The Accident

[gloriousbright.livejournal.com]

I should've already gone to bed but I wanted to finish this. So instead of getting the extra rest I needed, you all get a fic instead. It's all in good fun. I try and fail at serious fics, even though I have ideas swimming in my head of epic proportions. Sadly, I seem to fail at putting those ideas to paper, so to speak.

Oh, and I haven't had a chance to properly edit this, but Golden Week starts soon and I won't have time to do so for at least another week.

Enjoy!

Title: The Accident
Rating: PG-13, It's Link's fault but he really didn't mean to
Summary: Accidents happen. Link's just unfortunate enough to upset Zelda, though.
Notes: The usual I don't own anything bit. Oh, and I hope this doesn't come across as Zelda-bashing. I rather like her, but even the best of people have their off days.

“That’s going to be a problem, Link.” The young man seated before Princess Zelda began to protest. She held up a hand to brook any further objections. “I agree with you. It is of importance that a formal peace be forged with the Gerudo. Though Ganondorf’s greatest atrocities never came to be, the people of Hyrule have not forgotten the Gerudo’s past indiscretions.”

“Exactly!” the Hero of Time interjected. “It’s because -”

“I’m afraid that I have very little say in the matter.” Link stared at her dumbfounded, presenting her with a look of incredulity.

“Bu- but you’re the Seventh Sage!” he stammered. “A-and the Triforce of Wis-”

“Which only yourself, the Sages and the Sheikah are aware of,” she interrupted, giving him a pointed look. “My father is still King of this land, as you well know. It is for him to forge alliances. Unfortunately, he does distrust the Gerudo,” she apologized.

Link stood up in frustration and began pacing about Zelda’s private chambers while the princess looked thoughtfully at her folded hands.

“Is there nothing you can do?” Had his trying week with the ever-forward Gerudo been for nothing?

“There might be, but I need to think on it further.” Delicate hands sifted through the reports and letters that Link’s latest excursion through Hyrule had resulted in. “Father may be biased, but he is quite intelligent. He will need to be approached from the proper angle.”

The Hero of Time scuffed his boots against the elaborate rug at his feet. A man of action, matters of diplomacy had a way of making him feel inadequate. He sighed and irritably pushed errant blond locks out of his eyes. How did it manage to grow so fast?

“Fine,” he tried to not sound petulant- and failed. “Fine.”

“I am sorry, Link. I do appreciate all the trouble you go through for us.”

“Nah,” he waved her off. “It’s alright.”

Zelda rose, “Will you be staying on at the castle for a while?”

“Mm? Yea,” he answered vaguely. “Been gone a while.”

“I understand,” she smiled knowingly, throwing him a wink that would make any young hero blush. Did all princesses comport themselves in such a manner? “I imagine you have other- hmm- affairs you’d like to take care of now. Perhaps, if you are free, you might join me for lunch tomorrow? We could discuss matters further then and catch up.”

“Sure,” Link answered hastily, suddenly wishing to escape Zelda’s measuring gaze. “Tomorrow’s fine. Just gotta grab my hat…”

“Oh!” Zelda glanced about. “I think it must be on your chair or, hmm….”

Link moved forward- “I’m sure I brought it with-” and tripped on the elaborately decorate and bunched up rug. Instinct kicked in as the once Hero of Time valiantly attempted to regain his balance, realizing that he would just have to hope to have his fall broken. Wild, blond locks, free of his ever-present-but-currently-missing hat, obstructed his vision. He hoped he would hit the table and not Zelda and was even resigned to hitting the floor. As luck would have it, he didn’t make it to the floor. Instead, he had grabbled onto- squeeze- something squishy?

SLAP!

“Ow!” Link staggered back, his poor balance being still put to the test. “What was that for?”

“‘What was that for?!’” Zelda hissed.

“Yea, why’d you hi-” his voice trailed off. Once again standing straight, the offending hair forcefully tucked behind his ears, Link finally noticed a very red-faced Zelda glaring in his direction. A red-faced Zelda that had her arms wrapped around her chest as if to protect it. Her very well-developed chest. He felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. “Oh. Oh no. No, no, nonono! I didn’t mean to!”

Link absentmindedly noted that Zelda was rather good at imitating the sounds made by excited mice.

“Zelda, c’mon,” he held out his hands in apology. “It’s me.”

She jerked away. “Don’t touch me! You- you- you pervert!”

“It was an accident!”

The doors to the princess’s private chambers were thrown open as matters escalated.

“An accident? If it was then you wouldn’t have-”

“What is going on here?” a new voice demanded.

Link’s traveling stomach managed to find new depths to sink to as the situation went from awkwardly embarrassing to extremely and horrifically embarrassing. Despair decided to join in the mix. After all, the Royal Shadow had a tendency of siding with his ward, the Princess Zelda. By his side was Tania, another member of the Castle Sheikah.

“He groped me!”

“Did not!”

“You dare call me a liar?”

“You called me a pervert!”

Sheik and Tania had rushed into her highness’s chambers when they had heard the commotion. They had been prepared to defend her against any intruder capable of actually slipping past the Sheikah guard on the castle. They had not been prepared for the squabbling teenagers before them. They glanced at each other in surprise before returning their gaze to the bickering between the Princess of Destiny and the Hero of Time. Why was her highness clutching her chest like that?

“Sheik!”

“Your highness?” he acknowledged after a moment’s hesitation.

“I want him out,” Zelda jabbed her finger in the direction of the still open door but, with a squeak of dismay, immediately re-wrapped her arms before her chest.

“The offense?” Sheik glanced questioningly at Link who threw his hands up in frustration.

“I believe that was an order I just gave,” Zelda countered, unamused.

“And I believe I have the right to ignore such orders, if I see fit. Again, the offense?” He managed- after one failed attempt- to place his hands soothingly on her shoulders. He added in a quieter voice, “As a favor to me?”

Zelda huffed and glanced away, arms still wrapped about herself. She darted a glare in Link’s direction before returning to Sheik’s face. She opened her mouth and-

“Calmly, please.” She shut her mouth and pouted.

“Stop treating me like a child,” she protested quietly.

“Then stop acting like one,” he scolded lightly.

She took several deep breaths to calm herself. Meanwhile, determining that her highness was not in danger, Tania had once again closed the doors to her chambers and approached Link. The lower half of her face was covered, as custom dictated, but the curious look in her eyes was hard to miss.

“Now, let’s try again, shall we?” Sheik’s voice soothed. “The Hero’s offense?”

“He groped me.” Two pairs of red eyes locked on Link’s face in shock.

“It was an accident!” Link quickly defended himself. “The rug. I tripped!”

“And grabbed my- my-” Zelda stammered. Sheik squeezed her shoulders reassuringly.

“My hair was in the way. I couldn’t see!”

“You squeezed!”

“They were squishy!”

And awkward silence fell upon the group. Zelda’s face managed to turn impossibly redder as Link started to feel sick. Tania had to look
away, her eyes a mixture of surprise and disgust. Sheik looked at him blankly, though there seemed to be a hard edge to his eyes.

“Squishy?” Three voices echoed.

“For the love of the Three, can we please just forget this ever happened,” Link begged weakly, dropping his head in resignation.

“My- my breasts are not ‘squishy,’” Zelda stated as if it was the most offensive word in the Hylian language. “They are- they are- exquisite. Isn’t that right, Sheik?”

The Royal Shadow slowly returned his gaze back to the princess in his arms, darting a quick glance down, an uneasy look in his eyes. “I’m not, erm, the best judge of chests…”

“No kidding,” Tania muttered quietly in Sheikan, momentarily forgetting that all present spoke enough of the language to understand her.

“Maybe we should do as the Hero suggested and leave the matter be for now,” Sheik said, his voice oddly strained.

“I said ‘forget it happened’ not any of this ‘leave it be for now’ cr-”

“You’ve clearly upset and really, who wouldn’t be?” Sheik hands moved from her shoulder to wrap around her back in a light embrace. “It was an unexpected shock and I’m certain he meant no harm.”

“Of course I didn’t me-”

“I’ll leave Tania with you and I’ll take Link away. I promise you won’t have to see each other for the rest of the day.”

“Am I really the bad guy he-”

“By next week you’ll be laughing about this together, I’m sure. Is that alright?”

Zelda met Sheik’s level gaze, lips pursed. She nodded.

“Link, apologize to her highness.”

“But it wasn’t my-” Tania jabbed him in the ribs. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“And will you apologize for your behavior, your highness?” Sheik prompted his ward.

“I am sorry as well,” she eventually stated. She dropped her arms.

Sheik gave her a tight squeeze.

“Tania, you know your post. Link,” the Sheikah pinched one of the Hylians ears as he briskly took matters in his own hands- literally, “I’m
keeping you under my eye for the rest of the day.”

“That hurts, you know.”

“Not my concern,” the Shadow retorted as he led the Hero of Time past a thoughtful looking Zelda. Her eyes followed them suspiciously. Link
didn’t much like the look on her face, though it didn’t seem to be focused on him. “I have no idea how you managed to save us all from Ganondorf given the scrapes you manage to get yourself into.” Sheik pulled back the tapestry that hid one of the entrances to his own interconnecting chambers. As the princess’s personal guardian, his rooms had direct access into hers for her own safety. “Get in there!”

A sound of disgust was emitted right before something crashed against the wall next to Sheik’s head. The Sheikah ducked into the narrow hallway, allowing the tapestry to fall back into place. An muffled “Men!” could be heard from the other side.

Link shook off Sheik’s grip on his ears and allowed his eyes to adjust to the dim light before stalking off. The hidden hallway and rooms had been especially designed for the Sheikah and their dispositions, thus darkness tended to prevail. Unperturbed, Sheik followed after him with the lazy stride of an overconfident and stealthy predator.

“Can I not be allowed to die of embarrassment by myself?” Link groused from where he had already thrown himself on the floor cushions.

“Well, that was certainly interesting,” Sheik remarked as he entered his small study, completely ignoring Link’s question.

“Shut up.”

“You’ve been back for all of, what, two hours is it? And look at what you’ve accomplished.” Link rolled away, presenting the broadside of his back to a very amused Sheik. The Sheikah walked over to a bookcase a pulled out a thin book which he placed on the floor before the sulking Hero’s incredulous eyes.

“You’ve got to be kidding. Or do you just want to heap embarrassment on top of shame.”

“There’s nothing embarrassing about learning to read. Studying might also be a good distraction.”

Link heard the other man settle down on the cushions behind him. Reluctantly he picked up the Sheikan primer. At first he mindlessly flipped through the pages but eventually searched for where he had left off. He found that Sheik had dutifully marked the page for him. His eyebrows knitted as he tried to remember what he had learned so far about the written Sheikan language.

“I can’t help you if you don’t read out loud,” Sheik remarked matter-of-factly, though there was an odd note to his voice. Link glanced over his shoulder, barely catching a glimpse. Still acting the petulant child, he huffed as he rolled onto his back, with Sheik now sitting beside him. He absently noted that the other man had removed his cowl, the corner of his lips quirked oddly. Link held the book above him and started reciting, with Sheik correcting and guiding him along the way.

At one point they had grown silent for five minutes as Link attempted to work out a passage by himself. “Sc- sqo- sco- sqoe- how the hells am I supposed to pronounce that?”

Sheik laid down beside Link, placing his head next to his in order to see the primer that was now propped on the Hero’s chest. He read out the tricky word and Link repeated. “What does it mean?”

Link, however, would not be receiving his answer it seemed as Sheik’s chest began to quiver. He buried his face in Link’s shoulder.

“What’s the matter?” the Hylian ask, mildly alarmed. He was trying to sit up when he heard something that sounded suspiciously like ‘squishy.’

“By the Three! It was an accident!” The primer was chucked at the chuckling Sheikah.

“You are never going to let me live this down, are you?” Link stared accusingly at the openly laughing Sheik. It had been a full fifteen minutes at least since the event and he had somehow held it in that long. Sheik’s arm snaked across Link’s chest, coaxing him to lie back down even as he continued to laugh at his mishap.

“Squishy,” he repeated.

“I hate you.”

Sheik had apparently decided to throw dignity out the window and snorted.

“You know, you could maybe be a bit more supportive,” suggested the exasperated Link to no avail as it simply spurred on more laughter. “Or not…and stop saying ‘squishy’ already!”

It took some minutes before the Sheikah finally calmed down, curled up next to Link. The Hylian had resorted to caressing the base of his neck which tended to effectively calm the other man and was starting to doze off a bit himself.

“Off the records,” Sheik finally venture into the silence, “they were squishy.”

Endnote: It was an awfully tight hug with a purpose. ^_~