(no subject)
Title: Provincial
Fandom: Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Fiction//Romance
Rating: G/PG
Summary: City folk think Link is such a clueless country boy. Maybe they're right, but maybe that's not such a bad thing, either. Shad POV.
Notes: Little something I started over winter break just for kicks. Very open to constructive crit/beta on this one since I don't feel it's been revised as much as it could be (due to the weekly deadline). Also I also just realized that this is the first time I've written a fic in first-person in a long, long time.
The Hero of Time, when all's said and done, is really nothing more than a country boy. Oh, sure, thanks to his travels, he's very worldly in all manner of ways, but he's laughably provincial in others. Social etiquette, for example, he knows nothing of, and it would not even occur to him to ask. He'll just dash in, friendly grin and muddy boots on the carpet, and assume everyone's going to be okay with that.
I guess that's why he seemed to have no inhibitions with doing such a thing, and in public no less. Admittedly, it wasn't completely out in the open, but it was still nonetheless a wholly reckless move. We were sitting in a corner of Telma's bar, out of the way but not entirely out of sight, and I was showing him some old maps from the reign of Queen Zelda the Wise. He was standing next to my chair looking on as I talked, and all of a sudden he just leaned in and kissed me. It was all over so fast I almost wasn't sure it had happened, and then he was just smiling and beckoning me to continue with the maps, and so then I started wondering if maybe I really had imagined it. But I knew I hadn't.
Telma saw it. Telma sees everything that goes on in her bar, but I don't think anyone else did. She offered me one of those terrifyingly all-knowing grins as I left later that evening, and I'm sure the color of my cheeks belied any denial I might have been able to dredge up. At the time it didn't even occur to me to try.
He didn't show up again for a week - the talk was that he was off on some mission in the mountains, although the talk rarely gets even half of it right when it comes to our taciturn Hero. For me it was business as usual, and I'd all but forgotten the incident when he abruptly appeared on my doorstep at late one night. He was smiling when I opened the door, but for once he looked a little sheepish, like he actually realized his actions in this instance were perhaps slightly inappropriate.
"I wouldn't have bothered you," he began by way of apology, "but your light was on, so I didn't think I'd be waking you."
I blinked at him, having rather expected to see anyone else but him when I answered the door. "It's all right, I was just reading." I blinked again. "Er, how did you know where I live?"
"I asked around," he said, as though this was a perfectly normal way of learning someone's address. I wondered how long he'd been asking - I didn't think that many people knew where I lived.
"Oh," I replied. "I, uh, do you want to come in?"
He smiled like he had right after he'd kissed me, and I stepped sideways into the shadows as I let him in so that he couldn't see my face flush with the memory.
"I got you something while I was up north," he said as I shut the door and tried to find a chair for him that wasn't lost under a pile of books. He reached into his bag and pulled out a leather-bound tome that had clearly seen better days. "I knew you were having trouble with your research on the Gerudo, so I thought this might help. It's from the same era."
"It's what?" I managed not to yelp. I took the proffered book and gingerly thumbed through it. "By the Spirits... Where- are you sure it's all right for me to have this?" I asked, looking back up at him.
He merely gave me that damning smile again in answer, and after a moment I fumbled up a pathetic thank-you and a half-smile of my own without blushing too badly.
There was a moment of silence that seemed to me to stretch far too long. "Would you like anything?" I blurted. I had been going to suggest tea, but somehow the sentence petered out before it was begun, and the question was left ambiguously open.
He didn't break eye-contact for an instant, and his open smile took on only the slightest hint of self-consciousness. "Well," he said, "I was sort of hoping that you might let me kiss you again."
That was about the point that I decided there were some things I definitely liked about Link being provincial.
Fandom: Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Fiction//Romance
Rating: G/PG
Summary: City folk think Link is such a clueless country boy. Maybe they're right, but maybe that's not such a bad thing, either. Shad POV.
Notes: Little something I started over winter break just for kicks. Very open to constructive crit/beta on this one since I don't feel it's been revised as much as it could be (due to the weekly deadline). Also I also just realized that this is the first time I've written a fic in first-person in a long, long time.
The Hero of Time, when all's said and done, is really nothing more than a country boy. Oh, sure, thanks to his travels, he's very worldly in all manner of ways, but he's laughably provincial in others. Social etiquette, for example, he knows nothing of, and it would not even occur to him to ask. He'll just dash in, friendly grin and muddy boots on the carpet, and assume everyone's going to be okay with that.
I guess that's why he seemed to have no inhibitions with doing such a thing, and in public no less. Admittedly, it wasn't completely out in the open, but it was still nonetheless a wholly reckless move. We were sitting in a corner of Telma's bar, out of the way but not entirely out of sight, and I was showing him some old maps from the reign of Queen Zelda the Wise. He was standing next to my chair looking on as I talked, and all of a sudden he just leaned in and kissed me. It was all over so fast I almost wasn't sure it had happened, and then he was just smiling and beckoning me to continue with the maps, and so then I started wondering if maybe I really had imagined it. But I knew I hadn't.
Telma saw it. Telma sees everything that goes on in her bar, but I don't think anyone else did. She offered me one of those terrifyingly all-knowing grins as I left later that evening, and I'm sure the color of my cheeks belied any denial I might have been able to dredge up. At the time it didn't even occur to me to try.
He didn't show up again for a week - the talk was that he was off on some mission in the mountains, although the talk rarely gets even half of it right when it comes to our taciturn Hero. For me it was business as usual, and I'd all but forgotten the incident when he abruptly appeared on my doorstep at late one night. He was smiling when I opened the door, but for once he looked a little sheepish, like he actually realized his actions in this instance were perhaps slightly inappropriate.
"I wouldn't have bothered you," he began by way of apology, "but your light was on, so I didn't think I'd be waking you."
I blinked at him, having rather expected to see anyone else but him when I answered the door. "It's all right, I was just reading." I blinked again. "Er, how did you know where I live?"
"I asked around," he said, as though this was a perfectly normal way of learning someone's address. I wondered how long he'd been asking - I didn't think that many people knew where I lived.
"Oh," I replied. "I, uh, do you want to come in?"
He smiled like he had right after he'd kissed me, and I stepped sideways into the shadows as I let him in so that he couldn't see my face flush with the memory.
"I got you something while I was up north," he said as I shut the door and tried to find a chair for him that wasn't lost under a pile of books. He reached into his bag and pulled out a leather-bound tome that had clearly seen better days. "I knew you were having trouble with your research on the Gerudo, so I thought this might help. It's from the same era."
"It's what?" I managed not to yelp. I took the proffered book and gingerly thumbed through it. "By the Spirits... Where- are you sure it's all right for me to have this?" I asked, looking back up at him.
He merely gave me that damning smile again in answer, and after a moment I fumbled up a pathetic thank-you and a half-smile of my own without blushing too badly.
There was a moment of silence that seemed to me to stretch far too long. "Would you like anything?" I blurted. I had been going to suggest tea, but somehow the sentence petered out before it was begun, and the question was left ambiguously open.
He didn't break eye-contact for an instant, and his open smile took on only the slightest hint of self-consciousness. "Well," he said, "I was sort of hoping that you might let me kiss you again."
That was about the point that I decided there were some things I definitely liked about Link being provincial.