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Have a fun little prompt:

TP Zelda gets a dog. Link is unimpressed. She calls the dog Link. Chaos ensues.

That's it. That's the prompt.

— Replaced —

“What is that?”

“The latest taxation proposition for Lanayru province.”

“Not that. That.”

The queen set the top page of her report aside, not deigning to glance beneath her desk.

“It’s a dog.”

“Yes. But what is it doing here?”

“It’s mine.”

The captain of the guard waited a beat. She turned another page.

“You got a dog.”

“Yes.”

“May I ask why?”

“Dogs are good companion animals.”

He folded his arms, frowning at it. It laid down and folded its paws, unmoved.

“And why do you need a companion animal?”

“You seem needlessly fixated, Sir Link.”

“You’re avoiding the question, Your Majesty.”

“Why? Does it pose a threat to my security?”

“It’s unlike you.”

“Not so. I’ve always liked dogs. And companion animals can be very soothing.”

“You already have—”

Her eyes met his at the same time his teeth met each other. Her gaze lingered, and he strategically uncrossed his arms. Beneath the desk, the dog sniffed.

She turned another page.

“Did you have something for me?”

He did. He fished the envelope out of his breast pocket and stepped closer to hold it out to her across her workspace. She reached for her letter opener and sliced it neatly down the seam, and he let his eyes drift down near his boots and bared a tooth.

“Thank you,” she said, and leaned back in her chair to read.

It was as polite a dismissal as he was liable to get. He saw himself out, glancing back from the shadow of the door.

The dog looked smug.

⬫⬫⬫⬫

The delegation arriving that afternoon was large, and the staff had been agitated as a cucco swarm seeing to the last minute preparations. Fortunately, the captain had some experience with cuccos, and was adroit enough to stay out of the way as he oversaw the finishing touches on the security measures.

One of the kitchen maids, sheen on her forehead and pink on her cheeks, came out of the dining room with a platter big as a Hylian shield balanced against her shoulder. The frustration on her face melted a bit when she met his eyes, giving way to an exhausted half-smile.

“Hello, Captain,” she said, breathless, and he nodded.

“Miss Tilly.”

“No room for a fourth platter of bouchées,” she sighed, dragging her wrist against her brow. Her eyes sparkled beneath. “These’ll have to go back down.”

“Pity,” he said.

She plucked an hors d'oeuvres from the top of the arrangement and held it out for him.

“Care to lighten my load?”

The pastry hovered between them a moment—unassuming, bite sized, glistening with eggwash—before his fingers finally lifted along with the corners of her mouth.

If anyone knew how to tempt the otherwise impervious captain of the guard, it was the kitchen staff.

He was halfway to biting into it when the queen’s voice, raised, urgent, startled him so badly he pulled it out from under his teeth and whipped his head aside.

“Link, no!”

A blue-eyed shepherd bounded down the hallway like a shot and back up again, twirling a circle by the trailing queen’s skirts and hopping a bit until he pulled a smile out of her. He let his tongue loll out and pranced at her heel as she walked.

The captain’s teeth hadn’t quite found their way back to each other.

“You—” he started, and then closed his mouth at her sudden, innocent attention.

She waited, elegant. He tried again, off kilter.

“You named the dog Link?”

“It’s a heroic name,” she reasoned, fingers feathering the silky top of his head, and Link preened. “Don’t you agree?”

Miss Tilly ducked her head and scurried off, hiding her toothy smile very poorly.

The captain shoved the whole pastry in his mouth and stomped off.

⬫⬫⬫⬫

The queen brought Link to the reception.

He was bouncy and very good at manipulating his eyebrows to swindle the guests out of treats. He was light enough on his dainty paws that he stayed out from under the foot traffic, and small enough that he could slip under tables with ease. The Zora also found him novel and charming, which made absolutely no sense.

His good behavior did not keep the captain from glaring at him whenever they crossed paths.

After dinner the queen stayed up late entertaining and listening to informal presentations of the Zora’s concerns. Link laid at her feet, occasionally offering his chin and ears for scratches. The captain of her guard stood stationed at the far end of the room, where he could keep an eye on all the entrances and wouldn’t eavesdrop.

It was his usual spot at functions like these. But tonight he felt leashed up outside.

When the guests had finally gone to bed, the queen glided towards her chambers, trailed by two shadows. It was a sleepy procession. And as the delegation was staying for the better part of a week, there would be more of them. The dog whined.

“You poor thing,” she murmured, reaching down to stroke his chin. “You haven’t had your supper yet.”

Neither had the captain. But he refrained from whining about it.

They reached her room and the queen went inside. Link followed, nails dragging noisily on the carpet, but stopped wedged in the doorway to look pointedly over his shoulder. The captain felt his hackles raising.

“Was there something else?”

“Nothing else, Your Majesty. Get some rest.”

“You as well,” she nodded, swallowing a yawn. “Come to bed, Link.”

The dog trailed her inside, making a beeline for her mattress.

When the door closed, the captain bristled so hard he felt the need to shake down to his tail.

⬫⬫⬫⬫

The next few days were more of the same: crowded meals that lasted for hours, long walks through the castle grounds speckled with talks, and tired evenings brimming with wine. The queen’s captain and her dog liked each other less and less.

The last morning of the visit, nerves frayed, tension wound tight, Link growled when the captain wandered too close to the queen’s desk, and without thinking the captain bared his teeth.

“Link!” she scolded, and they both flinched, tails tucked.

The envoy met with her one last time for what was sure to be a long negotiation, and the captain took the opportunity to attend to some pressing business.

He snatched the dog by the collar and dragged him, nails scuffing everywhere, to a broom closet, and locked them both in. He changed, and the dog screamed.

“OH GODS! WOLF! WOLF! HELP! SOMEONE HELP!”

“Stop barking! Stop—shut up, shut up!”

Link hesitated from where he had reared back on his haunches, breath puffing and chest fluttering, before he took an uncertain sniff. The whites of his eyes receded a bit, his forepaw meeting the ground and his nose drifting closer as he investigated. And then his eyes—as much as a dog’s eyes can—rolled.

“Oh. It’s you.”

The wolf let his lip curl, and while Link’s ears drooped, he planted his paws and raised himself a little taller, not to be intimidated.

“Let’s have it out,” the captain growled, “before this becomes an issue for her.”

“Well I certainly have nothing to apologize for,” he snuffed. “I’ve been nothing but well behaved!”

“You took a snap at me under her desk this morning.”

“You were asking for it.”

If the captain had a palm to drag across his face, he would’ve. Instead he pinned his ears down and huffed, glowering, “The safety of the queen and her household are my responsibility. You don’t need to like me. I don’t need to like you. But I am going to protect her. So stay out of my way.”

Link snorted. “That’s what she keeps you around for? Protection?”

“At least she has use for me. I can’t fathom why she’s kept you as long as she has.”

“Because I am the best boy. And the goodest boy. And the prettiest boy—”

“All right, shut up, shut up.”

He planted his tail on the ground, trying to think. It swished like an irritated metronome.

Link’s ears perked, head tilting and eyes going horribly wide with realization.

“You’re jealous!”

The wolf sneered. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It all makes sense now. You’ve been unwelcoming from the moment I arrived. And at first I thought, Perhaps he’s one of those unpleasant people who simply doesn’t like dogs—insufferable, yes, but mostly harmless. But it couldn’t be clearer now what this is about: territory.”

“The queen is not territory.”

“But the place beside her throne? At the foot of her bed? Those certainly are, and I’ve never seen you in any of them.”

Link put on his best smug face. The captain entertained thoughts of cleaving his head clean off his shoulders.

“So, what did you do to get yourself ousted?”

“I haven’t been ousted.”

“Fine. Replaced.”

“I haven’t been—!”

“Well you must’ve done something wrong. How else do you explain my arrival? Were you too noisy? Too big? Too intimidating? Do you give subpar cuddles?”

His eyes narrowed. “The queen and I have never cuddled.”

Link looked mortified. “How can you even be a lapdog and not give cuddles?”

“I was never her lapdog! I’m her head of security!”

He hesitated.

“She does… know you’re a dog, yes?”

The wolf huffed again. “Yes, she knows.”

“Because I’ve never seen you like this in front of her before. And we’re mostly inseparable.”

“It’s been a while,” he grumbled.

“But you used to.”

One of his ears went sideways.

“And you liked it.”

Both of his ears went sideways.

Link beamed. “Doesn’t she give just the best scratches?”

“Listen, lapdog,” the wolf snapped, teeth meeting loudly, and Link shrank back against the wall. “The point is we’re stuck working together, and there’s nothing either of us can do about it. Deal with it.”

“You could ask for reassignment.”

He snarled, “Excuse me?”

“You can talk to her,” he explained, reaching with his back paw to scratch an itch. It made his collar twirl. “Tell her things. I envy you that, though I do a fairly good job of getting what I want besides. But you could tell her you don’t want to be her head of security anymore. Tell her you’d rather be a lapdog instead.”

“I don’t want to be her lapdog!”

“You just want to be closer to her.”

The wolf’s ears pinned back and his lips curled. “Why am I even having this conversation with you?”

“Because you locked us in a closet!”

His growl rumbled so low the brooms rattled.

He waited.

So did Link.

Finally, he murmured, “I can’t tell her that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s complicated.”

Link tilted his head at him again.

“Is that common among humans? They can’t say what they want?”

“I’d say so.”

He considered that a moment. Then he glanced up at him, eyebrows quirked.

“I think you’re dense.”

The wolf looked suddenly ravenous, but Link was unbothered.

“You’ve been outside wolfshape for too long, Captain. What do your senses tell you?”

That made him hesitate. He sniffed reflexively. “I don’t follow.”

“She got a dog to keep her company. With blue eyes. She named me after you. And you think you’re the only one who isn’t saying what he wants?” Link did his dog impression of an eye roll again. “Let me out of here. Your stupid might be contagious.”

The wolf blinked at him. “I’m going to let that go.”

“Well you know what else I think—”

The captain shifted, fur and teeth and claws melting back into softer shapes. The dog in the broom closet with him yapped incomprehensibly for another five seconds.

He smirked, “I think I like you better like this.”

⬫⬫⬫⬫

That night, when the door to her boudoir opened, the wrong sort of animal stepped through.

The queen looked up from her book from her seat on the couch. A wolf stared back.

After a beat he set his jaw, crossed the room with purpose, and dropped his snout into her lap.

Her lips twitched. The weight of his head didn’t let up in the slightest; if anything, her hesitation only made him sag harder.

“Link,” she murmured, carefully lifting one hand to trace a slow line from between his eyes to between his ears. “What have you done with my dog?”

I ate him, he thought smugly.

Her fingers dug a little deeper, and he leaned shamelessly into it. Because she gave excellent scratches.

“It’s not really appropriate for me to be overly familiar with my staff,” she mused, fingers sliding down, down, toward that spot behind his jaw. He stretched his neck to help her reach. Her smile turned pensive, and then faded just a little. “And even if I wanted to, that’s a lot of pressure to put on someone. It isn’t easy to say no to the queen.”

That’s sweet, Your Majesty, but I can handle myself.

She smoothed the fur around his ears, as though she’d mussed it. The wolf looked up at her out of fluted blue eyes, waiting. Expectant, more than hesitant. It made a smirk twist at her lips.

“It does get lonely, though,” she admitted. “Which is why I got myself a dog.”

Right. Because you didn’t already have one.

The wolf sniffed. He lifted his head from her lap and circled the couch, calculating, and then leapt onto the cushion beside hers with great care and laid down, tucking his legs so he’d fit. He plopped his head meaningfully on her shoulder.

“I can’t very well get rid of him now,” she argued.

He pushed his nose into her neck, and then wriggled to press in with his chest, encroaching as much as possible.

“Link,” she complained, puffing fur away from her mouth. “You’re too big.”

He only had two shapes to choose from, and wasn’t sure she’d be much happier with the other one. But neither was he about to call off his offensive after he’d come this far.

He shifted in a flurry of shadows. His elbow was planted on the camelback behind her shoulder, his temple planted on his fist. He was still very much in her personal space.

She arched an eyebrow, but made no move to pull away. He tested the waters, drifting closer. Her eyes twinkled, the way only hers could, and the grin that spread over his lips was probably too wolfish.

“I know a ranch in Ordona that would love a shepherd.”

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I feel as lit by fire a cold countenance That burns me from afar and keeps itself ice-chill; A strength I feel two shapely arms to fill Which without motion moves every balance

— Michelangelo to Tommaso Dei Cavalieri