Before, After, & Always

Chapter 1 (Found, Meeting, Tavern)

FOREWORD: Hello! I'm so glad you're here!! If you're familiar with my other work, please note that I am tackling slightly heavier themes in this story than in my prior writing (infidelity, implied/referenced self-harm, suicidal ideation, and more in that vein) so please read with caution! Love you all!

-----After -----

"We've found him, Your Highness."

The quill drops from Zelda's hand, splattering blotches of ink across her neat writing. The script becomes lost under the dark pigment, but what does that matter? Royal decrees with the capacity to alter the lives of all Hyrule's denizens carry no weight in comparison to the message she's just received.

"I beg—" Her voice is drier than Gerudo; she has to swallow and try again. "I beg your pardon?" Because surely she heard wrong.

But she hadn't. A lifetime of prayers is answered with the same five words: "We've found him, Your Highness."

They found him. They found him.

She rises from her seat, beholding the two guards at her door like the honorable Sages themselves. "Where?" she breathes. Then, like a headrush, dopamine floods her system. By Farore, they'd found him! "Is he here at the castle?" she gushes, suddenly weightless.

"No, Your Highness," the taller guard frowns, but gravity can't recapture her now. "He's at the tavern. We requested he follow us, but he refused."

"He refused?"

"Something about paying his tab, Your Highness."

She recorks her jar of ink and clips across the room to her clothing chest, already undoing the ties at her neck. Both guards blush and pivot towards the door.

"Your Highness...?"

"No matter. I will go to him." A simple overgown will do—nothing too tight in the legs if she wants to get to the tavern before tomorrow. She pulls out a hideous plum thing and wrinkles her nose before tossing it back in without bothering to refold it. She wants him to think her beautiful, not like she lost a duel with a dye vat. She shuffles haphazardly through the other garments before spotting something suitable at the bottom. There, this muted pink will be just lovely, especially if she doesn't want to garner everyone's attention at the tavern.

"He never felt much at home in the castle, anyway," she reasons, shrugging the summer linen over her shoulders.

Finally she assesses her reflection in the mirror, grateful she hasn't taken her strawberry-blonde hair out of today's pins yet; she's already wasted enough time as is. Half of it wraps to the back of her head, leaving the rest to cascade over her shoulders in waves of spun ruby-gold. There's a spark of vitality in her gray-blue eyes that has long been missing.

Lastly she slips her leather shoes into their pattens and glides past her guards, still rigid with abashment. When she overtakes them in the threshold, they startle and fall into step behind her, but she turns on them. "There is no need to escort me. I know where I'm going." Then her hurried march resumes.

"Your Highness—"

"Oh—" She stops and swivels once more to offer a slight bow, clutching her heart. "And thank you. For bringing me the greatest tidings in Hyrule."

With that, she leaves the men flummoxed in the corridor. But it's true that she's in no need of attendants. Hyrule is in an era of peace more profound than any preceding it. There are no thieves who stalk in the night, no monsters who prowl Hyrule Field, no Desert King to orchestrate their kingdom's downfall. And it's all thanks to them—thanks to him.