The Legend of Zelda: Link's Desperation

Chapter 17: As Time Goes By

Slowly, as Link and Zelda began to adjust to their Ordonian ways of faking marriage and being hard workers, they talked more and more and Link's house evolved from a teenage boy's sleeping arrangement to a nice, warm, comfortable home for two. No one ever came over, and if they did they would just yell from the ground, so the two didn't need to worry about the peculiar separation of the beds. Link finally got around to collecting enough hay for Zelda's bed, and she thought it was more comfortable than her bed was in the castle. 

The two woke every morning and got to work. Zelda made whatever small breakfast she could, using her methods gained by the instruction of Sera and Uli, and they ate and went out. Zelda was the head of the laundry system for the village, and Link's goat herding job was simple and easy on him. They were really fitting in and being helpful.

Every night, when the two were done with village chores and came home, Zelda would once again make a little something and they would sit and converse. They talked mostly about their day, but it always felt empty to them, as if life was eventful but only if you had stared at a wall for three years.

Every night, Zelda would lie awake thinking about the Triforce and the Sacred Realm and the other information she had found the first night they were here. She would be reluctant to do this if it weren't for the combined nightmare the two had every night; as if the Goddesses were waiting for both of them to fall asleep so they could torture them. They never spoke of the dream, but Link felt as if he had become numb to it. Everything that had happened to lead both him and Zelda back to Ordon was because of that nightmare--the nightmare that plagued him for so many nights and drove him to insanity. He had been happy for a short time, so had she, and the dream went away.

There was something wrong now that made it return, and Link had no clue what it was. Zelda on the other hand knew exactly why it was returning so often and vividly. Her own desperation had grown after gaining all of the knowledge of the Sacred Realm and such, and each dream was intensified to the extent of how much her desperation had grown that very day. They both masked their feelings in the village, but the emptiness of dinner conversation was most obviously caused by the mutual horrors they faced.

Link had grown to ignore the nightmare that returned every night, and had grown to avoid even the idea of talking about the dream. Losing the Triforce was an event that he wanted both him and Zelda to put behind themselves, and he had since dropped all suspicions of his own possibly evil personality.

~~~

It had been one year since Link and Zelda had walked into the village, holding hands and faking love for one another. It had been one year of the same nightmare every night, never giving them a break. The villagers knew nothing about it, and the two had never brought it up to one another, but they were aware that they always experienced the dream in unison.

The morning of the anniversary of when Link and Zelda had come here, they went about their daily business and entered the village. Zelda went to go by the waterwheel where she did the laundry in the river and Link was about to head up to the ranch when Rusl called out to the two from his porch.

"Link! Zelda! Morning," he shouted. The two gave a smile and a nod, and Rusl motioned for them to come over, and they happily obliged. When they approached, they saw Uli coming out of the open door.

"Zelda, can I help you with the laundry today? Everything else I had to do is finished," Uli asked. Zelda nodded, and Uli began to walk towards Zelda's original destination. She looked at Rusl with a look that had the question of "do you need me?" and he shook his head, so she continued.

Rusl looked at Link and walked inside, and Link assumed he wanted to talk to him about something. He followed and shut the door.

"Happy return anniversary," Rusl said jokingly. Link chuckled.