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you joyfully walked through the castle halls, your smile never fading away. you never thought you'd become friends with the princess of hyrule! or her appointed knight for that matter...
you felt yourself illuminate with joy and you smiled widely at the other maids as you walked by. some of them returned your generous gesture, but some of them only scoffed and rolled their eyes. you were confused by their actions, but didn't let it ruin your day.
zelda and link would surely return by sunset, a bit earlier perhaps and you couldn't wait to see the blue-eyed hero. your heart thumped against your chest, hitting your ribs as you kept thinking about blondie. you were skipping as you walked down the halls of the great castle and bumped into judo. the black-haired hylian turned around and smiled at you, his eyes creasing at the corners.
"hey, judo! how are you? i feel like i haven't seen you in ages! how's your job? do you still hate it?"
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"woah, woah! three questions at once? geez, y/n, you seem overly happy today. what happened? and to answer your questions: yes i'm fine, how are you? and my job's going well! and i'm slowly enjoying it so i'm not really hating it that much anymore."
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"that's great, judo! yeah, i'm really happy today. i just, i don't know, i just am!"
judo laughed at your attitude and you two chatted for a little longer. as time passed, the sun started to go down a little and you kept glancing outside the large castle windows every now and then. you were patiently waiting for the sun to go down so that you could maybe sneak in a small chat session with link!
as you waved goodbye at judo, you thought about why you didn't tell him about link. maybe it was because you wanted it to stay as a secret for a while but then you thought about how you already told anya about him. you shrugged and figured you'd tell judo later.
to kill time, you swept every floor you could step on, and wiped every window you could see. you eventually left the rooms in the castle sparkling and you beamed. you felt proud of yourself for your hard work and mentally thanked link for giving you the motivation.
"make way! the princess has returned!"
"already? that was fast," you thought and you kept sweeping, you didn't want to look weird for standing at the door and waiting for the princess and her knight to enter.
zelda stormed her way through the doors and left in a hurry. she didn't notice your presence and pratically ignored you and everyone around her.
"she seemed...frustrated."
you watched the beautiful princess stomp away, her brown boots clicking against the hard floor as she dashed to her room. your e/c eyes crept over back to the entrance and you saw link standing there, all alone.
his eyes filled with slight sadness, but his face stayed still and stoic-like. link always hid his true feelings and emotions but somehow you were always able to decipher and read through him. link walked into the castle, the master sword glistened in the sunlight behind him and he started to make his way to the knight's training grounds. his electric blue eyes connected with your soft e/c ones as he walked by, his expression still and quiet.
but his eyes were loud.
it was almost like they spoke to you, they yearned for guidance and company; someone that could sympathise with link. the young hero walked away and you checked behind yourself, you checked everywhere and concluded that no one was watching you skip work a bit.
you straightened up a bit and started to follow link into the training grounds.
*✭˚·ﾟ✧*·ﾟlater*✭˚·ﾟ✧*·ﾟ*
all of the other knights walked by you as you entered the grounds, some of them watching you as you followed link, their eyes scanning you. you felt uncomfortable and sped up your pace a bit.
you saw link leaning against the stone wall again and you quietly walked up to him, your nerves taking over your entire body. you quickly shook them off and stood next to link. his blue eyes widened a little as he saw you enter his view from his right side.
"...link? are you alright? you seemed kind of sad back there."
the young knight said nothing, and looked down below at castle town.
you watched him for a bit and realised he was looking for someone in the town. his eyes scanning here and there, but then looking back at you. your cheeks warmed up a bit at the sudden eye contact and link straightened up a little, a sigh escaping his light pink lips.
"how do you always know what i'm going through?"
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"u-uh, well, i g-guess i'm just good at r-reading people...?"
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"you're too good."
you frowned a bit at link's reply and stepped back a bit. what did he mean by that? you wanted to ask him but felt scared that he might get mad and leave you. your mind told you to leave him alone to his thoughts but your heart told you to stay and get him to open up to you.
your heart won by a mile.
"what do you mean by that, link?"
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"...i'm zelda's appointed knight. i'm the one that's meant to protect her. i'm the one that's supposed to stop calalmity ganon from rising with zelda. everyone is expecting me to defeat the calamity and bring peace to the land, but i can't even get zelda to like me. i can't show any emotions whatsoever, they're distractions."
you were taken aback at link's words and couldn't help but feel bad for the knight. he was just trying to do his job and all zelda did was yell at him. he had so much pressure on him he felt as if all of hyrule was sitting on his shoulders.
"feelings aren't distractions, link. they're ways of showing the real you. i get the feeling that you don't like opening up to others and that's completely normal. you can hide how you truly feel behind that mask of yours, but know that i can see right through them. i know you're upset and stressed about this whole ganon situation, but trust me, link. you can let yourself be vulnerable to others that you value and who value you and you can trust. it's alright to show some feelings."
link's eyes widened and you tell he was shocked by your words. he blinked a few times, his mind swarming with thoughts, and turned his whole body towards you. you tensed up a bit and wondered if you were too cheesy with what you had said. you hoped it made him feel better though.
suddenly, the knight brought you into a warm and gentle embrace, his entire being engulfing yours and you stiffened at the physical contact and his strange but kind gesture.
your mind went crazy as you felt his arms tighten a bit as he held you in his strong arms. his head was on your shoulder and you slowly wrapped your arms around his frame. you figured that this was link's way of saying 'thank you' and you smiled a bit. you slowly breathed in his scent and felt your knees grow weak from the aroma. link pulled away and gave you a gentle smile.
"i value you, y/n. so much."