Falling Tears

/\/\/\

The three of them left first for Akkala, to return Robbie to his lab and to clear everything up at the stable. They hadn't been gone for horribly long, but it was long enough for Rudi to panic about their disappearance.

"Are you alright?" he exclaimed as they approached from the shrine. "There was silence for so long I went in and - and you were all gone! What happened?"

Robbie gave a slight cough. "I… Deku Nuts. You've heard of those, right?"

Rudi took a step back in surprise. "Don't they… cause some sort of flash?"

"And a brief sensation of being stunned," Robbie nodded vigorously. "We… didn't want to upset everyone at the stable with the sight of… his body… when we brought him out."

Grief passed over the stable master's face. "So… he's dead, then." He turned to Zelda, hands clasped in front of him. "I offer you my sincerest condolences, ma'am - the two of you were evidently very close."

Zelda nodded, not trusting herself to speak. For one, she was afraid she would somehow ruin Robbie's alibi.

And for another, speaking about Link as if he was dead, when he wasn't at her side to prove everyone wrong, and when he was once again lying motionless in the Shrine of Resurrection, made the possibility seem far more real, and it terrified her. Tears trembled in her eyes and she blinked rapidly, letting several fall - it didn't soothe the empty ache in her heart.

Robbie bowed his head. "We've… buried him in that shrine back there," he explained, his voice low with solemnity. "It's… a traditional burial ground for, er, Sheikah of some significance. Well, Link wasn't a Sheikah, but he's done many significant things, so…"

Rudi's eyes widened. "That fast?" he murmured. "Without even a funeral?"

"I didn't want to wait," Zelda spoke up again, although she could feel her resolve crumbling as she thought about what she would say. "I… want to remember him as - as close to life as possible. With all of these injuries - I didn't want to wait to see wh-what would… would happen to his b-body…" The tears were coming faster, and she pressed her hands to her eyes almost angrily, wishing they would stop. He's alive, she told herself, over and over again. Alive, alive, alive, alive…

"I'm so sorry," Rudi murmured, tears in his own eyes. "Well, I - you're free to visit, any time. Free of charge."

"Thank you," Zelda managed, although beneath the misery in her soul she felt a twinge of guilt for playing on the man's emotions in such a way.

"If you see another guy who looks like him coming through, that's his twin brother," Purah spoke up, smiling cutely - every inch the eight-year-old she appeared to be. "So don't worry about it!"

Robbie took a step in front of her. "Really, Rudi, thank you for all you've done. Thank you especially for coming to inform me. I think we'll be off now - Zelda and… and Link's brother will likely be back at some point to collect their horses. Tell Borville - thank him, too, for trying to help."

Rudi nodded sadly, his shoulder slumped. "Your horses will receive great care," he assured her. "I… I wish you the best."

As they headed up the trail towards Robbie's lab, Rudi took the old, wrinkled Sheikah scientist aside. "You might want to see someone about your granddaughter," he murmured anxiously. "She… was so cheerful just now, and that poor boy died, for goodness' sake. And she wasn't at all affected seeing his wounds…"

Robbie looked up at him with his lizalfos-eye goggles. "I'll… look into that," he promised.

Jerrin was waiting for them just outside the lab. "Is everything alright?" she asked, kneading her hands. "Is Link…?"

"He'll be alright," Purah said, at once reverting to her usual self. "We put him back into the Shrine of Resurrection - I've been adjusting it, so he'll be all good to go in just a few days."

Zelda inhaled deeply, repeating it to herself. A few days. Just a few days and he'll be back and everything will be fine.

Jerrin smiled. "Thank goodness," she sighed, putting a hand to her forehead. "I'm glad you were able to get to him in time."

"You shouldn't have said anything about a brother," Robbie turned to Purah. "It seems a bit too obvious, don't you think?"

Purah shrugged. "I had to do something - give him a little heads up so he doesn't die of fright when he sees a supposedly dead man walking all over the place. And that way Link doesn't have to pretend to be dead for the rest of his life - he could even say that he decided to change his name to his 'brother's' out of respect!"

"It's still a mess," Robbie said, shaking his head exasperatedly. "But I suppose it's a good way to keep a low profile about the Shrine of Resurrection."

"You're the one who said he was dead," Purah challenged. "Link would've been incredibly difficult to explain otherwise!"

"The Yiga Clan already knows about the Shrine," Zelda pointed out. "Link all but destroyed them, but even so, there are rumors about it, and about him."

Purah frowned at her. "Then… we'd best hope they stay just that - rumors. At least until I find some way to disable the resurrection part of it - it's just too powerful."

Zelda nodded, wiping her face on her sleeve, but even so she was grateful for its power. It had brought Link back to her once, and she hoped, desperately, that it would do so again.

After a brief meal in Akkala, Purah took Zelda to her lab in Hateno and gave her a new set of clothing so that she could change out of her bloodied tunic and trousers. Giving her a bedroll and a large bag of food, she took her back to the Shrine of Resurrection and helped her set up for the night.

"I'll be back tomorrow," Purah assured her, pulling out her own Sheikah Slate and preparing to leave. "Monsters never come near here, so you'll be safe."

Her body dissolved into blue lines that soon faded away into nothingness, and Zelda was alone in the dark chamber.

Robbie hadn't been wrong - it was incredibly depressing to sit in the Shrine with only a very much unconscious hero to keep her company. She busied herself by first washing out the blood in his trousers in the little pond near the Temple of Time outside. Although she truly didn't want to leave his side, knowing that he was so close by eased the anxiety in her heart, and she was grateful to be doing something useful.

Purah seemed to have had the same idea; when she returned the second day she held out Link's Champion tunic. The blood had already been washed out, for which she was grateful, but the holes were all still there. "I thought you might like something to do while you're waiting," Purah smiled sympathetically.

Patching up his clothing took up much more time than she expected, but she was grateful for that. The Shrine was eerily silent - the absence of the sound of Link's breathing was more than unsettling, and it only served to heighten her fears that perhaps he really was dead. Fixing the tears in Link's clothes gave her something else to focus on, something to distract her.

It had been a century since she'd last sewn anything. Even though she had been the one to make the Champion's tunic in the first place, stitching it back up was an incredibly time-consuming ordeal. As she worked, she noticed several other mended rips in the fabric and remembered Impa telling her that she'd had it restored by the time Link visited her after awakening. She could also see other tears, more messily stitched over, and guessed that Link himself had attempted to fix the various damage done to his clothing throughout his journey. She smiled, imagining it as she went over his work with a more practiced hand - Link, perhaps sitting under an apple tree somewhere, attempting to fix whatever had last been done to his tunic.

Her smile faded as she realized that a good deal of the damage was probably caused by something that injured him. It wouldn't be inaccurate to guess that I'd find matching scars on his torso.

She tried not to check the progress of the Shrine's healing mechanisms too often, as it was horribly awkward even looking at just his face with his current state of undress. When she did muster the resolve to assess his condition, she was both repulsed and fascinated. He was no longer bleeding, but she could see blood flowing through him where his skin had been torn. She could see more than just blood flowing, though, and the morbid thought occurred to her that with the Shrine of Resurrection keeping someone alive, it would be possible to observe exactly how blood circulated, food was digested, oxygen was intaken…

She shuddered at the realization of what that would require of whoever was being studied, and she forced it from her mind. Perhaps Purah can find another way of examining those processes.

By the third day, color had returned to Link's skin even though his wounds weren't yet completely healed. He no longer looked like a corpse, and the sight of him lying so still no longer sent tremors of fear through her heart.

On the fourth day, she noticed that something had changed in his face. His lips were twisted downwards, and his brow was furrowed, as if in pain. It was that day that she realized the swelling in his wrist, ankle, and ribs was rapidly decreasing.

Purah didn't mention how the Shrine fixes broken bones, she thought, sitting at the base of a pine tree that afternoon. Perhaps, since bone was so much more dense and solid, it was a more strenuous process to break down the damaged areas and build it back up in the correct position. That would mean that anything out of place would have to be entirely destroyed, wouldn't it?

She winced, tears that she thought she had left behind returning to sting her eyes. I had hoped that he wouldn't feel any more pain.

That night, she had difficulty falling asleep, despite the fact that the bedroll Purah had left her with was perfectly comfortable and of a much higher quality than the two Link brought with them on their journey. The blankets were thick wool lined with soft rabbit fur, and the small pillow felt nearly like a cloud.

But it was frustratingly silent in the Shrine. She was far enough from the entrance that the chirp of crickets and the hooting of owls was all but sealed from her ears.

And then there was the fact that the Shrine was always dark and gloomy, no matter the time of day. The only light came from the glowing blue designs on the ancient monitors above the basin, the engravings on the bottom of the basin, and the usual shrine constellations on the walls. It was an unnatural, uncomfortable environment.

On top of that, the thought that - if everything had gone alright - Link would be awakening the next day filled her with so much excitement and anxiety that she struggled to calm her mind enough for sleep. She finally drifted off when her eyelids simply became too heavy to stay open, sometime after midnight. Exhausted from her nearly-constant worry for her hero, she slept long and hard, nestled by the surprising comfort of Purah's bedroll.

A soft groan stirred her from her sleep and she sat up in a flash, whirling to face the basin. Stumbling out of her bedroll, she scrambled up to the edge and looked down, her heart racing a mile a minute. "L-Link?" she squeaked out, barely able to muster the breath to say his name.

It seemed that he wasn't yet entirely conscious. The healing liquid in the basin had drained, leaving his skin slightly damp and his hair wet and plastered messily to his face in a rather adorable way. His lips were slightly parted, and Zelda nearly wept at the sound of his soft, even breaths in the stillness of the Shrine. A quick glance down at his body showed new scars, pink and tender looking, where each of his wounds had been. It looks like he'll probably be sore for a while… Was it like that before? Have the adjustments Purah made lessened the Shrine's effectiveness in some way?

She almost couldn't care less. Link was alive, practically completely healed, lying in a light slumber. Laying her head down on her arms folded over the edge of the basin, she closed her eyes tightly, allowing a few tears to fall.

"Z-Zelda?"

Her head snapped up, and the next moment she found herself awkwardly snatched in Link's desperate embrace over the side of the basin, his head pressed against her neck.

"You're alright," he whispered, his voice weak from disuse. "You're alright…"

"O-of course," Zelda said, surprised. "What about… you?"

He pulled away slightly, his brow furrowed. "You were… trapped," he murmured, blinking. "The Calamity…" He scowled, looking suddenly inexplicably angry. "I can't believe I was here all that time! This means… this means you did it yourself. I… was too late." His shoulders slumped.

Zelda stared at him. He doesn't remember? At least he knew more than he had the first time he'd awakened from the Slumber of Restoration, but still…

Link looked up at her, eyes wide. "Wait. I… the Champions. Guardians…" He frowned, looking utterly perplexed. "I slept for a century, but… then I… woke up?" His chest was beginning to heave with panicked breaths. "Zelda, what happened? What's going on?"

She quickly pulled him into another embrace, wrapping her arms around him and rubbing soothing circles on his back. "It's alright," she whispered. "Link, I… I don't know how much I should tell, you, or if it would be better for you to learn for yourself." She swallowed thickly, tears burning her cheeks as she tried to comfort him. "Wh-what do you remember… of the Calamity's defeat?"

She felt him take in a breath and hold it for several seconds. "W-wasn't I… asleep? I… but there was… the Bow of Light, and you... showed me where to aim…" He raised his head to look at her intently. "Was that real, or just… just a dream?"

"It was real," she assured him, unable to hide a small smile. "Do you know what happened after that? After you and I defeated the Calamity?"

He opened his mouth, staring at nothing in particular, but it was several moments before he spoke again. "The… Divine Beasts… they stopped working. We… you saw that… everyone - all of the different races were... governing themselves, and had done so successfully for the past century. You… didn't have to try to take back the throne of Hyrule, because it… didn't exist anymore." He nodded slowly, his breaths calming and his features softening. "It's coming back now, I think… we went on a journey together. There was something… something I needed to tell you."

Zelda blinked, studying him with concern and a little more than an inkling of fear. "Do you… remember what that was?"

He gulped audibly, his cheeks reddening with a blush. Chuckling hesitantly, he glanced back up at her. "W-we were attacked," he murmured, raising a hand to prod carefully at the fresh scar tissue across his torso. His blush darkened, and he quickly pulled his knees up to his chest, ducking slightly lower behind the rim of the basin. "C-clothes?" he squeaked out, looking at her desperately.

Zelda's heart gave a startled jump. She'd been so caught up by relief at seeing him not dying anymore, and by contrasting worry at how dazed and confused he seemed, that she hadn't paid any attention to the fact that he was currently naked. "Right - of c-course," she stammered, her own cheeks warming as she left the basin for his freshly mended trousers and Champion's tunic folded neatly on the ground near her bedroll. Lifting them into her arms, she all but threw them at Link before facing the wall. "I don't know quite what happened to your undershirt," she explained, nervously wringing her hands. "I think perhaps it was too bloodied to be salvaged. Sorry."

"It's… fine," Link responded distractedly, cloth rustling. "Thank you for fixing these. I'll… try to be more careful next time."

Zelda couldn't help but smile at that. "Certainly," she chuckled, thinking of how reckless he had always been. Well… to be fair, ever since he awakened from the Shrine - the first time - there's been quite a bit of improvement in that area.

"Okay," Link said a few moments later, still sounding a bit flustered. "I'm… not naked."

Nonetheless, she felt hesitant turning back around to face him. He was sitting on the edge of the basin, bare feet hanging down. Slowly she walked back towards him, truly taking in his appearance. He still looked a little lost, but his clear blue eyes were free from the pain she had last seen in them, and his skin was its usual healthy, lightly-tanned color, not the sickly white it had been before. Without an undershirt, his arms were left bare, and she could only see a few of the freshest scars; these had been such minor wounds that they were already barely visible. There was no outward sign that his wrist had ever been broken at all.

"How do you feel?" she asked quietly, belatedly realizing that it should have been the first thing she asked. "Is there any pain still, or…"

He tilted his head thoughtfully. "I'm… a bit sore," he admitted. "But that might be because… wait, how long was I in here?" Fear flashed across his face.

"Only five days," she assured him, nearly breaking down into tears as she said it.

Link looked impressed. "How was that possible? From what I remember… it was bad, wasn't it? I mean - of course it was, if you had to bring me here, but…"

"Purah's been making some adjustments," she told him, and his face lit up.

"I remember her saying something about that!" he said excitedly. "It's… it's coming back, I think. We were looking for shrines, right? And - and it was a lynel that attacked us, and you…" His features softened and he looked at her with eyes so warm with admiration that she feared she would melt. "You set a trap. There were two lynels, and you… you set a trap to distract them so that we could escape."

"More or less," Zelda shrugged, blushing.

Link shook his head slowly. "Please don't do that again," he whispered, reaching out to take her hand. "That… that was terrifying."

"I would do it again in an instant if it meant saving you," she promised, folding her hands over his. "You've essentially done the same for me for so long now - it's high time someone was watching out for you."

Link scratched the back of his head, getting to his feet. He opened his mouth, his brow furrowed, but it was several moments before he spoke. "I… I remember what I wanted to talk to you about," he said quietly, his voice shaking. He stared into her eyes, his gaze full of solemnity and love. "Zelda, w-will you marry me?"

All at once her eyes watered, and she could feel the resistance she'd forced herself to build over the past week crumbling to scattered pieces. "Link," she whimpered, falling to her knees and burying her head in her hands as at last she let the torrent of tears fall. He was quick to kneel beside her and nervously enfold her in his arms.

She pressed her face against his chest, clutching his swiftly-dampening tunic as if it were a lifeline, overcome by so many emotions she didn't quite know what to do with them. Relief, still, that he was alright and rapidly remembering everything that had happened; gratitude, to Purah and the ancient Sheikah and the Goddesses, for letting him live; overwhelming joy and love, for he had just asked the question she had longed to hear from him, joy at the thought of spending the rest of the long years of their lives together.

Through her tears, she barely managed to gasp out a response. "Yes!"

/\/\/\

Thank you all for reading! You guys are the best!

Special thanks to AriTheDoggo, James Birdsong, AzHasANewName1, DillPickle56, Guest, Fear, Meyssa, , NC2001, Smiley612, and Makayla Cavin for the reviews; I enjoyed reading your thoughts on this story, and I really appreciate the support!