2 A Language Problem
by Serena_WalkenHe didn’t hear that right. Link knew he didn’t hear that right. Princess Zelda didn’t just ask that outside in Hateno village.
She wouldn’t, he heard wrong.
“Would you like to sleep with me?” She asked. “It’s okay if you don’t. After everything that’s happened, I would appreciate it with someone.”
“I would!” More than one person agreed.
Link didn’t get it, but he got in front of Zelda as several unfit suitors not worthy of the crown suddenly started to talk to her. The lurkers that didn’t get what privacy meant still followed.
“Come on, Link?” One of the villagers played the buddy role. “It’s been 100 years, and she wants some company. I would make her feel-”
A bonk of his shield, friend angles meant nothing. Link had some memories of Zelda, enough to know she was a proper princess. Why was she saying that?
“Look, someone needs to be there for the princess,” another one stated, “so if you don’t want to go for it, someone else will.”
“Hyah!” They were getting fussier.
“I appreciate your concern,” Zelda said to all the men that her words had pulled interest from. “Thank you very much for your offers, but I am only looking for someone close that I knew over 100 years ago to sleep with me. A kindred soul who experienced a lot of the same thing.”
Link felt himself getting pushed in the back from some of the women.
“Good fit, go for it!” One of them yelled. “You saved Hyrule. The victor who saved the princess should get something out of it. That’s probably why she’s asking you.”
Oh, if those were men right now! Still, Zelda still looked toward him. Nuts. This was nuts. This was no offer any man of duty would ever accept.
“My request seems to have created tension with everyone.” She curtsied. “I am sorry.” She looked back toward Link. “Sorry for the trouble, Link? Are you sure you remember me?”
He thought so, but with words like that? No, no he would be a proper knight, her request just didn’t make sense.
“Okay. I guess. If you change your mind, Link, let me know. For now, I fear that perhaps you don’t remember me as . . . as much as you thought.”
She looked so sad. So troubled. He wished he could help her.
“Could you help me find Robbie, Link? I would like to try sleeping with him.”
What was wrong with her? Did she have brain damage? “No.” Still, a bunch of rude towners whistled.
“Okay. Fine.” She looked offended. “I will find him myself then. What about-?”
“There isn’t going to be any hundred-year-old man better fit for the crown than Link!” One of the women yelled.
“The crown?” Princess Zelda looked confused. “I don’t understand. I am not looking for a prince, just someone special to sleep with.”
Link covered his face. All that time using her powers against Calamity Ganon. It was such a shame. He lost so many people. Lost so many memories. He had remembered her the most, but she wasn’t in her right mind anymore.
Crazy or not, now he would have to watch for her more closely because of all her actions. Such a shame. Royalty was back, but she wasn’t well in the head. Maybe it was temporary? Maybe it was just a yearning for flesh after being trapped as energy? He was trying to put some kind of reasoning to it. She caught his look of worry about her mental state.
“Oh, well, fine!” She started to tear up. “I-I don’t need any of your help! I didn’t have it for the last 100 years, and I don’t need it now!” She started to walk away. “You did your part with your sword of darkness, I no longer need aide. You were just appointed by father anyhow, and he is long since gone. Thank you for what you did, but like I said before, I have nothing to offer. Everything is long since gone.”
He watched her walk away.
“Someone has to be king. She needs someone for the lineage and she wanted a friend in bed she trusted.”
Suddenly the women were all shaking their head at him like he should be ashamed for not sleeping with her.
Link tried to think it through. She was the only royal. Maybe she knew she had to find someone and all the courters were long since gone. Someone who protected Hyrule, would be . . . comfortable?
He was once a knight, but he wasn’t that anymore. They didn’t exist in this new world. The princess picked him because of that?
Royalty picked him. It was an option to say no, but she wanted someone from the Calamity.
She was too eager to restart Hyrule. He did remember in his memories that she was ambitious and brave. She needed time to know people of that era though, she couldn’t just, just do that.
There wasn’t a hurry. She would learn that soon. For now, he would follow much more behind her. With her declarations so loud, he couldn’t just leave her alone.
Zelda continually walked for hours. The sun had set over an hour ago. This world didn’t make sense. It was but a simple request, and she thought he was instigating it. She got it wrong though, and he only seemed mad about her request.
She just didn’t understand him anymore. She weeped as she passed so many broken down guardians. There was no one around to hear her be cowardly and emotional.
100 years later and the knight she knew had changed. Everything of course had changed. She continued on her way, hoping her destination was as okay as she believed it to be.
She was exhausted. She wanted to fall asleep out there but she still remembered her true knights words of safety.
Never travel alone without him. He stated it so many times to her. There was only one rule even more important. A rule that he made her vow to follow, but a rule he himself no longer understood.
She continued onward and saw the beloved kakariko village. It had survived. She smiled as she entered the village. She asked about Impa and found her. She was supposed to be asleep. Good.
“I promise not to bother her then.” Yet Impa’s guards went in and stirred her awake.
Impa was very elderly now, but she still had that spark she could see. “Princess Zelda. I knew after what we heard in the distance, I would see you seen.” She was starting to cry.
Zelda wrapped her arms around her. “It’s so good to see you! I missed you so much, I am so glad to see you are fine.”
“Not so tight. I missed you too.” She looked behind her. “Where is Link? I thought he’d be with you.”
“He fought off Calamity Ganon. He has gained a new life.” Zelda looked around. “He doesn’t remember me as well, and I don’t understand this new world either. I am putting pieces together. May I sleep with you?”
“Anytime.” She was fine with the simple request. “You look exhausted.”
Zelda lied down on the wooden floor. “I am very exhausted. From the strain. The stress. All the emotions.” No. “I need rest but I fear. I know I will be trampled in nightmares for many years to come.”
“Yes. I know that feeling.” Ima admitted. “Here are some blankets and a pillow. I don’t have much give to comfort at night anymore. I will try to call you out of your nightmare if I can.”
Zelda watched someone bring in some blankets and a pillow. “That is very kind of you. Thank you.” Zelda lied down. Her body couldn’t keep up with anymore. She started to rest and her body quickly blocked out reality as another guard came in.
Kakariko Village
Link stood outside of Impa’s. Zelda had gone in there and not come back out. She had been exhausted so maybe Impa was letting her rest. Impa’s guards weren’t giving many details just that ‘Zelda was sleeping with Impa’. He could talk in the morning. What?! “Even if she was desperate, Impa’s not even . . .” Ooh, how to say it tastefully? “That is a huge gap in age for a relationship?”
The guards all laughed at him for a short while. He didn’t understand. They allowed him to go inside, just for a second, to see them ‘sleeping together’ They slid the door open just a bit. Link wanted to shut his eyes, but when it was opened, he saw nothing happening. He stared at Zelda, trying to stay as close as she could to Impa’s large cushion beneath her as she slept. Her head was cocked in an odd way to reach the cushion, with her sleeping bag almost falling away.
She was clawing for comfort. Idiot. She was clawing for someone to understand. Idiot. She was clawing for safety in a world she didn’t know. Idiot! The language didn’t mean the same!
The door was closed again. Link looked toward the guard that followed. “She is sleeping, as in the act of resting, together, with Impa.”
“Yes, of course she is,” one of the guards explained. “You see ‘sleeping with’ didn’t have that connotation to it a hundred years ago. Yes, it’s late and she is very drained and tired. I am surprised she didn’t stay with you tonight.”
It was her phrasing! Nobody used the word ‘sleep with’ in that way anymore. “I thought she was overzealous to start creating new royalty.” He explained to the guards what happened.
“Back then, some wording was different. Sometimes Lady Impa has older dialogue that means different things,” one of them explained. “The Old Kingdom was different, Link. Very different.”
“Also, she was still a princess. A princess helping to save the world, but her courters were limited. Saving the world and finding her power was much more important. No one layed with the princess in any lover way. For that, she’d use something like ‘lie with her in her personal chambers’.”
“Ah, yes. Impa told us of the times you traveled together. You even said yourself that she should always have ‘someone to sleep with’. It was dangerous not to ‘have protection’,” the first one said again. “That is also another old word meaning a person knowing how to fight, if you couldn’t guess!” they teased him and slapped him on the back. “Seriously. Former royal knight. She will have many stories to tell and she may use words that you don’t know. She is over 100 years old with memories from a different time. The whole culture of Hyrule was very different.”
“She seems more concerned about plaguing nightmares than about protection tonight. Still. We will watch over her, Link. She doesn’t exactly have a home anymore anyhow. Impa will take care of her.”
Link went back toward the doors and opened them. No home. One outfit. No one understood her. That’s why he took her to Hateno in the first place. He wanted to show her that the world was still functioning, and she didn’t have to collect rubies to survive, the villagers would help. They helped with his home, just a small payment and lots of lots of cutting. “I should have said something.” He also knew that he had been her silent knight. A part of him just wanted to see what it must have been like, to be with her as that knight. Instead, it backfired. “I am just not the same.”
He watched her start to tremble and sweat. Nightmares. They were frequent with him too. They would never end.
The more he remembered, the more aggressive it all became. He remembered Revali, a proud bird that didn’t like his personality. He remembered the gentleness of Mipha. A zora he may or may not have loved, he couldn’t quite tell. He remembered Urbosa. Powerful lightning but really sweet to Zelda. He had even found her running away to her to . . . “sleep with her.” He grunted at himself softly. From now on, he had to make sure he asked questions and gathered facts if he didn’t understand something she had said.
Daruk was good too. He gave Link the best advice for eating rocks, being tough, and surviving life.
He had met new people that helped him too. It kept him going, seeing how many had still survived the onslaught he knew happened. Parts he could remember.
But, Zelda, remembered it all and she had no one to go through the trauma with. He was so concerned about saving her and stopping Calamity Ganon that he didn’t think of what she would do after she was saved.
And instead of thinking there would be some kind of difference between the language of a hundred years ago, he thought she was grasping for making the next ruler.
She was a princess, how could he be that stupid! She had wanted to stay with him too for the night. Instead, he looked at her like she was crazy and watched her take that painful walk through the guardian remains.
“Oh, no, no! Zelda!”
That was Impa. Her guards held him back, telling him Impa had nightmares sometimes. The other went to check on her, but he still wanted to see.
When he looked in the door, he saw Zelda awake and right there, comforting her.
“There, there. It’s all passed now, Impa. I am safe and fine.”
Impa wiped her eyes and held her back. “Sorry. Those don’t happen nearly as often anymore, but I guess with you being freed, it just got to me.”
Link left the doorway. This was good, but it wasn’t good enough. Impa was only stirred up because of Zelda’s presence. Meanwhile? Nightmares every time he went to sleep. Nightmares weren’t rare and no one could help with them. He could have comforted Zelda when she trembled, and she could have done the same for him! His ignorance had him shooting arrows in a nearby tree’s trunk.
He had a chance to keep a dear friend he used to have, very close to him. Closer than he thought.
“Master Link?” One of the guards said. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be shooting arrows at night?”
Right. He should go. Zelda had guards and Impa was safe now. He should go home. His day was over. He was exhausted too.
Maybe he should go.
Maybe he should.
He went up the stairs. He should go but his heart didn’t say he wanted to. He should explain, she needed to start to understand that, or she might mess up again. Impa was asleep, but Zelda was not. He waved.
She only looked confused as to why he followed her. “What is it?”
He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I tried to be like before for you, to see what it was like. I shouldn’t have done that.” She seemed shocked how much he was talking now. “I took you to Hateno to see that you don’t need to go into the wilds and gather rupees to start a life.”
” . . . yes. Thank you.” She still looked at him oddly. “I wish you had said that sooner.”
Link shrugged. “You should also know, Princess Zelda, that saying anything with the terms ‘sleeping and with’ next to each other when young Hyruleans aren’t involved, means . . .” Oh, what is it they used? “Taking someone to your personal chambers?”
She was glowing red, extremely embarrassed, and left the home. He followed her. Once she walked away from most of the houses, she started to talk. “I never, never said to take someone to my personal chambers! Never, ever!” She covered her mouth. “What other things have I misspoke while here?” She wouldn’t stop being red. “People were offering because of that? I-I-? I didn’t know them!” She covered her mouth. “I said that with Robbie too?”
“Sorry that I didn’t understand,” he apologized. “I knew 100 years was a lot, but the language changed more than I thought.” She was just so red. “It’s fine.”
“That whole thing, knowing this, it’s all very taxing on me,” she admitted.
“Taxing?” Maybe that was another word? “I don’t know taxing.”
“Taxing? It’s frustratingly frustrating,” she said. “I can’t believe I did that.”
Yeah, this was stressful for her. “Sorry. Uh? Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?” She just looked at him oddly again.
“Sorry. I’m not used to you . . . being so direct,” she apologized. “Well? There is something I would like, Link, in Hyrule castle. I forgot about it. Could you get it for me?”
“Sure.” He could definitely do that. She said he didn’t have to do it until morning, but he wanted to get it. He was really interested in seeing the thing she wanted.
He traveled by horse to Hyrule. The castle was still a dangerous spot filled with monsters. He went to the throne room. He lit the fires around the area like she said to do to find it.
A secret area revealed itself. Inside of it, was a book. Princess Zelda said that Hyrule had been on the edge of collapse so many times, there was actually an established book now. There were certain rules to follow to help bring the kingdom back faster.
He just had to deliver it, but it wasn’t a locked book with any code. He checked it out.
So many things were inside. How to help the population. How to help out different areas of Hyrule. Putting out construction material strategically in certain sections.
Education. Population. Materials. Shops. Cooking? This would really help! It was great. There was even an area for the royalty lineage. Depending on who or if any lineage was lost.
Oh. Well, one princess is what Hyrule had. No king. Mmm. “Wow, they did have how long the royalty was missing? History must have had many twists and turns because of Calamity Ganon.”
Okay, 100 years. One princess. The Queen would be Zelda while the prince was the leader of the army that beat everyone. If it was a single ordinary man or knight, then they would be prince.
. . . “Hm?” Wait. “Uhh. Uh? Huh hoh!” No way. That would mean he was a prince. Wait. Okay. He was prince? No. He’d.
He’d marry Princess Zelda?
He’d marry Princess Zelda?!
Okay, there was more than one of these. Link was a knight, not a King. He bowed down to the king in his memories. This. He was?
Okay other options. Suitors were all dead. Um? They preferred a high ranked civilian if no noble blood was left. No one was left and he had been the personal knight of the princess. Highest rank.
Okay anything else? The kingdom was best looked after with another Hylian to ensure one of the other domains didn’t abuse it as their own. He was Hylian.
“Oh. Okay.” Link just looked at the book. Was she really going to follow it all? He took some time to think about it.
From an outside point of view, someone who defended the kingdom should be a ruler. It just didn’t feel real or right. Prince?
Prince Link? He didn’t even know his last name. Prince? With the next one in line being King or Queen afterward?
He looked at the book. “Okay.” He understood. He had harder things to accept. This was the next part of life, but he still had time. There was nothing that said what age it had to happen.
Besides, the princess had fallen for her knight according to Kass’ teacher. That would have been him. Even though he wasn’t the same person probably, that was a good start.
From Princess’ knight to betrothed to Princess Zelda. He took the book back to Kakariko village.
Zelda took the book Link brought her. He looked odd though. Yet? He was different with no memories. She tried to not let it get to her. She looked at it briefly. “Thank you, Link. This helps a great deal.” He had brought extra clothes for her too. “Thank you for stopping for extra clothes too. That was nice of you.”
She heard an anxious sound from him. He was anxious about the book. “Did you read it?”
“Yes.”
Oh. He didn’t even nod for the yes’ anymore. Just another different thing, he used to do anything he could not to speak. “What part did you read?”
He easily grabbed it and turned it toward the lineage page.
Oh. She read it. “Oh. That’s different.” Very different. She looked through the other options. “Oh.” Oh.
“No rush,” he said.
No rush? No rush.
No. Rush. Um?
“Would you like to share my home in Hateno?” Link asked her.
” . . .”
“Princess Zelda?”
Zelda didn’t know what to say.
“Hey?”
“Hm?” What to do?
“Would you like to share my home, or sleep with me?”
Great. Oh, great. “Are you making fun of me for my embarrassing words?” She gasped.
He just laughed.
Link . . . laughed? “A . . . joke?” Right. A joke. Interesting. Not really funny to her. Crude actually.
But Impa laughed too.
“What is the joke?” She asked Impa.
“There is no joke, he was trying to communicate with you correctly to come with him, and you wouldn’t answer, so he said something that would make you answer.” Impa teased her. “He isn’t rushing you, but he isn’t rejecting his destiny either. Go, Zelda. You know yourself that the castle isn’t in a livable state. There aren’t nearly as many people left, let alone someone to take care of it.”
“I thought I could stay here?” Zelda asked. Link just made another sound and shook his head.
“He is the next Prince of Hyrule one day, and you will be Queen,” Impa said to her. “Not now. Not next year, but one day. So, go. You should get to know Link again. Since he has no memories, things aren’t the same as before.”
“Well? But?” Her knight? He was so different though. This should never happen. He was a knight. Her Prince? He would help sire the next generation? Her knight?
A knight?
“Your mouth is as big as a catfish, Zelda!” Impa rapped her cushion in delight. “Go ahead, Link. Take your future queen home.”
Hateno
Home. This was home now? It was quaint. Small. What the commoners stayed in. Not even half as nice as Castle Town.
Calamity Ganon was gone. She needed to learn how to relive in this world. This changed, small kingdom.
Her days too. “What do I do? I always spent hours praying to the goddesses, or finding out about the sheikah technology.”
She just heard Link chuckle again. It was a nice sound, he hardly ever did that before. She noticed the picture of all their friends on the wall. She looked at everyone in the picture. “Urbosa. Daruk. Mipha. Revali.” Lost.
She felt Link move around her. That was strange! Link had always been so careful when he moved around her. Her father would never have approved that brushing. The place was smaller. It couldn’t be avoided. Still, that was quite close. Link did not even notice the distance. He pointed toward Mipha, and started to ask her questions about her.
Questions to her? Oh, so different. “Um? “I don’t know? Uh. I mainly associate.” No “associated with a certain. . .” What if she said something wrong again? “Leaders. Other leaders.”
She watched him move over to a corner. He came over holding a frog. “More than leaders.” He gave her the frog.
She stared at it in her hands. Did he remember when she tried to make him eat a frog? “Did it do anything?”
“It wasn’t worth it.” He took the frog back.
Oh. “I liked to walk around the kingdom a lot. Especially where I could be more alone with my thoughts. There were so many more people back then, it was noisy and bustling with the everyday functions of the kingdom.” Now, it didn’t take very long to walk around at all.
Ooh-hoo! He touched her again as he moved. Zelda, you have to get over it. You are living in this home. He is to be the next Prince in . . . many years from now. I must get used to him. As he brushed aside her, he grabbed something. He grabbed her hand, instantly sending her on alert! “What’s wrong, Link?!”
Link just stopped and looked back at her. Oddly again. “Nothing.” He just continued out the door with less urgency.
She watched him cook on an open pot outside. He was roasting meat. That part hadn’t changed, he still loved to eat over a fire. She kneeled down on the ground as she watched him fix the food.
Yep, he was still very excited about cooking. “Oh-ho!” He handed her a meat skewer.
Oh. Hers? She ate it while he cooked his own. It was similar to what they had sometimes when Link got hungry.
Marrying a princess, 100 years out of touch. He was supposed to be the knight she liked, right?
She was so . . . dainty. Fragile, but she didn’t want to be, that was obvious. Calamity Ganon might be gone, but he had a feeling that going from one position of knight to prince wasn’t going to be quick for either one.
Luckily they seemed to have time. The Calamity left them both as young as they thought. No one else knew but Impa, so no one could really rush them. He had time to get used to her. The kingdom wasn’t going anywhere, he had years to get used to the idea. Although?
Boy, she was a little weird. Who ate meat that delicately? It was already on a skewer and she was dissecting it little by little.
When he grabbed her hand to go outside, she thought it was an emergency. When he went around her and just barely even touched her side, she jumped like he scared her. No one must ever had touched anything but a royal hand.
Town people got a lot closer than that. Especially after last night, she would have some approaches.
She had a lot to learn about her new world.
At least, she wasn’t alone in it.