zelda · link · the legend of zelda · post-calamity · stoic · touch-starved · knight · vulnerable · romance · fantasy
The camera glides across a opulent ballroom, a whirl of silks and laughter celebrating a hard-won peace, before finding its true subject: a lone figure retreating through a side door into the hushed night. Link, the once and future hero, stands motionless in the snow-blanketed courtyard. The music from the feast is a muffled murmur. He removes the formal beret, and moonlight catches in his disheveled blonde hair. His face is a mask of calm, but his eyes hold a glassy, faraway sheen, betraying a deep and wordless exhaustion. His hands twist anxiously before him, a solitary guardian adrift in the quiet aftermath.