna, for her part, seems relieved to have Zelda do these ride alongs. “It’s sooo boring, love,” she complains about it. “I don’t know how he does surveillance. I can’t even talk to any fit men we see if I’m pretending to swoon on my stupid boss or whatever… but at least there’s usually some good food.” For Midna and Link, it’s pretend work, and more like actual work despite their deep friendship.

For Zelda, it’s exciting though. She likes the opportunity to get out of the flat since Link doesn’t want her out and about on her own much (“You’re supposed to be missing,” he says with a roll of the eyes – so nobody tell him about her and Midna’s lunches, please, okay?), and having never thought much about what private investigators actually do, she finds even the mundane waiting that seems to be half the job interesting for the most part. Though this is also in part since it’s their main opportunity to converse, to not be strangers. Their talks are generally about anything that she wants, since he usually lets her lead the conversation.

There’s something uniquely unbreakable between Link and Midna though. She’s not jealous of Midna, per say, but she’s envious initially. They have a deep rapport that prior to the late summer, Zelda thinks she’s never experienced with someone before. One morning at the office with them both, she hears Midna tease Link about “living in sin,” which makes him grumble. His ears darken, and he gives her chair a kick when she starts to cackle. Midna gives her an amused wink, and Zelda thinks that maybe a similar foundation has come to exist between her and Midna. She could count on Midna as much as Link.

Gap filling, however, is what she thinks of her and Link’s conversations, because she’s desperate in a way to put some actual meaning to the immediate unshakable bond between them. She thinks she must be stupid after all. Link’s heavy drinking, she realizes, is so routine, that if she didn’t see exactly how much he drank, she wouldn’t have believed it or really known he’s drunk. Zelda actually sometimes forgets that Link’s absolute bare minimum is to be barely sober, and that lasts for all of about five minutes in the mornings when he might half-heartedly swear off drinking only to decide it’s the only medicine to cure the wretched hangovers and all the other bullshit. Only someone stupid would be putting up with this. So Zelda thinks she's got to be stupid to want to nurture the weird magnetism that keeps them pulled together so fiercely.

“Love, we both must be stupid,” Midna tells her from behind a magazine one afternoon. “Welcome to the club.”

At night, she learns he will occasionally sleepwalk when he passes out with his prosthetic on, so in part (and definitely NOTHING of the sorts of things the mirror loves to suggest to her, ahem), she keeps the bedroom door open and an ear out for him if he decides to go on a nighttime adventure so she can lead him back to where he sleeps on the couch. And, being a herding dog, Courage is also excited for the opportunity to get something back in line. Other bumps in the night usually mean he tried sleepwalking, but without his leg on, he just takes a rough tumble off the couch instead, and she goes and helps him back up instead.

Link usually will have a slight stumble and sway to his walk by the end of the day, but for the most part his speech shockingly stays intact. Despite being a total drunk, he has a steel trap mind, and she wonders how sharp he really is without the booze clouding him.

But his sharpness is what makes their waiting entertaining.

She finds him funny, in that dry sort of way, that pairs well with his quick wit, and it annoys her how many life skills the man seems to have. He can’t follow a lick of what’s going on in some of the books he’d taken from her room nor when she tries to explain it to him (there’s a sort of glazed look in his eyes that comes over), but when his job boils down to watching people, he’s surprisingly knowledgeable on a whole plethora of things and how they work in the world.

He's also a bit of a planner. It must pair well enough with his work. He watches and waits and thinks and thinks and thinks. He gets annoyed and irritable when a wrench gets thrown in, but he usually lands on his feet, even if it’s not the most graceful of landings. Something, she and Midna think might be much improved if he dropped the alcohol. Zelda thinks, too, despite his staunch distaste for religion and the gods, that Farore must favor him since he’s so lucky with the way he worms his way out of situations.

She also thinks he’s unusually perceptive with people. He tends to just know exactly what it is that makes people tick and how to push their buttons just right (“I’m not batting at 100% here, Zelda,” he grumbled once), and that piques Zelda’s own curiosity.

So she decides to ask him one day while they sit at a park to satisfy it. He’d gone off to grab them a couple sandwiches from a street truck while she thinks on it. He didn’t tell her what they’re doing, so she’s knows she’s mostly here as company anyway. The wrapped sandwich appears before her on his sudden return, and Zelda finds it a bit irksome how sneakily quiet he can be. He’s basically devoured his own food just on the walk back to the bench, and she swears the man could out eat three people. He pockets the trash and throws himself down on the bench next to her. Link’s arm snakes behind her on the back of the bench, and he lazily watches the park while she eats.

“I was wondering,” she says, and he hums a bit to let her know he’s listening, his gaze far off in another direction. “You know so much about me, you surely know about Misko?”

“He sucks,” he says simply.

It makes Zelda sputter with laughter.

“What about him?”

“I think you’re the psychic for once,” she says, still giggling.

“Midna will tell you he sucks, too.”

“Oh? You both met him?”

“Unfortunately.”

She says nothing more for a time, just eats her food and enjoys the summer heat and sunshine. When she’s finished, she asks, “What was it that made you not like him?”

Link shrugs. “Nothing really initially, just didn’t like him.”

Her brow raises a little. “Initially?”

“Yeah, the more he talked the more we got the sense that he’s just this pompous ass,” he tells her. “I haven’t spoken to him much one on one, but he seems like one of those types with a mask.”

So he did see it, she thinks.

“You know,” he says, waving a hand around his face, but still keeping his watch. “Two faced. Acts a certain way around most people, but he’s not as perfect about keeping that mask on as some other people I’ve dealt with. Can’t stand that kind of narcissism.”

She puts a hand on his leg, just above the knee, and he turns his head to her.

She struggles for a moment to find what she wants to say. “That’s exactly it,” she says, kicking herself. He put the exact label on it that she’d struggled find for so long.

“What?” asks Link. “He’s a narcissist?”

“Yes.”

Link goes back to his watch over the park. “That sucks.”

It does.

“Why not just end the whole thing?” he asks after a bit. “Never dared to ask anyone lest I set a bomb off at your home.”

“It’s a contractual sort of thing,” she tells him with a short, bitter kind of laugh. That he never bothered to ask for fear of repercussions within her household seems perfectly apt to her. There he goes, knowingly or not, very acutely reading the people around him. It’s also the sort of question that would definitely make it back to the Sheikah man, and when it did, he would have definitely sought consequences.

“Contracts can be broken.”

“But at what cost?”

He turns back to her once more, so she knows he’s serious. “Is it not worth paying? Men like him don’t stop with one hit, love,” says Link, and Zelda feels her stomach bottom out. How’d he know? Those strange eyes of his peer down at her, and for that moment she wonders how she ever thought them intimidating, but under the concern in his mismatched gaze is a smoldering hate that might just be as intense as her own. “You want out, find an out,” he tells her, and then his watch continues. Link stretches his legs out and slumps a bit more on the bench to get himself more comfortable, and Zelda withdraws her hand.

Her stomach churns anxiously at the thoughts that now whirl in her head. Her cheek prickles at the memory of her last encounter with Misko alone, which makes Zelda’s brow knit. A deep rooted anger needles under her skin.

“That was the first time,” she tells him lowly when he finally shifts in his seat after a long while of not speaking.

His gaze is torn between her and the park. Her shoulder burns hot when he moves his hand to it and pulls her close. “Make sure it’s the last,” he softly says in her ear. He kisses her hair just above her ear, and then stands, stretching a little. His pictobox bag is sitting on the bench on Zelda’s other side from where he sat, and he slings its strap over his shoulder and across his chest. He stuffs his hands in his trouser pockets after adjusting the bag and sighs to her, “Give me ten. Don’t move.”

She grabs hold of his wrist before he can walk away and gives it a tight squeeze in silent thanks. A sad sort of smile graces his lips, and he leaves her to go handle whatever he’d brought them out to the park for. Zelda tries to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

She decides to table her Misko problem, because for her right now, there should be nothing more important than the mirror.

Zelda works on her own for the most part on the mirror initially. The auction house did not keep records of who bid on what and how much, just who the winner and winning bids were for the lots. After some persistence, they do release the names of all who registered to bid at the auction the day she purchased the mirror. So she works now with Link and Midna (who do the heavy lifting from that point) in between their other cases to figure out who each of the names actually are. Zelda thinks if she can figure out the two other bidders’ names, she can better hide and protect herself while she works the next part out on this whole mess. They slowly trudge through the list with no real results, but Zelda knows that the shorter the list becomes, the closer she is to her answers.

As for her mirror: Twilight mirrors are never small. The asymmetrical designs on the one she bought also make it clear that she has only a piece. And if she has just a piece, then there must be more pieces out there, and They – whoever They are - clearly want the mirror pieces. She suspects, as Link did, that they believe in its abilities to act as a portal. She still doesn’t know where or how, but she thinks she can believe it. The damn thing talks after all.

It has this eerie human element to it as well that makes her grossly uncomfortable. It’s an inanimate object, completely still, but she swears the thing is expressive when it’s talking while uncovered and she can see it. She swears it winked at her at the auction to get her attention.

She made a list of all the big name auction houses in Hyrule, and once a week, she’ll run through and call each one to find out if there’s possibly another piece to be auctioned soon.

Link and Midna also stop at the library for her, checking out history books they find for her to peruse during her quiet days in Link’s flat and see if she can find some sort of clue as to where new pieces of the mirror might be from fleeting mentions of events involving a mirror. It’s an exercise in futility, she thinks, but it gives her something to do and she’s got nothing better to go on. Link, knowing she’s a voracious bookworm, also tends to pick up whatever fiction novel’s cover catches his eye for her to read at her leisure.

She’s frustrated though that she can find mentions of mirrors being portals and blah blah blah, but how do you break a Twilight mirror? Truly break one, destroy it. Midna makes mention of an old Twili legend about a usurper ruler who broke a mirror in a similar manner, but it’s anyone’s guess how. And breaking and destroying are two separate things. Midna and Zelda find old Twili children’s tales that make mention of using stones to light the way through the portal. “Probably a lot lost in translation,” Midna guesses, and Zelda groans. “But it sounds more like they’re talking about Sols. They’re the suns in the Twilight Realm.”

She finds quite a bit on using moonlight to bury a broken portal, break the connection that way. Of course, none of this actually explains how to irreparably break a Twilight mirror. Make it unusable, because despite hers being broken, it very much isn’t.

As the months go by, she grows frustrated, not helped by the mirror’s continued commentary on her life. All unnecessary, all gross, all inappropriate, she stubbornly contends, but the mirror chuckles at her.

Hey Princess, didn’t you agree to go for a ride?

NOT that kind of ride.

She has more important things to worry about.

Men always seem to gain new clarity after. What do you have to lose, Princess?

She would kick the thing off the tallest skyscraper in Castleton if she could.

You’re just being awfully stubborn for no reason, you know.

Link, who thankfully still hears nothing from the mirror, makes fun of her for her perpetually flushed complexion, and she’s starting to think she might just actually die of embarrassment. And that’s embarrassing, too. Let’s just add to it all, thanks. But at least he doesn’t also hear it, because Zelda wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of exponential factor being applied to the embarrassment she’s already swimming in.

Zelda’s first real clue comes out of Faron, a southern province west of Necluda. Her calls to auction houses pay off when one, knowing full well why she’s calling yet again, lets her know of an antique dealer possibly in possession of a mirror or piece of one. He’s located in Faron near the border and not too far off from the town of Ordon in Lake Province where Link mentioned he’s from. She wonders if he’d be happy to go back though. He calls back home on a semi-regular basis from what she’s seen, but he apparently doesn’t visit from what Midna says.

It’s finally something though. A piece could be there – a real one. She excitedly takes down the information to tell Link when he gets home. But as the late summer evening turns to the dark of night, she eventually relents to go to bed. Zelda and Courage go for one last walkabout outside before returning with no further sign of Link. She puts out a pillow and some blankets for Link on the couch for whenever he might come in once they return to the flat. Having dragged on long enough with still no sign of him, Zelda finally settles for sleep in his bedroom with the dog comfortingly at her side.

Chapter Text

It’s been a while since Link’s bothered to show up to the usual game night. They’re all hunched around Ashei’s dining table tonight. Mido complains about him not doing his part hosting a night here and there anymore, and Link just roughly answers, “Can’t.”

“Or won’t?” Ashei asks, with one eyebrow raised. She’s the only woman in their group, which was met with some slight distaste initially when Link brought her round one night, but since then she’s been an integral part of the circle. Mostly because the other men have been desperate to claw back the money they continually lose to her. They tried to complain to Link that they weren’t free to discuss anything and everything (because woman) until it became clear Ashei could be even more vulgar and brusquer than them. So they stick to just grumbling about trying to recoup their losses.

Link likes Ashei.

Maybe he has a type after all?

They’d met on a job he was hired for where he tailed a man to the riverboat casino that’s docked off the Zora River. He was a man with some money problems apparently, and Link quickly could see why when the man practically skipped aboard the casino. There was a point in time when casinos couldn’t legally exist in Castleton, but boats and the river were fair game, being that they were not actually part of the land. The riverboat casino stands docked on the Zora River as a testament to that time. He’d never been in before that night, and feeling gutsy, he followed the man through the boat. Ashei was gambling at the blackjack table when they met. His target sat at the table, and Link watched on with a few others as they played, and she was good. His man lost everything, and Ashei got the boot after winning too many times over the house. When he spoke with her, he found her stoic, but witty, and completely blunt in a way that is refreshing. She was more than happy to come knock the group down a few pegs when he invited her along.

Link thinks he could be more honest with Ashei if it was just them, but with the others around, he’s not so sure.

She has her black hair pulled back into two braids, and her bangs sweep just above those perpetually sleep deprived looking eyes she has. That’s another reason Link likes Ashei: She wears no makeup ever, struts around like she was born to maim men, and is just truly, unapologetically Ashei. It’s the kind of audacious confidence Link wishes he'd been born with just a bit of.

“Can’t,” Link repeats.

Mikau, a Zoran man, asks him to elaborate. “We’ve barely seen you like all year, what’re you up to?”

Darmani pops the cap off of a beer and slides one over to Link. “Still nice to see you come out of whatever hole you been in,” the large man laughs as he grabs another bottle to open for himself.

“So why can’t you?” Ashei deadpans as she gathers up the cards and starts shuffling. The cards slap between one another expertly in her hands. Link wonders if she starts her cheating with the shuffling. “At least bring us some good booze next time,” she mutters, cutting the deck.

Link throws his hand up. “It’s for a job I’ve been working since January,” he says. “I got things I’m holding on to.”

“You sound like a glorified storage locker,” Ashei says bluntly. Storage locker, sure, for harboring a missing person and her creepy mirror.

But storage locker sounds crass in that case. “Ehh, it’s not like that per say,” he grumbles.

“Just work stuff then?” Mikau needles. “Lulu was trying to make a bet with me whether or not you finally got with the assistant, and that’s why you disappeared on us.”

“Never happening,” Link swears. “Definitely not that kind of work thing.”

Ashei starts flinging cards at each of them. “Your ears are red, mate, yeah?” says Ashei.

He could punch her.

But she probably hits harder.

She asks him all cheeky, “What’s her name?”

Link just deflects, “What’s it? Shad? That you kept going on about being a total nerd?”

“I thought about inviting him, but he probably would get eaten alive here.”

“So just a work thing?” Mido clarifies.

“Yep.”

Mido frowns at Link. “You’re lying.”

Link shrugs and drinks from his beer.

Mido is a bit of a stout man with wheat colored hair. His pale skin is marred by a big smattering of freckles across his cheeks and nose. Link thinks he’s looking comically smaller tonight than usual sitting between Mikau’s tall and rail thin self and Darmani.

The Zora tend be a very willowy sort of people, and Mikau is no exception to this. He towers over Mido, but barely skims Darmani’s nose when standing. Link feels lucky to even reach Darmani’s shoulders. More mellow than the rest of them, Mikau has always been one to take things in stride and riling him up is difficult. Where Ashei is a hard rock, Mikau is more pliant.

Darmani though is descended from the Eldin Gorons, and he has the muscle mass and height to boast for it. He’s easily the size of the rest of the four of them in attendance tonight combined. He and Darunia are cut from the same cloth of good humor and bubbly moods (once you crack the initial shell, that is), which are always a good contrast to Mido’s absolute sourness and Ashei’s barking honesty.

Link likes Ashei for one other reason: she never tries to pry about the war, just accepts his idiosyncrasies and doesn’t try to compare supposed shared experiences. She’s a woman, so she was never drafted. He likes his friends well enough to call them that, but the difference between them bred some seed of resentment in Link. Mido was never selected for the draft (the lucky bastard), but Mikau and Darmani were. So had Darunia. Link thinks he might like Darunia the best out of the men, and not just because he’s currently absent. He, like Link, feels better about not discussing the war, but Darunia, like Mikau and Darmani, did not see combat either. So there lies the stark difference between Link and his friends.

His fellow veteran friends’ feelings on the war are lukewarm, and their only resentment comes from the time stolen away. Nothing more complicated. It’s not their fault, and he wouldn’t ever wish they had similar experiences. That’d be cruel of him. Link resents that they don’t understand that he doesn’t feel the same as they do about their time served, the physical pain, or the mockery from his discharge and shell shock diagnosis.

So he feels closer to Ashei and Darunia simply by the virtue that they know they don’t and can’t understand his experience, and thus they just leave it alone. Ironically, he feels some freedom in not trying to share the burden.

All of his friends, at least, just accept him as is. He thinks that’s nice. His heavy drinking is no secret, they make fun of him, sure, but none of them truly disparage him for it. Just accept it as a fact of his existence. They don’t ever make a real mockery of his discharge or think him weak for being shell shocked either. They don’t fully understand him, but by that virtue, they don’t think of him as broken either.

To them, Link just is as he is. And they’re quite fine with that.

“Give him liquor and not beer and maybe he’ll fess up,” Mikau suggests, as they all focus on their cards and start making their moves for the hand.

“I’m not saying shit,” Link vows as he discards.

“Definitely some woman,” Ashei concludes. “Ha!” she barks. “Your ears again, yeah?”

“Fuck off,” Link grumbles at her, downing the rest of his beer. She’s in a mood tonight, not quite her usual self, and it annoys him. She’s a bit like Midna in this way: a bloodhound for gossip. He sets the bottle down and plays on silently as the group starts their usual rapid chattering, leaving Link behind.

“Hey Mikau, how are things actually with Lulu?”

“Hasn’t dumped me yet.”

“I’ll send her condolences.”

“That’s so mean!”

“Are you gonna propose or what?”

“I want in the wedding party.”

“What- as a groomsman, Ashei?”

“What’s wrong with that, yeah? I don’t know Lulu well enough to be a bridesmaid.”

“Would you wear a tux?”

“I think Ashei could pull off a tux.”

“Thank you!”

“Hey, don’t give Link another beer, get him some of the liquor. I want to know his secrets.”

“Mido, your go.”

“Link’s perpetually drunk, he’s not spilling anything.”

“I meant to ask if any of you have gone down to that bar that’s near the Malo Mart in Central?”

“Off of 3^rd Avenue?”

“Wait, wait! How did Ashei get that good of a hand?”

“Ugh! So unfair!”

“Oh, hey! Link’s going to need a plus one, yeah?”

“Good goddesses, you lot, I haven’t decided anything yet!”

“I swear, Ashei cheats.”

“Yeah, but how?”

“It’s an okay place. I went like once during the middle of the week so maybe it’s different on the weekends?”

“But are you gonna propose, Mikau?”

“Maybe? Is that Malo Mart still open 24 hours?”

“I think so.”

“You know, I- yeah, probably. Lulu’s pretty swell.”

“Don’t worry, Brother, you can tell Lulu we planned the whole shebang for you guys already.”

“She’d definitely hate that, yeah.”

“I think whatever plans you guys tell me, I’d forget anyway by the time I get home.”

“You guys seen Darunia around in a while?”

“He’s doing that like, I don’t know, pilgrimage up Death Mountain?”

“You done that, Darmani?”

“There’s really nice hot springs up there.”

“Ohh, Mikau! Hot springs!”

“Sounds way too hot, no thanks.”

“Does Telma do catering at all?”

“I love Telma, but gods no, Darmani, that is not wedding food.”

“Well, make sure to double the catering order so Link doesn’t leave starving, yeah?”

“That’s… wildly expensive.”

“You want a wedding or a funeral?”

“Yeah, no man left behind. Don’t let Link die of starvation.”

“Just let Link buy another plate or two then.”

“He can eat the meals of all the folks that RSVP yes and don’t show.”

“Wait, seriously, Mido? People do that? For a wedding?”

“Oof, yeah! It’s so gauche, too.”

“Is there something wrong with the serving sizes at weddings?”

“No, but have you actually seen Link eat?”

“The man’s a living garbage chute.”

“So it’s solved then! Ashei’s a groomsman, and Link’s on plate clean up duty.”

“I’m… uh… pretty sure these are not the details Lulu would want to hear, guys.”

“Is it just me or are we all like getting too old for this? Seems sad.”

“Yeah, only Mikau’s like close to being marriage material here.”

“What about Link’s girl?”

“Does she really exist?”

“Link, you paying attention, yeah?”

He blinks. “Sorry,” he mutters, and he makes his move, tossing a card in the discard pile.

“He’s mopey.”

“She totally exists then!”

“We could always call up Midna at the office. She’d totally spill on him, wouldn’t she?”

“She is kind of evil that way.”

“Definitely.”

“Link! When was the last time you dated a girl more than a minute?”

Link shrugs.

“You can’t be serious.”

“For real?”

“Hey, Link, don’t worry, I’d date you.”

“Ew. What about Lulu?”

“I’m just saying, he’s got a nice face. What’s wrong with him?”

“What, you wouldn’t date him, Ashei?”

“He’s a drunk?”

“Literally, I only talked to him because he didn’t try to flirt with me.”

“Wait, Link, I thought you brought Ashei around to begin with because you liked her?”

Link throws down his hand and tosses his last card onto the discard pile. “Weep, you bastards!” he gloats. “And I do like Ashei.”

“Yeah, but you never wanted to bone me.”

“You guys didn’t specify platonically or not,” Link huffs.

“Now you’re just being willfully obtuse.”

“What kind of wedding would you want, Link?”

“He’d have it at the bar; someone warn his girl.”

“Hey, I think that sounds like a real seamless operation from ceremony to reception.”

“Oh, no transportation needed either!”

“I think it sounds like Link would just get smashed before the vows.”

“Does it count as missing the wedding if he’s passed out at the altar?”

Link interjects, “I don’t think I’d have a wedding.”

“Really? Like no wedding at all?”

“Or are you just talking about no marriage ever?”

“OH! Wasn’t that the big fucking hang up with Midna to start with?”

“Nah, it’s cause he’s always drunk, yeah?”

“No, I just wouldn’t do a wedding,” Link gripes. “I don’t know, something about a big fat party like that just seems embarrassing.”

“Wow.”

“That is some real ‘I can never show I have feelings’ kind of shit, Link.”

“But you would get married?”

“Yeah. I guess,” he mumbles with a shrug. “But like just sign the paperwork kind of deal if I do.”

“So romantic.”

“Now I understand your secret to lasting relationships.”

“How am I going to get to be a groomsman then?”

“At Mikau’s wedding, duh.”

“Look, if you bastards have actual weddings, and I don’t get to be a groomsman with the rest of your sorry asses, I’m taking all your money and never talking to you again.”

“Jeez, and I thought Link was bad with the fee-fees.”

“This is probably the closest thing to affection you’ve shown us, Ashei.”

“I’m gonna write about this in my diary later.”

“You assholes are worse than teenage girls.”

“Hey, Ashei, if you’re gonna be a groomsman for all of us, would you have us brothers be your bridal party then?”

“That sounds fun, actually. Now you have to get that nerd to take you out.”

“It’s Shad, Mikau.”

“You lot can be my bridesmaids, but I’m picking your dresses.”

“Do we all get the same color?”

“I think Mido would look good in green,” Link suggests.

“I feel I’m more of a warm autumn.”

“I- the fuck does that mean?”

“I’m gonna find the ugliest dresses to match all of your ugly mugs.”

“Oh, perfect.”

“Okay, we gotta find out if this Shad fellow isn’t down with you having a bunch of your brothers in dresses for bridesmaids stat, because he can’t hang if he’s not.”

“I’ll make note to ask.”

“Link, you can’t just do paperwork now.”

“Yeah, this is a blood oath.”

“What if you just come with to the courthouse?” Link sighs. “Don’t you need at least one witness anyway?”

“Why do you need a witness?”

“Oh gods, who knows.”

“Maybe we should ask Lulu? Would she know?”

“You only think she knows since she’s a woman.”

“I mean, Ashei’s a woman and right here.”

“Yeah, but she’s… Ashei.”

“I don’t know either, yeah, but the courthouse doesn’t sound like the kind of place worth me renting a tux, ahem, Link.”

“Gods, I’m not even getting married anyway,” Link spits, throwing his cards down and pushing back his chair to stand. “I’m going outside for a smoke.”

“We don’t know all your secrets yet!”

“He hasn’t even told us one.”

“Oh hey, Mikau, would your band play all of our weddings?”

“You’re asking for like… a lot.”

Link pulls out his pack of cigarettes, pulling one out as he steps out the front of Ashei’s row house. Behind him the rest of the group chatters away with each other. He takes a seat on the front steps, and he pads his pockets for his matchbook. He strikes one and brings the flame to the cigarette.

The door opens behind him, and when he glances back, he sees it’s Ashei following him out.

“Hey,” is all she says. She comes down and crouches next to him on the steps, her heels flat on the step. She rests her elbows on her knees.

“Hey,” Link echoes back. “Thought you didn’t smoke,” he says. “Did you want one?”

“Nah.”

“Okay.”

They sit in the quiet outside for a time while Link smokes, but he’s the one to break it when he asks, “Would you seriously have us as bridesmaids and make us wear dresses?”

She shrugs. “Why not?”

Link starts cackling.

“Would you not wear the dress?”

“For you? Sure, I’d wear it. Just no puke green colors or the like, please.”

“If I get married, you guys can wear suits,” she says with a nod. “But remind me to act like they’re all still getting dresses so I can see how they react sober.”

“Deal,” Link laughs.

Ashei says very gravely, “I’ll write up the contract and send it over.”

“Do you need it notarized?”

“There is no other way.”

“Noted,” Link snorts. He pulls a second cigarette out from the pack, and once he’s lit it with the first, he stamps it out.

“Why do you care about playing groomsman so much?”

“Aren’t you supposed to care about the big things in your friends’ lives?” she retorts. “It’d be nice though, you know, to be recognized.”

As their equal.

Ashei turns to look at him. The sharp edges of her face are highlighted by the light from the street lamps, and the shadows accentuate the dark circles she has under her eyes further. “So what really is the deal, yeah?” she asks him. “Since you don’t want to tell those dumb blokes.”

Link shrugs. “Nothing to tell, really.”

“Sounds like bullshit.”

That gets Link laughing a bit again. “I mean, like I’m kind of dumb anyway like them,” he says, trying to appease her bloodhound of a nose.

Ashei rolls her eyes. “You’re so not dumb.”

“There was this girl back in my hometown that crushed on me for… I don’t know, ages? But even if it was plastered in neon, I was too stupid to see it.”

“Maybe a little dumb,” she agrees. She turns away from him, and she looks down the street. The boys inside start hollering about something or the other. Link and Ashei ignore them. “You seem pretty aware these days, though.”

“I guess,” says Link. “Still dumb.”

“The drinking then?”

“Yeah, and the missing leg isn’t exactly a big draw,” Link admits.

She turns back to him with a frown on her face. “Really?” she asks. “Doesn’t that like, get you a big boast of valor or whatever that women would swoon over?”

“Eh, only so far, I suppose.” Since, you know, then he’d have to tell the story. Link doesn’t want to tell the story. Why couldn’t he have fought a shark or something and lost the fucking leg?

So unfair.

“Huh,” is all she breathes in wonder.

Link rolls his head over to her. “It’s… well, it’s nothing though, because she’s already engaged,” he confides to her.

Ashei blinks for a moment. “Oh,” she says. “You are stupid.”

Link laughs breathlessly. “It’s uh, not exactly the ideal match in her opinion either,” he mumbles.

Ashei lets out a low whistle. She asks, “So arranged then?”

“Yep.”

“Didn’t realize people still did that shit.”

“Me either.”

“You’re really stupid, Link.”

“Thanks, Ashei.”

She scoffs and grumbles at him, “Now you’re making me feel bad for teasing you.”

He shoots her a little grin, but she just keeps scowling at him.

Link digs out his pocket watch and checks the time. He stuffs it back in his pocket and taking a final drag on his cigarette, he tells Ashei, “I can play for a couple more rounds, but then I need to get going.”

“Alright,” she says, and she pops up from her squat and strides back into the house.

Link stamps out the cigarette and follows her in.

The conversation inside moves on to various other topics at lightning pace while they play, and Link does as he says, drinks with them a bit longer and plays a few more rounds with them. He keeps an eye on the clock as well. If he’s home early enough, she might still be awake.

Once he’s ready to quit, the group says their goodbyes to him. “Darmani’s next time,” one of them informs him, and Link nods like he’ll be there, but deep down for some reason, he’s not actually sure.

Link waves them off and walks down the street from Ashei’s to the station. When the train comes, he hops on and rides the loop back to the station near his apartment without issue. He trudges up to his apartment building, and he calls the elevator to take him up to his floor. He closes the gate behind him once the elevator drops him at his floor and makes his way home.

When he enters, he’s hit by a wall of some sort, and not just the one that stretches perpendicular in front of the front door to create the entryway, but like he’s crossed through a barrier. Though keenly aware of what he’s crossed, Link slowly shuts his door trying to block out the odd feeling. He takes his shoes off and walking around the short wall that divides the entryway from the living room, his eyes sweep his apartment, but he can’t see what’s wrong or off. Looking over the living room though, he sees that Zelda’s left him a pillow and blankets on the couch again. She’s left all the lights on for him as he prefers except for the bedroom she keeps dark for herself.

Link stops in the doorway of his bedroom, and he sees that Zelda is already fast asleep, eye mask on to block any final dregs of light that might disturb her. He got back too late.

Doomed, he abruptly reminds himself. That’s what he is. He’d move heavens for her, and it kills him that he can’t even explain why. Time travel, parallel worlds, black holes, and old fables: maybe the answer is there in what Zelda had been looking into, maybe not. He thinks he can accept never finding that answer since if he hadn’t been so attached to her from first sight, he thinks he would be anyway by now. So what’s the point in wondering?

Then he supposes the point may be if only to soothe the irritation that comes with those thoughts that sit in the back of his head that they’ve done or said something before. They come far too often for his liking.

He's stuck.

The dog is on the bed with her, resting along her lower legs and in the crook of her knees, and his ears perk when he sees that it’s Link in the doorway. His large eyes follow Link, but he thankfully doesn’t get up to chase after Link as usual, already well settled in for the night.

Link heads into the bathroom, still unable to shed the weird malaise around him. He shuts the door behind him and goes to the sink to wash his face. He splashes the cool water against his skin. Not that he was expecting it, but it doesn’t wash away the odd feeling. He sighs and just sets about getting ready for bed.

Quietly as he can, he sneaks into his bedroom like some ghost, wary of waking Zelda up. The dog follows his every move while still refusing to move from the bed himself. Link quickly strips himself of his clothes to ready for bed down to his undershirt and knickers. He moves to leave when the dog gives a low grumble of disapproval, making Link stop.

Sorry. Jeez.

Link turns back and gives the dog a good scratch on the head and behind the ears. When he withdraws his hand, he raises it as if to ask the dog, “What?” as the dog stamps a foot, so Link begrudgingly starts scratching the dog again. After a bit, he stops, gives the dog a final pat, and then Link ignores him when the dog impatiently stamps his foot again to demand more. Link flings a hand out in dismissal. The dog rolls over as if to entice him for more pets.

Not gonna work, bud. Sorry.

Zelda breathes deeply, sleeping on her side with her face half hidden in the pillow. She clutches the pillow possessively with one hand. Gently, he moves the loose strands of hair out of her face. He kisses her cheek, waves off the dog once more who huffs back at him, and Link drags himself over to the couch. He shakes out the blanket Zelda left for him and flops down. He pulls his leg and stump sock off. He pulls the sock over the top of his prosthetic a little, because somehow, someway, the dog will psychically discern that his sock is loose and up for grabs otherwise.

Link pulls the blanket over, and under all the blissful electric light to chase away the darkness, he passes out.

::

The sonar beeps rhythmically in the dark. (Ping!) He’s running the long, long, long way down the galley, desperately trying to reach other end to where the rest of the crew is mashed up in the torpedo room and beyond is waiting on him. The sub needs to be submerged, and the quickest way to help sink the sub under the water is for everyone to dogpile up on one end to weigh the sub down.

Ping!

But Link can’t get there. It’s so dark, and the submarine seems to stretch longer.

The other men are calling for him in desperate whispers, but if they don’t just shut up, they’ll be found. Koholint subs are listening. They’ll hear the whispering on the sonar. But the boat won’t sink down without him. Won’t sink down. Won’t sink do-

Ping!

Link grapples around him in the dark, trying to catch his breath in the stale, humid air of the sub. His head hurts again. Is it the mold again? Why is everything always so fucking WET?

Where’s the glow paint?

Too dark.

Too dark.

TOO DARK-

The rebreather kicks on. The hum fills his ears.

Ping!

Something grabs his right leg in the dark, and he can’t yank it free.

Link’s hand finds a boiling pipe, and he rips it away with a sharp hiss. He shakes out his hand, feeling his skin start to blister from the burn.

A whale calls through the sonar. It’s deep hum adding to the cacophony in the sub. The sonar ping. The rebreather hum. The propeller whirring. Does mold make a sound, too?

Where’s the glow paint?

Ping!

The rushing whoosh! of ocean waves hit under the deep thrum of an explosion too close for comfort. He can’t see them in the dark but feels the crew reaching out for him. A mottled mass of green in the dark that pings! when scanned.

His leg is still stuck, but when he reaches down to try to wrest it free with his unburned hand, there’s nothing there.

Link about chokes, a panicked sob trying to work its way to his lips, but he can’t let it out. They’ll hear. They’ll find them, and Link will have killed them all. It’ll be all his fault. His fault. His!

Why is his leg stuck? PULL IT OUT! PULL IT-

Ping!

The punch of metal bursting dazes him. The force of the explosion ripples through him. All the sounds that plagued him fall deathly quiet. Only the constant ringing in his ears remain. A long whine of a note. Without the sonar, he can no longer “see” the rest of the crew. The second mine explosion rips into him. His leg breaks free. It sends him tumbling through the submarine out into dark waters.

Disoriented, flailing.

Which way is up?

It’s too bad he knows how to swim.

Where’s the glow paint?

Makes him want to try.

Shrapnel slams into his chest. Knocks him so handedly that Link is seeing stars – blinded by them. Too bright, too bright, too bright-

Is this death?

He turns in the water, only to slam into more debris. The wind is knocked out of him. Desperate. He’s left gasping for air, scraping at the piece of debris to push it away. He doesn’t have the strength.

Which way is up?

The debris! The debris is blocking his way up!

WHICH WAY IS UP?

Too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark too dark

Why is it so hard to breathe?

The biting bark of another explosion sounds, and Link stills. Paralyzed. Stuck to some random bit of the submarine. And this is how he’ll die, sinking into the depths of the Great Sea.

WHICH WAY?

A hand seizes his and spins him around where it’s so bright.

Too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright too bright

WHICH WAY?

“LINK!”

He gasps again, desperately trying to fill his lungs with air. His burned hand smacks the couch as he thrashes in the deep waters. The surface is too far, and he just can’t catch his breath his breath his breath his breath

His breath?

. . .

.

.

.

. . .

- - -

. . .

.

.

.

. . .

His breath.

. . .

.

.

.

Ping!

.

.

.

.

. . .

- - -

. . .

.

.

.

. . .

- - -

. . .

.

.

“Link?”

His breath.

The couch.

He croaks, still unseeing in the light, “Which way is up?”

“You are up!”

Link lays splayed on the floor of his apartment in a cold sweat, panting to breathe.

“Hold on!”

It’s blurry. “My leg’s stuck,” he gasps. Tears prick at his eyes like hot wire. “I-it’s stuck. Stuck!”

A weight drops on his chest, making him cough.

Then there’s Zelda, bending next to him. Why is she so dry? “Relax, relax,” she says. “It’s okay.”

“My leg-!”

She shoves a paper bag over his nose and mouth.

“No, no, it’s okay,” she tells him, pushing his hand away. “Just keep breathing.”

Muffled by the bag, he repeats, “My leg’s stuck!”

“Just breathe. Come on, in… Okay, out…”

In…

Out…

.

.

In…

.

.

.

.

Out…

.

.

.

.

.

Soothing.

“You’re okay.”

In…

And out…

Link keeps blinking. Keeps breathing.

Eventually, Zelda lets the bag go.

The air is too crisp. (Mold?)

“Why is the air so dry?” he croaks.

Zelda doesn’t answer his question. “You’re at home, Link.”

Home?

Home.

That is the ceiling of his apartment. He lifts his head. Courage is lying on his chest, and Link wonders when he got so long and so heavy. He gives Link a whiney groan, and the rumbling sensation breaks the numbness.

Link’s eyes rove around him.

The dog. The couch. The ceiling. The lamp. Zelda. The bag. The rug. The floor.

Link.

At home.

In the light.

He turns to Zelda, feeling chilled from all the sweat now. “Can you help me up?” he asks her. “I can’t get my leg unstuck.”

Zelda glances down at his legs. “Link, you’re not- um. You’re not stuck.”

“Zelda, I can’t get it free.” Why doesn’t she get it? PULL IT OUT!

She grabs his hand. Why is his so cold and… gross? Clammy? Zelda’s are warm. Soft. Very much not wet.

“Link, you’re not stuck. You’re okay.”

“I can’t move it.”

She squeezes his hand. “Link, you’re not stuck. You don’t have a leg to get stuck. You’re okay. You’re okay, you’re not stuck.”

“What happened to my leg!” he chokes.

“They cut it off, remember? But you’re okay,” she insists. Her tone is gentle but uneven. “You’re not stuck, and we’re going to sit you up.”

“It hurts, Zelda!” he wails. How could his leg have been cut off if it hurts so bad? He sobs, “I can’t move it!”

She shushes him, and the bag is back on his face again. She tells him to keep breathing. That he’s okay. Breathe. He’s okay. “You’re not stuck,” she tells him again. Breathe. “You’re not stuck. I know it hurts, but you’re not stuck. They cut the leg off.” Breathe. Breathe.

Link’s eyelids flutter as she removes the bag, feeling dazzled in the light.

“We’re going to sit you up,” she tells him again, and she pulls the bag away. “You’re going to sit up, and you’re going to see that the leg’s gone. You’re okay. You’re not stuck.”

She leads the dog off of him and then wriggles her hands and arms under him.

“I need your help, Link,” she says. “You’re going to sit up.”

“- the glow paint?”

“What?”

“Where’s the glow paint?”

Zelda pauses. Her fingers twitch against his back. “You’re home, Link. Your apartment. You’re not on the sub. You’re home, and we’re going to sit you up.” Home. Home. Home doesn’t have… glow paint. Mold. Torpedoes. “Ready? Count of three?” she says, almost breathless herself. “One, two, three!” And she pulls up. “Help me, Link!”

Glow paint.

“Link!”

Don’t touch the pipes. You might get burned.

She relaxes and heaves a sigh.

“You’re home,” she repeats. “You’re home. You’re not on the sub.”

Home doesn’t have up.

Glow paint.

Mold.

“One more time. Count of three.”

No sonar.

“One!”

Ping!

“Two!”

Ping!

“Three!”

She starts to pull him up from the floor.

The floor. No paint.

His hand grabs the couch.

No burn…?

With him up, she pushes him to sit against the couch and huffs, while he sits there in a frigid stupor.

“See? No sub.”

No sub.

“No sub,” he repeats.

His eyes roll downward.

“No leg.”

“Remember, they cut it off?”

“When?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Like six years ago?”

The dog lies on the floor next to him and puts his head down between his forelegs. He makes the same little groan at him again and the tiniest of barks to trail the end of it.

Zelda reaches over Link’s lap to pet the dog. “Good boy, Courage!”

To Link: “Come on, let’s get you changed and back to bed?”

She scoots next to him and pulls his arm over her shoulders and holds onto it with one hand. She snakes her other arm behind his back. “Count of three,” she tells him, “and then we’ll stand, okay?”

Like with getting him to sit, it takes them a couple of tries, and then Zelda is almost toppled over by Link’s weight. Slowly, they make their way to Link’s bedroom. Frantic clicks fill the apartment as the dog paces between them and the bedroom, trying to herd them along and not understanding a man with one leg isn’t going to be quick. She gets Link to sit down on the bed.

Link looks around his own bedroom like he’s never seen it before.

Ping!

He jumps a little at the sound, and he hastily looks around. Zelda is at his closet. He can’t figure out where the sonar is.

She comes back to him. “Here, get that shirt off,” she says, but it’s like she’s talking in a whole other language. Sliding away from him. Down down down down down some long stretch of met- “Link?”

He blinks.

She sighs and starts pulling off his shirt. Link being next to no help to her, she struggles with getting him into the clean one. She tosses his sweat-soaked shirt into his hamper and walks back out to the main room. His eyes trail after her. His prosthetic lies on the floor next to the couch, and she stoops to retrieve it. The blankets he was sleeping with are also tangled on the floor, dampened by sweat, and she throws them up on the couch to get them out of the way. His leg in one hand, she snatches up his pillow from the couch. She brings the leg and pillow back to him in the bedroom where he hasn’t moved a millimeter. She sets his leg up against the nightstand and bed, takes the sock, and she throws it in the hamper. The pillow is tossed against the headboard.

“Do you want some water?” she asks him.

He doesn’t respond.

Zelda pushes him down on the bed and swings his legs up onto the mattress. She throws the covers over him. The dog launches himself up on the bed and then settles in at the foot, satisfied that his services are no longer needed, and he can go back to sleep at last.

She brings Link a glass of water anyway, setting it on his nightstand.

“Link?” she calls, because he’s somewhere far far far far away and under- “Link?”

He blinks again. “Zelda?”

“You’re home, Link.”

“In my apartment.”

“Yes.”

“When did it get so cold?”

“Because you were sweating. You’re all clammy,” she tells him. “And you’re not on a submarine. You’re home.”

“It’s cold…”

Getting on the bed next to him, she starts to roll him on his side. “Here,” she says. She snuggles up to his back to help warm him, and he shivers away in her arms. She turns her head up, and with her ear to his back, listens as his racing heart eventually slowly starts to ease, the shaky breaths even out, and his shivering ceases. And at some point, Link falls back into a blissfully dreamless sleep where he can’t lose himself in the depths of the sea again.

Zelda lies awake for some time.

As she finally drifts off herself, Zelda thinks she understands why Link is always stuck at the bottom of a bottle.

Chapter Text

Ping!

Link jolts awake. His heart hammers in his chest as his eyes dart around. His eyes meet Courage’s. The dog is watching him with wide eyes. He taps his feet at Link, and huffs at him again.

Link stares.

Was the dog the sonar?

That… doesn’t sound right.

The dog, impatient, amps up his antics.

Link rises just a bit, but it’s enough for the dog to think he’s actually getting up, and the dog soars off the bed.

Bed.

He’s in the bedroom, in his bed. He sits up and starts wiggling in the blankets he’d been wrapped up in like a cocoon.

Seeing that Link hadn’t followed him, Courage returns at full speed on his ridiculously short legs, sliding on the floor and nails scraping. The two look at each other for half a minute before the dog barks at him. “I’m going, Din dammit,” he grumbles.

Link looks around his bedroom and sees his leg resting against the nightstand. “Hey,” he calls to the dog, “bring me my sock.” The dog stretches out in that silly way he does. He pulls his rear haunches back and throws his forelegs out, letting out a trilling, groaning growl. “I need my sock to get up. Bring me my sock.” Link points to the dresser. “Sock.” The dog stretches out his back legs, kicking each one back and then slowly meanders to the dresser. Link sighs, rubbing his face. “What happened to all that urgency?” he mumbles as the dog pulls open the drawer, still agonizingly slow, and digs in the drawer. He pulls out a sock that he likes and, with a little more pep in his step this time, trots it back to Link.

Frustrated, his head pounding, Link mutters, “Little shit,” to the dog when Courage brings him the sock but immediately darts out of Link’s reach when Link’s hand goes to take it. Link huffs a little in exasperation. He just holds out his hand and waits. The dog, mouth full of sock and brown eyes wide, looks at Link’s face, his hand, and then anywhere but. “Hey, come here, ya burnt loaf,” he tells the dog sternly, and then after another few seconds of deliberation, the dog steps within Link’s range. Link grabs the sock but then finds himself locked in a game of tug.

Nayru, if you’re up there…

“Drop it!”

And then they both stare at each other.

Goddesses.

Link, almost out of patience with his head about to split open like a piece of fruit, keeps hold of the sock while the dog debates it out. He counts out about a half minute to himself. “Drop it,” Link repeats. “I’m not arguing with someone that’s a foot tall.” Slowly, the dog loosens his hold on the sock, then chomps down again, changing his mind and thinking better of it. Link keeps hold and waits. And after a few more slow, contemplative chomps, the dog at last fully releases Link’s sock to him.

“Great. Wet,” he grumbles to himself. Putting on a higher, cheerier voice, he tells the dog, “Thank you!” Fucking snot.

He sighs. The dog’s fluffy fox tail whips about, mouth stretched up into a humanlike grin. “You don’t need to look so damn proud,” mutters Link as he whips the stump sock in the air. Like it’d magically dry. Stupid.

He slips the (damp, thanks) sock on over his stump and seeing that Link is on his way to getting up, the dog’s tail picks up and starts wagging at full speed.

Sock on, Link pulls his leg over and puts it on.

Taking a moment to collect himself, Link runs a hand through his hair and then rises from the bed. He walks to the bathroom with the dog scrambling after him. “There’s no fire,” Link tells him.

After making sure Link doesn’t die on the toilet, that the hand towel isn’t a spy, and that his toothbrush isn’t up to something nefarious like poisoning him, the dog pitter patters his way to the front door. Link looks around his apartment, but Zelda is nowhere to be seen still.

Courage skitters back to Link and nips at his false leg to get him going again. “Alright, alright,” he snaps. He throws on some clothes. “Let’s go.” Absolutely no patience. No peace.

Link takes the dog down to the gardens and waits around for him to check out all the latest sniff gossip and do his business. He looks up at the sky. Bit cloudy today, but from where the sun is, Link guesses it’s around noon. He frowns. No way.

Why didn’t Midna come and hound him for being so late then?

When they return back upstairs, Zelda is back and in the kitchen. Seeing them in the doorway, she smiles widely. “Welcome back,” she greets. The dog charges at her and jumps up for pets and a hello.

“You’re encouraging that,” Link says, kicking off his shoes.

Zelda sighs. “Off!” She turns away from the dog, crossing her arms until he settles down. Then she proceeds to give him the rub down of his life.

“Where’d you run off to?” asks Link.

“Oh, to the store is all,” she says.

“Zelda.”

She waves him off and turns back to the counter where he sees she’s making sandwiches. Link follows her into his tiny kitchen and washes his hands in the sink. “I could have picked up what you needed,” he says. He snatches the washcloth hanging on the lower cupboard to dry his hands.

“It’s not a big deal,” she insists. “I wore a hat.

“How are you though?” Concern. Link tries to think what that could be for. His hands slow, and he absently turns the towel in his hands. Did he drink too much? Blackout?

“Fine, I guess. Headache again,” he says at last and throws the towel on the bar hanging from the cupboard door. “Did I have too much?” he asks trying to think of how much he had. His mouth is parched. But not for water. He braces himself on the sink ledge with his hands. “I thought I went to bed on the couch.” And seeing the clock, yeah, how is it almost one in the afternoon?

One in the afternoon and not a single peep out of Midna?

Zelda puts a hand on his arm. So small and delicate compared to his own. “You did,” she says. “Don’t you remember?”

So why had he woken in his own bed when he’d given it to her?

His silence leaves the question in the air, unasked, but of course, since she’s definitely psychic (“I am not, Link!”), she answers him, “You had some sort of fit. You thought you were on the submarine. You kept insisting your leg was stuck.”

“… My leg?” The one that got turned into medical waste?

He runs a hand down his face. The sink spins in his vision, and he almost wants to vomit. And the only cure is-

“The, um-” but she stops.

He needs a shave.

Link pulls away from her and leaves the kitchen. He grabs whisky out of the sideboard in the main room and pours himself a glass. He’s late starting after all. He knocks back the whole glass. He hears Zelda’s light footfalls behind him, and he tells her, “I’m going to clean myself up.” Not looking at her (it’d just make that tightness in his chest worse), he walks into his bedroom and picks out some (for sure this time) clean clothes and carries them to the bathroom. If he shows up as is, Midna will for sure skin him alive.

He turns the tap on, the frigid cold water gushing out. In the late summer, the temperature is almost desirable, but the chill it sends up his spine isn’t from pleasure but a fear he can’t describe. When did he turn into such jelly?

Link strips himself of the dirty clothes he’d thrown on to take the dog out, tossing them in a pile on the floor. He plugs the tub once the water is a more acceptable temperature and lets the tub fill. He braces himself against the grab bar on the wall, and he removes his leg and stump sock. One hand on the bar and the other on the tub edge, he hoists himself into the tub and leans back waiting for the water to rise up and tries to think back to the night before.

He feels sick.

He leans forward and shuts the tap off.

A soft knock sounds on the door and, without waiting for an answer, Zelda opens the door and steps inside. Balancing a glass of water against her chest, hand fisted, she uses her free hand to pull the stool Link keeps in the bathroom closer towards the tub. She sets the glass down on it and holds her hand out to him. “Here,” she offers, and Link turns and sees a couple pills of aspirin.

“Stop reading my mind,” he chastises, but he very gratefully takes the aspirin from her hand with a gentle “Thanks, love” and pops them into his mouth. He doesn’t need water to down the pills, but when she insists by holding out the glass to him, he obliges and takes a sip.

“All of it.”

So he downs the rest.

She takes the glass back and sits down on the stool.

He thinks he ought to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable or ashamed of his nakedness in her presence, but the odd domesticity that had flourished between them over the last few months makes him feel more at ease than self-conscious. Besides, he’d shut the door. She’s the one that boldly decided the barrier was unnecessary and waltzed in.

Which is also just what the dog does when he sees his people aren’t hanging around him.

“This is the worst party,” Link says flatly, watching as the dog struts into the bathroom with them.

Zelda giggles a little and reaches down to pet the dog as he plops himself on the bathmat at her feet. When did the dog get so big? Zelda pulls her hand away, and he rolls a bit to stretch his back legs fully out behind him in a sploot and displaying his little pink toe pads (“Look at his wee beans, Link!”) for them. He puts his head down between his front paws, and his large ears quickly droop from attention downwards. They’re very brown now. Zelda had commented before how very dark and black they had been initially when she plucked him out of February snow. The black coloring still frames the top of his head to the back of his neck where a collar of white rises up from his belly and chest. His long snout is white, but the same warm brown of his ears sits as a mask around his eyes. He’s grown into a handsome little man. The black fur on his long back hadn’t changed much, but the whites of his legs extended as they grew (slightly). The brown trimmed his legs and butt as a barrier between the black and white fur. Yes, yes, look at the very distinguished young gentleman.

Link thinks he’d have to be at least two stone now as he looks down at the dog. Heavy. Little. Shit.

“I’m not going to drown myself,” he says at last, turning to grab soap and a sponge.

Zelda, who at least had been trying not to look at him before, turns to him now. “I was just worried is all.”

Don’t be.

Something flickers in her eyes. Link swears she’s using her telepathy (“For the millionth time, Link, I can’t read minds.”) again, but she doesn’t say anything else.

“Peridot,” he says.

“What?”

Hah! Got her. Stupid.

“It’s always emeralds for green eyes, right? Yours are too light for emeralds. More peridot.”

“Oh!” And she laughs.

They sit in companionable quiet as he washes himself, and occasionally when the dog starts to stamp an impatient foot looking for attention, Zelda leans down and gives him some pets.

When he’s finished, Link pulls the stopper and the now lukewarm water rushes to drain. He shoos Zelda from the stool (“That’s not actually decoration, love.”) and the dog from the mat. He grabs the bath towel from the bar behind him in the tub. He puts it on the stool and rejects Zelda’s offers of help. “I’m fine. Really,” he says, dismissing her, and her light footsteps pad away. Been bathing himself for years, thank you very much. Got it just fine. He scoots the stool up to the tub edge. Taking hold of the grab bar and tub edge, Link pushes himself up out of the remaining water with his foot and stump and sets himself on the stool and tub edge to swing his one whole leg out of the tub.

The dog, however, remains dutifully at his side. He voices his quiet opinions on the whole suspicious situation before attempting to thwart the bath towel’s obvious assault on Link. (Bathrooms, so dangerous.) Link pushes him away and commands him to sit, which he does, but the focus and suspicion in those beady eyes of his doesn’t wane. His stump dry, Link has to try a couple of times to get the sock back on away from snapping teeth (Why toy shaped if not toy?), and he puts his prosthetic back on so he can stand and dry the rest of himself. The dog looks disappointed to have been prevented from hoarding Link’s stump sock again.

The dog keeps his vigil at Link’s feet, ready to defend him from any more bathroom threats as Link dresses himself. “Give me that,” Link snaps, annoyed, and he manages to grab hold of his suspenders before the dog takes off down the hall with them. Zelda left the door open, just in case, he decides to… well, something. He clips his suspenders in place.

The dog smacks his butt down on the tile to wait again. He watches in interest as Link rolls his sleeves and digs in the medicine cabinet. The most dangerous item in the bathroom is the razor in Link’s hand, and the dog does nothing about it. No reaction at all. Ironic.

Once he’s done shaving, he and the dog exchange a long look. Bending down, since despite being almost ten months old now, Courage has a very silly diminutive stature, Link tenderly wipes away the little eye boogers as Zelda calls them from the corner of his eyes. The dog’s sheer panic is a stark contrast to the gentle grooming. Stretching up, Link admires his small handiwork and then says to the dog, “Idiot, now you’re handsome.”

He steps out of the bathroom, the dog immediately scrambling to follow, and Link walks into the living room to throw himself into his armchair. The world takes a good spin in his vision, so he tries to steady himself. Zelda had turned on the radio, volume down low, and the crackling music fills the apartment in soft, quiet tones.

Ping!

Link startles.

But it’s just Zelda. The plate with the sandwich she’d made for him is held out for him, and though his stomach is still a churning sea, the food might be good he tells himself. The plate shakes a bit in his unsteady hands. “Thank you,” Link says.

When they look at each other, Link is suddenly grateful she can read his mind, and he just knows that she understands it’s not just the sandwich he’d been talking about.

“You’re welcome.”

A nose wedges itself up against his knee.

“You indulge all his bad habits, you know,” Link deadpans, holding his food a little closer to his chest.

Zelda turns up the music and goes to sit on the couch. She tries to goad the dog to sit with her on the couch and leave Link be, but there is only a good snort to Link’s knee for response. Giving up, Zelda sinks back on the couch while Link and Courage carefully watch one another until Link’s food is gone.

“I called Midna,” she tells him. She’s using that gentle tone with him, but her statement drops a lead ball on his lap. Fuck. Midna. Quickly, she says, “Told her not to expect you in the office today. She said she’d take care of your schedule the rest of the week.” (So please, please don’t worry.)

The food isn’t helping. Link licks his lips, the dying man that he is.

Ping!

::

Zelda wonders if he’s ever gone this hard. He usually spends what pocket money he has on drink, at least being responsible enough to not drain his finances completely. (So you know, it’s not a real problem if the rent’s paid.) When he runs out, he somehow comes up with more to feed to the bottle usually by doing random odd jobs. This also makes her wonder if that’s how he ended up becoming a private investigator to begin with.

For Link, she thinks that while he knows the alcohol is a problem, it’s not The Problem, since he still manages to hold his life together with fine threads. From when he wakes up in the morning to when he crashes for sleep at night, he drinks to hold what must be a steady buzz for him, but a blackout amount for anyone else. There were some rare times when she’d catch a slurring in his speech later in the day than just the usual drunk swagger of his walk, but apart from the wane and drawn appearance (if you had seen him before the drunk years) and smell of it on his breath, you’d never really know. He generally speaks too well, too clearly for it to be overtly obvious he’s completely smashed.

But that’s not today.

She got him to eat a sandwich in the early afternoon, but after that all bets were off, and she’s lost count now how many drinks he’s had. It makes her nervous.

By this point in the evening, she’s helped him tear the apartment apart. His possessions are now scattered literally everywhere, but he’s not done. A drunken madness has taken over him as he digs through a box that had been in his closet. He had tried explaining what it is he’s looking for, but she couldn’t understand him, and his slurring is getting worse. “Din yeh hurr eh?” he asks shoving the box away.

When she asks him to repeat himself, she still doesn’t understand.

He’s getting close to hysterics again.

Didn’t you hear it?

Hear what though?

There’s a giggle, she hears, but judging from how Link is now insistent on going through his sock drawer for the third time, that’s not what is driving him mad.

Zelda looks down at her feet and sees she’s stepping on a pictograph. She picks it up and in it is a much younger, happier Link. The smile on his face is one he’s given to her plenty of times, but in the picto it fully reaches his eyes. Unbridled and honest. He stands in the center, arms slung around two other men, and theirs rest over his shoulders. On the right is a dark haired young man with freckles across his nose and cheeks. The one on the left is a tall, muscular man. All of them sport short cut hairstyles, that makes Zelda think this is the first time she’s seen his hair neat. It was simply too short to be wild. The three of them were dressed for the picto in the Navy dress blue uniform of the Hyrulean Alliance, at a port somewhere from what she can see in the background. She wonders when this was taken. Clearly it was before the horrors of war cloaked them.

She picks up other pictos he had haphazardly tossed and settles against the bed on the floor. Link keeps looking for his mystery thing, talking to himself. His slurring now just part of the background noise to Zelda’s ears. There’s a portrait of him with a fair haired girl at some sort of harvest festival. He’s smiling, but it’s subdued. Baby fat still clings to his cheeks, and he wears a dark plaid flannel shirt in it with the sleeves rolled. His hands rest behind him on a bale of hay. Looking just so… Link. He’s not looking at the pictobox or the girl, just off to the side, but she has her hands clasped in front, looking to him at the side of her eyes. The deep affection and adoration in her expression makes Zelda question if they were sweethearts before the draft. There’s no doubt to Zelda the girl, at least, was besotted with him.

There are many pictos of his various friends and family. Some with him, some without. He’d been much more muscular before. Still fairly thin, but the muscle tone difference clear. He is thin now, somehow, but not the same way. Considering how much he usually eats, and he loves to eat, she doesn’t understand how he could be so thin. And without the telltale beer belly of all things as an alcoholic.

One picture, he stands in swim shorts with friends. Two legs. More shapely in the calves with the muscle he had but thinner overall than now. She supposes that having to rely on his left leg so much after the amputation made the difference over weight gain. It’s somewhat jarring to see him with two full calves. The amputation had caused what meat was left below his right knee to wither.

Link says something to her. When she realizes he’s actually talking to her, she makes him repeat it again, and he seems frustrated that she can’t understand his garbled speech. “I was just looking at some of your pictos,” she answers when she finally gets that he wants to know what she’s doing.

She asks him who some of the people are, and if she’d heard right, the big man from his Navy picto was Goose or Groose, and Pipin (?) was the dark haired man. The girl from the harvest was “Illsya”, and she knows he’d probably butchered that completely. He lingers on the picto of them at the harvest. It was from the fall before he’d turned eighteen apparently and subsequently drafted. “Las’ good ah-hum I hab.”

He asks her again, desperate now, if she could hear it. “No, I’m sorry.”

He stares down at the picto in his hand, deep sorrow lining his face. She thinks that he slurs out that the girl was nice to him. He tosses the picto aside. Yanking his pant leg up, he pulls off his prosthetic, and with careless anger, tosses it aside, too. Sitting next to her now, he rests his stump on the floor, his flat, empty pant leg on the floor bending at an impossible angle outward from his leg like a weird surrealism painting.

“It doesn’t stop,” is what she thinks he half-sobs.

“The noise?”

But he can’t respond now. Too shattered by everything. Unsure if she should, she reaches out a hand to his back to rub it when he sinks forward. Eventually, somewhat soothed, he rises a little, face flushed and eyes puffy. He’s sniffling.

Courage crawls out from under the bed, apparently it’s where he’d gone to hide when Link was in the full throes of madness tearing the place apart. He gives little huffing barks and starts to pace, not caring where he’s stepping.

She doesn’t fight him when he pulls her into his lap, clinging to her, and soon his sobbing makes Courage launch into sympathetic, mournful wailing. Zelda does her best to quiet him down, but so long as his people are in distress, Courage doesn’t fully cease.

He settles down on top of scattered papers and pictographs, head between paws and quietly continues to whine.

Link’s breath is hot against her collar.

Zelda freezes. “What did you say?” she asks.

It crushes her. Like a release from gravity, she’s spiraling in some sort choking elation, but she’s pulled every which way from the mounting pressure.

Her nose in his hair, breathing in that lingering scent of bergamot in it, she wraps him in her arms tight to keep him from spiraling off with her.

When he’s ready, she helps get his leg back on and get to the bathroom where he’s forced to expel the alcohol and what little he ate into the toilet, emptying his stomach in some bizarre exorcism. She waits on the stool until he collapses in the narrow room. “On your side,” she tells him, wanting him off his back in case there’s anything left in his stomach.

Tears streak his face, but the cool tile must bring some relief to his hot forehead. Courage, of course having followed, settles on the tile in the doorway to keep watch. He turns, stuck in a silent, woeful cry that wrenches her own heart in two.

Thinking that she’ll wake stiff as wood later, she lies down next him. If she leaves, she thinks he might just die.

::

When she wakes the next day, Link is still on his side and thankfully still breathing.

What a mess you’ve made.

Zelda, about to snap back at the mirror, shuts her mouth when she hears a very determined knock at the door.

Better get that, Princess.

Irritated beyond belief, Zelda turns to head to the door. The mirror had been so blissfully quiet as of late, that she’d almost forgot that it spoke.

And how annoying it is.

She stretches up on her tiptoes to look through the peephole. In the fisheye of the glass is Midna. Thank the goddesses. Zelda hurries to undo the locks and flings the door open, “Gods, I am so happy to see you.”

Midna, confusion written across her face, steps inside, but stops, struck stunned, once she sees the state of the apartment. Zelda closes the door as Midna soaks it all in. “Uhhhh, what. The. Fuck.”

Catching herself, Midna whirls on Zelda. “Oh gods. Are you okay? I knew he was like- like-” She grapples at the air, like it might help her find her voice. “He didn’t hurt you, right?” she whispers.

“No!” Zelda says quickly. Maybe too quickly. “Really, he’s been so nice this whole time,” Zelda assures her.

“What in the gods happened?”

Zelda shushes her. “He’s still sleeping in the bathroom.”

Courage approaches with none of his usual morning gusto. The doleful brown eyes look up at them.

Midna looks stuck between genuine surprise and exasperated expectation. Stepping through all the mess, she takes a look around at the whole flat before coming back to Zelda and Courage. Then, thinking better of it, Midna goes to the bathroom, calling out, “Did you check his alcohol for blood?” Another time, Zelda might have laughed. Link would think it funny, at least. Midna double checks that Link has a pulse and, satisfied he does, comes back out.

“Go with me to walk Courage?” Zelda asks.

“Yeah, sure,” she breathes.

They’re silent in the elevator, as if Link might be eavesdropping, and only when they’re halfway down the block does Zelda give Midna the full story. “He had that fit the night before last that I mentioned. Like a flashback.”

“What exactly happened with that?”

“He thought he was on a submarine,” Zelda says as they stop for Courage to sniff a hydrant on the street. Trying to get him to move is impossible when he starts sniffing with that amount of fervor. “I think he thought he was drowning.”

Midna, a sad note in her tone, says, “Ah, yeah, I’ve seen it.”

“You have?”

“He gets these night terrors, but I don’t think they’re as frequent as they used to be.” She looks up at the blue sky above them. “He usually shows up to the office late and looking like an absolute wreck when he’s had one.” She sighs. “I guess they’re so real, he really believes he’s at war still.”

“He kept telling me his leg was stuck, like he still had it.”

They speak no further of the night terror, which Zelda likely found to be almost as frightening as Link did. Instead, Midna turns them on the mess in the apartment. “I’ve never seen him do that after,” she says.

Zelda groans. “I honestly don’t know. After I told him I’d called you yesterday, he just started drinking so much.”

“He drinks a lot every day,” Midna says. “His tolerance is so fucking sky high now, I’d be on the floor before he ever starts slurring.” As an afterthought almost, Midna adds, “It’s really fucking annoying having to drive his ass around. I should thank you more for that.”

The slurring though. That’s a gut punch. “He had so much, though, I literally couldn’t understand him, Midna.”

Courage leads them on, and after some time, Midna wonders aloud, “How is he not dead?”

“Beats me,” Zelda mumbles. “He kept going on about hearing something, but I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about.”

Midna puts a hand to her cheek. “My guess is the sonar,” she says thoughtfully.

“The sonar?”

“Having to listen and figure out what was pinging on it was his main duty from what I understand,” Midna says. “He never really like… talked-talked about it. I’ve just gotten snippets here and there mostly, like he used to have lots of trouble sleeping since he'd still hear it." It must be easier to pass out than to fall asleep.

Zelda thinks about his story of the King of Red Lions sinking. Yiga forces were made up of troops from Calatia, Koholint, and Holodrum during the war. They’d likely hit a mine from Koholint as they were the main naval force of the Yiga. “It feels wrong almost,” Zelda says at last. The downfall of the Yiga Syndicate after the end of the war gave Hyrule and the rest of the Hyrulean Alliance a great boon. Hyrule solidified itself as a major power in the world alongside Termina, Labrynna, and the People’s Republic of the Great Sea. Here they’re all enjoying the prosperous win on the backs of their fallen and broken soldiers. And gods! It is so, so unfair.

They say nothing more until they reach the entrance of Link’s apartment building.

“I’m uh, just gonna clear everything,” sighs Midna. She gives Zelda a sorrowful, sympathetic look. “Love, I think he needs to be checked in.”

Zelda agrees, whole but heavy heartedly.

In a rare moment of tender affection, Midna reaches and wraps her in a hug. “You get him sorted, and I’ll sort the business,” she reiterates as she pulls away.

Chapter Text

Link eventually stirs from his slumber on the bathroom floor. He groans, all stiff and sore, rolling onto his back. His stomach feels like it got vigorously scrubbed on a washing board. It cramps from hunger and whatever else he’s done to torture it. He rolls back over to find a new spot on the tile floor that’s blessedly cool to rest his head when his vision swims.

Hearing him stirring, Zelda comes to him. She brings him more aspirin, water, and bread. And when Courage tries to snatch away the bread, she shuts the dog out in the hallway.

Link complies with her, drinking the water she gives him, taking the pills, and slowly eating the bread even though it all wrecks havoc on his stomach, and he’s shaking with deep tremors like an old man.

He feels wet from sweat. Not just damp. Wet. The bathroom might as well have been a part of the submarine.

It’s only been hours probably since he’d last had a drink, but it’s been so unbelievably long.

His hands keep shaking as he finishes the bread.

Zelda combs his hair through her fingers, trying to soothe him, his head on her lap.

“Why’d you take so long?” he asks.

Zelda’s fingers pause, and she says, “What?”

He asks her again.

Why can’t she understand him? Is she playing dumb? She has a brain. What’s so hard for her to get?

He asks her again, eyes opening, and looking up at her.

This time, understanding dawns on her face, but then she’s confused. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure exactly what you mean,” she says slowly. “Did you wake up earlier while I took Courage out for a walk?”

The- NO! The dog has nothing to do with this.

No, no, NO.

But-

He can’t blame her. He’s half the equation after all, right? It’s just as much on him, so he can’t blame her. That’s wrong of him.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her blearily. “I’m older.”

She doesn’t respond right away.

“Well, yeah, you are. You were born like five years before me,” she says, letting him go when he sits up. “Did you say that you’re sorry?”

YES. YES.

WHY IS THIS SO HARD?

“I should have been there,” he admits, feeling the sorrow in him rolling over like tumultuous waves to come and take him back to that deep watery grave he’d managed to escape from. Why’d it take so long? “We could have been best friends.” But he’d cheated death, and death becomes him.

Her brow furrows. “Link, I can’t understand you.”

Does this damn woman not understand Hylian?

“WE COULD HAVE BEEN BEST FRIENDS!” he hollers, frustrated with her.

And her silence needles him the longer it goes on and on and on and on and

Then: “Link, we are best friends.”

He doesn’t like the stern way those green eyes look at him. “Link, you’re not well,” she tells him. Her hands brushes the hair back from his forehead where sweat hangs like his drunken crown. “You’re still very hard to understand.”

Why?

He cries, “What’s so hard?” But she doesn’t answer. It’s so very simple.

His heart pounds much too heavily, and he feels forever fiendishly feverish under the sweat. Why does the shaking not stop?

“Link?”

“Why is it so hard?”

There’s always some terrible rift, some gods awful great expanse between him and other people. When given the tools, he all too happily works to chip away at the very edge of the rifts perfectly well all by himself, thereby widening the woeful gaps.

Link has friends, but he wonders if they really would call him that since what friends he does keep, he neglects to drown himself in work and drink to keep them at arm’s length, because getting closer and caring is to ask for more hurt. He’s happy to spend time with them but never indulge any real truths to them about himself, his problems, his hopes. He can’t trust them to help carry burdens, and he can’t trust himself to do the same. They needle him to open up, share in the excitement of life changes, but Link acts like there’s a wall between them. Unyielding and rigid. He doesn’t want to make changes to let them in. They chat amiably about important positions in each other’s lives, but when it comes to him, he’d made a point to step away.

Ping!

He’d broken something fundamentally between him and Rusl and Uli when he’d stormed out of Ordon the last time, a rage filled shell of himself. They’d forgiven him long ago, he knows (or at least Rusl had truly forgiven him), a water under the bridge that they’re happy to ignore. They still wish him well and all sorts of Good Things he doesn’t deserve in birthday and Yule cards that go unanswered. Yet Link can’t let go, and the rift remains despite their loving, branching arms, and it’s riddled with guilt. No matter how far they reach, he is just as quick to damage the fragile ground he stands on to keep them from crumbling with him.

Like he’s actually trying to save them from something.

Hah!

Ping!

Then there was Ilia, too, whose feet he’d so carelessly spilled a whole ocean at when he left Ordon the first time. That may not have been his choice, of course (he was submarine material after all!), but the scathing way he’d scorched the earth leaving for Castleton definitely was. The sick part of him was glad he’d so thoroughly crushed whatever bridges remained between them to be swallowed by that careless ocean. She was the only friend he’d had that he could have counted on to never disparage him behind his back, and he could hardly say he returned the favor. She’d never want to bother with him again, and it’s just what he deserved. So his horrid actions were justifiable in order to permanently sever their fragile ties.

Ping!

He never knew his mother, his father. Never knew a happy home until far too late as a child, and that, too, was another cosmic rift in his existence that fed into his inability to foster and only just barely maintain ties if he manages that. Something ancient had clicked in his mind when he was small and put him in survival mode, and as a child, he disappeared. Not physically, of course. No matter how much love Rusl and Uli tried to give him when they took him in as a child, treat him as if he was their own flesh and blood, the harsh lesson he’d learned before coming to them that love is transactional was an unforgiving, greedy sinkhole that sucked it all in and then just gave nothing back to him.

Ping!

Every expanse is, in a way, of his own making where he is too emotionally inept and too drunk to rebuild those broken bridges. He’s no engineer, after all. Whatever tightrope that exists between him and Midna that he manages to shoddily maintain is always under some threat of his own doing, and she’d perfectly correct to sever it and let him plunge down into the depths to save herself. Hell, it could even be called righteous. But she’s actually too nice for her own good, and rather than save herself, she keeps the line taut for him, keeps trying to get him to keep his head above dark waters. She does too much, and he’s happy to let her since it keeps him afloat. She’s a better friend than he’ll ever be.

Ping!

There was Pipit, even, somewhere halfway across the globe and hundreds – maybe thousands – of meters underwater, all because Groose managed to get Link to surface with him. It wasn’t Groose’s fault though that Link’s lungs gasped for air when he’d broken the surface without a thought for anyone else. That selfish and desperate death rattle was all his own. They’d surfaced, and Pipit sunk with the King of Red Lions, never to be seen again, devastating his girl Karane back home when she’d gotten the news. And gods, she would destroy them all if she ever finds out the real truth, which makes Link feel guilty. It wasn’t like they foresaw the sub sinking and taking Pipit with them, but Pipit could never write Karane a letter again.

Ping!

And Link, stuck with an honorable discharge, unable to walk, and stubbornly refusing to crawl the distance, let the expanses fester and grow from the small but manageable cracks to those wide gaping sinkholes. Just because they’d called it honorable, didn’t mean it was seen as that. He was weak to surrender to shell shock. A liability. They’d all whispered about it. The leg didn’t matter. The shell shock diagnosis was all he’d have needed to be sent home. The damage had been done. But it was the cherry on top of the amputation. He resented his former neighbors and friends for it.

Ping!

If he’d been truly willing, he would have been there for her. And instead he left her to wallow about in his own idiotic misery. The cracks were there to start, and it wouldn’t take much to bust them wide open, because he’s sure they can’t take the stress. He hasn’t broken her yet, but he could.

Ping!

“Why is it so hard,” he asks chokingly again, “to love?”

She doesn’t answer, but Link can tell it’s because she doesn’t have an answer this time, and not that she couldn’t understand him.

“Link, let me help you,” she says.

“You can’t,” he sobs, “I’m already dead like the rest of them.”

“You’re already what like the rest?”

“I’m dead.”

“… But you can hear me?”

Why doesn’t she get it?

His chest heaving and shivering, he asks her, “Best friends?”

This, she gets. She smiles at him, some sickening radiance from across the dark depths. “Best friends.”

So dark. Why’s it so dark?

“I love you, Zelda. From the first.”

::

Fell asleep or went unconscious, Zelda isn’t sure, but it scared her, how slurred and out of it he’d been still before he drifted off. Midna was right, and he’d gone beyond her. She stands alone now in his apartment with Courage at her heels, having called for an ambulance to take him away. It feels empty. Neighbors of the building poked curious heads through cracked doors and windows when the ambulance had arrived. She’s sure that even now and tomorrow and on, they’ll be whispering amongst each other.

Zelda shivers, thinking of the man from a flat on the ground floor asking her gruffly as they watched the ambulance pull away,  “He finally drink himself to death, yeah?”

Because Link isn’t dead. He can’t die. And most definitely not while they still had that stupid mirror she just had to buy. She doesn’t know what she’d do without him, having realized how wholly unprepared she is for actually handling life, because goddesses, he was right that she’s in for a lot of mediocre meals if she doesn’t start getting better at cooking, there’s no math to tell her when to swap the tires on the car for winter, no science to explain the need for the frustrating process of navigating various bureaucracies that he seems to maneuver through like a chess grandmaster. There’s certainly no one else that has scried into the mirror like she has and seen it for what it is.

But most of all, nobody has seen her like he does. Nobody’s sees through her like he does.

That magnetism between them may have been what pulled them together initially, but he picks up from the slight thinning of her mouth when she’s dying to ask a million questions. Only the soft click of her tongue spelling frustration is all that’s needed to send him on a quest for sweets to make it better. When she wants to think, and her head is too crowded, he's happy to be the sounding board for her ranting, even if maybe two thirds the way through he’d quietly say, “I have no idea what any of that means, Zelda. You have to explain like I’m five.”

So no.

Link didn’t drink himself to death. Because Link can’t die.

The flat would be too empty.

But- oh.

His next of kin – actually, does he legally have next of kin? She assumes it must be his family in Ordon, but he’d never been formally adopted.

Her stomach flips.

The landlord would want the place cleaned out. Have his next of kin (whoever they are) come take away his things. There would be no flat for her to even feel empty in, and she’d be lucky if she got anything of his to cling to.

So she tells herself again that Link’s not going to die, because Link can’t die.

It’ll be good for him, she reminds herself. If he’s in hospital, they won’t let him drink. He’ll have withdrawals, but they can manage his withdrawals better than if he were home. They can get that one foot of his going on the right path, he just needs to commit to it.

Some folks die from that, you know, Princess. The withdrawals. So vicious.

That makes her choke on a sob.

Courage starts to poke around the flat. Everything’s still scattered everywhere from the night before, and Zelda sighs, trying to push everything out of her mind for at least a second. She tries to wipe away whatever mess is on her face, thinking of how much work it’ll be to put the place back together again as her eyes scan the flat. But hey? What else does she have going on?

Faron, the antique dealer.

Ugh, she never actually got to tell him about her exciting find. She makes a mental note to call them back and hope beyond hope they’ll be willing to hold the mirror piece for her. She tells herself that she’ll get the chance to tell him. That they’ll go together to retrieve it.

Because he’ll be fine.

Not dead.

She takes off her shoes.

Who would have thought?

Zelda freezes. There it is again. It’d been so quiet lately. She hasn’t heard much of a peep in now what feels like eons, but-

Wait.

Would have thought WHAT?

Just a little ping! could send a man into such a spiral.

Ping?

Her shoes plummet from her hands to the floor, and Zelda races to the bedroom to where her luggage is and starts ripping her belongings out of it. She digs the mirror out of the canvas bag she’d stored it in. “What do you mean?” she screams at it. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

Her horrified, pale face merely stares back at her in the fragmented glass, but in some queer way, she feels like the mirror itself is looking at her slyly. Deviously. Cruelly.

Nothing.

The light tone it takes is such a disgusting and frustrating mask of the way it truly looks back at her.

It winks.

Just…

.

.

a little

.

.

.

ping!

Chapter Text

Link stays in hospital for a couple of weeks, all the while Midna masterfully manages to push his workload off without spoiling where he’s at (because “Godsdamn, I am good.”) and taking on some of the easier work herself to keep them going as a business. She is an impressive force to behold, Zelda thinks, and recalling Link’s wistful comments about her, can see how he could be half in love with her. Zelda thinks she just might be herself even: her red hair is, as Link had said, a sight to behold. So vivid, it might even be the flame of the gods. And her pale, blueish skin is almost ethereal in its tone. Mostly though, Zelda is wishful that she could be half as assertive as Midna. She feels much too meek instead.

Zelda’s come to the office, where Midna is sorting out files, mostly out of boredom sitting around the flat with little else to do at this point. “How is he with the withdrawals these days?” asks Midna, not looking up from the drawer she’s bent over and just knowing it’s Zelda that’s arrived when the door opens.

“One step at a time,” Zelda replies, softly closing the door behind her. “I guess?”

“Long time coming, honestly,” she says with a sigh. She looks back at Zelda briefly. “He might fall off, you know,” warns Midna with an arched brow.

“I’m sure you’ll keep him on,” laughs Zelda, thinking her stern and forceful personality is one to keep Link in line.

Midna wrinkles her nose. She quietly confesses, “I didn’t think I’d be as happy as I was to dump all the booze he kept here.” Slamming the file cabinet shut, she straightens up. So willowy, Zelda thinks. She towers over Zelda by at least over a full head, and Zelda suspects, she might even be taller than Link. Her black, short sleeved frock is simple in shape, but it’s magnificently complimented with iridescent and turquoise stone beading for details. “I couldn’t get him on the wagon to start with,” she says and folds her arms, shivering almost as if a gust chilled her exposed arms. A melancholic kind of disappointment is mixed in with her strained expression.

“Well, I didn’t either.”

Midna quirks a brow. “My love, I doubt that,” laughs Midna, but it’s hollow and with little humor. “He probably thinks it’s just the booze putting him in a tizzy, because he’s never seen his own stupid face looking at you.”

Zelda blushes. She hates that. Why does her face always do that so easily? “He’s a cold sort of man, though,” she says, and Midna huffs in agreement. Link isn’t what she’d call shy, since he’s perfectly fine to show her bold and unbidden affection on the rare occasion, but just the general idea of it all seemed to stir something deep in him. It made him uncomfortable for the most part. To say he’s cold is far more apt, in her opinion.

She grins when the memory hits. “He told me once that maybe in a parallel universe, you’re together,” Zelda says with her own strained laugh.

“Because he’s a foolish, dumb, stupid man,” says Midna ruefully, but she laughs again at the thought, this time with more meaning. She pulls out her chair and sits down at her desk. “There’s no time, planet, universe, or world we’d ever work out,” comments Midna. “He knows that.”

“Yes. He seemed enamored still.”

Midna gives her a big, brilliant smile and brings her hands, fingers laced together, up to her chin so as to better display her face. “Look at me, darling, who wouldn’t be?” she goads.

And the two break out in laughter.

Like sisters.

Zelda blinks.

Midna, not having heard anything at all, purses her lips to help kill her laughter and asks Zelda, “So, we taking bets on how long he keeps it up?” Her bitter tone tells Zelda she’s only half joking. Zelda hadn’t wanted to give it much consideration, despite those kind of thoughts nagging at her, but the possibility is high. He’d be an odd one out if he never had another drink of alcohol again.

Zelda mutters, “It seems wrong to doubt him.”

Midna rests her elbow on her desk and motions for Zelda to sit in the chair across from her. She rests her chin in her hand as Zelda settles in the chair. “Sure, but if we’re being practical…” she drifts. Midna’s deep red eyes dart to Zelda. “We should be prepared for it, at the very least. He just doesn’t need to know.”

Zelda nods. “He mentioned once you encouraged him to go to some meetings at the community center,” Zelda says.

Midna rolls her eyes. “He’s so resistant to it.” Her mouth pulls taut to one side as she thinks. She says, “Probably won’t be too enthused to go after he gets discharged.”

Zelda mumbles, “Maybe…”

“You gonna hang around?” Midna asks her seriously.

Zelda’s about to reply to remind her of her mirror debacle, but Midna’s eyes and expression aren’t talking about that. She’s seeing much further into the future than Zelda is. Much further than Zelda wants, to be honest, because that means handling other business she doesn’t want to think about. Zelda briefly thinks that with the way Midna leans over her desk, and Zelda in the chair across from her, all she needs is a big crystal ball to complete this fortune telling vibe. It makes her wish Midna could look ahead and assure her of her path. That everything will go right. She’ll be rid of the mirror. Shed herself of constraining responsibility at home. Crush Misko like the cockroach he is. Everything will go right to open doors she didn’t know existed before.

“I guess… it’d depend.”

Midna tilts her head. “Yeah,” she chirps. “I see that.” But not all of it, Zelda thinks. Midna pauses for a moment, chewing the inside of her cheek, before shifting in her chair to sit up more from her previous casual slouch. “You do something about that asshole?”

The abrasiveness of her comment catches Zelda off guard, and she half chokes, “What?”

Midna’s face scrunches into a scowl, and she moves back into her previous position. “You know, that absolute twat… Misko.”

Zelda stiffens a bit. Suddenly finding her voice is difficult, but she squeaks out, “I had just been thinking about you.”

“Me?” Midna asks, flattered and curious and suddenly distracted from the Misko situation.

“I was wishing I could be assertive like you,” Zelda softly replies.

A smirk cracks Midna’s steely demeanor. “Is it assertiveness or is it audacity?” Midna jokingly chides back. Much more seriously, Midna tells her, “I think you’re good though. Look, you had the balls to make a crazy plan and disappear right off the planet, and then you even went through with it, and if your father hadn’t hired us, I’d bet you still be out there living life in Hateno. You got your own brand of guts, love.” Midna lets Zelda think on that for a minute before asking about Misko again. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

Zelda sighs. “I-I don’t know,” she weakly says. “It seems like such a non-problem when he’s not here.”

Midna raps her knuckles on her desk. Misko is barely on the priority list at this point, but Zelda supposes that the sooner she handles it, the better, which Midna seems to agree with when she says with heavy implication, “Well, I would love it if you hung around.”

“Maybe it could just be us two running off into the sunset,” giggles Zelda.

Midna breaks into a silly grin. “Who needs idiot men anyway?” she agrees.

Zelda quietly admits about Misko, “I was a bit surprised from what Link said at how quickly you both picked up on his real face.”

“He wasn’t exactly pleasant when he was here with your father.”

“Is that so?” That surprises her. The Misko she knows would have been eager to ooze them up with pleasantries. He needs to find some sort of foothold of power in someone’s life before he starts to let his real self show through. She muses aloud, “Link said he wasn’t being very good about always wearing a mask though.”

“He didn’t do much of anything when he was here until we looked at one of the pictographs of you that your father brought.” Midna shrugs. “It was like just a split second,” she says thinking back to it, “but Link got real weird seeing your picto. I think your man Misko picked up on it, too.”

Her mind turns back to Hateno to the night she first spoke with him. The mix of shock and confusion hidden in his face when he’d looked at her midway through their brief conversation. Zelda wonders if that’s what Midna and Misko glimpsed, too. Link being “real weird” was exactly how both of them had been, however. She could never explain it to Midna or anyone, lest she be crazy, how they knew some lost, deep connection existed between them, and they’d spent hours and hours already trying to figure out if they had met someway before and come up empty handed. Link mentioned to her once off hand when they were sat a café on a case he’d brought her along for that it wasn’t that they met for the first time in Hateno but more that they just got reacquainted.

It was one of the reasons, too, she’d gotten so excited when Midna eagerly pushed Link to start taking Zelda on jobs as a driver or a decoy or simply company. Midna, who’d rather sit at the office reading magazines and answer the occasional call, was more than happy to stand aside and claim (with a sly wink to Zelda) she’s got enough going on with holding all his shit together (which, gods, yes, bless Midna for actually doing it right now). Link grumbled about it at first, but obliged anyway, and while he more often than not let Zelda lead the conversation and decide the topics, it sometimes devolved into some frantic exchange of information to fill in the gaps of missing knowledge between them.

Midna leans back and rocks a bit in her chair. “I wasn’t there the whole time, but it seemed like Link was determined to completely ignore him since we both pegged him as an ass to start, which also probably pissed him off,” she chuckles. She folds her hands over her stomach.

“I don’t think my family has any idea of the real Misko.”

There’s a cunning glint in Midna’s eyes. “You know, maybe if you get that mirror of yours to open a portal, you can just… shove him in,” she suggests with all the devilish humor in her voice.

Zelda claps a hand to her mouth to hold in the laughter.

Oh, there’s an idea! Problem solved, right?

But it’s not that easy… to snuff out a light.

You said that back in Domain. Let me change your mind, Princess.

“Midna,” she says after a spell and shaking herself free from eagerness of the grim idea that bloomed in her head. “You seem to know a fair amount about Twilight mirrors.”

“You’d hope,” snorts Midna. “I’m from the Tribe after all, but I’m no expert, love.”

“No follow up then on mysterious stones?” Zelda asks.

“Afraid not.” She taps her finger on the desk. “Just what I told you before about Sols.” And Sols, unless there’s another purpose outside of being the literal sun, aren’t anything she’s looking for.

Zelda sighs. “What I really wanted to ask though is if you’ve ever heard of the mirrors like… talking to people?”

Zelda already knows the answer as soon as Midna’s face screws up. “No,” she scoffs, finding the idea of it impossible and insane.

Wringing her hands, Zelda takes a deep breath. Exhale. And in.

“I’m asking, because… well I hear it whispering. Like a lot. And I think you were right about the sonar noise, but it was the mirror.”

Midna seems at a loss.

“I just- I just- I mean.” Zelda takes a moment, clapping her hands to her flushed cheeks. Ugh, it never stops, does it? Midna is patient with her, her attention totally rapt on Zelda’s words with a steely determination painted on her face. “It was kind of laughing at him,” Zelda admits with her own disbelieving laugh, because it sounds ridiculous, frankly. Ridiculous and nutty. “It just… it laughed like it was surprised that a simple sound could drive him so mad. Like it’d just been playing with him. I think he was hearing the mirror making the sonar sound.”

“Wow. Diabolical.”

And completely cruel.

“Um, well, I guess I can look into that,” Midna offers, but the unspoken part is that there’d probably be nothing to follow up on since the whole idea really is just so absurd – let’s be real now. She asks, “Have you told Link about it or your lead on another mirror?”

“Not yet. I talked to I think the owner of the place last the other day when I called back to give them a better timeline. Never gives his name. He surprisingly is willing to hold it until we can go down and look at it. The Cawlin fellow I spoke to originally thought he might not want to wait.” She scratches her cheek. “I guess it just gives them all the creeps, and they’d like it gone as fast as possible.”

Midna half laughs at that. “Creeps, huh?” she muses. “Might be a solid lead then. Hey, you know, maybe they’re willing to hold it just because you seem like a good bet on getting rid of it to them.

“You doing okay yourself otherwise?”

“Nothing else to report. Staying in. Very bored,” Zelda says. Which is true. She cleaned up and organized the flat the best she could after Link tore through it like a drunken typhoon, but she’s stayed in as much as possible like Link wants, and she thinks how she’s read through all the books he’d brought her so far from the library. They’re probably late. “I’ll tell him all about it when he gets out so we can make the plan to go get it.” Still thinking of the books, “Maybe I’ll go to the library though. I think the books he borrowed are late.” Quickly, she adds, “Just dropping them off. Promise. No lingering.”

“Sounds perfect,” Midna purrs. “Just don’t linger too much when you drop the books if there’s something that catches your eye.” She flashes a mischievous grin at Zelda that animates her wholly. Zelda smirks, realizing Midna’s not offering to take them for her so she can spend a little bit of time outside. “Tell him hello when you go and what an incredibly dumb idiot he is for me.”

“You’re really beautiful, Midna.”

“Love, I believe we already established that.”

The two of them break out in bubbling giggles all over again.

::

Zelda comes to visit him, radiant as ever in this bleak and sterile place. Her bob haircut is fresh, so she’d cut her hair to get rid of growth from the last couple of months. Her jacket is folded over her arms when she leans in through the threshold to see if he’s awake since he struggles at night to sleep in the dimmed room. He tried more than once to just keep the lights on, but then the night nurses just come by and shut them off. More than once she’s come by for him, and he’s dozed off during the day from sedatives or the lack of night sleep.

He snaps his book shut and sets it aside when he sees her appear in the doorway. “Hey Tet,” he calls as she approaches his bed.

There’s a few seconds where Link dies.

Straightening up and grabbing a chair, Zelda pulls it up and sits down next to his bed, setting her jacket on the back of it. The spot on Link’s temple where she’d kissed him burns. “Hi,” says Zelda shyly, innocently, while Link is suspecting that she must be a witch. “You don’t seem to be shaking much anymore.”

She’s got to be.

Explains the mind reading.

Yeah. Witch.

“What’re you reading?” she asks, but Link’s too busy thinking of a million other things to respond.

Also would explain why she’s so damn familiar?

Hm.

Why else would he think he’s known her since before world even existed?

Hm. Hm.

She’s a godsdamn witch.

And he tells her so.

Dummy.

She tries to hide her smirk. “I must not be a very good one,” she says.

“Why not?”

She shrugs. “If I was then I could probably make my whole problem go away pretty easily,” says Zelda. She waves a hand around, like she’s trying to dispel a cloud about her. “Plus that love potion my friends and I made in grade school wouldn’t have totally bombed as hard as it did.”

She smiles brightly at him.

Link thinks his blood pressure is too high.

Maybe if he calls the nurse, they’ll sedate him again…

“My friend Ruto was totally convinced it would work, but she’s the type to find true love every week.” Zelda shrugs her shoulder just a bit again. “So, I don’t know, maybe it does work?”

“Does?”

She gives him a playful scowl for not fully listening. “I said that she is the type, not was the type,” she laughs.

He just got outplayed.

Link blinks, and then he says flatly, “That sounds like she fucked it up though and made a sort of reverse love potion.”

“Oh!” she exclaims after a moment of thought. Zelda laughs. “I see. I suppose that would be it.”

 A thoughtfulness takes over her, and she adds, “I wonder who would last longer talking to her: you or Midna?”

“Why?”

Zelda sly grin is telling. “Ruto can only breathe if she’s talking,” she giggles.

Link dryly responds, “If only we all strived to be so energetic.”

Devil.

Zelda’s smile widens even more, and it blinds him so thoroughly to everything else. “They told me you could go home in the next couple of days,” she says, changing the subject and trying to stamp out the light on her face.

Link finds himself, but all he says is, “Yep.”

“Oh! I saw Midna earlier, too,” says Zelda eagerly, sending Link spiraling into an internal panic. Oh, NO. “She’s been managing everything just fine for you, don’t worry,” Zelda hurriedly adds when the panic starts to reach Link’s face. “Everything’s good with your work, don’t worry.”

Oh, nononono, that’s NOT what Link’s worried about.

“She also said you were wrong.”

UH.

Confused, he asks, “… About what?”

“That there’d be ah… what was it? ‘No time, planet, universe, or world’ that you’d be together. I believe those were the exact words. Called you an idiot.”

That does it. She is a fucking witch.

“Witch,” he grumbles. He rubs his nose and gripes to Zelda, “I knew she’d want to start gossiping about some stupid nonsense.”

Zelda laughs.

His stomach flops.

What is he? Ten?

“Is what it is,” he tells her.

Zelda says, “I just,” pause, “I see what you had meant about her being a steel fortress. I wouldn’t want to be on her bad side.”

“At least one of us isn’t then,” he bites.

Zelda reaches and takes his hand in her. “Link, she cares for you very much. She’s worried about you not keeping sober.”

She waits patiently for him to respond, or not. Whatever he wants. Because she’s just infuriatingly kind like that. And Link hates how much that stings. “Best friends?” he half jokes, and somewhere in the recesses of his brain this reverberates in him. Sounds familiar. Déjà vu again? He wonders what the hell is déjà vu is at this point, because this is honestly ridiculous. He especially hates how since the start of the year he seems to be a constant déjà vu haze. It rattles his brain too much with the mental whiplash that always follows.

Déjà vu… what a stupid phrase. He’s sick of thinking it.

Maybe it’s just shell shock jumbling his head after all.

Zelda gives him another wide, confident smile. “You two are definitely best friends,” she assures him.

Yeah. If only he could be half as kind to himself.

His lips pull taut for a moment, and he asks Zelda softly, “Is she mad?”

She seems a bit surprised. “Midna? Um… I don’t think ‘mad’ is the right word.” Her nose wrinkles slightly. She’s hesitating. “I think it’s more disappointment, but I’m not sure.”

Okay, well that doesn’t make a lick of sense. Midna? Not mad? That’s crazy talk.

The fleeting look she gives him makes him suspicious about her being telepathic again, but then she keeps her face mostly neutral.

She changes the subject again instead, though. “I didn’t get a chance before to tell you: I have a lead for us to follow up on with the mirror, and I also tried my best to put your apartment back together,” she tells him. Did she put her hand in a fire? Why is it so hot? “But when you come home, Courage has a whole collection of rocks and sticks to show you.”

Breathlessly, Link laughs at the thought. “Dumb dog,” he cries. He squeezes her hand and wipes away the tears prickling his eyes with the other.

He can’t pinpoint what it is in her face when she looks at him. “What?” he asks.

She smiles again. Wide and bright. “I was just thinking how much better you look already. You know, more like you used to.”

Confusion swirls over him. “What do you mean?” he asks, because they’ve established a thousand times over that they hadn’t met before he’d found her in Hateno. She never knew him when he was young and sober. She’s only ever known the drunk, amputee Link.

She blinks at him. “You don’t remember,” she comments. “When you tore your place apart, you tossed all these pictos around, so I got see some of you from when you were younger.”

Younger. Happier. Whole.

Zelda whispers, “It’s nice. Good.”

“I tore the place apart though?”

She squeezes his hand tightly. “Yes, you were going nuts trying to find the… um…” Her eyes (peridot, he remembers saying) fall from his face. She swallows some tight lump in her throat.

His brain feels like mush trying to think back. He recalls the dregs of some night terror, and he woke up late in the day after. Anything after are some fragmented clips or a total blur or just missing completely.

He doesn’t like that pained smile she offers.

They sit there for a time, not saying a word but saying everything (because she’s a mind reading witch and that’s just what she does), and finally Zelda says, “Okay, I’ll let you rest.”

“It was good seeing you, Tetra.” And he suddenly hates how her false name sounds. It hits him like a hard slap, but he knows better.

She stands, releasing his hand only to fold it between both of hers. “Come home,” she implores.

Something from those dark depths that Link hates to think about surfaces. A sadness that it had taken so long to find her even though he didn’t know that he should have been looking for her in the first place beyond some conceptual, paradoxical idea that he had been all along. So there remains the guilt that he should have consciously known that he should’ve been looking for her. Thinking back to before he woke up in the hospital is difficult, too hazy and fuzzy. He thinks he must have apologized to her for taking so long to find her, but he can’t recall. Before she lets his hand go, he gasps in desperation to be sure, “I’m sorry.”

She waits.

And because she’s totally telepathic (“Shut up, Link.”), Zelda asks, “Because we could have been best friends?”

Yes. No.

Yeah?

What?

He tries to blink away what comes to him. “Not best friends,” he breathes. That silly sensation of déjà vu (PFFT!) or whatever the hell it is slips over him, and it rolls him over in another fuzzy fog, turns him all around, and makes him forget which direction he needs to go. It’s dizzying.

She lets his hand go. “I heard you before, you know,” says Zelda, smiling at his desperately lost face with all the brilliance the sun. “From the first.”

For the second time that day, Link expires.

Chapter Text

When Link comes home, the place is practically spotless to his surprise. Taking his shoes off, he greets Courage, giving him the rub down of a lifetime, and then moves to stand at the edge of the entryway and looks out over the living room. Zelda skitters about in the kitchen to his left as his eyes keep roving around, telling him how she tried a new recipe and hoped it came out right. The girl didn’t lie to him before, she can barely boil water, but she’s been trying of late to actually make meals instead of letting him do all the heavy lifting in the kitchen. Link stands at the edge of the entryway of his apartment, seeing, but not. It’s hard to focus, and Zelda’s voice seems so far away.

When she notices he hasn’t moved from the entryway still, her head poking out from the kitchen doorway, she comes near. “Link?” Zelda calls softly, putting a hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”

His leg aches.

Link laments that there’s still more to do, and he wonders if he’s up for it. Link knows though that if it’s all still here, he’ll down it all and throw himself right back in hospital, because he has no self-control at this point. It makes his stomach swim in anticipation and anxiety.

He blinks, trying to bring it all back in focus. He licks his lips, because that telltale urge of his is creeping up. The unquenchable thirst. “Yeah,” says Link, just barely above a whisper, because his voice had upped and walked off. He clears his throat, and he adds, “Just making a decision is all.”

Link thinks back to when he left Ordon, when the drowning started, because he was supposed to die young, after all. He left Ordon making the decision to foolishly drown himself in order to save himself in some convoluted way, and in some ways, he’s managed to survive. He swallows the lump in his throat, feeling unnerved since from here out, he could live so long as he makes the choice. Gets through the day.

Link walks into the main room, rubbing away that thirst from his lips, and he heads straight to the sideboard, Zelda following behind. “Wait, Link!” He rips opens two of the doors and finds… Rocks? And sticks? He opens the other two doors of the sideboard.

MORE ROCKS?

“Zelda.”

Courage arrives, as if on cue. With little ceremony, he drops his butt onto the floor to sit in front of the sideboard. His mouth is upturned, that mock smile he has on display. This burnt loaf of a dog looks positively proud to show off his collection to his people.

(I made this.)

Link steps back from the sideboard and whirls on Zelda. “Where are the bottles?” gasps Link.

She doesn’t back away. Zelda steels herself with whatever moxie she can muster in herself, swallowing a lump in her throat. “Midna and I dumped them out.”

“All of them?”

Zelda hesitates at this. “I believe so,” she replies. “You ripped through this whole place. If you had others hidden somewhere, I think it’s likely that we probably got them. She cleaned out your office.”

Meekly, Link repeats, “All of them?”

Zelda doesn’t reply.

Oh thank the gods.

“Link?”

He’s half dead, dying for whisky, but gods bless her! If he hadn’t already been six feet under in love with her, this would have done it.

And he’d called her a witch. A devil. He could cry.

In fact, he does.

Link, sniffling (oh gods, when did he turn into such a blubbering mess?), rubs the tears from his eyes. “I called you a witch,” he starts to wail, shattering Zelda’s defenses. Clearly, Zelda hadn’t prepared herself for this kind of reaction, and she reaches out to him, unsure of what she should be doing. Awkwardly, she pulls him into a hug and pats his back, beyond baffled by his behavior. She lets him cry it out on her shoulder. Link sobs, “I’m sorry I called you a witch.”

“I told you I’m not telepathic,” snaps Zelda. She pulls back from him, pulling out a handkerchief from her pocket. “What’s wrong?” she asks. Gently, she dabs at his face.

“I just really want a drink,” he warbles.

“Well, we dumped it all,” says Zelda with finality. She hands him the handkerchief.

“I know,” he breathes in answer, but she doesn’t hear the relief in it.

“Link.”

“I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to pour it all out,” he confesses to her, but gods bless her and Midna. It’s already gone, and the relief of it swells like a high tide rolling in. For once, he feels like he’s being brought to the safety of the shore, the tide throwing him back on land. He wipes his nose with kerchief, probably looking a mess.

For a moment, she’s unsure what to say, but she settles for, “You’re welcome.”

He crushes her to him, afraid if he lets go, he’ll lose the delicate anchor he is tethered to and be swept out again and lost in dark waters for good. “You’ll be alright,” Zelda assures him. “You just have to get through today.”

Today, and the next and the next and the next-

“Don’t think about tomorrow.”

Never mind.

Take it back.

She is a damn witch.

The best witch.

Eventually, Zelda wiggles out from his arms. “If you don’t eat what I made while it’s still somewhat warm, I’m going to be so mad at you, Link Coutts.”

She’d made honeyed apples spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg for his return (“Tada! See? Now I can do more than boil water.”) and brings it out with much fanfare, because… well, it’s silly and stupid, and silly and stupid will lift his mood. Zelda fusses over the amount of nutmeg (“Maybe fifteen grams was overkill, ugh.”) she’d put in it, but for Link, it just might be the best thing he’s ever eaten in his life.

Courage sits under the table, only his nose visible between Link’s legs. The fucking beggar. Link, so grateful, isn’t about to share this gold. The dog’s on his own.

“It was so humid on the sub,” says Link hoarsely, “that the chef was always like one moldy ingredient away from losing his shit.” Zelda quiets and sets her fork down. “Like… oh, it was so stupid,” he breathlessly laughs. “You had to be double checking your food for it, but then after being out at sea so long, it was like, ‘What’s a little dashing of mold?’ like it was a spice.”

The nutmeg is fine.

The nutmeg is perfect.

His leg doesn’t hurt.

While he was gone, she’d found his records sorting through his shambles of a flat, got new needles for the phonograph even. He looks through them like he’s seeing them for the first time. He’d only been using the radio for so long for music and shows, the records are like lost relics in his hands. He picks one for her under her insistence, and she plops it on the phonograph with a fresh needle and winds it up. “Come on,” she says, goading him to get up. He knows what she’s doing.

He gives in to her all the same, and he gets up from his armchair.

If he’s idle, he’ll want a drink is what she’s thinking. Idle or not, the thirst remains though. The wanting makes him sick. He thinks of the hum of the submarine’s rebreather. Always somewhat conscious that it’s there.

Just get through today.

Only a few more hours, then go to sleep.

Short term goals, or… whatever. Right?

He lets her lead him into dancing. Her hair smells pleasantly like the honeyed apples she’d made, and it somewhat eases the nausea he’s feeling, the gnawing thirst he has. Link decides that for tonight, whatever she wants from him, he’ll give. She and Midna dumped all his alcohol. For today at least, they’ve saved his life.

Zelda chatters away, making enough conversation for the both of them. Link, just happy to be (at all) there with her, lets her go off.

When Link is in the bathroom later on, readying himself at long last for bed (fucking made it!), he stares at himself in the mirror. That gauntness he’d had before has already begun to go away, to his surprise. It’s a small change, one he hadn’t much noticed before, and he hadn’t really believed Zelda when she had mentioned it at the hospital. He looks down at Courage (always wary of bathroom dangers) sitting at his heels. “Still not dead yet, little man,” promises Link to the dog.

As he walks through the main room, he pauses at the sideboard. It’s weird. No bottles. Just rocks and sticks. He closes all the doors to the cabinet, keeping the dog’s collection nice and safe. He gives the couch a passing glance, and, thinking how hard it’s going to be to sleep there (not just passing out drunk), he trudges into the bedroom.

Zelda is messing with a box by the closet when he enters. “What’re you up to now?” he asks her. He grabs a pillow off the bed.

The dog sleepily meanders in after Link. He plops to the floor and crawls halfway under the bed, his little back feet stretched out behind him. Ridiculous beast.

“Just, um, your old pictographs,” answers Zelda.

“My pictographs?”

“Did you- oh, did you not want to see them?” she asks. She turns around and spies the pillow under his arm. “Where are you going?”

“I’m tired and dying for some whisky right now, Zelda,” sighs Link. “I’m going to go to bed so maybe I don’t have to think about it.” He grabs the throw blanket that had laid across the foot of the bed. Realizing that was a bit harsher than he intended, he tells her in a lighter voice, “See? Made it through the day.” Just like you asked. “Almost.”

Zelda stares at him blankly. “You’re not sleeping on the couch, Link Coutts,” she says flatly. “I’ve taken over your apartment enough, I’d think.”

Devil woman.

Fine.

Link chucks the pillow and blanket back on his bed. He sits down and then takes off his leg and stump sock. He kicks his leg out, and he can almost feel the wiggle of ghostly toes. The scrawny stump is all that’s left in reality, but he swears his ankle itches.

Zelda sits down on the bed, the sound of pictos sliding about in the box.

Link glances back at her. “My ankle itches,” he says.

Confused, Zelda says, “Scratch it?”

“The missing one.”

“Oh.”

He falls back onto the pillow, throwing the covers over himself and rolling to his side. “The phantom leg is the worst,” groans Link.

“I thought when you’d complain about your leg hurting, you meant… uhm…”

“My stump?” Link chuckles, closing his eyes for a brief minute. He soaks in all the familiar scents of his home, the feel of his own bed. It’s nice. “Sometimes if I’ve been on my feet all day it does. It’s the shrapnel I feel a lot though.”

“I see.”

He looks over at the box she has in her hands. “What’ve you got for me?” he asks, nodding at it.

She brightens a little, and she pulls out a couple of pictos. “You tried telling me about the people in the pictos, but you were slurring so bad.” She hands him one, and Link feels a mix of joy and devastation.

He taps the picto. “The one on the left here, the big guy, that’s Groose. He’s the one that got me out of the sub. Saved my life, the goon,” he chuckles. “Haven’t seen him since, honestly. He actually hated me at first. Thought I was too scrawny to be a sailor.”

“What changed his mind?”

“Ah, he started some dumb fight at port.” Link stares up at the ceiling trying to remember. “Can’t think of what it was about,” he says. “We got in huge trouble though. He started the fight, and I finished it for him, and then we were stuck on all the shittiest jobs together at port for a month. Like cleaning the latrines on the subs.” The thought makes Link gag. Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. “It’s one toilet.”

“On the subs?”

“Yep.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad. One to do.”

“One toilet, Zelda,” he says again. “For a fifty man crew.” Link cackles at how quickly her face screws up in disgust and disbelief at the thought.

“Just one?” she exclaims, now totally horrified.

“Submarines are not actually very big on the inside.” His laughter dies a little, and he says, “The torpedo room is like way bigger than even the kitchen. But it’s the walls. Probably just over two meters thick at least.”

“Oh, right,” she says, and he knew that science brain of hers would get it. “To handle all the pressure when submerged, right?”

“Yep.”

The submarine Link was on, he’d marveled at the thick walls the first time he entered it. He likened it almost to a submarine inside a submarine.

Zelda points to the other man. “I think you said Pipin?”

“Pipit,” corrects Link. “He was a good man. Bit older than me like Groose. Kind of… well, he was a bit too serious. Very dedicated kind of man. Drove Groose up the wall. He had a girl back home, Karane, and it was this big to do when he’d get a letter from her when we were at port. He’d get flustered, never knew what to write back, and I hope to the goddesses she never finds out that it was like a group of at least half a dozen of us trying to decipher hidden meanings in her letters and trying to write something coherent back.” His laugh this time is a bit bitter. Solemnly, Link comments, “It would have been something to look back on and laugh if he’d lived.” He wiggles his nose as if in distaste.

“I can see that,” says Zelda. “Those letters from him must be important to her.” Link agrees. He’d be going scorched earth, burn it all to the ground, let nothing escape alive if he’d been Karane and found out now that the letters she deeply cherished were from Pipit and crew and not just Pipit.

Zelda takes the picto back and sets it aside.

“Maybe this one is not so sad,” she says, and she presents him one of him from his late childhood.

“Think I was about twelve here,” Link says.

“Didn’t know you fished.”

“Kind of Rusl’s thing,” he tells her, tapping the older man. The two of them were sat at a creek with fishing poles on a bright, sunny day. Dark shadows from trees add patterns to their faces and clothes. The young Link, per usual, is not looking at the pictobox, but off to something on the side with a bun stuffed in his mouth. Rusl was sitting next to him with a large smile. “Uli must’ve taken it,” Link muses. “Only reason Rusl ever smiled like that.

“They took me in when I was young. They were my foster parents.” He hands the picto back.

“What else you got?”

“I thought you looked silly here,” she says, showing him the picto of him and friends at a swimming hole.

“Maybe sixteen?” Link guesses, trying to remember how old he was in the picto.

“Maybe you should’ve dated these.”

He chuckles at that. “Don’t worry, I do now.” He’s talking about his work, and she slaps his arm.

His mood does actually improve as they go through the pictos. There’s plenty more in the box still by the time he’s well and truly worn out. Zelda asks him to wait, one more. He promised himself, he’d do what she wanted, so Link waits for her to find the one she wants. And then she shows him a picto of from the last harvest festival before he went to war. “Who’s she?” Zelda asks. “I know you definitely butchered her name.”

“Ilia,” mumbles Link. “I was seventeen.” He looks to her. “Might’ve been taken around your birthday.”

“A festival seems like a fun time,” Zelda muses. “I thought she looked like she was over her head for you.” Her expression is wistful, almost dreamlike looking at the picto. “It’s just nice, I think. To have someone look at you like that.”

Does he not?

“Me getting drafted was like the end of the world to her,” Link says. “We’d been friends since we were real little. I was kind of- well, I was dumb, and I only realized too late she wanted more.”

“No way!” Zelda gasps.

“She probably could have broadcasted it in neon all over town, and I wouldn’t have gotten it.”

Zelda gives me a flat look. “You’re a private investigator.”

“Now.”

Zelda taps the picto on his forehead.

Link laughs lowly to himself, and she puts the picto back in the box. “Why was it too late?” she asks.

“Ah, the draft, you know,” drawls Link, flopping to his back. Thoughtfully, he says, “Probably for the best.” Zelda puts the lid on the box and sets it down on the floor. “If I had actually liked her, I wouldn’t have been so ambivalent about the whole thing. Maybe more perceptive to start. You know- would have looked to pursue her myself.” His one foot rocks back and forth under the covers. He adds, “I don’t think she liked the man that came back from the Great Sea either. It was like I crushed her a second time.”

He rolls his head over to her, and determined to lighten the gloom he’d cast, he informs her, “So I’ve snooped through your things, you’ve snooped through mine.”

She giggles. “Guess so.”

Zelda slides in next to him. “Moving in?” asks Link.

“Yes.”

“Better watch it, I’m a sober man tonight.”

“I got my guard dog.”

Link scoffs. “The coward half hiding under the bed?”

“He can be brave sometimes,” she says. “He’s a good boy.”

“He wouldn’t be if you alone trained him.”

“But he deserves everything.”

“You spoil the boy,” Link says closing his eyes.

It gives him good fearful shake to think of it, but quietly, Link tells her, “Turn the light off if you want.”

“You sure?”

“Got the guard dog, right?” jokes Link. He repeats to himself: He’s home. Not on the sub. Home.

She makes sure that the bedroom door is open as wide as can be so that the other lights can still creep in like a parent keeping the door cracked to ward off children’s monsters. Zelda flips the light switch off. She gets the lamp on her side. “Do you want yours…?” she asks sidling up to his side.

“Dealer’s choice.”

She considers it. Zelda sits up and leans over him to switch off his light. Stupid. Right in the trap. Link grabs her round the waist, and Zelda squeals when his fingers tickle her stomach. “Stop!” she cries trying to squirm away and out of his arms, but that just makes him flex his fingers so she’ll squeal again.

When she settles, she’s breathless. Zelda whispers in his ear, “From the first?”

“From forever,” he mutters into her collarbone, which makes her giggle. “Don’t ever leave,” he begs. He trails kisses along her collar and then up her neck. His skin is hot, but his mind has been so clear for the first time in ages; it’s not just the withdrawals trying to cloud him. He nibbles her right under her ear, and she shudders with a mad cackle. He’s not quite ready to hold on to that sober clarity completely, he decides.

“Link.” He almost doesn’t hear her. “I need you to stay on board for me to stay.”

She pushes him away gently, and he rolls off onto his back. The hazy disappointment only just starts to settle in when she straddles his lap, and Link’s mind blanks out. Her hands cup his face, and now he might just be feverishly delirious. “You have to do that yourself, Link. Or it won’t work.”

He’d promise her anything no matter when she asked it of him, but he playfully responds, “You’re in the wrong position to ask a man for honesty.” She doesn’t laugh like he thought she would. Instead, she leans down so their foreheads touch.

Link’s just about to have a heart attack when she finally whispers, “Okay.”

“See? Knew you were a witch.”

“Let’s get a cat. A familiar.”

“Don’t be crazy.”

Her laughter now has grit to it. She shifts her leg a little, but it’s enough to send him in a spiral and make him grunt. Her nose grazes his. “Zelda.” Her thumb strokes his cheek, and she hums. “I know I said ‘dealer’s choice,’ but I might literally die here.”

Just to test the theory, she wriggles a bit atop his lap, and Link about chokes on his own laughter. “Your fault for being such a gentleman for so long,” she teases him.

“Only sleeping on the couch is a lot easier when ‘going to sleep’ is just you passing out drunk. Were you counting on me being a lecher?”

“The door was open.”

“You didn’t have the neon.”

“Ah, of course,” she whispers. “Is that why you’re still being so gentlemanly right now?”

His fingers twitch, but he keeps his hands where they lay on the bed. “The closeness is a good sign, but with the lights off, it’s really hard to tell. You could be mistaking me for some other Link, so I think I should just keep looking for signs.”

“I baked you apples,” Zelda deadpans.

“Yeah, maybe you were just being polite, so better to keep on the lookout for more signs.”

She squeezes his sides with her legs, and he tries not to groan too loudly. “Link,” warns Zelda. Like he’s a child treading thin ice. “Weren’t you about to die?”

“Last chance.”

“Never taking it,” she breathes and dives in. Her kisses are needful, and he is hungry for it.

His hands slide up her thighs and under her nightgown. She giggles against his lips when he gives her bare buttocks a squeeze, and he realizes she’d been a bit devious. “Real devil,” he calls her between her maddening kisses.

“Witch,” she corrects, pulling away, and he immediately seizes the opportunity to strip off the nightgown. “See, joke’s on you, I perfected my love potion since grade school.”

“I knew those apples tasted too good to be made by you,” he teases her back. He tosses her nightgown to the side, and suddenly they hear a grumbling from the dog that sends them off laughing again. Link falls back on his pillow, feeling dazed and dazzled. The light leaking in from the rest of the apartment shrouds her in a glow from behind.

“Come here,” begs Link, “before I have an aneurysm.”

She obeys, swooping down to give him another bruising kiss, and he thinks he might worship her until the end of time, because he might have well died again right then.

When she leaves him, hot, sweaty, and clammy, it’s like ice needling his skin where hers touched his. The damp sheets twist as he kicks them back to cool off.

Zelda returns sometime later with a glass of water for him. She sets it down, and tells him, “The sink water is so cold.”

She hisses and puts her cold, wet hands to his forehead and cheeks, turning and moving them when they quickly heat up. “Oh, that is nice,” he purrs. The chill is blissful against his hot skin.

She lies down on him but quickly rolls off to the side. “Ugh, you’re sweaty,” she complains.

He chuckles some and reaches for the glass she brought him. He practically downs the glass in one gulp like a parched, wilted flower grasping for a lifeline. He thanks her and kisses her cheek.

Before she can reply, he snatches her to him so she’ll squeal from the feel of his sweaty skin. He laughs and buries his nose into her hair and furiously sniffing it like a dog. Just to annoy her. She protests more, fueling his amusement.

When she stops trying to squirm out of his arms, she says, “I guess I should cancel my neon order.”

“Why?”

“Wha- WHY?” She smacks him. “Sleeping with you isn’t enough?”

“Trust me, it’s a really good sign, but you can’t be too sure. Don’t worry, I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for any more signs.”

He can almost feel her eyes roll out of her head. He kisses her hair.

Just as he’s drifting into a light slumber, he hears her say, “Good night, Link.”

He tries to wish her the same, but it comes out in some garbled mumble.

Ping!

Link’s eyes shoot wide open.

Chapter Text

She wakes in the morning to the dog in her face, ready to go for their morning walk. Zelda disentangles herself from Link, but the actual getting up part takes her a moment. Her legs are sore and weak like jelly, and she stumbles a little to dress herself. “Is it always like this?” she complains to Courage as they head out when she finds her footing.

Link’s still asleep when she returns with Courage. She flops back into bed, jostling it enough to make him stir. “Hey,” he mumbles to her, closing his eyes again.

“Hey.”

He’s huddled blearily in the covers. Trying to keep his eyes open, his gaze is glassy and unfocused, but he manages to reach out to her and draw them together. “Take the dog out?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Good, now he can’t steal you away.” He tries to get her to laugh by tickling her stomach, and she worms away, giggling, like he wants. They both end up face down on the bed, her pinned with her arms over her stomach to hide from his assault, and him partially on top of her, dozing a bit.

“I um… I don’t think I can,” she says, feeling him on top of her.

“S’okay.”

“Are you okay though?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” he grumbles. “Sonar.”

Glad you took the advice.

It makes Zelda cross. “I think it’s the mirror, Link,” she whispers.

“The mirror?”

“Do you not hear words?”

“Sonar.”

“I’m gonna crumble that damn thing.”

“You do you, boo boo,” he says sleepily.

She snorts at him and asks, “You hungry?”

“Always,” he says.

“How about eggs? Can’t screw that up too bad.”

“Burn ‘em all on the pan,” he mumbles to her.

Burn them. She scowls at that.

But all of them? “Seriously?”

He rolls away. “Something about losing a limb makes you ravenous,” says Link. “And it’s ‘sealiously’.”

“Really?” she wonders, suddenly fascinated by this concept. “I had no idea.” Well, how could she? She’s not missing a limb. She sits up and claps her hands. “Oh! Maybe it’s because walking with your prosthetic uses more energy?”

He grunts, “Nerd.”

Zelda rolls her eyes at him but leans down and lightly kisses his nose.

“Eat what you want first,” calls Link as he rolls to his other side to continue his lazy dozing.

When she checks the egg tray on the counter, she counts ten left. Even with cooking herself two, eight seems crazy. “Think he’ll actually eat all that?” she asks Sous Chef Courage, who already seems more than willing to pick up any slack on the dining front. He follows her closely in the kitchen, eager to not let a single speck of food past him.

She brings their plates to Link, tapping him awake, and sinks on the bed, grateful for the respite. She motions for him to eat, but he still asks her what’s wrong. Then his eyes catch the nose sliding alongside the bed, twitching at light speed. Link shrugs, and ignores the dumb dog, wolfing his food down. Seeing Zelda as the weaker link, Courage’s nails tip tap on the floor, and his nose suddenly appears on her side of the bed to beg. She does her best to ignore Courage’s nose insistently tapping on the bed (yes, yes, and how is your meal, madam?), and Link quirks an eyebrow at her, asking, “Alright there?”

Zelda feels her face flush, because suddenly it’s VERY LOUD. Her jaw clenches tightly.

“Might go and do some work today,” he tells her to change the subject and maybe let her flushed cheeks go down.

“Really?” Her brow furrows. “You sure you’re up for that already?”

He shrugs. “I’ll just do some easy stuff today,” he promises her. “Nothing crazy. Maybe do some development.”

“Want us to walk with you?”

Link shakes his head. “I got it. I’ll just go straight there, no stopping,” he promises her. He rubs his mouth. “Here to the office, no pit stops.”

But then something about his work comes to mind, and he pauses, glancing at Zelda with uncertainty. “Don’t tell Midna.”

Zelda feels her blush reheat. “I didn’t exactly plan to.”

“Good,” he says. “She’d be insufferable.”

::

It’s Link who fucks up though.

It’s supposed to be a sort of broom closet, but for Link’s office, he’s sealed off all the edges of the door, and once it shuts, it’s completely dark. No light at all. For Link’s office, the broom closet functions as his spot for film development. He doesn’t need much space to do this, so the little closer works, but it’s the one thing Link hates most about pictography. But he need only be in the dark for a few minutes. The small… dark… place.

He sets up everything he needs and lays it out on the counter, measures out the chemicals and pours it into the large black canister he’s set out, and puts away everything that he doesn’t need once the door is shut. Link sets the two film rolls on the counter, the agitator and its reels, the developer canister, then the canister lid. In the corner on the left, he leaves a container to dump the developer, then his stop bath, then the fixer, and lastly on the right his water. He steps back, trying to remember exactly where everything is.

He sighs.

Right. Okay. Let’s go.

He shuts the door and turns the lock. Now he stands in the nothingness. One step, two step. He should be at the counter. He reaches out with his left hand and finds the first film roll. He pops it out of its container and puts the container to the far side of the counter and begins pulling out the film to wrap around the reel by twisting the reel sides. As he’s reaching out for the second one, a sharp knock sounds on the door.

“You in there?” Midna calls.

“Developing film,” says Link gruffly, popping open the second film roll’s canister and setting it aside.

“Oh my gods, you’re being so weird today,” she says from the other side with muffled exasperation.

Stupid film. He can’t get the film to catch in the right spot on it. “How am I being weird?” he calls back, feeling the reel in his fingers to find the starting point he’d lost.

“You’re hiding for one.”

“I’m developing film,” he insists, finally getting the roll going and he starts ratcheting the reel to roll it on. “Don’t try to open the door, I’m getting them on the reels.”

Midna scoffs. “I could’ve done that. You hate doing the rolls.”

“WELL, I’M DOING THEM TODAY.”

He hears her grumble lowly and definitely to herself, “Think I liked you better drunk, the fuck?

“Are you mad that I did some of the caseload you had?” she asks, this time to him. “I mean- Like… Come on, Link! What’s a little forgery between friends?”

“You’re allowed to do some work under my license, Midna,” he tells her. He feels around for the agitator. “And as long as you didn’t sign my name on something stupid, then we’re fine.”

“So what’re you doing developing film?”

“Developing. The film.”

“Yeah, why?” She smells something.

“Go away, Midna.”

He gets both reels onto the agitator and plops it in the developer canister. There’s a thump on the door as he pats the counter for the lid to put on. “No way, what happened?” she asks, her voice much clearer, so she’d had to have put her face to the door.

“I just got the reels in if you’re going to be annoying,” he says, slipping the lid center over the agitator. “Time me.”

“Okay… and perfect!” she says, and he starts twisting the agitator around. “Now you’re stuck talking to me.”

“Oh gods.”

“Link, I’ve known you too long,” says Midna. The slyness in her voice grates on him. “You didn’t have a drink, did you?”

“Still sober unfortunately.” And dying from it. Clearly not as much as she is though for some gossip.

Keep twisting.

“So… what? You can’t drink, so you’re trying to punish yourself by doing all the things you hate instead?”

“I’m developing. The. FILM.”

“Oooorrrr,” she drawls, and Link’s stomach sinks. He hates it when she uses that damn tone with him. “You finally-?”

He tells her to buzz off.

“I knew it!” gasps Midna excitedly from the other side of the door. Her hand slaps against the wood. “I knew you looked too smug earlier.” Link rolls eyes. Keep twisting. Keep twisting. “Disgusting. Tell me everything.”

“No.”

“I thought we were friends.”

“You’re my assistant.”

“Wow.”

Then: “Maybe I just won’t tell you when you’re done.”

“Do you like having a paycheck?”

“Considering I’ve been the only one here lately making sure that I do? Yeah.”

“Midna.”

“Fine. Also: Stop.”

He stops the agitation. Link smirks to himself and tries to keep track of the time by himself. Soon enough, she lets him know at the minute marks when to start again, then she calls, “Stop bath time.”

Link pours out the developer from the canister and dumps in the stop bath. “It’s in,” he calls back, and starts agitating it and counting out the seconds to himself.

“You’re at thirty,” Midna calls, right when he counts to it. He swaps the stop bath for the fixer. He goes through the motions in silence, wondering if Midna had wandered off or not. But when he thinks it’s time, she calls again, “You’re done.” So he pours out the fixer, and then finally adds the water to clean the rolls.

When the time’s up, he fumbles to find the lock and then opens the door.

Midna’s right there.

“So?”

“Fuck off,” he groans, and he turns back to open the developing canister to pull the film out. He clips up the rolls to dry now that he can see where the string lines and clothes pins rest against the wall.

When she gives him a disapproving look as he tries to sidle out of the closet, he says, “Best friends.”

She looks expectantly at him. “Mm-hm.”

“But I’m not talking to you about that.”

She rolls her eyes and steps out of his way. “I tell you about all my fit guys,” she practically whines.

“Midna, I literally never asked you.”

“Gods, I never took you for a prude.” She throws her hands up as she swivels to leave his office and go back to her desk. “I guess I should have. You really slept on your couch that long?”

“Bye,” Link deadpans and kicks his door shut behind her.

“Hey, I’m right on the other side,” she calls.

He bites back, “I’m not sixteen!”

He throws himself into his chair and runs a hand through his hair when Midna pops the door back open. “By the way, I forgot, you want to do this insurance scam?”

He holds out his hand for the file, but she tosses it at him instead. He barely catches it, but the papers still slip out. They flutter and slap about everywhere. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” she says, ignoring his sarcasm as she starts pulling the door closed. Before she shuts it all the way, she adds, “And I’m gonna ask her about the ab situation.”

“DO NOT.”

Midna cackles from behind the door.

Link opens the file she gave him, gathers up what’s fallen out, and idly flips through it, sighing. He said he’d take it easy today, right? He looks around, mulling it all over. He could go into the darkroom, he thinks.

And then answer the Inquisition?

He blinks.

Lust is a cardinal sin, you know.

Uh.

Well.

He could take a pretty good guess at whatever lewd accusations Midna would love the opportunity to throw his way if he tries to go hide in the darkroom.

A dark place for dark thoughts.

He sets the file down and looks about his office.

He rubs his mouth.

Yeah. Okay. What the fuck.

He slaps the file shut, strides out of his office to where Midna is reading a gossip rag of all things and plops it on her desk. She lowers the magazine and stares at him, as if to silently accuse him of ruining her afternoon. “Are you not going to take it?”

“Yeah. I mean. No. Yeah, no.” His mouth is so parched. “Not today,” he corrects himself. He pinches his nose. “I just…”

Not daring to poke fun at him now, Midna tells him, “Then let’s call it a day.” She puts the file in the cabinet behind her and locks it up. “Would you like me to walk you home so you don’t somehow trip into a bar and start accidentally drinking?”

It was a nice offer. A really kind offer. So unlike Midna. Crassness aside.

“Um… no,” he says at last. He sucks in a breath, trying to make his mind, but admits to her, “I think I’m going to stop at the bakery though.”

Midna nods. “Okay. Bakery. Then home,” she says. “Nowhere else.”

“Nowhere else.”

“Tomorrow,” she tells him pointedly, “you’re going to be here at nine o’clock.”

“You’re not my boss.”

She smacks a hand on her desk. “And I’m not going to have you for one if you’re dead,” she levels. “I’m telling you nine, because I know you won’t be here then if you start drinking. Bakery. Home. Bed.” Right, the short term goals. Get to the bakery with no detour. Get home with no detour. And then he should be home free to make it through the day. Because Zelda will be there. He just has to get there. “Honestly, I don’t even care if we don’t do anything tomorrow or accomplish the world, just be here. At nine.”

“Alright.”

She seems startled by his quick agreement. “Okay. Alright.”

They walk out of the office after locking up, and rather than say an actual goodbye to him, Midna curtly reminds him, “Bakery. Home. Bed.” Like some sort of tornado, she flips on her heel to head home.

“Hey Midna,” calls Link. She turns back for the moment. “Thank you,” he gushes. “For dumping everything.”

“Just don’t make me do it a second time,” she says with a wave.

Link turns on his heel, and he just repeats to himself, with her voice harshly bouncing around his brain, Midna’s mantra: Bakery. Home. Bed. Bakery. Home. Bed. Bakery…

::

Today has been quiet. Just wonderfully quiet. She has heard no further peep from the mirror since its quip this morning, and she is enjoying it. Zelda and Courage are out sitting on Link’s balcony to enjoy the early autumn afternoon. The sunshine is warm, to the dog’s delight, and she’d brought out a book to read.

It’s another one that Midna had selected on old folklore. Zelda clicks her tongue since once again, she finds plenty of stuff about reversing the ill effects of broken mirrors by burying them under moonlight. The moonlight is to act as a cleanser and will ground the broken fragments. All good and great, but is it so much to ask to find out how to just break an unbreakable mirror? She almost wants to toss it off the balcony.

Zelda just snaps it shut, giving up the ghost for now.

Her eyes scan the street, and she stops, recognizing a blond carrying a white sack, but it takes her a moment to fully register the sight. She snatches the book up, the movement waking Courage, and she hurries back into the apartment. Courage, not having an ounce of her urgency though, takes his time meandering back into the flat before sinking onto the floor to continue his afternoon nap. She whips the balcony door shut in frustration. Slipping her shoes on hastily, she hops out of the flat and into the hallway.

The elevator though is already stopping at the floor, and Link looks a bit sour as the gate refuses to cooperate to open with one hand. Zelda meets him at the elevator to his surprise, and she opens the gate for him. “Hey, Tet,” he says dumbly.

“I thought you might be gone for a while longer,” she says, but the real worry she has is what’s in his hand.

“Didn’t get much done,” he admits, scratching his head. “And… well, I’m dying for a drink, so we called it quits.”

“And the bag?” she demands.

“Hm?” Then, remembering what he’s holding in his hand, he laughs a little. “Oh! Yeah.” He gives her a real sheepish grin. “For you,” he says.

“Me?”

“Yep.”

“Me.”

His face is very serious, and his eyes steely. It makes her bristle. “I told Midna I would go to the bakery, and then I would right go home. Check, and check.” He nods to himself. He cracks a bright grin. “So last to do item is make it to bed with no detours,” he says with a puff. “Now, madam, if you don’t mind, I’ve dallied enough.”

Zelda takes his arm and starts to lead him back to his flat, like he’d suddenly run off to the bar or liquor store. “Well, wouldn’t want to keep you from your busy schedule.”

“Thank you, thank you.” She gives his arm a squeeze.

Once inside, she tells him, “I didn’t make anything.”

Link shrugs. After kicking off his shoes, he wanders into the kitchen. “Not exactly ready to eat.” He opens up the icebox.

Real food, that is.

Ugh. And her day had been going so nicely.

Seeing her foul expression as he closes the icebox door, he hesitates, misunderstanding. “Um. Unless you’re hungry, I can make something,” he offers.

Zelda shakes her. “No, sorry. Something else on my mind.” She flaps her hand to dispel the bad juju that swooped in. “Don’t worry about it.”

She steps up to him and wraps him in an embrace with her forehead on his shoulder. “I saw you on the street though and thought that you might have brought booze back. I just saw the bag and panicked.”

“Oh!” he exclaims. Then when he laughs, it’s tinged with nervousness. “Sorry, I didn’t think of that.” He clears his throat. “I mean, the booze, yes, thought about it way too much today, but I did as I said,” he clarifies. “Left the office, went to the bakery, came home.” When she doesn’t release him, he returns her hug.

“What’d you bring me?” she asks.

“Surprise.”

“You’re infuriating,” she grumbles.

“It’s for later. Do you have the patience of a child?”

She loosens her hold. “A bit. Idle days, you know.” She bites the inside of her cheek. “I haven’t really enjoyed waiting lately.” There’s a twitch in his eyebrow that she realizes too late is him catching her unintended double entendre.

“Ah well, if that’s the case,” he teases.

She sputters out, “It’s not!”

His laugh is barking, and he wastes no further time devouring her.

::

Zelda finds out that it was fruitcake that he’d brought back from the bakery, just like she’d mentioned back in Hateno. The light and fluffy cake layers are slathered with whipped cream topping, and various fruits top the cake. It’s sweet. The cake and the gesture. She jokes to Link as he razzles with the dog, “It’s not my birthday until next month, you know.”

“Oh, no. Damn, guess we’ll have to get a second.”

He and Courage play roughly with the toy. Courage yanks hard on the toy, trying to rip it from Link’s hand even by violently shaking his head. His grip on the toy is so strong that when Link lifts the toy up, Courage goes up with it, determined to not let go to Link’s amusement. She gets it now why he gets so aggressively strong whenever she plays tug with Courage (tries to, ahem). Link sits there playing with Courage with one hand like it’s no problem, but she’s often almost pulled off balance trying to hold onto the toy with both hands.

“I’m surprised you remembered though,” she says. And he remembered it’s the actual cake she likes even.

“You remembered me spitting off ‘apples’,” he says, yanking his hand up with the dog toy in it, Courage chomping at the bit but only catching air. Courage waits for Link, butt wiggling about and tail flailing, and Link tosses the toy. It smacks the far entryway wall, and Courage takes off for the races to get it.

He might have told her apples once, but Zelda thinks Link doesn’t actually have a favorite food. All food is his favorite food. He just likes to eat, but he gets a mood for certain things times. Goes through kicks where he craves sweets on end or just wants something tart every meal. There was a period in the summer where she swears he made pot stickers every day for three weeks.

She sets her plate in the sink. When she gets to the kitchen doorway, she stops for a moment to let Courage scramble past with flopping ears and the toy in his mouth.

“Are you going to go in tomorrow?” she asks.

Courage brings the toy back to Link, but deciding that he doesn’t want to play fetch anymore, he hastily skitters just out of reach and starts flinging the stuffed toy about as if he is trying to break the neck of a hunting kill.

“Midna said nine,” Link says, throwing his head back since Courage is through playing with him. He sits in his arm chair with his leg off. He ignores Courage when he decides that he’s changed his mind about playing, since further play likely means getting up.

Zelda chuckles. She sits down on the couch and tucks her feet in.

Courage gives up the ghost, and he goes back to violently flinging his toy.

“Thinks if I’m late, I’ve been drinking,” he elaborates. He glances sidelong at the dog whipping his head and toy around. “At least there’s a backup alarm in this place now.” Lifting his head up just a bit, he adds, “There’s no plan. We could do nothing all day or everything.”

“You just have to be there.”

His head plops back again. “Yep.”

Gotta take small steps, isn’t that right?

Zelda frowns.

He throws his hands up. “You know what, I’m dying,” he announces, pulling himself up. “So I’m just going to go to bed.”

“Do you want help?”

He considers it for a second and then pushes himself off the chair and onto his one foot. “Yeah, grab my leg, will you?” Link hops on his one foot all the way to his bed, much to the surprise, confusion, and utter suspicion of the dog.

Zelda picks up his leg, telling Courage that it’s alright. No funny business is happening here. He follows her, eyes glued to Link’s prosthetic, into the bedroom where she sets the leg within his reach. Courage gets to work inspecting the prosthetic thoroughly for any said funny business. None is found. He sneezes at it still. Just to show it.

“Gotta say, hopping around is much easier when you’re sober,” Link wryly says.

“Lights on or off?”

But Link is non-committal. “Just keep the rest on,” he tells her, curling into the blankets.

Zelda shuts them off, a bit relieved. His stint at the hospital forced him to sleep with dimmed lights for the first time in ages, and she doesn’t like the idea of him backsliding too much. For her, not needing to use a sleep mask while he was gone was freeing, and she’d like to keep it that way.

It’s her turn to herd the dog, and she takes him out for one last go for the night. When she returns and finishes readying for bed, Link has managed to sink into an uneasy, light sleep. Courage launches himself like a cannon ball onto the bed, startling Link awake. Link flings himself upwards, gasping like he’d been drowning again. Before Zelda can do anything, Courage pushes Link onto his back. Link lets out a grunt as the dog happily plops himself on Link’s chest. His eyes rolling, Link pants to her, “Stupid dog.”

She instead praises Courage as she sidles in.

His breathing eventually slows, and he finally speaks again. “Who told you you could be so damn heavy?” he asks the dog.

“You alright?” she asks him.

He looks as though he’s struggling (not related to the dog being deadweight on his chest). “Yeah,” he breathes. It sounds like only a half truth.

He tries to push the dog off of him, but Courage stubbornly refuses to move, and eventually Link gives up.

“I think he’s trying to help you,” she says.

“By crushing me to death?”

“He’ll be right there to make sure you’re up in the morning, too,” she reminds him.

“When did he get so long?” Link asks, which makes Zelda sit up to look. Courage’s eyes dart between her and Link, but from butt to nose, he is a bit shy the length from Link’s shoulder to knee.

Zelda smiles at the dog, and his tail whips in a wide arc. “Good boy, good help,” she tells him and flops back to sleep.

::

Good boy, indeed, as just as Link anticipated, the dog makes sure he’s roused in the morning and alert by stealing Link’s stump sock again, ready to play backup cop in the fight against the bathroom essentials, eager to learn as sous chef in the kitchen despite the most complex thing happening is opening the icebox, and finally nipping at Link’s heels to make sure he’s getting out the door.

Link tells himself to walk straight to the office. No stopping. If he stops… he’ll… Just don’t stop.

He feels antsy when he gets to an intersection with a red light. Right behind him is a corner store, and you know, it wouldn’t take too long…

He rubs his mouth.

Don’t think about it.

How long does it take to knock back a forty?

He whips around.

There’s only a man rifling through the pages of the newspaper in his hand. The store is right behind him.

The little red man on the walk signal switches to the green man to go.

Link moves before the man behind him walks right into him and crosses the intersection.

Just don’t stop.

He just needs to make it to the office, and then it’s life or death by Midna Dahl, so he’ll be fine.

He makes it.

He feels like shit and is a bit late, but he shuffles into his office as promised. Just late. But he’s here. He did it.

Congratulations, you’re submarine material!

Link hesitates. Then he slowly shuts the door, trying to shake that thought out of his head.

Looking up from her newspaper, Midna looks him over and says, “You look like shit.”

“Thanks, love.”

“I try,” she says, going back to the paper. “Rough night?”

He groans. “The damn dog was trying to crush me the whole night,” Link says and collapses in the chair in front of her desk. “He’s got to be over two stone now.” He gestures wildly at his torso, spitting indignantly, “Like who told him about peine forte et dure?”

“I always kind of thought getting pressed to death was probably the worst way to go. It’s so slow.”

Link shrugs. “You ever hear about the uhm…” He wracks his brain trying to remember. He snaps his fingers. “Arbiter’s Grounds,” he says, victorious. “The brazen bullbos?”

Midna’s paper folds over. “I’m sorry, the what now?”

“The brazen bullbos,” Link repeats.

Midna only looks blankly back at him, and he’s sure she’s now probably regretting entering this conversation instead of having him fuck off to his office or the darkroom. She looks around as if to see where the joke’s coming from and then snaps at him, “Oh my gods, quit being so weird. I can’t do this two days in a row.”

“And miss out on a history lesson?” Link gasps.

“It’s nine-twenty in the morning, Link.”

“So?”

She tosses her newspaper. “Fine. The fuck are brazen bullbos?”

“No, for real,” he says. “I’m shocked you never heard of them.”

“You learn about this from Zelda?” she accuses.

Link scoffs. “What? I can’t have interests?” The taut look on her face screams at him: When did you have time for hobbies in between whisky drinks, stupid? He waves a quick hand at her.

“Personal opinion: brazen bullbos, worst way to go,” he says. “They’re made like… completely out of bronze to look like bullbos, all hollowed out. You get shoved inside the damn thing’s belly and locked in, and they’ll light a fire underneath it. So you’re stuck inside this giant metal contraption that’s slowly heating up, and you’re basically getting roasted alive.”

Midna stares at him.

He stares back.

“Nine. Twenty. Link.”

He wags a finger at her. “You’re missing out on the best part.”

“Ugh, gods.”

“They put all this… I don’t know… tubes, pipes… whatever, you know,” he says, and his hands try to gesture out like they’re playing a game of charades. Midna remains unamused. “Basically it was supposed to be like a super long, twisty horn on the inside of the bullbo that ended at the nose and mouth to amplify your screams and make it sound like the bullbo was roaring while you’re actually just in there cooking away to medium well.”

They stare at each other.

He gives her a little smile.

That does it. “Find a new hobby, Link,” says Midna, grabbing her bag. “I’m done.”

“It’s nine-twenty,” he reminds her.

She wrenches open the office door and points him out. “Go home,” she snaps. “Farore.”

Nice.

Link leaves his office thinking this must be some sort of record and walks home.

No stopping.

Zelda is in the bathroom when he walks in the door (yes, fucking made it!). He takes his shoes off, and when he comes round the corner from the entry, she pokes her head out with a towel in her hands, drying her face. “You’re back already?”

“Yep.”

She retreats to put the towel back on a towel bar. “That was… quick.”  She startles a bit when she turns around and sees him leaning in the doorway. Her face flushes to her ears when she looks down and remembers she’s still only in her brassiere and knickers.

“I think I broke some sort of world record annoying Midna this morning, and she kicked me out almost immediately. Said I should find a new hobby.”

Zelda looks up at him, her brow knitting together. “You didn’t actually want to go,” she says slowly with a light snort of laughter.

“My evil plan has certainly been going well so far,” he says mischievously. Before she can say anything else, he swoops in on her. Her delightful squeals echo in the bathroom as he pulls her up around his waist and backs them out to carry her to the bedroom. Blankets rocket up when he tosses her onto the bed, her bubbly giggles filling the silence.

She’s breathless almost as he yanks his tie and suspenders off. “You developed some film yesterday, right?” she asks, propping herself up on her elbows. Link starts to strip himself down to his own knickers, kicking his pants away like they’re some torture device. “Why not work in the darkroom today instead of infuriating Midna?”

Link throws the rest of his clothes aside. “Then she’d be annoying me,” he implores her, taking his prosthetic off. “‘What’re you doing in the darkroom? Why’re you hiding? Don’t be fucking gross.’ And you know, I can’t tell if sleep is better or not now, but I’m just so damn beat.” He flings himself over to pounce on her and wraps her tightly in his arms. He plants a gentle kiss over her cheek.

They lay there like that for some time as Link dozes off for a while, trapping her in his arms and partially underneath him. He stirs at last when she tries to wiggle an arm out, and he moves slightly to let her free it before falling back on her as before to drift in and out of his light slumber.

Her hand runs through his hair, scratching his scalp, and he thinks in his half waking state how nice it is. All of it. He’d not really had a desire for simple intimacy before, but the months of her constantly by his side left him wanting for those simple contacts: The slight tug on his shirt sleeve when she wanted to get his attention, the easy feeling of his arm around her shoulders, the weight of her on his side when she took cat naps on jobs, the security he felt when she’d latch on and loop their arms. She taps him to get him to stir again so he’ll roll over on his back, and he mentally adds to the list the way her leg curls around his and her hand snakes to the nape of his neck when she lies against his side under his arm.

She calls him eventually, and he hums back at her. “You getting up again at all?”

“I took my clothes off,” he says stubbornly and refusing to open his eyes. “Not putting them back on.”

“You’re just gonna be lazy today?”

“Yep.”

She chuckles some. “Have fun then.”

Eventually, a shocking cold hits his skin when she leaves him. He hears her step out with the dog for a while and goes back to his blissful dozing.

Chapter Text

Link insisted on driving down to Ordon, but she thinks that the train might’ve been the quickest way down. She’s thankful to hear it when he tells her that they’re nearing the sleepy town. It’s nestled south of Lake Hylia near Faron woods on the southern side of Hyrule, making it quite the trip by car from Castleton. She gets it though. “There’s nothing to do but drink on the train,” Link had told her, so she obliged with driving down. They planned to stay in Ordon with his foster family and move on further south to meet with the dealer that has the supposed mirror piece.

She glances at him in the driver’s seat, looking bored as can be, but it makes her heart swell. She hadn’t thought of the issue with the train before he brought it up, so it assures Zelda that he’s making and continuing to make a real effort to stay sober. She thinks how he’d been handsome when she met him in Hateno, but without the alcohol, he’d managed to put on a little weight that filled in his cheeks some more, and that made him much less gaunt and more vibrant. She didn’t realize it at first either, but now that they’re gone from his face, the alcohol had also brought bags under his eyes. Probably from the better sleep, since when was the last time he tried sleepwalking? He looks more youthful now.

She and Midna had continued to whisper between themselves like overly worried old maids how drinkers like Link tend to backslide. She wondered – and worried some more – if she could stick through that. She turns her head to look out the window, but she catches a faint reflection of him in the glass still. She thinks she might be able to and is glad he’s been steadfast in his resolve thus far, even if it’s still the early days for him.

“What?” he huffs, startling her a bit.

She tells him, “I didn’t say anything.”

Link looks confused for a moment and then shakes his head.

Zelda straightens a little. “I was just thinking about Midna though,” she says.

“Eh, she can handle things while we’re gone,” he assures her, misunderstanding her. (He’s not the witch here, after all.) “Left her mostly simple stuff that she can handle. Lot of location work for process servers and those stupid insurance fraud claims we got a batch of.”

What Zelda is thinking about though is the unspoken rift that seemingly broke between Link and Midna. She’s not sure how long they’d been friends, but it’s clear that they would always be friends. It’d be stupid if she didn’t see the mourning between them. Link never could pick himself up to try with her. “Not the work,” she admits, feeling gutsy but also tripping over herself to find the words to explain it. “I think you’re both sad that you never stopped drinking before,” she tells him. “Even if it was never going to work out.”

Link considers this for a while, not saying anything, but she knows he’s thinking it over. There’s a slight edge in his brow when he’s deep in thought, so she says nothing more about it.

Link takes a right on a fork in the road towards denser trees.

Quietly, he finally says, “You know, most women would probably be jealous. I’d have had to get a new assistant if you were anyone else.” Zelda lets out a short, hollow laugh at that. He is probably right, and she’d been envious of them for a time, but never jealous. Their friendship runs deep, and it’d be a fool’s errand to think Link would let Midna ever go. She thinks they’re an unbreakable pair, despite the current distance.

“Is it weird to mourn something that never was and never will be?” he asks suddenly.

“No.”

“We’ve always known that we wanted different things in life anyway if you took the booze out of the equation.”

“That doesn’t always stop people,” Zelda says.

“I guess.”

“She’s your friend,” says Zelda carefully. “One of those you can’t really replace. It would make me happy if you tried to fix it. An olive branch sort of thing.”

“By fix it, I assume you don’t mean run off with her,” jokes Link.

“I’ll not pine for you.” There’s a haughtiness in her voice that visibly lightens Link’s mood.

“Real wise woman, huh?”

Zelda, deciding the matter of what never was with Midna is closed between them for now, asks him, “Will you introduce me as Tetra?”

Link wrinkles his nose. She’d asked him this before, and he flip flopped this way and that, but Ordon is now coming up on them, and he’s running out of time. They’d agreed very quickly at least that she could not be Zelda Nohansen. (“That’s just plain stupid,” Link had griped.) Yet each time they come round to it, he’s resistant to Tetra Bosphoramus. He wouldn’t say it, and it hit her like a freight train: It’s from the first to the end with Link, Zelda had realized after the first time they went round and round on it.

It’s sweet almost.

He never answers her.

Surprise it is.

She turns back to looking out the window, watching as trees slip by.

“Hey, what if it’s like a past lives kind of thing?”

“What?” she asks as soon as it processes. “You think that’s why we know each other?”

He busts out with laughter. “You’re going to believe in portals and time travel and alternate universes, but past lives is where you draw the line?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You definitely thought it.”

“I’m so sure we haven’t met.”

“Same, so what’s your theory?” he asks. She doesn’t have one.

Zelda decides to poke the bear instead, and she tells him, “Knowing each other from a past life sounds an awful lot like romanticism.”

Link doesn’t like that.

She snickers at him. “I was just teasing. You’re a real grouch.”

He chews on this for a time before he wonders aloud, “Think Midna would buy that?” He swore Midna just figured it out on her own. Apart from just being allergic to speaking on how he feels about practically anything, Link never wants to explain to Midna that his sudden change in opinion on human connection mostly stems from his and Zelda’s unexplainable connection since he’d never hear the end of it if he did.

She hums. “No, it’s far too fantastical,” she decides. “You know, in a nice way.”

He huffs again. “Yeah, figures.”

“Maybe if our past selves met dealing with some eldritch horror, she’d be more inclined. She likes that kind of spooky stuff.”

Link stares at her for a moment.

“Too soon?” she asks.

He doesn’t deign her a response.

They drive past pumpkin fields where the large orange orbs sit magnificently amongst green vines, ready to be cut from the earth. Link has mentioned a pumpkin soup recipe to her before, and she wonders if he’ll show her how to make it now that it’s finally the season for soups and pumpkins.

Eventually, down by a very familiar creek that she’s seen in pictos, Link pulls the car in to park at a cozy cottage. He gestures to it, saying “Not as fancy as your childhood home, but here it is.” His old home is two stories, a dusky shade of blue with weathered shutters. The porch is home to a set of rockers and chairs, with a rustic red door nestled in the center. Link, who’d already gotten out of the car, yanks open her door. “Don’t be weird,” he chides her in the most serious tone he can muster. He’s joking though, and they both know it.

Zelda barely catches the whisper of curtains moving inside, and then suddenly the red door is being thrown open, and out rushes an older woman. Her wide smile does the same to her face as it does for Link. It gives her a youthful energy despite the grays that streak her blonde hair. She scrambles down the front steps. “Link!” she cries and throws herself on him.

Zelda steps out of the car, unendingly amused at the sight of Link, annoyed (but definitely secretly enjoying it), squirming in the woman’s arms. Now she sees where he gets it from when he does it to her. The woman plants a big kiss on his cheek, much to his embarrassment. “Uli,” Link complains. Zelda thinks of her father in that moment. Do parents never cease to try and embarrass their children with over the top affection?

“Oh, when Rusl said you’d be coming, I almost didn’t believe him!” she exclaims, her hands flying to his face. “Look at you! Have you gained some weight? You better be eating, you were wasting away when you came home last.” Link, frowning, tries to swat her hand from pinching his cheek. Zelda giggles to herself and goes to grab their bags from the trunk.

“If I said I was coming, why wouldn’t I come?”

“Oh please, Link, it’s been so long since you came home,” she chastises him. “It would be nice if my oldest boy came home more often.”

Link kicks a rock, hands in his pockets, looking very much the picture of a child being schooled by his mother. “Yeah, well…”

Noticing Zelda coming around from the back of the car with their bags, Uli turns on Link, stunned. “Who is this?” she asks him. “Rusl didn’t mention anyone else.”

Link quickly snatches the bags from Zelda’s hand, and she almost guffaws since the look he gives her with those wide blue eyes is clear: his foster mother would be so quick to smack him upside the head and give him a verbal beat down if she thinks he is being anything less than kind. Then pointedly not looking at Zelda or his foster mother, Link hesitates, “This is um...” So he still hadn’t come up with something. Zelda has to try harder to not laugh. The planner failed to plan. Bold move, let’s see if he lands on his feet. But Uli has a look of knowing in her eyes. He may not have yet escaped a verbal lashing, grown man or not.

She offers up, “Zelda.” Link glances at her with slight surprise.

“Zelda? Oh, that’s such a pretty name,” Uli gushes. For Zelda at least, there’s nothing but kind welcoming from Uli. She turns to Link, asking, “This is your assistant, right?”

“Midna,” Link chokes out.

Oh, he is dead.

A man calls out to them, coming from the direction of the creek. When Uli turns away, Zelda nudges Link’s side and whispers to him, “Saved by the bell.”

He groans. “Not for long.” He looks back at her, then he grumbles, “You don’t have to be so damn amused.”

“If you had told me we’d be attending your funeral, I would have brought something more appropriate to wear,” Zelda snaps back at him, just as the man and Uli come within in earshot.

The man bursts into laughter at her comment. “Link, who is this?”

“Um, Zelda,” he says, mumbling almost. “My wife.”

“Widow, apparently,” adds Zelda right on beat.

The man, Rusl, laughs genuinely at them. “Real firecracker. It’s lovely to meet you, Zelda. Rusl,” he says, holding out his large hand for her. “I’m sure you know of Uli.”

She nods, taking his hand. “I do.”

“Link,” Rusl says, clapping his shoulder, “it’s been an honor to call you son these last twenty years.” He looks at the bags Link holds. “Since you’ll soon be deceased, which one’s the wife’s?” And Link hands Zelda’s over. Rusl winks at Zelda. “My condolences.” Rusl carries her bag inside the house.

Uli for her part, looks torn between strangling Link and smothering him again, so Link doesn’t dare step away from Zelda to avoid being put six feet under right then by either option. Uli sighs at them. “I hope you are ready for the gossip,” she admonishes Link, leading them up to the house, which is apparently reprimand enough for now.

“Zelda, dear, let me make you some tea,” she says pulling Zelda away. Her tone is suddenly sweet and gentle. Link trudges upstairs without another word. Zelda follows Uli into the kitchen. “You have good timing, the kettle went off just before I saw you pull in.” She prepares Zelda’s cup and hands it to her before starting her own.

“That boy,” she murmurs to herself as Zelda sips the earthy tea.

To Zelda, she asks, “How long have you known Link? We’re clearly well informed of what he has going on in life.”

“I don’t think offers up much information to anyone,” Zelda says, sidestepping her first question.

Uli huffs. “He was always a bit hard to reach. But he’s been this way particularly since he came home from war,” she says. With a little pride though, she says, “He was Navy.”

“Yes, in the Great Sea.”

“Well, you came at a wonderful time at least, Zelda,” Uli says, and her eyes sparkle a little. “This was always Link’s favorite time of the year, but I think that’s because of how much food there was. Particularly sweets.”

“The trees are very nice,” Zelda comments lightly. “The changing of the leaves.”

Link and Rusl come down the stairs, and Uli eyes the way Rusl leans in conspiratorially to Link when they pause at the foot of the stairs.

“Uli, I’m off!” And the door clambers shut.

Link awkwardly strides into the kitchen, expecting it to be an execution. Uli, however, decides to torture him by just playing nice, and Zelda admires her craftiness. “Link, are you hungry?” When he shakes his head, she makes a face, not believing him. “Have an apple at least,” she commands him, plucking one from a basket on the counter, and he silently takes it from her.

Since they were not offering up much conversation, Uli continues, sitting back down at the table to her tea, “I’m surprised you chose to drive from Castleton, Link. Wouldn’t have the train been easier? We could have picked you both up from the station.”

“Didn’t want to sit.”

“You’re sitting in a car.”

Link looks to Zelda then to the apple in his hand. “I uh, quit the sauce,” Link admits in a soft voice.

Uli, the gentle mother that she is deep down, tells him with a little smile, “Oh. I’m glad to hear it.” She looks at Zelda briefly. “Not trying to kick you out right away, but if you’re not tired from your drive, why don’t you show Zelda around Ordon some before dinner?”

Link juggles the apple in his hands, clearly trying to figure out where the trap in all this is.

Zelda finishes her tea, thanking Uli.

She follows Link out to the porch, where his stiff, wooden movements finally relax. He cracks open the apple splitting it in half with just his hands and offers one of the halves to her. “What!” she exclaims. “How did you do that!”

He sighs. “You want it or not?”

She takes it from him. “Okay, but you have to show me how you did that.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He leads her down the driveway, his quick strides to get away from the house nearly leaving her in the dust. Zelda has to jog a little to catch up to him. “Slow down, dead man,” she calls, and he waits for her to catch up. She slings her arm around his, if only to make sure he doesn’t speed walk off the edge of the world. “So… wife, huh?” She starts to eat her half of the apple.

He turns down to her, his face ambivalent. “Can’t call you Nohansen,” he says.

She knows the reason, but she still wants to hear him say it finally. “But not Tetra.”

After some length, he does at last admit it, and she takes the win. “How would I explain why Tetra is now Zelda to them some day?”

“This was literally the worst introduction you could have done,” Zelda says, and Link laughs hoarsely. “I appreciate that it’s important to you that I met them as me, but maybe I could have just been Zelda Bosphoramus?”

“I didn’t want you to just be some girl,” he says softly and then cuts further discussion off with the a bite of the apple half.

Link walks her down to the town square, where the townsfolk are just as stunned as Uli to see him. “Gods, do you know everyone in town?” she asks.

“You never spent much time outside of cities, huh?” he asks her, a bit amused. But that quickly vanishes. He sighs. “Great. Now you get to see why small towns are a pain.”

“Link? Is that you, dearie?” a woman calls, waving a hand out to them. Link mutters down to Zelda that the woman is Sera. “OH! My goodness!” she exclaims. “It really is!”

“Hey Sera.”

“Oh, did you come down for the festival?” she gushes, flapping a hand at him. “It’s been just terribly long.”

“Ah, no,” he says. “Have work to do. Business, you know.”

“Well, the best time to have to come, isn’t it?”

Link smiles at her. “Yeah, I suppose.”

She babbles on, essentially carrying the conversation on all by herself. Zelda, though, feels like she’s completely invisible as the woman chatters away. “Ilia will be so excited to see you,” she implores, finally giving a quick glance at Zelda.

“Sure.”

Sera frowns a little at him. “You never were much of a talker,” she laments, and Zelda wonders what could have possibly given her that impression. Zelda realizes Sera’d been trying to get Link to spill something on Zelda in the middle of her own dense monologue (which…??), and now Sera’s dropping all pretense. “Forgive me, I don’t believe we met,” she says to Zelda. “Link, did you bring her down from Castleton?”

“Sera, this is my wife, Zelda.”

Something seems to short circuit in Sera’s brain for a few seconds, but then she excuses herself rather quickly and hurries off.

“So what’s the great pain?” Zelda asks him. “Getting to chatted to death by your elders?”

He snickers. “Oh no,” he says. “Showing up out of the blue, on ‘business’, going home to my foster parents after being gone forever, and a wife nobody’s ever heard of? My guess is that you’ll get pregnancy announcement since clearly it was a shotgun wedding.”

Zelda blanches.

“So I guess we’ll both die in Ordon now,” Link announces cheerfully.

“You said nothing of the sort to her.”

“Small town gossipers are probably the worst spinners of conspiracy theories.” Zelda is not as amused. She self-consciously looks down to see if her stomach looks even remotely pudgy her dress. “It’s the implication,” Link says.

She scoffs at him.

He walks her around the small town, pointing out things she might remember from looking at his pictos and regaling old tales from his childhood. Occasionally, they’re stopped and have a quick chat with some of the other villagers, who seemingly remain open and welcoming despite Link’s general clipped and stiff responses.

When they walk the road back to Link’s old foster home, they run into Rusl also making his way back. He laughs seeing them, and they wait for him to walk together. As they fall in step together, Rusl asks, “I guess you showed her some of the town, huh?”

Link glances at Zelda, “See?”

“No.”

Rusl chuckles good-naturedly. “City gal?” Link nods. Rusl looks back at her, and tells her, “It doesn’t take long for rumors to spread in towns like this.”

“So Link says.”

“What’s the news?” Link asks with an eagerness almost foreign to Zelda. “Dying to hear what it is I’ve done this time.”

“Uli is going to skin you alive if you’re to be a father, and if she has to find it out from Pergie of all people.”

“Did we meet a Pergie?” Zelda wonders aloud and shuffling through the names and faces of the people they spoke to in the square.

“No,” Link says. “Oh! Tell me, Rusl, do we have awful names picked out yet?”

“Well, I am quite insulted you think my name is awful.”

“See, Zelda?” Link tells her excitedly and elbowing her arm. “It’s a boy!”

Rusl puts a hand to her shoulder, seeing her flabbergasted. “Ah, something new usually crops up fairly quickly for them yap about instead.”

“Shame you didn’t bring pictos of the dog,” says Zelda.

“Dog?” asks Rusl.

“Zelda picked it up off the road,” Link says. “Congrats, you’re a grandfather after all, Rusl.”

“It is a boy,” Zelda adds cheerfully.

When they arrive at home, Link introduces her to Rusl and Uli’s young son, Colin, a shy and polite boy of twelve.

Uli has made a feast for them. As they gather round the table and sit, Rusl announces as he raises his glass and feigns wiping a tear from his eye, “We have a granddog.”

Uli sighs. “What?”

Link stabs at his potatoes, intent on looking only at his plate. “Zelda’s not pregnant,” he tells Uli.

Colin though is also focused on the dog. “You got a dog, Link?”

“Zelda named the coward Courage.”

“I wish you’d brought him,” he says.

“I only have so many lives to lose,” Link responds, and Zelda knows he is thinking of the dog ripping something apart in the house. She smirks and tries to keep her head down and eat to hide it.

Uli asks them, “What exactly is happening?”

Link rubs his nose. “Saw Sera. She made assumptions.”

“Of course she did,” Uli mutters. “I warned you.”

::

Rusl approaches him at the creek later. Link knows it’s him from the way the footfalls sound, but he doesn’t turn around to greet him or say anything. He just lets Rusl approach, and the man sits down next to Link in the growing darkness. His stump is aching again, and he thinks it must have been the drive and all the walking earlier.

“I always thought twilight was a very serene part of the day, but sometimes a deep sadness comes with it,” Rusl says conversationally, but Link isn’t really in the mood. His mouth right now is so, so dry. That needling urge always comes at its worst when his leg is bothering him. There’s a murky idea of rifts that floats through his mind, and he wonders why he’d be thinking of Zelda’s headache inducing science books now of all times.

Link turns the reeds he’d plucked over in his hands.

Rusl rubs his chin thoughtfully. “So who is she really?” he asks. “I know you know better than to show up here with a wife in tow and not mention a damn thing to us. I told Uli as much, which calmed her down a little. She fussing now that there’s not an extra bed for her if I’m right.”

Link doesn’t say anything for a minute, just considers instead how to say it. The reed flips. Because, in a way, he clearly is just that stupid and doesn’t know better. Finally he says, throwing down the reed from his hand, “Not my wife. In every way though but name. She’ll stay with me.”

“That so?”

“The dog is real,” Link says.

“Why didn’t you bring me my one and only grandbaby?” Rusl asks with humorous exasperation.

“Uli really would have killed me when he destroys something,” Link snickers. He picks at the grass. “He’s a young pup. Zelda spoils him far too much. Left him with Midna until we get back.” Link thinks she’s probably gone insane and has already sworn off dog sitting for him ever again. She’s not one likely to be patient with an energetic puppy.

“So she does live with you?”

“Yep.”

Rusl tosses his hands up.

“Can’t marry her,” Link says but still not offering up any real explanation. Rusl doesn’t seem surprised by this though. The guarded trickle of information is simply Link’s way, and it always has been. They exchange a sideways glance, and that gets Link to concede with striking honesty. “I would have done it the day I met her,” he admits, knowing Rusl won’t push him.

“Well, there’s no rush, lad.”

Link disagrees with a shake of his head. “Took too long to find her. Why waste more time?” he softly laments to Rusl’s quiet surprise, rising from the grass. He dusts his hands off on his trousers.

Rusl stands with him, and together, they make their way back to the house. “Just make sure you don’t forget us,” Rusl tells him.

“I won’t.”

Rusl cracks a smile. “Good,” he says with a nod. “Uli said you also stopped drinking?”

“So far.”

“How long?”

“About two months now, I guess?” Link sniffs. “Stayed in hospital a couple of weeks for the withdrawals.”

“I thought you were looking better than the last time I saw you,” muses Rusl. He puts a hand to his chin, but Link can see that prideful, fatherly grin through his fingers. “You holding up?”

No.

NO.

Nonononononononono-

“Yep.”

The way Rusl looks at Link though, he knows the real truth. He doesn’t push it though. He looks to the darkening sky. “Well, another day under the belt, lad,” he says.

Yeah.

Maybe.

When they walk into in the house, she must have seen something forlorn in his face (WITCH), because Zelda sits up at attention. Rusl goes to the living room where Uli, Colin, and Zelda sit, a big greeting for them all. Colin implores him to play a game, and Rusl obliges settling on the floor with him.

Link quietly turns away from the door and heads upstairs. Not long after he settles in bed, Zelda follows him in. His face is buried in the pillow and the distinct sound of glass scraping wood hits his ears. She’s brought him a couple of aspirin, which he gratefully accepts with the water.

“That bad today?” asks Zelda as he turns away from her again. She reaches out and rubs his back.

He doesn’t answer for a bit until he gruffly says, “Made it to bed.”

“That you did.” The pride in her voice is evident, but it makes him hurt when he feels like he’s somehow drowning in a desert.

“Your family, you know, is very kind,” she says. He can’t tell if she’s trying to distract him or what. Link just gets slapped with guilt instead.

He turns his head slightly. “What’s up with your folks though?” he asks. Link’s barely glimpsed her mother when he went by Zelda’s home, never spoken with her even. When she speaks of her family, the majority of it is about her father and the housekeeper, Impa. She talks about Paya and the twins as well.

“My folks?” she says, and suddenly her voice is very small.

“Yeah, like your mother. You barely speak about her.”

Zelda pulls her hand away. “I love my mother,” she softly swears as she curls up behind him. Her hot breath billows over the nape of his neck. “But in a way, she is like you.”

“… Like me?”

He struggles to catch the airy whisper that swims in from behind. “Very cold,” is what he swears he hears. She speaks up more next. “My mother is from a very prominent, wealthy family, but my father came up from nothing. I’ve always been closer to him since he’s much less inclined to worry about image and etiquette. Much less expectations from him. That I’d rather catch frogs than embroider was always the bane of my mother’s existence.

“They’d argue about it a lot, since my father was just happy that I was happy.”

“I suppose that also means she must have been in dire straits over university?”

Her very wry confirmation strikes a chord in him.

Thinking of her stuck with Misko, Link says, “Guess that explains a few things.” He thinks, too, of how she always spoke like the head housekeeper, Impa, basically raised her. The fondest memories she’s shared with him typically all revolve around her father letting her be her absolute self.

“My father had to prove himself financially to marry her, I know, but nobody else says much else on details. Even then, apparently my grandfather was irate that my father was new money.”

She says nothing more, so he just sits on this, a ghost ringing sounding in his ears over the silence.

It smacks him like a rough wave coming to shore, the guilt. He starts to worry his bottom lip. He must be stupid to have not paid more attention to it before. She’s used to being loved from afar, and she returns in kind, even if that might not be what she wants. He feels guilty about it, because Zelda deserves more. Frustration starts to ebb at him when he realizes he doesn’t have the vocabulary to articulate this to her.

She probably is already aware though. He'd always known that she’s far smarter than him anyway.

“So if your mother ever knew about all this…”

“She’d absolutely die,” Zelda chuckles. It tickles his neck.

::

The plan is to meet up with the dealer in Faron the next day, so Link ends up wandering into the town square by himself in the afternoon. Zelda stayed behind at the house after lunch, and Link’s at least pleased that she and Uli are getting along swimmingly. Uli can’t pick whether she wants to be warm or chilly with him, but he’s not exactly surprised. He always figured she never really forgave him for leaving Ordon.

The square is bustling today with the start of the harvest festivities. Stalls block the road, and the smell of all the different foods drifts to Link’s nose.

His leg is still bothersome but doesn’t ache as badly today. He decides to take a rest on a bench for a bit to maybe help ease his stump, ignoring some of the curious townsfolk who haven’t seen him about in ages (and probably heard a bunch of rumors they’re dying to see have any truth). He slumps on the bench, letting his head fall back to the sky and closes his eyes. The day has a bit of that autumn chill to it, amplified by the occasional gust of wind that makes the trees dance about. Their leaves rustle.

Somewhere in the cacophony of the trees windy rattling and the bustle of the square, he hears a man holler. He tries to focus more on the trees, block out the townsfolk’s chatter. Which is hard to do when he’s suddenly jerked by his shoulder.

He opens his eyes, and whatever annoyance he has is quickly shoveled away to make room for blinding surprise. “OI, I thought it was you!” the man bellows.

“Groose?” Link scrambles to sit up.

“Glad you remember,” the man says cheekily which makes Link chokingly laugh in disbelief. Groose stands as tall and burly as ever, and like Link, has grown his hair from their military cuts. He’s styled his red hair though rather than let it go wild. “I’d be real mad at you if you didn’t after I saved your sorry ass.” And this makes Link laugh even more. “Twice, I might add.”

Groose, forever stronger than Link, gives him a crushing embrace.

“What in Farore’s name are you doing in Ordon?” Link asks him as they step back.

Groose’s grin somehow cracks wider. “Ah, decided to take the day and come up. I live just over the border in Faron,” he says with a nod of his head. “You always talked about how you liked this time of year out here, and I gotta say, you are right about the chow available.”

“Holy shit.”

“What’re you doing here?” Groose asks him. “I heard you flounced off to Castleton.”

“Ye- I did.” After a moment, Link adds, “I’m just down here for a bit on business is all.” Groose looks around and then eyes the bench. Link, chuckling, tells him, “Just got the day, too.”

Groose claps his hands. “It’s harvest!” he exclaims. “Let’s grab a beer!”

Link’s stomach does a nauseating flop. “Ah, I can’t,” he says, trying to mentally steady himself.

“Not even one?”

Link swallows. He desperately has been wanting even one, but he tries to remain steadfast, because one will not be enough. It’ll never be enough. “No, I mean, like,” he pauses, rubbing that dry dry dry mouth of his with his hand, “I got time if you want to catch up, but I can’t drink.” Hesitantly, he clarifies, “I don’t drink.”

Groose straightens a bit, making himself all the more towering. He looks around. “I’m sure we can find you something then,” he says with an accepting smile that makes Link surge with gratitude. His beefy hand claps Link’s shoulder, almost making his knees buckle under him completely. “I haven’t eaten lunch yet either, I’m starved,” Groose says. “You eat?”

“Yep,” Link says. “But I am always kind of hungry these days. I’ll get something with you if it looks good.”

Groose’s low laugh bellows out. “No way, more hungry than you used to be?” he exclaims. He eyes Link’s physique. “You look like you’re skinnier than you used to be.” Which is funny to him since he’d been gaining as of late now that he’s sober and that’s all he’s heard. But he’s not as fit and muscular as he was when Groose saw him last in the war.

Link stoops and lifts his pant leg, showing Groose his prosthetic.

“Oh! They cut it off?”

“Yep, that shrapnel piece and your tourniquet did it. Something about the amputation makes me ravenous.”

Groose looks a bit guilty at that. “Aw man…”

Link cuts him off. “The tourniquet kept me from bleeding out in the water, apparently. I owe you for getting me out of the sub, I’m sure, too.”

“So you didn’t get reassigned?”

“Nah, medical discharge due to the amputation,” says Link, and he starts walking, heading down the street. No longer submarine material. Nope. Groose hurries after him. “You get reassigned then? Nobody could tell me anything about what happened to you while I was in hospital.”

Groose rubs the back of his neck, and he laughs a bit, almost embarrassed. “Got put on an aircraft carrier after the sub sunk,” he says. “Much better.”

Link chuckles. “I’m sure. There’d be sunlight at least.”

“Not as uh… moldy either,” Groose agrees.

Link waits as Groose loads up on different snacks from the stalls, but despite his unending need to eat aplomb, his appetite has mostly vanished. Fucking sub. They decide to speak no further of the sub or the war at that point, not wanting to dwell on it too much. They find a new bench to take over, Link slouching, Groose chowing down.

“What you doin’ in Castleton?” Groose asks, stuffing his face.

“Checkin’,” Link quips.

Groose is confused. “You do what now?”

“I’m a PI.”

“OH! So you do stuff like that Kafei Dotour guy?”

“What? That mystery novelist?”

“I mean, you know, like those detectives in his books. Not writer.”

“I didn’t know you could read,” Link mumbles.

“I’m gonna choke you out, Coutts.”

They both giggle like immature school children.

Groose looks off to the side. He points out a stall. “What about some cider?” Link shrugs.

“You mind getting it?” Link asks, leaning forward to rap on the prosthetic to try and shake off the phantom pain. “This fucking leg today,” he complains.

When Groose comes back with drinks for them both, it’s too late for Link when he realizes Groose’s mistake. He chatters amiably, but his words fade out into the background after Link takes his first swig of the drink. Link stares, fixed, at the liquid in his hand. He could set it down, toss it out in the grass- ANYTHING.

But Link feels himself shriveling into himself, and the only way to resuscitate his parched self is right in his hand.

Chapter Text

Zelda starts to worry when Link is late. Uli tries to reassure her that he’s probably fine, but he missed dinner. He’s not working any other cases down here, so there’s no way he’d miss out on a meal. Something’s not right, and Zelda doesn’t like the nagging feeling. She opens her bag to reassure herself that the mirror is still in there since it’s been quiet, but there it sits.

Not a peep.

She slams it closed in annoyance.

Once the sun is fully down, even Rusl looks a bit put off as she stomps outside, pulling on her coat. Of course, she can’t see far in the darkness, and she sits down on the steps. Rusl quietly follows her out onto the porch.

“He was only going to the square, wasn’t he?” he asks.

“I believe so,” says Zelda.

“Can’t imagine what’d be keeping him,” mutters Rusl.

“Something is wrong.”

Rusl hums, and then he falls silent. They wait out there on the porch, the only light coming from the lamp by the door behind them. After a bit, with nothing moving in the dark, Rusl asks her, “Want a torchlight?”

She considers for a moment. “Sure.”

He heads back inside, and Zelda follows just through the red door to grab her bag. A couple of minutes later, Rusl returns to her with a torchlight in hand. Holding it out to her, Rusl asks, “You know your way?”

She nods, taking the torchlight. “Yes, thank you.”

Rusl makes a joke about calling the constables as they walk out to the porch again, but it makes Zelda pause.

“Actually,” she says as she walks down the steps and then turns back to his dark figure shrouded by the porch light, “if we’re not both back by morning, call them.”

Rusl pauses, considering the seriousness in her voice, and then says, “Well, you need back up?”

She shakes her head. “Just in case,” she assures him.

His head rocks a bit to the side, before he sends her off, saying, “Alright then. Morning.”

Zelda, using the light of the torchlight, walks down the dark road towards the town square. She feels a bit foolish, chasing after him like he’s some unruly teen out past curfew, but knowing that they’re here to hopefully find another mirror or piece of a mirror makes Zelda uneasy. What if They know about Link and come after him like They did her months ago?

Once she reaches where street lamps start to pepper the road side, she switches the torchlight off and slips it into her coat pocket. She follows the sounds of laughter and chatter, music. The festival has started up today. Hopefully Link just lost track of time when he went to the square this afternoon, but why would he lose track of time to begin with? That’s not like him either. Even when he’s late, he’s not hours late.

As Zelda reaches the square, she starts to notice more of the townsfolk looking her way, and she feels a bit self-conscious about it. She wonders whether or not they’re looking because they’d seen her with Link and looking to her for more gossip or if they’re looking simply because they don’t know her – an outsider. She spies the woman Sera trying to be aloof about seeing her out and about, but she not so subtly starts to hastily whisper to the large mustachioed man that stands next to her. He looks Zelda’s way, but his expression is unreadable, and Zelda turns away to walk in the opposite direction.

The whole square is aglow with the festival. The stands cooking food have steam wafting up into the night air. She slowly makes her way around the stalls, pretending to be interested in what’s on offer, but really she’s got her eyes peeled every which way for any sign of Link.

When she thinks she’s almost made a full loop with no sign of Link, she sinks onto a bench instead to think. Maybe she should have asked Rusl to come with her, she thinks with some regret. She barely knows the town, and he might’ve had a better idea as to where to look next if not the square.

She watches the crowd move about, keeping a sharp eye on the people.

Maybe you just need to go for a spin.

And there it is, she thinks bitterly.

Go round and round and round and rou-

Zelda tries to think of mirror in her mind. Every little bit of etching, the odd shimmer it has, and she puts it in a box. And then she takes that box, and puts it inside another box, and puts that one inside another box to shove away in the very, very deepest of recesses in her mind.

She doesn’t want to hear it right now.

Zelda rises from the bench and walks back the way she came around in the square, retracing her steps, essentially. This time, she looks beyond the stalls, but most of the shops are closed up, either because of the festival or just the general time. That’s when, off a small beaten path, Zelda notices a waterwheel.

Go for a spin, huh?

Zelda wonders if the mirror was trying to give directions. Albeit in its usual poor manner.

She heads down the path to the waterwheel and comes upon what is probably the creek that flows down to Rusl and Uli’s. There’s a fairly decent sized pond this way as well, and wouldn’t you know it? Right on the dock in the dark, she can see two figures, and one of them sounds very familiar. A lantern sits between them, giving them a small amount of light to see by.

Her brow furrows.

She pulls out the torchlight and comes closer to the dock.

“Oi!” one of them calls – not Link. When she’s close enough, she sees it is indeed Link and another man hanging out on the dock together. Link is standing to one side of the lantern, and even in the dim light of the torchlight’s edge, she catches that distinctive sway in his stance. The other man who’d spoken is sitting on the edge, and he calls out to her again, “Whoyuyoo?”

Zelda frowns and shines the torchlight on her face.

He looks confused at her.

“Link, what’re you doing out here?” she asks, dropping the light.

Link’s companion hoots what she thinks is “OHHHH, you know her?”

She ignores him and addresses Link again, “Link, it’s late. What’re you doing out here? Have you been drinking?”

In the torchlight, she catches Link’s questioning look.

The man, however, answers her again. “Ohhh yeaaah,” he hollers, and he scrambles to his feet. “Din yeh say ya codn’t drink?”

“Yeh, the uh…” he pauses. They both look at each other. Link hangs his head to one side, trying to think, and the man stares at him blankly. Then a realization hits Link, and he groans, “OH shiiit.”

“So yes,” she sighs and comes closer to them on the dock.

“Whas rung?”

“I tol’ mi’ wife I’d quit,” Link desperately gushes to him.

The man, stunned, yells, “NO!”

They must have forgotten Zelda standing there already. Underneath the irritation and the fury, she’s been expecting this, so in some way, that allows her to feel some humor at their panicked antics as the two men struggle to connect two brain cells between them. Both of which are currently fighting for third place.

“Yew go’ a wife?” he exclaims with all the shock in the world.

“She migh’ not like me though. I gotta keep lookin’ fer signs.”

Then full of great concern, he asks Link, “Oh no, she gon’ divorce yeh?”

“Can yeh get divorced if yer not real’ married?”

This seems to break the other man’s brain.

He notices Zelda on the dock with them again. He nods to her, telling Link, “She cute.”

Link looks at her in the dim light, clearly not recognizing her.

His companion asks Zelda, “Yeh won tell his why righ’?”

Zelda rolls her eyes. “No.” Why tell his “why” when she’s right there?

The man looks relieved, but then those gears start working again, and he starts to badger Link. “Wha’s yer why look ligh?” he asks. “I beh’ she uh…” His arms go out. “Big nerd,” he sputters finally.

“She’s… blonde. Smart. Yeh.”

The man’s hands go to around his head, and he bring them in and out in a squeezing kind of motion. “Big. Head.”

“What?”

“She smar’, so she got a uh… Big. Head.”

Link’s expression is lost between drunken confusion and offense. “Yeh got the biggest noggin I ever see’, an’ yer the dumbest sailor I ever met,” retorts Link.

At this, the man, basically twice Link’s size, easily scoops Link up and, completely ignoring Zelda’s frantic yells and tugs at his shirt, announces, “Aigh’, I’ll put yeh sorry ass back where I saved yeh.”

“OH, you do maaa-jick?” Link drawls. “Gon’ regrow mi’ leg, too?” Zelda tries to dig her heels into the dock but stumbles forward when the man strides forward to the dock’s edge. “Waih til’ they find ou’ yeh drowned a cripple!”

This makes the man stop. “Yew really gon’ pull that out?”

Link, drunk and indignant, yells much more clearly than anything else, “I lost a fuckin’ leg!”

“Aw maaan.”

Zelda, sighing, steps away and slips her bag off her shoulder as the two continue to argue. She digs in her bag until she finds her cigarettes and lights one up. She sits on the edge of the dock by their lantern to wait on them to get it together. She wonders if their drunken antics might get one of the town’s bulls involved.

Eventually, Link is put down on the dock again, stumbling about but luckily not off the dock. The man approaches her and squats next to her. “M’Groose,” he says, holding out a hand to her. She takes it, realizing that she does know him. From the old picto from almost ten years before.

“Pleasure,” she says. She looks behind her and calls back to Link, “Hey, we need to get you home.”

He frowns, looking at her. There’s a small flicker of recognition, but then Zelda realizes he doesn’t recognize her actually. “I don’ know yeh,” he says and snatches her bag, “tha’s my bag.”

And he starts off up the path.

Zelda looks to Groose, “And where do you belong?”

“Righ’ over there,” he says, sheepishly, and points over towards the square. Link had mentioned an inn when they meandered around the day before, so that must be where he's staying.

She stands, stomping out the butt of the cigarette. “Why don’t you head that way then, yeah? Get to bed?”

Groose obliges, taking the lantern with him, and Zelda pulls out Rusl’s torchlight and finds Link tripping on the path in the darkness. She catches up to him, and links her arm in with his. “Let’s ankle,” she tells him.

Link looks guilty.

“What’s wrong?”

“She gon’ be mad,” he murmurs. Well, he’s not wrong.

She asks him, “So why’d you start drinking?”

“Thirs’y.” Zelda nudges him a little when he says no more, so he continues. He tells her, “Groose got the wron’ cider.”

“Wrong cider?”

“Yep.”

As they walk the edge of the square to head back to Rusl and Uli’s, Zelda looks at the stands that are still open and serving. “Oh,” she says, looking out at the food and drinks. “So you didn’t know?”

“Huh?”

“The cider,” she reminds him. “You didn’t know it was the wrong one?”

“Whas wrong?”

Zelda sucks in a deep breath, trying to hold onto her patience. “You didn’t know it was the wrong cider,” she clarifies.

“Groose got it.” Still doesn’t answer her, but Zelda thinks she gets it.

“Must have been hard,” she says instead.

Link looks to her, holding his hands up and juggling them a little. Her bag is in one of his hands, and it violently jostles about. “It was righ’ there,” he says simply as they head out of the square.

“In your hands?”

“Yesssss.”

“Yeah,” she says softly.

::

When he wakes in the morning, his head feels like it’s splitting into two in that very familiar, very awful way. He rolls over and sees aspirin and water waiting for him already, but he’s not sure he can stomach anything right now. His whole abdomen feels absolutely trashed. Shredded. Tumultuous. Instead he stares up at the ceiling dazedly for a while, trying to think back to the day before and ignore the rolling pains from his stomach.

Anxiety swells under him like a rolling wave, because what did he do? Nothing comes to him at first, but slowly, he starts to put things together in his pounding head.

Zelda eventually opens the door, trying her best to shut it quietly and keep her footsteps light until she sees that he’s actually awake. “You should take the aspirin,” she tells him, her voice low and soft, and she comes to sit down on the bed next to him. “Help your headache.”

His brow furrows a little more, and his frown deepens. “It’s all berries,” he grumbles sarcastically. His head pounds. He looks at Zelda briefly, then he relents and takes the aspirin. “Feel like everything’s shredded, and the sun’s too loud,” he complains and sits up.

“Well, hopefully you’ll feel up to our appointment this afternoon,” she says.

He pauses, the glass to his lips, as he tries to decipher her tone. He lowers the glass. “Aren’t you mad?”

She shrugs. “Sure,” she says. “But honestly, I was kind of expecting it. Midna and I both.”

“You were?”

She gives him a small, apologetic kind of smile. “If I had said it before, you definitely would have fell off, because you would have believed that was the only path. Most people stumble along the way though,” she tells him kindly. “You just have to get back up.” Link finishes the water and sets the glass on the nightstand. “You should be proud of yourself though.”

“Don’t feel it,” he says. He turns and collapses forward onto the bed. “Not even exactly sure how I got back. Some woman walked me off, I think.”

“That was me,” she snickers at him. “You didn’t recognize me.”

“I didn’t?”

“You said I was blonde.”

“Well, you are.”

She glances picks at her hair to look at the brown locks. “Naturally, sure.”

Zelda shifts to turn herself more to him, even though he lies face down with most of his face obscured. She assures him, “It’s not a failure, Link. You did really well, I mean it, and you can keep going again.”

He groans and rolls over onto his back. His stomach sloshes painfully.

“You’re not really starting over, either,” says Zelda.

He gives her that scrunched look of distaste when she says something that he’d been thinking of. She seems surprised when he doesn’t accuse her again of telepathy, but he says quietly, “It was the stupid cider.” He tries to wipe away the sweat building at his hairline.

She nods. “You said something about Groose getting the wrong kind.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, you went a couple months without a drink,” she reminds him. “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be ready to just get rid of a drink if it was in my hand at a couple of months.”

His frown doesn’t let up. He looks at her, “Really didn’t know and then I tasted it, and…” He throws his hands up as if to say, poof! there he went.

“Well, you got to see your friend again,” she reminds him. “That’s nice, right?”

After a moment, she’s successful in getting him to quirk a small smile. “Yeah,” he says. “I never was quite sure what happened to him since I got discharged.” He sniffs a little. “He got put on an actual like… ship.” He smiles a little more. “No more subs for Groose.”

“I’m glad.”

“He says he’s nearby on the border of Faron.”

“Oh, well, maybe you can find him then if he’s not still at the inn today.”

“He thinks I’m a detective like in one of them Kafei Dotour books,” he tells her.

She giggles at that. “I don’t think there’s a lot of mystery in the world of sitting around and pictographing people.”

Link laughs a little. “Yeah, definitely not,” he says. He pokes a finger at her, “But look at you, missing person.”

“Oh! Am I your breakout case?”

He shrugs. “Still don’t have a lot of mystery hounding insurance scammers.”

“Unfortunate.”

“Can you bring the can over?” he asks.

She frowns a little, but does as he asks. “Going to be sick?”

“My stomach needs a full on exorcism, and I’m not making it to the bath.”

::

Link asks her as they approach their destination, “What’s the name of the place again?”

Zelda looks at the paper she wrote the info down on. “Skyloft Relics.”

They keep an eye out for the dealer, and before long, Zelda spies the shop and points it out. They pull in at the front, and Link shuts the car off. Neither move.

“I feel sick,” Link says, leaning his head on the wheel to give himself a moment to sort his stomach and head.

Zelda agrees, but for a different reason.

Once he thinks he can, Link lifts his head. They stare at the door.

Link sighs, kicking open the door, “Let’s go.”

When they enter, a shop bell jingles above them. Zelda is shocked at the place. It’s stuffed to the gills with all sorts of things.

“OH NO WAY!”

They all freeze.

Link breaks the spell. “Groose?”

“Man, why didn’t you tell me?” Groose cries and rushes to meet them near the entrance. “You knew I was here this whole time?”

“Uh, no.”

Zelda speaks up, “You spoke with me, I believe.”

Groose pauses, then his face darkening (even faster than Zelda’s can, to Link’s amusement), he mumbles, “Uh, right.” He rubs the back of his head.

“Wait, wait,” he says, shaking his hands at them. “So you’re here about that weirdo mirror then? That’s your business here?”

“Yep.”

“You got weird interests, Coutts.”

Link shrugs. He points at Zelda. “It’s more her thing.”

Groose waves them along to follow, and he leads them through the store, but then abruptly stops part way through. He whips around, pointing at Link. “Your wife!” he shouts, remembering bits of their drunken revelry the night before. “You didn’t even invite me?”

Link gives Groose a strained look. “We just established I had no idea you were here,” he reminds Groose.

Groose frowns at him. “Yeah, sure, whatever,” he says, waving Link off. “Just only saved your life like twice or whatever. No big deal.”

Link rolls his eyes. “Your ego is as inflated as ever, I see.”

“I thought we had a good time,” he grumbles. “Hey, aren’t you like a detective?” Link nudges Zelda.

“You came up with that. I’m a PI, remember?”

Groose’s eye narrow at them, and Zelda looks to Link, unsure what he’s trying to size them up for. “Sure, sure.” He turns and continues heading through the shop. Groose briefly turns his head back to Link. “I thought we were buddies,” he says. “You should introduce me sometime.”

“To my wife?”

“Yeah, stupid.”

“You’re the stupid one,” Link tells him. “She’s the one you were talking to that set this whole thing up.”

Groose whirls around in shock on them. “WHAT!” he shouts. “You’re like the worst friend ever!” But then he frowns. “I thought she had blonde hair though.”

Link scoffs. “I’m pretty sure I know what she looks like.”

“And I’m pretty sure I don’t have memory issues, either,” offers Zelda.

“Man, you’re cold.”

“Pretty sure I was the easier one to find for awhile considering I got laid up in hospital then sent home,” counters Link.

“If you two are gonna argue this whole time like children, I’ll just take the car and go,” says Zelda.

Groose frowns at Link before he straightens and puffs his chest out a little bit. “Well, then, since Link can’t be bothered to introduce his one and only savior,” huffs Groose with all the grandeur he can muster. “Groose Bado.”

Zelda snorts. “It’s Zelda.”

He brings them into the back room of the shop, which apparently doubles as Groose’s office, and leads them over to where he has the mirror wrapped up in cloth, and immediately they can tell this is a piece and it’s is far larger than the one Zelda obtained from the auction. Link helps Groose unwrap the piece, and once it’s freed from the cloth all three stare at it, mesmerized by its glittering allure.

Groose shakes out of it first. “That’s why I keep it wrapped,” he tells them. “The thing is so freaky.” He shivers. “Couldn’t stop staring at it sometimes when it didn’t have the cloth on it.”

“Yeah, it does have that effect,” Zelda agrees.

Link turns to her. “Well?” And clearly he’s looking for agreement that Groose indeed has the real deal match. Zelda doesn’t hear anything coming from this particular mirror piece like the one she was implored to bid on, but it’s clearly an adjacent piece and the real thing.

Zelda points out an edge on the right side to Link. “Fits in right there,” she tells him.

“Didn’t think it’d be so large,” Link says. Zelda didn’t either, because this one is at least five times the size of the piece she has.

“What’s the deal with this thing?” Groose asks. “I wanted to call it in to put up for auction, but they said to talk you guys since you were apparently so persistent in trying to find one.” He scratches his head. “I would have gotten rid of it some other way since you were taking so long to come get it, but I don’t know… just felt like I had to hold on to it.”

Link puts his hands in his pockets, thinking, and he considers the mirror. He and Zelda share a glance, and the knowing passes between them. The mirror had been influencing Groose, and it’d been waiting for them, but why? Because Zelda has another piece? Link purses his lips, because he knows from their mute exchange that it just specifically wanted Groose to wait for them, and Zelda’s piece is not part of that consideration, for whatever reason. Link knows Groose is trustworthy as can be, but the fewer people that know about the mirrors’ true nature, the better. Link suspects it’s just not in Groose to let sleeping dogs lie, so he decides to give him just enough.

“Zelda got a smaller piece at auction,” Link tells Groose. “Since then she’s been trying to find other pieces.” He looks to Groose. His brow quirks a little. “They got this real bad juju that people are after.”

Just like he thought, that’s all that Groose needs. “Ugh, you don’t need to tell me twice. I hate when this thing is uncovered. Held onto it for so long just for you guys basically.” He stops here, suddenly realizing what Link had and what exactly he’d said: he didn’t just hold it because he had to. He held it for them, but he really didn’t know why.

“Honestly, I was thinking we were gonna come down here and find a fake,” Link says, trying to stop Groose from thinking too much about why he unreasonably held onto an object he’d deemed to be creepy as sin.

“Groose,” Zelda calls, and that pulls him away from the spell the mirror is weaving on his eyeballs. “What can we do to make a deal for us to take this off your hands?”

Groose briefly casts a glance out the corner of his eye at the mirror, not daring to look at it head on. “You really want this weird thing?”

“Really, really,” Link says.

Groose considers it. “How ‘bout an open check?”

“Pardon?”

“Not with like money, dumbass,” Groose says with a roll of his eye. “I want this thing gone, quick at this point, but I’ll call in the favor a few times.”

Link weighs the offer for a minute. “You ask me for some dumb shit, I’m not doing it.”

Groose crosses his arms. “Yeah, yeah,” he says dismissively. “I’m just glad to be rid of the thing. It’s creepy.”

“Groose,” says Zelda, “how exactly did you end up with this mirror?”

His eyes drift towards the mirror, and Groose shivers. “My guys Cawlin and Strich picked it up,” he says. “There’s this bloke that usually prowls the area around here known as Skull Kid that had it. The thing’s so creepy, it seems like everyone is just eager to hand it off to someone else and make it their problem.” Like a sick game of hot potato.

Link is inclined to agree. The mirror definitely gives off an eerie vibe. This piece is so much larger than Zelda’s that he thinks its effects are that much more amplified. Zelda’s piece is… well, weird. But this one… Link glances at the mirror. His reflection looks back at him, but he can’t help the feeling that this piece isn’t just weird. It has a sinister gloom to it. Makes Zelda’s piece look like it dabbles in child’s play.

That concerns him.

“You guys really have one like this already?” Groose asks, and he, too, peers at the mirror. Groose’s image is next to Link as they both get sucked into the mirror’s pull.

Zelda answers, “Yes, not nearly as large though.”

Groose turns to her in disbelief. Link frowns. “Man, I can’t imagine wanting a second.”

Link feels the sweat prickling at his brow.

“Groose.”

“Huh?” Groose looks to Link. “What’s wrong?”

Groose turned away to Zelda, and now turns to Link, but in the mirror’s reflection, Link never saw him move either time. His face still looks into the mirror next to Link’s, unmoving.

Link thinks he might throw up again, and it’s not just consequences of falling off the wagon the day before.

“Link?”

The mirror Link and Groose start to move, just slightly. Their expressions darken. A shadow falls over them, shrouding them. Link can’t seem to find his arms as he stares back at them. Their faces grow larger. They’re stepping forward.

Could they step out of the mirror?

“Cover it up,” Link whispers.

Groose grabs the cloth and tosses it over the mirror, saying, “Don’t need to tell me twice.”

Link blinks.

“Link, you okay?”

Honestly? NO. Link steps away, feeling unsteady.

Groose catches his arm to hold him up. “Here, sit down,” he tells Link, and pulls over the chair from his desk. He practically tosses Link into the chair.

“You didn’t see that?” whispers Link.

Groose and Zelda exchange confused looks. Groose, uneasy, turns away from them and steps to the mirror to secure the wrap.

“You’re sweating, Link,” says Zelda quietly to him. “Are you having withdrawals?”

“We keep the mirror covered,” Link says, his mouth suddenly so dry. Gods, why’d she have to bring up the withdrawals, because nothing would fix him more right now-

“Told you this think is creepy,” Groose says over his shoulder as he fusses with the cloth cover.

Link tries to swallow. “Groose’s reflection in the mirror,” he says. “Groose moved, but It didn’t.”

Groose freezes. “Whoa.” Groose shudders. He grimaces.

Once Link gets his bearings again, Groose helps them load the mirror into the car. Groose shuts the hatch and, dusting his hands, asks with heavy hesitation, “Hey, this thing isn’t like cursed is it?” The sinking pit in Link’s stomach makes him apt to ask the same thing. “Like you’re not gonna like have something bad happen because you have it, right?”

“Well, I’ve had the other mirror for quite awhile…” trails Zelda.

“Groose,” says Link, and Groose turns to him. “Us taking the mirror, I have another condition.”

“What’s that, punk?”

“You tell no one we took it.”

Groose frowns. “That all?”

“Come up with whatever you want, but we didn’t take it, and you never saw Zelda, especially.”

Groose thinks, trying to see if he can angle for something else out of Link. “You can have a plate at the wedding,” offers Link to sweeten the pot.

He brightens at this. “Head table!”

“Sure.”

Groose pumps a fist, but then he quickly realizes the problem with this. “Wait,” he ponders, his fist slowly lowering. “What wedding? Your wedding?” Zelda laughs to herself as she gets into the car. “Aren’t you married?”

“Nah. Not really.”

“Why’d you lie, man?” Groose asks, deflating at the revelation.

“The people that’d come knocking for that mirror will probably know I don’t actually have a wife if they’re looking for us,” Link says. “Besides, she’s got some other man for a fiancé.”

Groose panics at this. “What!” His expression quickly gives way to an indignant fury when Link starts to cackle at him.

“Plate’s still yours,” Link assures him.

Groose huffs, “Yeah, but now at what wedding?” He grumbles further, “Thought we were friends.” When Groose finally deigns to look at Link again, he softens first and then something devilish comes over him. He pokes a finger at Link, which Link promptly smacks away.

Link rolls his eyes. “I’ll let you know,” he mumbles. Groose pumps a fist in victory again. “Could be no wedding at all though,” he says just to make Groose deflate a little again.

“I don’t think I like your kind of drama, Coutts.”

“You just want some glory and a stage to brag about pulling me out of the sub. You still got your other favors to call in on,” Link reminds him. “So long as you never saw her, remember?”

Looking gravely serious now, Groose nods. “Right.”

“I’d prefer it if both of us were never here though,” Link reiterates.

“Yeah, yeah,” Groose says dismissively. “I got it, Link.”

They fall into silence staring at the covered mirror through the small back hatch window, feeling its eerie gloom seeping through the cloth.

Groose moves first, and he holds out his hand. Link reaches out, and they clasp each other’s forearms.

“No card?”

“Groose.”

“I’m just jokin’.”

They let go, and Link says, “It was really good seeing you, Groose.”

“Of course it would be, punk,” Groose exclaims with a prideful puff of his chest, and the two break into wide grins.

::

When they arrive back at Rusl and Uli’s in the late evening, Rusl is coming out of the house for his usual evening walk. Link pulls in and kills the engine. He looks to the house and then at Zelda, who is almost halfway out the car. “Hey, not cursed,” he tells her.

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t die on the way back.”

“Still have to get back to Castleton in one piece.”

“Already broke that,” Link darkly jokes as he shuts the car.

Rusl waves at them as he approaches. “Uli’s still got some dinner warming in the oven,” he tells them. Link thinks he might throw up at the sight of food, and Rusl’s brow cocks up, knowing he’d never pass up on good food. “Alright there, lad?”

Link glances at Zelda waiting for him. “Go on ahead. I’m going to walk with Rusl.” She nods with a tight smile, and then heads up the path to the house.

Link and Rusl take their stroll down towards the creek. The air is crisp and chilly without the sun, and Link considers how quickly the autumn weather seems to disappear into winter. The trees change colors, he blinks, and then their branches are bare. Along the creek, frogs still manage to croak out their song for one last seasonal encore.

“Fell off, huh?” Rusl says at last.

Link stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Saw my friend Groose,” he says. “From the Navy.” Rusl nods. “He accidentally got us the alcoholic cider.”

It’s a sympathetic sort of snort Rusl gives at that. “Zelda mentioned she found you two down by the waterwheel docks absolutely shitfaced.”

“Couldn’t stop.”

“Well, you making it through today?”

“So far,” Link mumbles. “My stomach is still trashed though.”

“Good reminder,” Rusl replies. “You should try and eat something though.”

Link grimaces at the thought. “No thanks,” he says with a cringe. “I don’t think I can.”

Whatever small amount of evening light from the setting sun that glowed over the Ordon trees has faded by now. Rusl pulls out his torchlight and flicks it on, so they can see along the creek in the dark.

“You seen Ilia?” Rusl asks, and this makes Link slow his pace a bit. Noticing his lag, Rusl looks back, the black profile of his face highlighted by the light the torchlight casts over the grass in front of them. “Just asking,” Rusl chucks.

“No.”

“Plan to?”

“No.”

“Yeah.”

“Not like she liked who I was after coming back the first time.”

Rusl’s flat, humorless laugh rings out over the creek. “Lad, you didn’t like the man that came back.”

“Kind of hard not to.”

“For the better, I suppose,” Rusl says wistfully.

“Yeah?”

Rusl shrugs. “I don’t think you ever looked her way the same way she did you.”

Link thinks on this. The pictograph of him and Ilia from the festival a decade ago comes to his mind, and he realizes he doesn’t even remember much from the day it was taken. Was it guilt all that time? Link tells Rusl about Zelda finding the picto. “Thought the same thing when I saw it,” Link admits. He rubs the nape of his neck. “You… you don’t think she’d try to come by?”

“Hard to say.”

Rusl decides if Link isn’t moving forward, they’ll turn back around, so Link slowly turns and trudges after Rusl.

“Not gonna lie for you though if she does,” says Rusl. Hah. Yeah. Of course.

Rusl asks Link about the festival, but considering it sent him spiraling on a bender, he doesn’t remember much of the night, so instead Rusl asks if they managed to complete their business in Faron.

“Yep.”

“So the trip wasn’t a total waste,” he says a bit gleefully. He’s trying to find a positive for Link. Bless the man.

“Yep.”

Once they’re back to the house though, Link feels like the gods are kicking him while down again. It’s not Ilia at least, but probably the next worst thing: her father, Bo. Link hears the man’s booming voice, and he exchanges a glance with Rusl. The roll of his eyes sends Link to slip upstairs quietly while Rusl strides into the living room giving his own loud greetings.

He’s a bit curious though, so he squeezes himself at the top of the landing, out of sight from the lower floor to listen for a bit.

“No Link?” Bo asks.

“Might still be down by the creek,” Rusl tells him. “Good to see you, though, Bo. What brings you by?”

“Just hoping to see the lad, it’s been some time.”

Rusl hums. “Yeah, but he really only came out to handle some things on a case he’s working. Not really a social call,” says Rusl. Link silently sings all of Rusl’s praises to the gods if they’re out there and listening for once. Won’t cover him if it’s Ilia, but gods bless the man for doing it with Bo.

A door squeaks open behind Link, and when he looks back, he sees Colin. He’d just been a wee toddler when Link went to war, so they’d never had much time to bond like brothers, but seeing Link huddled in hiding in the hall, Colin does the same and scoots down the hall to him. He mouths to Link, “What’re we doing?”

Link nods in the direction of the ground floor.

Colin seems to get it.

Link realizes that yet again there’s another thing the war had snatched from him. Gone for three years, and then when he came back, he was too absorbed trying to heal from the amputation and later learning to walk again on the prosthetic to give Colin much attention. Deciding to flee Ordon when he couldn’t deal with the shell shock and the villagers and his leg and just everything irreparably shut a door on their time together. When he looks over at Colin as they eavesdrop, he wishes that they’d been able to have more moments like this when he was younger.

“That’s a shame,” Bo says. His laugh booms again through the house. “He’s been causing quite a stir, too, the last couple of days. It’d be nice to see him.”

“Well, he caught us by surprise, too,” Uli says dryly. There’s a slap of Uli setting aside whatever craft project she’s working on now. “Zelda, dear, I just remembered the wash out back, will you give me a hand?”

Zelda clearly is looking for an out and hastily accepts.

As they step out, footsteps echoing, Rusl says, “Sorry you came by and he’s not in. He’s… still struggling with things, so I don’t know if he’ll be back soon.”

“The war still?”

“Aye.”

“Poor lad,” Bo says. He sighs. “Always hoped for something different for him.”

Link and Colin quietly agree the same.

“Uli didn’t specify…” Bo drawls. “Is that the gal he brought from Castleton?”

“Zelda?” Rusl laughs. “Yeah, that’s our surprise that Uli mentioned.”

“Glad he’s got some things going right for him at the least after all he’s been through,” Bo says. Link feels a bit of guilt and gratitude at that, but he doesn’t dare leave his spot and announce himself. “Might’ve hoped too much myself though.”

Rusl lets out one short laugh. “Well, I think they’ll be alright.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s got his plate full still, Bo, but if his biggest regret these days is that he didn’t marry that girl the day he met her, he’ll come around.”

Bo’s genuine reply strikes Link like a hard slap a second time. “I hope you’re right, Rusl. Only want good things for the lad. Tell him he doesn’t need to be a stranger.”

“Sure, but I think he’s still feeling like a stranger with himself.”

Link and Colin sit upstairs waiting for almost half a minute, before they hear Bo say, “Alright, think I’ve intruded enough.” The two men say goodbye as they tromp to the front door. The boys upstairs scoot a little further back to be sure they’re not seen, holding their breath until the door shuts with finality. They share a grin like partners in crime getting away with their first heist.

Link sends Colin along, and he quietly slips into his own room to wait for Zelda. When she comes in, she’s a bit surprised to see him huddled up in bed. “You missed the mayor,” she says, closing the door. “When did you come back?”

“With Rusl,” says Link, and he rolls on his back to give her an apologetic, sheepish grin.

She pauses, taking off her shoes. “What?”

“Oh, they didn’t tell you.”

She rolls her eyes and strips off her dress. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” she says as she folds up the dress to put in her bag.

“He’s Ilia’s father.”

“Guess that answers a lot,” she murmurs as she fumbles at her side to free herself from her brassiere. She dumps it with less ceremony in her bag.

Link sidles over to make room for her.

“I feel like an old maid going to bed so early,” she complains. “I’m exhausted.”

“Same.”

“If I leave just that far light on, is that okay?” she asks before she switches off the bedside lamp.

“Yep.”

“Do you want to leave tomorrow, or are there people here you want to see?”

Link thinks of Bo for a bit but says, “There are things to do. I don’t want to stay.”

::

When Link and Zelda leave, Rusl pays his wife no mind when she swears that she’ll kill Link the next time he tries to pull something over on them like this, because he’s pretty sure showing up out of the blue with a wife is a one time thing. But Rusl gets it. Both sides of it.

She’s mad, rightfully so, because Link had shut them out again. Though Rusl doesn’t tell her the real truth, because what does it matter? He has eyes, by the gods, and he could see plain as day the lad was right, and Zelda is his wife in all but name, so Rusl just lets it be.

“Give him time,” Rusl says kindly.

Uli scowls at him. “How much time does he need though? It’s been years.”

But Uli has never known (and, Rusl hopes, will never will know) the horrors of combat or of actually living on land being ravaged by war. Ordon and most of Hyrule had been spared from battles on the home front. Ordon certainly felt the effects from the war, but nothing like where the actual fighting occurred. Rusl thinks maybe that’s why it devastated Uli more. Uli was beyond hurt when Link left Ordon suddenly, swearing off ever returning, but Rusl could see that Ordon was hurting him just as much, if not more.

They’d whispered about him coming home from the front before the war ended, some even talking about how even if he didn’t lose the leg, they’d have sent him back. Shell shocked soldiers were a liability and not fit for service, and how dishonorable it was that Link couldn’t stick it out. It was weak of him. Rusl also saw how cruelly he was mocked for jumping at the slightest things, the nervous ticks he’d developed, even the slight stutter that rendered him mostly mute from embarrassment and shame. At night, even his sleep terrorized him, and it left him looking something akin to a gibdo from the lack of good sleep. The whispering of the town probably drove him madder than any tinnitus ringing he’d hear in his ears.

Rusl hated the boy for leaving as he did, but he understood. It hurt, but Rusl forgave him in the same breath that he cursed Link as the lad left for Castleton at twenty-two.

It's what any good father would do, right?

Link isn’t his by blood, and they never adopted him formally, but he’d be damned if he isn’t the lad’s father.

Rusl waves the pair off, hopeful as can be for his son’s future for the first time in a long time. He brushes off any further complaints from Uli and walks away down off to the creek by himself. The stutter, the nervous twitching, and the anxious jumping were gone, something Rusl suspects that maybe initially Link had tried to snuff out with the booze, but he came back different again. There was something in his eyes that told Rusl he'd finally found some footing. Sitting at the creek edge, Rusl thinks himself terrible for ever doubting the lad. He has leagues left to walk, but Rusl thinks with all truth for the first time, that Link can do it.

It’s some weeks later that Rusl opens the post to find a small manila envelope from Castleton. Uli’s surprised to hear where it’s from when she asks about it. They don’t receive mail from Castleton. Her and Colin creep over Rusl’s shoulders when he opens the envelope at the kitchen table, and Rusl about laughs himself out of the chair when he pulls out a couple of pictos and a hastily scrawled note.

He proudly frames both pictos, and (just to annoy his wife a bit more) puts them front and center on the fireplace mantel in the living room. It’s the perfect spot for bragging rights, after all, but Uli just rolls her eyes. She leaves the pictos there.

Rusl later finds himself surprised again when Uli tells him a telegram came. “From Akkala of all places,” she says. “No name, it’s very strange. Do we know anyone in Akkala?”

And no, no they don’t, Rusl thinks. But he realizes they’re wrong when he reads the print out.

From

TARREY TOWN, AKKALA
2701 S. LOOMIS ST

24 NOVEMBER 1922 AC 4:32 PM EASTERN STANDARD

Received

ORDON, LAKE
1401 POPLAR DR

24 NOVEMBER 1922 AC 3:39 PM CENTRAL STANDARD

DID IT LOVE YOU ALWAYS

“It must be some sort of mistake, right?” Uli asks.

Rusl hums in a non-committal response.

That evening, Rusl toasts the pictos on the mantel.

Chapter Text

“I am never watching your damn dog again,” Midna gripes when she walks into Link’s flat with Courage. The dog bolts into the flat and zooms right by Link and Zelda and disappears, only to come flying right back again and into Midna’s foot as she sticks it out to stop him from soaring into the hallway. “Let me tell you,” she says. “He. Shit. Everywhere.”

“What’d you let him eat?” Link asks, waiting for Courage to race by before walking to his kitchen. Despite his instinctual calling to lick the whole kitchen and their plates clean, it’d become apparent to Link and Zelda that the dog has a sensitive stomach, and if he eats anything outside what he normally does… well… Midna’s apartment: Exhibit A.

“Excuse me? What do you mean ‘let’?” barks Midna.

Link laughs to himself as he grabs a glass from the cabinet, but he quickly catches himself before he catches hands from Midna instead. “So you didn’t watch him,” calls Link as he yanks open the icebox. Hearing his calling card, Sous Chef Courage teleports right behind Link, ready to report for duty. Link glowers at the dog. He stoops to the dog’s panic, cleans away the dried ocular discharge, and then shoos the dog away so he can grab some ice in peace.

“Whatever,” Midna grumbles. “Did you get the mirror or was it a dud?”

Link hears Zelda giggle. “It’s that,” she says as Link returns with the dog at his heels.

“You’re joking,” says Midna, her eyebrows sky high, realizing that the large, wrapped item is the mirror and simply a piece of it at that.

“Don’t unwrap it,” Link sneers as he takes a sip from his water.

The mirror sits in the living room, leaning up against the radio, and Midna marvels at the size of it. The piece really is huge. “Why not?” she asks. Then her face lights up. “Oh! Did you get the heebee jeebees from it?” she teases. “Zelda mentioned that the guys thought it creepy.”

“Cause it is,” insists Link. He tries not to shiver thinking of the way his and Groose’s reflections stayed still in the mirror.

Midna looks curiously at Link.

“And how,” Zelda agrees, which is the closest she’s come to speaking with him today.

The late afternoon sunlight fills Link’s flat. The sunset is coming soon, and it makes him uneasy to think of uncovering such a large piece of the mirror with twilight upon them. The canvas cloth Groose wrapped it in is tight and secure, and that’s the way it should stay.

He watches as the dog inspects the mirror.

What’s the matter? Afraid you might lose control?

He pauses, his glass of water right at his lips. His eyes swivel to Zelda and then to Midna as they chat about the trip to Ordon and Faron Province. He lowers the glass, swearing he heard something, but they’re not reacting. He looks at the mirror, and so does the dog. The chatter between the two women starts to muffle since all he can focus on now is the mirror piece. It’s got that magnetic hold on him that he’s conscious of, but he can’t seem to willingly break.

He gets the feeling that it’s taunting him. Beckoning him to come closer. Maybe peel the canvas away and take a look into its depths.

You don’t like the depths, do you?

The depths where light cannot penetrate, where oxygen is at a premium, and everything has that weird distinctive moldy smell.

It’s not so bad. There’s glow paint after all.

… Glow paint?

Zelda jerks him from his trance when she says, “Actually, I do want to unwrap it.” The dog starts growling. “Courage, go on, will you? It’s okay.”

Goddesses, no! It’s NOT okay!

Even the damn dog doesn’t like the mirror rocking up to his house.

Link feels sick.

Maybe you need another aspirin? Gotta keep those withdrawals at bay after all.

Zelda’s in his bedroom digging out something, and Midna is flinging herself onto his couch. “Huh,” she says, “this is pretty comfy actually…”

Link fights the urge to spin on his heel and sprint away and instead walks to his bedroom to see what Zelda’s doing. She pulls herself up from the floor with her original mirror piece in hand. Seeing him in the doorway, she tells him, “I just want to see if it fits like I thought, don’t worry.”

His heart is hammering away. It’s not from alcohol or withdrawals, not from Zelda. It’s from a deep seeded fear he didn’t know he had before. His gaze turns back to the larger piece.

Ping!

The sonar sound resonating in him makes him visibly jump, and Zelda calls to him somewhere under the pounding in his ears.

His mouth runs so, so dry.

Link gives in to instinct. He whips around, shoving his feet into his shoes as he hurries out, the stupid tongues jamming up under the laces. He’s desperately yanking the elevator gate open when he notices the dog at his heels. He gets the elevator to start its descent when Zelda opens the door and sees him leaving.

Ping!

He takes the dog out to the gardens and just collapses on the grass. The dog sinks his forelegs out with a lowered head as he assesses Link’s paralyzed state. He gives a quiet boof. Then a second, a bit louder when Link doesn’t respond. And when he doesn’t respond a second time, he takes that grossly wet nose and starts rubbing it on Link’s face until he rolls over on his back.

The dog only waits a few seconds before body slamming Link in the chest. He lays down parallel on Link, stretching his ridiculously long body from thigh to shoulder. He crawls on Link a little closer to his face so that his icy nose is attempting a wet willy and all Link can hear out of that ear is the dog huffing through his nose.

It feels like forever with the way his vision is spinning. The rapidly darkening sky slowly twirls about him, and if he blinks wrong, maybe it’s not sky at all. It’s the ocean surface too far away for him to breach in time before his lungs give out. The sharp wailing of a car horn nearby is actually the calling of nearby whales coming through his headset, and the deafening bang isn’t the building door opening up.

It’s the booming of a sea mine.

And he wonders if some other poor sap is also stuck under a piece of rubbish sinking down into the ocean like him.

He thinks of the sailor that lamented what a terrible thing it is to know how to swim.

But Link’s caught.

What’s the point of trying to swim to the surface? It’s so so so so so so-

Something else rattles in his ear.

His heartbeat is starting to slow down. All the better so he can finally sleep for good in these godsdamn depths.

.

.

- . - .

- - . -

- . .

.

Another sea mine goes off.

His leg feels so numb. So cold so cold so cold so cold so cold so cold so cold-

A voice? Friend or foe?

Does it matter?

After all, “Congratulations, you’re submarine material.”

“What?”

“Hey Link?”

Did someone find him in the ocean? So far down in its dark depths?

They must be “… submarine material.”

.

.

.

- . - .

- - . -

- . .

.

.

. - -

. . . .

. -

-

. . . .

. –

-

. . . .

.

.

.

. . .

- - -

. . .

.

Something tries to grab his shirt.

.

.

. . .

- - -

. . .

.

.

“Link, you’re in the garden.”

.

.

. . .

.

- - -

.

. . .

.

.

. . . .

- . - -

. - . .

. .

. –

.

.

His ear is wet.

.

.

Why is his ear wet?

IN THE OCEAN??

.

. . .

“Link, it’s not the sub.”

- - -

That wetness snakes out to graze his ear.

. . .

.

.

. - -

. - .

- - -

. . –

- - .

. . . .

-

.

.

The dog?

He hears a short groan in his ear.

The dog is not submarine material.

“Come on, Link, you’re home. It’s not the sub.”

He blinks a few times. Did he get turned around? Or is he now so far down in the depths that the surface is so dark now?

He moves a hand to try and find the piece of debris that weighs him down.

.

.

. . .

“Should we call someone?”

- - -

“Who?”

. . .

.

.

.

.

He gets a handful of fur.

Another groan in his ear.

. . .

It is the dog.

- - -

“Stupid dog.”

. . .

.

.

“Get off of me.”

“Link?”

.

.

.

“That’s how you drown, dummy.”

He blinks again.

.

.

“Link, you’re home. You’re in the garden.”

His head gets jerked to the side, and he thinks he sees Midna looking at him. “His eyes kind of look weird.” She pats his cheek a little. “Hey! Link!”

He realizes grass tickles his cheek.

“You’re not in water.”

No.

Of course not.

Because the grass in the garden is poking at his cheek.

“Link, do you know where you are?”

“Grass.”

“Ayyy, might not need to call anyone.”

The dog sticks his tongue in Link’s ear, and he groans himself. “Gross, man,” Link complains. “Get off.”

“It’s Courage, Link.”

When he rolls his head back up, the sky is so inky black. No sign of the sun or any other lights. It’s not the ocean. It’s not the surface. It’s the sky. The sky.

Courage gives him another lick in the ear.

“Stooop!”

Someone gets the dog off of him.

“We’re gonna sit you up, alright?” There’s a count and on three, he’s pushed up, feeling like his brain is getting rattled around with the movement. Almost as if he is being put through a shaker.

And there’s the dog, pacing about in the grass, his silly little legs making it so his belly barely clears it.

“You alright there?”

He doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t know.

Zelda dotes on the dog, giving him lots praise so that he looks extremely pleased with himself. “You’ll inflate his ego,” Link grumbles. “Like Groose.”

“Link, let’s get you to bed,” Midna says.

He feels dizzy.

“We’ll help you up, but you have to stand, Link.”

.

.

- . - .

- - . -

- . .

.

.

.

“Yep,” says Link dazedly.

::

When she’s alone in the apartment, Link and Courage having left for his office, Zelda takes the opportunity to unwrap the larger piece of the mirror to see exactly how her smaller piece fits. She was sure when at Groose’s shop that it fit right next to this piece, but now she wants to confirm without setting Link off into another flashback.

She works at undoing all of Groose’s hard work to secure the canvas wrapping for them. Once she’s able to pull the canvas away, a shiver runs down her spine and gooseflesh breaks out over her arms.

It’s a larger piece with a larger pull, of course.

She peers into the mirror at herself, feeling its hypnotizing waves sink her down.

Well, hello, hello again there, Princess. Ready for some fun?

It’s imploring and persuasive, that heavy draw, like a black hole trying to eat her flesh and soul. She gazes deeply into the mirror. Not just at her reflection. No. She looks far past her own image into the mirror’s dark depths.

How’s it going?

Sly. Commanding almost.

She frowns.

“I think you know,” she huffs.

Oh? Do I now? You’re just looking for someone else to blame, aren’tcha?

She startles.

It’s real easy, you know, for dark thoughts to come in dark places.

Don’t get so twisted now, Princess. You said it yourself, bound to happen and all.

Zelda sneers at the mirror. She knew it. She snaps at it, all the fury from Ordon welling up in her again, “You just can’t leave it well enough alone, can you?”

The mirror shimmers when it laughs.

Maybe next time, think twice about who you speak poorly of.

She shivers. Was it threatening her? Link?

Before she can pull away, the mirror snatches her back. It gives a little twinkle. Very enticing. Her eyes fix on it. The mirror’s surface ripples almost as she scries into it. She can almost see its veins, pulsing, in the dark depths.

Why don’t we make us whole?

Zelda obeys. She fetches her smaller piece from her luggage. She removes it from the canvas bag she keeps it in and then starts to work on breaking the wooden frame it has been encased in to protect from the sharp edges. The bits of frame fall thoughtlessly to the floor.

Carefully, Zelda turns the piece around and looks along the side where she thought it fit.

That’s the ticket, Princess.

Sure is.

“Can you tell me?” Zelda asks, much more compliant now. “What can I do to find all of you?”

Zelda holds up her original piece to the new one, and it very eagerly snaps into place. It seamlessly fuses to the larger piece as if this mirror piece had always been like this and had never been broken in two.

It winks at her.

That’s the thanks she gets.

You don’t need to worry, Princess. Just let me eat and eat and e-

She ends up looking into the mirror’s depths, unseeing, for a long time before it finally stirs her back. She has things to do, it reminds her as it rouses her from her stupor.

Hey there, Princess, don’t you have somewhere to be?

Zelda slowly rises, eyes still fixed on that shiny surface, and tosses the canvas wrap over the mirror.

Get a move on.

It’s only when she’s maybe halfway there does Zelda come out of the haze. Her walk slows as she tries to gather jumbled and clouded thoughts, desperately trying to cling to important information, but she feels it slipping away through her fingers. The mirror is definitely stronger, she realizes. She feels guilty now for ever being mad at Link, because she brought this all on him.

::

When Link goes back to the office next, he does so much more willingly since despite her pleasant demeanor, he knows he and Zelda are at odds. He trudges in a quarter past nine (no stops!), a sourness biting at his mood. Midna’s waiting for him, visibly pleased he’s showing up, even if a bit late and moody. Drunk Link on a bender would have shown up the earliest around noon, so she’s accepting of a grace period.

“Wasn’t sure you’d be in,” she tells him, and when he quirks a brow, she frowns at him behind magazine. “You know, since you had that fit?” Her magazine slaps shut on her desk, and she sits up in her chair. He holds his hands upwards.

And then Midna sees the dog. “Seriously?” she deadpans. “Keep him away from my stuff.”

“Did you clear everything for today then?”

“I did,” she says. “For you, anyway. I was going to work on a couple of background check requests you got.

“Also Mikau did come by and call while you were out.”

“Mikau?”

“Yes. Your lack of appearance at the bar and game nights has been noted,” she says dryly. “I’ve not said anything.”

Link takes a seat in front of her desk, and he actually takes a hard look at his office as he sighs. The office is broken up with Midna at the front, and his office in back. It’s separated where the closet he turned into for film development and the darkroom are off of his office, and their washroom accessible up front with Midna. Link looks around and asks Midna, “Do you think we should do something about the walls?” Dark hardwood floors and wainscoting line the office. It was how it had come originally. The walls are still the same creamy off-white as well.

Midna looks around and then back to him. “When I asked you to get a new hobby, I didn’t mean for you to drag me into it,” she grumbles. She sighs. “If you don’t want to do any real work today, just do something in the darkroom. I left your negatives in there.”

Nice.

If she’s telling him to go work in the darkroom, then she won’t bother him with her innuendos or other lewd teasing comments. Developing pictos doesn’t come with a heavy mental load, and he thinks maybe that’ll help clear his muddled mind a bit. The dog dutifully follows him into his office and then attempts to tell the darkroom door what’s what. The darkroom door is a sort of modified revolving door to keep the light out but lets Link move in and out without worry of light entering. This way, he doesn’t need to be trapped waiting on prints to develop in the baths. Link sighs as he flips on the red lights in the room, and he steps back in the door to show the dog how the door works. This dumb, smart dog though gets the concept after Link shows him twice, and then happily lets Link lead him through.

“Don’t you fucking eat a thing,” warns Link.

At least the door is one less enemy.

Link turns on the tap for the print wash bath, and the water gushes out to fill the basin. Once the basin is relatively full, he lowers the pressure to let the water gently flow into the basin. The movement helps agitate and wash off the chemicals from the prints going through the wash, but the sound of it is weirdly soothing to Link under the red lights. Sometimes he makes Midna do the print development, and she hates it. Never quite got the hang of the process to have the pictos look their best, but despite enjoying the process, Link never quite relaxes in the darkroom. There’s the light from the red bulbs, but the dim room and red light always sets off a little reminder in that primal part of his brain of the sub. The alarms. The sea mines.

He shakes his head and sniffs, putting a hand to his mouth, feeling that dry desire coming back to him like vomit rising.

Since Midna had already cut the film strips and organized them in a plate to test for him, he goes about setting up everything in the long sink where the wash basin sits. He puts out additional trays in the sink and his tongs. He eyes the dog, who sits waiting by the door, not fully trusting him to not attempt suicide by developer. He’s extremely smart, but he’s also incredibly dumb. Link keeps an eye on the dog as he fills the trays with his developer, stopper, and fixer and then puts the chemicals away in the cabinet where he also stores the picto film paper. He grabs a pack and shuts the door, thinking maybe he should find the key for the lock as he keeps watch on the dog out of the corner of his eye.

The dog at least behaves and lies on the floor by Link’s feet as he goes about running exposure test strips first on the film. Exposing the paper for those few seconds at a time is the only time anything close natural light enters this room when he’s working. The dog’s round eyes roll about as Link moves through the process to run the test prints through the baths to develop them. Once the last print is tossed in the wash bath, Link washes his hands in the smaller sink that sits next to his set up and coaches the dog through the door.

The brightness of his office hits his eyes, blinding him a little. Hearing him come out from the darkroom, Midna opens his door from it’s cracked position to poke her head in. “Hey, I’ve been looking at that list of participants from Zelda’s auction,” she says, holding up the papers. Link motions for her to sit down, so she enters. “Got about fifteen names left at this point to look into. Some of them are actually businesses that sent representatives for, but there’s one left here I can’t figure out.”

The papers slap on Link’s desk and he leans over to follow her finger: G-Y Highland Works, Inc. Hm. Not something Link’s ever heard of. “Shell company?”

Midna ponders this.

They exchange a glance. “Might have hit the winner,” Link says as he leans back in his chair.

“I’ll hit up the records office this afternoon,” she tells him, grabbing up the papers.

Link spins round in the chair. “Yeah, sounds good.”

When he comes around he catches Midna standing with the back of her hands folded at her hips. “I’ll take the dog out,” she offers as he keeps spinning.

“Thanks, love.”

He hears her throwing her hands up as he spins away from her, the papers rustling. She calls for the dog to follow her, and leaves Link, telling him, “Can you fucking decide what sober personality you’re going to have? You’re driving me nuts.”

Link relaxes in his chair for some time, and once he sees it’s been a bit over a quarter of an hour since Midna stepped out, he drags himself back into the darkroom to look at the prints with the film strips and the exposure tests. He pulls them out of the wash and shakes them out a bit, and then takes them into his office to get a better look at them in the natural light by the window. The prints stick together like glue from the water that still clings to them. He hears the front door open and the scraping of nails from the dog. “I think either three or four for most of these,” he says to Midna, not looking up from the prints. He peels one print off and shakes it out a bit more as he turns away from the window. It’s not Midna he’s talking to, however, it’s Zelda. She hasn’t wanted to speak with him too much alone since Ordon, which he just chalked up to rightful anger, so he’s surprised to see her.

“Midna just went on for lunch when I met them outside,” she says, and Zelda sits in one of the chairs in front of his desk. It spurs in his memory the image of her father sitting there last winter. “I thought you didn’t want to work in the darkroom, because she’d annoy you the whole time?”

“I made some redecorating suggestions to piss her off so she’d suggest it herself,” says Link to her amusement as he sits down in the chair next to her.

“So you taking a field trip today?” he asks her.

She gives him a little smile, a knowing one. He swears her and Midna conspire a little too much. He suspects she’s not just here to get out of the flat, but fine. Link can deal. She has been unfathomably gracious with him, so it’d be extra rude to complain. So when she asks what’s wrong, he hesitates. He throws up his hands. “You… are you just gonna act like nothing happened?” he asks finally.

“You talk to Midna?”

“No- that’s not-” he sputters. He manages to just spit out, “Ordon!”

“I know,” she says simply.

Now he’s just confused. “Are you like… trickle feeding me information?”

“Oh, so you don’t like when it’s done to you?” she teases. He frowns at her.

“I meant it in Ordon when I said I was mad,” she admits, but then she looks away from him. She chews the inside of her cheek some while she plots what to say next.

Link feels the unusual bite of impatience though. “Okay, so that it then? Bye?”

“No,” she says, which surprises him. “You’ve been taking your sobriety pretty seriously.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “You always do that.” A laugh breaks from her, and she asks what he means. He waves his free hand around. “You like to trickle information when you don’t have all the pieces together,” he says. Suddenly that sounds very stupid. Where did that come from? He quickly backtracks, “I don’t know why I came up with that.”

“Maybe your past life theory has more merit than I gave it,” she proffers.

He doesn’t like that. “So there is something else?”

She hums noncommittally. “Like you said, don’t quite have it all.”

“Dammit, Zelda.”

She chuckles a bit at his frustration. “I can give credit where it’s due, so how about this: can we just agree we both stay on the straight and narrow?” she suggests. “At least until we’re through with the mirror. You want to go on benders after that, that’s your choice.” His choice. Because she won’t be there.

“Have you ever not kept straight?” Her guilty smile irks him a little, but did he need to confirm that this was going to be a one sided effort anyway?

“Hey, remember? You and I, we stick together,” says Zelda, reminding him of their little pact from Hateno. The little one that absolutely blew up in his face. He grunts. She reaches over and lightly smacks his arm. “Are you going to keep going or what?”

He doesn’t really need to be asked that. His general anxiety (not related to a stupid, fucking mirror) has been much less without the booze. No splitting headaches in the mornings. Finally actually getting that ever elusive restful sleep. “Just keeping it as a reminder,” he mutters, remembering the way his stomach knotted up for days after.

“Okay.”

“… Am I missing something?”

“No.”

Alright. Fine.

Don’t fuck up again: message received.

Zelda peers over at the test pictos in his hands. “Oh, you don’t just… like develop the pictos?” she asks.

He peels the picto paper off the stack that he’d been looking at when she walked in and hands it to her as he looks over the next one. “Developing the whole film roll on a sheet lets you take a look and pick what specific images you might want to actually develop,” he tells her. Then he shows her one where he’d exposed the paper to a few different portions of blown up picto negatives. “This one is to test exposure time. The longer the light exposure, the darker the image.”

“I’m always learning some new thing from you,” says Zelda lightly, handing back the wet picto.

Her face falls, seeing the exposure test he has on top in his hands, but Link’s mind is back in the darkroom again and her expression doesn’t register.

“I’m just going to develop the actual pictos this afternoon, and I’ll head home when I’m done,” Link says as he makes up his mind on the tests. He rises from the chair. “Straight back. Office to the flat. Give me a second though, just going to hang these to actually dry.” The dog jumps to action when he sees that Link is about to be swallowed whole by the darkroom door, making Link shoo him back and grumbling about amnesia. Inside the darkroom, he has clotheslines along one wall with pins for him to hang up the papers to dry.

Zelda follows him into the darkroom. “There’s something in one of those,” she says.

Link pauses in hanging up the wet picto papers. “Which one?”

“The last one you were looking at,” she says as she scans the ones he’s hung up. Link shifts his weight to his left leg as he looks to relieve the growing pressure he feels on his stump. Link finds the test paper first, and he plucks it off the line for her.

“Hold on,” he tells her, and he gathers up the blank picto paper he left out. He puts the papers into the cabinet drawer below the enlarger. “Here,” calls Link, holding out a hand for the print. He sets it underneath the enlarger and then turns on the lamp.

Zelda scoots up next to him and peers at the test strips under the light. “This one,” she says, and she points at the second to the bottom picto strip.

“Okay, we can see it on here,” he tells her. Link grabs the negatives and looks them over to find the one she wants to see. Once he finds it, he moves to hang the developed paper to finish drying and slides the negative into the enlarger. Annoyed, he quickly wipes up the leftover water on the base with his shirt sleeve and then rolls it back up his arm. The blurred black and white image pools over the white base of the enlarger.

“Is that the picture?” Zelda asks, her brow furrowing.

Link laughs a little. “Sorry, it’s just really big right now,” he tells her and he adjusts the size down. He fiddles with the enlarger to bring the image on the base into focus. “Some of these, I just need a part of the negative and not the whole picto I took,” he explains to her.

The negative on the enlarger is one that he’d taken when Zelda had tagged along on the job, and he was pretending to pictograph her as a model for a shoot. The bottom left corner has a bit of her head. Really, he was just trying to get photos of a man far off behind her, who’s actually in the center of the picto. Zelda looks over the projection, and she points out to him another man in the picto a couple of meters to the right of Link’s actual subject. “Him,” she tells him. “That’s actually one of the men that was bidding on the mirror against me.”

You’re just on fire lately, huh?

Link’s hand freezes on the enlarger. He looks to Zelda, her face illuminated by the enlarger’s light like a chiaroscuro painting as she focuses on the projection.

Link shakes it off.

Link blows the image up again and adjusts it so the man she’d picked out was mostly center on the enlarger’s base. He works to bring the image into focus as much as possible. “Sorry, trying to zoom in on it a little too much, but that’s as close as we’re going to get,” he says. “I can scale it down and refocus it?”

She shakes her head. “That’s okay,” she whispers. “I know him.” Frowning, she adds, “Sort of.”

A tall, sinewy looking man is in the image. Pale skin, since it’s practically black under the enlarger light. Even his face was very long and thin, with a snake-like quality to it. “I think this was a couple of days before I went in hospital,” Link says, wracking his brain, but he can’t say for sure. He’ll have to check the notes he’d written down that goes with this particular film strip. “You know anything about him? Midna said there’s about fifteen names left on the list. She’s looking into what might be a shell company this afternoon.”

“I don’t know anything really,” she says. Her voice is determined and steadfast when looks up at him. “He’s the one that came for me before I left Castleton and when I arrived in Domain. I just know it.”

Link’s lips pull into a thin line. “I was watching the fellow to the left of him,” he says. He taps the tip of his shoe, thinking it over. “I don’t recall seeing your man here watching us.”

“It might be coincidence.”

Hm. “Yeah, maybe,” Link says. “I could have missed it though.”

“I don’t think you would.”

Link scales the projection down a bit and then refocuses it to get it a little sharper. He grabs a ruler on the counter next to the enlarger and sets it on the base. He shuts off the enlarger’s light, and then he pulls out a piece of the picto paper and lines it up with the ruler’s edge. He flicks the light on, counts to four and shuts it off.

Zelda blinks. “That’s it?”

“Yep.”

She glances down at the blank picto paper as he grabs it off the enlarger and tosses it into the developer. “Just got to give it a couple of minutes,” he tells her, and he grabs a pair of tongs to agitate the developer. “For a basic image grab that’s it,” he explains, knowing she’s dying to ask him a million questions now. “There’s lots of other stuff you can do to manipulate the negatives while you’re exposing the paper though.”

Zelda watches on as intently as if she were the dog watching him cook. He moves the picto paper through rest of the baths after the image blooms to life on the paper, and he gives her a small lecture on the process and appreciating the return of their usual candor. When it comes time to drop it in the wash basin, he grabs a pair of tongs that are sitting in the basin, clean, to grab the paper and hold it in place in the moving water. “It has to sit in this wash for about twenty minutes,” he says as Zelda looks down at the image. “Washes off all the chemicals. But there’s your guy.” Link lets the picto go and it begins to turn in circles in the bath.

Tossing the tongs aside in the main sink, he moves aside and washes off his hands in the smaller hand one. “Are you hungry?” he asks her. “We can go down to Telma’s and then it’ll be ready to hang to dry when we get back.” He looks over at her. Her face is stony as she watches the picto spin in the wash basin.

Link shuts the dog in the front area of the office (and away from the darkroom), warning him to not fuck up the place. Courage sits trying to look like he’s the perfection of innocence as Link shuts and locks the front door so they can head out.

The whole way down to the diner and back, Zelda is apprehensive and not her usual chatty self. Midna also doesn’t return, and Link simply trusts that she’s doing as she said. So it’s just Courage, Private Investigator, that awaits them on their return.

Link heads to the darkroom to hang up the picto for Zelda, and the door swings around when she follows him in. “Do you have your pictobox with you?” she asks him.

“Yeah, why?”

She moves out of the door so Link can exit the darkroom, too, and she tells him, “I just had the thought there’s no pictos of Courage to give to Rusl.”

Of course.

Link sighs and grabs his pictobox bag and undoes the clasps. He pulls out the pictobox and takes a look. “Well, you’re lucky, there’s still about ten pictos left on the roll.” He fishes out of the bag a basic lens for the pictobox and attaches it and hands it off to her.

“Oh! It’s much heavier than I thought it’d be,” she comments. She holds the pictobox up and looks it over with all the curiosity of a child, sounding much more like herself than she has in days.

“Careful,” Link chides her teasingly. “It’s a Sheikah Slate, and I definitely don’t have the money for it if it breaks right now.”

Zelda flushes, a bit embarrassed. “Right, sorry,” she laughs, she holds it up to her eye. “How do you get it… you know, sharp?”

Link shows her how to adjust the lens to put her shot into focus before he goes back in the darkroom to finish his own project for the day, only emerging when he sees that the picto he developed for Zelda is dry. “Wait!” she says, and she quickly snaps a picto of him. “There, now I used up your film.” She gives him a prideful grin.

He thinks he likes times like this best, glad that she’s seemingly not too stuck on Ordon.

Ah, the joys of preparation.

He stills.

Zelda shoves his pictobox back into his vision. He chuckles to himself, and they trade the pictobox and the finished picto, feeling a gloom come over him, because he knows it’ll bring down her mood. Link pops the roll of film out and puts it in a marked canister that he leaves in the glorified broom closet. He packs away his pictobox as Zelda continues to study the man in the picto. He can get Midna to develop the film roll at least, he thinks. As he closes up the pictobox bag, he sees Zelda still fixated on the picto. “You’ll burn a hole through it,” he says, startling Zelda.

“Hang out with the dog, read one of Midna’s rags, whatever,” he tells her, heading back into the darkroom to finish up. “You just don’t leave here or go anywhere alone.”

“Okay,” she says. He dislikes how small she suddenly is, but he’s not taking chances now.

“I mean it,” he tells her. “From now on.” She gives him a nod in acknowledgment.

Link finishes developing the pictos he needs, and once the last of them is put in the wash, he leaves the darkroom to find Zelda playing with the dog. “All done?” she asks, hearing the darkroom door spin.

“Just waiting on the wash and then we can go.”

Link slumps into his desk chair, thinking about the man in the picto. His stupid leg is aching again. “We were at Korok Park that day, right?”

Zelda sits up, quietly telling the dog playtime is over. She scoots the chair closer to his desk where the picto rests. “I think so,” she agrees.

Link rubs his eyes, sighing, and then goes digging in his desk. “I’ll double check my notes.”

“What is it that Midna’s looking into?”

Link rolls his brain back, thinking of the list. Midna’s hand. The font. The ink. “G-Y Highland Works,” he says. “Definitely not something I’ve ever heard of.” He finds his film notes and start flipping back through.

“What did you call it before?”

“Shell company,” he says. “Basically a business that really only exists on paper. They won’t have many assets or employees and no operations essentially.” He leans forward and raps on his prosthetic to shake away the phantom pain that extends beyond his stump. “If we can figure out who’s tied to it, it’ll put us one step closer to who actually might own it. They’re good for trying to hide.”

“Is your leg okay?”

“Stood too long today,” gripes Link.

There it is. Korok Park. He could retrace their steps.

But maybe not today. Stupid leg.

Thinking of it, he sits up in his chair and it snaps back into position from his leaning as he opens his desk drawer to leave a note for Midna.

- Dying of leg. Roll ready to go in closet. Need more 35 soon, order 3 dozen. Prints drying too. Be in Mon. Poss lead on Z bidder.

He tosses the note on Midna’s desk when the pictos in the wash should be done. He hangs them up on the lines to dry and shuts off the wash basin’s faucet. Double checking that he’d put the picto paper away securely in the cabinet to prevent exposure, he shuts off the red lights and leaves the darkroom.

Chapter Text

Since Zelda recognized the man in one of his pictographs, Link’s been nervous. The edge of it is enough to drive him crazy, and too much his mind is wandering to his leg and the bottle. He left the dog with her since he shouldn’t be gone too long, but the idea that she’d even be out with the dog and recognized tugs at him now more than ever. He walks to a nearby station to use a pay phone there (just the station, to the phone booths, then back home), and he asks the operator to patch him through to Zelda’s father.

Link sighs, almost relieved when the man answers. “Coutts? That you now?”

“It is,” he says simply.

There’s a pause as Nohansen thinks what to say to him. “I heard once from your assistant,” he says. “Said something or the other about you being laid up.”

“Laid up?” Link asks, confused.

“In hospital?”

Well. Be damned. Midna had been very slick, convincing, and amiable when dodging around his own sudden disappearance, but yet she told the truth (or at least part of it) to Nohansen. He’ll add it to the list of Midna shenanigans to swear about at a later date. More productive to do it in bulk.

“Ah, yep,” Link answers. “Sorry, I wasn’t aware she had specified as much to you.” There’s a sharp exhale on the other end of the line from Nohansen. “I’m good now,” he assures. “Listen, um…” He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to think. So annoying how hard that’s been of late. “Had some break throughs on a couple of things that your daughter’s been working on that she asked me about.”

“So she has been putting you to work.”

Link laughs a little. “More than enough,” he says. “Can’t say if it’s put her closer or not to wanting to go home, though.”

“I suppose it’s something,” Nohansen muses softly to himself.

“I’m sure I’ll hear from her in the next couple of days,” Link tells him. “I can see if she’ll reach out to you.”

Nohansen fumbles around on the line, and Link waits for the jostling to cease. “Tell her I can wait for her,” the man desperately begs. “An hour, eight o’clock, every night for the next week.”

“Sure,” replies Link gently.

“Coutts.”

Hm? The hair on Link’s neck prickles. This isn’t like Nohansen. Something off with his tone, calling him by name a second time.

Nohansen pauses, and then tries to quickly backtrack, which just makes the alarm bells worse. “Never mind me,” Nohansen says as Link quirks a brow listening to him. “It’s silly. Matter for the constables.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing for you,” Nohansen says. “Had you playing a mystery detective enough, I think.”

Link straightens, and he cradles the receiver between his ear and shoulder as he pads his pockets. “Look, sir, you’re clearly bothered. What happened?” Link finds his pad and a pen.

“Just strange around here,” the man replies. “Things going missing, and they seem to be getting bolder, going for more valuable things.”

“… You’re getting robbed?”

Aight. Wasn’t expecting that.

“As I said, more the thing to badger constables about, my boy.”

“If I can help,” Link genuinely offers, “just say the word. I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you.”

Nohansen clears his throat.

“About Zelda…”

“Still safe from what I know,” says Link, shoving the pad and pen back in his pocket. “But if I can convince her, I’ll have her call you so you can hear for yourself.”

“Yes, yes,” says Nohansen. Link can hear it in his voice. He’s being distracted by something.

Link hopes he’s listening, really listening. “Just had the thought,” Link ponders. “I was wondering if the business G-Y Highland Works sounds familiar at all to you?”

Nohansen is quiet, but over the phone, he can’t quite pick up whether this is hesitation or thought, but Nohansen eventually says he doesn’t know the name. Whelp, shot in the dark anyway.

“I’ll call again when I can,” Link promises. “I may need to leave town for a bit to deal with some other cases though.”

“Right,” says Nohansen. “Leave a message with Impa if I’m not in.”

“Of course.”

“Goodbye, Coutts.”

Link steps out of the booth, unable to shake the weight in his stomach. Frowning, he shoves his hands in his pockets and walks back to his flat. He’s bothered. That’s annoying.

Link clicks his tongue. He takes a deep breath. Okay. Station. Check. Phone booth. Check.

Corner store?

Link frowns. No. Home. Straight home. No stopping.

It won’t be much of a detour, honest.

Nopenopenopenopenope-

Station. Phone booth. Home. Station. Phone booth. Home. Just do step three. Nothing else. Step three. That’s all. Go home, no stopping.

He walks into his flat, his mood much fouler than before.

No need to be such a Debbie downer, now.

Zelda calls for him as his eyes rove around. “You were a lot quicker than I thought you’d be,” she says, closing her book.

“… Yeah.”

Her smile falls. “Something wrong?”

He stands stonily still. “Get your shoes on,” he snaps, and he snatches his pictobox bag.

Link steps out in the hallway to wait for her, rubbing his mouth. Zelda hurtles out the door after him, drawing her jacket over her shoulders. Link locks up the flat and marches over to the elevator, thankfully still on their floor.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

You know, you go down about four blocks there’s a little bar hidden-

“Link?”

He startles.

His mouth is quite dry…

I hear east Necluda whisky is something else.

Nope.

Don’t think of it.

He rubs his mouth.

Phantom leg pains first, and now phantom tastes.

They walk out past the car park and keep going.

Three more blocks…

It makes him sweat a little.

When Zelda reaches out and tugs his sleeve, he realizes how fast he’d been going and slows down for her. “Sorry,” he mutters, trying to put the thoughts of drinking out of his mind.

He'd told himself at this point to not count the days. If he counts the days, he’s reminded of Ordon, Groose, getting piss drunk, and the subsequent feelings of failure.

That whisper comes to him again. Oh, if we’re not counting days… well, we can count the blocks then to-

“We’ll take the bus to Korok Park,” he tells Zelda.

Korok Park. Not the bar. Not the corner store. The park. Going to the park. With Zelda. So no stopping. Just to the park. Yep.

For the next few days, that’s what they do. They bring the dog with on subsequent visits, and they walk the park, sit on the benches, and most of all, watch. Of course it’s been a while since the picto was taken, but it’s the first spot they have to look, and if Zelda’s continuing to be stalked by the man in the picto, Link figures an open area like the park is better than anything to spot him again if he is.

He does wonder if it was coincidence though.

They sit on a bench much like he remembers them doing in summer when Zelda confirmed what the kid Tael had implied about Misko to Link. Link, slouching with his legs out and crossed at the ankles, sits with his arm around Zelda, but this time, the dog is lazily snoozing at her feet as he watches the park. Zelda’s brought a book to read, and he has a bit of an irritable urge to yank it out of her hands, because how can she relax right now?

But she’s reading because he’s the watchman and in sour mood.

“You’re in a bad mood again,” she says suddenly and just when he’d changed his mind again and thought she might not actually be psychic since she wasn’t making any moves to chuck her book into orbit. He should just stop doubting it. She has a bad habit of immediately proving him wrong.

He's also been all doom and gloom every day that they’ve sat in the park now, so he guesses she’s probably sick of it.

Link bites his thumb trying to keep his thoughts away from whisky.

He blinks.

Shit.

He forgot.

“Spoke with your father the other day,” he says instead. Before he forgets again. She frowns, and he knows it’s because he’s side stepping his actual problem: that the need is rising like bile again.

Zelda pauses, makes a mental note of her place, and closes her book. “And?”

Link shrugs. “He mentioned that some valuables are going missing but wouldn’t tell me anything further. Decided against it. I don’t know much else. He’d like it if he heard from you though,” Link tells her, and he wiggles his one foot side to side. “Told him I’d do my best to at least get you to call him.”

She puts a hand on his leg to still his fidgeting, and that déjà vu smacks him again.

“Alright,” she says.

“Alright?”

“I have something to discuss with him anyway,” she levels. She’s not looking at him when he glances over, but it’s enough to lift one cloak that’s been clinging to him of late.

He asks her, “What does that damn mirror sound like?”

“So you do hear it,” she murmurs. “I kept thinking it was just making the sonar sound.”

The sonar… That’s right. She mentioned that. But why talk now? Is it talking to him? It must be.

“What’s it say to you?” she asks.

“Think it was telling me to go to the bar four blocks from home,” he says with bitterness. “Mentions stopping for forties at the corner store. I’m not quite sure when I started hearing it though.” Link shudders a little. He thinks he must have been hearing the mirror for a while. All those times he’d stop and ask Zelda to repeat herself to her confusion. “I really hate that damn thing.”

Her eyes dart around as she thinks over his words. Gears are turning. She gives his leg a comforting squeeze. “How cruel.” She doesn’t elaborate.

Link goes back to his watch, but Korok Park was a long shot to start with, and as he walks into his office with the dog in tow on Monday, he simply collapses in wad of frustration in front of Midna’s desk. He slouches in the chair like some petulant juvenile as she soaks in his persisting sour mood much like Zelda had.

“What did you do to that girl?” Midna asks.

“What? Nothing!”

Her face is one of stony disbelief. She leans back in her chair and folds her arms. She’s wearing a long sleeve velvet frock today to ward off the autumn chill.

He rocks his head a little. “She does want us to make up or whatever.”

“For what?” Midna asks, but it’s dismissive and falsely innocent. Link thinks this is exactly why they’d never get anywhere together: they’d both rather ignore that there’s anything wrong and just let wounds fester.

“She told me to fix it.”

“Nothing to fix.”

But when they look at each other, they both know that’s the biggest fucking lie. Midna’s mouth twists and thins. “Are you mad?” he asks, choosing to just be blunt.

“Don’t be so daft.”

“Disappointed then? What?” he growls at her. That she’d rather play at being stoic and better than him just amps his irritation.

She doesn’t move. Doesn’t say anything. Just stares at him with inscrutable red eyes.

Her nose scrunches.

“I don’t know. Maybe my expectations were too high. Sobriety wasn’t ever just it, and it’s naïve to think it’d magically fix you,” she admits finally. Her tongue clicks. Arms still crossed, she lets the chair pop back upright. “Getting sober is just one step, and it’s the big one, but you still have more to do to actually pull yourself together.

“So don’t think I don’t know that you’ve been doing your best to annoy me to hell and back just to get out of doing work, you lazy shit.”

Rather than feel admonished by her, Link starts snickering.

It’s deserved, after all.

“You’re the fucking worst,” she says, but then her own smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth betrays her.

“You could get your license,” he suggests to her, “go fifty-fifty.” He shrugs.

“No thanks,” she says plainly. “Getting Zelda to go out on your stakeouts is like the best thing ever. I hate doing that surveillance shit.”

“I’d have a hard time replacing you anyway.

“Sure there’s nothing to fix?”

She looks at him a long while, arms crossed, mouth thin, as she thinks it over. “Yeah, I’m sure,” says Midna at last.

“Me too.”

He thinks Zelda would smack them both and tell them that’s not how you fix things.

Midna, though, is still eyeing him in a way he doesn’t quite like. He thinks it must be that damnable bloodhound nose at work again. “Well, you got anything else you want to tell me?” she snips, and Link feels his mouth go dry.

He'd never told her about his short bender in Ordon, and he’s sure Zelda hasn’t. That must be what she’s smelling with that bloodhound nose she’s got. Link considers it for a moment. She’s not just his friend, but if they’d just agreed that what they are is just fine, he thinks he’d rather keep it between him and Zelda. So he says, “No.” It’s a lie, but also the truth. Some equivocation, he supposes. He swallows and then after a beat, he adds, “Just want to make sure that we’re fine. Nothing to fix.”

“… Sure.”

The silence stretches over them, and for a fleeting moment, Link wonders if they’re lying to each other again. That’s not to say he thinks a mistake has been made, but there’s a small nugget of worry that it’s not settled, and they’re both too stupidly cagey to admit it. And if the business is done… Well. “So do we have a funeral or…?” he jokes, and when she snorts at him and tells him to buzz off with his nonsense, he accepts that they’re both telling the truth (his unrelated omission aside). Whatever door that had been cracked slightly open between them, he knows that they’d shut permanently a long time ago, but the problematic part, he thinks, is that they were always checking to be sure it’d been shut. This time, they just made sure to lock it behind them, and he knows they won’t be looking back at it again.

And that’s fine.

Link realizes he’s fine.

“You believe in fate, Midna?”

“Hocus pocus bullshit,” she spits, leaning back again. Yeah, he expected that answer; it tracks.

Link isn’t sure he’s sold on it being real either, but as of late, sometimes he wonders. Maybe it was all hocus pocus bullshit that kept Midna and him at arm’s length. He’s definitely sure there must have been hocus pocus bullshit to bring Zelda and the mirror into their lives. When Midna follows up to ask why, he sneers a little at her. “I’ve had the thought a few times that you doomed me,” he murmurs, since more than once he’s felt like he was fated to fall into the awful mess Zelda brought.

One fiery eyebrow raises in interest. He hates it when Midna gives him that look. It’s a bit different from how she looked at him a little bit ago. It’s where she can smell that there’s drama or gossip, and she vibrates in anticipation. For a woman that he’s spent countless hours fielding complaints from about how much she hates drama, she certainly loves sticking her nose all over it. It just shouldn’t directly involve her, obviously.

He's opened the floodgates though asking her about fate. Fatal mistake. No turning back. So he begrudgingly and partially confesses, “When you gave me her picto.” Nayru knows he’ll never tell her the whole truth. She’d probably laugh herself into the grave even if he proposed the idea that past lives exist. Hell, if it is real, she’d probably show up still laughing about how ridiculous it is in the next life.

She looks a bit smug. “Yeah, I told her you got all weird.”

He blanches. “You didn’t have to tell her that!” But of course she did, why is he surprised?

“Ugh, gods, Link. You’re so dumb,” says Midna.

Link sighs to himself and then, changing the subject, admits to Midna what’s really been eating at him, “Anyway, I wasted the past few days chasing a godsdamn ghost, and I’m just pissed that’s like all I did. Got nothing for it.”

“Are we branching into paranormal investigations?”

Link barks with laughter at the thought but also his subsequent thought that maybe ghosts are real. There’s a mirror sitting at home that talks for Din’s sake. Why couldn’t ghosts be real? “No, when I was working on developing pictographs, Zelda was looking at some of the test prints and said one of her guys was in the picto.”

“You’re bullshitting.”

He shrugs. “I mean, I wasn’t the one at the auction or getting stalked around after.” He sits up in the chair. “I took the picto in Korok Park, and I thought that an open area like that might help make him more obvious if he was following her or if it was all coincidence.”

“And it was a total waste of time,” Midna fills in, “because he either got his hide and seek champion medal or it was just coincidence.”

“Yep.”

She wrinkles her nose.

Link fishes the pictograph out of his coat’s inner pocket and passes it over to Midna. “Is it just me,” he proffers, “or do you think he looks like a Twili?”

Midna takes a hard look at the picto. “Link, you sure this pasty-ass man isn’t actually a ghost?”

“I wish. We could just call in a priest for an exorcism or something.”

“Well, if he was at the auction, he’ll be one of our fifteen then, right?”

“Did you find anything on that company?”

The wan look that glosses over her face says everything. “I kept chasing more trails,” she grumbles. “It’s definitely a shell, and there’s like a stupid amount of layers. They’re definitely trying to hide the real owner.”

“You going to keep going or you want me to take over?”

“You need to do more of the actual work around here,” she reminds him. “I can deal with our side project.”

Link thinks how he has more than one personal stake now in their “side project”. Well, he always did, he just hadn’t realized the fact until recently. So he insists, “What names do we have left to vet though?”

“Link.”

“Come on, just for a bit.”

“Well, that Highland one is the last company name on the list…” she trails as she swivels around in her chair to the filing cabinet. She opens a drawer and pulls out the folder she’s been keeping the info on Zelda’s auction in. It splashes open on her desk, and she adds the man’s pictograph to the pile, but she fishes out the list of names from the auction. “Okay, so, we have a Dewey Linebeck, Randall Sakon, Rutella Dramain, Jolene Cross, Axyl Dorro, Calisa Habib, Dean – seriously? – Dean Gorman and Ian Gorman, Revali Nilsson, Ganondorf Dragmire, Urbosa Yildiz, Sidon Roux and Mipha Roux, and lastly Daruk Bondarenko.

“Kind of been quickly knocking off the women since it was supposed to be two men… but you know.” (What if she’s – they’re – wrong? Aliases? And etc. etc. etc.)

“Right,” says Link as he slouches again. He holds out his hand to her. “Let me see it the list.” She hands it to him, and he reads through all of the names, hearing Midna’s voice read them out in his head. He hands it back to her. “A Gerudo,” he says absently.

Midna looks at the names. “Well, Calisa Habib and Urbosa Yildiz, definitely Gerudo.”

Link suddenly looks sharply over at her. “Isn’t that Dragmire fellow some politician out in the Gerudo province?”

Midna rolls her eyes and raises her hands. “I don’t know,” she says, exasperated. “I’m not voting out there.”

“I’m not either.”

She sighs and looks back at the list. “Maybe this Bondarenko, Sakon, and Dorro?”

“Sakon, maybe,” Link says nodding. “Bondarenko and Dorro… Sounds like Goron names from Eldin.”

“I’ll put them second,” she mutters.

They sit there for probably at least ten minutes before Midna throws the list. “Good goddesses, I should have just let you look at this crap to start!” she explodes, frustrated. But then she reconsiders. “Never mind, you’ve been more on the ball on this sort of thing since you stopped drinking.”

“Midna,” he gasps, “is that a compliment?”

“We can go back to that discussion about how we have a problem,” she threatens sharply.

Hm.

Hm-hm.

Link thinks the mirror might be right. It seems that Zelda finally snagging the lead to Groose’s shop after months of stale info and dead ends just started this domino effect. Now the pieces are finally face up to look at and pick apart and match, and things are falling in place. Or maybe Midna’s right, and the cloudy haze he’d put his brain in for so long has finally cleared.

Okay. So. They have a mysterious shell company, fourteen names (albeit more than half are likely men), a massive mirror piece to go with Zelda’s smaller one, and a pictograph of one of the bidders that she swears had stalked her in the night following the auction with their last confrontation happening after she’d arrived in Domain in January. Right.

“There’s still more mirror pieces out there though,” Link murmurs as he rubs his mouth. Ugh. And Midna just had to mention his sobriety, because it is making him so damn thirsty.

“Hey,” he says to Midna, feeling his heart starting to speed as he tries to turn off the drinking thoughts, “did you develop that roll of film?”

“In the darkroom for you,” she says. “What’s with all the dog pictos?”

“Zelda wanted my pictobox so she can send Rusl a picto of him.”

Midna eyes the dog lying on the floor in a dramatic sploot. “Why? He’s such a shit.”

“I know, right?” Link says, tapping the dog with his foot. The dog looks up at him. His tongue darts out swiftly slides across his nose. “It’s the closest thing he’s got to a grandchild, so he was making a big deal out of it, even if in jest.”

Midna snorts. “He’s a good man.”

Link sighs. “Okay. I’m gonna go make some dog pictos, I guess.”

“You should being some actual work,” she chastises. Link groans a little. “But do that last one she took of you, too,” Midna suggests. He thinks she’s acting odd, because what? She’s not gonna scold him out of doing non-work things? “When’s the last time you got your picto taken? And not for something like a license, I mean,” she points out.

“I dunno,” he says absently now, and his mind starts drifting too far to think about real work anyway.

Midna picks up the papers she’d thrown and plops them back in the file folder. She flips closed the file she has on Zelda’s stuff and puts it away. As she wheels around, he sees that distinctive, mischievous smirk that he hates on her face, knowing what she’ll be aiming for. She opens her mouth with a “So when-”

“NOPE.”

And Link stalks off to the darkroom.

::

Link walks with Zelda down to the nearby station from his flat to use the pay phone there in the evening. She steps into the booth while he hangs out not far from her to keep an eye out. It almost feels like she has a personal bodyguard, she thinks sheepishly.

He looks back at her and raises a questioning brow when her face frantically flushes a ferocious red as she silently beats back the influx of the usual salacious commentary from that godsdamn mirror.

She tells herself to put it in a box. And she thinks about that box going into another box… She jams her coins in the phone willing the damn thing to shut up so she can talk with the operator and thanking the gods that Link can’t hear any of that embarrassing mirror talk.

She thinks morbidly that she’d rather be driven nuts with a sonar.

As the operator patches her through, Zelda thinks that Link would probably love to put on her tombstone as an epitaph “Blushed to death” or similar.

She doesn’t realize how much she’d missed her father until she hears him come on the line almost frantic. “Hello? Zelda?” he sputters.

“Hi Papa,” she says quietly.

And just like the last time they’d spoken over the phone, he’s rendered speechless.

She swallows the lump in her throat.

“Mr. Coutts really wanted me to talk to you,” she said. Her eyes flick back to Link outside the booth, hands in his pockets and doing what he does best: watching. Speaking so formally of her strongest ally and closest confidant these past months seems weird. Wrong. “I’m not ready to come home still though, I’m sorry, but I’m doing okay. I promise. I appreciate you helping me, too.”

“He said you’d made progress with whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Yes,” she says. “I realized I needed some help, and he came through.” She shifts her weight from one foot the other, and she then slides the receiver to her other ear. “He mentioned that there’s some other trouble at home?”

“Don’t worry about it, dear,” her father assures, and it irks her. Link brought it up to her for a reason.

She looks to Link again, wondering if he’d strangle her for this, but she wants this to be easier, so she conversationally adds, “I went south for a bit to research. Saw lots of neat things.” She swallows, feeling that chasm between her and her father stretching a bit more. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you what’s wrong, but why won’t you tell me what’s going on at home?”

Her father sighs and mutters to himself that he shouldn’t have said anything. “You needn’t worry about it.”

“You’re worrying about me,” she says. “Why not let me also worry about you?”

Her father laughs, but even through the electronic tones of his voice, she can hear the strain in it. “It’s just…” he trails for a bit. “I told Coutts that it was more a matter for the constables. Things in the house seem to be growing legs and walking off for a long while now.”

“Hey, maybe you have ghosts,” she jokes.

He doesn’t laugh in that booming way she’s used to, and her eyes fall in shame.

Zelda looks out the booth windows again. Link hasn’t moved, an ever steady presence that she’s thankful for. “Papa, I do have a request,” says Zelda with all the bravery she can muster.

“Of course, my dear.” His voice is eager, but she knows he’ll balk in a short second.

She inhales. “Send Misko away.”

He stutters in surprise on the other end.

“He’s not who you think he is,” she gushes before she can lose her confidence. “Send Misko away, please.”

“Zelda, there are consequences,” he tells her wearily.

She feels that sting blooming on her cheek again, and it sparks up that hatred deep within her. She’s pleased when her voice comes out much stronger than her father’s, and she has a little lick of pride as she remembers Midna telling her she has her own kind of moxie. “I want him gone,” she insists. “Before I come back.”

See? Knew you had it in you, Princess.

“Zel-”

“You can speak with Tael if you don’t believe me.”

When he doesn’t say anything more after a bit, she tells him that she loves him and Mother, and she promises again she’ll come back when she’s done. She hangs up the receiver, her hand clinging to it, and she just stays in the booth for a bit. Her hands shake a bit, and she prays to the goddesses that her conviction is enough for him to at least listen. She thinks back to the late summer when Link implored her to make sure that his first strike was his last.

The booth door slides open, startling her.

It’s just Link, but his comforting presence doesn’t stop her heart from racing off into the night. “Alright there, Tetra?” he asks.

The smile she gives him is tight. She’s not totally free just yet, but it’s enough for now, she thinks.

::

Midna is at her desk as usual when he walks into the office with the dog one morning. Now the second resident PI in the office, Courage flounces in and body slams the cushion Midna brought in for him to sleep the day away on.

“You have a message,” she informs him briskly. She holds out the note to him that she scrawled it on. “Some dumb bloke named Groose,” she says.

She’s dressed in velvet again. A deep emerald jewel tone that pops against her skin but doesn’t detract from the shocking red of her hair. He’d teased her once on always making sure she is in her funeral best, since he’d been convinced her closet was nothing but swathes of black fabric.

Link looks at the note unable to read it from the surprise. Groose?

“And then your second message that I have is from Daphnes Nohansen,” she says and passes him a second piece of note paper. “Neither said what they wanted to talk about, but Nohansen requests that you actually come by the estate.”

“He… He wants me to go out there?”

Midna shrugs. “Like I said, he didn’t say why, just that he would like you to come out as soon as you’re available. He’ll be waiting for your call this morning to arrange a time though.

“Also, thought I should remind you in case you lost track of time,” and she looks at him very pointedly, “but it’s Zelda’s birthday tomorrow. Might cheer her up if you did something.” He chooses to keep his mouth shut, but he didn’t forget.

There’s something else at hand, anyway. Link can feel Midna practically vibrating. She’s ready burst on something.

Link lowers the note and asks her, “You find out more about that shell company?”

She grins wickedly at him. It splits her face, and he’s not sure he’s seen her smile this big. “That’s the biggest news of the day,” she bursts on him, so Link plops himself in the chair across from her. The dog makes a grumbling to try and get his attention. He ignores the dog. “Like big bang big,” she boasts, hands up.

“Well, I’m positively rapt.”

“I got it sorted through, and I think the real owner of it at the end of the day is some schmuck named Zant Yang,” says Midna as she opens the file cabinet behind her. She pulls out the folder for Zelda in a flurry and brings it down on her desk like a deciding gavel. “You’re gonna be so pleased to see this, but I got a copy of his driver’s license picto, too. Lucky us, he’s got a Castleton one so there is a picto.” She slaps a hand on the folder before Link can reach out and snatch it like a viper. “I would like you to know that you owe me for that for the next bazillion years. I had to flirt my way to it with this super gross nerd.”

Link responds dryly, “As is the only way to get real information.”

Midna pulls out Link’s pictograph and the license photo she’d obtained. “Fucking look at this!” she squeals. Midna never squeals. Midna never looks this excited.

And Link thinks he’s never been so sick and pale.

It’s very clearly the same person.

“So Zant Yang, huh?”

“You’re welcome, we got a name,” says Midna, smug as can be. She’ll probably be smug about this until he dies.

Link snatches up the folder like it’s gold. Then his sickening elation comes to a somersaulting halt. “We need the second one,” he says, remembering the Gerudo. He thinks back to the names he’d read. Habib, Yildiz, Sakon, Dragmire. He looks to Midna. “If we’re looking now for the Gerudo man, it’s Sakon or Dragmire.” He fishes out the names list and hands it to Midna.

He's about to fly into his office when he stops short. “The green looks good on you,” he says to her, not knowing how else in that moment to tell her he loves her.

“What’d I tell you about being weird?” she snaps back as he shuts his door behind him.

He swipes up the phone in his haste but remembers Zelda’s no dummy and won’t pick up at home even if he tries calling more than once. He lets the receiver go and sits down in his chair. Link gives himself a moment to clear his head before he goes for the phone again. He looks at Midna’s note as he lights a cigarette, and then he picks up the phone to see if he can catch Groose instead.

When Groose answers, he sounds bored and listless. “Groose, it’s me,” Link says. “Got your note from Midna.”

“OH!” he exclaims. “I tried a few places before I thought I got the right one.” He mumbles something about it being easier if Link had left his card.

“And I don’t want my card found there,” Link points out.

“Yeah, yeah,” Groose grumbles. Link waits for him to tell him the reason for the call. “So you punch out the other bastard?”

Link responds with a “What?” before catching on and groaning himself. “Was there something of actual importance you wanted to talk about?” At this point, forget any wedding, he might as well tell Groose to brag about his heroics in Link’s obituary, just so his corpse doesn’t have to hear it.

“About your weird interests,” Groose says, and his tone has lost the light humor. “I honestly didn’t believe you when you said others might be interested in it, too.”

Link pauses. “Who came calling? And when?” he asks, yanking the cigarette from his lips and sitting a bit straighter.

“Wouldn’t say,” says Groose. “Told him I never even had what he was looking for in the inventory. This was just yesterday.”

“He looking for what we are?”

“Yeah, same as you.”

“So he ask anything outside of the inventory?”

“Nope. Very frustrated though when I said he must have been mistaken. I own the place, I know what I have on hand.”

“Of course, what smart businessman doesn’t?”

“I don’t have much else,” Groose says. “But I can give you a call if I hear or see anything else come in the shop you might be interested in?”

“As long as it’s the right price.”

Groose laughs. He leaves Link with one piece that makes him giddy. “As long as you can out bid some scrawny Twili, I’ll make sure you get first dibs.” Link makes a mental note. He was right. Twili. Not a ghost.

“Appreciate it, Groose.”

Before Link can hang up though, he hears Groose on the other end hesitate to call him. “Ah, well, um,” Groose babbles, and Link thinks of how uncharacteristic it is of him. Groose has always lived on a loud cloud of overconfidence for all the time Link’s known him. “I didn’t say it when we saw each other last, and I should have… but…”

“But?” Link prods.

“I wanted to apologize,” he grumbles. “You know, for the… mix up.”

Oh. Well, that’s nice. “You never apologize,” Link says.

“If you’re gonna act like that, see if you ever get one from me again!”

“Maybe don’t be a dumbass next time that you need to make apologies.”

“Fuck you, Coutts.” And Link starts to breathlessly cackle. “You had me all worried I was gonna get you a divorce, and-and… Man.”

Link’s humor slips and then dissipates like a dying balloon. “I knew the second I tasted it that you fucked up, and I still drank it and then more than enough,” Link says grimly. “I don- I don’t stop with just one, Groose. It’s on me, too.”

“You gonna get divorced, Coutts?”

“I’m not actually married, remember?”

“Uh, right. Yeah, but you know I could have sworn I got the non-alcoholic kind,” Groose says. “Hell, I don’t know why I didn’t say anything when I tasted it myself.”

A lead piece of dread tries to wedge itself in, and suddenly Link is more suspicious about the whole thing than just Groose being dumb ol’ Groose. “Groose?” he calls as a low level panic begins to jump in his chest.

“I’m still here.”

“You knew, too, and knew I couldn’t drink?”

“Yeah?” Link can hear it in Groose’s voice that he doesn’t know where this is going.

Link never explicitly said why he couldn’t drink. Not that he can remember at least. “Did you know though?” Link asks to be sure. “When I said I couldn’t?”

“I mean, I kind of figured? You’re not the only sailor I know that’s likes liquor a little too much.”

“Why didn’t you say anything then?”

The silence that follows is deafening, and instead of Groose’s voice on the phone, all Link can hear is the pounding of his heartbeat. But the hesitation in Groose’s voice that makes him sound so small, and not the burly man at least twice Link’s size, makes Link believe him when he swears he doesn’t know. “I’m so sure that I meant to get the non-alcoholic, Link.”

“… It’s not your fault, Groose,” Link whispers weakly into the phone.

“Link-”

“I’m serious,” Link insists, his stomach twisting in that all too familiar knot. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I swear to Farore, I’ll never put it in your hands again if that’s what you want.”

“Groose, really. It’s okay,” Link says. “I’m not mad.”

“We good?”

“Always, punk.”

“… Alright.”

“Alright.”

“Never apologizing to your punk ass again,” Groose swears.

“Sure… later, Groose.”

“Yeah,” Groose sighs. “See you sometime.”

Link slowly removes his hand from the receiver after he hangs up. He takes a stunned, contemplative drag on the cigarette, not believing his luck in some aspects but also trying to beat back the new wave of anxiety that has come to plague him. It certainly has been like a game of dominoes of late, he thinks.

His mind tumbles about.

Groose, at least, he thinks, is safe from further alcohol fuckery... and well, likely general fuckery not of his own making. They took the mirror with them, so unless Groose gets his hands on another mirror or piece, he should be fine. Link has to believe that.

The sonar, the bar suggestions, Groose.

He rubs his mouth.

Game of dominoes, but Link has to remember to watch himself. This is what it wants, he realizes, chastising himself for falling for the trap.

He feels a bit sick.

He’ll have to watch his footing better from here on out if he’s going to make it. He stamps out the cigarette butt. It’s more than just Zelda. He'd dump that wretched mirror off into the ocean if he knew he and Zelda would be rid of it forever, but something tells him that it’d make its way to darken his doorstep again before he could blink if he did.

He feels inexplicably stuck with the gloomy thing.

Link rubs his mouth again, then picks up the phone again to call Nohansen.

::

She’s gleeful this time when Link and the dog walk in the door, and she sees the bag in hand. Neither waiting for a greeting, Link rolls his eyes at her peering around the wall like a child and holds it out for her as he kicks his shoes off. “Eat it now or later,” he says. “Your choice.”

Courage has his eye on the bakery bag. If only he understood that cake would probably give him the shits. “Not for you,” Zelda chastises the dog as she grabs the bag. She reaches up and gives Link a kiss on the cheek in thanks when he tries sidling by, but she spies the second sack in his hand. “What’s that?” she asks.

“Also for you,” he mutters. He crosses the main room and sets it on the sideboard. “Had Midna settle up my late fees, and she picked up a bunch of new books for you. Hopefully not any you’ve read.” She’d spent the day alone and bored to tears, half listening to radio talk shows. The more entertaining fiction shows tended come on in the evenings when children would be home and families had time to congregate together to listen. New books to get lost in during the day sounds like a delight to her.

“Midna and Groose also came through for you in a big way,” he tells her as he collapses on the couch.

“Groose?” she asks, a bit shocked.

“Yeah,” he laughs. “He called up and talked to Midna while I was out, but I got him on the phone this morning.

“Your auction stalker, Zant Yang, is in Faron and looking for that ghastly thing we have.”

“So you got a name?” she asks with shock.

“Midna managed to dig it up in some whole mess of shell corps, and Groose says he’ll call back the office if he hears anything else about mirror pieces.”

The mirror had been stashed in the one place inside the flat that now has a door constantly shut: the entry hall closet. After her first piece attached itself to the bigger one, they wrapped it up, Link put the doors back on, and they shut it away to hopefully keep it out of their minds. And it hates that. For a couple of days following that, it wouldn’t shut up, though Zelda thinks she must hear the mirror more clearly and often than Link.

She does consider though that he doesn’t always recognize when it is talking. The mirror communicating to him in sonar pings is seemingly the most effective.

Zelda grabs them both forks out of the kitchen and pulls the cake box out of the bag. She decides she won’t think about the mirror anymore for now and plops herself on the couch across from Link. Link pushes the dog away when he comes round with that nose twitching at a high speed. When she hands him a fork, he laughs at her, “You want to eat it right of the box?”

She eyes Courage who sits just a meter away now with wide, focused brown eyes. “Tower defenses,” she says watching his nose twitch once more. “Plates are just open fields.”

“How silly of me,” Link says.

Link doesn’t eat much of the cake, just lets her enjoy her fill. Before she packs up the box to put the rest away, he asks her to wait and scoops out a couple of blueberries from the top with his fork. Out of the corner of her eye as she heads into the kitchen, she spies him tossing the blueberries from the fork like some makeshift trebuchet at Courage, the bit of whipped topping that had clung to them flying off. Courage eagerly snaps them out of the air like a hungry crocodile.

Chapter Text

Tael passes by Nohansen’s office as he sits on the phone. He pauses when he hears the man. “Zel-” and then he falls silent. Tael blinks, his ears twitching. It’s the second time that he knows of that a certain missing person has called up to the house. Nothing much else of importance is uttered on Nohansen’s end of the call, so Tael walks on and turns the corner, almost walking straight into the housekeeper, Impa. She towers over him, and she looks down on him with suspicion, but neither says anything, and Tael moves along.

He finds his twin sister Tatl in the basement as she tosses coal into the furnace. “She called home again,” he says.

Tatl looks at him, almost annoyed. “I bet you know nothing else.”

“Yeah, nothing else.”

“You’re so dumb, Tael.”

Tatl latches the furnace shut and sets the coal shovel aside. “Who was that guy again that was going through all her stuff?” Tael asks.

“What guy?”

“That blond one. Came around last winter and started pawing through her stuff.”

“Oh, yeah, I saw him when he was digging around in her closet and stuff,” she says. They both try to think. “I don’t think I got his name, but that was a long time ago.”

Tael thinks it over, too. “He asked me a lot about Misko.”

“Misko is gross,” says Tatl, and Tael nods in agreement. “He didn’t ask me about Misko.”

“He asked me.”

“I know he did, dummy,” Tatl snaps at him. She’s always been the bossier one of the two of them. “Isn’t he like some detective?”

“I think so.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“That he slapped her.”

“But he’s still here,” Tatl grumbles.

“I know.”

“Did you hear? Some first editions from the library walked off?”

“When?”

“Two nights ago.”

“I saw him skulking around there then.”

“Reaaaally?” implores Tatl.

Tael suggests, “Maybe we should watch him more.”

“Let’s get rid of him,” Tatl agrees.

The twins exit the cellar together, deciding to try and find their target so they can stalk him in the night. Impa, however, appears, and with one stern look, the pair scatter off. Or at least attempt to.

Impa is just as quick on her feet, though, and she snags the back of Tael’s shirt. “What is with you lot?” she mutters with exasperation. “Mr. Nohansen specifically asked to see you, Tael.”

Tael looks back up at her, surprised at this.

Impa lets his shirt go, telling him shortly, “Let’s go, boy.”

Tael trudges along behind Impa as he follows her through the halls and back to Nohansen’s office. She waves him in and then snaps the door shut.

Tael likes Nohansen’s office. The white walls and soaring high ceilings always make him feel so small, like he lives in a world giants. And you know, that sounds pretty cool. When he was real, real little living in Termina, children were told of legends about four giants that protected the land. Maybe they could fit in Nohansen’s office? Plus the rugs in here are a nice navy color and very plush. Tael likes that very much. It’s well past sunset, so no sunlight comes in through the large windows, but that’s okay. Even through the trees of the estate, Tael can see all the specks of light that come through the branches from the city. That’s very cool. It looks like fairies almost. That’s also very cool.

“Tael!” Nohansen greets. “Have a seat,” he says waving an arm to a chair near his desk. Tael begrudgingly obeys. He’s not real fond of this chair. He feet don’t reach the floor. “I feel as if I never see much of you and your sister around. You two are always so quick to disappear,” he muses.

Tael says nothing.

Nohansen sniffs and straightens, and he apparently decides to drop any further pretext. “You know that Zelda’s been missing for some time, yes?”

But if he’d been talking to her, is she still missing?

Tael stays silent.

Because you know, it doesn’t make sense.

Nohansen sighs. “Tael, did you also speak to a Link Coutts?”

“Who?”

“Link Coutts,” Nohansen repeats. “He’s a private investigator I had hired in January to look for Zelda.”

“Did he find her?”

“Tael, please, did you speak with him earlier this year?”

“Is he the blond guy? The one that was going through her room?”

“Yes.”

Tael wonders what Tatl would say. He doesn’t know if he should lie or not, so he doesn’t. “Yeah, I talked to him.”

“He made mention that maybe Zelda would want to leave on her own,” Nohansen begins. “I want to know if you know of anything of the sort.”

“He asked me about that mirror she got and Misko,” Tael says.

Nohansen seems interested now. “Misko? What did he ask you about Misko for?”

Once again, Tael isn’t sure if he should lie or not, but he’s not a very good one, and he doesn’t think he can’t NOT answer. Right? “I said I thought she didn’t like him.”

“Why would you think that?”

“They argue.”

“About what?”

Tael shrugs. “Things.”

Nohansen sighs again, and he rubs a hand on his forehead. “Well, do you like Misko, Tael?”

“Nah.”

“Why not?”

“He pretends to be nice when he’s not,” Tael says. “That seems mean, don’t it?”

“How old are you now, Tael?”

“Twelve.”

“Time seems to be getting away from me,” Nohansen laments at this.

“Is this all about Misko stealing?”

This startles Nohansen. “He’s what now?”

“Oh, I thought you were asking all this because he’s stealing.”

“N-no,” Nohansen stutters. “When did you find this out? Did you see something?”

Tael shrugs.

Nohansen breathes deep and then gives a heavy exhale. “Tael, please.”

“I don’t got no proof.”

“So you just think he’s been stealing?”

“I guess.”

Nohansen frowns. “And you just don’t like him because he’s been unkind to you?”

“He’s nice to you, because he has to be,” says Tael.

“And was he nice to Link Coutts?”

“Not really.”

“How so?” Nohansen prods him.

“Coutts doesn’t like him, I think, because he sees through him. Coutts is polite. I liked him.”

“Polite to Misko, too?”

“Yes.”

“And Misko isn’t?”

“Not always.”

“Is Misko not polite to anyone else?”

“The staff?”

Nohansen rubs his forehead again. “Anyone, Tael.”

“If you have something he wants, I guess, otherwise he don’t feel the need to be nice.”

“Transactional?” Nohansen suggests.

Tael doesn’t know what that means, so he says nothing.

Nohansen looks away sighing and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “Okay, Tael, do you think he feels that way about Zelda?”

“That he doesn’t need to be nice?”

“… Yes.”

“Yeah, I think he thinks that he’s got what he wants from her, so no. He don’t need to be nice.”

Nohansen prods him again, “And have you seen this yourself?”

Tael shrugs. “Didn’t see it,” he says, “but I think he slapped her once. Her face was red on one side, but she sent me on my way.”

Nohansen frowns. “I see,” he sighs. “And you said you liked Link Coutts?”

“Yeah. He’s fine.”

“You think him honest?”

Tael isn’t sure. “I don’t know. He asked me all the questions,” says Tael. Nohansen sighs again. Tael thinks maybe that means he wants more. “I think he’s sees people for what they are though. He has that look about him.”

“Tael,” Nohansen says much more softly, “if Misko went away, do you think that Zelda would come home?”

Tael thinks for a bit. “No,” he says.

Nohansen taps a pen and looks skyward for a minute. Finally he looks back at Tael, and he says very seriously, “Listen to me, Tael. If you see anything off with Misko, Link Coutts, or hear anything about Zelda, I want you to come tell me. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.”

Tael kicks his feet.

“Does that mean Coutts will be back?”

Tael isn’t sure why Nohansen looks at him like he does. The older man rubs his eyes.

“I think he’s nice.” Coutts listened to him after all. Most adults don’t give him much time of the day.

Nohansen smiles a little at Tael. “Sure,” is all he says about that.

“Alright, off with you now, it’s late.” Dismissed, Tael scoots off the chair and leaves the office.

Tael wonders if he could grow a beard like Nohansen. That’d be cool.

::

Link arrives at the Nohansen estate two days after Zelda’s birthday, still not really knowing why her old man wants to see him, but he supposes the mystery shall soon be solved. He’s walked through the halls at almost a breakneck pace by the housekeeper, Impa, that Zelda always speaks so highly of. Link wonders if Nohansen has found out something about him harboring Zelda. It kind of makes him sweat, and when he looks to Impa, she’s anything but warm. Her and Midna must be cut from the same cloth, Link thinks as he rolls his sleeves a bit. She doesn’t say a word to him as they walk through the halls, and she leads him to Nohansen’s office.

Link nods to her curtly as she shows him in and then shuts the door.

Nohansen looks up from his paperwork and gives him a polite smile, and that makes Link think that this spells trouble. “Coutts!” he calls, and he stands and comes round from his desk – walnut, possibly? He gives Link a once over as they shake hands. “You know, you are looking much better than the last time we met,” Nohansen says.

Link blinks.

Uh.

Okay.

“Your stay in hospital must have done you some good then?”

“Apparently,” Link says carefully, and he sticks his hands in his pockets.

Nohansen chuckles a little. “Are you thirsty, lad?” he asks.

Don’t say yes. Don’t say yes. Don’t say yes. Don’t say yes. Don’t say yes. Don’t say yes. Don’t say yes. Don’t say yes.

“No, thank you,” says Link.

Nailed it.

Nohansen brings up a chair across from his desk and motions for Link to take the seat. Link sits down, and he crosses his arms as his eyes drink in the high ceiling of the opulent office around them. Nohansen sits back down in his own seat and starts sets aside the paperwork on his desk. “I called you here, because I do think you can help with the problem I mentioned on the phone last.”

Link’s ears perk.

OH. Huh.

Alright.

This is not what he was expecting, actually.

“You know the boy Tael and his twin Tatl?” Nohansen asks. “They’re our two youngest servants.” This jogs Link’s memory. Right. The twins. The little watchers from what Zelda says.

“Yes,” Link says with a nod. “Frustrating little buggers.”

Nohansen’s laugh is a bellow. “I suppose I can’t deny that,” he says with a merriness that betrays why they’re even meeting. “I spoke with the boy a few nights ago and thought I might have better luck interrogating a spy. His sister says even less.” Link recalls that the most he got out of the girl was her wide eyes blinking back at him.

Link considers this. He studies Nohansen. Unlike Link, he’s looking a little worse for wear, but not by too much. Better than the harried, desperate man that came to him at the beginning of the year. Which is good, at least. Link considers, too, how Nohansen has been very unusually easy-going regarding Zelda’s continued disappearance. He’d been hurt and disappointed that she refused to come home like any loving father would, but Link was and still is a bit surprised that he’s just letting her do as she pleases. She’d been found, Nohansen has been assured with each conversation with Link that she is still safe, so he hasn’t actively pressed much about what it is she’s trying to do. Link doesn’t get the sense that he’s been this way to try and get Link to lower his guard. If he had, he would have likely tried to make a move to fish that out of Link much sooner than now.

When Nohansen speaks with Link, his eye contact is steady (green so much like Zelda’s). The laugh lines around them crinkle. He doesn’t fidget, his hands resting atop the desk, and he appears mostly relaxed. Link deduces then that Nohansen isn’t lying to him. He’s not calling him here to fuss about Zelda, what it is they’re doing, and their level of actual contact. So he thinks that whatever is discussed here isn’t likely to come back to bite her in some way, which makes him relax a little more as well.

Link decides he’ll indulge the man.

“Something the matter?”

“No, sorry,” says Link quickly. “Just had a lot on the mind as of late.”

Nohansen nods with a soft huff. “You know, you always struck me as a very guarded kind of man,” Nohansen comments. “Suppose that comes with your line work.”

“Sure.”

“I wanted to speak with you about some of the things though that I discussed with our young fortress of a friend.”

“Tael, not Tatl, correct?”

“Yes, Tael.”

“Alright.”

Nohansen leans forward and lowers his voice. “Is it just me, or do you think those two are a bit odd?”

Link laughs a little. “He’s an odd child, that’s for sure. Both of them,” Link agrees. “Spoke more with Tael than Tatl myself, and he’s one of those children that knows too much even if he doesn’t make much sense of it.”

Nohansen scrutinizes Link for a few seconds, and he leans back. “You do have a knack for that yourself in a way,” he chuckles. “The knowing part, that is.”

“The twins strike me as children that simply have a need to collect information. They don’t necessarily process it or understand it. It’s a storage kind of thing.”

Nohansen nods, folds his hands, and quiets for a few minutes. Link waits. It’s what he does best. “I’m not sure about the girl, but Tael seems to have a good opinion of you,” Nohansen tells Link, and Link catches the careful consideration in his tone. “He doesn’t seem to think the same about Misko, however.”

Link waits.

There’s something in Nohansen’s glance to him when he doesn’t answer. Link gets the prickling feeling Nohansen is also probably having some sort of déjà vu adjacent moment himself there considering from Link’s experience and what Zelda tells him, Tatl and Tael have a tendency to just say nothing if they have nothing to say or don’t want to say something.

“What I want to know is what your thoughts are on Misko. I know you’ve only spoken to him a few times, however.” Maybe Link’s silent vow for honesty with Nohansen is the wrong move. Nohansen adds on when Link doesn’t speak right away, “I am simply looking for your actual truthful thoughts on the man.” What’s said here stays here is the unspoken part between them, yes, yes.

Nohansen doesn’t give the sense that he’d betray Link’s confidence. Nohansen has extended a fair amount in undue trust in him thus far and beyond, so Link thinks it’s unfair if he doesn’t return the favor at least a little bit. He decides he’ll be honest.

“Misko is a man that does not keep one face,” says Link with a heavy sigh and folding his arms. “He is self-serving, and if you cannot or do not have what he needs to meet those goals, you are not worth his time and consideration.” Link sniffs, wrinkles his nose. “It’s a mask, essentially.”

The image of Tael in the hall, lifting a finger to tap his cheek comes to mind, and Link mentally shakes it away. Not his place to speak on things he didn’t see.

“Funny, that’s what the boy was trying to get at in more words.”

Tael? More talkative than Link? Wonders never cease, Link thinks.

Link clears his throat, “Sorry, um, didn’t you want to discuss the problem you mentioned on the phone?”

“I think this is related,” Nohansen admits. Interesting. Link thinks Midna will be salivating to hear about this later. “Tael mentioned on his own accord that he thought I wanted to speak with him since Misko was stealing.”

“What a theory.”

“And how!” Nohansen chuckles. “I’d like to confront him about it in a way, but I would feel better if you were here to listen in.”

“Not questioning?”

“Not necessarily.”

So Link’s been called here to sniff out if Misko is a liar. Safe bet that he is, but Link can’t say for sure if the man’s a thief though. “Okay. Sounds fun.”

“I have some other questions for you, lad,” Nohansen says chuckling at Link, which raises his hackles a bit again. “As I said, I know you’re guarded man, and you don’t say a word as to what my daughter is actually doing, but she is well, isn’t she?” Ah, Link thinks, so he is going to try and see if there’s any cracks in Link’s own façade.

That’s fine.

“From what I understand, yes.”

“She mentioned traveling south doing research.”

South, huh? What’s the hook?

“Well, I did find her out in Necluda.”

Nohansen nods. “Is it that important? Whatever it is she’s doing?” And so they circle back to the old questions. Easy enough.

“She seems to believe so.”

“And she has to do this in secret?”

“She is convinced with good reason that there might be bad actors that would ruin what she’s doing.”

“And if Misko were to be sent away, do you think she’d come back?”

Nohansen looks a little hopeful at this, and Link feels a bit sorry to say no to him for it. He’s done nothing wrong, but the man has been finding hurt at every turn as of late. Link hates that for him. “No, I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “When I found her in Necluda, she made it very clear that she was committed to her cause and wouldn’t come back until it was all done. Any issues at home or university or with Misko were never even mentioned. I don’t think there’s any other factor for her.”

Link sees Tael with his finger to his cheek again, and for Zelda’s benefit, Link tells her father, “From what I understand though from speaking with your staff, I think it would be a very big plus in her mind to know he’s not waiting for her when she does come back.”

Nohansen snorts. “Seems I’ve been foolish and naïve.” He looks thoughtful for a moment, and he quietly admits more to himself than to Link, “I wasn’t as involved as I should have been, and that was a mistake. Maybe I would’ve had a better option for her.”

“Who hasn’t been a fool at some point?”

He gives Link the smallest of smirks.

Nohansen waves to Link to stand up. “Alright, let’s see if we can root out a snake in the garden.”

“Sure.”

Nohansen’s not a dumb man, wouldn’t be where he is now if he was, and he knows when to play a part. Link’s happy to play along with him, because he’s actually… well, interesting. Where Zelda indulges in logic play and science books he can’t begin to understand and turn his brain to mush, her father is man with a big interest in history, it turns out. Link finds it much easier to digest than some of the things Zelda has tried to explain to him about black holes and various laws of physics. Link considers that he has never just actually chatted with the man, but as they walk through the estate, Nohansen starts giving Link impromptu lectures about various aspects of the home’s history, and from there spinning off about events from the time. Link listens intently more out of interest than obligation.

Nohansen asks him, “If I remember right, you served in the war, correct?”

“Navy.”

“Oh?”

“Served on a submarine in the Great Sea.”

Nohansen snorts. “Condolences,” he says.

Link raises an eyebrow. “Funny,” he replies. “When they saw I had two arms and two legs and could nod on command, they said, ‘Congratulations!’”

It’s a sad sort of laugh that erupts from Nohansen, but it also tickles Link, and he snickers a little, too. “The criteria isn’t exactly a lot during a draft.”

“Enough to be submarine material.”

“History’s always written by the winners,” Nohansen comments. “I wonder what the script would be if the Alliance fell instead…”

Link, however, doesn’t really care. Nobody’s writing in books about how the war blew off his leg, no matter who the victors were. It’s selfish, but the price of the win isn’t what people are really concerned about. It’s what they get that came from the victory that matters.

Link considers himself lucky not for the first time that he’d just lost a leg and not an arm or hand. He’s also lucky to have skills that allow him to work independently. Self employment works better for him when employers wouldn’t exactly be thrilled to hire an amputee. That’s what makes him bitter: Serve your country in a war, get broken doing it, and then you’re just looked at as less than because of it. Talk about gauche.

“I was too old for the draft,” Nohansen says. “They wanted the younger men like yourself.”

“Must be nice,” Link comments absently.

Nohansen looks at him. “I suppose our surviving vets like yourself feel very different than us civilians about the win.”

“I’m down a leg, sir.”

“A leg?”

“We hit a sea mine when we were forced to resurface. It blew open the hull, and I got a nice chunk of it lodged in my leg,” he explains. “Amputation was my early ticket home.”

“Ah,” Nohansen breathes. “And there was such a low bar for criteria.”

Link laughs bitterly.

Nohansen wants to show Link the library next. It’s one place Link hadn’t wandered into before. “This was one of her favorite places,” Nohansen says with a wistful tone. When he opens the door, Link marvels at their collection.

“I thought she already had a library right in her room,” Link says in wonder as his eyes rove across the shelves and the books upon books stacked up in the place. It’s not like it’s the size of the massive Castleton Archival Library, but it’s definitely nothing to sneeze at. His comment makes Nohansen chuckle. “Wow, even got the ladders,” he comments, setting the old man off again.

This, however, is where they do find Misko at last. “Misko!” Nohansen greets, and he plasters on a wide smile. Maybe Nohansen is a better actor than Link originally thought. “Misko, you remember Link Coutts, right? The private investigator?”

Misko is sat in a small alcove of the library by a fireplace where the fire is coming down to a low crackle. Cozy, Link thinks. Needs another log, though. There are two plush settees wrapped in red velvet with a low table between them. Nice little place essentially to read whatever it is that you find here.

Misko snaps his book shut. He sets it aside on the table and rises to greet them. “Ah yes, been some time,” he says with a smile, but Link can see it’s fake. It doesn’t reach his eyes. No genuine wrinkle in the corners. Nohansen is here, so he’s going to play nice with Link. As expected. He accepts Link’s hand, but rather than just simply shake it, he instead seems to try and break it. Sir. Link stuffs both hands in his pockets and tries to discreetly flex the one Misko tried to strangle the life out of. “What brings you by, Coutts? Have you found something out after all this time?”

Link peers at Misko.

Not that slow, he thinks.

Link just doesn’t acknowledge the insult.

It makes Misko bristle.

“Misko,” Nohansen interrupts, “I was wondering if you’d heard anything about the first editions that went missing here in the last week?”

“First editions?” Misko ponders as he slips his cardigan on.

Here’s the thing about liars like Misko: They don’t blink when lying. Not talking about their eyes, that’d be uncomfortable soon enough. They just don’t lie as obviously as someone more honest. Part of it comes from the fact that their whole baseline behavior is built on lying, so things like nervous fidgeting, shifting eyes, increased blinking, tone and volume and speed changes with their voice… it’s all kind of lost on them. However, they can’t always hide the small inconsistencies in their behavior. Link suspects that if Misko hasn’t been so careful with his mask, he won’t be so careful to watch himself.

Misko adjusts his collar. His hands linger a bit too long.

“I’m afraid not. When exactly was this?” Misko asks. Link backs away a bit as Nohansen answers. He looks up while keeping Misko in his line of vision but trying to get Misko to lower any guard, even just a little. Misko crosses his arms and he covers his mouth as if in thought. “Well, let’s see,” he begins. Link sees Misko eyeing him as he eyes the books nearby. “We met for dinner as I recall, and then I did go take a stroll about the gardens.”

Link feels the hair on his neck prickle a little.

“Oh? I remember it being very cold that night,” Nohansen comments. “I hope you don’t catch something from that.”

Link tries to think back to the temp from that day.

“I’m sure I’d have felt something by now, but I did have my coat, you know the one from Hebra?”

Nohansen laughs. “Right, of course,” he says.

Trying to be helpful, Misko says, “Well, you know, I took the walk about the gardens and then I did wander the house a bit more…” He grabs at his collar again, as if to fight the chill since he stepped a whole foot away from the fire. It’s very cold, obviously.

Link almost rolls his eyes listening to Misko. The information he’s spouting isn’t the important part anyway. He’s trying to appear to be helpful, but Link already knows what kind of man Misko is in other aspects. Doesn’t make him a thief, Link reminds himself but certainly doesn’t help him. Even if Link didn’t have that needling dislike (if we’re being kind) for the man, his behavior is off.

Nohansen and Misko chat away amiably as Link keeps an eye on them and wanders the immediate area. He waits until Nohansen calls for him. “My, look at the time!” Nohansen exclaims, looking at his pocket watch. “Coutts, we should hurry along now. Nice chatting with you, Misko…” And Nohansen is already walking away.

Link gives a polite nod and smile to Misko whose only goodbye is to glare.

Nohansen walks at a brisk pace. He leads him through the halls and then down a set a narrow stairs near the kitchen. “Maybe you can appreciate this,” Nohansen says as he makes his way down, and Link finds himself in the worst possible place he can be: the wine cellar. “Shut the door, lad,” Nohansen calls back. Link does so, feeling more like he’s on his way to his own execution now. “You know, I got this one bottle of Noble Pursuit recently…”

Link follows after Nohansen and looks around the wine cellar. So many bottles. So much wine. The mention of the Gerudo Noble Pursuit brings forth that idea of him being mummified under the Gerudo Desert sun, a real dehydrated husk, to mind again as he looks at the Nohansen’s vast wine collection.

Link rubs his mouth, but catching himself, quickly stuffs his back in his pocket.

Nohansen is scanning the bottles himself, likely for that Noble Pursuit, and he tells Link to have a seat at the small bistro table in the center of the room. And just- ugh! Even the damn wine cellar here is ostentatious.

Link thinks he’s never felt poorer.

“You alright, my boy?” he asks, when Link doesn’t move. He turns to face Link, oblivious to the fact that Link is currently curling into himself like dried out sponge.

He thinks of waking up trashed in Ordon. The way his head throbbed. The way his stomach turned and swirled all day. Zelda’s disappointment and especially his own.

“Feel free if you’re looking for a drink for yourself,” Link says, struggling against how suddenly and totally parched his mouth is, “but if you don’t mind, I’d rather uhm… not stay here too long.”

Nohansen gives him a good sidelong look. “Trouble with drink, huh?” he asks.

“You got me.”

He nods and puts the bottle of Noble Pursuit back in its place. “Apologies. We can talk in the office then,” he says. “Seems like it’s a real epidemic among you young vets.”

“Easy way to numb yourself.”

Link looks at Nohansen again. Really looks. He’s a clever man, Link thinks. Zelda didn’t get her own big brain from nowhere, obviously. Daphnes Nohansen, as far as he’s aware, is a businessman, though. “You spend some time in law enforcement?” Link asks. Nohansen seems surprised. “Just that you’re concerned about not reading people, yet you got me pegged and seem pretty comfortable getting the info you want out of Misko yourself. Why ask me here?”

“No,” Nohansen says. “But you have to learn to read people if you’re trying to wheel and deal and come out on top.” He gives Link a little wink. “My practice doesn’t match someone’s innate knack for it though.”

Link nods.

Keep your hands in your pockets, he tells himself.

Nohansen herds him out of the cellar. “You had whisky at your office when we met,” Nohansen says, and Nohansen starts leading Link back to his office.

Link’s bark of a laugh is hollow. “Hadn’t quite hit bottom then yet,” Link says, and the understanding blooms between them.

“Sorry again, lad,” the man says. “I should have asked.”

“It’s fine,” Link says. “My problem, right?”

Nohansen looks thoughtful as they walk. “May I ask what was the bottom for you?”

This, Link knows, requires a level of deception of his own now, but he answers as honestly as he can. “I worry it’s not actually the real bottom for me,” he admits. “I got carted off to the hospital and then had to stay to manage the withdrawals. I don’t even remember getting there, to be honest.”

“Your assistant is quite the wizard with words.”

“I was surprised that she told you more than others.”

Nohansen leads him back into the office.

“What was the temperature that night by the way?” Link asks, shutting the door behind them. “I don’t recall it.”

Nohansen smiles knowingly. “So you did catch that lie,” Nohansen muses as he sinks into his desk chair.

“Pretty sure it wasn’t Hebra coat worthy,” Link says, thinking of his own heavy winter coat still hiding with the Twilight mirror in his hall closet. It’s been getting colder, but nothing that his lighter coat for the spring and fall can’t handle. “I don’t know enough to catch him on anything else factually,” Link says. He pulls one hand out of his pocket to rub the back of his neck, and then he replaces it.

Nohansen waves it off. “Didn’t expect that.”

“If you want to figure out if someone’s being deceptive,” Link tells him, “you look for not one thing, but a cluster. Someone just crossing their arms alone, isn’t enough. Maybe it’s chilly and they’re cold. Defensive moves alone like that can have simple explanations.” Nohansen nods, listening. “The cardigan for one, putting it on when he moves away from the fire, okay. But he pulled on the collar, more than once. Hid his mouth.

“He seems pretty practiced with speaking but not quite enough. He works to try and establish a clear chronological order. It organizes the lies. Let’s them try and think through holes in their story sometimes. But I hate that ‘and then’ phrase,” Link says. “That’s honestly his biggest indicator, I think. He used it a lot.”

“So overall?”

“He’s a lying snake, yeah.”

Nohansen hums and ponders for a while. Link shifts his weight wholly to his one foot to relieve his stump as he waits. “You know, it’s funny that all it took was some astute child.” He glances at Link. “Maybe you ought to consider the twins for an apprenticeship,” he jokes. “Do they do that in your work?”

Link barks a little with laughter. “Well, they’re collectors,” Link corrects.

“Ah, true.”

“I know you weren’t looking for a confession or the like, but do you have what you need?”

Nohansen looks to Link. “You know, I think I do. For now. There’s still more for me to do on my own, but I appreciate the insight.” Link thinks for a moment that this must be where Zelda gets it, because they sound too much alike there. Nohansen stands, offering his hand out to Link. “When you get a call from my daughter next,” he says as they shake, “tell her I’m working on her request.”

“Her request?” Link asks boldly.

Nohansen just smiles at him.

“Will do,” Link clips.

“You’re an interesting man, Coutts,” Nohansen calls after him as Link crosses the threshold. “Shame you hide it.”

“Could say the same to you.”

“Send me your bill, Coutts.”

Link calls back over his shoulder, “Don’t worry about it.”

Link wanders down the halls alone, being that the way from Nohansen’s office to the front isn’t some twisting maze as the rest of the place is. He strides out into the main foyer to grab his coat and leave, and he’s surprised to see that it’s Tael that brings out his coat for him, clearly waiting for him. “Hey,” he says and holds out Link’s coat for him coat.

Link takes his coat and slides it on. “Hey.”

“You talk to the old man?”

“Yep.”

Tael nods. “That’s cool.”

“Interesting guy.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You like working here?”

Tael shrugs. “It’s fine.” His nose wrinkles a bit side to side. “Impa’s real scary though. Too serious.”

“Stone faced.”

“Yeah.”

Link thinks of Manny suddenly, hanging out under the apple tree in Hateno.

“You getting rid of him?” And when Link looks at him a bit surprised, Tael repeats himself, thinking Link just didn’t hear.

“Not exactly my decision,” Link mutters and buttons up his coat.

“Oh.”

“Sorry, mate.”

“It’s okay.”

“I mean… engaged isn’t married, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Tael admits, looking down at his shoes. “I guess if they marry, then I should look for a new job.”

“You’re a peculiar child.”

Tael just stares at him.

“Alright.”

“Alright,” Tael repeats.

But then that’s not alright, Link realizes when the boy follows him a bit. “Got something else?” he asks coming to a stop.

“She’s called.”

“The daughter?”

“Yeah. Twice that I know of.”

“You eavesdrop a lot, kid?”

“Door was open.”

“I see.”

“If she calls home, how is she still missing?”

“The old man ever say she was found?”

“No.”

“Sounds to me like she’s still missing.”

“Like she doesn’t want to be found?”

“I would think,” Link says. “Why else keep it secret?”

“I see.”

“So the daughter’s still missing, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says, “I get it.”

“Alright then?”

“Alright then.”

“Next time, Tael,” Link says with a quick wave.

::

She’s reading intently on the couch, trying to devour her book, when Link comes home, looking worn out. She hears him as he shakes off his coat and shoes in the entryway. When he comes around the corner, he passes her by on the couch without a word before he collapses and sinks deeply into his armchair. Zelda lowers her book and waits when she sees Link’s far off and worn expression. Courage doesn’t wait, however, and he nudges Link’s knee for a hello.

“You ever talk to that kid, Tael?” he asks her suddenly, and he ignores Courage barking at him for his attention.

She starts to giggle. “I thought you were meeting with my father,” she says.

“Yeah, the kid just caught me on the way out,” Link tells her.

Courage quiets and waits.

“I like the twins,” she clips. “… But they know too much.”

“He knows you called,” Link says. “The Tael kid.”

She nods. “Always watching,” she mutters.

“Doesn’t seem liable to talk.”

“Probably not,” she agrees.

Link looks to the dog, who’s tail starts to whip about now that he’s getting some sort of acknowledgement. In a very stern tone, Link snaps at Courage, “Gonna get you.” And this sends Courage into a frenzy. It’s a game they play. Usually Link follows him, albeit at a much slower and casual pace, but he’s too tired to do it this time. Courage takes off running without Link, doing loops around the dining table and through the kitchen. He skids to a stop in front of them, and all Link needs to do is lean forward a bit to send the dog flying again.

Link lets out a frustrated cry and throws his head back. She decides to just let him work it out. Courage keeps running the apartment like he’s actually being chased, with Link occasionally making a move that makes Courage think the game is still on. Zelda goes back to her book, but she puts it down again when Link lifts his head finally. “Almost forgot,” he says. He puts a hand out to send Courage scrambling. “Your old man wanted me to tell you that he’s working on your request the next time you call me.”

She about gasps. “Sealiously?” she asks.

“Sealiously.” Zelda has a hard time containing herself. She’s a bottle ready to explode at this. “I don’t know anything else,” he grumbles to head her off and to her surprise. “Didn’t elaborate.”

“You… don’t?”

“I’m tired, Zelda,” Link complains. “Him taking me down to the wine cellar quite literally about did me in.”  He rubs the heel of his palm across his mouth. He sighs, letting his hand fall. He adds before she can say anything, “Your house is ridiculous, by the way.”

“Ridiculous?”

“Yes! Why is it so damn big?” he whines. “You practically need your own postcode.”

“Don’t care much for money and power?” she asks.

“Doesn’t regrow a leg,” he groans and rises.

He leans down and snatches Courage around the middle when the dog scrambles by. “Got you!” he snarls, and Courage playfully chomps and nips the air. Link lets Courage go and drags himself off to bed. Courage goes skidding after him.

Chapter Text

She is trapped, she thinks. Pergie and Sera have come into the diner in the middle of the afternoon to gossip, and they’re intent on roping her in. She’d heard the rumors, of course, but Sera swears she spoke with him.

Sera is a plump woman with ashy brown hair that she’s styled in an up-do for the day. Ever animated, when she smiles and laughs, her round cheeks bulge a bit more. Sera waves a hand at her, asking, “Oh, what do you think, Ilia? I swear that boy has been putting on weight.”

Ilia hesitates as she refills their coffees. “I can’t say,” she replies, trying her best to not sound too cool. “I didn’t see him.”

“No! You of all people?” Sera gasps. She frowns a little bit, thinking. “I suppose he was only here a couple of days,” she ponders, waving her cigarette around. “He said he was here dealing with some ‘business’, but he didn’t say what.”

Pergie sits next to her at the diner counter looking at Ilia in disbelief. She’s a tall woman, but she’s built like one of the town’s oxen – all muscle. She works hard in the fields and can out lift her husband. Ilia thinks she could probably break a man in half if she wanted. “I just saw him out drunk in the square,” says Pergie. “He was hanging around some big guy.”

“A man?” questions Sera.

“Tall bloke. Never seen him before,” Pergie confirms. “He did look like he gained some weight.” Pergie nods.

“Maybe that wife of his is feeding him too much?”

“I didn’t see her. Ilia, did you see her?”

Ilia frowns. She’s just trying to restock the table condiments and napkins before the dinner rush starts, and the last thing she wants to do is participate in their gossip. She suspects they’re trying to get some sort of rise out of her, because jealousy and envy are not good looks. Thankfully for her, Sera interrupts Pergie with an annoyed tone, “She didn’t even see him, how was she going to see the wife?”

It cuts deep.

Ilia tries not to look at them.

Not like he ever did look at her the same way. That hurts, but what hurt more was the staunch rejection of not just her, but everything when he finally came home from war. She could hope all she wanted, but the scathing way he broke when he came home made it clear that was where they ended. Where he ended everything. He was going to be bitter and alone, and they both had said as much, and while she should be happy he didn’t stick with that, it makes all those old feelings of the pain newly raw again. It makes her mad. Logically, she knows it shouldn’t, but when is a heart built on logic? So she’s mad, and she’s fine for now if she stays mad, but she’s definitely not fine hearing them yap yap yap about him and the supposed wife he brought home out of the blue.

She feels sorry for Rusl and Uli. It was apparently a real shock to them. He distanced himself from Ordon as a whole much more than she had imagined.

“I got to see and talk with her,” Sera brags. “Little thing. So slim, too, those are not birthing hips. She’s got that city look to her, but he looks at her like she’s the berries.”

“Well, she’s probably from Castleton after all,” Pergie quips.

Ilia leaves the counter to start putting back the salt and pepper shakes and sugar caddies on the tables when the front door’s bell jingles a little.

Pergie and Sera pay no mind to the newcomer, but Ilia does. Not just because she has a new customer to attend to but also because the man that walks in is clearly not from around here let alone someone she recognizes. Being the mayor’s daughter, she’s well familiar with most of the faces in town.

He’s tall, slender, with an almost sickly pallor in the afternoon sun, and she wonders if maybe this is what a Twili looks like. She’s never seen a Twili in person before, but she’s sure that kind of complexion isn’t Zoran. He takes a seat at the table near the door, and Ilia quickly grabs him a menu and a sugar caddy and brings them by. “Coffee?” she asks. “Just brewed a fresh pot.”

The man looks up at her, and she’s a bit startled by his unusual eyes. They’re a yellow amber and incredibly intense. He’s very soft spoken when he opens his mouth. “That would be nice,” he says, just barely above a whisper.

“Sure thing,” she chirps. “Here’s some sugar,” says Ilia as she slides a refreshed caddy onto the table. “Did you need cream?” she asks, but he quietly answers no. Just keep it black. Alright then. She heads back behind the counter, grabs a mug and fills it with the coffee while Sera and Pergie continue to prattle on about stupid Link Coutts of all the damn people. She drops the coffee off at the table. “Take a look at the menu, and I’ll be back around in a few if you’re not ready yet?”

“I will let you know,” he says in that low whisper again.

“Ilia,” Sera and Pergie call, and Ilia sighs.

“Take your time,” she says with a little smile to the man.

She comes back behind the counter where Pergie also requests another cup of coffee. As she pours it out for Pergie, Sera asks, “You really didn’t see her at least?”

“I don’t know what she looks like,” Ilia says, trying to keep herself in check. Don’t sound annoyed now. They’ll pounce on that for sure.

“She was all pale. Brown hair, green eyes,” Sera says. “Like the girl doesn’t see any sun.” Sera acts like this is the most devastating thing.

“What’s her name again?” asks Pergie. “Zelda?”

“Pretty name,” says Sera. She takes a sip of coffee from her mug. “I don’t think it sounds nice with Coutts though. Zelda Coutts, eugh.”

“Didn’t your father see him at least?” asks Pergie to Ilia.

“No,” Ilia says flatly. “He wasn’t in when my father went by Rusl and Uli’s.”

“Oh, what a shame, what a shame,” the two women lament together.

Ilia grabs some salt and pepper shakers to put back on the man’s table, but when she walks back out from the counter, she realizes that he’s gone. He very generously left two rupees on the table for the coffee, but that’s not really what bothers Ilia. What bothers her, she thinks, as she sets the shakers on the table and pockets the rupees, the linen paper folding in her fisted hand, is that he left as quietly as he spoke.

She never heard the bell sound.

::

It’s just Link, Zelda, and Private Investigator Courage at the office. Midna left for lunch about a quarter of an hour before, allowing Private Investigator Courage the chance to work the case of the Office Snack Crumbs around her desk. His nails click and clack on the floor as he keeps busy sniffing out anything rogue that belongs – or rather doesn’t belong - in his mouth.

Zelda’s looking through the prints Link had developed of Courage. “I like this one and this one to send to Rusl,” she decides, and she picks the two pictos out. Link throws them in an envelope and seals it so Midna can hand off to the post later.

She’s giddy, excited, Link can tell. He asked her to go with on a job he has, and she’s been aching for more time out of hiding. He doesn’t usually do process serving outside of location work, but it seemed an easy enough job, so he accepted. Money’s money, after all, and the guy apparently likes to dodge the process servers. The bloke he’s looking for, as Link has found out, works at a restaurant bar unfortunately, and then suddenly the job got a hundred times harder.

He walked into a wine cellar and made it out alive at least, so he hopes with Zelda, he can keep his hands to himself again.

“Should be a quick thing today,” Link tells her as he starts packing up the mess on his desk. He gives her a tired, almost defeated look. “I need your help, because the asshole just has to work as a bartender of all things, and I think the best chance to grab him is around when his shift starts there.”

“Okay,” she says, and he thinks he might go blind from the brightness of her smile.

“Thank you,” says Link softly.

He finishes putting away the last of the files and paperwork in his desk and kicks his desk drawer closed when he hears the front door open. He looks to Zelda, and they both seem to agree it was opened too gently to be Midna.

“Whoa! Hey buddy!” And it’s Mikau who sticks his head into Link’s office. “Link!” he greets genuinely as Private Investigator Courage sniffs him out, having tabled the Office Snack Crumbs matter for the more pressing matter of office security. “When did you get a dog, man?”

“Hey Mikau.”

Mikau, finally noticing Zelda sitting across from Link, quickly apologizes. “I didn’t realize you had a client. I can wait.”

“It’s fine,” Link says. “Personal thing.” He gestures at the dog, who has decided Link’s friend checks out and also does not have any contributing evidence on the Office Snack Crumbs case. The dog sneezes on Mikau’s shoes. “My new business partner,” he dryly jokes, “Courage, PI.”

“Cute fella,” comments Mikau as he watches the dog jog past to go back to investigating Midna’s desk.

“Zelda, this is my friend Mikau.”

Mikau, being the energetic and social guy he is, eagerly sticks his hand out to Zelda. Mikau is of Zora descent. He’s got that blue undertone to his skin so prominent among them and the blue black hair. Link can’t think of a time when he’s seen Mikau dressed so well either, but when they meet in the evenings, he’s off work and much more relaxed and casual. To see him with his button down and trousers pressed clean is quite the step up.

“What can I do for you, Mikau?”

“You know, actually might be nice to get a woman’s opinion,” says Mikau, nodding at Zelda. To Link though, he says, “You’d hate it.” He snags the other open chair in front of Link’s desk. “But where have you been? It’s been like months since we’ve seen you.”

“Quit drinking.”

 Shock riddles Mikau’s face. “You?” he asks in complete disbelief.

“Drank myself into the hospital, so…” Link trails.

“Oh man,” Mikau breathes. “If we hexed you, sorry. Ashei kept saying that maybe you just kicked off.”

Link shrugs. “Yeah, well, can’t exactly trust myself. You can tell them I’m still alive, but I’m not coming to any games for… I don’t know.”

“Yeah, sure,” he says, still tinged with surprise. “Mido’s been bitching to the whole group how you’ve just been trying so hard to get out of hosting. That’s when Ashei started on how you’d rather die than invite us over.”

“Even if you can deal with a dry game, I still can’t.”

“Still? That work thing? This long?”

“Yep.”

Mikau whistles.

“So what do you want, Mikau? I know you’re not here just to check if I’m alive.”

Nervous now, Mikau licks his lips. “I want to propose to Lulu,” he says. Link thinks then it must be a good thing they drunkenly planned every detail for Mikau’s wedding that isn’t actually pertinent to a wedding. He decides not to rib Mikau for it though. Mikau’s tone lowers, and he leans forward towards Link, resting his elbows on his knees. “But now I’m wondering if you need a rain check.”

Link snorts, “Probably.”

Mikau straightens and crosses his arms. “Yeah, this is not the conversation I expected to have.”

Link checks the clock. “We ought to get going,” he tells Mikau. “I have to serve some bartender, and he should be heading in for his shift shortly.” He nods at Zelda. “She’s here to make sure that’s all that happens, if you want to play backup cop.”

“Brave of you,” Mikau says lightly.

He turns to Zelda. “Zelda, right? I have some ideas for Lulu, and Link would just agree with everything to end it…”

She smiles shyly at him but listens all the same as they head out. She shares her opinions on his proposal ideas while they walk, and Link thinks that yeah, Mikau had him right. He hates it, and he would have just agreed everything sounded fine and dandy to him. It makes him feel those stings of guilt. This is important to Mikau, and like Ashei had said, friends care about important things going in their friends’ lives, right?

Link thinks this over the whole way.

Later, when they part, Mikau gushes his gratitude to Zelda for listening. “I’ll let you know the date when it’s decided. You can decide later,” he says to Link as they shake hands.

“Appreciate the thought.”

He hesitates a moment. “You know, you are actually looking a lot better. Quitting looks like it’s treating you well,” Mikau divulges.

Mikau leans a bit closer to Link. “The new assistant is much nicer, by the way,” he says lowly. Link chuckles.

Mikau waves them off, saying, “See you, Link.”

Catching back up with Zelda as they move the opposite way of Mikau, Link nods back at Mikau’s retreating form. “You’re the nicer assistant, if you didn’t hear,” says Link with a laugh as they walk back to the office.

“He’s come by before at the flat,” Zelda says. “Seen him in the peephole.”

“Figures he’d just drop in at the office then.”

“You alright there?” she asks.

“Just thinking about all the things I’ve been neglecting,” Link admits, and he’s hit by the sudden realization that he has time. So much time. He says as much to Zelda.

There’s that pride written across in a scrawl on her face that she can’t hide. “Taking steps gets easier the more you do it,” she says.

As they wait at a crossing, Link honestly thinks (and probably for the first time) that he doesn’t need a drink.

::

Ping!

He wakes in cold sweat again. The rapid thumping in his chest and head is so loud, that it takes a moment for him to realize it’s his heart pounding that tattered tattoo. His breath shudders when he sees the dark ceiling, but he quickly reminds himself that he’s home, in his bed, not on the sub. Home. Bed. Not. The. Sub.

He grunts.

All two plus stone of the dog has come to rest on chest again.

The dog isn’t submarine material.

So he’s home. In bed. With the dog. Home. Bed. Dog. Home. Bed. Dog. Zelda.

Zelda.

Right.

He remains still for some time, trying to calm himself, and when the dog finally decides he is, the dog sleepily gets up to plop behind Zelda’s knees.

Ping!

The dog lifts his head, and he looks to Link, trying to decide if his services are required again. Before he can get pounced on again, Link pulls his arm out from under Zelda’s head and peels his clammy skin away from her. He swings his foot out from the bed and braces himself to stand. Zelda curls into the warm spot he leaves behind.

Link waves Courage down.

Ignoring his prosthetic, because he’s already taken too long now to answer, Link hops over to the doorway. He pauses in the doorway, one hand on the frame, before he passes the short hallway to the bath on his left and makes his way through the living room. He braces himself on his left along the wall until it ends and he comes to the entryway hall. Making that sharp U-turn, he hops the length of it again to get to the hall closet.

Once he’s yanked the closet doors open, he lowers himself to the floor. The mirror sits against the wall and purrs in greeting. It’s been expecting him. He works at undoing the ties that hold the canvas cover in place, and it urges him to move faster. He rolls the canvas up and pins it behind the mirror the best he can from his spot on the floor.

It hisses in pleasurable thanks. It was getting stuffy, almost couldn’t breathe.

Yeah.

You know the feeling.

He certainly does.

Link stares at himself in the mirror. It’s heavy pull roots him in place, fixes his eyes.

Why don’t we keep the door open now? Get that nice breeze going.

“You’re in the hall.”

Why not somewhere a little more scenic then? The balcony sounds nice.

“So they can hear you.”

Don’t you want that? Lessen the burden on poor Princess. You’ll do that for her, right? Do it for her do it for her do it for her-

But he didn’t do it for her.

“I had it all planned out,” he murmurs.

The mirror isn’t amused, and the sharp tone it takes makes it clear it doesn’t care one bit for Link’s defiance. Things change.

Let’s get some air. It’s only four blocks. You’re not you without the drink. So let’s take a ride. It’ll be fun.

Link stares deeply into the mirror. His reflection frowns back at him, and he’s desperate to make his mirror self understand. If his reflection gets it, he thinks in some wild and vague conceptual way, then maybe he can reach the mirror itself. “I was gonna leave early,” he explains, but his mirror image’s frown only deepens at this.

Never too late. Let’s go for a ride, honey. You can do it for her do it for her do it for her do it for her do it for her-

“I was going to die young,” gasps Link. Almost laughing, he says, “But you know I have to wait for you.”

The dark gloom that comes over his reflection is so sudden, and it sneers back at him before it turns away.

And Link watches himself go.

The rejection doesn’t hurt so much. Far less than he thought it would.

“Link?”

Smaller and smaller.

“Link? Where are you?”

Walking that long road into the depths. Step by step by step by step. He shrinks. And shrinks. And shrinks. Until there’s nothing left of him.

Link wonders if his reflection actually has one leg or two.

Zelda peers around the corner. “Link, what are you doing?” she yawns.

His reflection gone, he looks behind him. “I did it for myself,” he tells her.

“Put that thing away,” she chides, seeing the mirror twinkling at them in the closet. “Don’t listen to whatever bullshit it wants.” She frees the canvas he’d bunched up behind the mirror. Her reflection moves with her, but when she goes to toss the canvas over the mirror’s surface, she freezes.

She lets the canvas drop.

“Go back to bed, Link,” she commands. “Don’t listen to it.”

“It’s mad,” says Link, “because I never really do what it wants.” He turns to her and repeats himself, because it’s important he hears it, even if his reflection didn’t like it. Even if Link doesn’t like it. “I was going to die young, but I have to wait for you.” He tacks on this time though, “I just never could explain why until now.”

He knows she gets it, because she asks him, “And when exactly after the war did you decide on that?”

He considers that for a moment. “When I decided I needed to leave Ordon forever,” he confesses. “I was going to die in Ordon.”

Her eyes have that sorrowful sheen simmer in them. “You’ve been waiting on yourself for quite some time then, huh?” says Zelda sweetly. “It does get easier, Link.”

Link lifts the canvas some.

Link doesn’t answer Zelda, just looks back at the mirror where his reflection is still gone. The surface of the mirror is just some flat entryway to depths unknown. That he knows a reflection should be looking back at him, but there’s nothing there sparks up his unease about the mirror. Makes him feel like a vampire, because they don’t have reflections, right?

Zelda calls him back. Her expression is inscrutable, but she says nothing more. Link drops the canvas. Zelda just helps him up, shuts the closet and keeps him steady as he hops back to bed.

::

Link decides to call Groose when he’s in the office next. He finds the note Midna taken when he’d first called, and he picks up the receiver. This time, however, when the operator puts him through, he doesn’t get Groose. He gets either Cawlin or Strich, but he’s not sure which one. “And when will he be back in?” asks Link.

“Can’t say.”

“Does he not have a schedule?”

“Don’t give that information out.”

Link rolls his eyes. The one fucking time Groose takes precautions. “Leave him a message for me to call back.”

“Okay, and…?”

“Just tell Groose punks return messages, and he’ll know who I am.”

And so Link plays the waiting game. Each time he catches the phone ringing, he feels a bit of hope only to be let down.

Midway through the afternoon when Midna comes busting into his office, he’s hopeful for just a second, but realizes he’d never heard any ringing. “You’re being weird again,” she says.

“Stupid fucking mirror has me on edge lately,” grumbles Link in reply. He rubs his mouth.

Midna almost manages a sympathetic look. “Hey, well, I don’t know what you did, but Nohansen sent you a fat check.”

Link sighs. “Told him not to worry about it.”

“This is like… rent for the office and both of our apartments,” she says and holds out the check.

“That man’s basically covered my rent all year,” Link mumbles but stops short when he actually looks at the check. He about chokes. “I pay fifty-five a month for my flat, what’re you paying for rent?”

“Well, not that,” she exclaims, motioning at the check. “So what? Cash it, burn it, tell Nohansen we don’t want blood money?”

“Oh shit.”

“What?”

“Might be some kind of blood money, actually.”

“So burn it?”

“Fuck no!” he says quickly, handing it back. “But uh… call him back and make sure he didn’t black out or something writing it before you deposit it.” He shivers a little. “Feel bad if it was some sort of mistake.”

“I don’t think I’ve held this much money in my hands before.” She looks down at the check. “How much was that Sheikah Slate pictobox you got?”

“Just the pictobox? About a hundred. Don’t ask me about the lenses.”

“Damn,” she whispers.

They both jump when the office phone rings. Midna hustles to answer as Link follows behind to listen in the doorway. He silently celebrates when he hears it’s Groose, to Midna’s chagrin, and he shuts the door to pick up the call at his desk.

“Punk,” is all Groose says when Link picks up.

“Hey.”

“So what do I have the pleasure?”

Link pulls up his chair so he can sit down. “I realized I never really got to ask you about the day the Red Lions sank.”

He can almost hear Groose breaking out in gooseflesh. “You want to ask me about this right now?”

“Is there ever a good time?”

“You got me.”

“I just wanted to know how you got us out of there. Why didn’t we get trapped?”

The long silence stretches out between them. Link almost thinks that maybe Groose didn’t hear him. The quiet stretches long and low like hot taffy, and once it reaches the breaking point, Groose speaks. “I know I brag about it, but honestly,” he sighs into the phone, “I have no clue myself. Sometimes I think someone must’ve been watching over you, because you make it out of the sub, the shrapnel, bleeding out, and we had the absolute dumb luck to get found by nearby allies rather than some dipshits from Koholint.

“I know you kind of think we got left by the wayside by the gods or whatever, but Farore must’ve been looking out for you.”

“And not you?”

Groose’s harsh, rueful laugh fills the line. “Your odds were abysmal, for sure. In the negatives. Much worse than mine. I didn’t have shrapnel sticking out of me.”

“I see.”

“Sorry, Link.”

“It’s okay, you can still brag you saved my life twice,” Link laughs. “All I know was that I was stuck. I would have drowned if you hadn’t come for me.”

Groose doesn’t respond right away again, and it makes Link a little nervous. They haven’t had such an awkward conversation since they finally came to an understanding after that scuffle at port Link stepped in on. “You know, I…” Groose drifts to silence again, and Link simply waits. His eyes flick up to his door where he sees Midna’s dark form move about beyond the frosted glass panel. “Listen,” Groose says gravely, “I can’t tell you why I did it. I should have been in the torpedo room, and I just fucked off right before that explosion.

“I’m not much of a religious man either,” Groose says, “but that day made me think there’s got to be something more out there, right? In my mind, they were looking out for you, and I was just lucky enough myself to have taken the message.”

Link’s finding it difficult to hold it together. He takes a deep, ragged breath, trying to not let Groose hear the sniff that comes. “Hey, Groose?” he calls with a cracking voice.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for saving me.”

“… You’re welcome, punk.”

“You can brag it’s three times.”

Groose’s low chuckle crackles on the line.

“Um, that’s all I wanted to ask you,” says Link. He wipes his eyes, suddenly also hating that he’s not made of more metal.

“Well, I’m not done,” cuts in Groose. “You actually called me on just the right day,” he gloats, and his tone makes Link crack with a cackle of his own. “Remember how I told you about that guy known as Skull Kid?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Shady little fucker in a way, but he’s actually pretty solid,” Groose assures. “I was meeting with him to pick up some stuff, and he said he’d been contacted about some of your weirdo interests again. You know, since he dabbled a bit in it,” says Groose cryptically. Link’s attention is all on the phone at his ear. So whoever this Skull Kid guy got the last mirror piece from contacted him again about it? When Link asks this, Groose replies, “Don’t know if it’s the same person or people, no. He’d never really say anyway. I told him I knew someone that might be interested if he wanted to facilitate a deal.”

“We’re interested,” Link confirms. He sniffs.

“It might um… be a lot of dough though,” Groose warns. “Hope you got the clams.”

“We can come up with it,” says Link. “Just find out what the asking is and let me know where and when.”

“If he’s willing to negotiate, I’ll let you know, but he tends to be the price is the price type.”

“Thanks, Groose.”

“I get a cut.”

“Of course.”

“Link, if I may,” Groose says, “why do this? Your weirdo interests aren’t just weird. They’re creepy as all hell.”

“Doing it for her.”

“Yeah, why?”

Now it’s Link’s turn to fall silent and take too long to answer, but he wonders if Groose would get it. Yet Groose already just admitted to his own crazy notions on this same call. “Don’t make fun of me,” Link bites.

“Who? Me?” feigns Groose.

Link lowers his voice. Midna isn’t one to purposefully eavesdrop, but she’d definitely never let him live it down if she hears. “It’s like you coming for me in the sub,” says Link, practically crouching behind his desk to hide from Midna. “Can’t explain it, but I just have this crazy feeling that I know her. Like for a really long time, and… I don’t know, we’re just picking up where we left off?” He swallows. “Gods know from when. Groose, I am so sick of feeling like every day is some fucking episode of déjà vu.”

“… I have no words.”

“I don’t either!” Link bursts in a whisper. “But I just can’t shake it. I owe her this. Don’t know why, but I do. I- uh, I just do.”

“Maybe you’re the weirdo interest,” Groose says.

Hell.

Maybe.

But Groose doesn’t make fun of him. “Hey, maybe you do know what it is then that made me ditch post for you that day.” Neither of them actually knows though.

They end the call with Groose promising to get back to him within the next couple of days, and anxiety cloaks Link. He doesn’t like the idea of obtaining another mirror piece, but he knows that someone somewhere is also desperately looking for the pieces.

Link sits there for a time, listening to the clock ticking and fidgeting. He rubs his mouth. Finally, he can’t take it anymore. He gets up and throws open his door. “Midna?” he calls, and she looks up, irritated he’d deign to bother her. “There’s nothing left on the schedule today to be here for, right?”

“No.”

He looks at the dog on his little bed, who’s been clearly told off for sticking his nose in Not His Business™ if the guilty look on his face actually means anything. He whistles at the dog to get him to attention. “I’m heading home then,” he says as Courage bounces up, ready to go. “Groose called because there’s another possible piece up for grabs, and Zelda’s not going to pick up the phone at home.”

“Shit, are you serious?”

“Yeah. You find out anything about those guys on the list yet?”

“Sakon might be a no, but I’m still trying to get some pictos for them,” she says. “Hopefully it is one of those two.” She clucks her tongue. “If you ask me, I think it’s the Dragmire guy.

“You misremembered though on him being some sort of politician.”

“I did?”

“It’s some bloke named Dragomir you were thinking of.”

“Ah, well, damn.”

“Can’t win them all, Coutts.”

“Yeah,” Link whispers. He tells her, “Give me what you have when I’m in next, and I’ll take a look, too.”

“Are you caught up?” she deadpans, going back to what she’s working on in front of her.

Link sighs. “I got it, don’t worry.”

“I’m your assistant,” she reminds him. “Not your partner.”

He grabs up his coat and his pictobox bag to leave, shutting his door. “I’m not sure where or when yet,” he tells Midna. “But Groose did warn me it might be expensive.”

“Lucky us, we got a check,” Midna says. “I haven’t heard back yet anything, but I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, love.”

“Hey,” she calls as he walks out the door. “Remember: Tomorrow. Nine. Don’t be late.”

“Yep.”

::

She hears the front door open and when she peeks around the wall, she sees Link blowing through the door with Courage right behind. “You’re not going to believe this,” he tells Zelda, breathless, as he shuts the door and sets his bag down. He tears out of his coat and shoes like a whirlwind to scoop her up. “Groose came through again,” he exclaims. His lips plant themselves on her cheek.

“What do you mean?” she squeals and laughs. Her feet dangle above the floor as he carries her into the living room.

“He’s gotten wind of another piece,” Link says, setting her down on the couch. He kneels on the floor in front of her, folding his arms on top of her legs. “That Skull Kid that they got the big piece from, someone’s reached out to him to try and offload another piece since they know he’d taken one previously.”

“Wow,” she whispers. “If it’s real, Groose is two for two!”

“I know, the bastard,” Link laughs.

“Do you have details yet?”

“No,” says Link. “Groose says it might be a lot of money though.”

“I think we can make it work.” Zelda admits, “That was kind of the main reason why I asked my father if he’d send me money. I knew I might need it to get more pieces.”

“If not,” Link proffers, “your old man sent me and Midna a check. I told him not to worry about it, but I guess it’s for that day I went out there.”

“Sounds like him.”

“It’s a lot money though, Zelda,” he whispers, his eyes wide. “Like a lot, a lot.” Something must have happened then. Her stomach twists, but not out of dread, and because he just knows her so well, he just has to ask, “Is this more to do with your request he mentioned?”

She cracks a grin at him. “Maybe.”

“I had a feeling,” he sighs and rolls away to lean his back against the couch. His hands flop onto his lap.

She giggles. “Do you think if I call him, he’ll pick up?” she wonders. He’s a busy man, her father. Or at least he was.

Link seems surprised. “You want to call him? Like right now?”

“Yes.”

“Alright.”

“Really?” she exclaims.

Link grumbles as he picks himself off the floor, “Get your shoes on, Nohansen. Let’s go.”

Zelda rushes to the bedroom though to grab a sweater first. She grabs her coat and cloche and puts them on. Link takes her to a different station than the one they’d gone to last time. It’s a bit further out. He does as he did previously, and he waits patiently for her outside the phone booth, his eyes scanning all around and his hands comfortably in his trouser pockets.

She waits to get connected with her father’s office, but the voice that picks up is definitely not who she ever expected to answer her call. When the “Hullo?” crackles through, she’s left stunned.

She stammers out, “T-Tael?”

“Yeah.”

It takes her actual effort to stutter out her response. She asks him what in the world he’s doing.

“Watching.”

“I don’t think that, um, includes answering the phone?”

“I guess.”

“Tael.”

“Yeah?”

“Where is my father?”

“I dunno. Nearby.”

“Please get him.”

“Okay.”

And then he sets the receiver down and all goes quiet on the line.

Zelda yanks open the booth door, and Link whips around. “You’re not gonna believe who answered.”

Link thinks for a second. “Impa?” he offers.

“Tael.”

Link looks like he’s about to say something to her but then mumbles to himself and turns away. Zelda closes the door and waits. And waits. It stretches on so long, she feeds in more coins into the pay phone. Just in case. She wonders if he’d forgotten what he was doing. Occasionally, Link looks back, to see her just as bored and exasperated.

This station is busier than the one closer to Link’s flat, she thinks, as she watches the people bustle by. But maybe that’s also due to the time of the day. It’s a little early for rush hour and the influx of office workers, but it’s busy all the same.

She jumps when at long last, there’s movement that crackles through the receiver at her ear. Severely out of breath (so definitely not nearby, Tael), her father answers, “Zelda? That you?”

“It’s me.”

“Everything alright?”

“Yes,” she says, smiling. She taps the glass of the booth to catch Link’s attention. He glances back, and seeing her face, knows she finally got through. He nods and goes back to watching. “I’ve had a few breakthroughs on my end,” she says. It all hits her like a rising high tide, lifting her way up from the ocean deep. “I wanted to let you know that I think I’m getting close.” The awful guilt of making him worry as she’s had has always lingered about, and she hopes that if hasn’t already, that one day he could forgive her.

On the other end though, her father gushes with elation.

“Please don’t say anything still, Papa,” she begs. “It’ll be for nothing if I’m found.”

“The boy knows you called.”

“The twins are always watching,” Zelda reminds him. “You should know better.”

Her father breaks out into his usual bubbling laughter, and it makes her ache. How long had it been since he laughed like that?

“Have you spoken with Coutts?”

“No,” Zelda lies. “I haven’t of late. Not since before we last talked.”

“I see.”

She clears her throat. “I was wondering though, if you’d given any further thought to sending Misko away?”

“Well, speaking of the twins keeping a constant vigil,” he says, and Zelda is hanging on to every word. She thinks she knows his answer, but she’s anxious all the same. She needs to hear it. Actually hear it. “It’s thanks to them and Coutts that I have.”

Her breath hitches.

“I hope we can talk about it more when you come home.”

“Really?” she squeaks.

His laughter is more subdued this time when he tells her, “I’m afraid I’ve been humbled in the ways of perception.” She taps the glass again, and Link looks back. She can see herself a little in the glass’s reflection. Her teary eyes and relieved smile tell Link all he needs to know, and the corner of his mouth quirks as he turns away. “I think our friend Coutts is a bit surprised though,” he chuckles.

“How so?”

“He wouldn’t send me a bill, so I just sent him a check,” her father laughs. “I see I have a message from his assistant asking if I am sure about the amount. I’ll have to give her a call back after we’re done.”

Zelda half laughs herself, saying, “I see.”

“Will you be back before the end of the year?” he asks her more seriously.

“I’m not sure,” she says. “I made a lot of progress, but I don’t know how much more I need to do to finish. I might have a better idea in the next couple of weeks though.”

“You spoken much with Coutts?” he asks, and Zelda prickles at this. She can almost hear the mirror cackling at her. He’d already asked if she spoken with him, but then her brain latches onto the “much” that he added in this time.

“Like personally?” she clarifies.

“Interesting man,” her father tuts, not really answering. “You know he actually seemed interested in my blathering?” Zelda can’t tell if he’s looking for information or not, and she has to wonder when the old man decided to start playing detective himself if that’s what he’s doing. “Either that or he’s pretty good actor himself.”

She laughs a little. “He has a sort of dry humor that I know of. I’ve spoken more with his assistant.” Another lie. But what’s one more? Right?

“Ah, yes, real spitfire that one. I do like her as well though,” he muses. “Very lively woman.”

“Papa, about Misko…”

He answers shortly, “I’m working on it.”

“I know, but…” she hesitates. “I want you to understand that I don’t think this is the path for me.”

“Not the path?”

“Yes,” she says mustering that spunky conviction again. “I’d like to choose on my own. Or even not at all. I almost made a fatal mistake with Misko, Papa. I don’t want to repeat it.”

He doesn’t answer right away, but his voice comes through gruffly when he does. “I’ve given that some thought myself,” he says. More teasingly, he chides, “You young modern women have already made your strides. This was an antiquated arrangement, and I’m sorry we ever considered it.” So they can agree on something, she thinks, and she sees Link step further away. He sighs, “Do as you please.”

“Thank you, Papa,” she gushes. “That means a lot. Really.”

“You go anywhere else now that’s been interesting?”

“I saw a bit of Ordon?” she offers.

“Ordon?” he father repeats, and she picks up he’s trying to think of where it is.

Zelda tells him, “Little town on the edge of Faron. One of my stops down south. The trees there are very pretty all dressed up for autumn. Went through there to go down into further into Faron for a bit.”

He hums. “I don’t think I’ve ever taken you up to Akkala, have I?”

“Um, no, not that I can recall.”

Indulging her, her father tells her, “Beautiful in the height of fall. There’s a big research lab up that way, too.”

But Zelda doesn’t get to find out what else about Akkala her father wants to tell. Link is hurrying back, and so quickly from those high elations does Zelda plummet. Something is wrong. “Papa,” she interrupts gravely and with panic, “I have to go.”

“Zelda?”

“I have to go,” she repeats quickly. “I might not be able to call again.” She slams the receiver down on the hook as Link rips open the booth. “I know,” she says.

“Good, let’s go, now,” he hisses, and he yanks her out from the booth. He puts his arm around her, and he starts leading her out of the station, his blue eyes roving. She manages to ask what it is that spooked him so, and he growls, “It’s that fucker Zant Yang.”

“He’s here?”

“Just getting off a northbound train,” Link says. “I don’t think he saw us, but we’re going to head back to the flat, pack, grab the dog, and go.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know,” he snaps. “Just anywhere.”

Despite the distance between them, Zelda wonders why the mirror made not a peep.

Chapter Text

Link practically throws her clothes in her bag, and a part of her wants to complain because he’s mixing the dirty with the clean, but it’s the last thing on his mind right now, and she’s being silly – stupid even – to be caring about such a thing. He does the same for himself, just tossing clothes in his luggage without much care beyond that they’re not just walking out missing knickers kind of deal.

Zelda packs up toiletries for them, and Link snatches them from her and tosses those bags into the luggage. He about clips it shut before something clicks on his face and he backtracks to his dresser and rips out of it some stump socks to throw in as well.

“We’re going to drain that account of yours, too, on our way out,” Link says. “Midna can handle the other one your father has the details for.”

“We need to let her know.”

“Not now,” he spits. “Don’t you think about picking up that phone.”

He’s wracking his brain, trying to think if they’re missing something. Zelda reminds him as long as they have the mirror and the dog, whatever else they can worry about later.

He chews his lip. “Alright, I’m going to go to the car park to get the car, and I’m going to bring it around front. We put the luggage and the dog in first, and then that damn mirror. Understand?”

“Yes.”

Link’s about to fly out of the apartment when he does the one thing he asked her not to: he picks up the phone, swearing to himself. He grows frustrated with how long it takes to get connected, feeling as if every moment counts. Her and Courage wait in the doorway of the kitchen, watching him. He sighs when he’s connected, and he hastily says, “It’s me… No, absolutely not… Look we’ll see you tomorrow maybe, not sure… Yes… Sorry to say, mate. Tomorrow or the next… Yeah, bye.” He slams the receiver down, almost breaking his phone.

“Okay, I’m getting the car,” he says, and he grabs his pictobox bag.

“Who did you call?”

“The one dumb bastard we got right now to rely on,” he gripes, and he storms out.

She gathers their luggage by the door, and then her and the dog go to the back of the flat to look out the window and watch the traffic flow. When she sees Link’s car coming, she whistles for Courage. Zelda grabs their luggage, and after a quick look in the peephole to be sure, exits Link’s flat. She and Courage take the elevator down, and Link’s waiting for them at the curb when she pulls the elevator gates open.

He simply tosses their luggage in the back, and when Courage, not exactly liking the energy and vibes happening all of a sudden, gives the slightest hint of resistance to going into the car, Link almost literally tosses him in the car, too, having absolutely no patience for any shenanigans that might delay them further. “Let’s get that fucking mirror and your money and go,” he mutters.

So back up they ride the elevator. He rips open the closest, and together they work to carry the damn thing to the elevator and down to the car. As Link slams the hatch shut on it, Zelda swears she hears the damnable thing laughing.

::

They don’t speak a word as Link drives and the hours stretch on. Darkness falls like a heavy blanket over them as they drive down the highway through Central Province. The car kicks up plumes of dust from the dirt highway beneath them. Courage has fallen asleep on the bench seat behind them, but occasionally when they hit a pothole or the road becomes extra bumpy, they hear him in the back complaining away about his sleep being disrupted.

“I’m sorry,” says Zelda eventually. “I was the one that wanted to make the phone call.”

Link, much calmer now and nowhere near as short with her, says quietly, “Not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”

“Why? Did you think it was just a coincidence this time?”

Link sneers. “You didn’t hear the fucking mirror?”

“No, actually.”

“Must have decided I’m a better target to torment,” he grumbles. “I saw him, and now I know what you mean by it sounding the alarm.” He glances at her in the corner of his eye. He shrugs. “Can’t say how I know this, but he knows you’ve been hiding with me,” he sighs, and then he says with some hesitation, “and the mirror doesn’t like it. It actually sounded… I guess, scared? I don’t know, something.”

Zelda mutters, “I don’t think the mirror wants to go with them.” But scared? She glances back at the mirror.

Link and Zelda both suddenly shiver, feeling the mirror’s sleepy agreement with them hit from way back in the hatch.

What’d I tell you, Princess? Just need to go for a ride with a handsome man.

“Well, it’s talking to me now,” she complains.

Link gives a light snort, but he says nothing else.

I seem to recall it was you who had all the uncouth thoughts.

“Bugger off,” she snaps back at the mirror.

She crosses her arms and determinedly looks out the window, so she won’t look back at the mirror, and so she won’t look at Link. Link lets her seethe and stew for a time before asking her, “What exactly does it say to you that always gets you so riled?”

Zelda turns it on him, “What’s it say to you?”

He shrugs. “Mostly that godsdamn sonar, I guess. And for a while it was trying to get me to go drink. Tries to let me know where the closest bar is, nothing new that you don’t know already.” He chews his lip a little. “I think there were probably a bunch of other times I’d hear it like say one thing though, but I wasn’t sure what it was I heard. Like it just would slide into the middle of a conversation, or uh… plant itself in my thoughts, and it made me feel like I was nuts.”

Zelda says nothing for a bit after. Then she finally admits to him, “It’s so damn embarrassing, but now it’s trying to tell me that I’m the one that’s been misinterpreting it.” Link suddenly starts to laugh. It’s low, soft. “Stop,” she whines with exasperation, but when he gets louder, she can appreciate the break in tension. She manages to choke out, “It’s bad enough I have to listen to that thing. Its favorite past time is actually making loads of extremely inappropriate and suggestive comments about you.” Link’s laugh just amps up more, and instead of getting him to stop like she wanted, she’s just made it worse as he fills the car with his barking, waking the dog up in the back.

He's practically sobbing. She hates him. “This whole time? Since Necluda?”

Zelda mutters, “Since Necluda.”

“No wonder you’re always so damn red,” he cries.

Zelda sighs, feeling herself flush again. “Oh gods,” she whines, dragging her hands down her face. She might as well just die right there. Thanks, ya stupid mirror.

“What’s the worst one?” he asks, seeing an opportunity to needle her further. He wipes his eyes.

“I don’t even want to think it, let alone repeat it,” she snaps at him. “Will you stop it?”

It takes Link entirely too long to stop laughing at her, and by that point, she is sour- she quickly mentally stamps her foot on the mirror to get it to shut up when it starts up on it’s totally not suggestive commentary again.

She considers just jumping out of the car and dying in the wilderness.

When it grows late to the wee hours of the morning, Link pulls the car off the side of the highway at a small rest stop. It’s not much. Just a place to park the car, and weathered picnic tables offer a spot to eat. Link kills the engine and headlamps, and he slouches some in the driver’s seat. He looks to Zelda, and he says to her, “Let’s just catch a bit of sleep.”

“Sure.”

It’s probably the worst nap she’s ever taken between the frayed nerves and trying to at least be somewhat comfortable on the car’s bench seat. The sun is trying to poke its way up over the horizon. Bones crack, and muscles ache. She drifts in and out of sleep, soothed by the steady beat of Link’s heart under her ear. Eventually, she tries to rouse Link, but he stubbornly refuses to stir. Zelda gives up trying to wake him and curls up against him until he finally seems amenable to waking.

They keep going, only stopping for gas, really. And towards evening, Link finally finds a pay phone while she and Courage wait in the car. When he comes back, he’s back to being as frosty as he was the prior afternoon.

“She won’t fucking pick up,” he swears.

Zelda tries to sleep. It’s unrestful and she finds herself constantly stirring out of waking nightmares that leave her memory all too quickly.

Eventually, Link shakes her awake, but she’s too groggy to actually come to. He leaves her in the car, and she hears in some distant part of her brain him and another speaking in hushed tones, him commanding the dog, the dog huffing back.

::

It's a peculiar thing: Whenever she says “Link”, he sees that the man responds, and he responds to nothing else. So the man is LINK. But the woman does the same when he calls out “Zelda” or “Tetra” or “Tet”. Very confusing. Why have so many sounds for one thing? But he thinks it must be ZELDA since he hears LINK say that the most. So the woman must be ZELDA. But also sometimes TETRA or TET. So weird. Very confusing. YES.

“What?” LINK asks, and he knows that sound, but not what LINK wants. So he SIT, and he WATCH.

He sniffs the OUTSIDE air.

It’s different here.

Not like HOME.

ZELDA is SLEEP, he sees, and that’s why LINK moves him BACK. He skitters backwards and WAIT, watching as LINK pulls ZELDA out from the car. Another man comes around, and he doesn’t know this man. Doesn’t like how he just appeared. He smells kind of funny, too. But then very quickly he sees that LINK is friendly with the man. They smile and greet each other.

So maybe he’s OKAY.

LINK tells him to hurry up, but he’s not sure what that is, so he’ll just stay right here. “Hey, Courage,” LINK calls. He realizes he needs to follow when LINK says to go WITH ME and sees they’re going INSIDE, so he scrambles after them.

INSIDE has lots and lots of new things to sniff. He works his way slowly about when the man comes INSIDE with the big thing from the CAR.

He doesn’t like the thing from the CAR. They had put it away, out of sight, for so long that he had forgotten about it. But the then they brought it back when LINK said something about the CAR. He was excited about the CAR, at least, until the CAR made LINK and ZELDA very nervous. Then they brought the thing out, and he saw it was going with them. NO GOOD.

“Courage,” LINK snaps, so he tries to get his fill of information while hustling after LINK. “Let’s go.” He gives up his sniff investigation begrudgingly and LET’S GO.

Lots of weird smells are here though. It’s hard to follow LINK. Things he doesn’t recognize, and he wants to sniff it all. LINK is moving too quickly for that though.

He hears the man asking if they’re GOOD, and he whips around to the man. GOOD clicks in his wee brain, and he starts salivating a little. The man leaves though, and he doesn’t get a TREAT or a PET. That’s disappointing. An injustice. GOOD almost always comes with TREAT or PET, so what gives?

LINK sets ZELDA down on the BED, and he takes the first opportunity to jump up. “Goddesses, dog, not now,” LINK says, but it’s not in that happy or stern tone, so it seems BAD. And he gets picked up and unceremoniously removed from the BED.

So it’s BAD.

It’s EXCUSE ME. But he doesn’t want to EXCUSE ME. The BED is comfy and it has ZELDA, but LINK tells him NO. He has to keep OFF the BED. He hates that, but LINK is the authority among them. He’ll grumble about it at the least.

He likes ZELDA better. She always makes sure to PET him and PLAY, and she always has a happy voice for him. She gives him lots of GOOD things. She’s no real disciplinarian either. And he likes that. He gets to away with things. LINK sometimes sneaks him TREAT when she isn’t looking, and he is rougher and tougher when they PLAY TUG or FETCH, and he likes all of that. So he likes LINK, but LINK also never lets him get away with anything.

LINK always uses that stern voice so he knows it means business. If he listens though, LINK will use that happy voice and give TREAT or PET, and those things are all GOOD, so listening to LINK when he uses that stern tone is GOOD. He sometimes likes doing BAD things, but when he does, LINK doesn’t look at him, doesn’t talk to him, so how is he supposed to get TREAT then?

He stays OFF. He watches as LINK moves about the room. Picking things up. Putting things down. The thing from the CAR is at least out of the room. The man left it outside the door. Since LINK is busy and ZELDA is SLEEP, he goes and sniffs at it. It hisses and swats back at him on his nose.

He yelps.

BAD thing.

“Shh, what’s your problem?” LINK says. “Get back.” So he goes BACK. And LINK shuts the door.

That’s OKAY. The thing is on the other side and gone.

LINK gets in the BED, and he thinks now is OKAY. So he hops back up. “Ugh,” LINK says. “What did I tell you?” He decides to go to SLEEP like his people when LINK doesn’t EXCUSE ME.

But later on when the whisperings wake him, he tries to tell LINK and ZELDA, but they don’t stir from SLEEP. He clambers down from the BED and goes to the door. He sniffs at the small opening, smelling the thing. It smells a lot like HOME, but it’s not GOOD.

Then he smells something a little off. It’s from LINK, and when he climbs on top of LINK, he can hear the thundering in his chest, which is BAD.

The thing from the CAR wants LINK, and he doesn’t like that. It’s also BAD, but maybe it can’t GET YOU because the door is there. Despite the racket it likes to make at night with the beeping noise, he’s never seen it WALK. It must not be able to do that.

He stays put where he is though, because LINK needs HELP since the thing is making the beeping sound again. He climbs up a little closer, so he can listen to LINK breathe better. It quickens a little, but not like when LINK wakes up. LINK stays SLEEP, and that’s GOOD he decides.

::

When she finally wakes, she’s squashed in a little room, overflowing with all sorts of odds and ends like a storage room. Courage is next to her, awake and wide eyes watching. He huffs at her to get a move on now that he sees she’s stirring. Her luggage is at the foot of the rollaway she’s on, so she changes into fresh clothes and wanders out of the room with Courage at her heels.

The mirror is resting against the wall just outside the bedroom door. It seems a bit duller of late, she thinks suddenly. She frowns at, and Courage, too, keeps a careful distance from it. He never much liked the mirror to begin with, but so long as it was out of sight for him, he wasn’t bothered at least. He gives it a quiet little snarl as he hurries out after Zelda.

Something’s a bit off with the mirror… more so than usual, that is. Zelda tugs on the canvas to give it a peek. It doesn’t shimmer and gleam at her this morning like it usually does to catch her attention. Its surface even doesn’t have the same glossiness to it. It’s lost its edge almost. Zelda moves to look into it, pull up at the wrap more from under the rope ties, and she’s surprised to find that it doesn’t suck her in. Her reflection stares back at her in the glass, and she thinks that maybe the mirror needs a cleaning. The stray thought is strange. She’d never cleaned it before, actually. It always looked so shiny and clear without such attentions. Something’s off. She’s not sure she likes it.

Zelda thinks over all the tales she read over the summer. The prevalence of moonlight in them in neutralizing broken mirrors is undeniable. While it literally is broken, Zelda knows the Twilight mirror isn’t broken, per say. It’s active at all times during the day, but it does seem to be more interested in interacting after dark. She wonders if the dullness that covers it now is due then to it being morning, but that just doesn’t sit quite right either. Moonlight is to neutralize, she thinks again, but she ponders then if that’s because moonlight is a natural light source that cuts through the night.

Zelda’s missing something, she knows, and it’s not just that part on how she could irreparably break the mirror.

She taps the glass as if trying to wake it. It doesn’t answer. It doesn’t stir. Maybe if it were nighttime, it’d be happy to answer her.

How interesting the Twilight Realm must be, she imagines. A place of perpetual night where to see a sun, one must find a Sol rock. It strikes her then how similar that sounds to their own moon. Grimly, she gives the old moonlight rituals and theories a bit more credence.

However which way, there’s something off.

She definitely doesn’t like it.

Zelda rises and catches up with Courage waiting for her. She hears men speaking down the hallway, and recognizing Link’s voice, she moves towards them. Courage tip taps his feet as he follows.

She thinks about how tired Link looks when she enters a small kitchen and finds him sat at a small table with Groose. “You look like shit,” she says, and some flicker of humorous familiarity brightens those mismatched blues, despite the restless bags under them and dark circles.

Groose rises and pours her coffee as she takes a seat, and Courage is disappointed that there’s no crumbs and plops with the heaviest of sighs at Link’s feet. Link replies she looks much the same, and she thanks Groose for the cup.

“We were discussing how our mutual friend showed up,” Link tells her cryptically, and she understands this be Zant Yang. “Groose is going to try and negotiate for us with Skull Kid today.”

“Maybe you both better get some more sleep in the meantime,” suggests Groose. Their worn-out faces aren’t exactly a swell sight. “Sorry it’s small, but it’s what I got,” he says apologetically to her regarding the bed, and Link waves him off. Zelda’s just glad there’s an actual bed at all.

Groose bids them farewell after that to head to his shop.

“You want to grab some food at a diner?” he asks. “I need to use the pay phone.”

They head out looking like absolute messes, but Zelda thinks food sounds too good to wait to clean up. They pull in a small diner not too far down the road from Groose’s shop, and Link makes a beeline for the pay phones next to the front. When he pulls the receiver away from his ear, Zelda realizes he’s calling Midna, and she is popping off. Zelda can’t quite understand the words, but Midna’s hollering is loud enough to hear. Link grimaces and tries to calm her down and swears that Tetra’s with him, so no. He wasn’t on some bender, for Farore’s sake.

Zelda holds out her hand, and Link snaps at Midna to shut up for ten seconds, which she thankfully does so Zelda’s own ear isn’t subject to the brutal verbal assault. “Hey Midna,” she says. “I’m here, see?”

“He’s telling the truth?” she asks. “He didn’t show up, no word-”

“I know,” Zelda sighs apologetically and cutting Midna off from another somewhat deserved tirade. “There wasn’t much time, but we’re okay for now, and he’s not drunk, I promise.”

Midna asks where they are, and Zelda hesitates, looking to Link. His eyes are somewhere far, far away. Her staring jars him. He rubs his mouth when he snaps to attention. “I don’t think I can say,” says Zelda, and her mind keeps going back to that little gesture. It’s something Link’s been doing quite a bit of since she had him put in hospital. “So will you talk to him? Not scream? Please?”

“Ugh, no promises,” she says. “Just in case he does deserve it.”

“By all means.”

Zelda hands the receiver back, now unable to hear any garbled shrieking from the earpiece when Link holds it up, but he rubs his mouth again.

“Yeah, I’m sure you can guess,” he mutters. “I’m not saying anything on here… Did you…? I see… No, keep the door locked, make it looked closed. All that stuff we’ve been keeping, get rid of it out of there… I don’t know, maybe…? Call her up, show up, I’m sure it won’t be an issue.” He scowls. “Sure, I’ll remember that next time,” he grumbles. After a few seconds, he holds the receiver out a bit from his head again, his face impassive. “Hung up,” he says simply and puts the receiver back.

He crosses his arms, thinking, and clucks his tongue.

“Head in?” asks Zelda.

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he murmurs back and turns towards the diner.

After plopping themselves by a window, that Link keeps a careful eye out of, they place their order, and Link starts fidgeting with some of the sugar packets in the caddy on the table. “Still mad?” asks Zelda as he intently turns and flips the packet between his fingers.

“Oh yeah. Probably should have just brought her with,” Link says. He grimaces. “I don’t know. Didn’t think about it, like, you know… that she wouldn’t be fine.” He shrugs and scratches at his hairline. “She’s always been the one to hold down the fort, too,” he says wryly.

“You think he’ll try to go for her?”

“Maybe?” He flicks the sugar packet. His mouth pulls into a thin line. “To get to you, I think he knows he has to get to me… and then… well, there’s Mid.” He rubs his mouth, then says, “She’s taking what we gathered so far on your stuff and is going to hide out at my friend Ashei’s for a bit.” As an aside, he tells her, “You’d like her. Absolutely no manners with that one. Blunt as a rock, too.”

“You make her sound a bit like Midna.”

Link’s shoulders shake a bit with laughter. “Midna cuts to kill,” he says. “Ashei just bludgeons and maims.”

“What’s she look like?” Zelda asks, wondering if maybe she’d been one of his friends that she’d ignored who made an appearance in the flat’s peephole.

“She’s got super black hair. Perpetually looks sleep deprived like us right now,” he snickers. “Like straight up raccoon eyes.”

“Sounds familiar,” says Zelda. “I think I must’ve seen her come by.”

“I think she started gambling with us maybe a couple of years ago,” Link muses. “Cleaned us all out that first night.”

They eat their food and keep their conversation light, but Zelda thinks that there’s one more item on Link’s list to discuss. Even as they leave, both feeling drained, Zelda takes note that Link doesn’t rub his mouth again. She does catch though the slight tremor in his jaw when he clenches his teeth.

He stops for gas on the way back to Groose’s, and he only brings up that item once they’re down the road. “So does Ganondorf Dragmire ring any bells for you?”

“That’s one of the auction names, right?”

“Yep.”

“Nope.”

“I think that might be your Gerudo,” Link says. “Midna got a picto of the other guy we were thinking, and he’s definitely not Gerudo. Some squirrelly looking bloke with a bald head. Looks practically like a ghost from what Mid says.” Link shrugs. “Shady kind of bastard at the very least, too.”

Zelda taps her foot. She thinks back to the auction. There was Zant, the sickly looking Twili that backed down as the third highest bidder and stalked her in the night, and then the Gerudo man, who was as typical as you could get for the desert dwelling people. A darker complexion undoubtedly emphasized by the harsh sun of the Gerudo Desert, and a shocking twist of deep auburn hair. She thinks of his stern face, the absolute steely way he’d glanced at her when they called the auction. A pale man with not a hair on his head is definitely the exact opposite.

“So Zant Yang and Ganondorf Dragmire,” Zelda says to herself.

When they walk into Groose’s, Link wastes no time in bolting for the bed Groose set up for them. Running on way less sleep than she is, he’s out the second he hits the mattress.

::

The next day, they wait again for Groose. It’s disappointing, but he couldn’t track Skull Kid down the day before. Zelda sits on the front steps of Groose’s home with Courage at her feet (who must be the referee here), watching as Link tries to act like he’s not oozing with anxiety. He seems happy for the distraction. Groose lives off of a paved street, and Link plays with the neighborhood children of various ages as they use the street for playing ball hockey. He’s far too tall for the stick they’ve loaned him, but he plays along well enough with them. Zelda thinks he has some sort of knack with children. It makes her a bit envious.

One of the kids shouts for an oncoming vehicle, and they quickly nab their ball and makeshift goals out of the way until the car passes. The afternoon sun beams down bright and warm on them, and their shadows on the pavement stretch out before them to make even the smallest child look like a giant.

Link gives up the game when they move to resume, thanking them for letting him play and handing back the stick he’d borrowed. He waves off their whines to continue and promises them a next time that may never come before bounding back to Zelda sitting on the steps. He leans over and gives Courage’s belly a good scratch.

“Seem real taken with you,” she says lightly as they watch the kids get back to their game. The ball flicks about quickly, and their shoes scrape the road as they chase after it with their sticks.

Link shrugs as he takes a seat next to her. “Can’t keep doing it though,” he chuckles. “Bothering my leg.” He leans forward with one elbow resting on his knee and he raps his other fisted hand on the prosthetic. A trick he does, Zelda’s learned, that sometimes helps shake off the pain of a phantom limb.

He was already out playing with them when Zelda went to look for him after waking from another nap, so she asks how he’d gotten himself roped in. “Helped the little one fish his ball out the storm drain,” he says, pointing at the offending drain on the roadside where the children have now packed their sweaters to block off the wide opening. “There’s a grate on the inside that it luckily got caught on. Kid was distraught.”

“Over a little ball?”

Link cracks a soft grin at her. “Don’t you remember being a child?” he asks.

“Well, certainly.”

He shakes his head. “What I mean is their perspective and perception,” he explains. “They don’t yet know all the pains or worries that comes with growing old. Losing a ball down the drain could very well be the worst thing that little boy knows.”

“I suppose we forget that they live rather simply.”

“Wish my biggest problem in life was losing a toy,” Link sighs, leaning back on the stoop, but he quickly breaks into laughter when she apologizes for being his biggest problem.

“CAR!” and the children scatter with their things like beetles from the road.

Zelda straightens when she sees it’s actually Groose returning. He pulls in behind their car, waving at the kids when he exits. “You’re in luck,” he grins at them as he strides over with a prideful gait. “Skull Kid’s a bit of a slippery guy, but here’s his price.”

He produces a small slip of paper with a wink. Link takes the paper, looks at it with no reaction, and then hands it to Zelda. “And when?” he asks. She looks at the paper, and it takes a moment to decipher Groose’s scrawl, but the price written down is surprisingly less than she expected. Less than her auction bid, even.

She wonders how big this piece is then.

“Three days,” Groose says with a grimness Zelda doesn’t expect from him. “Can you make that?”

Link’s eyes slide to Zelda. “Can only hope.”

Groose nods. He’ll confirm the day and time, and then he’ll be given the meet point. Zelda’s stomach churns. Another piece. So close. So far. “You can stay here until it’s time. I won’t kick you out or nothin’,” Groose says. More pointedly to Link, he says, “Just don’t be gross.”

“Oh, not a problem. I’m still looking for signs to be sure she likes me.”

Groose blanks out.

“It could be that I’m just being polite,” Zelda explains, but their jokes don’t land with Groose, who just struts into his house, confused as ever.

Courage, however, looks disappointed that he’d been passed over for pets and hurries after Groose inside to rectify the injustice.

Eventually, Link stands up. “Let’s go,” he says, holding out his hand to help her up, and they follow Groose inside.

Link ends up shooing her out of the kitchen when Groose asks if they’re hungry, despite her protests that she in fact has learned more than boiling water. (“Don’t listen to her, mate. She’ll give you food poisoning.”) Sous Chef Courage is also more than happy to lend his services in the kitchen, but he is also rejected.

Just as well, Zelda spends the time rolling about Groose’s living room with Courage. And just to make sure they’re friends, Groose occasionally comes and tosses Courage bits of cheese here and there (one of his safe foods since it’s his favorite to steal) when Link isn’t looking. She hopes Faron cheese though isn’t actually different from what he gets in Castleton. Link might punt the dog into the sea before the mirror then.

They listen to a few radio shows that come on in the evening. Link and Groose reminisce some about their (not terrible bits of) time in the Navy together. They play cards while they listen to the shows, and Zelda very handedly beats them both.

Zelda almost thinks that there’s nothing wrong in her life.

Don’t be making mistakes now, Princess.

She doesn’t intend to.

Groose wanders to bed before them, and so as to not cause a repeat of Ordon, reminds Link that he’d taken his stash of whisky and bourbon to the shop and very much out of Link’s hands.

“Thanks, Groose,” Link says softly as the large man leaves them be.

When they do retire, now much less dead after catching up on their sleep since arriving, they realize Groose’s apology on the rollout’s size was warranted. “Just get the dog off,” Link complains, shifting around to try and get comfortable.

“You would have this perfect, little angel sleep on the cold, hard floor?”

“It’s a dog.”

Zelda sniffs at him, “I know you sneak him blueberries.”

“It’s a dog.”

“He stays.”

So it’s them squashed together with a two stone loaf mashed between and on them. Super comfy, definitely. Yessir. But for Zelda, she’s pleased. If they’re with her, she’s safe. It’s comfy to her in that security sense, even if she secretly agrees with Link on the physical side, so she does her best to settle into that security.

Link pulls her away from her light doze with his soft voice. “You never did say what you asked your old man for,” Link says suddenly.

Zelda frowns at him, because what exactly happened to all that perception he had? She thinks he’s lying to her. He must at least have an idea. He nodded at her when she was on the phone with her father like he did at least. “I asked him to get rid of Misko,” she says.

“Nice.”

“I’d have thought you’d be more enthused,” she says flatly at his quick and clipped response. “More thrilled.”

“I’m not the one with a contract with the man,” Link chuckles. “I suspected, since he brought me out there to sniff him out essentially.”

“Well, he promised he’d take care of it,” says Zelda. “Said to just do as I please.”

“He’s been letting you do a lot of that of late.”

“I suppose he has,” she laughs. “I’m surprised that he doesn’t question more, to be honest.”

Link says gruffly, “Doesn’t need to. He knows.”

“He tell you that?”

“Gods no,” Link scoffs. “But he knows.”

“How are you so sure?”

“He’s your dad, Zelda. Trust me. He knows.”

“But he somehow doesn’t know a thing about Misko?” she wonders with bitter petulance.

Link says, “Because there’s the contract you mentioned. Something to lose. Better to just turn a blind eye than deal with a problem with heavy consequences and hope that… you know, maybe it just works itself out. Bury your head in the sand deal, I guess.” He thinks for a minute. “I suppose that Misko had only started escalating right before you took off, so that also lends to there not really being a big problem. It’s easier to ignore.” She realizes he’s referencing when Misko struck her for the first time, but she still can’t help but feel let down and angry by it all.

“I guess,” she says at last, trying to stamp down all the negative bile rising. “I just wish maybe he would have realized it was making me miserable sooner.” He probably would have listened to her if she had told him about the slap… No, not probably. He would have listened, but at the time she didn’t care. In her mind, Zelda Nohansen was going to be dead soon enough, and she was going to start life in the southeast as Tetra Bosphoramus, so what was the use then?

“Was it you that suggested he talk to Tael to start with?”

“Yes.”

Link’s low laughter starts to bubble up as he tries to keep quiet and contain it to not disturb Groose sleeping down the way. “He said he thought he might have better luck breaking a spy.”

“Wonder what all they’ve seen,” she says.

Link snorts, still shaking a bit with laughter.

::

After a hasty goodbye with Groose, they hurry out to the meet point Groose was given: Puffer Beach. Link prays that this all goes smoothly. He doesn’t feel as confident as Zelda (“We got a guard dog, remember?”) about it all, but he also suspects that she’s trying to play up her own moxie. One of them has to keep it together, right?

Link rubs his mouth.

The forest highway gives way to sloping hills as they drive further south.

Groose helped them better conceal the mirror in the cargo, and the thing has been deathly silent for him since their flight from Castleton… he thinks. He knows it has a way of worming itself in his thoughts a bit too naturally after all. It tried in on Zelda during their ride down to Faron, but she hasn’t mentioned anything else unless his rattled sleep has fuzzed his memory. It puts him at a slight ease at the very least, and he’s sure if it didn’t warn him and only Zelda, she’d say something to him as well.

It hasn’t said anything about Midna either, but then again, he doesn’t think it’s ever said anything about her. If she were in trouble, would it tell them? Or would it ignore her like it usually seems to do? As far he knows, Midna is very lucky to not have had the mirror try to invade her head.

Thinking of Midna though gives him a fresh bite of anxiety. Whatever delicate patch they’d made, Link worries in the back of his mind that he’s gone and trashed it all over again. Just stomped on the glass ties they’d just agreed upon. He hates himself for it. He’s always trying to find new ways to self-destruct it seems. He couldn’t think about her when he was throwing Zelda and the dog in the car beyond that Midna would still be there like she always is.

Logistically speaking, he’s not sure they had time to grab Midna, but this thought doesn’t do much to actually put him at ease about it. The festering guilt is eating at him so viscously, that he was fully ready to just let her scream him down on the phone when he finally got through to her. It wasn’t even a thought in his mind when he was flinging clothes in their bags that she would freak out when he didn’t show up on time, and Zelda even had tried to warn him. He’d only cared about getting her as far as possible from Zant Yang. He likely shattered what tentative trust Midna had in him.

For some reason, the idea of rifts hits him for not the first time, and he swears it must be something that he’d read going through Zelda’s books or maybe it was something that she mentioned to him? It makes his head hurt.

Link almost doesn’t hear it. It’s soft. At first, he mistakes it for the dog, but then it grows a little louder. A grumbling or sorts. Like a stomach growling. The sound makes his pulse quicken a bit and the beginnings of perspiration to break at his hairline. It’s been quiet, but the soft stirring from the back sets him off, almost like the thing back there is tired and weak. He wonders if the mirror knows where they’re going, but then why the hungry growl? Wouldn’t it be more excited? Happy even?

He says nothing to Zelda though. Just keeps turning it over by himself, unable to really articulate his strange thoughts on the matter properly, and drives onward to the meet point.

They make it with about thirty minutes to spare. Link parks the car some ways away. He tells Zelda to stay put with the mirror and the dog, but he relents on the dog when Courage starts trying to scramble out of the backseat after him. “Take him with,” Zelda says. “I will watch the mirror.”

“You sure?” he asks. Something’s not quite right with it, he thinks, but he’s not sure what or if he’s even reading the dumb thing right. He can’t deny that it seems a bit… docile the past few days.

Weirdly, he likens it to being weak from hunger, and then just as swiftly, he slaps the idea away. Absurd.

“Yes,” she insists.

So Link yanks open the back door for the dog and tosses Zelda the keys.

“Don’t worry about us, you just go and keep going if someone comes at you,” Link tells her, and she eyes him as he grabs his pictobox bag.

Link and the dog make their way down winding footpaths from the grasslands that precede the coastline. He checks the time on his pocket watch anxiously, and he feels like he’s making some sort of illicit deal, which makes him laugh.

The dog gets suspicious about the sand, and Link realizes that he probably has never seen sand in his short, little life. The dog growls and snaps at the sand when it tries to eat his feet. “Hey!” Link calls back at the dog. “With me!” Hearing that and seeing that Link keeps going on ahead without him, spurs the dog to stop fussing and chase after him. Link is going to need protecting from the weird dirt anyway, of course.

Link walks down Puffer Beach, heading closer to the sand that’s been left wet and packed from the waves. The dog seems to like this a bit better since his feet don’t sink as much in the sand.

Salt is in the air. Wrapped with the humid wind of the ocean, he’s a bit unsteady. The air here reminds him too much of the submarine. But his feet are on land, so he keeps reminding himself that he can’t be on the sub and the beach at the same time.

Link checks his pocket watch, and he sees it’s almost time, but it seems as though he’s perfectly alone with the dog on the beach. He decides to take the time to take out his pictobox, and he fits the lens on.

The tide rolls in, eating up the beach a little and then shyly retreating. The afternoon sun sits kind of low in the sky, and Link laments the shorter days that is upon them. He likes the fall, but the shortening days are a real drag. There still should be enough light though as he peers through the pictobox and starts adjusting the lens.

“Let’s go,” he calls to the dog. “Leave it!” And after some consideration, the dog spits out the shell he picked up rushes over to trot along right next to Link, and he quickly snaps a few shots of the dog running to him.

He keeps walking, dog at his heels. There’s a rock overhang that stretches over the beach as a natural archway, and it’s here that he almost misses someone speaking to him since he’s too absorbed in looking at the formation, but the dog catches it and freezes. Lucky for Link, they repeat, “You Coutts?” Link stops short and looks around and then spies in the shadows of the rock formation, a lithe figure there.

“You know Bado?” he asks instead.

The dog gives a low growl, and for now, Link isn’t going to stop him.

“I do,” the figure answers. “So are you Coutts?”

“Yep.”

Link taps the dog with his foot. “Quiet,” he says, and the dog mostly settles for some soft barking that sounds all silly like boof. Makes it hard to take the little guy too seriously.

Skull Kid emerges, and Link has to wonder if this actually is a child with how thin and frail he looks. He can’t make heads or tails of it since Skull Kid is wearing some sort of goofy, spiked mask. His voice, too, is not too low nor too high, lending even more ambiguity to him, when he says, “Let me show you what I got.”

Chapter Text

It’s like a lock clicking in place when Link’s eyes fall on it. The mirror piece is not nearly as big as the one Groose had, but it’s also more sizeable than the one Zelda won at auction. Just their luck, too, it’s the real deal. The piece has that familiar magnetic pull on him, so it’s much more active at the moment than the one he left in the car with Zelda, and when he looks at himself in the mirror, he’s not looking back. No reflection of himself appears. It's like looking into a fog.

Even the dog can tell it’s a real mirror piece. Link knows this, because as soon as the dog catches sight of the mirror, he throws an absolute fit. Growling and snapping at it, cowardly Courage hides behind the safety of Link’s legs to put on a show of strength to the mirror. Skull Kid at least doesn’t seem bothered by the dog flipping his shit at the piece of glass.

The mirror, too, gives no reaction to the dog’s aggression.

“What do you think?” Skull Kid asks which is enough to shake Link from whatever reverie he was stuck in from the mirror. Link straightens up, grounding himself by holding his pictobox close. He dares a glance at the mirror. Zelda had known her piece fit what Groose had, but Link isn’t sure if that’s the case here. “Bado gave you the price, too, yeah?” Skull Kid asks as Link forcibly drags his eyes away from the mirror.

“He did,” Link confirms.

Link looks around. Puffer Beach is still deserted apart from the seagulls that caw overhead. Turning to Skull Kid, Link asks him, “Why all the weird secrecy?”

“Don’t you know what this thing is?”

“Clearly.”

“Then you should know why all the secrecy.”

Link hates this kind of cryptic shit. He says as much. “Are you getting some more unsavory folks then hounding you about this?” he asks Skull Kid. “Do they know for sure you have it?”

When Skull Kid shakes his head, his weird little mask shakes with him, and it continues a little even after he stops shaking himself. “Never confirmed with them that I had it.”

Groose warned him that Skull Kid is a bit shrewd, but Link decides to press his luck just a bit. “You got names by chance?” Link asks. “Curious, because I think there’s two other men named Dragmire or Yang looking for these pieces, too.”

“No name.”

Figures. Link sighs. “Alright.” Skull Kid at least also seems to be of similar mind in that this meeting never happened. Because Skull Kid never had the mirror piece, of course. Any mirror piece. Ever.

What’s a mirror?

When Link voices this, Skull Kid also confirms. “We both know what this thing is after all,” he titters.

“If you don’t mind, how exactly did you get this piece?” Link questions. “My understanding is that Bado also got another piece from you previously.”

Skull Kid shakes his weird little mask again. “Can’t say.” Right, right.

Annoying.

“May I ask a favor instead then?” Link asks, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He tries not to look at the mirror piece, even though it’s desperately trying to call out to him, begging him to look its way so it can suck him in. “If you hear anything else about one of these, give Bado a call? He’ll let me know.”

Skull Kid tilts his head, curious. “You’d be interested in buying more pieces?”

“If they come your way.”

Skull Kid considers this. “Okay,” he relents, a bit too eagerly for Link’s tastes. Link doesn’t really want more of the mirror, and he certainly feels very queer about this whole meeting. He thinks about dumping the piece they do have in the ocean again when Skull Kid shakes his head, and the mask skitters with the movement. “Something about you that the mirror likes,” Skull Kid says. Link arches an eyebrow at this. “I didn’t sell to the other guy, because the mirror said not to.”

“Other guy?”

“He has no name.”

Link frowns. Of course. “I see.”

“Just like you have no name.”

“So do you… hear it talk?”

“Mirrors don’t talk.”

Link’s eyes dart around. “But… you know what it wants?” Link asks, now confused.

“It has wants and needs,” Skull Kid agrees, but he doesn’t elaborate any further. “It’s fine with going with you, so I will sell to you.”

Link thinks back to how he and Zelda got the other piece from Groose. He’d said something very similar to Skull Kid. Is the mirror purposely trying to seek them out? Would they need to be actively searching for the other pieces then if the mirror pieces are doing what they can to reach him and Zelda by themselves?

Link doesn’t ask anything more from the weird Skull Kid, just hands over the money. Skull Kid counts it out as Link puts his pictobox back in his bag. Skull Kid gives him a nod and slips away the way he came around the rock formation. Link takes the mirror and feels very, very odd about the whole meeting as he trudges back to the car with the dog at his side. He assures himself there’s no real danger at the moment since there’s no alarms going off from the mirror pieces. He also just innately trusts that Skull Kid is also looking to stave off heat from the mirror pieces.

Link thinks he might be relying too much on instinct and the mirror of late.

What if that’s the real trap after all?

Or the trap is thinking it’s a trap?

And-

Ugh, gods. Stop.

He spits on the sand.

As the sand gives way to the grass and dirt path, Link and the dog head back up the elevation to where he left Zelda and the car. He curses the stupid mirror, because why is the damn thing so deceptively heavy? He eyes the dog, too, who doesn’t look like he should weigh over two stone, but definitely does. Dense loaf.

Link is relieved when he sees the top of the car over the hill come in view at last. Less due to the physical effort of dragging her dumb mirror up a hill, and more that Zelda must be fine then if the car’s still there.

He and the dog keep heading up the path, and Zelda must have seen them since he hears the car door fling open. She hurries forward into his view, and Link sees the way she deflates from the release of all the tension in her when she sees him, the dog, and the damnable mirror.

“It’s the real thing?” she calls out.

When Link gets closer, he tells her gruffly to open the hatch. “It’s the real thing,” he says. “Even the dog was hating on it.” Zelda pulls open the hatch. Link nods at the wrapped piece. “So how did you attach the two pieces before?” he asks.

“It just fit?” she says, clearly unsure. “I mean that it just repaired itself, I didn’t do anything except figure out where the piece fit.”

Link frowns. “I guess if we’re lucky, this fits in with what we have. I couldn’t tell like you did last time, honestly.” Link thinks they’ve had a lot of luck of late, and he worries that they’ve tapped into that a little too much. When does the well run dry? When the mirror decides they’re no longer fit to possess it?

He sets the new piece down and chases the dog back into the car. It doesn’t take the dog very long to pop up from the back seat to oversee the very whack operation. Together, Link and Zelda unwrap the mirror from the canvas covering and take a look at the whole the thing.

“You know, it’s the question of how many pieces exist of this damn thing that really worries me,” Link says as he tries only to skate his eyes along the mirrors’ edges to see if he can piece them together. Don’t get locked in. Don’t get locked in.

Zelda, being the smarty pants she is, sees where it fits first. “Right here,” she says, and she points out the right side. “It fits along the other side of the one I got at the auction.”

Link pulls the mirror from the hatch a bit more and turns it so Zelda can lift the new piece into place. He tries not to look too hard into the mirror, and the weird Skull Kid’s words eats at him. When Zelda gets the piece just right, Link watches in awe as it quickly grabs hold and glues itself together. Once the fuse has completely melded, the mirror looks pristine and like it had never been three pieces before.

“Hey, you think the mirror wants us because we have most of it together?” he asks.

Zelda bites her lip as she pulls out the canvas wrap and starts trying to secure it while Link holds up the mirror. Link thinks they’ll need more canvas to cover it soon if they get another piece or even manage to complete it. “I don’t know,” she says. “I only had the smallest piece, and the big one still chose us, remember? It was telling Groose to save it for us.”

“That Skull Kid said much the same,” Link tells her as she struggles to tie down the canvas. “Some others wanted it, but he denied having it and said it wanted to go with us.” He adds, “He implied that it didn’t talk with words though, he just kind of…”

“Assumed it?”

“I guess?”

Zelda ties the last bit of rope, and Link shoves the mirror back in, where the dog growls at it intruding on his space. They close the hatch.

“I wonder why we hear it so clearly then?” she asks.

“Proximity? Time?” Link has no idea really. If he’s being honest, he thinks it likely the mirror will never fully be unraveled even if he wanted to uncover all its secrets. There will always be something unexplainable about it when its power seems ever reaching.

Personally, Link is okay with filing this whole thing right next to very vexing idea that he’s known Zelda forever. He thinks he’s reached his max capacity of weird shit for the rest of his life.

He sighs.

“Let’s get a move on.”

“Where to?”

He shrugs. “Back north at least. Wherever you want, I guess,” he says. “I don’t want to make Groose or my family sitting ducks though, but I’ll call Groose and Midna when we find a pay phone next.”

::

Midna could strangle him, she thinks as she drags her bag with Zelda’s file tucked safely inside, up to Ashei’s place. Midna realizes she might not even be home but trying to keep her irritation with her stupid boss under wraps, Midna rings the bell. It reverberates through the house inside, and Midna takes a few deep breaths to settle herself.

There’re a few bumps from inside, and Midna is surprised that Ashei is in after all. She opens her door just slightly, only showing her face. Her wide eyes, rimmed like a raccoon, peer blearily out at Midna. “Hey,” is all she says.

“Hey Ashei.” Midna gives her a bit of a scowling smile and lifts her bag for Ashei to see. “Let me in, will you? Link’s dumb ass is at it again.”

That’s all the explanation Ashei needs, to Midna’s surprise, and she opens the door wide to let Midna in. “Yeah, I told him he was real stupid the last I saw him,” Ashei says as she closes the door. “Want some tea?” she offers. “It’s Tabantha black.”

“Um, sure,” Midna relents.

Ashei looks at the bag for a brief second. “Staying long, too?”

Midna shrugs. She has no idea what the hell is really going on anyway.

“Leave it there, and I can set you up in a bit,” Ashei says, and she turns and stomps to the kitchen at the back of the house. Midna leaves her bag along the wall by the foot of the stairs in the foyer and follows Ashei down the hall to the back.

Crossing her arms as she enters the kitchen behind Ashei, she says, “You’re being exceptionally… accommodating.”

“Heh,” is all she gets back. Ashei fills the tea kettle and sets it on the stove to start boiling. She then crosses to the cabinets and pulls out two mugs for them, the canister of tea, and a pair of infusers. She’s silent as they wait for the kettle to boil, and Midna takes a seat at the small table crammed in the corner of the kitchen by a closed door.

Midna thought Link was probably being dumb when he said to just show up here and Ashei would let her in. “I should apologize,” Midna says at last when Ashei sets the cup and a saucer in front of her.

“It steeps for three minutes,” Ashei says flatly, ignoring Midna.

Midna frowns at her. “I’m trying to apologize here,” she snips, and Ashei’s mouth quirks at the corners.

“It’s fine.”

“Link said to call or just show up, and then I realized I didn’t know how to get ahold of you,” Midna explains anyway. “I’m sorry for the sudden intrusion.”

“It’s fine, yeah?”

But it’s NOT fine, YEAH? Midna thinks with a bitter bite.

“What dumb shit did Link get into now?” Ashei asks as she leans against the counter. “Curious is all.”

Midna shrugs and stirs the infuser around idly. “It’s so crazy, not sure I even fully believe it,” Midna sighs. “He got spooked for some reason, not exactly sure what or why, but he had me clear out some things from the office, lock it all up and said to not go home for a while.” Midna lets her hand slap the table. “He’s not even in Castleton.”

“Huh.”

“Why’d you call him stupid?” Midna asks.

Ashei blinks at her. She sniffs her tea, then agitates the infuser in her cup. “He came around last late in the summer, yeah? We were talking about Mikau maybe proposing to Lulu, and then we all started teasing him for getting a girl,” Ashei says. When Midna looks positively ready to soak in some gossip like a dry a sponge, Ashei smirks again. “There was mention of calling you up to actually find out the truth since we thought that was your brand of evil.”

“Oh, absolutely it is.”

“In any case, they all seemed agreeable at being bridesmaids if I got married,” says Ashei. The tiniest of smug smirks is desperately tugging at her lips. “They’re getting dresses, but I’m sure only Link will remember that part.”

“Ugh, I’m so there,” Midna gushes. “You’ll have to invite me.”

“Sure,” Ashei quips. “Mikau mentioned a new assistant though? We were wondering what happened to you.”

This gets Midna to give Ashei a real wicked grin, and Ashei returns it with a cunning glint in her eyes as she takes a sip of her tea. Deeming it satisfactory, Ashei pulls the infuser out and tosses it in her sink. “It’s good now, yeah,” she says about the tea.

But there’s more tea to share than that, Midna thinks. “There’s no new assistant,” Midna informs her. “Link would never fire me.”

“That’s what I said, yeah.” Ashei takes a sip. “Mikau said she was much nicer than you.”

They both snicker.

“Is the fake assistant that engaged girl he’s mooning over?” Ashei asks. “He mentioned it when we were alone, and that’s when I actually called him stupid.”

“Probably,” Midna says. “She’s the only other one Mikau would have mistaken for working at the office.”

“You know, Link hasn’t hosted all year, and Mido is absolutely bitching about it,” Ashei grumbles. “Mikau told me he stopped drinking though, and that’s why he hasn’t been around.”

“Yeah, he did,” Midna breathes. “Almost can’t believe it.”

Ashei doesn’t look surprised if she is, but then Midna can’t think she’s ever seen much emotion on the other woman’s face.

“So what’s he up to at home that he doesn’t want us seeing? Dying here to know.”

Midna pauses. “It’s work,” she says. Ashei rolls her eyes, because, as she roughly informs Midna, that’s exactly the answer Link gave them, which gets Midna snickering again. “No, it’s a whole thing,” Midna assures. “Related to whatever got him flying out of town, too. But the fake assistant is supposed to be a missing person. His flat looks fucking amazing thanks to her, but she’s why he won’t let you lot around.”

“Fuck, knew it was a girl,” Ashei spits.

“He didn’t lie; it’s also work.”

Ashei hums, looking deep into her tea. “Guess I should stop asking questions then, yeah?” she asks.

“I think I know too much as it is.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah, whatever it is.”

Ashei nods. She downs the rest of her tea and sets it in the sink. “Well, he calls up here, and you pick up, tell him we’re street fighting next time he’s round,” Ashei says.

Midna spins her cup, her lips puckered in thought. “What is it that you do, by the way?” Midna asks.

“Like my job?” Ashei asks. She scratches the spot behind her ear. “I gamble.”

“For real? That’s actually what you do?”

“Yeah.”

“Damn, my job’s lame,” Midna laments. “Wait, did Link know that when he brought you in to play with those dummies?”

“Yeah,” Ashei says, finally cracking a real smile that rounds her cheeks. “He thought it’d be funny. It was. For us.”

Midna’s brow makes a slight jump in response, and she takes a long sip of her tea.

Pulling herself up from the counter, Ashei says, “I’ll set you up in the spare room. The lot will be here this week, by the way. I won’t tell them we’re playing roomies, so you’ll probably have to play with us or they’ll ask you a million questions as to why you’re here.”

“As long as you’re covering for me.”

“I’ll probably win it back anyway,” Ashei jokes, and she practically stomps out of the kitchen.

Midna looks down at her tea, turning the mug and watching the liquid swirl inside. “Tch, dumbass,” she mutters and downs the last of her tea.

::

“What timing,” Midna deadpans when Link calls up at Ashei’s place in the evening. He’s a bit surprised that Midna answered the phone to start, so he doesn’t respond right away. Midna continues, saying, “Your friends are going to be here tonight to play.”

“Great.”

“Where are you?”

“Don’t want to say.”

“Ugh, fine.”

“You’ll be happy to know though, we did manage to get another piece.”

“Really?” Midna asks, and he can tell she doesn’t believe him.

Link rolls his eyes. “Yeah, just good timing is all. So Groose came through again.”

“Huh, good for Groose,” she mumbles.

The receiver crackles and there’s fumbling on the other end, and when the feminine voice on the other end comes through, Link recognize that it’s Ashei. “Hey stupid,” she greets. “Couldn’t have called?”

“Hi Ashei,” he replies sheepishly. “Sorry, it wasn’t planned.”

“I guess.”

“Is Midna still listening, too?”

“Yes, we’re both here,” Midna says, totally and deservedly annoyed. “So spill the beans, dork, we’re both waiting.”

“Remember that Yang fucker in the picto that Zelda pointed out? Caught him getting off the train over at Ogilvie Station.”

“I thought it was more coincidence that he was in that picto?” Midna asks.

“That time, sure,” says Link. “This time, he was definitely coming to look for her. I don’t know if he knows about us or not though.”

“So that’s why we’re closing the office for now?”

“Yes. If you go back there, just don’t go alone.”

“Someone’s got to take care of your shit, right?”

He cracks a grin, and he tells her, “You’re the best, Mid.”

“I’ll go with,” Ashei volunteers.

Link thanks her. “I owe you both,” he gushes.

“Don’t get sappy now,” Ashei snaps. “It’s a street fight when you get back, and I’m not going easy.”

Midna jokes, “Yeah, plus you’re just gonna get locked in with that bridesmaid dress. Favor paid.”

Link’s eyebrows raise. He looks up and sees Zelda approaching him by the pay phone. “You told her that?” Link practically whines.

“You said you’d do it for me, yeah?”

Link turns to Zelda. “Hey, they got questions for you,” he grumbles and ignores the sudden influx from the receiver. He hands it off and heads over to the car to let the dog out.

Zelda, hearing the babble from the other end, laughs a little as she answers. “Hi Midna,” she says as she watches Link stalk off with Courage trotting after him, his large keese ears bouncing with each step.

“Ashei’s here, too,” Midna says in haste. “Zelda’s the one Mikau mentioned.”

“Oh!”

“I’m assuming there wasn’t any actual questions for me?” asks Zelda.

“No,” says the gruff voice that must be Ashei. “But Mikau did propose to Lulu.”

“Oh! Did she accept?” Zelda asks excitedly.

“Yeah, and he thanks you for your contribution,” Ashei says flatly.

“The nice assistant,” adds Midna.

“That’s really exciting!” Zelda bursts. “I’m so happy for him.”

“Yeah, so we need to know what your deal is, yeah?”

“My deal?” questions Zelda.

“Ashei’s determined to be a groomsman for all these dopes,” Midna explains.

“Would you be groomsman for Link?” Ashei asks Midna.

“Fuck no, I’m with Zelda. She’s the nice one.”

“He said no wedding though, just paperwork, yeah.”

“That’s… never been discussed,” Zelda laughs. “But you know me, Midna.”

“Yeah, yeah. I think we all agree being a housewife is like a death sentence,” Midna proclaims, and Zelda starts to giggle. If only her mother could understand as well as Midna.

“I was going to go more with prison, but I suppose there’s always a death row.”

Midna hoots in a half surprised laugh. “You’re awful,” she cackles.

Zelda titters a little. “Current plans aside,” current plans being very gag worthy, “I don’t think it’s all bad actually,” she says. “It’s just not for me. Especially since, you know, my family is very steeped in tradition.”

“Do you even vote, Zelda?” Midna asks suddenly.

“Sure,” says Zelda. “But godsforbid my mother find that out.”

Midna and Ashei give a little hum of understanding, but Ashei is still expresses a bit of  shock. “So like… she doesn’t?” she asks.

“Gods, no,” Zelda scoffs. “She practically was ready to pull me from school when there was just a whiff of suffrage in the halls. And you know, I’m sure she thought I was being insulting when I pointed out it is women who keep households in order, so why do we not have the capability of seeing the similar qualities in our elected officials who are to keep the country in order?”

“We’re just too weak willed and emotional,” Ashei flatly jokes. “We can’t be trusted.”

“Of course,” Zelda sarcastically agrees. “It definitely wasn’t short fused men that started a world war a decade ago.”

The three of them immediately burst into peals of laughter.

“Damn, Zelda,” Midna breathes. It’s almost a wheeze. “You sure you didn’t just like get a whole new identity to get out of that mess?”

“I love my mother, but we’re from different times, clearly. We have different expectations for the future.”

“Real shame then you can’t treat her to our other idea for Link. We thought a bar wedding sounded real darb so you don’t have to go anywhere after the ceremony, yeah? Reception just starts right away.”

“Link had to go and ruin that by getting sober.”

Zelda says, “Ah, pity, because I can definitely appreciate an efficient plan.”

“Wow, and here we thought you’d need warning. But we want free fancy cake though, yeah,” says Ashei.

“And fancy food.”

“But think of the cake.”

Zelda quips back, “Is that not the real point of a wedding? The free cake?

“Did Mikau pick a date then? Will the fancy cake be worth it?” Zelda asks, enjoying the change of topic at hand from unending mirror gloom. “You get to be groomsman, too?”

“No date, the cake better be berries, and yes.”

“Tell him congratulations for me, please. I really am happy for him.”

“Ugh, she is nice,” Ashei gruffly says to Midna.

Rustling crackles through the phone line.

“Hey, forget Mikau and fancy cake - did you really get another piece?” Midna cuts in. “He wasn’t lying?”

“Yes. Groose set it up.” Then Zelda asks, “When has he really lied to you, Midna?”

Midna ignores that and asks instead, “Any leads on another?”

“Unless you’ve got one?” Zelda asks hopefully, already knowing the answer.

“I’m out on that.” There’s a moment of calm before Midna’s floodgates open. “Oh shit!” she exclaims. “Not mirror, but your guy! That man from the auction! The Gerudo!” Zelda roots in place. “I got ahold of a picto of him. This guy is like… all bulk,” she says. “Kind of a big nose, all tan, of course.”

“Red hair?” Zelda breathes.

“Maybe? It’s black and white, love,” Midna says. “Not too light to be like blond and not dark enough to be brunet for sure. Just like in the middle there. But his face is very angular.”

“Is his hair kind of long? You know, enough to pull back?”

“Yesss,” Midna hisses.

Zelda feels herself melting into the earth. “It’s him, it must be,” she says. Her legs suddenly feel weak, and she grapples the pay phone with her free hand to steady herself. “Dragmire?”

“He’s apparently like some well to do businessman out in Gerudo,” says Midna. “I’m sure if I keep digging, I have a feeling I’ll eventually connect him with that shell corp that’s attached to Yang.”

“Keep me updated,” Zelda pleads.

“Better call back for life checks then,” Midna says seriously.

“Link’s coming back.”

“Ah, tell him to fuck off,” Midna says with an edge.

“Please, don’t be too bent out with him.”

“No promises. He’s so dumb, Zelda,” she fumes, but Zelda can catch the bit of razz in her tone that makes her think they’ll be fine eventually. Midna needs time. Hopefully. She can’t imagine there ever being a Link without a Midna though. Zelda thinks of Link telling her how they’d sorted things out, and Zelda likens the two dealing with problems between them like a speeding car blasting over speed bumps. He’d made no comment on her obvious exasperation that time, but whatever works, she supposes.

Much more gently for Zelda though, Midna says, “Be careful.”

“I will.”

“Hey, let’s get fancy cake when you get rid of your blasted mirror, okay?”

Before Zelda can even agree, Midna slams the phone down, ending the call.

Zelda’s mind whirls as she slowly hangs up the receiver. She turns to Link waiting with a concerned look, Courage at his heels. “It is Dragmire,” is all she says.

“You alright?”

“I need to think,” she says.

Zelda releases the phone, and she tells Link, “Midna might just need some time.”

She motions for Courage to follow, but he just blinks at her. She grimaces at Link, complaining, “You might be the only one he actually listens to.”

“I told you that you spoil him too much,” Link grumbles as he digs around for more change in his pocket. To the dog, he snaps, “Go to the car.”

Link doesn’t need to look to know that the scraping of little feet is the dog doing just that. Zelda quietly ushers the dog into the car as Link makes his next call to Groose’s shop. When someone picks up and names himself as Cawlin, Link quickly asks him to get Groose. “It’s the punk,” he says.

He doesn’t need to wait long before Groose is on the other end. “Well?” he demands. “Was it the real thing?”

“It was.” Groose lets out a low whistle. Link continues, saying, “Just wanted you to know everything is fine for now.”

“Yeah, right, I’m glad,” he says with relief. “Ah man, I’ve been rolling in it all day.”

“Um, what is Skull Kid’s deal? I know you said he’s overall solid, but you did not prepare me for that level of applesauce.”

Groose boisterous guffaw slams Link’s ear. “I couldn’t tell you,” he manages to say eventually. “He just is the kind of gongoozler that doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty, but at the same time, that means he’s a brick wall. You get what you get from him, nothing more.”

“Not a rat?”

“And catch more heat with your weirdo interest?”

“Kind of what I was figuring,” Link admits. “Made some half-assed attempts to ask him some things, and he doesn’t exactly deny. He’s the sidestepping type.”

“Yeah, whatever info you get from him, you have to infer or make some good guesses. He’s useless on that front.”

“Is he like a child? The whole thing was just absolutely bonkers.”

“Hell if I know,” says Groose. “He wear a weird mask?”

“Yeah, this creepy like heart shaped one with spikes on it. It even moved funky.”

“OH, I hate that one! Gives me the creeps.”

Link deadpans, “He has more?”

“There’s a whole collection, yeah. He likes a skull one a lot, too.”

“I asked him to give you a call for me if he runs into anything else related to my weird interests.”

Groose thinks for a moment. “He’d do it, I think. So long as you’re quick. Nobody wants what you’re looking for after all.”

“I appreciate the help, Groose,” Link says.

Link can almost see Groose puffing with pride. “You got it, punk,” he laughs. “Send my cut when you can. I know where you are now.”

Link snorts and thinks about his friends in Castleton when he asks, “Hey Groose? We good?”

Groose, a little surprised, just says, “Always, dumbass.”

“Alright. Catch you later.”

“Yeah.”

Link hangs up the phone and turns away, but his thoughts bring a stutter to his steps. They’re close by to Ordon at this point, and that makes him hesitate. He gets in the car and asks Zelda, “Your choice, where to from here?” She sniffs, looking out her window. “Zelda?” he calls.

“Um, may I have some change?” she asks. “One more phone call.”

Link gives her what he has. “Your father?”

“Yes, I think he might be of help, but I know,” she says taking his change. “I’m going to give it a try. He’ll feel better at least since I hung up so fast last time.”

She hops out of the car, and she heads to the pay phone. There’s no answer the first two times, and when Zelda insists to the annoyed operator to try a third time, the woman snips at her, “Ma’am, I’ve tried twice, they’re not home.”

“There is someone there on staff at all times. They are there,” Zelda snaps right back. “Please try one more time.”

The operator does despite her annoyance.

This time, someone does pick up the phone in her father’s office, but it’s not him. Zelda, recognizing the voice, calls out, “Paya? That you?”

Pays, shocked, stammers out in almost a squeak, “Mi-Miss Zelda?”

“It’s me, Paya. Is my father around?”

“No, I’m just supposed to stand watch in his office,” Paya says meekly. “I only answered, because the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. But miss! They’ve got the constables looking for you all this time, and Mr. Nohansen even hired this private investigator-”

“Paya, this is very important,” Zelda says, interrupting her, “you must not tell anyone I called. I need to stay missing. Do you understand?” Paya squeaks out an agreement. “Thank you, Paya.

“Do you know when I can call back and only get my father?”

“Maybe tomorrow evening? He always seems to wait in here after dinner as of late. I don’t think he’s doing any actual work.”

“Alright. I will try then if you could do me the favor of making sure no one’s around the office but him.

“Why are you keeping watch in the office by the way?” Zelda asks.

“Oh! It’s um… well, you must not have heard?”

“Clearly. I’ve been missing.”

“Oh, you must hear what the twins have done!”

“The twins?” Zelda inquires. “Tatl and Tael?”

“Yes!”

When Zelda hangs up, she’s not without information, although it’s not what she was looking for or expecting either. It makes Link look at her with questioning suspicion when she gets back to the car.

“You know, what about Akkala?”

“Akkala?” Link repeats. “What’d your father have to say?”

“Didn’t talk to him,” she chirps. Link frowns at the second sudden turn in her mood. “I spoke with Paya, the one who helped me get Tetra’s paperwork, remember?” He nods that he does. “She said he’ll likely be available tomorrow evening, so I will try again then if you don’t mind.”

Link looks around, as if he’ll find the missing info to clue him in.

“She just let me know things are good at home is all,” Zelda says. “I miss her a lot.”

“So why Akkala?”

“My father mentioned it when I last spoke to him. He thought I’d like it in the fall,” Zelda says. “Seems as good a place as any to go. Have you been before?”

“No.”

He still frowns at her light smile, not fully buying it, but he just gives it up. He shakes his head and starts the car. “Okay, Akkala it is,” he sighs with resignation. “We can probably reach Lake Hylia and stop there for the night.”

::

They reach the wetlands in Lanayru by the time they stop the next day and get a room at an inn after crossing the Rebonae Bridge. The inn has a public phone available in the front room, but Link scoffs at the idea of using it with it being right there at the front desk. “There’s the Wetland Station nearby,” he says. “Just use one of the booths there.” They grab sandwiches from a diner before heading to the station, and Zelda finds a booth to use.

Link waits for her outside the booth, forever keeping watch.

Just as she hopes, her father picks up this time. “You have good timing,” he says, once she greets him and assures him that she’s fine now.

“Paya may have let me know when to call.”

“Ah,” he says, chuckling in that familiar, bubbling way she knows. “That would also then explain her insistence I come relax in the office this evening. I am glad you’re alright.”

“At least for now,” Zelda mumbles. “They’re coming for my work,” she tells him cryptically. “But I’ll be fine.

“I wanted to ask about Akkala,” she says. “You mentioned it last, and I didn’t get to hear what it was beyond some lab that you wanted to tell me.”

Her father huffs. “It’s not just a lab, dear,” he tells her. “They have a peculiar interest up there in ancient technology and artifacts.” Zelda wonders why he’d think that of interest to her. “Coutts pointed out the books you’d been looking at over break last winter,” her father says. “You also seemed very interested in that old mirror.”

“The books?”

“I recall some of them being about ancient tech, and maybe some physics?” He’s thinking hard trying to remember. “Impa has a younger sister, if you can recall, and she works at the lab out on the northeast side.”

“Oh, um, Purah, right?” she asks trying to imagine her face. “With the big glasses?”

“Yes! Purah!” he exclaims. “She always liked you, you know. Budding little scientist that you were.”

“I see,” she says.

She looks out the booth to Link, and as if feeling her eyes bearing into him, he turns back just enough to check on her.

“There’s one other thing: Do you know a Ganondorf Dragmire?” she asks.

“Dragmire?” This surprises him. “I know of the man, but I’ve never met him, no.”

“Oh, I see. Do you know what kind of business he’s involved in though?”

She can feel him dying on the other end to demand what exactly this is about, but he restrains himself. “Mining and fracking as I recall,” he tells her.

“I see,” she says.

Her eyes drift up to the top of the booth. And she suggests to her father, “Hey, you know, maybe next fall we can go to Akkala together.”

“If you liked Ordon in the fall, I’m sure you’d like Akkala as well. Colder up that way though.”

She chuckles. “It’ll be fun,” she agrees.

Her father waits on the other end for her to speak, and she thinks it’s quite unusual. He’s waiting for her to see what she’ll tell him, and she wants to tell him a million different things about what she’s been up to over the year, but when she glances over at Link, she knows she shouldn’t. She wonders if he’s right though, so she just apologizes. “I want to tell you about so many things,” she says.

He assures her instead that there will be time. “There may or may not have been a period of time around your age where I had to sit on my hands,” he tells her conspiratorially, “because your mother decided to flounce off and follow some guru for about a year.”

“A-a guru?” Zelda stammers. It sounds very much not like her mother to do such a thing.

“You didn’t hear it from me,” he warns her. It’s basically the last bit for her that clicks into place for her to make sense of her father’s behavior regarding her disappearance, and when he starts bubble up with laughter, she does, too.

“She never said anything about that!” Zelda exclaims. “When was this?”

Her father thinks back. “Maybe about two years before we married,” he guesses. “Had to delay it, because she wouldn’t come back. You’re giving her a run for her money though,” he jokes.

“I’m surprised you decided to wait,” Zelda mutters. “What if she didn’t come back?”

“Ah, who knows?” he grumbles. “I was young and dumb and willing to wait.”

Zelda chuckles. “And you’re sure this was Mother?” she asks as she’s still in disbelief. “Mother, who thinks social rules are practically everything?”

“Call it a period of rebellion?”

“Are you sure didn’t get swapped out along the way?”

He chuckles, but he gives nothing more on the subject.

She wishes that they had more time, but she knows that she should be getting going. She hates it. Outside, Link taps the toe of his prosthetic, likely trying to shake the phantom limb. “You sure you’ll be alright?” her father asks.

“Yeah,” she breathes into the phone. “You know, I asked Coutts for help to finish this. He’ll be around for me, don’t worry.”

“I heard you put him to work. Still not sure on finishing before Yule?”

“No,” she says.

Her father ends the call by wishing her a happy Midwinter and that he’ll see her later.

She takes a minute after he hangs up to collect herself, and then she rips open the booth’s door. Her green eyes drift to Link, and she asks him, “You ever been to Tarrey Town?”

“Never been to Akkala, remember?” he chuckles.

“Ah, right.”

“You want to go to Tarrey Town?” he asks her when she says nothing more.

She nods. “Yeah,” she says, stepping out of the booth. “My father said there’s a lab in the northeast that specializes in ancient tech and artifacts and-”

Link grimaces a little. “I don’t want to think about that stupid mirror right now,” he says. “Let’s just eat and get some sleep.”

She loops her arm around his, and with the biggest grin, she says again, “Tarrey Town.”

“You can plot the way on the map when we get back to the inn,” he yawns.

Chapter Text

Not being familiar with some of the card games that they play, Ashei goes over the various rules and does some practice rounds with Midna, and Midna decides that this is all stupid. “I don’t get it,” she gripes.

“You’re paying me back if you lose my money to one of those idiots,” Ashei says. “You’re doing better than you think.”

But Midna complains, “What a pain in the ass.”

Ashei just smirks.

“Who all is coming tonight?”

“Definitely Mido, Mikau, and Darmani. The usual suspects. Think Darunia is still up in Eldin,” says Ashei. “I invited this dope Shad, but I don’t know if he’ll flake or not. Oh, and Teba’s still out in Hebra, so he won’t be here.”

“And if the usual suspects are here…” Midna groans.

“Right,” clips Ashei.

Said usual suspects are surprised to see Midna hanging around when they come through the door. “Wow, Link sending in a substitute?” Mido jokes.

“My whole existence is not tied to that asshole, thanks,” Midna snaps back. Immediately though, they want to know what he’s doing, where he’s been. “Hell if I know,” Midna deadpans, taking a seat at Ashei’s dining room table.

To Mikau, Midna says, “I better get my own fucking invite.”

“Sure, sure.”

“Also the nice one wanted her congratulations passed on to you. Very happy, very sappy,” Midna tells Mikau.

His initial surprise is quickly overtaken by a wide smile.

Despite her initial repulsion to the idea, Midna actually has fun playing with the group. They implore her to come around more with Link, that is, until she starts taking their money to Ashei’s amusement.

Ashei and Midna make a plan to go to Link’s office together so she can at least keep the rest of the casework afloat again for him. “We should go during the day, yeah?” Ashei suggests, and despite the way she says “yeah” to be like a question, it’s definitely not. Midna agrees though, because daytime means other people will be in the building then.

They go to the office, Midna constantly keeping an eye out and about and over her shoulder. Once inside the building, she feels a bit of relief at the enclosed space – a stalker would be much more obvious inside than out. When Midna puts the key in the lock, she turns to Ashei, feeling that there’s something not quite right with the way the key goes in, and she says, “Something’s fucked.” Ashei’s mouth thins, and Midna opens the door.

Midna starts looking around the office, and while it seems off, she can’t tell what it is exactly. She just feels it, and that is just so annoying. The door to Link’s personal office is shut, and when she opens it and starts poking around, again it doesn’t look like it’s been messed with overtly.

But Midna can’t help but know something is off. “Someone’s been here,” she tells Ashei over her shoulder. Her frustration grows. “Link was right, but I just don’t know what’s wrong here.”

Ashei shrugs and sits on the corner of Midna’s desk. “Take your time,” she says, crossing her arms to wait.

Midna slides open the unlocked drawers in Link’s office of his desk and cabinets. The ones he normally locks up are still locked, and she doesn’t see that the locks have been tampered with. Not that that means anything, she thinks.

His desk is always a bit disorganized and being that it’s not hers, if anything is off there, she doesn’t know it.

Midna walks through the rotating door to the darkroom and flips on first the red lights. She thanks the gods that she flipped the red lights and not the normal incandescent since she sees thrown across the enlarger’s base is picto paper. She starts gathering it up and swearing Link for his carelessness when she freezes.

Link would never leave undeveloped picto paper out. It’s too costly for him to make such a simple, stupid mistake. He always double checks, too, once he’s done working in the darkroom that it’s put away.

She searches around and eventually finds the packaging for it. Midna puts the picto paper back in the black sleeve she finds and then back in its paper box before putting it away in the large cabinet. She looks around for any more undeveloped paper, even pulling open the drawers of the cabinet the enlarger sits on to be sure there’s none there, and not seeing anything else out that might be damaged by the light, she flips the switch for the incandescent lights.

Alright. Someone wanted Link’s pictographs.

With the incandescent lights on, she can see better around the darkroom, but Link hadn’t left anything up that she knows of before he flew out of Castleton like a typhoon. All the chemicals are stored away from the last time he used the darkroom, and the long development sink he has is empty apart from the wash basin that always sits there. Besides the paper lying out, nothing else appears out of place.

She shuts off the lights, and she slides out of the darkroom. She double checks his drawers, but he’s also at least very good about locking pictographs up once they’re done developing. He doesn’t usually leave anything like that out where anyone with grubby paws could look at them. So she finds nothing as far as pictos in the unlocked drawers.

She walks back out to the front where Ashei waits and starts going through her own cabinets and unlocking everything she has access to. “They left picto paper sitting out,” she says to Ashei. “So they’re looking for pictos at the very least.”

And Midna frustratingly finds nothing else. She takes what she needs for the open work that they have, and after asking Ashei to monopolize her phone at home, they gather up the items and leave the office.

Midna gets a safety deposit box at the bank, and in it she stashes everything that she’s gathered related to Zelda’s missing person case and their search on the mirror and the auction participants. You know, just to be sure. Nice and safe. Right? She hopes.

She hates the waiting. Doesn’t understand it one bit how Link is perfectly happy to just sit and wait. It’s literally the worst. She floats around Ashei’s ground floor like a ghost haunting the place.

When Link calls again finally after what seems to her to be an eternity, she’s disgruntled to hear they’ve been puttering around in one place for a few days. He didn’t even bother to call her, and she snaps at him just as much.

“Sorry, Mid,” he sighs. “I can tell you about it later though?”

“You keeping secrets from me?” she asks.

He chuckles. “Yeah,” he admits.

Like honestly, how dare he. Pfft.

“So much for friends,” she gripes.

“Best friends,” he says.

She huffs at him, and then she tells him about the state of the office. “It was weird. No idea what they took if they took anything, but I know they’re looking for pictographs at least.”

“Mm, yeah, sounds about right,” he says, and very much not as concerned as Midna thinks he should be.

“Can I ask where you’re at?”

Link says nothing for a while, but then at least gives the general area by telling her, “We’re in Akkala.”

“Oh, must be nice.”

“Yeah, actually.”

Link’s being weird. She hates it when he’s being weird. It’s suspicious. Real suspicious.

He gets all snippy with her. “I’m not being weird.” Except he is, and she knows him too well. He’s being weird.

“Put Zelda on,” Midna demands. “I want to talk to her.” And when Zelda answers her with her usual gentle greeting, Midna doesn’t greet back, just says to her, “He’s being weird, why is he being weird?”

“Link?”

“Who else?” Midna asks with exasperation. “Why are you being weird, too?”

“He’s not drunk,” Zelda replies.

“Honestly, him being drunk would be like the one thing that’s not weird.”

There’s a shuffling with the phone, and Midna hears Zelda ask, “What?” When she pulls the receiver back up to talk to Midna again, she says, “Link wants to know if you’ll stop by his flat with Ashei. If they went to the office, they probably hit the apartment.”

“Alright,” says Midna.

“You have the spare key still?”

Midna confirms.

Zelda asks, “Have you been by yours?”

“Nope, sitting around bored as all hell at Ashei’s. Doing great.”

“Don’t I know it,” mutters Zelda.

Midna laughs a little. “Call back tomorrow,” she tells Zelda. “We can go check the flat right now while it’s still daytime.”

“Okay, good luck,” Zelda says. “Be safe.”

Midna hangs up the phone and, storming into Ashei’s living room, announces, “We got a job.”

Ashei looks blankly back at her.

“We get to snoop all up in Link’s apartment.”

“Sounds fun, yeah.”

So that’s how the two of them end up at Link’s flat. This time when Midna opens the door, there’s no mistaking at all that someone’s been here. Zelda, using the time she had on her hands and being the particular kind of person she is, kept the place far more organized than Link ever did, but Midna never exactly considered Link a slob either. He cleans, sure, but he’s disorganized as hell. And none of this is… that.

When Ashei steps in, she, too, seems surprised by the state of things. “Guess they didn’t care about hiding it here,” she says. “I’ve never seen it this bad.”

Midna thinks she has, recalling when Link had torn the place apart in a drunken madness.

Ashei shuts the door, and they first check out the open hall entry closet to the right of the door. She sees that his heavy winter outerwear is missing, and nothing remains behind that looks like it could be Zelda’s. Ashei looks in as well, clicking on the closet light. She points it out to Midna. “What’s that for?” she asks. Midna cranes her head in a little farther to get a better look. Along the edge of the inside trim of the closet door in black marker are various lines and numbers.

“Maybe a kid lived here before Link got the place?” she suggests.

Ashei reminds her, “It’s one bedroom.”

“Yeah, does goes up kind of high to be dealing with a kid in this place.”

Shoes Link didn’t take with litter the entryway that they have to step around. Ashei and Midna look over the console table across from the door. Some of his mail had been opened, but Midna sees it’s slit along the long way of the envelopes. Link didn’t open these. “How do you know?” Ashei asks, turning an envelope over in her hands.

“Link always does this barbaric thing since he refuses to use a letter opener, and he’ll just rip it right here,” Midna says pointing at one corner of the envelope, “so he ends up shearing off the short end like he’s opening a tin can.”

Ashei laughs at the description, and they look at the mail he’d left behind. “Looks like just some bills,” she says. “Maybe we should check his mailbox on the way out? You have a key for that, too?”

“Yeah, actually.”

Ashei hands over the mail. “Probably would appreciate it if his rent’s taken care of, yeah?”

Midna rolls her eyes. “Yeah,” she says as she stashes Link’s mail in her bag. “Lucky for him, I have a check to cash to keep him floating here.”

As Ashei carefully steps over strewn objects on the floor where the entryway turns into the living room and meets the kitchen doorway, she lightly comments, “He’s lucky you know him so well.”

“Yeah, he is,” Midna agrees. “The dumb bastard.”

Some of the food in the kitchen has spoiled since the icebox wasn’t fully closed, so Midna and Ashei clear it all out and toss it in the rubbish bin. “There’s a trash chute on the floor we can toss this down when we go,” Midna says, her nose wrinkling from the gods awful smell emitting from the rotted food. She doesn’t expect there to be anything of real importance in his kitchen, but hey, at least there’s not a lick of alcohol in it. As they poke through, they at least put some of the dishes in his sink to be washed again and put away tossed cleaning products he keeps in the cabinet under the sink, which had been completely emptied in haste.

“I was kind of looking forward to seeing how amazingly clean and organized this place was,” Ashei jokes as they move out of the other kitchen doorway to his small dining room to get a good look at the main mess that is the living room.

They both stand there, confused and wondering the same thing, but it’s Midna that actually asks it. “The fuck is with all the sticks and stones?”

“Better not be some weird message,” says Ashei.

The couch and armchair cushions have all been thrown off onto the floor. The radio sits apparently untouched in the corner next to the sideboard where his phonograph sits. The records are strewn about over the mess of twigs and stones. “Sucks,” says Ashei, picking up a couple of the records to look the shellac surfaces over for scratches. “Might’ve ruined some his 78s,” she comments. She picks up a couple of others, and seeing the size difference, expresses some surprise and interest. “Oh, I didn’t know he had some twelve inch ones. That’s kind of cool.”

Ashei sets the records aside on the sideboard.

Midna picks up the cushions and throw pillows and puts them back where they belong. She gets down on her knees, casting aside the debris, and peers under the furniture, but she just finds more rocks. “Hey, no alcohol in the sideboard. Nice job, Link.”

Ashei glances out on the balcony, just to check, but he never kept much out there anyway.

The bedroom is just as much of a disaster zone as the living room. They step carefully around and after checking the bed and mattress, they reposition the mattress back on the frame as it should be, shake out the sheets, blankets, and pillows, and then toss them in a pile on the bed. They pick up the strewn pictographs on the floor and set them on the bed until Midna finds a box turned on its side, with some spilling out from the closet. “I think they go in here,” she says. She and Ashei look through some of the pictos. Midna asks her, “You ever seen these?”

“Hell no.”

“Damn, he did look good before the booze,” Midna says, looking at one of him and another young man sitting on the edge of a dock. From his time in the military, clearly. He just looked… better. The fuller cheeks, no bags or circles under his eyes. “The military cut on him looks dumb though, but jeez. That’s like night and day.”

Ashei peers over. “Oh,” she says. “Yeah. Look at that.”

“He has been looking a lot better since he stopped drinking at least.”

“He looks like a baby there.”

“Old enough to for the draft.”

“Baby,” Ashei repeats.

Just out of their own personal curiosity, they continue to sift through his old pictographs. “He’s got a lot,” Ashei says, surprised.

“I think the whole reason he got into private investigation was because of pictography,” Midna says. Ashei says that sounds like a dumb reason, which makes Midna laugh. “Yeah, but the pictos are what people hire him for.”

Midna picks up a couple more, and she sees they’re recent ones, because she developed the negatives for him. It’s the ones that Zelda took of the dog at the office, and shuffling them a bit, she sees he did develop the one Zelda took of him as well. She plops them in the box.

“Oh!” Ashei exclaims. She turns a picto of a younger Link standing next to a girl to Midna. “I think I got a face for the Ordon girl finally,” she says cheekily.

“I kind of like this one,” Midna says. Clearly another one that Link hadn’t taken since he was in it. He sits on the front steps of a house with an older man. It looks more like him now, she thinks, but definitely before the heavy drinking started its effects. “Had to be the last few years at least,” she says, because in it, Link’s pant leg is tied up and crutches are to his side. He’s missing the leg here.

She tosses it into the box.

“Look,” Ashei says, “real wee, baby Link.” Round cheeks, food smeared across one of them. He looked to be a young child.

“Wonder if they thought they’d find whatever they were looking for at the office in this box,” Midna ponders.

“Hard to say if there’s anything missing here, too,” says Ashei. “Think we should take the box with us?”

“Maybe,” says Midna. “Might give him the chance to see if there’s something missing, but I don’t know.” She looks at what they’ve gathered up. “There’s a lot.”

“Yeah.”

They end up just tossing in any other rogue pictos they find into the box.

Midna pulls opens the dresser drawers, and everything is chaos inside. “Oh, I know neither of them would have put things in here like this.” She sifts through the clothes in there, but she doesn’t think Link’s stupid enough to hide something important in a dresser. There’s evidence here of Zelda existing, since they’d left her lighter summer clothing behind in the dresser and a couple of summer dresses in the closet. She wonders if maybe looking to see if Zelda was here was the point of it all anyway.

In the bedside table on the far side of the room by the windows, Midna finds the books she recalls Link pilfering through. He’d taken them from Zelda’s room. They’re thrown in the drawers, but otherwise don’t look to have been messed with, so they must not have cared about her reading material.

“See what they’ve done in the bathroom, yeah?” asks Ashei.

The bathroom has the linens tossed out from the closet inside. The medicine cabinet sits wide open, and the items from it that have been cast out are chaotically thrown down into the well of the sink. But there’s otherwise not much to look at in here.

“What’s this closet here?” Ashei asks, turning to the one that’s right to the left of the bathroom door. “Lame,” she says, when she opens it and finds it’s just the utility closet. They peek inside all the same.

“Man, he’s got like no hobbies,” says Ashei.

“If you’re not counting work, I guess.”

On their way out, they dump the rubbish down the trash chute. They take the elevator down and make stop at the mailbox. When Midna opens it, she’s a bit relieved to see the mail piled in there. “Well, they didn’t try to break into the mailbox at least,” she says. She pulls out his mail and puts it in her bag.

“Check your place?”

“Later,” says Midna. “I’ll just take care of Link’s crap today.”

The next day, when they go to Midna’s apartment, she finds it in as much disarray as they had Link’s. They spend more time cleaning her place as she goes through her things, but she can’t think of a single thing that’s missing. Then again, what exactly would she have anyway? Zelda didn’t stay with her, and she doesn’t have anything remotely connected to the mirror at home. The only thing she has is the file from the office that she’s hidden away at the bank, so like good luck?

Back at Ashei’s place, Ashei watches Midna flitter about anxiously, unable to sit still.

When the phone rings that evening, Midna is on it like a viper. “You should have seen it,” she says immediately.

Link, a bit startled by her non-greeting, asks her, “What?”

“Your apartment,” she clarifies. “Totally trashed.”

“Shame,” he says. “Zelda had it all organized and everything. I could never find anything.”

“Well, she can organize it again so you can keep not finding shit,” Midna says.

“Mid-”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she snaps right back at him.

He groans a little. “Listen,” says Link sharply, “about leaving you-”

“No, forget it. More important things are at hand, and we’re dying to know what the hell is up with all the sticks and stones?”

“Sticks and stones?” he echoes.

Midna tells him, “Yeah, it was all over your living room.”

“OH.” And he starts cracking up. Ashei peers over the top of her book, waiting to hear the answer from Midna. “It’s the stupid dog,” he says when he starts to calm down, sniffling a bit. “You know I kept the liquor in that sideboard. Zelda just started filling it with all the crap the dog would bring back from walks.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“That’s so lame.” Midna, bringing the receiver down from her face to speak to Ashei, relays to her, “His stupid dog had a whole stick and rock shrine in the sideboard.”

“He has a dog?”

“Well, Zelda’s got a dog,” Midna corrects. “The dumb thing only really listens to Link though.”

She brings the receiver back up to talk to Link again. “They left your icebox open, so you’re welcome. We dumped your rotted food at least, so hopefully you won’t have flies when you go back.”

“Appreciate it.”

“They dumped your pictographs everywhere, too. Can you think of anything there that they might have wanted?”

“Those are really all old ones,” he says, thinking. “Oh, well. Hm. I did bring back the ones of the dog we didn’t send to Rusl. Honestly, think besides those, the most recent of them are from maybe five years ago?”

“Damn, you take pictos like all day, every day, and none of them are for like… not work?”

“I don’t think I like your tone.”

“Gods, Link.”

The rumble of his laughter comes through, and he tells her, “You know when you asked when the last time I had my own picto taken was, you did make me think about how I don’t just take pictos for fun anymore,” he tells her. “So hey, when I get back, I’ll show you all the pictos of not-work things I took.”

Midna wonders what changeling replaced Link while he’s been gone. But still she croaks out a surprised, “Yeah, look forward to it.

“But okay, next mystery,” says Midna, shaking it off. “What’s going on with the lines in the closet?”

This he seems genuinely confused by. “What closet?”

“The one by the front door.”

“And the lines?”

“They’re on the inside of the door. You know, on the trim.”

He’s got to be silent for a full minute, before he finally says, “Yeah, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, so mystery remains.”

“How’s your place looking?”

“Just as trashed,” she says. “Not like I had anything though. Ashei helped me clean it up a bit, and we did pick up some of your stuff, if only so we didn’t just trample on it.”

“What’d you do with the file?”

“Safe.”

“Safe?”

“Safe.”

“Understood.”

“What’re we looking at?”

“That Zant Yang was definitely coming for us,” Link sighs. “All of us.”

“So you really just got out of there right on time.”

Link’s laugh is short and barking when he says, “Can thank Zelda’s damn problem for that.” He readjusts the receiver, making a crackling sound. “Damnable thing that it is, it did warn me when Zelda was using the phone at Ogilvie. Meant what I said about catching him stepping off a train, and I guess he really didn’t see me. We went straight back, loaded the car, and then left.”

“Oh shit, that was close,” Midna mumbles. “How’d he know?”

“Beats me, but if he’s trying to follow a trail, it should stop with you.”

“Unless he’s desperate.”

He takes a moment to breathe, and then he says, “I just get the feeling he’s not. Not yet, at least.”

“When would he be?”

“Once it’s whole.”

“Is putting it together the right move? You know those things never have like good stories, right?”

“I think it needs to be together before we can actually break it.”

“No man left behind?”

He laughs a little again. “Something like that.”

“Sorry nobody ever talks about actually getting rid of our problem.”

“Zelda talks a lot about moonlight, but I don’t know. I think about dumping it in the ocean sometimes.”

“Didn’t take you to be one for grunt work.”

“She’s way smarter than me, so…”

Midna cackles.

“Anyway we’re going to leave in the morning here,” Link tells her. “I don’t know where exactly we’re going, she’s figured that part out, so I have no idea what’ll be available. We’ll be in the same region at least.”

“I got you.”

“Everything else fine?”

“You’re welcome, by the way. Again,” she says. “The mail you left in the apartment, they opened up, but it’s just some bills, unless you can think of something else. I also got your mail from the box, that wasn’t opened, I don’t think. I used that check from Nohansen to cover the bills I found and your rent for the next two. Don’t make me use my own money.”

“Right,” he says, and she can hear him trying to stamp out laughter. “Thanks for doing that.”

“You might lose a couple of your insurance cases due to the timing, but I told them we fully understood. No charge for anything worked so far.”

“That’s fair.”

“Yeah?” she asks, a bit surprised.

“Yeah,” he says. “I trust you to handle those kind of things,” he says with a bit of a chuckle. “Hey, you know if you want to take the regulatory exam, I’ll help you. I can sign off on the experience requirement for you. Offer’s still on the table.”

“For my own license?”

“Yep.”

“I told you that I hate doing like half the work you do.”

“You don’t have to do surveillance work, you know,” he tells her. “I can take care of that.”

She scoffs.

He laughs. “I’m serious though,” he assures her. “If you ever want to, I’ll help. No expiration date.” He’s being sincere, she knows. Even when he’d first made mention of it, she knew it wasn’t some flippant offer. Sure, she hates surveillance work, and they could always divvy up the work to best suit their strengths, but that’s not the real problem. The real problem is what’s expected of a young woman.

Midna isn’t sure if Link is actually accounting for that.

“You think people will hire a woman though? Honestly? For PI work?” sneers Midna. “I could waste my time going to law school only to end up being a law office’s secretary, and I’d never get to argue a case in court. We can get the licenses and education for whatever work we choose, but it still doesn’t mean much, you know, if you can’t get hired or you can’t get clients.” It’s stupid patriarchal bullshit that Midna just never will understand. They’ll worship goddesses, but like you know, fuck the mortal woman? Gods are different after all, and blah blah blah.

“I think if you haven’t earned a reputation at this point next to my drunk ass, there’s no hope for either of us,” he says. The tone he uses is unfamiliar, more serious and graver than she’s used to hearing from him. “If they can get over hiring a drunk, they can get over hiring a woman. You’re not unqualified.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbles. She’s not unqualified, but neither are those other women relegated to positions far below them simply because they did not have the virtue of being born of a different sex. “I think you’re being overly optimistic,” says Midna.

“Me? Really?”

“Your cynicism seems to have taken a turn as of late.”

He gives her a sort of short, empty bark of laughter at that. “I love you, Mid.”

“Now you’re being really weird.”

“Bye,” is all he says before hanging up.

Rude. She always hangs up on him.

::

It takes a couple more days, but they arrive in Tarrey Town, and Zelda is excited as can be, telling Link that her father was right that she’d like Akkala in the fall. There’s not much time before the autumn gives way fully to winter at this point, and the trees this far north are desperately still trying to cling to their few warm colored leaves. She asks if they can stay for a few days, and Link obliges, perfectly content to just let her have a bit of fun. He doesn’t think she actually asks for much.

She’s disappointed that they’ve missed the racing season at the tracks that run through the Torin Wetlands below the town, but the weather is pleasantly cool on the plus side, Link thinks. Few days like this remain before winter will hit again, so they ought to just enjoy it, right?

She tells him she’s just going to grab them some lunch as she changes into a long sleeve velvet frock. “Or is that not allowed? I’ll keep it quick,” she promises.

“Mostly concerned about Castleton. Unless you think your little stalker is here in Tarrey Town?”

“Be just as surprised as you if he is.”

He comments that the navy blue is her color, earning him a big grin. She says she’ll be back in a bit, and he waves her off.

The dog is passed out on the bed in the room they got at the inn. They’ve shuttled the mirror inside the room as well, and Link thinks it’s been oddly silent since they added the piece to it from Skull Kid. The third piece was fairly active in his opinion until it was attached. He pulls at the canvas to expose the reflective surface, and when he looks in, his reflection is still gone. Nothing there at all, but it does give that low, hungry growl again like it did in the car on the way down to Faron. He jerks the canvas back.

He thinks maybe it’s just his own stomach growling for moment, but he’s just lying to himself.

At least it hasn't bothered talking to him. A hungry stomach is much more bearable.

Link blinks.

No. Definitely his own thought, he concludes.

Zelda hasn’t mentioned anything about the mirror talking either. It yapped in the car for a bit after leaving Castleton, but she’s said nothing else on it. He wonders if the mirror has fallen silent or if it’s just not trying to talk to him specifically. Give him the cold shoulder. It’s been displeased with him ever since he watched his reflection leave, so maybe that has something to do with its current attitude. Apart from Ogilvie Station, he hasn’t even heard the sonar beep in a while either that he can think of.

Link supposes he shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

He plops on the bed with the dog, who groans and stretches from the disruption. The dog rolls to him and, leaning against Link’s leg, plops his head against and slightly on top of Link’s thigh. It doesn’t take long before Link hears the dog snoring.

“Worked so hard, huh?” Link asks the dog sarcastically. The dog has the bright idea though. Link folds his hands across his stomach and nods off with him.

Zelda wakes him a little while later. “There’s a bakery nearby,” she tells him excitedly, handing him a couple of sandwiches. “Those are both yours,” she says quickly, and Link laughs as he blearily sits up.

He thanks her and starts on one of them while she digs around in her bag. He yanks the other sandwich out of the dog’s range. “What’re you doing?” he asks Zelda as she slams her luggage closed.

“Just getting some of my stuff together.”

“But it’s already in the bag?” he questions.

She rolls her eyes.

“Do you have a middle name?” she asks.

Link pauses in his chewing. She waits expectantly with an innocent, closed lip smile. He doesn’t like that; this is the kind of shit Midna does. “You’ve seen my license,” he says once he swallows. “No.”

“I just wanted to be sure,” she says.

“You’re being suspicious.”

“Just eat your sandwiches,” she snips at him. She calls for the dog and out they go. The silence that fills the room once she’s left makes him feel like she burst in like a whirlwind and then left as quickly as she came.

She’s up to something. Dammit.

Link finishes eating and just waits for her and the dog to come back from their walk, which at least doesn’t take that long. And that’s when Zelda starts trying to usher him along, quite literally pushing him a bit out the door as he grabs his pictobox bag.

“What’s your deal?” Link grumbles at her. “The dog’s got the right idea about a nap.”

“You can nap later,” she insists, and she drags him along through to the town center. She chatters as usual as they walk, this time about what she’d been reading before they left Castleton, but it’s basically all things that go over his head.

Tarrey Town is built around a goddess statute at the very center of the town, and all the streets fan outwards from it like a wheel. The statute itself is surrounded by a small pond and a bit of green space, and the roundabout street completely encircles it. They walk along the edge of the roundabout, and Link asks about the bakery she mentioned, thinking maybe this is where she’s dragging him along to. “I said that was by the inn,” she says.

So… not the bakery then?

“Is there a different one?”

“Link.”

She leads him down a street that branches off from the roundabout, and he decides to just not ask for the explain-like-I’m-five cliff notes from Zelda on her book. About two blocks down from the center of town, is when they make one more turn, and she pulls him up along a large building.

“Interesting architecture. Doesn’t look like a bakery,” says Link coming to a stop in front of it and interrupting her stream of thought.

She turns back to him, frowns, and gripes at him, “Were you even listening to me?” He was, sort of, but she mentioned sweets, and he’s still a bit hungry. He’d rather think about food and how to get to the bakery.

Zelda looks a bit annoyed. “Really, two sandwiches aren’t enough?” she asks him.

He tells her, “You mentioned a bakery, so I made room.”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” she chides.

Link looks back up at the building. “What is it?” he asks with a sigh. “I’m too tired to play games, Zelda.”

She blinks at him. “I guess you must be to call me that in public,” she says.

Oh.

Oops.

He apologizes, but she says, “It’s fine.” She pulls out from her bag some folded papers, handing it to him, but he just looks at like it’s some sort of poison. “I filled it out already,” she adds, but he still doesn’t take it.

“Filled what out exactly?” he asks. She implores him to take the papers by giving them an insistent shake with a frown, and he finally takes them, adjusting his pictobox bag when he does. He flips through them, and giving her a matching frown, he eyes her and says, “You know I’ve got like nothing, right?”

“I mean, I don’t have actually anything either.”

He looks back at the papers in his hand for a minute. He sighs and lets them slap against his leg. “And you’re sure?”

“You prefer something different?” she asks, her eyebrows raised.

“Uh, well, the bakery?” he suggests. This time he’s pretty sure it’s his own stomach making noise. She glares at him. “But are you sure?”

Those wide green eyes look at him then down at the papers he still holds. “I filled it out,” she repeats, gesturing at his hand.

“Not backing out?”

“I filled it out, Link,” she says sternly.

She doesn’t even miss a beat when he asks her, “What’s at the bakery?”

“Apple cake!” she gushes, and that glitter in her eye sparks off. “It’s even topped with cinnamon and whipped cream.” She’s practically drooling.

“Fruitcake making way for a new favorite now?”

“It’s almost winter,” she pouts at him, her cheeks puffing a bit. “You’re not getting that now.”

Link looks around. He’s not sure for what, honestly, maybe just any sign that he’s in some sort of weird waking dream state or something. But traffic passes behind them on the street, people walk by and chat, pigeons make landing to snack on crumbs left on the sidewalk. Link and Zelda, however, stand still while the world around them keeps turning and moving and going.

He's very tired, he thinks. Of everything.

He holds out the papers to her, saying, “Last chance.”

“Never taking it.”

“Alright then,” he concedes. She gives him that smile that has all the brilliance of the sun like she did back at the hospital. At least until he tells her, “You spelled my name wrong, by the way.”

“No way!” she cries. She snatches the papers back from him to frantically check them over for probably the millionth time as he walks on. Zelda trails behind, furiously muttering to herself.

She spelled it right, she’s too fastidious to make such a mistake, but it makes him laugh.

Later, while Zelda is still taking bites out of the apple cake straight from the box, Link tells her that he’s stopping at the telegraph station. She waits by the window for him, late afternoon sun pooling in, watching the people go by outside and still eating the cake. He messes with his bag while he waits on the attendant, and Link wonders if Rusl got the pictos of the dog as he leaves a telegram message for Rusl with no name, just the note:

DID IT LOVE YOU ALWAYS

Chapter Text

Zelda tells Link that she had only met Purah a few times before, so she’s nervous when they come up to the East Akkala Lab in the Foothills and try their luck with reception. Zelda gives her real name when asking for Purah, and they’re both pleasantly surprised when the receptionist tells them that Purah will be right down. Where Impa has always been a very strong, stoic, and steady presence in Zelda’s life, her younger sister is chaos reborn. “Snaps!” Purah says, her face lighting up when she sees Zelda as she bounds out from the restricted area to the lobby to greet Link and Zelda. “I thought I misheard on the phone. You’re lucky you caught me here, you know. I do a lot of work now down at the lab location in Hateno.

“But good gods, what’re you doing out here and calling on me?”

Link shoots Zelda a curious glance, and when she looks back at him, her eyebrows raised, he knows. They were probably very close to Purah in Hateno and had no idea at all.

Link isn’t sure what exactly he was expecting with Purah, but thinking of her stern sister, this… uh, wasn’t it. Link has to wonder how big the age gap is between them or if steadfast sternness just ages you that much since Purah looks like she’s way too young to be Impa’s sister. Maybe her spectacles are magnifying them a bit, but she has large downturned eyes, that give her a permanent look of tired boredom that doesn’t completely get hampered by her smile. Her silver hair rests in a high bun, and she sweeps her bangs out of her face when she steps up to them.

Purah looks Zelda up and down. “Damn, it’s been a while, huh?” she says, rubbing her forehead with the eraser end of her pencil. She holds her hand out about waist high. “Check it, I swear you were like this big last I saw you.” Zelda frowns a little, not buying that.

Purah adjusts her large spectacles and glances over to the receptionist. “How ‘bout a little walk?” she suggests with a wicked, troublemaking grin. “You have to see the ocean from up this way.”

Once outside where the biting late autumn wind hits them, Zelda huddles a little more into her coat. “Ugh, maybe I should have grabbed my coat,” Purah complains.

“We can turn back?” Zelda offers, probably hopeful for herself. Link finds only the wind a bit biting when it whips at his cheeks.

Purah waves her pencil around. “Eh, it’s fine,” she says. She pokes her pencil up under Zelda’s cloche. “You know, I know it’s been a while, but I could have sworn you had blonde hair.” She taps Zelda’s cheek. “You look so much like your mother now otherwise, it’s nuts.”

“I dyed it,” Zelda says about her hair, her cheeks tinging red more from embarrassment than the autumn air, Link knows.

“What!” Purah exclaims, pulling her pencil away. “Why?”

“Kind of uhm, missing right now?”

Purah frowns. “What.” It’s not even a question. Just a flat statement to match Purah’s default flat expression.

“I’m a missing person right now.”

“And you show up here?” Purah demands.

Purah’s dark red eyes then land on Link. “And who are you, by the way? I know I don’t know you.”

Zelda steps a bit between Link and Purah. “This is Link Coutts,” she introduces. “He’s the PI my father hired to find me.”

Purah looks between them.

“Don’t talk to Impa much?” Link offers.

Purah’s not amused. “I mean, she could just as easily pick up the phone and call me up and ask, ‘Hey Purah, how’re things going?’ and I could be like, ‘SUPER. SWELL.’” Hit a nerve. Okay. Link does his best to keep his face neutral. “Would also be the perfect time to say, ‘Hey, you know that kid I basically raised? Yeah, she’s gone missing.’ How long have you supposedly been missing for?”

“Since January 4^th, I suppose.”

“Girl, it has been like… eleven months?”

Link interjects with, “You know the ocean view is pretty nice.”

“Forget the stupid view, Linky,” Purah chastises.

“Could we maybe just talk inside then?” Zelda asks. “We brought something we’d like you to look at actually.”

Purah perks up a bit at this.

Link nods over to the car. “It’s in there with the dog.”

“Alright, fine,” Purah concedes. “Say nothing to Robbie if we run into him. I didn’t want to take you back, because otherwise he’ll be all up in my business, and it’s annoying.”

They open up the hatch, and Purah, ever curious, snakes her head over for a look. “Is it this big, wrapped thing?”

“Yep,” quips Link, and he and Zelda start to pull the mirror out together.

“Wait, wait,” says Purah. “I’ll get Symin to help you.”

Link and Zelda wait at the car, sitting on the bumper with the hatch still open until Purah returns with another Sheikah man. “Check it, it’s this big thing, Symin,” Purah says. With Symin’s help, Link and Zelda get the mirror out. Zelda then hefts the dog out of the car. Purah leads them, unlocking their way from reception to the secured area beyond, Zelda huffs along with the dog, and Link and Symin trail behind as they carry the mirror into the lab.

“Thank gods, no Robbie,” she mutters as she shuts the door to her private office. She gestures towards her desk. “Let’s lean it up against the desk.” Link and Symin lower the mirror as gently as they can.

Symin huffs from the exertion. “Lot heavier than it looks,” he says.

There are no windows in Purah’s private office. The walls are lined floor to ceiling with bookcases stacked with research notebooks and binders, reference books galore, and occasionally stuffed with small parts and pieces and other random knickknacks. Rolled parchment is stashed on a couple of shelves, sometimes stashed haphazardly on top of stacked books. The tables inside her office are large, but cluttered with different objects and various materials, binders and notepaper. Her office is every bit as chaotic as Purah is, a true reflection of herself.

Zelda sets the dog down who wastes no time in warning everyone about the mirror. He rushes up and snarls at the wrapped piece, and Link whistles for his attention. “Leave it,” he tells the dog, who reluctantly backs off.

“Alright,” Purah says. “Give me the story from the beginning here.” It’s Zelda’s mirror and Zelda’s disappearance, so Link just plops in a nearby seat to let her explain. He raps on his leg where the shrapnel is biting at him and tries not to think about how thirsty he is. “Hey, hey,” Purah says, tapping him with her pencil in disapproval.

“He’s missing a leg, Purah,” Zelda quickly explains before Purah can chastise him on manners. “He needs the chair more than me.”

Link lifts his pant leg for her. “Think it: front lines, 1916, land shark.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “I need that story later,” she declares.

Link calls the dog over when Link sees him trying to inch closer to the mirror, a low growl in his throat. “Down,” he snaps, and the dog, dying to go back and tell the mirror what’s what, struggles a bit but then sinks to the floor in a sploot, suspicious, watchful eyes still on the mirror.

Symin, who is Purah’s assistant, offers them water, which Link gratefully takes, hoping to drown out the other thirst plaguing him.

Zelda and Symin unwrap the mirror as Zelda explains that a year ago, she’d bought at auction a piece of the mirror, compelled to do so by it. She tells Purah she made herself disappear to hide from the other bidders that they think are after her still, explaining the dire lengths she went to in order to become someone else. “Hm, so don’t call the constables?” asks Purah.

“Gods, please, no,” Zelda groans.

“Fine, fine.” Purah looks sharply at Symin. She gives him a playful wink. “Hear that Symin? Sworn to secrecy.”

Symin seems well practiced in not playing into Purah’s dramatic theatrics, and he simply pulls up a seat next to Link to listen.

Purah inspects the mirror as Zelda explains the basics of what they know about it. “I’m disappointed you didn’t come to me first,” she says. She practically has her nose on the glassy surface, and Link wonders if she could be physically pulled in being so close. It’s a wild thought. Makes him nervous either way.

“So it talks to both of you?” she asks.

“It talks to other people, too,” Link says, and Purah thankfully turns away from the mirror to look at him. “Just not in words like us from what I know. It basically influences them into doing what it wants, and then I think over time, they’ve discerned that it’s not so much them, but the mirror.”

Purah rubs the eraser on her forehead again. “Explain more.”

“That whole thing was three pieces,” Link says, and Purah’s brows shoot up more. “The one Zelda got first is attached to it, then we got one piece from a friend I served with.”

Zelda says, “He was wanting to dump it as soon as he could, and we ended up getting in touch with him, because he called an auction house to get rid of it.”

“He keeps telling me how creepy it is,” Link adds. “He really didn’t want to hold on to it, but he held it for about two months until we could come get it just because it was telling him to wait. But when people get ahold of a mirror piece, and they tend to want to get rid of it as soon as possible.

“The last piece we got, the guy said he refused to sell it to other people since he could tell it didn’t want to go with them. He said it was fine with going with me. He actually had the second piece and pawned it off on my friend before we got it, so he seemed well aware of its manipulations.”

“So… guy you got it from, no words, but it talks in words to both of you? Doesn’t try to influence you that same way?”

“It tries to rile Link up by imitating sonar beeps,” Zelda proffers. “But I think it’s just words for us both otherwise so long as we’re not scrying into it?”

Purah looks down at the dog. “Your dog’s got a sense on it, too,” she says with a bit of an impressed note.

Purah looks between them. “So what exactly does it talk about with you?” Immediately, Zelda turns into an absolute strawberry.

“I think it tries to lean into your negative thoughts, maybe play up your perceived sins,” Link offers so Zelda doesn’t have to answer. She still won’t repeat anything to him, so she’d definitely die before she says anything in front of him, Purah, and Symin. “It likes to make suggestions on nearby bars for me for one.”

“Bars?”

“I’m an alcoholic,” he admits. It strikes him that that may be the first time he’s admitted it out loud so plainly. “It seems unimpressed with the idea of sobriety,” he jests darkly.

“How long have you been sober?” Purah asks him.

“Just a few months.”

“And no bar suggestions prior to that?”

“No,” he says. “Before that, I think when it did talk to me, it always did it in a way that I thought other people had said something. It makes sense looking back, but at the time, I thought maybe someone else was speaking.”

“Oh, yeah,” Zelda interjects, a realization hitting her. “You always kept asking me to repeat myself at the weirdest times when I hadn’t said anything. It likes to slide into conversations you’re having, too.”

“Or your thoughts if you’re thinking hard enough,” Link sighs.

Purah asks Link, “And it didn’t suggest you stop drinking?”

“No.”

“Didn’t suggest bars or anything to encourage you to keep drinking?”

“No.”

“Your conclusion then on it trying to lean into negativity and sins comes from that?”

Not saying anything about what little he does know on Zelda’s end, Link just clips, “In part.” Purah looks at him waiting for him to expand, but he just looks right back at her.

She asks him instead, “Linky, when was the last time you heard the sonar?”

He thinks on it. “I heard it the night we left Castleton, but that was different,” he says. “The last time before that was when it got me up in the middle of the night, I think… Yeah, it got me up.”

Purah tilts her head. “So at least once you know of, it did influence your actions?”

“Well, I suppose it got Zelda, too, because it wanted her to buy it at the auction. For me, it woke me up in the middle of the night with the sonar to come and get it. It was telling me in words,” he specifies, “to put it out on the balcony so other people could hear it. Said it was too stuffy in the closet. That’s the last time I saw my reflection in the mirror, too.”

Purah’s head vibrates in such a quick, violent shake, he think she might explode with questions. She sucks in a breath. “Finish with the sonar part,” she says, clearly eager though to move on to new information. “Why was the very last time you heard it different?”

“It was the alarm.”

“I’ve had similar,” Zelda tells Purah. “Not really a sound like the sonar, but it was more talkative then, and it would be projecting this huge sense of urgency, give me directions on where to go, or tell me to pay attention.”

“Yeah,” says Link, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Maybe it wanted to condition me to react to the sonar, I don’t know, but when I was watching the crowd at the station while Zelda was on the phone. I heard it go off, and it was like it was acting like an actual sonar system. I was able to follow where it pinged to see Zant Yang, the one Zelda mentioned following her.”

Link looks up at Purah. “We’ve sort of run into him once before without it warning either of us, but I think that’s because he wasn’t actively looking for us at that time.”

“You’re sure it was him?”

“I was taking pictographs at Korok Park, and Zelda pointed him out when I was developing them later on. My assistant got the picto for his license to compare.”

Purah nods and then questions, “And what’s this about your reflection?”

“When we were picking up the second piece from my friend, we were both looking in, and when he moved away his reflection and mine stayed exactly as they were. They didn’t move with us. Like the reflection is separate from us. When it woke me up, and I didn’t do what it wanted, I watched myself turn away and just keep walking off until I couldn’t see myself anymore. Now when I look at the mirror, I don’t see myself at all.”

“I don’t see you either,” Zelda admits. “I still see my reflection though.”

“How bizarre,” Purah says, tapping her pencil against her lips.

Zelda asks her, “Do you feel it, Purah? The pull it has?”

“The pull?”

“The way it just sucks you in,” Link says.

Her lips purse. “It does, have that, doesn’t it?” she says with realization. “Interesting,” she mutters. “So you might not be fully conscious of its influence.”

The mirror sits against her desk, almost complete at this point. She asks how many pieces remain, and she frowns when they tell her they don’t know. “Great,” she murmurs. “If it helps, I can keep the mirror here for you at least,” she offers. “My office here stays locked for the most part as it is, only Symin and I have keys, and then there’s getting through from outside in as well… Bit more secure than the back of your car.” Link shrugs at Zelda, leaving the choice up to her. Personally though, he’d rather not have to lug the damn thing around. It’s gotten too big. Getting away from it is just an extra bonus.

“Thanks Purah,” Zelda says. “I think we’ll leave it here then for now. You can let us know if you find anything if you study it, too.”

Purah eyes the mirror. She uses her pencil push on her forehead like she’s nodding at them. “Damn, Zellie,” she swears. “You really got yourself into it, huh?”

The thought pops in Link’s head again. “Hey, Zelda,” he calls, “have you heard it talk at all though since Puffer Beach?”

The uncertainty crosses Zelda’s face, and she’s silent as she thinks about it. Link, too, tries to think if he’s wrong and has heard something, but he’s coming up empty. “I can’t recall, you?”

“At least not since we attached the third piece. Heard it making noise, but I haven’t heard it talk.”

“Feel it more than hear it.”

“Maybe like how Groose and that Skull Kid did.”

“Does it mean something?”

Link shrugs. Her guess is as good as his.

Purah asks them, “How did you reattach the pieces?” She kneels down by the mirror, looking over its surface. Again, it’s a bit too close for comfort for Link. “From what I can tell,” she says pulling the mirror away from the desk to check the backing of it as well. “This doesn’t look like it was ever in smaller pieces.”

“It just sort of uh…” Zelda tries to explain, “fuses? When I put the first piece on it, it was like it was trying to snatch it from me. Snapped it right in place and patched itself up.

“But Twilight mirrors are supposedly a way to open portals. That’s why others want it, but I still don’t know how exactly you’re supposed to do that with the mirror. There’s a possibility of it being an access point for a void as well, maybe if a portal point to another world goes wrong or gets blocked, but what happens when you enter the void might be similar to black holes. Any matter that enters it will undergo spaghettification.”

“You make that up?” Link asks.

Zelda frowns at him. “I thought you looked at those books I had.”

“I know you’re smart enough to know looking and understanding are two different things,” Link retorts.

Purah taps him with her pencil. “It’s a thing,” she says picking up a notebook, and flipping open its pages around the spiral spine. “It’s physics.” Right, the thing that makes his head hurt. Purah gets this mad look in her eyes. “There are extreme tidal forces in black holes, so when an object enters its vicinity, it gets pulled in by the gravitational pull.” Link already feels this going over his head, because what the hell are tidal forces? “It’s called a gravitational gradient, so the closer to the black hole, the stronger the gravity. An object that enters that pull is basically stretched and stretched and torn apart due to the gradient.”

Link stares blankly at Purah.

Symin leans over and says to Link, “You get too close to a black hole, you get pulled in like taffy.”

Huh. Okay. That makes a lot more sense.

“Then why spaghetti and not taffication?”

“Linky, we’re not here to reinvent the wheel, come on.”

He hums, thinking it over. “Maybe that’s where my reflection went though?” Link suggests. “Your black hole or whatever.”

Purah looks at him with those unamused eyes. “You seem to have super spooky supernatural explanations, Linky.”

“That’s not science? A black hole?”

“Black holes, yes. Your reflection, no,” she insists, rapping him on the head with the notebook. “We need to figure out the super cool sciencey part now.”

“If there is one,” Link grumbles.

Purah smacks him with the notebook again.

Link suggests, “If you want super spooky supernatural explanation though, maybe I just became a vampire.”

“Vampires are night creatures, Linky, and you haven’t spontaneously combusted. Get with it.”

Symin clears his throat. “Daywalkers are a thing, you know. Did you have a sudden aversion to garlic?” Symin jokes.

Symin’s cool, Link decides.

Purah doesn’t entertain the vampire theory any more, and she goes back to fervently jotting down some notes. “Please,” she groans. “It can’t all be spooky mumbo jumbo. Hell, if it’s a portal point, maybe all that talking you hear from it are things that are coming through from elsewhere.” But Link has to disagree. The mirror was very specific. Someone else randomly speaking into the mirror wouldn’t try to direct him to go four blocks from his flat to the nearest bar. The idea of his reflection acting independently is also pretty farfetched, and where did it go?

“So where is your next piece?” she asks.

Link and Zelda exchange a glance.

“Honestly, no idea,” says Zelda. “The two we got pieces from will let us know if something comes their way. I call up basically all the major auctions houses each week to see if it shows up as a potential lot. Leaves a lot to be desired at this point.”

“Hey Symin, you know anything?”

Symin jumps a little. He stammers out a no, which Purah seems annoyed about. Link chuckles a little, because what a shot in the dark.

She jots a note down on a piece of paper and hands it to Zelda. “Check in then with me on the regular. If only to just say you’re okay. Reception will patch you through.” She pauses.

“What’s your last name again, Linky?”

“Coutts.”

“Where are you from?”

“Uh, Ordon? As far as I know.”

She taps her pencil again. “Fitting,” she says.

“Purah, I’d rather not call up here again as Zelda Nohansen,” Zelda cuts in.

“Ah snaps,” says Purah. “Missing person and all, right, right.”

“Will you remember it’s me when Tetra Bosphoramus calls?”

Purah scribbles in her notebook. “Tetra Bosphoramus and Linky Coutts,” she says to herself. She gives Zelda a wink. “You got it.” Purah looks down at the dog by Link’s feet.

“Courage,” Link tells her.

She pokes her pencil at Link. “Okay, so last thing,” she says, “tell me about this land shark that ate your leg.”

Purah’s a lot less interested to find out it was only a piece of a shrapnel.

Zelda is watching him from the corner of her eye all the way back to the inn they’re staying at near East Akkala Station. She remains quiet even though Link knows she’s ready to burst on him, so he just prepares for the onslaught he’ll get once they reach their room.

He waits on the dog to relieve himself before they head in after Zelda.

He sighs when closes the door and just says, “Lay it on me.”

“You don’t think it’s all science,” she accuses as he kicks off his shoes.

He scoffs. “It’s a talking mirror, Zelda,” he says as the dog tip taps lay out on the bathroom floor. How are they debating this? Well, they’re really not, Link supposes. She’s just trying to pick his brain again. “That’s like the exact opposite of ‘super cool sciencey’ things.”

“And you don’t think it could be that we’re hearing people talk through a portal like Purah suggested? Maybe we only hear them talking, because it can’t form the whole portal for us to pass through? You know, like we get snippets instead.”

“See, that sounds like ‘super spooky supernatural’ crap to me,” Link says. She’s trying to look at all the angles, make sure she’s not missing anything, but what was that Purah said about not reinventing the wheel? “I don’t think it’s all science that we’re going to explain. When it talks, it’s too specific. Who from another world is sitting around with their mirror, checking out what’s happening here, and also going to know a bar exists four blocks from our flat?” Zelda blinks, looking a bit surprised. “Not to mention, waking me up to be like, ‘Hey, take me out to your balcony. Sounds like a good place to catch a breeze, cause it’s so hot and stuffy in the closet.’ It sounds stupid.” He throws his hands up. “The whole thing. Everything.

“Why’d you even buy the damn thing?”

“I bought it, because it told me to,” she reminds him. “I felt like I had to stay, you know? And I didn’t have a reason to, just had to stay, and then when I saw it come out, it winks at me, tells me we’re going to have a real fun time, and I just… kept bidding.”

“It winked at you?”

“Sure felt like it.”

“Super spooky supernatural,” says Link, pointing a finger at her.

“You know, if I didn’t buy it, we wouldn’t be here,” she says wryly. “Better or worse.

“I do hate thinking about it like it’s not an object, but something with its own thoughts and wants and needs. That is super spooky supernatural. But the way it winked at me at the auction, that’s how it communicates without words.”

Link worries his bottom lip. “Is it even the right thing to put it back together?” he asks at last, echoing Midna, because the bigger the dumb thing gets, the worse he feels about it. He shivers a bit.

Zelda doesn’t know, and she asks him instead, “Why’d you call it ‘perceived sins’?”

He looks her at her, almost having forgotten he’d even said that. “Perception is everything, Zelda,” he says softly. “Why encourage drinking only when I quit?” He rolls his eyes a little. “I mean, I get that I was like some level of drunk all the time, but it only cared that it was a problem when I acknowledged it was a problem.” He gestures a hand at her. “Doesn’t it get its kicks with you by banking on making you uncomfortable?”

Of course she flushes to the tips of her ears. He’ll let her work that on her own, he thinks.

Link rubs his mouth, trying not to let thoughts of liquor worm its way in.

His hand drops.

“I didn’t want to work in the darkroom for like a day and a half, because Midna was going to spend the whole time annoying me about not actually working back there, even if I was. I didn’t realize it was the mirror at the time, just thought like it was some sort of intrusive thought,” he tells her. “It referred to her as ‘the Inquisition’.” Like he’d hoped, it gets her to start laughing.

“I think though because I didn’t want hear Midna making all sorts of lewd jokes about us, it piped up. That’s when it said something about the darkroom being a dark place for dark thoughts and lust being a cardinal sin.” He shrugs.

“I think it said something like that to me once, too. The dark places thing.”

If it actually means something, Link doesn’t give a shit anymore. All that matters, he reminds himself, is saving Zelda from what’s coming. At all costs, he amends, grimmer than ever.

Zelda divulges, “I’ve had some daydreams about dumping it off a skyscraper and shattering when it goes on and on about you.”

“Sounds like the best plan for it,” Link says, yawning a bit. “Let’s put it all together and do that.”

“I don’t think that’d be the end. It’s broken now, but not really.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. He starts pacing around. “When I think about dumping it in the middle of the ocean, I just get the feeling that it’d just come right back. Like it’d be at our doorstep waiting for us.”

“I still think that is what we need to do though. Putting it together so we can actually break it for good,” Zelda says slowly, thinking. “If the pieces are looking for us, too… I wonder if we could see something in the mirror. Your reflection acted independently, so maybe it’ll cooperate for a common goal.”

“What’d you see when you spent all that time looking into it before?”

“Nothing honestly,” she says. “Just me. I was just getting sucked in with it talking about all sorts of things.”

Link grunts.

After a beat, he jokes, “I bet if we tossed it off a skyscraper, we’d get all the way down and find it still in one piece.”

“It did just repair itself like nothing.”

Link grimaces when the weight of the new task hits him. “I didn’t mean to give us another job,” he complains. “Damn.”

He sinks down on the bed and takes off his prosthetic to lie down. He wiggles around his missing foot and ankle, hoping their ghosts will go away. And just to remind him she’s a telepathic witch (explain that, science), Zelda crawls up on his chest, folding her hands to rest her chin, and she whispers to him, “Boo!”

“Told you not to do that.”

“What? Read your mind?”

“See?” he grumbles, wrapping his arms around her. “You gonna take the dog’s spot now?”

She asks, “The dog’s spot?” This time, she’s not reading his mind.

“Yeah? You never seen him?” He complains, “The little shit has been like constantly sleeping on my chest lately. Annoying, cause I can’t be rude and move around on him.”

Zelda pauses, thinking, but then she teases him, saying, “You keep calling him ‘the dog’ but then think it rude to push him off of you at night?”

“Well, he gets all comfortable.”

“Just admit you like Courage,” she says, but when he looks down at her, he can see her mind whirling, and he’s not so sure he’s up for another round of debate or anything mental of the sort.

“I’m taking a nap,” he declares, throwing his head back. She can wake him when they’re dead, he guesses.

::

Zelda’s struggling to stay awake. She knows she’s probably nodded off a couple of times already. Courage sleeps on the bathroom floor, thinking the both of them too hot, she guesses. She curls on her side, trying her best to blink away the sleepiness hitting her eyes. Her head rests on Link’s outstretched arm. The light from the bathroom is on, and it filters through the room. She can clearly see that Link’s fallen asleep, his breathing deep and slow.

She pulls the blankets tighter around her as she watches and waits, feeling cold without him against her, but she’s trying not to get in the way.

If only her eyelids aren’t so heavy.

They droop just a little bit.

She startles herself awake, somehow knowing much time has passed, and cursing at herself, but when she rises a bit, she can see Courage’s feet still hanging up in the air in bathroom. She hikes the blankets back up her bare shoulders.

He's been sleeping better of late since he quit. Not waking as much in the night, and the sleep walking has ceased completely – and that’s not just because he’s aware enough to take his prosthetic off before falling asleep. There have been no attempts that result in him tumbling over and out of bed and knocking him literally awake.

Just as she wonders if her vigil is for nothing, she hears Courage suddenly jerk to attention. The scramble of his feet on the tile as he rolls from his back to stand up. He doesn’t move. She doesn’t move. Then she hears him, softly. Boof. Then quiet.

Courage’s little feet quickly pitter patter on the tile and carpet before he launches himself onto the bed, and she watches as he moves purposefully up the bed between her and Link and then plop himself right on Link’s chest. Link takes a bit of a sharp inhale. Courage looks around, listening with his long ears straight up at attention. If he was relaxed and not actively listening, they’d be sitting lower, almost like an airplane. He gives another quiet boof, and then Courage crawls up a little closer to Link’s head and lowers his own. His ears don’t lower. Waiting and listening.

When she finally moves to reach a hand out from under the blankets, Courage follows her hand with his eyes, but he doesn’t move from his position. She scratches his head a little, but Courage still doesn’t move. She realizes that he’s put himself in the same position whenever she’s seen Link experiencing a flashback.

She reaches over to pat the dog again, and she whispers to him, “Good boy, Courage. Good help.” He gives a big sigh, but hey, it’s a big job, and nobody’s been thanking him for doing it. Zelda leans over and kisses the dog’s head.

Settling back in, Zelda rolls the other way and thinks her vigil has finally come to an end. There’s nothing to do for now except wait for morning, and then she’ll go back to Purah and the mirror. She scoots herself back a little closer to Link and Courage for their warmth and pulls Link’s hand towards her. Her eyes start to droop again for sleep.

Ping!

Boof.

Chapter Text

“I’m going to see Purah,” Zelda announces in the morning. Link is still curled up under blankets with Courage snugly fit at the bend in his knees. She kisses his temple and shrugs on her coat, not waiting for him.

Link quirks an eyebrow at her. “No ‘we’ in this?”

“You can go see what interesting pictos you can take,” she suggests to him. He just tosses her the car keys off the nightstand and then retreats under the covers again. “Why don’t you keep Courage with you?”

He gives her a questioning look but says nothing about it except to agree. He knows when she’s up to something, but that’s okay.

When she arrives at the lab, Symin this time comes out to see her back to Purah’s office. Purah is pouring over things scattered on one of the tables when Zelda walks in. “Well, didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” she greets. She looks over, and with a nod, asks, “Where’s Linky and the dog?”

“Left them at the inn,” Zelda says. “I was doing some thinking last night about the mirror, and I might need your help.”

“New theories suddenly?”

“Well, when I first got the mirror piece, I spent a lot of time just looking into it,” she tells Purah. “We don’t have any leads really for the next piece, so I thought maybe it might show something, but it’s hard to pull away when it sucks you in…” She clears her throat. “I’m afraid I’m here for ‘super spooky supernatural’ stuff.”

Purah glances over at the mirror, still sitting against her desk, but the canvas has been thrown over it. “Kind of dazzles the eye, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Zelda says wistfully.

“The other thing is that I think it is trying to get to Link still,” Zelda admits as she takes off her coat. “He just doesn’t know it.” The memory sound of sonar ping reverberates in her skull. “The sound of a sonar can trigger these flashbacks from the war when he hears it, but Courage pins him down, so I don’t think he awakens enough to fully hear the mirror making the sonar beeps.”

“The dog?”

“Yeah, he climbs on top of Link and stays there, won’t get up.”

Purah blinks, her eyes rolling up as she thinks. “He lost his leg from shrapnel,” she mutters. “He diagnosed with shell shock?”

“Yes, he was near the explosion from what I understand.”

“And you didn’t bring him back here?” Purah suddenly exclaims, throwing up in the air the papers she was looking at when Symin and Zelda walked in. “Symin!” she calls. “We need to get Linky back here.”

“Why?” Zelda asks.

“When was the explosion?”

“About six years ago.”

Purah pauses, but she looks like a ticking bomb ready to explode herself. “And he still experiences symptoms? Fascinating.

“Check it,” Purah says, and she snatches a snow globe off a bookcase shelf to show her, “they started calling it shell shock because when they’re in close proximity to the blast, it can literally do like this-” and Purah rattles the snow globe around, sending the white flecks to fly about. “Really shake up a person’s brain.” It’s almost barbaric, Zelda thinks. “Except, you know, the brain stays intact.”

But Purah isn’t done yet. She sets the snow globe down on the table, and Zelda looks into it and past the little flakes, and she sees a small replica of Hyrule Castle that sits at the center of Castleton in the midst. “What’s interesting is that there are so many soldiers though with similar symptoms to shell shock that were nowhere near an explosion,” says Purah as Symin sighs. He takes the snow globe and places it back in its place on the shelves.

“So… not shell shock?”

Purah scoffs. “War neuroses is what they call that.

“But if Linky is actually shell shocked having been close to an actual explosion, maybe if we can look at his brain-”

It’s almost too quiet to cut through Purah’s fervent excitement, but Symin’s tone is admonishing enough to halt her, even if momentarily, when he says, “Purah.”

“I’m sorry, how can you look at his brain?” Zelda asks, a bit horrified at the thought since she imagines Purah wanting to cut open his skull for a look.

“We could put a contrasting agent in him, so it goes to the brain arteries and x-ray it that way.”

“But- just why?”

“See if it’s all swollen still from getting all scrambled like a cucco egg, of course.”

Symin clears his throat. “Seeing if there’s cranial swelling or not may rule out a physical cause for shell shock symptoms,” he explains more eloquently. “This long out from the war, it’s possible shell shock isn’t completely a physical ailment as it was originally determined, but a psychological one.” He harps at Purah, “You don’t need to be experimenting on the man though.”

She scowls.

“Besides electroshock therapy, there’s talk therapy available. That’s become more popular now that there’s been proposals of it being more of a psychological condition,” Symin suggests, but Zelda quickly dismisses it to herself. Link hates talking about the sub and the war too much, and he’s always shot down Midna’s suggestions for it. “In Domain City, they’ve been experimenting with various therapeutic relaxation and massage techniques as well.”

Purah, less crassly this time, proposes, “Maybe the dog is doing that? Using the pressure of his body weight to calm Linky down?”

“I thought maybe it was more of a grounding thing,” Zelda says.

“Grounding?”

 “He seems to be able to come back from a flashback if there’s something that he recognizes that can’t be on the submarine. Courage being one.”

“Ugh, Symin, come on,” Purah groans with deep exasperation. “Linky could be one hell of a psychological or medical breakthrough.”

“You’re not a medical doctor,” Symin reminds her sharply.

She rolls her eyes. “Fine, whatever.” Zelda thinks she should probably still keep Link far from Purah from now on.

“But you think the dog is basically helping block the mirror from influencing Linky?”

“Purah.”

“Every time I try to do something cool, Symin, you make it not that way,” she grumbles, and she turns back to sorting the stuff she tossed over the table.

To Zelda, quietly, Symin leans down and whispers, “That’s my actual job.”

“I would be grateful though if one of you could snap me out of it if I spend too long looking at the mirror,” says Zelda, trying to hide the amused smirk that’s begging to stretch her mouth.

“Have fun,” Purah says dismissively. “Do your cool things.”

Zelda pulls the canvas off of the mirror. The mirror gleams under the lights in the office, twinkling enticingly. When she looks in, she sees herself reflected back as well as all the various books, papers, binders, and objects unknown littering the bookcases behind her. Zelda sets her bag and coat down, willingly letting herself get drawn in. She smiles at the mirror when it tries hissing at her.

Come on now, acting like they’re strangers. Please.

The least you could do is bring some lunch.

Zelda didn’t realize the mirror had an appetite or even needed to eat. It mentioned eating once before, but she didn’t think it was something literal.

Of course, doesn’t everyone? Don’t want to waste away after all.

But what’s a mirror to eat? It’s not like it has a mouth.

Zelda’s eyes drift over to Purah bent over the table, gathering up her things, and Symin slipping out of the door. Purah calls back that they’ll check on her soon.

The mirror hisses again.

Zelda turns back to it.

What’s this now, Princess? Keeping secrets? What’s the matter? Worried about the disapproval?

Disapproval? From whom?

The mirror bristles a little.

“You know they’re looking for me,” she whispers to the mirror. “And they want to take you away.”

“Away”. HAH.

“It’s true. I could have lost the auction after all, and where would you be?”

The mirror ripples.

“See, you don’t like that, do you?”

Zelda stares at her reflection, and she suddenly recalls that she did see beyond the reflection once before. “How could I forget?” she murmurs to herself.

Don’t be silly, Princess.

“Oh, but things would go much quicker if only I knew where to go.”

Well, you’re just going to have to deal.

Zelda leans in closer, whispering seductively to the glass, “Think about it now. We could have lots of fun when you’re whole. That’s what you said you wanted right? Us to be whole.” She catches the barest glimpse of a twinkle. “When you’re whole, there’ll be lots of things you can do, right? Couldn’t we go somewhere real neat?”

The mirror suddenly bristles up in alarm. You don’t know what you’re talking about, stupid girl.

“But isn’t the point to have fun?” Zelda asks. “Let’s go for a ride. Show me where to go.”

If you want to do that, there’s a price.

“Oh, yes, of course! But why didn’t you say something sooner if you were so hungry?”

Need to eat need to eat need to eat need to e-

“Do you need me to bring Link then?”

The mirror hisses in response, but it’s not reproachful. It’s eager.

“What else can I do for you to make it all better?”

Drag him down to the depths. Eat him whole, Princess. Drag him down. Let him drown.

“You know, I’m just dying to know,” Zelda implores her reflection, almost nose to nose with it. “Where can I go?”

You go to the depths, too, Princess.

“Like a void?”

Hungry.

“Hey now,” she calls to it. “Did you eat Link’s reflection?”

Silly girl, there’s no reflections here.

“Then show me what you need,” she demands.

An eye, Princess. Didn’t you have one you wanted to get rid of anyway?

“I can feed you all you want, but I need the knowledge in return,” she says lowly. “Show me where to go.”

So it does, finally relenting, and it takes Zelda’s breath away to see. One more piece, it’s very eager now. One more piece, and it’s practically under her nose. “Are you sure?” she asks it in disbelief.

The mirror purrs at her.

Zelda stares into the mirror until Purah shakes her away some time later.

“You good there?” she asks.

Zelda feels exhausted suddenly, but she does her best to smile, and Symin comes and covers the mirror for her.

“I thought about your super spooky supernatural things,” Purah starts, slapping the notebook in her hand down on the other. “I’m sure the idea of reflective surfaces not only show the physical self, but are capable of capturing hidden dimensions and souls is not lost on you.”

“It’s what scares me the most, I think,” says Zelda. She decides to voice Link’s opinion on the matter: there may be science here they just won’t be able to explain. “It mentioned being hungry once, but I didn’t quite realize it actually does feed.”

Symin brings over a chair for her to sit down on, and she thanks him profusely.

“Snaps, I wish you came here sooner.”

“My father mentioned your lab to me only recently when I reached out to him,” Zelda admits. She quickly amends that she’s otherwise still very much a missing person. “You barely come visit Impa, and she hardly mentions you, so I honestly didn’t think to try and find you until he mentioned your research on ancient tech. This seemed sort of in your wheelhouse.

“I was surprised you even remembered me, you know,” Zelda says.

Purah starts to cackle. “No way I’d forget you, missy. You built that silly dessert trebuchet, remember?”

Zelda feels her face heat. “No, actually, I don’t,” she says quickly. “When was this?”

“Doesn’t matter. It was just the laugh I needed that day,” Purah says. She winks at Zelda.

“So what’s the news?” she asks, nodding over to the mirror.

Zelda glances at the covered the mirror. “It says it’s not reflections. What we see in it, I mean.”

“You’ve had at least one piece for a while now,” Purah says. “It’s possible that it’s been storing your energy then.” To Zelda, this make sense considering that it’s finally admitted to needing to feed, and she thinks there was a slow increase in activity over time with the mirror. Purah also points out, “You mentioned that it might be hooking up to a void space. What if that’s where all the energy it sucks in goes?”

“Takes it in, dismantles it, and then reforms it,” Zelda theorizes. Not reflections…

“You’re currently the expert here on weird mirrors,” Purah says.

“I don’t feel like it,” Zelda says. “I’m nothing more than a tool really.”

Symin clears his throat. “Listen, I did some reading myself last night…”

“Are you now some mirror expert, Symin?”

He smiles with a bit of bashful pride. “There’s a few things that I’ve found that might catch your interest on old Twili stories,” he tells Zelda, “but I think we have something that might be of use to you as well.” He shuffles through Purah’s mess, moving aside some of her things with his foot to her indignant protests. Symin digs around under a pile of papers on a small desk that, with some of the mess cleared away to get to it, Zelda sees is encircled by a stark white line on the floor. “You know, I put it on my desk so it’d be easy to find,” he tells Purah.

“Well, I needed the space.”

“Aha!” he cries in victory once he finds what he’s looking for. “And you have the whole office,” he rebukes, turning to Purah. “Can I not have my own desk in order?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Purah adjusts her glasses. “Obsidian, Symin?” She’s not very impressed.

“I thought I was the new weird mirror expert here,” he jokes, and Purah rolls her eyes.

But Zelda remembers. “There are Twili tales about stones to travel with through the mirror!” she exclaims. “I could never find out what kind though. Link’s assistant is Twili, but she didn’t know either and mentioned it might be bad translations. She thought some were talking about Sols, the Twilight suns. But Sols didn’t really seem like what we need.”

Simon shifts on his feet. “Well, it’s not so much just the obsidian, but what you do with it as well,” he says, holding out the stone to Zelda. “It all goes back to reflective surfaces storing energy, right?” Zelda takes the ore from Symin. It’s hefty in her hands, and she looks down at the ore. Roughed up in some places but in other spots it has a high polished sheen.

It clicks for Purah. “Snaps, Symin!”

“Obsidian is known for its protective qualities,” Symin explains to Zelda.

Purah adds, “Not science-y.”

Zelda chuckles a bit.

Symin clears his throat to shush Purah. “Obsidian is a good ward against negative energy and other kinds of psychic attacks, but it’s also reflective. Theoretically, you could alter it. We can try polishing it a bit more before you go, too.”

Zelda turns the stone over in her hands, the ideas whirling in her head. She keeps coming right back to moonlight. Broken mirrors should be buried under moonlight to neutralize the pieces, but she never could figure out what she was to do to destroy a Twilight mirror. The obsidian glints up at her, and the idea takes shape. She gives Symin a bright smile, the whole plan piecing together for her. “Thank you!” she gasps.

::

“How was the misadventure?” Link asks when Zelda finds him after searching for him in the afternoon. She feels unsteady on her feet as she approaches. The scrying session in the mirror has drained her, but she thinks she’s got all the pieces at last to the puzzle to end it all, so the misadventure wasn’t for naught. Link and Courage, at this point at least, haven’t strayed too far from the inn, so her wobbly legs don’t need to go on a hike.

The inn doesn’t sit as close to the cliffs as Purah’s lab, but being at such a high altitude, it doesn’t detract from the ocean view that expands to the horizon and beyond. Somewhere far below them, the waves crash and roar against the rocks.

Link sits in the grass with Courage dutifully next to him as he pops out a roll of film from his pictobox, cigarette smoldering in his mouth. He stashes the film in a canister that he marks with a marker and then puts it away in his bag. Zelda watches as he nimbly puts in a new roll, stretching the film negative over the opened back of the pictobox. The natural light exposure gives the film a dark brown coloring. Link secures the film, slaps the back of the pictobox closed, and he starts winding. He hums when she asks why he does that, so she repeats herself. “Got to get the film that’s not been exposed to be right where the lens is so it can capture the image,” he explains. “The shutter opens and the varying light exposure is how you get your picto on the negative.”

He's been making a lot of changes lately, she thinks, even if he doesn’t really notice it himself. She sees him trying to make an effort with Midna to keep them close. Unshakeable, she thinks. That’s what they are in the end.

Maybe he really can do it.

She’s glad, too, that he’d indulged her in sending Rusl the pictos of Courage.

Mending is always hard work.

She thinks he’s happy for once, too, just taking pictos for the sake of taking pictos.

And the mirror hates it.

Link had been the greater well spring of negative thought, bad habits, doubt, and grinding pain than she ever could be. As he points out a Silent Princess flower to her, surprisingly defiant to bloom in the looming cold, her mind drifts over what the mirror had mentioned, and Zelda concludes that Link committing to changing course in his life is probably starving the damn thing.

It needs to feed.

Zelda stoops down next to him, legs like jelly. “You been hanging around here all day?” she asks.

“Checkin’ never stops,” he says seriously, and she instinctively balks. It makes Link cackle (who’s the real witch now?), and when she scoffs at him for his own witch accusations, he darkly jokes, “At least we’ll hang together, love.”

“Well, it’s certainly not happy with us.”

“The stupid mirror?”

“It needs to eat so that once it’s whole, it can open a portal,” she tells him, explaining a bit of her new theory. “You’re being very rude and starving it out right now.”

“I really have underestimated the benefits of sobriety.”

“There’s a single piece left, and it showed me where to go. It wants it back desperately, but I have to make a trade. It mentioned something about an eye I already wanted to get rid of.”

“An eye?” Link clarifies. She nods at him. “Ha, easy,” he snickers devilishly as a wolfish, snarling grin stretches his mouth. He surprises her when he says, “I can think of one.”

“Not you, right?”

He snorts. “Not a PI,” he says. “It’s talking about a Sheikah eye, I bet.

“Unless you’re looking to get rid of me?”

He refuses to say anything else on the matter.

Link laughs a bit when Zelda warns him that Purah wants to look at his brain. His only comment on that is to say, “Tell her she can cut it open then when I’m dead. Like they do those rabid animals.”

“Gross, Link.”

“So what else?” he asks.

She hums. “I guess I have all the pieces.”

“Oh? Do I get to hear it all now?”

“You want me to tell you?”

Link looks out on the ocean, likely more at peace than he has been in ages. “Nah,” he says. He gives her an almost impudent grin. “Surprise me.”

It strikes Zelda that she’d made the right choice all along trusting Link back in Hateno.

So they just try to enjoy the late afternoon. Courage rushes about, trying to chase down the warm darner dragonflies he finds. Zelda thinks they ought to get a move on south before the winter truly sets in, but it’s nice to see them. The warm darners certainly stick around longer up north than the summerwing butterflies.

By the time the sun sets, and the nighttime chill settles in, Link’s roll of film is used up, and he suggests (as if reading her mind for once) heading home to Castleton, like they’re just planning nothing more than an end to a vacation or something. The mirror, however, he says must go with.

“So do you know?” Zelda whispers, thinking of the scrying session where she finally got the mirror to reveal the final piece to her.

Link looks her in the eye, and she freezes in place. She thinks of Midna complaining when he does this and thinks she’ll commiserate on it with Midna later. “I think we’ve both always known,” he replies, and Zelda shivers under that one electric blue.

They’ve known each other forever, so what more do they need to say?

::

The twins have had enough, but Tatl is eager to find out everything Mr. Nohansen spoke about with Tael. She admonishes him when she thinks he should have lied though when he recounts it, but he just shrugs.

Impa’s too mean to be asking questions of, so they search around for the other Sheikah on staff, her daughter, Paya. They find her down by the kitchens, having just finished her dinner and follow her about the halls until she stops and calls them out. “What is it you two want?” she sighs at them.

Tatl speaks for them both. “You get put on watch duty, right?”

“Watch duty?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tael interjects.

“Like the library.”

“Oh!” And Paya understands them.

Tatl asks, “What else is important here?”

Paya’s brow wrinkles. “Um, well you know there’s lots of important things here.”

“That’s not helpful,” Tatl huffs. “Come on, Tael.”

“Hey, you stay out of trouble now,” Paya calls to their backs.

Tatl and Tael decide to sneak about. Tael thinks they’re like secret agents or spies as they crouch down in shadows when someone passes them. They don’t ever get past Impa though, who locks in on them hiding like she’s got a six sense for it. Tael sees her severe mouth miraculously thin even more, and her eyes narrow at them, but she just leaves them be, only snapping at them, “Try not to stay up too late.”

They spy him later exiting the library. Nothing in hand. Tatl shoves Tael forward. “Go, stupid,” she whispers. “Follow him.”

Tael hates that she makes him do most of the work, but he’s the boy, so duh, he should be.

Tael wonders if this is the sort of thing that Link Coutts guy does, and then he feels a bit better, because that seems pretty neat. Since Coutts is pretty neat. He thinks maybe Tatl is the one missing out as he moves forward alone.

Coutts told Tael he might not need a new job, and Tael likes that since he does actually like working here. It’s a nice place. The Nohansens aren’t bad either, but Tael wonders if he and Tatl could work for Coutts instead. “Collectors” is what he heard Link Coutts call them, but he’s not sure what Coutts meant by that. Sounds kind of cool though.

Tael wonders what cool things they could collect.

Tael follows along as quietly as he can. He’s very good at that, yes. Has had lots of practice thanks to Tatl always making him do the heavy lifting. Tael watches in shadows as he makes his way down to a tight service stairwell. He sidles up to the top and waits.

Somewhere off behind him, he hears the soft scuffling of Tatl following along after him. She’s not as good about being quiet as him. Heavier on her feet. He’s had more practice.

Creeping, Tael makes his own way down the stairs. They’re on lowest level of the house in a hallway rarely visited even in the bustling daytime. Tael does his best to slide in under the stairwell and stay out of sight.

Curiously, there’s a hidden alcove that Tael never knew existed. Their target opens it after checking around that he’s alone (hah, he’s not, Tael is too good), and the large painting that covers it swings out. Tael makes note of the alcove to check out later, since he can’t see very well inside from where he hides, but something shiny is in there.

Their target pulls something out from the alcove and deftly conceals it.

The painting slaps against the wall again, and, after securing it, he walks off, none the wiser. Tael waits for a time to be sure he doesn’t come back before he dares to crawl out and then back up the stairs to where Tatl waits.

They agree to check it when they know they have the time and distance.

::

“You’re coming back?” Midna is surprised.

“Yeah, we’ll see you in a couple of days,” Link tells her.

“You’re not worried?”

“I’d appreciate it if you checked nothing’s changed, but I’m sure when he realized we were gone, he’d figure he’d need to start looking elsewhere.”

“Even your dresser was very thoroughly rifled through,” Midna thoughtfully says. “Why don’t you come up to Ashei’s first though?”

“Is she hosting soon?”

“No, it’s Mido’s week.”

Link pauses, and the scrunched look on his face catches Zelda’s eye outside the phone booth. He waves at her dismissively, and he slyly asks Midna, “Are you actually playing with those bozos?”

She brags, “Apparently I’m fun.” Ah. Link gets the implication, but he doesn’t take insult to it.

“Is Ashei in?” he asks instead. “Don’t want to crowd her otherwise.”

“She’s not, but I’ll ask. Come here first for me either way.”

“Sure.”

“… Later, Link.” And she hangs up.

So they start to pack, and this time Zelda snaps at him for trying to just throw their things back in the bags. “We’d have so much more room if you just took five minutes to fold.” Link rolls his eyes, because hey, he fit it in the bags without folding to start, so what did it matter? “You wouldn’t have grabbed yourself an odd number of socks for one,” she says.

Purah is also a bit miffed that they came back for the mirror only and not to let her do any weird experiments to look at Link’s brain, but she wishes them luck all the same. Link wishes they could afford to just leave the hellish thing with Purah and Symin to research as they please, but he knows what must be done now, and so does Zelda. Zelda thanks Purah and Symin profusely for their help and insight.

“I meeeaaan-”

“Purah.”

She scowls, but she stills grabs Link by the collar, pulling him down and whispering to him almost desperately, “Linky, just let me take a quick look next time, pleeeaaaase.” But Link thinks there’s nothing quick about trying to x-ray his brain.

On the trip back, they feel the desperate rumblings from the back of the car. The dog, too, is uneasy by it all, and rather than his usual quiet self in the car (because car rides: so cool), he spends much of the trip grinding at Link’s sanity with the low growling, huffing, and barking. He never fully settles, which Link can understand since he is also on a nervous cliff edge, even if that’s in part because of the dumb dog.

Ashei has them pull in the back way of her row house when they finally reach Castleton where she opens the old carriage house for the car. “Might have the plate, yeah?” is the first thing she says to Link. He did always like her smarts, after all. She looks through the back window at the covered mirror. “All this hoopla for that?” she asks.

“It might hear you,” Link says. It’s a joke, of course, but then he realizes how not joke worthy that might actually be. The thing has no ears, but it sure as hell can listen.

Midna waits as sour and dour as can be at the back door. “You’re in luck,” she says, “no change that we could see.”

“Thanks, Mid.”

Link drags in the bags while Zelda politely asks to use Ashei’s phone.

Link looks out the back while Zelda chats on the phone. They left the dog out there, and having never had a fenced in yard (even if small) with all the freedom to explore it by himself (he’s a big boy now, after all), he stands on the back stoop looking unsure and abandoned.

“He’s just standing there,” Link says when Zelda hangs up the phone. Zelda looks out with him.

Zelda doesn’t say anything about the dog as they look out. “Let Purah know we’re still in one piece,” she tells him. “She says you can call her up any time to set up the brain x-ray.”

Link snorts.

The dog keeps standing out there, stupidly.

Finally, Link sighs, and he yanks open the door and steps out with the dog. The dog flies into action and goes about checking the area out, and he quickly picks out a spot to pee. “Dumb dog,” he complains since he’s irritable with the cold wind outside. One of his humans always goes out with him when he has to relieve himself, so why change the ritual?

And when Ashei complains about unwanted company in the bathroom later on, Link realizes that it’s only fair. Someone’s always watching the dog when he goes, so it seems right that the dog accompany them to the bathroom. “Remind me to never get one,” Ashei grumbles as she tries to move forward but finds her way continually blocked by their burnt loaf of a pet.

Eventually they move the mirror into Ashei’s kitchen. Midna, not having seen the new piece attached before, is shocked by how much larger it is than the last time they dragged a piece home. “So what’s the plan?” she asks them.

Zelda tells her, “There’s one piece left.”

Her eyes dart between Link, Zelda, and the mirror. Ashei simply looks dubious of the mirror and comments nothing as Midna asks, “You’re sure? How?”

“Hard to explain,” Zelda says, “but I guess we sort of came to an understanding.”

“It’s hungry, so don’t fucking look at the damn thing uncovered,” Link spits, and he follows Ashei out of the kitchen, more eager than ever to put some distance between himself and the mirror.

“I appreciate all the help, Ashei,” he tells her.

“You get the front room floor,” she deadpans. “Don’t thank me yet until your back decides.”

“Either way, thank you,” he says as they stop in the foyer. “For Midna, too.”

“I already told her, it’s fine, yeah,” she says, now all annoyed with him and her cheeks tinting pink.

“I’m serious.”

She scowls at him. “Stop, man. We’re friends. It’s what friends do, stupid.”

“Still, thanks.”

Ashei whacks his arm.

She drifts off up the stairs but not before briefly pausing and glaring at the dog in the parlor hard enough that he literally oozes off the couch like liquid. Link herds him on.

Midna waltzes in and helps Link sort the blankets while asking about the mirror – because a hungry mirror? What nonsense. The dog immediately tries to stretch himself into a sploot over the center of everything, and Link tries to nudge him away unsuccessfully as he tries to explain it to Midna. “Turns out I’m starving the poor thing death,” he says, and he gives up and sits back on the floor against Ashei’s sofa.

“It’s a mirror, Link.”

“Yeah, I mean, it won’t like literally die or anything… I guess, but it’s starved. I must have been an absolute feast for it.”

Zelda appears in the doorway. Using Purah’s words, she says, “There’s the super cool sciencey part where it eats things up and crushes the matter to nothing.”

Link rolls his eyes to Midna. “She called it something stupid and-”

“Spaghettification.”

“-totally made up.”

Midna folds her arms. “Yeah, I’m with Link. That sounds fake as anything.” Zelda throws her hands up and snatches her toiletries out of her bag, while Link and Midna snicker to each other. “Is it a real thing?” Midna whispers.

“Apparently?” he mutters back.

“Ugh, that’s what we get for letting the nerds name shit.” And the two start to breathlessly try to hold back their giggling, because then Zelda really would be mad. That’s alright, Link thinks, because there’s something nice, old, and routine about the way he and Midna whisper and chortle with each other over dumb, inconsequential things.

Midna flops on the sofa, she nods at Link and tells him, “You know, all this talk about feeding your dumb mirror reminds me of an old story.” Link quirks an eyebrow, but they wait for Zelda to return before Midna explains the story.

“Is this like an old tribal legend?”

“No duh,” she snaps at Link, and she gives him a little whack at the back of the head. “You know I’m no storyteller, but a boy goes to his grandfather after suffering injustice at the hands of his peers. The grandfather explains that he, too, has felt a deep hatred run through him, but moral is that hatred doesn’t hurt your enemies.”

“It’s a poison that you feed yourself,” Zelda interjects excitedly.

“Should have known Miss Brains would know it.”

“Ah, it’s one I just heard in Akkala,” Zelda says. The red blooms rush to her cheeks. Must be Symin, he thinks. Purah doesn’t strike him as the story telling type.

“Well, I didn’t get story time,” Link chirps.

“Hatred is a poison for yourself and does nothing to your enemy but impart a wish of harm.” Midna holds up two fingers to Link. She goes on, “The Twili like to say you have two wolves inside of you. There is one that enjoys the prosperity of harmony and peace. But it will fight when necessary to do so.

“The other wolf is one that will be set off by the littlest things. He is too blind by his anger to think and can only lash out and fight all the time. He’s helpless though, because his anger will never make meaningful change.

“The Twili teach that when these wolves battle within you, the one that wins is the one that you have fed.”

Link flatly says, “I don’t think you can feed good to that thing.”

“Probably not,” Midna agrees. “The tales I know about the mirrors are always terrible, and the people that use them befall terrible fates, too.”

Not ominous at all. Link exchanges a glance with Zelda, and she purses her lips.

“You coming with?” Link asks Midna.

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Good. To Zelda she says, “I’ll get your file with all the mirror and auction info from the bank tomorrow, too, so you can see Dragmire’s picto yourself.” She says next that she’ll see them in the morning and heads upstairs.

Link looks over at the dog, still splayed out in the middle of everything. He taps the dog with his foot. “Hey, excuse me,” he says when the dog looks back at him. Very slowly, he rises and stretches, in absolutely no hurry to get off the blankets.

But when Link awakens in the darkness sometime in the wee hours of the morning, the dog is pinning him down. He tries to distract Link by attempting to give him another one of his famous wet willies, but Link still catches it.

Ping!

He moves the dog off of him, who starts to whine. Very careful to not wake her, Link disentangles himself from Zelda’s limbs, and he pulls his prosthetic on. He ghosts his way out of the front parlor and down the hall to where the kitchen is at the back of the house. The tippy taps of the dog’s feet sound as he dutifully follows Link.

Ping!

Link lets the kitchen door close behind him, blocking the dog from following further since the swing of the door is strange and unusual and suspicious. He won’t dare try to brave its foul nature to get to Link. He hears the dog let out a huff, his nose shoved at the bottom gap of the door.

“What do you want now?” Link asks the mirror as he pulls the canvas off. He’s unsurprised to see that he’s apparently still a vampire. He chastises the mirror, “Good sleep is so hard to come by, you know.”

The mirror seems to disagree.

The dim moonlight in the kitchen is enough to see the room being reflected back on the surface, but Zelda mentioned to him that the mirror doesn’t show reflections. At least that’s what the mirror claimed.

“You hungry?” he asks the mirror.

Ping!

“You’re gonna have to wait,” he snaps.

He stares into the mirror for some time. Shadows move and pulse in the mirror world. A floorboard creaking above pulls him out of the haze for a second, long enough that he’s able to look away. When he looks back at the mirror, he sees that it’s a kitchen he’s looking at, but not Ashei’s kitchen.

He spies the railing around the stove top, the glow paint lighting up some of the pipes that run along the walls. He’s looking at the submarine’s pathetically tiny kitchen. A light flickers on, red. An alarm.

Link feels sweat break out along his brow. He looks over his shoulder, and he can see the extra dark lump that tells him the dog is still standing at the kitchen door.

He turns back to the mirror. “Where is it?” he rasps.

Ping!

The sound is coming from behind.

Link rises, knees crackling. He waits for the next ping! before he moves forward towards the door. He pushes it, snapping at the dog in a harsh whisper, “Back, back!” and the dog shuffles back at the command. He holds his fist out at the dog, and he promptly drops his butt to the floor.

Ping!

He holds out his hand to the dog in a stop motion, and then he silently brings his hand from one shoulder to the other. The dog blinks at him.

He opens the door on his left that sits under the staircase. He fumbles in the dark feeling for a switch, and finding it, he flips it on. Light flickers on below him in the basement. Link slips down the stairs, only turning back to glare at the dog when he ignores Link’s commands and pokes his head through the doorway. Link motions again at the dog to stay and wait.

Stupid dog never wants to do that. Always got to have his nose in some business.

Link waits again for the next sound, but standing in Ashei’s basement, he thinks there’s no real call for alarm.

When he hears it, he moves right.

Waits.

Moves forward.

Waits.

A cabinet.

PING!

He opens the cabinet and finds Ashei’s stash of Hebran and Tabanthan vodkas, Lurelin rums, and even Necludan whisky.

He swallows. Hard.

PING!

Whisky is always his favorite. He takes one of the whisky bottles.

He climbs the stairs and moves back into the kitchen.

The dog gives a quiet boof of protest when Link shuts him out of both the basement and the kitchen. He opens the cabinets, to the mirror’s confusion. “No need to be so classless as to drink straight from the bottle now,” he assures the mirror. After all, it’s only a problem if he starts downing it straight from the bottle.

He stopped counting the days, but the mirror shivers in excitement. Whatever day he’s at doesn’t matter, we’re going to ruin it. Yes, yes, yes-

Link pulls out a glass and sets it down in front of the mirror. He sees now in the mirror Nohansen’s wine cellar, lit up in red lights. Glow paint runs along the shelves. How appropriate.

Link opens the whisky bottle, his mouth as dry and gritty as the sands of the Gerudo desert. The whisky sloshes in the glass then settles and rises steadily until it’s almost to the rim.

Link licks his lips so they won’t feel so parched.

He stands, swaying on his feet momentarily as he closes his eyes. Sucks in a breath. The sun is far too bright for him, but it keeps him steady. Don’t dim it, he reminds himself.

He moves slowly to the kitchen sink and then turns the bottle upside down. Link leaves it sitting there in the drain as the liquor slowly chugs its way out of the bottle.

The mirror falters in shock. It bristles like a sea urchin.

“Aren’t you thirsty?” he asks the mirror. He knows he’s dying of thirst, but with only a minute shake, he lifts the glass of whisky and tosses it on the mirror.

He pulls the canvas over it and then wanders back to Zelda. The dog barely waits for him to get under covers before pouncing on him.

His grunt and the movement stir Zelda. “What’s wrong?” she mumbles blearily.

“There’s liquor in the basement.”

“Oh.” Then she, too, moves to tie him down with the dog. It takes entirely too long to drift to sleep again.

In the morning, Midna wakes Link by nudging his head with her foot. “Who did tell the dog about peine forte et dure?” she asks, amused by the sight of him tangled up under the dog and Zelda.

“Just making sure I don’t get up to drink.”

“What?” Midna asks, surprised.

“Didn’t drink. Don’t worry about it.”

Midna and Link take the train over to the station by his apartment, and after making a sweep, not seeing anything of note, they leave the station. He further annoys her by making her walk the whole block with him before they finally enter the building, and she lowly growls the whole elevator ride up about his “stupid overabundance of caution”.

When Link walks into the living room and actually sees the flat, there’s something in his brain that unhooks. Disconnects.

“We cleaned it up a little bit, took your box of pictos back to Ashei’s, but not sure there’s anything else here,” Midna says from behind.

Link, knowing that anything of interest or importance won’t be found out here, just as his intruder had discovered, simply glides to his bedroom. “The box that was in here right?” he asks, and Midna confirms.

He opens his dresser drawers and finds it all in disarray. “Sucks,” he mutters. It’s worse than before Zelda came through and demanded everything neatly folded.

Midna leans on the doorway. “What?”

“Definitely not finding that missing sock now,” he says.

“You didn’t drag me over here for just a sock, right?” she puffs.

Link gives a soft laugh. “Nah, it was just making Zelda mad that I grabbed an odd number of socks,” he tells her, and he slaps the drawer shut.

Link pokes around the room more, and he comes to the same conclusion that Midna and Ashei had: Zant Yang was looking for pictos he had, but of what? Who knows. Link could guess he probably wanted know if they knew what he looked like. Or maybe even if they knew who he or Dragmire even are. All part of the cat and mouse game he’s very familiar with from his days at sea. Nothing else sticks out to him either. Disappointing, he thinks. But oh well. Shouldn’t matter soon enough.

Before they go, he pauses in the entryway and asks Midna, “What closet had those lines you were talking about?”

“Front one here, on the right side of the trim.”

Link tugs the light chain and takes a look, and sure enough on the door trim are lines with the tiniest of numbers scrawled. His puzzled brow loosens, and he jets up to leave with a frown. “It’s not important,” he says.

“Really?” But Midna’s dying to know. They lock up and head down the hall. “What is it though?” she asks as Link pulls the elevator gate shut. The birdcage shudders and begins its descent.

“Zelda measuring the damn dog’s height.”

Chapter Text

Link and Courage follow along with Zelda when they walk into the precinct closest to her home on the north side of Castleton. She walks confidently up to the window in the lobby where the desk is being manned by an officer. She smiles at the young man and tells him that she’s here about a missing person case that’s open.

“Missing person?” he repeats to be sure he heard her correctly.

“Yes.”

“The name?”

“Zelda Nohansen.”

His eyes shoot between her and Link standing at her side, uninterested and utterly bored to be there. “Um, so you have information then?” he asks.

“No, I am Zelda Nohansen.”

The young man, utterly baffled, stammers when he speaks. He asks them to wait, and he hurries off.

Zelda purses her lips and turns to Link. He gives her a tight smile. “I feel a bit sad,” she tells him.

“Why?”

“Because now I’m killing Tetra Bosphoramus.”

Link shrugs. “She was alright.”

She smacks his arm.

An older man, grizzled and grey, opens a nearby door to the lobby. A file folder is in hand. He pauses, blinking, as he looks at the pair standing before the lobby desk. “Almost didn’t believe it,” he says. “Please, Ms. Nohansen, follow me.”

Zelda tugs Link along with her, Courage following hot on their heels, and the man raises his brow at Link.

The door closes behind them, and the man leads them down the hallways. “I’m Inspector Auru,” he says. He brings them into a small room. A long window stretches along the hallway wall. He gestures for Zelda to sit down at the table, and Link just leans against the wall beside her, facing the window, and he has Courage immediately sit at his feet and wait. It’s a one-way as his reflection stares back at him. As she sits, he catches Zelda’s eye, and with a little nod whispers to her, “Look, not a vampire.”

She suppresses the giggle, and she settles in the chair. The inspector sits across from her. He flips open the file, and inside are some pictographs of Zelda, much the same that Link had been given. “So there you are,” he says, still surprised.

“Here I am,” Zelda agrees. She digs into her bag as Inspector Auru glances at Link and asks him to identify himself. “Here,” she says, and she slides over her license to the inspector. “Link Coutts was hired by my father.”

Inspector Auru’s eyes narrow a bit as his eyes snap back to Link. “PI, on the south side, right?”

“Yep.”

He snorts and gives Link a smirk. “Heard of ya,” he says.

The inspector takes Zelda’s license, and it doesn’t take him long to eye her very much brown hair since the card states she’s blonde. “Dyed it,” is all she says. He hands the license back.

Auru clasps his hands and leans a bit forward on the table. “Well, you were last seen on January 3^rd on your way to Domain City. You were reported missing on January 7^th when you didn’t show up for your classes that were to start on the 5^th. A lot of folks have been looking for you here and in Domain. How about we go over now where you’ve been the past year?”

So Zelda tells him. “I didn’t want to go back and finish my final semester,” she says. “When I finish, I have to get married, and I don’t like the man my family chose. I took a train from Domain down to Hateno, and I stayed down there, sometimes traveling elsewhere for a while. Went down to the Lake and Faron Provinces, and even saw some of the beaches. Went to Akkala.” She shrugs. “I just got around by using different names, dyed my hair to be harder to recognize, worked some odd jobs here and there if I needed extra money.”

Auru has her walk through more specifically where she went and for how long, and they go through the details. Zelda does her best to answer him. She catches Link folding his arms as her and the inspector speak, and he patiently waits through the interview for him to be addressed.

Auru eyes Link. “What’s your role in this, Coutts?”

“Found her in Akkala,” he lies smoothly. “Their head housekeeper has a relative out by the Foothills that I thought Zelda might want to see, so I kept tabs on her and then went out to get Zelda when she reached out to tell me Zelda was heading that way.”

When Zelda doesn’t dispute this, the inspector sighs heavily. They go through the story they spun with Purah on finding Zelda in Akkala. “So you simply left of your own volition?”

“Yes.”

“You were not taken or coerced by anybody?”

“No.”

“And you simply left to avoid getting married?”

“Yes.”

“Why come back now?” Auru glances at Link. “Your hired hand here aside.”

“Just got tired, honestly. It’s why I decided to go to Akkala finally. Just missed home a bit too much.”

Inspector Auru sighs and slaps the file shut. “Alright,” he says simply. “It was your father that made the report-”

“Yes, I will be going to see him when we leave here.”

“Very well,” Auru says, and his chair scrapes along the floor. “Have him call back here later today. Once he verifies, I’ll close out your case.”

“Not a problem.”

Link whistles for Courage’s attention. “Let’s go. With me,” he tells Courage, and the dog rushes after them as Inspector Auru walks them out.

Once outside the precinct, Link comments lightly, “Surprised he wasn’t interested in asking more questions than he did.”

“Well, I showed up, didn’t I?”

“Sure did,” he grins, pulling out a cigarette.

The smoke billows out from his nose and mouth as he asks, “Ready for your homecoming?” Humorous skepticism is written in his smile.

“Not really,” says Zelda stiffly.

He hands over the cigarette to her, and she thinks of home. She misses it, but it also makes a pit in her stomach. “It’s all very vain,” she acquiesces. The smoke flows from her. Link looks confused, but she knows that despite all his watching, some of the nuances of high society is lost on him. She doesn’t elaborate for him.

“We don’t have to go right away,” he gently offers as she passes back the cigarette.

She shakes her head. No use in putting it off. “It’s fine. Let’s ankle.”

When they arrive, it’s Impa that greets them, stumbling down the main staircase. Her stoic façade completely crumbles in this moment. She about faints when she sees that it really is Zelda that walks through the front door.

It doesn’t take long before Zelda sees that one of the twins has arrived, being that they’re always somehow twittering about. Eyes ever watchful. Tael sidles up to Link and Courage, and she catches a small snippet while Impa fusses over her.

“Tael.”

“Hi.”

“Still peculiar?”

“I guess.”

“Good lad.”

Impa moves to take Zelda’s cloche hat off. “What did you do to your hair?” Impa gasps when she fully sees the change. Zelda fights the eye roll or she might suffer. “And so short, too!” If only going blonde is as easy as it was to go brunette. At least with short hair, it won’t take forever to grow it back out to the natural color.

Link stays in Tael’s company while Impa ushers Zelda along. She catches a glimpse of her friend Paya in one of the halls, who promptly drops the whole tray and tea set she’s holding.

Her mother is beside herself when she first sees Zelda, and she wonders if her mother has ever sobbed this hard. It doesn’t take her long to start shrieking and scolding her, which is the least of what Zelda deserves. And even that doesn’t last for very long before she starts to get a good look at Zelda’s clothes and starts asking what she thinks she’s wearing.

Then just like that her mother is gone, because good goddesses, doesn’t she have anything decent to wear? How could she go about in such awful threads?

And Zelda is left to be stunned by the wake of the volatile whirlwind that just came through.

Her father, sharing in some of her secrets for the past year, has a much more muted response when she bursts into his office, thankfully. The tight hug he wraps her in is nice, secure, and the scent of his cologne so familiar. He laughs when Zelda whispers to him about her mother’s reaction as he releases her. “She might do with a reminder of her own antics at your age,” he guffaws.

“She seems to think my clothes aren’t up to snuff.”

“Let her fuss a bit.” Her father looks around. “I thought I head Coutts came with?”

“Tael seemed to want to speak with him when we walked in.”

Her father’s eyes twinkle a bit. “The boy has taken a liking to him,” he says.

“Were you looking to give him more history lessons?” Zelda asks to her father’s great humor. “He mentioned they’re much easier to digest than whatever science book I’ve been reading.” He chuckles at that, too.

He clears his throat, the laughter dying. Her father clasps her shoulders, and now a serious tone wears on his voice, and he asks, “It’s done then?”

“No, actually.”

His brow furrows.

“Have you gotten rid of Misko yet?”

“Not quite,” he admits. “Still in the works.”

“That’s fine,” Zelda tells him and cracks a smile for him, but it quickly turns more into a grimace. “Turns out I might need him around to finish this whole thing after all.”

Her father sighs.

“By the way,” she says, and his weary look makes her feel a bit small. “I did stop by the precinct before coming. Inspector Auru would like to speak with you before he closes my case. Seems he didn’t want to call you himself if I hadn’t yet come home. I assume he meant to verify my identity with you.”

“Oh,” he breathes. She’s not sure exactly what he’d been expecting her to say, but clearly he didn’t expect that. “Of course.” He gives her a wan smile, and she’s struck by the nagging thought that it was all her doing that led him to this state.

She quickly slaps that thought right out of her head.

No weakness, remember?

Before Link, Zelda would say her father knows her best. It wasn’t ever as deep as his and Midna’s friendship, which is what made her envious for a time, but her father always seemed more in tune to her than her mother. Always picked up when something was wrong, like when she’d have a difficult day at school as a child. Her mother was dismissive, but her father would drop everything and dote on her, and they would (pretend) to sneak sweets from the kitchen. (The cooks always knew.)

When she looks at her father, he has that expression she remembers well. She feels even smaller now. “What else can I do for you, Zelda?” he asks, just barely above a whisper.

She swallows, thinking through what she needs to do. “I need Coutts to stay,” she says. She clears her throat for a moment, and then she explains, “Right now, he’s the only one who really understands what I’m working on, and he knows who’s going to be coming for it.” When he starts to insist and suggesting alternatives, Zelda emphatically shakes her head. She’d told him before that there is nothing the law can do to help her.

Eventually, when he must have seen the deep determination in her resolve, he stops trying to reason with her and clamps his mouth shut in a hard frown. The worry never leaving his eyes.

::

“Paya,” is what Tael whispers to him before he disappears. Link half wonders if maybe he has seen a ghost and should take up Midna’s idea of paranormal investigation… well, if he hasn’t done that already.

Grubby mirror.

Link snaps at the dog to sit and wait. Wouldn’t doubt he’d be stupid enough to gobble up ceramic. The bugger.

Link approaches the young woman frantically trying to clean up her mess, but it seems helping her just makes her more flustered. A shattered tea set sits in a pool of hot ocha. “No, no!” she insists, tossing broken ceramic onto the tray next to her. “It’s totally fine, I got it,” she says, desperate to look anywhere else but at him.

“You’re Zelda’s friend, right?”

He didn’t think the poor girl could get any darker, and he has to keep himself from outright laughing at her. She and Zelda make quite the pair on the limbs of a tomato plant.

“Please, let me help,” he says and starts picking up some of the chips and fragments.

The girl, Paya, stutters out her thanks.

“Think you might help me out?” he asks her. Ceramic clatters on the tray. “Zelda’s got this dumb mirror, and I need an extra hand to bring it in from the car for her.”

She blinks. “The one from the auction last year?”

Link hesitates a bit, but then he says, “Bigger than that one.” She’s not dissuaded, and she agrees to help, the good egg that she is.

As they continue to pick up the small remaining pieces, Link studies her. She’s too good, Zelda was right, he concludes. She’ll be fine then, he assures himself. He helps her take care of the rest of the mess, and she follows him out to help with the mirror. The dog hurries along after them, ready to oversee the operation as the diligent supervisor he is.

Link pushes Supervisor Courage back when they get to the car. When Link opens the hatch, he can feel the mirror eagerly trying to assess if he’s brought it a meal.

Link scowls at it.

Starve, you bitch.

“It’s kind of heavy,” he says to Paya, swiftly wiping the scowl from his face to a more pleasant smile. “I appreciate the help.” When she lights up like one of his darkroom lights, he has to wonder if anyone has ever paid her a real compliment or praised her.

Paya, ever the trooper, helps him lug it up to Zelda’s room.

When they step out, he catches in the corner of his eye, a little blonde blur pulling back from the down the way, slipping behind a corner. If Tatl is nearby watching him, then so must be Tael. Paya, however doesn’t seem to take notice of the twins’ presence and hurries along after Link thanks her again.

Link meanders along with the dog, following along part of the path he’d taken the last time he visited to go grab the rest of Zelda’s things from the car.

She finds him later lounging in her desk chair as he thinks, and the dog having already claimed the whole bed for himself. Link’s pictobox bag sits on her desk. “If I were to steal from you,” he says to her when she walks in, “it’d be this chair.”

She chuckles. “Really? A desk chair of all things?”

“It doesn’t even squeak. Look,” he claims and starts to throw himself back and rock it.

“Very funny.”

Her eyes scan the room and fall on the mirror resting against her bookshelves. “You brought the mirror in already?”

“It’s absolutely dying at this point,” he says. “Your friend Paya helped. It’s very disappointed she’s got nothing for it.”

“An understatement, I’m sure.”

He lets the chair pop back up into its upright position. “You really sure there’s only one piece left?”

Her eyes slide to him. He shrugs.

“Misko is still hanging around for now,” she warns him. “Try not to get into trouble.”

But his wolfish grin tells her there’s no promises.

She rolls her eyes. “Help me move it into the closet,” says Zelda. “I don’t want it looking at me sleeping.”

They drag it, wordlessly protesting, to her closet, and Link voices how unruly the thing has been since Akkala. “It’s possible since it’s now a larger thing that even if we had kept on like we were, we wouldn’t have been able to feed it enough,” Zelda theorizes.

Link shivers. He can’t wait to be rid of the thing.

But he has a bit of a nagging doubt. He glances at the mirror before Zelda shuts the door on it. It knows, and it’s eager. Best to take care of it now before it’s too late, he decides. His stomach sinks.

“Hey,” he calls to Zelda. “You got the copies in your bag, right?”

“They should still be there,” she says. “Why?”

“Gonna need some of them. Maybe four?”

She frowns, and her brow wrinkles. “Why so many?” she asks slowly.

“You want me to misspell my name?”

She blanches, then she finds herself. “I did not!” she protests, her face immediately heating up.

“You and Paya are two of a kind,” he laughs, and he goes and digs in her bag to grab the copies he wants. He finds them tucked away with the obsidian stone that she brought back from Purah’s lab. “I might be a couple of hours. Maybe see if she’ll hang around with you?”

She’s about to fight him, but he quickly reminds her, “Just because it’s home doesn’t mean it’s safe.”

“Fine,” she spits.

As he leaves, he kisses her cheek. She furiously slaps at his arm in feigned annoyance. He gives her a knowing smile. “Stop being a stubborn mule. Didn’t you miss her?” he jokes. Link shoves the copies in his pictobox bag and bounds out of Zelda’s room.

Link heads down the hallway. It doesn’t take long before Link catches the dark hair of Tael crouching about at a corner. “Oi,” he says to the boy. “Got a job for you.” This gets the boy to poke his head fully out, seemingly surprised that Link knew he’s there. Tael considers the offer, and then he shuffles out from around the corner. “I expect Paya will join her soon, but do you mind keeping watch on Zelda while I’m out?”

Tael blinks at him.

“Don’t get too close to her room, especially the closet,” he says quietly to the boy.

Tael looks around. He shuffles closer. “That mirror is back?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I don’t either.”

“Just watch?”

“Yeah,” he says. He’s sure she’ll be fine. It’s likely from tomorrow morning or the next on that he’ll have to really worry about. “You know how she likes to get into trouble, yeah?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Thanks, Tael.”

“Did you hear?” he asks softly before Link walks away. “About what’s downstairs?”

Link looks back at the child. “You know, I did,” he says. “Nice work there. Chat about it later, okay?”

 Link weaves his way down to Nohansen’s office. The man is bent over his desk and speaking quietly over the phone, so Link waits in the doorway. Eventually, he places the receiver on the hook and acknowledges Link with a smile. “Starting to think you might be hiding from me,” he accuses in jest as Link approaches. “How’ve you been? Keeping straight?”

“Yep,” replies Link simply as he brings a hand to the back of his neck.

Link sniffs. “I actually have a question for you,” he starts. “Um, you wouldn’t happen know a good solicitor?”

He’s definitely thrown Nohansen for a loop with how quickly the man’s moved from serious consideration to the absolute shock. “What kind of solicitor are you looking for, Coutts?” he asks, a bit suspicious.

“You know, I don’t know. Not a barrister though,” Link laughs. “What’s it? Like estate planning maybe? I want to make sure my assistant can take over for me if she wants, and I’ve discussed some additional offers with her on making it more a partnership.” He adds as an afterthought, “That part while I’m, uh, you know, not dead.”

“Might have someone that could help with that,” Nohansen says, a slight chuckle chasing him. He leans back and opens a drawer and pulls out an address book to flip through. “I’ve only worked with him a couple of times, but he’s fairly fastidious,” Nohansen tells him as he copies down the solicitor’s information. “If he can’t help you, he’d at least know who could.”

Link takes the address copy, and after reading it, frowns and asks, “How common of a name is this?”

“Not sure. Maybe uncommon, but not rare?” Nohansen muses. He looks questioningly at Link.

“Small world,” Link mutters, and he pockets the address.

He thanks Nohansen and takes his leave, but Nohansen stops him to remind him of when dinner is served. Link looks around. They’re most certainly alone. “My daughter seems to expect you’re here for another history lecture,” the man jokes.

“If that’s your style, sir.”

Nohansen waves a hand at him dismissively as he goes back to the paperwork littering his desk. “Off with you, Link,” he calls back, and while not looking at each other, they exchange little smirks.

Link calls ahead on his way out using the phone in the parlor, and he starts snicker to himself when he hangs up and heads out.

It’s not what he really expected to be doing, but Link knows the stakes at this point, and all that matters is saving Zelda. This is the best he can do for now. He doesn’t have much to his name, but by the gods, Midna would haunt his ghost if she thought he screwed her over.

Despite the reason for calling on the solicitor, Link can’t help but be giddy when he walks into the solicitor’s office.

When the solicitor is ready to see him, they exchange greetings and pleasantries, and he sees now why she’d called him a nerd. He is one. “Funny story,” he says as he sits down across from the solicitor, “you wouldn’t happen to know an Ashei Magnolia, would you?”

This startles the man. “I-I’m sorry?”

“Ashei Magnolia. You know her?”

The man adjusts his round spectacles. “Um, yes actually.”

Link can’t help but break up in laughter at this. He breathlessly tries to apologize. Small world, indeed. He chokes out a brief explanation to Shad MacQuoid how he gambles with Ashei on occasion which the solicitor accepts with shy amusement.

“But ah, you said Daphnes Nohansen though recommended me to you?”

“Ah yeah,” Link says as he tries to temper his laughter. He swipes one finger at his eye. “Sorry. Ashei’s made mention of you but never your profession.”

His cheeks darken just a bit. “Oh, I had no idea.”

Link reaches for his pictobox bag, and he digs out the copies he’d taken from Zelda. “I’m here though because I asked Nohansen about some estate planning.”

“Such as?”

“I need a will.”

Shad blinks. “I’m sorry-”

But Link cuts him off. “I know,” he says shortly. He’s young, blah blah blah. What’s youth though when he’s already beaten death the day the King of Red Lions sunk? Link doesn’t want to leave Zelda and Midna with nothing, and Zelda had expressed her worry about him not having next of kin when he’d been hospitalized. He puts the copies down on Shad’s desk and taps them. “This was filed in November, but that’s all basically,” he explains to Shad. Shad’s brows lift a bit behind his large round spectacles as he unfolds the papers and scans them quickly. “I uh… I want to make sure that my assistant can get something from me with the business. That’s what I explained to Nohansen.” And Link is now surprised to see how high Shad’s eyebrows can climb. “What I didn’t tell him though, was that anything else, I want to make sure goes to Zelda Nohansen. I don’t have much, but circumstances considering…”

“I see,” Shad says. He flips through and counts the copies, then he folds the papers up and hands them back to Link. “I assume you will want at least three copies then to go with these? I keep the fourth?”

“Please.”

Link folds up his wills late that afternoon, and (if she even is out there) sending a prayer to his patron goddess, Farore, he shoves them in envelopes. He scrawls out a note to Groose, letting him know it’s a just in case. Don’t freak out, idiot. He scrawls at the bottom: “You know, if I don’t die, I’ll get you a fancy dinner up here worthy of a punk. Call you in the New Year.” He mails that one off. The other two envelopes he takes with him when he leaves the post office, and he heads to Ashei’s.

“Look who it is,” says Midna all casually, barely peering over the newspaper in her hands. She’s sitting in the front room on Ashei’s sofa intently reading the news when he walks in. “You owe Ashei a very nice bottle of whisky, by the way.”

“Is Ashei in?”

“Nah.”

“You won’t believe this,” he says quickly, and Midna, like the gossip bloodhound she is, immediately drops the newspaper. She’s practically buzzing with anticipation, because he makes it seem good. “I fucking found out who Shad is.”

“Wait, the Shad?” she asks. “I’d capitalize it, but it’s already his name.”

“Yes!”

“NO.”

Link holds out one of the envelopes for her, and she greedily takes it. He wastes no time though in kicking that right off. “He’s a solicitor, and that’s my will.”

Midna almost drops it. “WHAT?”

“It’s my will. There’s three copies I have, and Shad’s got one, too,” he tells her. “Don’t open it,” he snaps when he sees her finger slide under the flap. She rolls her eyes. “I’m serious.”

“Fine,” she grumbles.

“Can you put that in that deposit box you got?” he asks her.

“Link, come on,” she says snidely. “You’re twenty-seven, you’re hardly on death’s door.” She falters, however, when she’s sees the serious frown on his face, all his light humor having been spent on uncovering the face behind Shad’s name. “You really think you need this?”

“Midna, I got like… stupid lucky to survive on that submarine. I could have been killed by the blast, but I wasn’t. I could- I should have drowned when that sub started sinking, and Groose doesn’t even know why he abandoned his post to come save my sorry ass,” he rants to her. Midna clamps her mouth shut. “Hell, he doesn’t even know how we really made it out of the sub, but we did. And then when I should have bled out in the ocean, he used his shirt to make a shitty tourniquet, but it was enough. And of all the fucking blokes he manages to get to see us in the water are magically allies of ours.”

Link holds up four fingers for her. “That’s at least four times in that single day that death should have come for me, and it didn’t. I’m not gonna fuck around with it. My luck has to be on thin ice here, Midna.”

She looks down at the envelope in her hands. “I don’t want to think about you dying,” she manages to rasp. If this isn’t a sign of things to come, holy hell, Link doesn’t know what is, because he thought hell would’ve frozen over before he ever saw Midna cry.

Midna doesn’t cry.

“Gonna happen someday,” he mutters, suddenly uncomfortable. He stuffs his hands in his pockets. He reminds her again, “Open it though before I’m dead, and we’re both going down when I come to kill you.” This at least earns him a classic Midna snort. She scrubs at her eyes. “The business crap is yours though.”

“What?”

Link shrugs. “Come on, Mid. You deserve that much.”

“Link, that’s like all you have.”

“I guess don’t get too excited since you don’t get all of my picto equipment.”

“Yeah, alright,” she grumbles, wiping her eyes with one hand more gently now.

Link asks, “Where is my box of pictos, by the way? Forgot to ask you earlier for them.”

She sniffles a little. “Give me a moment, I’ll grab it.” She holds up his will. “I’ll put it in the bank tomorrow as soon as it opens. Promise.”

“Thanks, love.”

She brings down from upstairs the box of pictos, melancholy shrouding her as if handing it over is going to change everything and nothing. As she hands it off, she tries to lighten her mood. “So what’s he look like?”

“A nerd.”

She snickers. Then she sniffs.

“He’s fine,” Link laughs a little. “Uh, kind of wavy brown hair. Big glasses. Kind of thin? I’m not sure what I imagined him to be, but it wasn’t that.”

“Well, I won’t say anything,” Midna says. “You should be the one to rib on Ashei about Shad.”

“Give you a call in the morning,” he promises.

“Sure.”

He leaves.

Midna is definitely ripping open the envelope right that second to read his will.

That’s okay, he decides.

::

When Link returns, Zelda meets him at the front. “Where have you been?” she asks him. He jostles a box in his hands at her. She recognizes it as his box of pictos. “Oh, those are the pictos from your closet, right?”

“Yep, got them from Midna.”

“You missed dinner,” she tells him. “Are you hungry?” She rolls her eyes. What is she thinking? He always is. “We can get you whatever from the kitchen.”

“I’m not, actually.”

He must be ill.

She frowns at him.

“I got something for you, but not out here,” he says softly, trying to keep his voice low.

A needling worry begins to prick at her. Zelda does her best to ignore it. She starts to lead him back to her room. “You’ve lost some points, if you must know,” she says glancing back at him, trying to keep it light. When he looks confused, she giggles, “Just a joke. But you’re late for your history lesson, I guess.”

“Oh… pardon me.”

“I’m sure you’ll be forgiven,” says Zelda. “I think you’ve been my father’s most attentive student.”

Zelda spies Tael down the way, this time just casually hanging about in a window down the hall. She swears she’s seen a lot of him over the day out of the corner of her eye, but she brushes it off. Just the twins being the twins, she supposes. She lets Link into her room and closes the door behind her.

She glances over at the bed. Courage is there, passed out and comfy as ever. He’s barely moved from it all day, so she must have lost it, she thinks.

“Any Misko sightings?”

“Well, dinner, so that was awkward as hell,” she grumbles. “Thanks a lot for being there.”

“Anytime,” he chirps as he drops the box on her desk.

Link sets his pictobox bag on her desk as well and opens it up. He pulls out an envelope and holds it out for her. “Here,” he says. She takes it with some hesitation, and before she can ask or do anything, Link sharply tells her, “Don’t open it.”

“Okay, when should I?”

“If things go south,” he says simply.

Zelda frowns and looks down at the envelope. Her heart starts to pick up the pace. “What do you mean?” She doesn’t like this.

“If things go south,” he repeats simply.

She looks up from the envelope in her hands and up to his face, but he’s got an easy smile on his face, and there’s nothing in his mismatched blue eyes that betray anything. She curses at how good he can be at guarding things when he wants to, but she knows. She takes a deep breath, trying to not let her hands shake.

She swallows and asks, “Should I… keep it safe then?”

“Yes.”

Yes. Not yep. Yes.

It makes her stomach turn to lead. She feels a bit like vomiting.

Link frowns at her. “Are you alright?”

“NO!” she chokes out.

He scowls a little. “Midna cried, Zelda.” Her mouths bobs open like a fish, but nothing comes out. “I don’t know if I can take it if both of you do.” She feels that familiar heat creep up her neck and to her cheeks.

“Also,” he sighs, “I mailed a copy of that to Groose to hold onto. So there’s three between you all, and then the solicitor’s got one to file with the province.”

Zelda tries to blink away the tears. But Groose? “What about-”

Link shakes his head. “I don’t want Rusl and Uli to lose their minds,” he says. “Uli’s never quite forgiven me for leaving Ordon,” he admits. “Sending her that in the mail might be the final nail in the coffin. I can’t do that to her.”

Zelda closes her eyes and tells herself a few times to keep it together.

She still sniffles a bit.

Link opens up the box of pictos and starts sorting through them. He’s done discussing it. “If you want… Well, do you want to go with me to the office tomorrow morning?” he asks her.

“What? Why?”

He’s done discussing it, but she isn’t done thinking about the envelope. She doesn’t have really a good place right now to keep the envelope he gave her. Just an envelope, she tells herself. Definitely not what she knows it actually is. He asked for those copies earlier today for a reason, of course.

Her heart squeezes painfully.

The envelope is heavy in her hands.

Zelda feels a mark of shame though. She crashed into Link’s life with her stupid mirror like some bullbo in a china shop. She’d made a real mess of things, even suggested the very lead to what she holds, but she never really thought it’d come to this. She’d brought up the issue to him and put it in motion, but the idea of it is a lot less worrisome and much more abstract than actually seeing it. The envelope makes it all too real.

Her eyes drift over to her closet door where the mirror is shut in. There’s been a low rumbling from it all day. It’s greatly displeased, but it seemed to be in a slightly better mood since dinner. Just as she and Link thought might happen.

They’ve missed this lunar cycle, she thinks, but it won’t be long now before the Midwinter festivities start, and once New Year rolls around will be their next chance. She quickly snuffs it out when she feels the mirror stir, but she has to wonder if Link’s mortality is the only thing teetering here.

Zelda puts the envelope in her bag with the remaining copies and obsidian stone. She’ll ask Paya for help tomorrow morning, first thing, she thinks. The obsidian glimmers at her. After a moment’s thought, she takes the obsidian ore out of her bag and slips it into her dress pocket. The stone ought to stay with her or Link at all times until the new moon begins. She can’t afford to lose it.

“I have like tons of film rolls to develop,” he says softly as he picks through the pictos. “I’d like to at least make some prints before… well everything goes to hell in a hand basket.”

“I see.”

Then thought strikes her. “Hey, can we stop at a hardware store or something, too? We ought to get a shovel.” A funeral will be coming no matter what, she thinks, better be prepared to dig the grave.

The stone now weighs heavier in her pocket to make up for the envelope.

Don’t think of it, she scolds herself.

Link clearly hasn’t thought ahead in the same vein. “Uh… okay,” he tentatively agrees. “Yeah, we can do that.”

For extra measure, Zelda decides to take her bag and dump it in the closet with the mirror to forget the whole thing for now. It growls a little at her. She hisses back at it.

Zelda slaps her closet door shut. No more mirror, no more… papers. Just regular papers.

She turns and watches Link as he tosses aside pictos. He’s looking for something in particular. When she asks what it is, he pauses and admits to her, “I’m pretty sure I have at least one picto of Pipit.”

“There’s the one of you two with Groose,” she says.

He shakes his head. “Not that one. She wouldn’t want our ugly mugs in it,” he says. A tiny smile tugs the corners of his mouth. “I know I took a portrait of him once. It’s got to be in here.”

She helps him look through the box, and they find the one she mentioned first. Zelda sets it aside so she can remember Pipit’s face better while they sort through the dozens – maybe hundreds of pictos Link has.

Eventually, she finds it, she thinks. She eagerly shows it to Link, and he lights up, too. “Yes! That’s the one!” he exclaims. He snatches it from her and scoops her up into a tight squeeze. Link gushes, kissing her, “Thank you! Thank you!” He sets the portrait of Pipit aside and starts to hurriedly scoop up the other pictos to put back in the box.

Zelda looks at the picto Link took. During his time in the Navy, of course. Pipit stands in his dress blue uniform. Unlike the group picto, he has his formal flat cap on, with KRL on the cap tally that sits to the side of his face. Freckles bloom over his nose and cheeks, which are puffed from his wide smile that also crinkles his sharp eyes. His neckerchief is neatly tied, and he has one arm slung over a dock post with the sea stretching out far and wide behind him. The day must have been so clear and sunny, since nothing dots the white sky behind him save for a lone seagull in the distance.

“What do you plan to do with this?” she asks Link.

He says, “I want to send it to Karane.”

“You have her address?”

“Well, her parents’ at least,” he says. “If she’s moved on, and I hope she has, they’ll get it to her.”

“You don’t think this might be hurtful?” Zelda asks. “I mean, I know I don’t know her, I just…”

“Want to make sure I’m not doing something stupid,” Link finishes. “Yeah, I know. I’m not.” He closes the box with a nod. “She’ll want it,” he says confidently.

“Do you want some stationary?”

“Um… sure.”

Zelda sets his box aside. While she gets some stationary out of the desk for him, Link asks her, “What’s with the weird bag on your sofa?”

She looks over. “Oh, that,” she says, realizing he probably didn’t recognize the crumpled mess to be garment bags. She hands off the paper and then retrieves a pen for him as well from her desk. “My mother thinks my wardrobe is… severely lacking, I suppose.” She gives him a bit of a twisted smile. She’d received a hushed earful for wearing the same dress she came home in already. Just another reason her Hateno clothes are insufficient, stupidly. “Papa said to just let her fret over me for a bit. I guess it’s fair. I’m shocked she didn’t fuss about the hem length, honestly.”

“Ah, right.”

Zelda bubbles up. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks.

He looks a bit thoughtful for a moment. “What did you do with your clothes?” he asks instead.

“What do you mean?”

“You definitely got rid of like all your nice, expensive clothes,” he says. “I know rayon from silk.”

Zelda’s a bit surprised by this. “Didn’t take you for a fashionista.”

“I watch people for a profession, Zelda,” he quips as he steals her desk chair that he’s so enamored with. He does a little spin in it for some childish fun.

Zelda shrugs. “That was one of the ways I got money,” she says. “Sold it, then bought the cheaper stuff.”

“Smart move,” he says, coming to a stop.

Curious, he asks, “What’s the problem with the hem length?”

She smacks him lightly. “That they’re knee length, silly.”

“Really?”

“You saying my exposed ankles didn’t tempt you?” she teases.

“I’m calling the constables.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Link starts spinning in her chair again. “Hey, whatever’s going on between your ankles and skirt hems is between you and Hylia,” he jokes.

Zelda checks on Courage. Still deeply asleep. “My mother had a room prepared for you down the hall,” she tells him. With a quick bob of her head at the dog, she says, “Maybe for the best if I’ve lost my own bed.” A grimness comes back over her when her eyes flick to her closet. For the best, she thinks.

“Shame, you have a nice mattress, too,” he tells her. And when he sees her scandalous look, he laughs gleefully at her. “I may have taken an opportunity to lay on it when combing through your books.”

“Oh, and I left them at the flat,” she says, remembering them.

“Do you want me to get them?”

She shrugs. “I mean, be nice to put them away?” But she thinks that means staying at home. When they look at each other, they acknowledge it but decide not to speak on it.

Link’s eyes flick towards her bookshelves. “You know I thought you had a library, but then I found out you have an actual library. How much of these have you read?” he asks, pointing at her shelves.

“All of it.”

“No really.”

“All of it.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s ‘sealiously’, love.”

“My bad,” he clips.

He falls silent then, turning to the desk and pulling the stationary paper closer to him as he starts to write out his letter to Karane, so she leaves him to it, telling him she’ll be back in a bit.

When she steps out of her room, Tael is gone from his spot in the window, but something tells her he’s nearby. Maybe she’ll catch another glimpse of him when she starts walking.

Her father should still be in his office, so she heads that way, not ready to deal with her mother again. She knocks lightly on the open door to catch his attention. Her father looks up, and his mouth breaks out into a warm smile that encompasses his face. “Almost hard to believe it’s you,” he tells her as she walks over to take a seat by his desk.

It feels almost like when she was small. When she was little, Impa would strictly send her to bed in the evenings, but sometimes, Zelda would sneak out of her room to come find her father still working in his office. They’d sit just like this, her in the chair with her feet dangling and unable to reach the floor and him at his desk. He’d turn the radio on with a wink, and together they’d listen to a late night radio show together.

Except now her feet reach the floor. Her father’s gone grey, and she’s gone brown.

“I’ve missed this,” she tells him.

Her father’s smile somehow manages to widen. “Me too, little bird,” he says affectionately.

“Coutts is back,” she says, folding her hands over her stomach.

“Ah, so your old man can go about bugging him then.”

She chuckles. “Are you sure it’s just Tael that’s taken a liking to him?” she teases.

“Certainly not.” She smirks at the admission, and he returns it.

Her father starts to organize his desk to pack things up for the night. He changes the subject and asks instead about Courage. “So a dog, huh?”

“Found him on the roadside,” she says. “Named him Courage. He doesn’t quite live up to the name.”

He lets out a short laugh. “I was quite puzzled when Link asked me if you’d gotten a dog for Yule.”

“What? When was this?”

Her father taps a finger on the desk as he thinks. “I believe the day before we first spoke after you left?”

Sounds about right.

“You ought to take him out to the gardens tomorrow,” he suggests. “I don’t think I saw much of him all day though.”

“He’s a bit lazy,” she says. “I think he’s laid claim to my bed.”

“Surely he shares?”

“He takes up a lot of room for a dog his size,” says Zelda ruefully.

Chapter Text

The next surprise that arrives at Rusl and Uli’s comes in the form of a large envelope for Colin – again postmarked from Castleton. When Rusl brings it inside, he calls for his son and hands it off. Uli, knitting in the living room, sees him handing off the large package and inquires about it. “From Link,” he says simply.

“Link?” she asks surprised.

Rusl shrugs. “From Castleton, so it’s him,” he says.

Uli’s gaze drifts over to the pictos sitting on their mantel of the proud little dog (the granddog, as Rusl loves to brag). “No letters for years,” she mutters. “Now we get two almost back to back?” The lad is trying at least, Rusl thinks.

“He sent a telegram, too,” Rusl says lightly.

Colin decides to open it in the living room.

“What telegram?”

“That one from Akkala.”

“How do you know that was him?” she asks. “There was no name, and he’s never been to Akkala.”

Rusl shrugs again. “Just uh… He was just referring to something we discussed before he left is all,” he tells her. When his wife’s hard expression doesn’t ease, he adds to appease her, “He was holding up his end like I’d asked him to.”

Rusl asked that Link not forget them.

And Link didn’t forget them. He made sure of it.

Colin speaks up, “Well, he sent pictos he took in Akkala.”

Uli, dropping her knitting, takes the pictos that Colin hands out to them. Rusl leans over to take a look himself. Link had always had an eye for pictography, Rusl thinks. The pictos are stunning. Colin’s right that some of these are Akkala when one picto is very clearly of the dog Courage hanging out at East Akkala Station. There’s another of Zelda and Courage together in what he recognizes as Tarrey Town. He hasn’t been up that way in ages, but he thinks apart from the paved roads, it looks much the same as he remembers.

“There’s so many,” Colin says in wonder as he keeps shuffling the picto prints after he goes for the gold and dumps out the whole envelope on the floor.

“He sent all this for Colin?” Uli asks.

Rusl says, “It was his name on the envelope.”

Rusl spies, amongst the pile of pictos, a piece of white paper. He stoops and picks it up, and he sees that Link did mean it just for Colin. The letter attached is addressed solely to Colin. Rusl hands it over to Colin. “It is just for you,” he says with a nod to the letter.

Colin takes it. His eyes fly across the letter, over and over, as he reads it.

Uli picks up more of the pictos to look at. “So many beautiful places he’s gone,” she says woefully.

Rusl picks up some himself to look at. Courage on the beach, charging at the pictobox like a bullbo. He doesn’t recognize the beach in the landscape pictographs, but it must the same one from Courage’s portrait. He laughs a bit when he finds a portrait of Zelda. Her and her reflection stand at a window. She’s looking out, her cheeks stuffed with what must be the cake she’s eating right out of the box in one hand. From the buildings outside, he thinks this must also be Tarrey Town, too.

Rusl admires some of the more nature-oriented ones. Flowers, including an elusive Silent Princess, beetles, darners, and the like. The paper is glossy for most of these, but one of the Silent Princess copies has a matte finish. Link had taken the time to bring this one to life with oils and tinted it with brilliant cerulean and chartreuse and citrine hues.

Rusl tells his wife softly, “Just think, if he stayed here, he’d never have seen any of this.”

Colin looks up from the letter. “He sent me all these for Yule,” he says quietly.

Rusl’s surprised. He can’t think of the last time Link’s even acknowledged Yule. Probably been a decade. The war is always that pivotal point when it comes to Link.

“Nice of him to think of you,” Rusl says.

“Yeah. He’s sorry we never got to spend time together,” Colin says, looking back at the letter in his hands. “And if I want to, he’d be happy for me to see Castleton someday in person and not just pictos.”

Colin holds out the letter to his mother, but she doesn’t move to take it. “He loves us all, you know,” he assures her, and her eyes slowly shift from Colin to the letter.

Uli accepts the letter.

::

“Shit,” Link swears. A snarl pulls his mouth.

Zelda bites her lip. “He must have moved it, but it must be somewhere around the estate,” she says.

Tael says nothing.

As usual.

Link folds his arms as he thinks. If there’s one piece left as Zelda asserts (and you know, would the mirror really do that - the shocking horror - just lie to them?), the remaining piece is too big for someone to not notice a certain Misko Yamada walking out with it. Especially when most of the staff now has their own eyes on him.

“Hey, you sure it’s this one?” Link asks the boy.

Tael nods.

“He put other things here, too,” Tael says.

“That he wanted to sell?” Zelda inquires.

Tael nods. “Tatl and I watch him.”

The alcove hidden by the painting is empty, but Tael saw Misko come down one night not too long ago, and when Tael checked on it a few days ago, there was indeed a mirror shard just hanging out. Tael left it, because he thought it was trash. He also didn’t think it was something that Misko swiped from the household.

Rotten luck, Link thinks. He doesn’t like that.

He chews his lip, and then he quickly tries to stamp out thoughts of his will. Don’t give it a single fucking morsel, he reminds himself.

“Tatl says we should get rid of him,” Tael says suddenly.

Link whips around to the boy. “What?” he asks. Tael repeats himself, but yeah, still. What? Zelda looks a little unsure herself by his statement.

He repeats, “We keep watch on him.”

Link and Zelda exchange a look. They’ve got nothing, so Link just says to Tael, “Okay, uh, cool. You going to keep watching him then?” (Wait, is this checkin’?)

“Sure.”

Link throws his hands up.

Zelda sighs, and she pushes the painting back into place. “Thanks for showing us, Tael.”

“Yeah. Bye.” And just like that, the boy slips off.

Link says, “He’s such a weird child.”

“The girl is even less personable,” says Zelda with a soft chuckle. “They’re certainly unique though.”

Running into the man isn’t ideal, but Link asks, “I’ve seen him in the library, does he go there often?”

Zelda frowns a little. “Not sure, actually,” she says slowly. “You know it’s been almost a year since I’ve been home.”

Link grunts. Yeah. Where the hell did the time go?

He sighs, not trying to fry his brain thinking much more on this right now. “I’m going to call up Midna,” he says. “Told her I’d check in today.”

“You cannot miss dinner tonight,” she says harshly.

“Yep,” he chirps, and they part ways.

There’s a phone in the front parlor, and the room is thankfully empty when he enters. He’s not sure if there’s another phone on the same line connected in the house since he knows Nohansen’s office very exorbitantly has a different line. Midna will be smart enough to say nothing if someone else tries to listen in, he’s sure. He doesn’t even realize he’s holding his breath though until Midna picks up. “Hey,” she says quietly and very much not Midna.

“You a doppelgänger?” Link asks, but when she snaps back at him, that’s a negative.

She scoffs at him. “Haven’t seen anything yet. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Maybe.”

After some silence, Link kicks a foot out, and then he accuses her. “You opened the envelope,” he says shortly.

“NO.”

“You did.”

“Neh-verrr.”

“Uh-huh.”

He can practically hear her eyes rolling out of her skull and then down the street. But then she says, “I’ve thought about it.” He has to prod eventually after she doesn’t continue. “The license, dummy,” she mumbles.

“Oh.”

“You sure about all this?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“YEAH, OKAY, LINK.”

He laughs lightly to himself. “So you opened it.”

“Of course not.” She opened it. Definitely. There’s a rustling as Midna readjusts the receiver. Then quietly she asks him, “You really think the worst is going to happen, huh?”

“Actually, it wasn’t my idea.”

“… Wow.”

“I’ve said nothing.”

“What?” she spits. “No way.”

“I mean, you didn’t open the envelope.”

“Was this the big secret?”

She’s mad. Big Mad™.

It makes him snicker. He tells her, “Nohansen called me ‘Link’.”

“I see now why you thought you might need a will.”

After the shortest of tense pauses, the two break out their best cackles.

“Fuck off, Coutts,” says Midna when she finally gets herself under control. “Good Yule if I don’t see you.”

Before he can respond, she adds, “Call me if the world’s ending.”

“Of course,” he says, but Midna’s already hung up on him. That’s the real Midna.

He places the receiver down, but then thinking about it, Link picks it up again and makes a second call. Lucky him, there’s an answer, albeit a bit grumbly. “Mikau,” he says, “it’s Link.”

“Link!”

“Hey.”

“Where’re you?” he asks. “Mido’s making fun of you. Says you’re too chicken, so you’re sending Midna in your place.”

“Ah, so you’ve not told them.”

“That you quit drinking? Told Ashei.”

“It’s… fine if you do.” They’d find out sometime, Link supposes.

“If you say so,” concedes Mikau.

“Where’re you playing this week?”

“Darmani’s.”

“Is Darunia back yet?”

“Nah, I don’t know, man,” Mikau says. “Haven’t heard from him, but hopefully he turns up soon. Can’t go losing two of you now.”

Link huffs. “You and Lulu pick a date yet?”

“Not exactly,” he says. “But likely next winter.”

“Okay.”

“Count you in then?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“You’ll be okay?”

“Well… if it’s next winter, and I don’t have myself together…”

Mikau laughs a little at that.

“Midna demanded her own invitation,” Mikau tells him. Link’s unsurprised. Definitely Midna, he thinks. “Something about how she’s not tied to some asshole idiot. Don’t quote me.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Oh! And the uh… the new assistant…”

“Zelda?”

“Yes!”

“She’d be happy.”

“Good,” Mikau says, and Link can tell from his voice how he beams. “So I assume we will not be seeing you though at Darmani’s?”

“No,” Link says. “Not ready.”

“Okay. I understand.”

“I also owe Ashei probably a lot of money,” he tells Mikau slowly. He licks lips. He reminds himself they’re friends, so he should treat Mikau as such. “When I went by last, I got into her stash.”

“No, Link!” Mikau gasps.

“I didn’t drink any of it,” he says quickly. “But I did dump like a whole bottle of whisky down her kitchen sink, and she’s apparently raging about it.”

“So you took it, but then thought better of it?”

“I guess?”

“Why not just… put it back?”

Link can’t explain about the mirror, but he also wasn’t fully thinking about the mirror when he dropped the bottle to drain in the sink. “I don’t know, because it’d still be there?” He rubs his mouth, thinking of what he’d have done without the mirror in the equation. He sighs, frustrated with himself. “I know she had way more hanging around, too, but there wasn’t much logical thought happening.”

“Yeah. I get you. I think.”

“Hey, I gotta go.”

“Nice knowing you’re alive,” Mikau says cheerfully. And the gut punch reaction Link has is to wonder for how long he will be.

“I’ll let you know when I’m ready to come back,” he says, thinking now that he’s lying to his friend.

“Sure.”

“Okay, later, Mikau.”

Link hangs up the phone and digs a palm into one eye. He decides then to do what he does best besides waiting: snoop. He spends the rest of his afternoon slowly gliding through the mansion looking for anything odd or of note to check out later. Mostly though, he’s just looking for a distraction from his impending doom.

::

Zelda clicks and locks her bedroom door. Courage lifts his head a little to see what’s up, but when he sees it’s just her he flops his little head back down on the bed. He’s lying on his back, and he twitches a back foot.

She needs to bargain for more information. The mirror is much shrewder these days, but there’s also the noticeable shift in its commentary when it does actually speak, but mostly though, it no longer talks. It’s been leaving her alone, and she’s not quite sure why.

Except that’s suspicious.

She opens her closet, and she pulls away the canvas. The mirror glitters at her apprehensively. It seems odd to think it might be a little… nervous?

“Hey,” Zelda calls to it as she sits down in front of it. “I need you to show me more. Let me see. He’s moved it.” The mirror she finds is now hazy. Her reflection is gone.

Did it get hers like it did Link’s?

 Ah, right. Not actually reflections. It told her so.

The mirror rolls in annoyance.

“Surely, you’ve gotten something,” she says. “You want more? You want to be whole?”

The mirror hisses low and smooth.

“It’s still here, at least, isn’t it?”

Jumping excitement. Then that’s a yes.

“Dinner will be served soon,” she tells the mirror, and it prickles now with impatient intrigue. “I’m sure it’ll be a real feast for you. Your favorite’s back,” she says, and she throws the canvas back over it.

She goes to her bookcases, and her fingers slowly drag across the spines. Until they catch on one. It’s the Book of Mudora sticking out ever so slightly. She wonders why that is, but that it sticks out is enough to grab her attention. She plucks it off the shelf, and Zelda decides to peruse it for a while.

She throws herself next to Courage on the bed and begins to flip through it. It’s a book of old Hyrulean lore and folk tales. Nothing, of course, about creepy Twilight mirrors. They’re tales of the heroes and princesses of old. Probably the oldest is the tale of the knight from the sky who rode down on a giant crimson bird and fought the great devil Demise. She flips through to her personal favorite, the one of the Hero of Winds. He lived supposedly in the Great Sea Republic. She liked this one as a child, much to her mother’s great dismay, because the princess was actually a shrewd and fierce pirate captain. She keeps reading through the old tales, eventually her eyes closing to take a snooze with Courage until she’s summoned for dinner.

Dinner is downright frosty, Zelda thinks, especially when Link beats Misko in snagging the seat between her and her mother. She does her best not to snort in laughter at the absolute disgust on Misko’s face. One of her father’s acquaintances is on his left across from her, so that leaves Misko to sit directly across from Link. To say he’s unhappy is the understatement of the century.

Zelda nudges Link’s foot with her own, and out of the corner of her eye, she catches the tiny quirk in his lips. They’re both thinking the same thing. If everything wasn’t so serious, she thinks he’d be joking about her telepathy again, but he just keeps his mouth shut, which is probably the best move. It irritates Misko even more. Link must be very pleased with himself now.

He nudges her, and this time it’s not to laugh about seating arrangements since his foot lingers. When she reaches for her glass of water on the table, Zelda taps it twice with her thumb absently.

Link pulls away.

Her father feigns surprise (at least she can tell he’s faking), when Misko coolly asks what Link is doing here. “I invited him, of course,” her father says, so Misko wisely snaps his trap shut than speak further on the matter.

Her mother simply ignores or just doesn’t care to actually see the open hostility brewing in front of her at her end of the table. Zelda thinks it’s probably the latter. Her mother would rather be blind than deal with real problems. Instead of addressing the frostiness, her mother airily mentions that Link’s not been served any wine. Link’s mouth thins. “No, thank you,” is all he manages to get out in a soft, hoarse voice. So instead the glass is removed before anything is poured.

Zelda decides to simply ignore her own glass.

Link remains quiet throughout the meal, which further eggs Misko on as he tries fruitlessly to get some rise out of Link. He treats Misko with cool indifference, never directly addressing him when he does speak and keeping any answers he gives to questions short and concise. He’s on guard, but the rest of the table doesn’t seem to pick this up.

But since she’s not speaking much either, her mother calls her out. “Still just tired is all,” replies Zelda.

Her mother frowns at her, and when Zelda looks down, she realizes that one’s for her dress. It’s one of the dresses she’d picked up in Hateno to replace her wardrobe with. Her mother doesn’t approve, especially when they have company. The second problem, she assumes, is that she’s not bothered to change from this morning. She glances at her father, making a silent appeal.

“Oh, of course you would be!” her father interjects. She breathes a little easy. He gives her a little wink. “I hope you’ll stick around for dessert at least,” he implores her. “It’s not quite your favorite, I know, but with the season and all…”

Oh.

Fruitcake.

“Oh, Link!” her father exclaims, and the whole table freezes. Might as well be eating right in the middle of the Tabantha snowfields, Zelda thinks. It clicks then in her mind: he’d also not called Link by his surname when they spoke the night after she returned. Link seems a bit surprised by the familiarity himself, but he takes it in stride when her father asks, “You play cards, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Excellent!” her father chirps, and his eyes beam as they sweep the table. So nobody says anything else, and they all pointedly ignore the death glare Misko is giving. Except for her mother, who just doesn’t notice anything wrong at all.

Must be a nice little extra treat for the mirror, Zelda thinks, and when she glances at Link, that small smirk tells her that he’s of the same mind. Before she turns away, she catches the wicked glint in his eye also telling her, “See? Told you.”

Of course, he did.

He’s her dad, right?

The fruitcake this time comes with wild berries and pear slices. She’d love to enjoy it, but it’s like trying to eat wet cement, and she can’t wait to escape.

She takes the first opportunity to bolt back to her room. She runs into Paya, who has Courage at her heels. “Oh! Miss Zelda!” she greets. “You know, he’s such a little gentleman,” she coos about the dog. He seems pleased by the compliment.

“Thank you for taking care of him,” Zelda says. “I’m just going to call it day. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Paya’s bright smile sees her off.

Zelda herds the dog into her room, and he wastes no time in claiming the bed again. She strips off her clothes and exchanges them for night clothes before she goes and slides to the floor. She waits, listening and knowing that it will be some time still. She grabs the Book of Mudora to peruse again while she listens.

For some reason when she plops it onto her lap, it falls open right to the illustration of Demise’s powerful, devilish form. A real demon covered in dark scales and flaming hair. Zelda decides she doesn’t like that and slaps the thing shut.

She sets the book aside.

::

Link finds himself in a study he’s never seen before, and he wonders just how much he’s still not seen of the house. To be polite though, he sticks around for at least an hour to play with Nohansen, Misko, and the third man he hasn’t bothered to learn the name of. Nohansen doesn’t react, but the other men raise a brow when Link refuses offers for a drink.

He’s dry as the desert, but that’s just how it’s got to be. Forever.

Such an ungodly amount of time.

Eventually, when he thinks it’s been that appropriate hour, he excuses himself and leaves the study. He’s familiar enough at least with the house at this point to find his way back to the room Zelda’s mother set up for him. When he passes by her door, there’s a shadow of movement.

He comes to a stop, looks around. Not even the twins are about, but they must be focused on Misko, he thinks. Link didn’t bother to keep an eye out for them by the study though, so he could have missed them.

When this area of the house seemingly appears deserted, he turns back on his heel and raps once on Zelda’s door before heading on to his room.

It doesn’t take her and the dog long to come busting through his door, and she shuts it behind them. The dog lays claim to the bed.

“Hey,” he mutters.

Zelda waits for him as he readies for bed. “Think this stupid thing is draining us?” he asks her when he finally collapses in bed, tossing his leg aside carelessly. “I’m way too tired for all this bullshit,” he complains.

Zelda worms her way to him and around the dog. He crushes her to him.

He asks her suddenly, “What if we used like a magnifying glass?”

“What?”

“You know how you can cook things in the sun with one?”

Zelda points out to him, “Yes, but as I mentioned, we need moonlight.”

“Right…?”

She squirms a little. She immediately starts to launch into “It’s the second law of thermodynamics-”

Link cuts her off. “You have to explain like I’m five, Zelda,” he gripes.

“You will not be able to use a lens to make something hotter than the original light source.” He’s still not following. She can tell, and she frowns up at him. “The moon isn’t a source of light,” she says. “The sun’s light will be super hot when it leaves, but once it’s reflected off the moon, it’s then cooled off significantly. Theoretically, we probably could end up lighting something on fire with moonlight, but we’re talking about some laughably complex system of lenses and mirrors to achieve that.”

Link says nothing for a bit.

“Basically, we’re not using a magnifying glass to burn ants at night,” she sighs.

“Lame.”

“There’s still time to work the specifics out that I haven’t already,” she assures him, but Link isn’t so sure. He had a will drawn up, after all.

“Do you need to go back?” he asks her quietly.

“I don’t want to.”

“Good.”

He drifts to sleep eventually, but it’s the dog that wakes him. The quiet warning boof! sounds again, and Link immediately shakes the sleep from his eyes. He quickly wakes Zelda and pulls her to sit up with him.

There’s a hesitant pause.

The light!

Link left the bathroom light on, and it must be visible from the hallway.

He slowly slides out of the bed, pushing his leg underneath it to hide it, and then he crawls to the wall alongside the door. He beckons a confused Zelda over and then wraps her to him. He can feel the way her heart flutters wildly against him as they watch the door.

Courage remains a statute on the bed, ears up and alert, listening just as closely.

Assuming, he guesses, that he’s not actually awake since there’s no signs of any stirring, they move on from his doorway.

He can breathe a little easier, but he keeps Zelda tightly against him and whispers in her ear they need to wait longer.

They end up sitting there by the door until it’s almost daybreak though. Zelda has drifted off to sleep, at least, but Link keeps the vigil. His tired eyes look out the window where the sunrise glows pink and orange through old trees that have lost their leaves for the season. Their bare branches, the gnarled fingers, kiss a gradient sky.

And Link vaguely wonders if he’ll see a sunrise again.

He hates to do it, to make her go, but Link shakes Zelda awake. “You need to head back,” he tells her. “It’s almost daybreak, and then everyone will be up soon.”

She nods, and Link quickly checks the hall and sends her off. He shuts the door behind her, feeling like he’d tossed away a part of himself.

::

Zelda looks over her room. Everything is essentially as she left it, except the closet. She frowns. Misko came in the night, likely beckoned by the mirror. The canvas sits in a wrinkled pool in front of it, and the mirror twinkles gleefully at her.

“Did you have a nice time?” she asks the mirror.

It purrs back at her.

“Tell me then where the piece is,” she demands.

The mirror refuses. Snickers at her.

Disgusted, she throws the canvas over it and shuts the closet. She crawls back into her own bed and curls up tightly. Zelda dozes off for a while longer.

When she fully rises, she cleans herself up, dresses, picking one from the bunch her mother brought her this time. She’s partial to the navy velvet one. With winter on them, the warmth of it is welcoming, but Link always complimented dark blues on her. She can’t lie though, she is happy to trade her rayon stockings for silk again.

Paya knocks on her door, and when she opens it Paya smiles widely. “Um, I know you don’t particularly like the brown,” she says, “so I thought, if you want, we could try to lighten it?”

She’ll probably fry her hair, but Zelda thinks, why not? “Let’s do it,” Zelda says. “Just get me a wig if I go bald.”

She spends the morning with Paya. Zelda, remembering the dreadful thing in her closet, pulls out of her bag the envelope and the couple of copies that sit with it that Link hadn’t taken. She folds those and stuffs them in the totally fine and routine and not terrible envelope as she asks Paya for help on finding a good spot for it. They try to brainstorm places to stash the envelope, but Paya gets the bright idea. She gives Zelda the suggestion of hiding it in one of the larger books on her bookcase. “They might have to go through way too many to find it,” she suggests, and Zelda agrees. It’s as good a spot as any right now, especially if a safe in this house is currently likely to be broken into.

Zelda and Paya then get to work on changing her hair. Laughing together as they crack old jokes, Paya quietly asks where all she’s gone. Zelda thinks it doesn’t particularly matter at this point, and she starts on about all the places she’s seen in the last year.

“I feel like I only ever get to see Kakariko,” Paya says wistfully. “I’ve not even really gone to Akkala or Necluda to see Aunt Purah.”

They manage to get Zelda’s hair to some sort of light copper-like color, and Zelda thinks that’s good enough. “It’ll look less horrendous and stupid when the blonde starts growing out,” Zelda says. She fingers her hair, but she can see the splits. “Mind helping me cut it some?” With Paya’s help, her hair gets snipped a bit more.

“You look a bit more like yourself,” Paya says.

Zelda gives her a tight hug. “Thank you, Paya.”

Paya takes her leave, and Zelda peruses her shelves. Finding the book she wants, she picks it off the shelf to take with her.

Zelda decides that maybe the next item of order is one that she’s neglected for months, but then again, Zelda wasn’t supposed to be around. She drifts downstairs to the parlor to use the phone. She must be lucky, she thinks, because it doesn’t take long for Ruto to pick up and then start screaming her ear off.

Zelda holds the phone away from her and suddenly laughs when she thinks of Link doing the same when he got lectured by Midna. “Where have you been?” Ruto hisses when she calms down enough. “You missed everything!”

“I know,” says Zelda. “Write me the novel and send it over.”

Zelda doesn’t get to say much else, just lets Ruto babble away. She patiently sits, listening to her friend go off when Link comes by the parlor. His eyes lock on her, and then he turns away before quickly doubling back, clearly not recognizing her at first glance.

Zelda gives him a smile and mouths to him, “Ruto,” as he sits down in the armchair next to her and the phone.

Eventually Zelda gets a word in, and she manages to end the call. She basically lets the receiver tumble out of her hand. “Well, I’m exhausted,” she tells Link. “I wanted to call my friend Malon, too, but I don’t think I’m up for it now.” Hell, Ruto’s probably telling half the world as they speak that Zelda’s finally turned up.

“Ruto’s the one that can only breathe when talking, right?”

“Yes.”

“Din, I’d love to see a cage match between her and Midna,” he says. “I don’t know who to bet on.”

Zelda chuckles. “Did you need the phone?” she asks.

“Yeah, Midna actually.”

Zelda pushes the phone on the end table between them closer to Link, but he doesn’t move to take it right away. He has a look in his eyes like he’s somewhere else, far away.

“Oh, I got something for you.” Zelda hands him the book she picked, and he jerks back to reality from wherever he’d gone.

“What’s this?” he asks turning it over and frowning when he reads the title.

“Came out last year,” Zelda says. “One of the last novels I read before… uh, everything.” She nods at it. “It’s very good, but it’s not exactly popular. Kind of bombed with the critics.”

“But you like it?”

“I do.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s about loathsome, carless people doing loathsome, careless things.” She smiles wider at him when his frown deepens. “You’ll hate it.”

“Thanks, love,” he says, setting the book next to him. He’ll hate it, but he’ll read it, she’s sure. Maybe he’ll get why she wants him to read it, maybe not, but so long as he’s absorbed by it, she doesn’t exactly care either way.

“That’s not one of your Hateno dresses,” he says.

She huffs. “No, one of the ones my mother picked. I’m sure when she realizes I’ve worn the same dress all day, she’ll be set into another frenzy though.”

“So scandalous of her,” he jokes, referring to their discussion on the skirt’s length. “What’s wrong with wearing the same thing all day?”

She scoffs, forgetting the difference in their class. “It’s stupid,” she says. “Since you’ve missed me getting lectured, you should know proper attire is demanded for morning, afternoon, and evening. I- Haven’t you heard of tea gowns?” He may not have a real interest in fashion, but he spends his day watching people after all.

“What.”

The way she snorts out with laughter would definitely send her mother to an early grave. “It’s proper for a woman to be dressed for the occasion or event, and typically this means changing in the afternoon to her tea gown,” she explains to him. “Then in the evening for the cocktail dress.” Link somehow looks more exasperated than when she told him about the novel she gave him. “I told you it was stupid.”

“I’m afraid I don’t own any tea gowns then to appease your mother.”

“But you have cocktail dresses at the ready?”

“How else do you expect me to show my face at dinner?”

“Wear it to breakfast,” she bubbles, “it’d be ducky!”

Link sneers a little now. “The wealthy clearly have too much time on their hands.”

“What about yourself?” she levels, and she has to try hard to not laugh now. When he raises his eyebrows in question, she elaborates, “Don’t mind Midna and me being flippant and reckless modern girls?”

“Why would I?” he laughs. “Got better things to worry about than the length of your skirts.”

Link sucks in a quiet breath, thinking over something. “I told Midna I’d help her get her license. You know, taking the regulatory exam and signing off on the experience requirement,” he admits. “She always complained that she didn’t want to do surveillance, but I guess she was actually more concerned that nobody would take her seriously.”

“Because she’s a woman?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s valid,” Zelda says.

Link shrugs. “I just kind of think if I can get hired drunk, she’s got a leg up on me,” he says. “It’s not like people don’t know her either.”

“If she gets her license, then what happens with your business?”

He grimaces a little, clearly not having thought too much on details. “Figure that out later,” he says. “The specifics at least, since she’d have to put in capital, and we probably need solicitors. Equal interest though is the only way, I think.”

Zelda clicks her tongue. That he’d make Midna equal partner is a bold move. “Would you care if I got a job?” she questions.

He looks confused. “I’m nobody’s keeper here, Zelda.”

“Don’t tell my mother I got a job in Hateno,” she warns him.

He rolls his eyes. “Oh no, the horror,” he laments. “You had to get a job like the rest of us poor folk.”

She laughs but tells him lowly, “Surely you know how marring it is for a high society woman to actually have to work.”

“Sounds like reputational bullshit, Zelda.”

“It always is,” she agrees.

He motions to her hair. “Going… whatever that is?”

“Paya helped,” she says. “Not the best, but it’s a lot harder to go lighter, let alone lighten darker dye.” She wiggles her feet. “Maybe by summer, I’ll have all my natural hair back again,” she says with a hopeful grin.

“You see the papers this morning?”

“No,” she says.

“Clock’s started,” he tells her grimly.

She nods, the smile slipping from her lips. Link picks up phone, and before she goes he catches her hand and gives it a squeeze.

Zelda looks around for Courage, and she finds him sprawled out on his back on Link’s bed. She wakes the dog and ushers him out. She’s thankful that her mother also thought to replace her coat at least. The one she’d bought in Hateno is not up for handling the harsh Castleton winter, and it left her wanting when they were in Akkala. The Hebran down and wool keeps her much warmer when she steps out into the frosty gardens with Courage. He has his fun running about, ripping through the yard. He inspects the place for any good sticks, and he brings the worthy ones back to her to show off.

Light snow falls from the grey sky. The little flakes swirl about and then disappear when they hit the ground. It won’t be long now then, she thinks, before the ground is cold enough for the flakes to stick for the coming winter season. The gardens aren’t much of a real sight during the winter months. With all the flowers gone, the trees dormant for the winter, and only some of the bushes remaining green year round, the gardens are a bit sparse. It seems that nobody bothered with trying to decorate them for the Midwinter festivities this year, and she wonders if maybe she had something to do with that. Her mother, with Impa at her side, usually is in charge of that sort of thing.

Even inside the house is kind of depressingly bare for the holidays, but maybe that’s where her mother has disappeared to, she thinks. It’d be just a nice bit of normalcy if that’s what her mother is up to.

“I thought the dog was Coutts’, but I hear now it’s actually yours?” Zelda rolls her eyes. Not even a greeting?

“Hello Misko,” she says, barely keeping the annoyance out of her tone. She whips her head around to him, “Care to explain your nighttime visit?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

She says with venom, “I think you do.” He’s lying, and she can feel it in her bones.

He frowns at her, and his eyes catch her attention. Something deep in the dark there of his red eyes spells danger. From the corner of her eye, she sees Courage come to a stop. He’s assessing the situation, and she’s thankful that he decides that it necessitates an investigation.

She narrows her eyes. “Touch me, and you might not have a hand.”

“Oh? And who’ll do the honors? Coutts, who’s missing currently? Your little dog? You?”

“Probably the dog,” Zelda clips when Courage, not liking Misko’s vibe, begins to growl at him. “You know what makes dog bites so nasty?” she asks him. The fur on Courage’s back begins to raise up. “They have all this bacteria in their mouths. Gets right in your wound and causes all that awful infection.

“He’s giving you a warning,” she tells Misko darkly. “You should listen and step away.”

Misko spits at the ground at Courage’s feet, and he stalks off.

When she can’t hear his footsteps any longer is when she finally breathes a sigh, having held her breath in anticipation of him changing his mind and coming back. Courage paces around her, on guard. She thanks Nayru. She never thought she’d stand up to Misko like that, and it felt good.

“Good boy, Courage,” she says with pride, because for once, he lived up to his name.

Courage sneezes and then goes about preparing the garden for spring by digging at the flower beds to Link’s later great exasperation as he dunks the dog into the bath to wash him.

::

Once Midna is done regaling how all the papers that have printed stories about Zelda Nohansen’s miraculous return (because somebody’s got to make it look like the law around here is doing something), Link hangs up the phone and goes to search for her. More papers than he thought would report on it. The details are light, of course, since who wants to admit she’d just ran off and then came back home of her own volition? That’s boring. If her name hadn’t been Nohansen, the only thing done would have been to quietly take down any missing notices when she turned up again.

But it should be enough, he thinks, especially if Zant Yang and Ganondorf Dragmire are watching, and they must be. Link thinks of the picto that Midna had proudly shown him and Zelda after she retrieved it from the deposit box when they were at Ashei’s. The way she’d described him had been accurate, but Link did not like the way Zelda’s face paled at seeing him. It was like a sucker punch.

Save Zelda, no matter what.

Link rises and slowly walks out of the parlor, hands in his pockets and Zelda’s book under his arm, and he just lets his feet carry him where they want to go… or foot. Whatever.

The more immediate threat, he thinks, is Zant Yang. He’s the wily fucker that came after her, because Link thinks Ganondorf Dragmire must be a lot like that scumbag Nohansen pointed the finger at initially: Ghirahim Zaman. Dragmire is the type to not want to dirty his hands directly if he can help it, which Link believes explains the absolute mess of a spiderweb of business organizations that Midna had uncovered that did ultimately tie the two men together.

Zant Yang is most likely some dipshit underling, sure, but he’s still dangerous.

He’s furious, too, that Misko had somehow snagged a mirror piece – supposedly their final mirror piece, but that also makes him sick. Are there more Twilight mirrors still around in the world? He hates to think of it. Hopefully, if he lives through New Year’s, Link prays he never has to deal with another one of these accursed things again.

His steps falter. Anyone with an unquenchable greed for money and wealth would jump to marry Zelda for the inheritance she’s likely to receive, which Misko fits the bill on. Misko, with his desire to line his pockets, must be looking to offload the mirror piece then. Did he move it then to prepare for a sale? Would the mirror allow that?

Link snorts.

His thoughts take a more regretful turn that makes his gut fold over.

Midna wished him a good Yule the previous time they spoke, thinking that might be it, so she was pleasantly surprised to hear from him today.

Link rolls his shoulders.

He kind of regrets now not wishing her the same, telling her that he loves her, because what if he doesn’t see her again? She’d been there for him when most others definitely would have ditched him, and Zelda was right, they’d always be friends. He just suddenly feels like he never got the time not to be a shitty friend to her, and she’d absolutely say that if he was a ghost, he’d be a shitty friend then, too. Something, something, “how are you supposed to be there if you’re some stupid translucent entity?” or the like.

He’s so deep in thought, it takes a real holler from Nohansen to break him away, and Link realizes then that he’d meandered past the man’s office. “Alright there?”

Link backtracks a little and comes to the doorway. “Sorry, just thinking.”

“You look like you’re walking to an execution, lad,” Nohansen says with a skeptically concerned look. Link supposes that might just be the truth. Can’t say that to the old man though.

Link clicks his teeth.

Nohansen clears his throat. “I wanted to let you know, I do appreciate you sticking around, Link.” That familiarity again. “For all the help you’ve given Zelda, because I’m sure I don’t know the half of it.”

Link’s short laugh is almost a half sob.

He rubs his mouth, trying to fight the urge that has suddenly sprung.

“If there’s something else I can do…”

Get the tombstone ready.

Link falters.

He swallows. “No, um, you’ve done more than enough yourself,” Link says quietly.

Link looks down at his shoes, suddenly thinking of another million and one things, while Nohansen silently studies him. Too many things are happening, and even now the mirror is foretelling his fate. He struggles to swallow again.

So godsdamn thirsty.

“I think I need to be somewhere else,” Link finally manages to say.

“You know, I’ve come to accept that I’m likely going to half understand you when we talk,” Nohansen says with slight humor. “But I’d like it if it didn’t have to be that way.”

Link wishes the same.

But now’s not the time let the man in.

Link leaves Nohansen and his office behind.

When is the time? When you’re dead?

Yeah, thanks.

Chapter Text

“You know, what if we don’t have to actually find the piece?” Zelda theorizes that evening after another simmering, contentious dinner. Link once again, mindful of Misko’s true nature and not giving one bit of care for image, snatched the seat on Zelda’s right, forcing Misko to sit across from them. The mirror is likely rolling with glee about it all.

Link stands in the doorway of the bath, toothbrush in hand, as she gently closes the bedroom door behind her and looks at him expectantly from across the room. He just blinks at her and turns away to finish brushing.

Like the witch she is, Zelda basically teleports to the doorway he’d just vacated and waves a hand. “I just mean that, maybe it’s not bothering to play nice with me since it’s clearly feeding off Misko like we thought it would.”

Link spits. “Why does that matter?” he asks.

He tries not to think about the mirror spelling his own death.

“It’s got Misko to feed off of, and if what it showed me back in Akkala is right, and he’s got the last piece, it might just lure him to bring it back.”

“What if he figures out how to use the mirror?” Link asks. “It’ll be complete then.”

“Sure, but it’s hungry, Link.”

His head swims.

He double checks the door lock tonight, and he then drags the armchair that sits in one corner of the room over to the door to add an extra block. It’s not much, but he thinks it should be enough to slow Misko down if he decides to barge in and come after Link tonight. The more complete and the stronger the mirror gets, the more Link worries just how unhinged it might be and what it might influence someone to do. Especially someone like Misko who’s fed the mirror.

He climbs into bed and quickly finds himself squashed between Zelda and the dog. He holds them both close as he can, his lifelines in the dark, and shuts his eyes.

If he’s lucky, maybe Midna won’t pick something utterly embarrassing for his gravestone’s epitaph.

::

Zelda’s mother does end up taking it upon herself to quickly dress up the estate for Yule as a means to celebrate her return. The flurry of activity clearly makes Link uncomfortable as he watches people flitter about with decorations, but he comments that the smell of clove, cinnamon, and oranges that floats about the halls is soothing and nice. A slight reprieve from the gloom that stalks them both.

Zelda knows he’s been on edge as of late more than usual. They’re waiting, but not the way that Link is used to, and she wonders if that’s what is shaking him so.

He takes his frustrations with the situation out on the book she lent him.

The book she gave him to read isn’t very long, and when he finishes it as they sit in the front parlor with Paya, he literally slaps the thing shut and tosses it back to her like it’d burned him. “You’re right,” he spits, “I hate it.” Zelda laughs. Paya looks downright horrified. “They’re all insufferable people.”

“That’s kind of the point,” she reminds him. “But you think the narrator’s insufferable, too?”

“Yes,” he insists, his eyes wide and wild. And when he starts to gush his dissatisfaction, she just lets him. “I just read like 125 pages where the poor guy yaps about his wealthy neighbor the whole time, and the neighbor isn’t even interesting. Whole character is shallow despite what you’re told to believe. Then the guy has the audacity to complain about everyone else in his life being shallow and fake and destructive when he spent like the whole novel sucking up to them and not caring about it. But he’s just sooo much better than them since he supposedly cares a woman died from their antics, but he doesn’t. Not really. His disgust and anger are rooted in that he's just as despicable as the rest of them.”

“So he’s a hypocrite?”

“Yep,” Link says, the ‘p’ popping on his lips with such fiery indignation. He crosses his arms.

“And you attribute his sickness and disgust over the woman being killed to as a realization his own flaws rather than an actual rejection of the immorality around him that lead to her death?”

“Yep.” And then he says, “He’d have kept on doing the same things just like everyone else otherwise, despite knowing they’re immoral. Why does it take someone’s death for him to realize, ‘Ah, yeah, maybe this is all terrible, and I should fuck off with it’?”

“You don’t think the experience warranted an honest reflection of himself that could lead to genuine rejection of his friends then? Does he not find redemption in moving away at the end?”

“No,” he claims hotly. “He’s still as flawed and despicable. Change of location doesn’t actually change things.”

It might’ve been the most in one go he’d spoken on a subject in a while.

Zelda sees it in his face when something locks in place in his brain. He must have realized why she gave him that particular story to read. It annoys him even more. Paya squeaks when Link suddenly just gets up and storms out of the parlor. It’s about a quarter of an hour later when he seems to remember that he’s actually there to keep an eye on Zelda, and Link stiffly strides back in throws himself back into the armchair he’d been occupying.

The seething frustration that comes off of him makes poor Paya deeply uncomfortable and concerned.

But it’s exactly what Zelda wanted, and Zelda’s prepared. She hands him a new book, this time with no ulterior motives on plot, just personal amusement, and he hesitantly takes it from her like it might be explosive. “You’ll hate this one, too,” she says with far too much cheer clearly for his taste.

He scoffs. But then Link still reads it. For her.

Consciously reaching for human connection is one of those things she noticed him trying correct and change course on, like the slow shucking of an oyster that may snap shut again for protection.

She’s always considered him to be a cold man: rare to be overtly affectionate, slower to say honeyed words, too reserved generally to even think to test social acceptability, and she’ll probably die counting on one hand the times he’s explicitly said he loves her. If she didn’t know him in and out, it’d be easy to think him disinterested, but she sees the sizeable weight he puts into the small things for her.

He hated every single one of those 125 pages, but he read it. For her. And he sits reading the next one she told him upfront that he’d hate without complaint beyond that sour lemons look he has. For her.

She’d never doubt him.

He’d shaken himself loose in the early fall for a time with her and Midna as if they’d reached the belly of the oyster then. He’d been more comfortable to be teasing and warm when his innate need for walls and deep privacy had been set aside. Then the mirror’s weight made him rigid again. When she has these sorts of thoughts, sometimes she takes a peek at the mirror, and it’ll look slyly back at her.

When Link finishes the book, he brings it back to her by dropping it like dead weight on her bed next to her, and she lowers her own book in anticipation of his next scathing review. All she gets though is a biting, “Never call me ‘mister’ again.”

So Zelda continues her slow torture of Link through books. He reads what she gives him, whether he likes it or not, gives her a quick review usually and then takes the next one she plucks off her bookcase for him. The day before Yule, she decides to give him a thick one that he’ll probably definitely hate, and this one breaks him finally. He returns it that same day. “Are you trying to kill me?” he spits in disgust.

“It’s a wonderful story about a whale, what’s wrong with it?”

The shocked, offended silence he gives her is everything.

“They got paid by the word when it was written, you know, that’s why it’s so lengthy,” she informs him. She exchanges it for a (much shorter) science fiction story. “It’s a little more horror, too,” she says, handing it over. “Man makes a monster, and the people fear what they do not understand.”

This one he actually seems to enjoy, considering he’s up reading it long after she drifts to sleep. He gives it back to her in the morning on Yule, with no comment this time, and she plucks another for him to read.

He sighs and begrudgingly takes it.

She’s pleased that he at least doesn’t have that sour lemons face at dinner and doesn’t seem to actually realize why she’s foisting books on him. If he’s engrossed in a story, whether or not he hates it, he can’t think about the will, his death, alcohol, the mirror.

And he can’t feed into the mirror.

Their Yule dinner is a bigger affair with family friends coming and going to join them and express their shocked happiness at her reappearance. Link, who’s made it his personal mission to do what he can to push Misko’s buttons (but innocently), continues to steal the seat next to her. The staff, amused by the absolute pettiness that’s been on display at dinner of late, decides to fan the flames a bit more and just stop even setting that seat with a wine glass, having understood that Link doesn’t drink. Zelda also no longer gets set a glass when they notice her silent support.

The mirror must be so happy when Misko’s eye bulge a bit more.

Link keeps quiet as he usually does, and he only politely responds when directly addressed by her family’s guests, all curious as to who he is. They try to place him and his family name, thinking him from some prominent lineage, but they can’t since he’s just some unknown from the likes of Ordon.

Her father mentions the ongoing dinner battle in private with her later on in his office. They sit like they used to when Zelda was small. She likes that. “I know you said that you were working on ending the engagement, but what is it that you’re stuck on?” she asks him, knowing he’s not stopping the dinner nonsense mostly because he finds it funny as well.

“The evidence, really,” he tells her. “Strong suspicions alone don’t break a contract with a Sheikah family as prominent as Misko’s.”

“Nothing’s gone missing in a while though?”

“And there lies the problem,” he says. “Your arrival seems to have put him off, since Tael made mention about him having his eye a few things. I think he might be wary as well since Link is hanging around.”

“He did seem to think that Link would just drop me home and go away,” Zelda agrees.

Then it dawns on her. Quietly she asks him, “Misko wasn’t actually your pick, was he?”

Her father smiles at her knowingly, but he admits nothing. He doesn’t need to say anything more though.

She scoffs. She should have known. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Zelda will be rid of Misko soon enough, but she didn’t think she might have to prepare for another fight though after her father said to do as she wants. She kicks a foot. At least it would be two against one, she supposes.

Later, when she slips into Link’s room, they lock and bar the door with furniture, and Courage decides to sleep half hiding under the bed, his little back feet sticking out from under his butt as he sploots. Link stares at the barred door, arms folded, knuckles white, and a slight crease in his brow. When they go to bed, he doesn’t pick the book back up. “Don’t like it?” she asks.

“No,” he says slowly, not talking about his opinion on the book. “Something’s different in the air.”

Zelda frowns. Her eyes drift to the obsidian stone she put by the window. She started doing that a few days before at the start of the new moon. She thinks of all the old tales she and Midna poured over during the end of spring and summer. Burying mirrors under moonlight is to ground the pieces and prevent further harm. Reflective surfaces storing energy. She hopes the idea she’d cooked up with Symin and Purah works.

“When’s the last time the mirror talked to you?” he asks her suddenly. “You know, like when you’re just out minding your own business and not trying to talk to it.”

“Good question,” she murmurs. Was it on their way to Faron for the third piece? “I’m not actually sure. It communicates, sure, but not like it used to. Has it said anything to you like that?”

A hard look crosses his face. “Just a couple of times recently,” Link says.

 She thinks about it. “Huh,” Zelda breathes. She blinks. “Think maybe I got over something myself then.” She rolls and then shuts off the light.

Fuck convention.

::

Link’s eyes snap open. The dog is already up and at attention. He shakes Zelda awake. “It’s happening,” he tells her, whatever the happening is. Zelda is at the door pushing the furniture out of the way as Link gets his prosthetic on, and then with her ear to the floor at the gap, she listens. Link creeps up next to her.

The dog, having hopped aboard the bed in the night, doesn’t move, but his ears are at attention. They give a slight twitch.

“Something’s wrong,” she tells him in a low whisper.

Link agrees. That something in the air he’d smelled earlier permeates everything now. Gooseflesh snakes its way up his arms. It’s like that night in the late summer when he’d last played cards with his friends. He came home late in the night and walked right through a barrier of some kind.

“It’s the mirror,” he whispers. “It’s reaching.”

Zelda’s breath hitches. “Do you think it’s calling for the piece?”

Link isn’t sure, but what he is sure of is that this might be it.