Zelink Oneshots (The Legend Of Zelda)

Throughout Time

It had always been the same. Seven years of the castle and its gardens. Not that a seven-year-old girl could really tell horror stories of a monotonous life.

She'd always been a sharp little girl, but with each passing year, she got smarter and smarter.

Reading and writing came easily to her... and these are her journals, recounting the years she met the man through time.

Seven
Last night I saw a man. A tall man with blonde hair and pretty blue eyes. He wore all green and had a funny looking hat.

Mummy told me that he can't have been real, but I saw him. I did. She can't tell me that I didn't. He saved me from the scary thing in the bushes, I would be dead if he wasn't there.

Nine
I saw him again last night, but I don't think he saw me. I'm pretty small, and I hid behind my bed. He killed a monster... I don't know how it got in, but it was fascinated with my fireplace.

Ten
I met him in a dream last night... Mother would say I'm imagining things like I used to do... But I could have sworn I met him for real this time... He said he was the Hero of Time. I believe him.

Eleven
I drew him yesterday... I haven't seen him for two years... I'm beginning to believe my mother was right. Maybe he... isn't real.

Thirteen
Four years without a trace, and he pops up in the gardens! I'm sure he saw me this time... And I'm sure he's real... Oh, if only mother had seen him. Then she would believe me.

Sixteen
As sure as one can be in one's own sanity, three years is a long time to go without proof. I tried to tell the Queen about it... But she wouldn't listen. She said I was too old for those fairy tales now... I tried to not bring him up again.

Eighteen
It has been five years, and the fantasies of a child have left me. I've learned to be a proper Princess and all. As choking as it all is. I rebel often... Maybe that's because of him. Any chance to defy my stuck up father and stepmother, I do. I still rather miss the days I spent drawing and coloring my time traveler in green. Back when it was so easy to believe in him.

Twenty Two
I swear the Queen's last words are going to be "You were always such a disruption. Ever since you were seven... Since those stories of the green man filled your head with nonsense."

She never believed. Never. She destroyed my childhood. But maybe what crushed my childhood more than anything was when I discovered that the Queen wasn't actually my mother. I've written about this many times, but I feel I cannot state it enough... I wish my real mother could have been here... Maybe she would have believed me.

But as I've grown older my belief in my traveler has faded. He was my imaginary friend.... Nothing more. He brought me through the boring times... And now I'm forced to accept that he really was nothing but a figment of my childhood fan-

Zelda lifted her quill from the parchment and went to dip it once more in the ink when her fingers went limp.... There, in the corner of the room, was a figure dressed in green.

He looked no different than he had when she had first seen him at age seven... It had been fifteen years and he hadn't aged a single day.

He turned around and laid eyes on her. "Oh, Hello, I'm..."

Zelda stood slowly, and it must have been the expression on her face that caused the man to trail into silence. "You..." she started as she walked towards him across the grand room. "You... You're real?"

He looked confused. "Real? Of course I'm real... Why would you ask me that?" His eyes narrowed as he examined her face.

"It's been nine years since I've seen you... And you haven't aged a day."

His expression cleared for a moment and then wonder spread across his face. "You're that little girl from the garden!"

"Why haven't you aged at all?"

"Because it's only been a day."

"How is that possible?"

"You're asking me."

"You're the Hero of Time!"

"What? No, he's just a legend."

"But you're him! You've got to be!" she said as she laid a hand on his chest as if making quite sure was really was there. In front of her. Her time-traveling man in green.

"I'm not a hero of old... I'm just... "

"But you've saved me all throughout my life! How could you have done that unless you were the Hero of Time?"

"Well that's actually a long story so I'm afraid-"

"I've waited fifteen years to hear an explanation and you aren't backing out now."

"Well I-"

"Madame Zelda, Your mother wants you at once!"

"She's not my mother!" Zelda yelled back as she turned towards the man. She was no longer the child she once was; fantasizing about running away with her imaginary friend. Now... now she knew he was a real. Now she had felt him, and she knew he was no longer a figment of her imagination. He was real.

"Aren't you going to..." He glanced down at her hand which hadn't left him yet.

"In a minute," she said as she used her hand on him to push her very real time traveler into the corner of the room. She leaned in and had almost kissed him when he tried to duck away.

"W-wait a second, what are you doing? We're strangers!"

"Strangers?" she repeated, holding him still. He was very red now; her very red man in green. "How could you be a stranger to me? I've known you all my life." And with that, she kissed him, very successfully if she could say so herself.

She felt his hands tentatively float down to her hips, but then she heard a second yell which spoiled all of her long awaited fun.

"Princess, please!!"

The maid was closer this time. Zelda withdrew from her stranger, and she smirked slightly at the dazed look he had on his face. "You can explain after I see what the Queen wants. Don't you disappear on me again." She flashed him a smile and she turned and scampered out of the room, leaving him behind.

He brought a hand to his lips and whispered in disbelief, "Princess? I just kissed Princess Zelda?"