Link's hands fumbled with the coop door latch in the blue shadows of pre-dawn. His breath came out in white puffs, forming a thin layer of frost on his brown wool scarf. (Pull it up over your nose, Malon would say, or you'll get frostbite, and he knew she was probably right, but the itchy humidity bothered him more than the cold.) Inside, the cuccos crowded eagerly around his feet. Naturally. He had food.

He broke the ice in their water trough, scattered a few scraps from last night's meal in one corner to distract them, then set about raking back the hay. A couple of times he nearly stepped on one of them in the dark. The lantern clipped to his belt threw weird shadows on the wall. Normally he would tend to the cows first and this later—oil was expensive when they could get it at all, and the barn tended to get a little more light early in the morning—but today he and Ingo were meeting some of Lord Scion's tenants at the south end of the common to repair the fences, and they needed every minute. Instead, he had nudged Parachi out of bed and pushed the milk pail into his hands.

"Can't Malon do it? It was her job before they hired you," his son had grumbled, still half-asleep.

"Miss Malon does more than her share of hard work around here," Link had told him sternly, while fixing a button the boy had missed on his shirt, "not the least of which is enduring your complaints. She and her father have been beyond generous to us. Show some respect."

To his credit, Parachi had stumbled off to the barn with a "yessir," and was nearly done by the time Link poked his head in to check on him. Across the yard, a soft yellow glow in the window meant Malon was up and fixing breakfast. He thought he smelled eggs and those roasted acorn dumplings of hers, and his mouth watered enviously. It would be leftover millet cakes for him and Ingo this morning.

"I'll eat an extra dumpling for you," Parachi assured him.

Link and Ingo were the first to arrive. A brief survey of the fence revealed seven or eight broken stakes, and about half the wattle cracked or rotting. Ingo set up his shaving horse while Link took a hatchet and headed into the trees.

"Don't dawdle," the mustachioed man admonished. Link knew he was nervous about wolves and didn't like being left alone in the dark. He returned a short while later with a pile of good strong logs, then busied himself cleaning out the old, broken wood while Ingo tapered them with his drawknife—he was much better at that part, Link had to admit. The only things Link was good at making were bows and arrows.

Malon had helped him whittle a spoon one time, though.

"Where are they?" Ingo muttered when they paused for breakfast, just as the first slice of gold appeared on the horizon. "You know, it's their dimwit sheep that broke the fence in the first place."

"We both need it," Link replied around a mouthful of millet cake. "Our horses don't like vermin any better than their sheep do, and none of us like thieves."

"Talon's too soft on those layabouts. If I were in charge around here, I'd make them build all the fences and pay us for the wood. I'd show a little more consideration for my own hands' time."

Link's only answer was a neutral stare. After a few seconds, the other man looked away with a sour pout.

In his youth, he'd harbored a deep-rooted grudge against Ingo, having seen him at his potential worst in Ganondorf's corrupt Hyrule. But time had taught him a few lessons about the necessity of cooperating with unpleasant people, and perhaps a little empathy for the frustration of having most of your labors overlooked and forgotten.

"At the rate we're going, we'll be done before dinner," he said at length, trying to turn his companion's mind to more optimistic thoughts. "Anyway, you know what they say: 'Good fences make good neighbors.'"

"That's not what that proverb means!"

"Maybe we can call in the favor at harvest time," Link reasoned. This seemed to satisfy Ingo, and they returned to their task. He held the stakes while Ingo tapped them into the hard earth with a mallet. At last year's harvest festival, Link had smashed Ingo's hand making rice cakes, and ever since he wouldn't let him near anything resembling a hammer. Link was more accustomed to hammering rusted switches and dragon skulls.

Even so, he'd managed to build Malon a bookshelf over the winter. She had painted and lacquered it, and treated it like a precious heirloom, even though it was a little bit crooked.

The shepherds from Wister Hall arrived not long after: a broad-faced woman with a thick, coiled braid, a man with a stubbly beard and otherwise identical features, and a short, fair-haired girl, all full of apologies for their tardiness. Together they set about collecting green branches. When no one was looking, Link went a little deeper into the woods, held the hatchet at arm's length, channeled just a bit of magic into the blade, and unleashed a vicious attack on the unsuspecting thicket. He returned two minutes later with an armful of hazel, and the others marveled at his industriousness.

He felt then, for just a moment, a twinge of his own jaded pride—in the end, this was the fate of the legendary Hero of Time! But he put the thought aside. If cutting fence poles was a misuse of the Great Fairy's gift, he would gladly give back the power. He'd had enough of that sort of glory.

After all these years, once again, he felt like a stranger in his own life. His former homes ranged from a tree house to a manor house, and though the big, warm house at Lon Lon felt like a home, it wasn't his home. When they came last Water-Moon to help bring in the hay, he hadn't intended to stay, but somehow Talon kept finding things for him to do. Before he knew it, winter was nearly over. The motions of his daily chores were familiar now, and he knew his way around the ranch in the dark. Still, the slow, measured rhythm of this way of life had not quite sunk into his bones. He felt at times like a boat adrift on an illusory ocean; the shadows of his past always circled beneath those calm waters.

In his teenage years adrenaline had been his drug of choice. Monster-hunting paid well enough, and as long as he kept moving, there was no time to dwell in melancholy. His methods had not entirely changed since then, but his madness had taken on a subtler tack. Now he buried himself in building and mending, scattering hay and shoveling manure, marking his days by the sun and the stars and the knots in his back. Talon was impressed by his work ethic, so much, in fact, that as of late he was occasionally spotted doing a bit of work himself.

A little before noon, the low, sweet notes of Malon's singing drifted over the meadow. She appeared with a boxed lunch tied up in a pretty cloth, a couple of horses trailing after her. Animals of every kind were drawn to Malon, as though they could sense her natural wholesomeness. So too, it seemed, was Parachi, who was close behind toting a jug of warm cider and bubbling with excitement about a litter of kittens they'd discovered under the porch.

Link had to smile. It was only recently that Parachi had started to show enthusiasm for anything again. He'd been through more than his share of hardship in his nine years: born in secret, privy to far too many of his parents' troubles, losing his mother little by little and then all at once, then having to leave behind a life of relative luxury to sleep in the corner of an attic and get up at the crack of dawn to milk cows because his father had made enemies in the wrong places. (Queen Aldra would probably intervene if Link sought her help, but he wasn't about to make himself a burden. She had larger concerns than the woes of some country gentleman, even if his uncanny insight had once allegedly saved the world.)

Malon made small talk with the other farmers while they ate, and soon they were all laughing like old friends. Naldi, Emin, and Harlow were their names; the former pair were indeed twins while Harlow was Emin's sister-in-law. She was fascinated with the horses, and peppered Malon with questions about life on the ranch. Link sat back against a tree stump with his mug of cider and found himself watching her. She stood out like a bright winter bird against the soft gray-brown of the fields and trees, not just because of her scarlet hair or the whimsical patchwork of her hat and coat. Everything about her was warmth and life.

It was only afterwards, when Ingo stirred him from his contented silence with a grunt and a gesture toward the fence, that he realized he had been, for the first time in long memory, completely at rest.

Malon glanced back over her shoulder and waved one last time before she and Parachi headed up the road to the barns, trying all the while to tell herself the dewy flush in her cheeks was only from the cold. Link looked so peaceful there, bundled up in the scarf she'd made him, with a rare genuine smile on his face. She wanted to be cross with Ingo for ruining the moment. He was right, though. If any of them wanted to be home before dark, there was no time to relax.

"Miss Malon," Parachi entreated—he had been very careful to call her "Miss" all morning. "When we get back, can I braid Epona's mane? I think she likes it."

"That sure sounds fun, but first we have to muck out the stalls. You can rake, and I'll haul the manure over to the compost. Deal?"

Parachi made a face, but nodded.

She winked at him. "You'll get used to the smell. It's one of our most important 'crops,' you know." His eyebrows shot up at odd angles, which tickled her, because he looked so exactly like his father when he was puzzled. "Rice farmers up in the hills need it for fertilizer," she explained. "Taxes being what they are, they can't afford to let their fields lie fallow every other season like they should. Land that doesn't get enough rest turns to dry dust real quick."

Parachi was quiet for a little while, but as they crossed the corral a wry smile formed on his face. "Maybe you should put some manure on Dad."

Malon let out a half-laugh, half-sigh, and tossed him the rake. "What a thing to say! I hope you know your father is a great man, though he won't go puttin' on airs like half those knights-of-the-carpet up in Castle Town."

"I just meant—!"

She ruffled his hair. "I know what you meant. Go on, get started now."

Her mind was a jumble as she wheeled the cart from behind the barn, and she nearly got it stuck in the door. Shaking her head at her own carelessness, she grabbed a shovel and joined Parachi. Ah, what am I doing? I've got a ranch to run here. Mooning over Link will have to wait.

But while mindless tasks might help Link to bury his thoughts, they gave hers free rein to wander, and soon she found herself reminiscing. The day they met was still vivid in her memory: waiting for her father in the market square, she was caught by surprise when a boy in strange green clothes collided with her. She remembered his distant eyes fixed on the castle, the soft urgency in his voice as he explained that he must see the princess without delay. Since it was convenient, she asked him if he wouldn't mind looking for her father while he was there—in hindsight, she got the strangest feeling he had been expecting the question. To this day he was tight-lipped about what exactly his errand had been.

In the years that followed he was a frequent visitor at Lon Lon. Though he was always crisscrossing the countryside on one self-appointed mission or another, he would never forego a nap in the hay loft or a bowl of wildberries and cream. He would accompany her songs on his ocarina, tell her wild stories about temples and moblins and treasure that she only half believed, laugh with her as they chased insects across the summer prairie.

The man sleeping in her attic was different. Her friend was still in there, but there were parts of him she couldn't reach. Ex-army commander. Single father. Outcast. Refugee. She could get him to smile, now and then, but it was weak sunlight on a frozen field, and some days she wondered if he would ever thaw. Could she blame him? His sorrows and regrets only proved the depth of his devotion. If anything, she loved him all the more for that.

Admired him, she corrected herself. For all her girlhood dreams of knights on white horses, love was not a notion Malon took lightly. Love was something you had to grow together over many seasons. Love was what her parents had shared, in that misty past where Talon, full of laughter and vigor, had built their house with his own two hands. Love hurt sometimes. No, she had not yet earned that word.

But gods willing, if she had the chance, she would.

That night, the tip of Link's nose was burning red. Malon clucked her tongue and applied a poultice of warm safflina and mullein-flower.

"Save your herbs. I'll live," he tried to protest at first. "Besides, it's my own fault."

She frowned at him, arms akimbo. "What if you lose your nose?"

They both knew this was nonsense. It wasn't that bad. Still, he let her dab the medicine on him. It smelled nice, and her hands were warm.

"It'd be a shame to ruin such a handsome face," she added nonchalantly when she was through.

Link was no longer young and foolish enough to wonder what such a remark meant. She was always gentle, never demanding—keenly aware, he knew, of the wedding band that still hung on a chain around his neck. More than everything else, he was grateful to her for that.

It would be so very easy to give in. He could make her happy. It wouldn't be the first time he had put on a mask and hoped it would become his real face. He had known her forever. She understood him better than anyone, brought out the best in him, and she got along well with Parachi besides. It didn't hurt that she was gorgeous.

But his heart was still raw, frostbitten, and if he took for comfort what she was offering in earnest affection, he would damn himself forever afterwards, no matter what sort of happiness they managed to find. He would not let it begin like that. She deserved more.

The next morning, he pulled up his scarf.

A/N: This is set on an alternate timeline in the same universe as my "main" project Crossroads of Fate, though I've tried to write it so it can be read standalone. If you want context: in the Crossroads of Fate-verse, Zelda, Link, and Malon were all best friends as kids. Link and Zelda eloped in their teens and had a difficult and often unhappy marriage largely due to circumstances outside their control. Parachi is their son. In this story's timeline Zelda was later killed by a scheming politician. Queen Aldra is her cousin.

But hey, if you don't like the backstory, just ignore it and enjoy the Malink :)