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On the first day of Link's convalescence (see: imprisonment), Zelda caught him trying to go down the stairs.
It was a bit of poor timing on his part; getting to the bannister alone took far longer than he'd expected. As it turned out, freeing himself from the quilts, manoeuvring his knee off the bed (along with the frankly excessive number of bandages that held it together), and hopping over to the edge of the loft required a little more time than the minute or two Link had planned for.
It may have, also, required a little more energy than he had planned for.
So, when Zelda walked back in through the front door, bags of groceries juggled between her hands, it took only a quick, upward glance for her to discover him. Out of bed, bracing himself on the bannister, and definitely not dizzy. Not dizzy at all.
Safe to say, his freedom was short-lived.
His second attempt, the following day, didn't fare much better. While he did make it to the bottom of the staircase this time—Zelda's journey to the school's construction site occupied her far longer than that to the East Wind Store—a wave of lightheadedness sat him down the moment he got there. Lethargy forced him into leaning against the cool, brick wall: eyes closed as he willed his knee to stop aching and every other limb to stop shaking.
Next thing he knew, Zelda was crouched in front of him. Hands on his cheeks, panic in her voice.
On the third day, he woke to her piling up books on the mattress next to him. She'd pulled her hair back into as much of a ponytail as its length could manage, but already, strands of it were escaping from the ribbon's grapple. A crease cut between her brows, and she chewed on her bottom lip as she stacked old volume upon old volume.
Link forced his sleep-heavy eyes away from her face and down the length of the bed. Further piles met him: a barricade of vellum and paper standing against any possible escape.
He sighed and let his head fall back to the pillow. "Is this really necessary?"
"Evidently, it is." Zelda leant over him, pressing the back of her hand up against his forehead. An errant lock of hair slipped out from behind her ear. "How's your pain this morning?"
"Fine." Lie. "No worse than being stuck in bed all week." Truth. If Link could have his way, he'd choose the pain any day. The sting of the moblin's claws ripping through his skin, the sensation of his knee buckling under its dying weight—he'd endure it ten times over. Anything had to be better than the complete and utter boredom of staying in this bed a minute longer.
"Well, at the rate of your escape attempts" —Zelda tugged at the hem of his shirt— "we might have to stretch that week into two." She pushed it up, the bundle of linen coming close enough to tickle Link's chin, and ghosted her fingers over the bandages that wrapped around his waist. Her face drew close as she peeled back the edges of them, inspecting, with a critical eye, each and every stitch that lay underneath. Quiet, warm breaths tickled Link's skin, and he found himself holding his own.
Before he could perish from suffocation, though, Zelda pulled away. She let the shirt flutter back to his waist and fixed him with a less-than-pleased expression. "Those gashes are more inflamed than they were yesterday," she said, "and your fever is slightly elevated, to boot."
Oops.
This was the part where he would expect a lecture—an "I told you so", at the very least—but one never came. Instead, Zelda fell silent, shackling him to the bed with the disappointment on her face alone.
Far heavier to bear than any possible reprimand she could've given.
"You're mad," Link said.
Zelda directed her gaze to the ceiling. Jaw tight. Eyes exhausted. "You're injured, and now sick," she said, through what Link was pretty sure were gritted teeth. "It wouldn't be fair of me to be mad at you."
"You're mad anyway."
She took a breath—deep, tempering—before once again meeting his eyes. One of her hands reached out; its weight settled in Link's fringe. "You're not going to heal without proper rest," she murmured, twisting and combing through his sweaty locks. "I know you're clever enough to know that."
She was the only person who ever accused him of being clever. Link let his eyes wander to the stack of books by his hip. He counted the number of spines that were haphazardly laid on top of each other (nine of them, in that particular pile), and tried, desperately, to ignore the burn of Zelda's gaze on him. She continued to comb through his hair, her fingers dancing across his forehead.
Sheepishly, he had to admit that they felt a lot cooler against his skin than they did on any other day.
"Link…"
He squirmed. "The wall of books is a bit overkill, don’t you think?"
Zelda's hand pulled away. Yeah—he deserved that. "It was either this, or tie you down," she said, her eyes peeling off him to look over the collection of literature; tome after tome, pile after pile. "It's about time I go through and catalogue all these, anyway. Hylia knows I've put it off long enough. Now," —she turned back to Link and raised an elegant brow— "can I trust you to stay put while I bring us up some breakfast?"
As if he had a choice.
The fever came in full force once he was sitting. He felt he could probably fry an egg on his cheeks, and he had no appetite for the small spread of bread and fruits Zelda placed in his hands. His limbs were stiff, heavy—so much so that Zelda might as well have just tied him down—and the longer he sat upright, the more a headache spread itself across his skull.
His shirt was sticky, clinging to his skin. The bandages around his abdomen itched. And his knee…
He glared at it. It looked ridiculous: propped up on a pillow and wrapped stiff with bandages to ensure the joint wouldn't pop back out of place. It looked just as ridiculous under them, too. Thick, swollen and tender, no matter how many times he'd rested a compress of ice chu jelly to it.
It ached.
It ached, and he wanted to run on it.
Hardly the 'proper rest' Zelda wished for him.
She'd moved her desk over to sit by the bed: perfectly positioned to keep an eye on him as she worked. Of course, because Zelda was never content to focus on only one thing at a time, her reading and monitoring were, at present, being juggled along with the task of finishing her breakfast. Link watched as she slowly, painstakingly, guided jam-soaked slices of bread to her mouth—her eyes glued to the pages in front of her all the while. She was going to miss at some point, smear jam all over her face. Of that, Link had no doubt. It was only a matter of time.
His eyes flicked to the title that had her so engrossed. Poisons of Hyrule: How to Identify Toxic Flora and its Effects.
Mildly concerning—that it should be the first one she had reached for.
The book of poisons, like all the others that made up Link's little prison, had been rescued from the derelict remains of Hyrule Castle's library. There'd been a lot more to salvage than anyone had expected; entire shelves that had miraculously survived a century of flame, rain and malice. The more they found, the more papery piles proliferated the floor of their loft. It'd gotten to a point now, where there was barely enough space for a path between the stairs and the bed.
Then again, as Zelda would claim, it was far better the books be stored on their floor than chance the dark, insatiable maw that was Purah's lab.
His gaze moved to the pile closest to him. Most were of the fancier short—thick, heavy tomes, with ornate detailing built into the leather bindings—but not all. There were a few among them that were smaller; thinner. Far closer, in both size and simplicity, to that of Zelda's journal, or the recipe book Link had down in the kitchen.
On a whim, he reached for the top of the pile.
He realised his mistake almost immediately. The book he'd chosen was one of the larger ones: hard-covered and too heavy to hold up comfortably. It was also, as he discovered upon opening it, a lot more complicated than his mind was willing to keep up with at current. A haze had begun to settle over his thoughts—weighing them down, making them sluggish—and just keeping them on track took up half his energy alone. He tried to focus on the passages that lay before him, tried to find an order to the jigsaw of letters, but no matter how long he stared, he couldn't make heads or tails out of them.
It was only upon glancing at the title—Traditional Motifs of Gerudo Mosaic Art—that the reason for his struggle clicked.
Considering his inability to read the Gerudo language, he set the book aside and pulled another—a smaller—one from the pile. Much smaller, in fact. It was barely bigger than the span of his hand. Thin, with yellowed pages and a cover that was tattered and worn from years of use. The title of it had faded, rubbed away by generations of fingers but, as he opened it, Link found that it was a book of old, Hylian nursery rhymes.
Carefully, he turned over one of the stained pages, and the first rhyme hit him like a slap to the face.
Little toy soldier,
Wants to be the best!
Fighting for the king and
Donning the brightest vest
But up against the blade
A wooden frame stands no chance!
And our little toy soldier,
Failed to correct his stance
So down! Struck the steel!
And through! His limbs it split!
And the little toy soldier
Crumbled into bits
The one that followed… a kick to the chest.
Little toy soldier,
Pieced together with paste!
Now try not to get wet,
Lest it be to waste
Up atop his pony,
Cracked smile upon his face!
Trotting after the troops and
Trying to keep pace
But crack! Went the clouds!
And down! Came the rain!
So our little toy soldier,
Only has himself to blame
Link snapped the book shut. Tossed it aside. Threw himself back onto the pillows.
He glared up at the ceiling, counting, one by one, all the cracks in the clay. His cheeks burned, even greater now; he could almost see the shimmer of heat as it radiated off his face. It was unclear though, whether that heat was the fault of fever, or shame.
Probably both.
The rhyme was familiar to him. There was some memory, surfacing at the fringes of his mind, of those same words being sung to him. A foggy recollection of pain; of a wet cloth, dabbing away at scraped-up knees while above, a parental voice soothed and scolded in equal parts.
Link pushed for the memory, reached for it, but the moment his fingers brushed the edges of its wavering shape, it slipped out from under them. It sank. Drowned. Lost again, to the depths of amnesia and time.
He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face.
At no point did he hear Zelda get up, but after a few minutes of lying there—boredom, frustration and fever coalescing into one heavy mass that sat in his chest and crawled up his throat—he felt the piles of books around him shift. Soft, rustling sounds dragged across the quilts as the spaces around him vacated, bit by bit.
They didn't stay empty for long, though. Legs slid in place next to his own; the pillow under him dipped. Warm breath fell on his ear and, soon after, Zelda's voice followed.
"I need to consult your expertise."
Link kept his hands over his face. He swallowed, and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes—as if he might be able to push away the pressure that was building underneath them.
A finger crept up to his cheek. It stroked, back and forth, and caused the breaths Link was desperately trying to keep even, to hitch. "Please?" Zelda whispered. "You're the only person who could help."
It was most certainly a bald-faced lie, but still, it was enough to pique his curiosity. With a sniff, Link dropped his hands. Zelda's took their place immediately, her fingertips brushing away at the space under his eyes, and anything hot or wet that might've found its way there. He met her gaze, and she gave him a soft, sympathetic smile.
Then, she reached back and pulled a book out from behind her.
It was just as battered as the book of nursery rhymes had been. Perhaps even more so. Its cover was barely hanging on—threads fraying along its spine—and out of the few pages Link could see, not one of them was free from either crease, tear or stain of dubious origin.
"I believe this was once kept in the castle kitchens," Zelda said, sliding one of her arms under Link's shoulders as she lay down next to him. "Some of the recipe titles are reminiscent of meals I remember being served, back then. I thought it might be worth going through. See if there's anything in here we may be able to replicate. And who better to provide insight, than you?"
"So many people," Link mumbled, but if Zelda heard him, she ignored it. She perched the book on Link's chest and opened it up.
There was a massive, brown stain on the first spread, and a whole corner of one page, right where it seemed there had once been a sketch of the meal, had been ripped away. Despite that, most of the text remained unobscured and intact, and Link skimmed over the ingredient list.
He found one problem right off the bat.
His eyes slid over to meet Zelda's. "I don't think you need my insight to know that a dish requiring cheese is probably impossible, these days."
Zelda pouted at him. "Maybe so, but there are alternatives to cheese, right? I mean, we still have access to milk. Butter. You, I'm sure, would be able to come up with a good substitute if you were to try cooking this dish."
Link reconsidered the recipe. He supposed, he could probably make it work. It wasn't as if the cheese was the crux of the meal being held before him. Simply an added flavour—something to enrich it. "I guess," he said, "if I were cooking it today, I'd probably try making a sauce out of milk and sweet potatoes. Or I'd get some of that cream they make from crushed nuts in Rito Village." He shrugged. "It'd all depend on what kind of flavour I'm looking for."
"See?" Zelda kissed his cheek. "Expertise. Now—ooh, what about this one?"
Link took one look at the recipe title and gave a snort. That snort was immediately followed by a wince, as the movement tugged at his stitches. "Durian salad? Really?"
"Well, why not? I've never had the opportunity to try durian before."
"Probably because anyone who tried bringing one into Castle Town was immediately imprisoned."
Zelda made a noise of derision. "Surely, the smell can't be that bad."
"You don't want to find out how bad it is while we're inside the house. Trust me."
He glanced over to find her pouting at the recipe book: wholeheartedly intent, apparently, on one day getting a sniff of the fruit — no matter how much she would regret it. Link smiled and rolled his eyes. "I'll cook some for you next time we're travelling through Faron," he said. "Outside. Far away from civilisation."
Zelda met his gaze and raised a brow. "Is that a promise?"
He nodded.
"Hmm." She set the book down, trapping it between their bodies, and draped her arm over his chest. Link kept his eyes on her face as she bridged each and every gap between them. Chest against his shoulder, forehead pressed to his. "You can only keep that promise," she murmured, "if you get well again, can't you?"
Link chewed on the inside of his cheek. "I guess."
"Well, it’s a good thing we know of a way we can achieve that, isn't it?"
She gave him a wry smile, and Link sighed, closing his eyes. "'Proper rest.'"
"Indeed." Zelda's lips planted on his, and her hand came up to his cheek. Link pushed into both. Her fingers, her lips—they were all so blessedly cool against his skin, and he was desperate to soak up every little bit.
He was dizzy by the time she pulled away. She smiled at him, tracing her thumb across his lower lip. "Do you think you could manage that?" she asked. "Getting some proper rest for me?"
Link's eyelids were heavy already. He nodded to the old recipe book, currently crushed between them (probably not the best thing for it, but that fact would only occur to him later). "You wouldn't happen to have any more of those in your hoard, would you?"
Zelda grinned. "I'm sure I could turn up something."
And so, on the fourth day of Link's convalescence, he woke to only a single pile of books on the bed next to him.