Chapter Text
There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart
só heavy, if he had a hundred years
& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time
Henry could not make good.
[…] Ghastly,
with open eyes, he attends, blind.
All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears;
thinking.
“Dream Song 29” - John Berryman
Link is no stranger to death.
At five years old, he’s already witnessed more than his peers ever would. Growing up at a farm can do that to a kid. Cows, lambs, cuccos—all to the slaughter for sustenance, for profit. He stations himself beside Father and Mother as they butcher them to sell at the family shop. He’s also seen Father shoot countless deers and elk during their leisure hunts whenever Father is back home from Castle Town. More often than not, Father would let him borrow his old bow, and Link would contribute to their hunt, too.
But then Link’s pet fish dies one afternoon—a fat white freshwater carp with gold and black splotches he named Goldie—and he weeps and weeps in Mother’s lap. Goldie was his friend. Goldie was always there in the morning when he would wake up, and was there at night before he’d go to bed. But now Goldie is floating in the pond, its tiny mouth agape.
Mother strokes his hair. “It’s okay, Link. Goldie is with the Goddess, now.”
“Can I be with the Goddess, too?” he asks. Snot runs down his nose.
“Well, no.” Mother huffs a laugh. “Where Goldie is… we cannot go there. But what you can do is pray.”
Link withdraws his head from Mother’s lap. He wipes the tears from his face with the heel of his palms.
“Can we pray together, Mom?”
At that, something unreadable passes through Mother’s face. Her blue eyes turn steely.
“You can pray, Link,” she says, something sad about her small smile. “I won’t join. But we can arrange a funeral for Goldie, if you would like that?”
So they spend the rest of the day gathering flowers from the brambles that surround their estate until Mother’s wicker basket is full of white roses, blue nightshades, and armoranths. Mother also allows him to use the small wooden box that sits atop her vanity—a coffin perfect for Goldie. Mother says that it’s a box that used to house a necklace she bought and gave to Father long ago, but that necklace is long lost, so she has no use for it now.
Link wraps Goldie in an old rag and lays it gently inside the box. Then, they dig a hole in their backyard and bury the box and Goldie in it. He cries again, but not as hard as earlier. He clasps his hands in front of his chest, shuts his eyes, and utters his prayers aloud.
“Goddess Hylia, please welcome Goldie in your loving arms, give it many, many worms to eat, and bring it back as a strong and healthy fish in its next life.” Let its next life start tomorrow, please, Link does not say aloud.
When they make it back inside the living room, Father is already there, sitting at the dining table with a cup of coffee. He asks about what they have been up to, and Link answers honestly. Father doesn’t press on, and he looks rather exhausted, so Link goes back into his bedroom and closes the door behind him.
He climbs into his bed and crawls toward the far end of the wall, looking out from the window and into the backyard. He sees it—a small grave by the shrubs, complete with a rock roughly the shape of an oval as the tombstone, with flowers surrounding the little plot of land.
He hears voices from beyond his bedroom door.
“I don’t think it is best for us to go soft on him.”
“Wha— soft? He is five and his pet just died!”
“And you helped him throw a funeral. For a fish.”
“Because he’s just a child!”
There’s a grating sound—a chair being dragged on the floor. “Well, he’s always said that he wants to become a knight. Then we must prepare him for such an occupation.”
“Being a knight does not mean he can’t feel emotions.”
“Eleana, being a knight is not easy. He will see hundreds of deaths in his lifetime. The next death he’ll witness won’t be of a fish, but of a comrade. I just want to prepare him for when he eventually becomes one.”
“Well—” a pause, “—then I hope, for Link’s sake, he never becomes one.”
Link, however, doesn’t pay much attention to his parents’ conversation. Instead, he imagines Goldie wiggling its way past the layers of cloth and wood and soil, flopping around the backyard until it finds its way to the pond again. Once everybody is asleep Goldie will rise up from its grave, he thinks. He prayed to the Goddess, after all.
But come morning, the pond is still empty, and Goldie remains lifeless in its little coffin.
And he never sheds another tear after that.
Link is no stranger to death, and no stranger to funerals, either.
A year after Goldie’s humble funeral in his backyard in Hateno Village, Father must attend one of the most important funerals in the kingdom for as long as Link can remember.
(Well, six years is quite long for him, anyway.)
So here he is, holding Mother’s gloved hand, in the congregation at the Grand Chapel of Hyrule Castle. It’s a sad occasion, of course—everyone’s wearing black, all the women have their faces obscured with a veil, and he can hear sniffles from the crowd. But Link also can’t wait to tell his friends back home of his first real experience in the castle.
There are speeches, sermons, hymns, and many, many other long-drawn-out processions that he has no choice but to zone out on. But once the burial is over, Link is rather excited, because the Royal Guards (and by extension, Father) must accompany the Prince Consort to the Sanctum for an intimate reception.
The Sanctum is grand—big, luxurious, grand. Red velvet is draped everywhere—the thrones, the floor, the curtains, the banners. There’s also a lot of gold, and streaks of blue here and there. Link likes the blue the most.
When Father makes his way through the crowd to find Link and Mother, Link knows it’s time. He straightens his back, draws his chin a little bit higher, and follows Father.
“This is pretty exciting, right, Mom?” Link whispers. “Meeting the Prince!”
“The King,” Father corrects him. “He was the Prince, and now, without the Queen, he has become the King.” He sounds annoyed. “Please don’t make that mistake in front of His Majesty.”
Link clears his throat. “Sorry, Father.”
He gazes up at Mother again, but she’s quiet, and it’s hard to look past her veil.
They climb the grand marble staircase leading to the floating dais above the room, and find a large man standing in front of the throne.
Father and Mother immediately drop to their knees. Link follows suit.
“Your Majesty,” Father says, his head bowed.
“Sir William! Please, no need for this,” the King’s voice booms. Father rises, followed by Mother, and then Link. “I am very pleased to see you again, Lady Eleana. It’s been too long.” The King sounds friendly, but there’s a lot of sadness at the edge of his voice. That makes sense, Link thinks. He just lost his wife.
Then, the King sets his eyes on Link.
Link’s hands feel clammy, all of a sudden.
“And you, young boy—how you have grown! It was not that long ago when your father brought you as an infant to the Castle to celebrate my daughter’s birth,” he says. Link can only muster up a nod and a shaky smile. “Speaking of—” the King turns around to shoo something from his back. “Don’t just hide! Introduce yourself.”
From behind the King’s robe, a little girl emerges, clad in a black dress and a black surcoat. Her face, however, isn’t covered with a veil like the other women, and the first thing Link notices is how golden her hair is compared to the rest of her outfit. It’s almost blinding.
The second thing Link notices is how green her eyes are. Very green. Like grass, like trees. Like the forests that he likes to spend time in.
The girl extends a gloved hand. Palm facing down.
“I’m Princess Zelda,” she says. “Nice to meet you.”
Link takes her hand in a gentlemanly way that Father has taught him when greeting noblewomen. His thumb pad rests on her knuckles. His left hand rises to splay over his right breast. Then, he puts one foot in front of the other and bends his knees, bowing his head.
“Nice to meet you, Princess,” he says. “My name is Link.”
As he straightens up again, Link finds it hard to let go of her hand. The Princess doesn’t, either; her forest green gaze is still piercing through his eyes. It feels like vines are growing out of his wrist and twining around his hand and the Princess’.
“Hello, Link,” she says.
Oh, his heart is racing.
Father lets out a cough, and the vines vanish. Link withdraws his hand as if shocked by a jolt of electricity. The Princess lets her arm fall limp at her side once more, but her eyes are still on him. Mother grabs him by his shoulders, pulling him back to stand next to her again.
“Your Majesty, once again, Eleana, Link, and I would like to offer our deepest condolences for your loss,” Father says. “For this kingdom’s loss. The Queen is—was—a strong and wise monarch, and as a people, we shall mourn her absence forevermore.” His lips are trembling a little, Link notes. He’s never seen that on Father before.
“Thank you, Sir William,” the King says. “You were a steadfast presence in her life, truly.” At that, Mother’s grip tightens. Link tilts his head up to look at her, but is met with that layer of veil again. “Well, I must be on my way. Duty calls upon us all, after all.”
With one last bow from Father, Mother, and Link himself, the King makes his way toward the other end of the dais and descends the opposite staircase. The Princess follows, her back straight and steps never once faltering.
She doesn’t turn back to cast one last glance at his family, but Link watches and watches and watches. He’s still watching as she disappears beneath the grand archway that leads further into the castle.
On the walk back to Castle Town where Father resides, Link feels something heavy settling in his gut. Like his little inconsequential life makes sense, all of a sudden. Like being six years old doesn’t really matter because, in that moment, he feels like there are hundreds of ancient men residing within the confines of his bones. And all those men are whispering the same name over and over.
The name he heard just a half hour ago.
So he speaks up.
“Father, I think I’m ready to really train,” he says. “I really wanna be in the Royal Guard.”
Father laughs.
Mother, beneath her black veil, stays quiet.
In his dreams, Link keeps on dying.
Last night, just like many other nights for the past few months, he dreamt that he was traversing through a forest blanketed with a fog so thick, that one could get lost in it for days. He dreamt of trees with hollow trunks. Of green little creatures that would giggle and scurry away whenever he tried to approach them.
He wandered and wandered until he reached a small passage that would lead into a grove. As he made his way in, there were more and more of those green little creatures. Some shied away and hid, but some gathered at his feet and giggled more. And then he saw it.
A sword glinting in the sunlight, with a purple hilt crisscrossed in green. Lodged in a pedestal underneath the boughs of a gigantic tree.
He stepped up onto the pedestal, stood before the sword, and after drawing a deep, deep breath, he wrapped his fingers around the hilt, and pulled.
Pain shot up his entire body—searing hot pain. His limbs were on fire. Squeezed all the air out of his lungs. He screamed and screamed. Fire burned through every nerve ending. And as he was fading away and his grip around the hilt loosened, he heard more giggles from those little creatures.
Not ready! they said. Not ready! Not ready!
Then, a girl’s voice—regal, familiar—joined the chants.
He couldn’t see her through the haze of pain, but he knew. He knew whose voice that was.
Not ready. Not ready. Not ready. Not ready—
He wakes up. Sweat plastering his blonde strands across his forehead.
As the morning makes way to noon, however, the memory of the dream usually slips away from him. Like a footprint on the sand washed away by an impending tide on the shore. He doesn’t remember the excruciating pain that surely felt real at the time, and he doesn’t remember the feeling of his life force seeping out of him.
So Link goes on about his day. While mornings are reserved to aid Mother in tending to their livestock, afternoons are usually filled with sword fighting lessons given by Sir Lalo, a retired knight who served in the Royal Guard for decades, and a friend and mentor to Father during his early days in the Royal Guard. Though gray-haired and wrinkly, Sir Lalo still has that intimidating aura about him that makes everyone in Hateno turn their heads in reverence whenever he walks the main street, and a glare so sharp that makes all his students bristle.
Today, they are learning the skill of wielding a sword with one’s non-dominant hand. Link is right-handed, so for this lesson, the wooden sword is in his left. Next to him, Miko, a leftie two years older than Link, is wielding his sword in his right hand. Next to Miko are Ananda and Polly, both of whom are one year Link’s senior and right-handed, so they hold their weapons in their left.
“In a fight, we must be prepared for everything. Everything.” Sir Lalo’s voice is like gravel. “There will be a time when your dominant hand becomes impaired or injured, which means you will not be able to use it. This is where ambidexterity will come in handy.”
Ananda snorts. “Handy. Get it?”
Sir Lalo shoots a glare at him. The boy straightens up immediately. He mutters a sorry.
“You do not have to become fully proficient,” Sir Lalo continues. He paces slowly in front of the students, fists on his back. “However, it is imperative to prime your non-dominant hand as best as possible, so when your dominant hand becomes injured, you are still able to fight.”
Link notes the use of when. When you become injured. When you hurt yourself.
They stand before the training dummies, and begin striking. Surprisingly, Link thinks, wielding a sword in his left hand feels quite… natural. The only thing that feels unnatural is the fact that the sword in his hand is wooden and much smaller than what it’s supposed to be. And lighter, too. He knows it’s supposed to be heavier and bigger and shinier. Everything about this stupid wooden sword is wrong and both his palms almost ache from it.
But that doesn’t stop Link from striking true. The more he moves, the more he warms up—the more it feels right. Like he’s been wielding swords in his left hand his whole life. Well, his whole nine years of living. But still. It shouldn’t feel this easy, right?
Sir Lalo notices this and claps his hands once to signal his students to stop.
“Everyone, look at Link.” They all do. Eyes on him. Link feels like shrinking into his oversized tunic. “Come on, show your peers, son. You were doing great.”
Link does the drill again. It’s the standard set of movements that they usually do, but every movement is the mirrored version of it, carried out by his left hand. Once finished, Sir Lalo hums in satisfaction.
“Impressive, Link, as always,” the old man says. “The key is repetition. Practice, practice, practice. When your muscles become more acquainted with it, it will almost feel like second nature.”
“We literally just began practicing this today!” Polly cries. “Link doesn’t count! His father is in the Royal Guard. Of course he’s good—he probably has trained for this since months ago.”
What she’s saying is good things, Link knows, but all he hears is resentment.
“I just try to relax my muscles,” he says quietly. “And I just tried this today, too.”
Polly only rolls her eyes.
“Well, whatever you are doing is working, so continue with that,” Sir Lalo says, patting Link on the back.
After a few more drills and exercises, the lesson comes to an end. Link retrieves his water skein from under the tree where they all left their belongings, and takes big gulps.
Polly immediately goes home, leaving Link, Ananda, and Miko to share some brownies that Miko has brought from home. They sit underneath the boughs of the apple tree, their gazes on the training dummies ahead of them.
“I think Polly hates me,” Link says, his mouth full of cake.
“I wish Polly hated me,” Miko replies. “Then she’d actually, like, notice me or something.”
Link frowns. “You want her to hate you just so she’d notice you?”
“Link. Link. You don’t get it.” Miko turns his head to look at Link. “When you love someone, you’d take anything they give you. Even hate.”
Link takes another piece of brownie from Miko’s lunchbox and shoves it into his mouth. Goddess, Miko’s mother is really good at baking.
“You love Polly?” Link asks, curious. Though he’s only nine and pretty much inexperienced in anything related to girls, what his friend has seems like a crush. Surely it can’t be deemed as love.
Unlike how he feels about…
Link nearly chokes on the brownie. His brain refuses to even think about it, about that name. Anyway, Link knows what love is—more than Miko does.
He takes another swig of water from his skein.
“Damn, you really got it bad, Miko.” Ananda shakes his head.
“You guys don’t understand,” Miko says as he exasperatedly runs his hands through his hair. “I dream about her all the time. She’s so pretty and strong and smart. It’s frustrating!” He sighs. “Have you ever felt something like that? Loved someone so much she starts appearing in your dreams? Making you wish you never have to wake up?”
“I guess,” Ananda says. “Do you know Rissa from the general store?” The other boys nod in reply. “A couple of days ago, I dreamt that she kissed me.”
Miko whistles. “There you go,” he smirks. “How about you, Link? Ever dreamt of a girl?”
Link’s gaze falls from the horizon to the ground, to the green grass and the dark brown soil that lies beneath. In his mind, each blade of grass grows into a miniature tree into a lush forest.
Imprints of last night’s dream emerge.
“Not really.” Link shrugs. “All I dream about is being lost in a forest and then pulling a sword that’s planted in the middle of the forest, and pulling it causes me so much pain that I pass out and die.”
Miko and Ananda stop chewing.
Then they burst out laughing, spraying brownie crumbs in the air.
“Oh Gods, Link! You’re so weird.” Miko’s shoulders shake and shake with laughter. Link scratches at his nape, bashful. “It makes so much sense that you dream of killer swords instead of girls.”
Link grins, but he knows what he said is not the whole truth. Because he does dream of girls. A girl. Her voice and nothing else. Phantom vocal cords floating in the breeze.
Miko has Polly, and Ananda has Rissa. In their dreams, they see them, touch them, kiss them. Though it does sound nice to dream of a girl the way that Miko and Ananda do, Link doesn’t really need the girl in his dreams to appear. She can stay a mere voice that taunts him about how he’s not ready.
He already knows the face of that voice, anyway.
“You know, Link,” Mother says, her hands gripping a piping bag as she decorates the birthday cake on the countertop, “you’ve had a brush with death before. When you were in my womb.”
Link stands next to her, watching her carefully dot the rim of the cake with buttercream. “How so?” he asks.
“See, your father received an assignment in Faron and I was in the thirty-fifth week of my pregnancy. I hadn’t planned on coming, but he insisted because he did not want to miss your birth. So there I was, on a cart attached to your father’s gelding, my stomach as big and heavy as a chain ball, slowly journeying the distance between Hateno and Faron.
“We stayed in a small house in Fural Plain for two weeks. And mind you, I wasn’t in my best shape at the time. I was often sick, and you were a tough little thing to have in my body. It took a toll on me.”
She finishes dotting the border of the cake, and starts painting flowers in the space between each dot of buttercream, the frosting flowing slowly from the metal nozzle lodged in the piping bag.
“Thankfully, there were other wives that also stayed there to accompany their knight husbands, and they took care of me. Cooked for me, fed me, bathed me, even when I didn’t have the energy to do so. Your father looked after me, too, of course—but he couldn’t stay for long each time. He had to camp out near the spring with his fellow knights.”
“Why was Father assigned in Faron?” Link asks.
“He had to join a few of the other Royal Guard knights to accompany the late Queen during her service at the Spring of Courage.” Mother’s gaze is still trained on the work in front of her, but Link swears he sees a hint of sadness in that gaze. “She was with child, and therefore had to pray at the sacred springs during her pregnancy.”
Link’s tongue itches. He knows, but he wants to let her title slice through the air anyway. “With the Princess?”
“Yes, with the Princess,” Mother replies. “Anyway, I was in my thirty-seventh week when I finally felt it—felt you. See, usually birth happens in the fortieth week. It was way too early. We were all very scared. But you, my lovely little imp, said no, Mother, you must let me out now.”
Now that all the flowers are piped—each five-petalled and equal in size—Mother aims the nozzle at the center of the cake and squeezes the piping bag again. The first few strokes of Hylian alphabets in buttercream.
“So, one of the women ran to the spring to bring your father to me. It was storming outside, the likes of which had never been seen even in Faron during winter. Torrential, Link—you couldn’t see anything that’s in front of you. But two women stayed by my bedside as I writhed in agony. They put a cold compress on my forehead. Brought water. Waited and waited, just like how I waited for you to come.”
Link watches Mother’s handiwork. ‘Happy birthday’ now adorns the surface.
“Your father hadn’t arrived yet, but it was time. So I pushed. I pushed and pushed and prayed that the storm wasn’t a sign of bad luck from the Goddesses, and that you’d come out savable, at the very least. Because babies weren’t meant to be birthed that early.”
Below ‘Happy birthday’, she begins piping the letter L.
“It was such a long labor, but eventually, you came. And miraculously, you were healthy. Thirty-seven weeks in my womb, but you looked like you might as well have spent forty-five in it.” She laughed. “You were chunky and hearty and flushed, your cries were loud. As loud as the thunderstorm. And I cried with you.”
Mother continues piping and frosting, but Link looks up at her, now—watches as her lips break into a smile. She rarely smiles nowadays, and the sight makes his insides warm.
“Then your father came, saw you in my arms, and he knelt next to me and cried with me. Then lightning struck a tree near the house, and the room lit up. It felt like a message from above. Your father and I locked eyes, and somehow, we just knew what to name you. We knew.”
At last, her frosting work is done, and she sets the nearly-empty piping bag onto the counter. Mother’s work is beautiful, as always. Year after year, birthday after birthday, the design stays the same, but Link doesn’t care. It’s a pretty cake. And it’s a cake for him to eat.
Finally, she turns to him and cups his face with her hands—covered with powdered sugar and streaked with buttercream. She leans down and lands a kiss on his forehead.
“Happy eleventh birthday, Link—my beloved, impatient, thunder of a boy.” Her eyes well up. “You are my miracle. I love you.”
Link grins at her. “I love you, too, Mom.”
They sit at the dining table, just the two of them, accompanied only by the strong whistling of winds and snowflakes adorning the windowpane. He cuts himself a huge slice, serves it on a plate, and eats and eats and eats. Two layers of chocolate sponge cake glued by wildberry jam, slathered with vanilla buttercream. Goddess-sent, truly.
Father couldn’t come home for this year’s birthday, but Link doesn’t really mind. He has his birthday cake, he has Mother, and he has sword lessons with Sir Lalo in the afternoon.
Later, with yet another unfitting wooden sword in his hand and his stomach chock-full of cake, he goes through his drills. As a birthday surprise, Sir Lalo has invited some local swordsmen to spar with Link, and Link thinks it just might be his best birthday ever.
He comes out of each fight triumphant.
When nightfall comes and he eventually falls asleep, Link dreams not of a sword that burns, but of a hurricane in Faron and a voice that whispers louder than the thunder.
We were here together, she says. And we will be together again.
And he believes her.
Leaving Hateno Village for Castle Town feels like a death and a rebirth, somehow.
Mother is crying into his hair. “Come back home, all right?” she sniffs, her arms tightening around him. “Come back home to me.”
Something ugly rears itself in Link’s throat and he doesn’t know what it is, unsure if he wants to address it, so he swallows it down. He smiles instead.
“Of course, Mom.”
After a few more goodbyes around the village, at last, Link leaves Necluda all by himself, completely at the mercy of other travelers. He hitchhikes from home all the way to Fort Hateno, then journeys on foot from there until he meets a merchant on the outskirts of Bubinga Forest who’s heading to Dueling Peaks. He gives out a few rupees each time to pay for their troubles. Then it’s a few hours on foot again from the base of the Peaks until he stands before the confluence where Squabble River meets Hylia River, and on the other side of Proxim Bridge, he finally sees Sir Remi, the Deputy Commander of the Royal Guard.
Sir Remi has brought an extra mount with him for Link, so they ride north through the vast Hyrule Field until they meet Father by the entrance to the Sacred Ground. Upon their reunion, the old man gives Link a slap on the back and a ruffle through the hair.
“Look at you,” Father says, his expression fond. “All grown up now.”
Once they cross the front gate of Castle Town, Link realizes that he’s trading the moos and bleats of Hateno for the laughter of drunkards and townies chattering loudly. Trading Mother’s homemade curry and bread pudding and prime steak for stale communal stews at the barracks.
A few weeks later, he knows he’s also traded the sights of pretty Hateno girls for glimpses of golden blonde behind parapets, banisters, and metal gates.
It’s all horrible and wonderful.
Link trains and trains. Listens and follows Captain Harold’s orders. Joins him and the other squires as they raid nearby bokoblin dens. He lets his years of training under Sir Lalo take over his muscles and reflexes, and it serves him well. He’s a twelve-year-old among fifteen and sixteen-year-olds but he takes the trophy of Killed the Most Monsters after every single raid. Captain Harold nicknames him Lionheart.
At night, in the barracks, he lies in the top bunk bed above Markus, a fifteen-year-old with ear piercings from Deya Village. Link learns that Markus isn’t a hopeless romantic like Miko, but a foul-mouthed boy who can’t stop yammering about his girlfriend in Castle Town.
“When I slice through those fucking bokos, I think of Rosemary and her red hair and those beautiful, beautiful hips,” Markus says, his sleepy voice filling up the small room. “My dad says it’s important to find something to fight for when you wanna become a knight. Rosemary’s it for me,” he continues. “What about you, Link?”
Oh, Link has that something, all right. That something is sleeping in the high tower looming above the barracks. That something is in the portraits that hang on various walls in the castle. When he fights and trains and falls and hurts himself, he thinks of golden hair and a pair of forest green eyes.
“I don’t know.” Link stares at the ceiling above him. “The royal family, I guess.”
“Nah, that doesn’t count,” Markus huffs. “Do you really not have a girl that you fancy?”
Golden hair. Forest green eyes. Not ready not ready not ready—
“I guess not,” Link replies.
“You know what? We should hang out in Castle Town on our day off,” Markus says. “Get you a girl. You’ll have so much fun, I guarantee.”
When the day actually comes, Link doesn’t find it so much fun. He just sits in a corner inside the jewelry store as Markus and Rosemary do Goddess-knows-what in the alleyway behind the store.
After what feels like ages, Markus and Rosemary do come back—his lips positively red and her neck covered in mulberry-colored splotches.
Noticing the annoyance in Link’s face, Rosemary tries to make up for it by letting him choose any particular piece of jewelry that he wants. Link just shrugs at first, but Rosemary insists.
“Trust me, kid,” she says. “Girls today love a guy with earrings.”
So Link relents. His eyes scan through the glass enclosure before landing on a pair of earrings; two small hoops encrusted with blue enamel.
He points at them.
Half an hour later, he’s staring into a mirror, his fingers pinching the new accessory.
“If you see my mother, please don’t tell her you got them for free. She’ll kill me. She already did when she found out I gave some to Markus.” Rosemary warns him. “But those look phenomenal on you. Girls will definitely swoon.”
Link can’t help but agree. The blue matches his eyes and his hair band. They look good. Perhaps one day she will finally notice him and think that they look good, too.
The next day, Father comes down to the training yard and discovers the blues that now adorn his son’s ears. Thankfully, he isn’t particularly disapproving of it, but he does insist that Captain Harold give his squires a lesson on royal etiquette.
There isn’t a lot that Link doesn’t already know from watching Father move and walk and talk around royalty and noblemen. How to kneel. How to address each royalty (Your Majesty for the King, Your Highness for the Princess). The distance that should be kept between a knight and his charge (five paces). How to dance appropriately at balls. How to eat in a refined manner at banquets.
When they pretend-dance—arms hovering in the air like one would hold a dance partner—Link pictures her in his arms. When they pretend-kneel, he imagines that he’s kneeling before her. When they take five steps backward from a wall to understand just how far five paces is, Link imagines that he’s standing across from her.
“Most importantly,” Captain Harold says, “I cannot stress enough how very important this is—you must be a paragon of decorum at all times. You must always remember that among these royals and nobles, you are a knight first, and a man second. Always.”
Link’s heart aches a little at the reminder, but he crushes and crumples that ache and throws it far, far away.
The only thing that will ever be granted to him is the privilege of protecting her, and he’d be perfectly happy with that.
Just as Link is warming up to the cold barracks at the castle, Father sends him to different outposts throughout Hyrule to train under the best fighter of each race.
It feels like another death of some sort.
He spends three months with the Zora, under Princess Mipha’s guidance. She appears exactly as she did when he first met her almost ten years ago during Father’s expedition—her lips always upturned with a benevolent smile, her amber eyes twinkling with kindness.
At night, he sleeps in a waterbed at the guest quarters designed for Hylian visitors. During the day, he eats and trains and eats and rests and trains some more. Mipha is exceptionally skilled with the spear, and Link watches as she maneuvers her chosen weapon with grace and ease. In turn, he gives her a few pointers on sword wielding.
When his time there eventually comes to an end, Mipha hugs him goodbye.
“I hope fate brings us on the same path again, someday,” she says, her voice soft.
Link smiles at her. “I’m sure it will.”
After Zora’s Domain, it’s Goron City, where Link learns to survive in extreme (and fiery) conditions. Doing his drills near a lake of lava under Lord Daruk’s supervision (and tasting rock roasts for the first time). Battling against fire taluses. Dodging fire arrows shot by lizalfos. Getting his eyebrows singed when those dodges aren’t timed right.
And then it repeats in Rito Village; sharpening his archery skills with the master archer and Chief of the Rito, Paravi. Learning to zero his focus on a target; learning to slow his breath and slow down time. Sleeping in a hammock every night for weeks. Braving the cold blast of Tabantha winds on his skin. Feeling the glares of a particularly talented Rito archer who’s only a few months older than him.
Thankfully, he doesn’t need to spend that much time in Rito Village. Chief Paravi commends Link for his existing archery skills, and Link silently thanks Father for letting him hunt from such an early age.
In Gerudo, Link realizes just how tough it is to fight in the sand. Gerudo women are quite formidable opponents to spar with, and it takes a few days before he’s able to take down six soldiers at once. Captain Pamela, a friend of the Royal Guard who has accepted Father’s request to train his son, is very tall, intimidating, and skilled.
“You can go back to the castle when you can beat me and my fellow captains. Simultaneously.” She smirks.
So Link trains some more. He practices day and night, leaving almost no room for leisure and rest. He absorbs all those teachings and learnings into his muscles and bones, so that he may make use of them when the time finally comes that he must fight and bleed for her.
When he has passed all the trials in the desert and returns to the castle, the title of knight is finally bestowed upon him. Father, as Commander of the Royal Guard, gives out each newly-minted knight a brand new soldier’s uniform—all metal plates with the Hylian crest embossed onto the pauldrons, and the tabard with the royal crest printed right in the middle. After Link has received his own armor, Father smirks, pinching the fabric of his own dark blue surcoat.
“Now you’re one step closer to donning the reds and blues.”
At that, Link smiles.
One step closer to her, too.
One winter night, Link no longer dreams of dying from the sword.
Instead, he dreams of a spirit, flooding his vision with indigo, blue, and gold. Its voice is feminine, somehow, and it speaks to him in a language that he does not and does understand.
It is time, Master. Head north and come find me.
In the morning, Link finds Father in his office, tells him that he wishes to spend his birthday back home with Mother, and Father agrees.
Instead of heading southeast to Necluda, Link makes his way north on horseback, as he's told. Past Hyrule Forest Park, crossing Helmhead Bridge, through Minshi Woods. He has no map or compass nor any idea of where to go, but when he quiets his mind and steadies his breath, he can faintly hear the voices of those ancient men that he heard long ago, whispering directions.
At the mouth of Lost Woods, Link sees a stone archway.
He knows of the stories shared around campfires, about a forest that can drive people mad. A forest that tricks and deceives. This is where people have lost themselves, he thinks.
Link dismounts his steed, lights up his torch, and braves through the fog anyway.
It’s like he has stepped into the dreams that have plagued him for almost his whole life, but it’s not a dream, because he’s here. It’s his worn boots on the soil, his eyes hazed by the thick fog, his freezing ears perking up upon the sounds of chimes and shy giggles.
And then, just like in those dreams, Link finds himself in a passage that leads into a grove, sees those masked green little creatures gathering near his feet, leading him to the sword—the Sword—that he knows right down to the bone is meant for him.
He steps up onto the triangle-shaped pedestal. Outside the forest, winter is raging throughout Central Hyrule. But here, with the Sword shining before him, he feels warm.
A voice booms from above him.
“We have been waiting for you, Hero,” the giant tree says. “Welcome back.”
Link stares at the hilt. Indigo crisscrossed with green. His fingers ache to wrap around it.
So he does.
Instead of searing hot pain, Link is struck by a million visions; the Sword’s visions of its previous wielders and the lives they lived—the ancient men that have resided in the fabric of his being. Hair in different shades of blonde. Eyes in different shades of blue. Different voices but always within the same timbre. Different bones that always contain the same soul.
As he pulls the sword from the slot, everything that is wonderful floods him in a fraction of a second—birth, life, pleasure, triumph, love. There’s always love—love for her—and he finally, fully understands that these men are him and he is these men, and that he is a mere link in the chain forged by God Herself, designed to find her in every lifetime.
Then the second tide of images hits him, and it tears through him violently and rips him apart. Death, grief, anguish, loss, war. A girl falling through the sky. A boy lost to time. The world shrouded in darkness. A great evil that thirsts and forever haunts. A great evil that he now knows will return very soon.
Nice to see you again, Master.
The Sword, at last, is out of its pedestal. Around its hilt, his knuckles turn white.
The weight of his genesis sits heavy and rough on his shoulders.
Link drops to his knees. Then, for the first time in a decade, he breaks into sobs and falls to pieces.
He hides in the forest for weeks. Sleeps in a bed made of leaves that one of the little creatures prepared for the Hero ages ago. The Sword, sheathed in its ornate scabbard, rests by the bed against the mossy walls. He stares at it, eats whatever is edible, stares at it some more, and then sleeps. He does not do much else and does not speak at all. His fifteenth birthday passes without so much of an acknowledgment, let alone a celebration, because does it even matter to an ageless soul like him?
Day by day, Link picks up the pieces and reassembles himself. Fabricates the parts that fit into the mold of the hero he’s supposed to be. Stows away the fragments that might give away his true nature, his deepest fears.
When he leaves the forest, the Sword of Legend strapped to his back, he is leaving a womb and a grave.
It isn’t until the southern point of Minshi Woods that a few patrolling knights from the training camp nearby finally see and recognize Link. They all urge him to join them at the camp while they fetch Father from the castle.
It’s nighttime when Father arrives at the camp, his face marred by anger and concern and relief.
“Where in Din’s name have you been, Link?!” Father’s voice is rough. “We all thought you were dead! Have you any idea what you’ve put me and your mother through?! I even had to send my knights—”
The words seem to die on Father’s lips as his gaze lands on the iconic hilt peeking from Link’s back.
When the realization fully dawns on him, Father squares his shoulders and nods. As if braving himself for a battle.
Link knows the feeling all too well.
“Son, I believe…” Father exhales, “I believe it is time for you to properly meet the Princess.”
The Princess wishes he never existed at all—that much, he knows.
Meanwhile, Mother grieves and cries for him as if he’s already dead.
Father is rather proud, and warns him that it is even more crucial to remain strong. And Link knows that Father doesn’t mean the physical kind.
Captain Harold doesn’t call him Lionheart anymore, and instead calls him Hero. His friends no longer look at him as their comrade, but more as a legendary figure to be revered. To be envied. To be wary of.
There are so many prying eyes and whispering mouths in the court, the barracks, the towns. Curious about his upbringing, his pedigree. Wonders how good of a fighter he truly is. If he is aware of the weight of his primordial destiny, of the prophecies that become more and more real with each passing day.
And so, as more lips open and move and talk around him, Link keeps his own shut. Tongue behind gritted teeth at all times.
For the first time in his life, Link feels lonely. And he knows it won’t be the last time that he feels so.
Because he is an apocalypse in the form of a swordsman, and every breath he takes is a sign that the end of times is drawing nearer.
The least he can do is keep his thoughts where they belong:
In his lungs, where they rattle and rage against his ribcage.
It isn’t until Link is sixteen, when Sir Remi accosts him in the training yard to break the news of Father’s sudden passing, that he finally understands just what death truly is.
Link runs to Father’s residence in Castle Town, chainmail still draped over his torso and the Sword on his back, and finds the royal doctor and a few of the other royal guards inside the house. Father lies still in his pajamas in bed, skin impossibly pale, eyes closed. Link goes to his side and watches him, his throat going dry.
Three days ago, Father told him that he would join the Royal Guard in two weeks’ time. That Father would be there to pin the Royal Guard medallion onto the lapel of Link’s surcoat after the Princess had conferred his royal knighthood with her knighting sword.
He lays his hand on Father’s cold one. The hand that won’t pin any medallion onto any lapel anymore.
They speak to him in a hushed, soft voice. Tells him that Sir William passed away in his sleep, most likely due to sudden cardiac arrest. When he failed to show up at a council meeting, the King had sent the other knights to Castle Town to investigate Sir William’s whereabouts. He did not die in pain, they say. It seemed that he went over fairly quickly.
“Has anyone spoken to Mo—” Link swallows. “—Lady Eleana?”
“We have sent a courier to Hateno Village. He shall arrive there tomorrow morning,” Sir Remi says. He draws a breath and pats Link’s shoulder. “Link, I am truly sorry for your loss. Your father was a great man. He was devoted to the kingdom until the very end.”
Link wants to laugh. It’s not just loss; it’s the way this tragedy struck him in its indifference, its abruptness. There’s something so crudely simple about it all—that a great man and a talented fighter like Father went quietly in his sleep. As if a divine hand just decided to pluck his soul out of his body. Not giving him so much of a chance to say his goodbyes.
Death, Link thinks, is inartistic and unelaborately cruel. It takes without so much of a blink, let alone a warning.
He stays quiet. Replies to words of condolences and sympathies with a polite nod and masterful silence.
A week later, at Hyrule Cathedral, Link bears the weight of a coffin on his shoulder along with Sir Remi and Captain Harold and three other knights. He holds his chin up high, eyes always ahead. They make their way in between the pews, through the nave.
Once the coffin rests before the altar, Link stations himself beside Father. He gazes at the congregation, at Mother who is dressed in all black just like the others but with no veil obscuring her visage. Her bloodshot eyes and trembling lips are bared for all to see.
In the front row, the Princess rises from her seat and makes her way to the other side of the coffin. Link watches and watches, but she refuses to meet his eyes. She faces the crowd and utters a prayer. After that, the King gives a short speech.
And just like that, Father is transported to the Royal Cemetery and laid to rest alongside the commanders that have come before him. In a plot not far from the mausoleum which houses the late Queen of Hyrule.
After the funeral, Link follows Mother to the empty house in Castle Town, packing up the few belongings that Father had left to bring back to Hateno.
“Do you know I have never been in this house since ten years ago?” Her eyes linger on Father’s nightstand, on a small painting of Link as a child, and another one of a young woman, though the artwork itself looks decayed. “The last time was after the Queen’s funeral. Do you remember?”
Link nods.
“He brought us to that artist near Castle Town Bakery, and painted a small portrait of you.” There’s a hint of a smile in her voice. “When we stayed here that night, he put the portrait right here.” Her fingers trace over the wooden frame. “His nightstand had always been the place where he kept his prized possessions. Back at home, before he’d spent most of his days here, it was the necklace I had gotten him from our honeymoon in Lurelin Village,” she says. “Goddess knows where that necklace is, now.”
Upon hearing Mother’s voice wavering, Link stops sorting through the wardrobe to stand before her as she sits down on the bed.
“Is something the matter?” he asks.
She reaches for the portrait of a young woman and inspects it before shoving it into his hand.
“Do you know who that is, Link?”
Link brings the portrait closer to his eyes, and for the first time, he notices the delicate blonde locks. The big eyes. The smile that is eerily familiar.
And suddenly, a lot of things in his life start to make sense.
“This is the Queen,” Link says.
Mother lets out a tremulous exhale.
“Your father is an honorable man. Honorable until the very end, truly. But he had always carried a torch for the Queen ever since he became a royal guard.” She pauses, her fingers curled into fists. “Oh, did he love her. It ate him up from the inside. It ate me up, too. Which is why we hadn’t been happily married for a long time.
“But I love him, and I love you, and I’d do anything for you both, so I stayed. Still, I can’t help but feel that all that family—the Goddess—has ever done is take and take from me. My father, my husband, and now my son.”
Bile rises in his throat. “I’m right here, Mom.”
“I know, but you were never mine to begin with. You are Hylia’s. You have always been Hers.” She grimaces, tears rolling down her cheeks. “That sword, the Princess, the prophecies…” her face contorts as she breaks into violent sobs.
Link sets down the portrait on the nightstand and sits next to her. Takes her trembling hand in his. He hates to see her despair like this, hates that she isn’t wrong, because he is Hylia’s.
He is Princess Zelda’s. And he has been hers since before he was even here at all.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.
Mother shakes her head. “No, no. It’s not your fault,” she says, her hand squeezing his. “I just fear for you, Link. I see a lot of your father in you, and I can’t— I can’t lose you, too.”
“You won’t,” he replies, and the lie tastes bitter on his tongue.
She’s still crying, her fingers still tightly wound around his, but eventually, she quiets and nods. Smiles in resolve, as if trying to convince herself that everything is going to be just fine.
“Okay,” she murmurs. “Okay.”
And Link finds himself nodding along with her.
Link is no stranger to death.
And in the Sanctum, with the Royal Guard uniform finally wrapped around his body and his knees on the floor and the Princess’ dull sword on his shoulder, Link knows that somehow, he will die young.
That doesn’t mean he is any less scared.
But for now, he is standing up, her lips have stopped moving, and her divine fingers are picking up the medallion from a velvet pillow offered by a courtier. She steps closer to him, her verdant gaze all fire and wrath and still refusing to meet his eyes, before pinning the medallion onto the lapel of his surcoat.
Link suspects that this will be the first and last time she stands this close to him.
“I hereby declare you an imperial guard and defender of the Royal Family of Hyrule. May the Goddess bless you forevermore in your holy duty, Sir Knight.” Her voice is soft. Laced with bitterness.
She steps back, but then she inclines her head and finally, for a second, their eyes lock, and suddenly Link thinks of his old friend Miko and that silly conversation they had underneath an apple tree long ago.
When you love someone, you’d take anything they give you. Even hate.
Link thought Miko to be silly, then, but now, with Princess Zelda before him and his heartbeat in his throat, he completely understands his friend. Because he’d take anything she would deign to give him. Anything.
Hatred, venom, rage, even death.
And he’d take it all with open arms and a heart bursting with love.