Chapter Text
The storm shouldn’t have scared Lin, but it did. Something about the driving rain and great cracks of thunder curled magic through her bones and into her veins.
She wasn’t sure, if she landed in the water, she’d be able to transform.
She'd never been scared of water before — had always longed for the sparkly, shiny shore even as a child — but she couldn’t stop the shudders of fear as she fought with the ship’s sail.
There was a bright flash of light, searing pain, and then the icy water covered her head and drowned out the wailing wind. She pulled on the magic of her pendant, but nothing happened. This was how she’d go, then? Even as she struggled uselessly against the waves, there was relief that, if she had to die, it would be in her mother’s domain — her domain.
She was finally returning to the sea.
---
Lin awoke on an island, surprised to still be alive.
The girl who had rescued her, Marin, had a bright blue dress and curly red hair. She was easily one of the prettiest people Lin had ever seen.
Lin found herself drawn to Marin. They were quickly best friends, exploring the island and playing pranks on the inhabitants. She was having more fun than she’d had in years.
---
On her one year anniversary of being on the island, Lin found herself trusting Marin more than she had anyone but Uncle. She took Marin to a secluded cove on the island, where she showed off her tail.
Marin ooh-ed and ah-ed over it, admiring the pretty colours and the way it sparkled in the tropical sunlight. Lin felt pretty, and not just like she was playing a character of a proper girl. It was a good feeling.
When Lin pulled herself out of the waves and changed back, a brief look of hesitance flashed over Marin’s face before it firmed into determination.
In exchange for Lin sharing her secret, Marin shared one of her own — she hadn’t always been Marin, she’d been born Marcas.
Lin wasn’t sure if she was surprised or not, but she thanked Marin for telling her and said she was the prettiest girl.
Marin blushed, and a line of tension Lin hadn’t noticed she was carrying fell off her shoulders. She glanced around, and then leaned forward and kissed Lin on the cheek.
Lin nearly fell back into the water, face burning.
---
Dating Marin was as easy as breathing. Easier, almost.
Not much of what they did changed — they still explored the island, they still played pranks, they still played music. They just added in kissing.
Life was beautiful. Lin was happier than she’d ever been before.
---
Lin was laying in bed one evening, trying to get to sleep, when he suddenly shot upright, certain he was a boy.
He wasn’t sure exactly how he knew, but something in his chest felt right at that thought. He felt a sort of awed giddiness at the acknowledgement. He itched to tell someone. He had to tell someone.
He climbed out of the bed he’d been staying in in Marin and Tarin’s house and wandered over to his girlfriend’s bed to shake her awake.
“Is something wrong?” she asked him quietly.
Sudden nervousness thrummed through his veins and his throat closed. It had been months since he’d had to use sign, his voice escaping freely on the island, but he was forced to use it now.
It was dark enough, he put his hand against Marin’s, and signed so she could feel, “I think I’m a boy.”
“Oh, I’m so proud of you! Congratulations!” She threw her arms around him in a big hug. “Do you have a new name picked out yet?”
“No, not yet,” he said, voice back.
“I can help you think of some options in the morning?”
“I’d like that.” He kissed her and then climbed back into bed, still giddy.
---
Link. His name was Link. It was what everyone in Hyrule had called him anyway.
---
When Marin asked if he could take her swimming, Link found himself unable to deny her. He’d been worried that the pink of his tail would make him uncomfortable, but his fears had been unfounded. His mermaid form felt just as natural on him as it always had.
They explored the coasts of the island, looking at the brightly-coloured tropical fish and corals. Sometimes, Marin would stay floating on the surface while Link dove down to the sea floor to grab her shells, pretty rocks, and, once, an oyster that he was pretty sure had a pearl in it.
(They’d crack it open later to reveal that, yes, it did have a pearl in it.)
Near sunset, they drifted lazily together on their backs, Link’s tail keeping them from floating too far from the island. As they watched orange and pink and purple paint across the sky, Link told Marin he loved her.
Marin didn’t hesitate in saying it back.
---
Something was wrong. Link wasn’t entirely sure what the issue was, but something in his chest felt gross every time someone called him “he” or a “boy”. It was almost worse than being thought of as a girl, or someone referring to him as “she”.
When he asked Marin about it, she suggested “they”. Link agreed to have her try it on them, and… it was better. They weren’t sure it was perfect, but it was definitely better.
---
Link thought they might like to spend the rest of their life on this island, here with Marin. They’d definitely travel, and Link had to bring her to Hyrule to meet Uncle and Princess Zelda, but they could call Koholint home.
They wondered what Uncle would think, them having been gone for four years and being a different gender than when they’d left. They hoped the orchard was doing well.
Link had sent a few letters back when they’d been in Holodrum and Labrynna, just to let Uncle know they were okay, but saving the world didn’t leave a lot of opportunities to receive letters back. They hadn’t had the chance to send any letters since washing ashore on Koholint, but Uncle would understand.
Still, they missed him. They wanted desperately to introduce Marin to him, to tie the two parts of their family together. Uncle would love her.
---
Link came to the realisation that their pronouns still weren’t right. It was frustrating, to still not have it figured out more than a year in.
“He” wasn’t right, “they” wasn’t right, “she” definitely wasn’t right. Maybe they could mix two?
He asked Marin, and she was more than happy to use both “he” and “they” for them.
---
Finally, he felt comfortable. He hadn’t realised how much trying to fit into the mould of “boy” had been hurting, until he tried to use “he” without “boy”.
They still used “they”, but it no longer hurt when people called them “he”. He finally felt settled.
---
The pink in his tail was nice. He’d thought he’d hate it, had braced every time he changed to feel discomfort in the femininity of the pink, but it hadn’t happened.
Instead, he kept finding himself actually really enjoying it. It was a sign that, as much as he was boy-ish, he was still a bit feminine.
Marin’d had no idea what he was talking about when he’d tried to explain, but that was okay. She was just glad that he was happy.
---
Link was going to propose to Marin, he just had to work up the courage.
He could bravely face monsters, had no issue making his way through dungeons, had saved the world several times, but he couldn’t make himself say just a couple of words.
He wasn’t even sure what he was afraid of. He couldn’t actually imagine Marin would say no. They’d already talked about spending their lives together, just not in so certain a term.
He half wished he could just buy a ring and present it to her, with no words. Marin wouldn’t mind, but he couldn’t do that to her. She deserved the words to go with it. She was worth working up the courage to speak.
---
He’d done it. He’d worked up the courage. He’d even bought the ring (and endured all the teasing that came with it). They couldn’t marry yet — you had to be 18 to marry, and they were only 17 — but they could get married right after their birthdays.
He only had one last thing to do. He was going to wake the Wind Fish before he proposed. Marin had implied that they couldn’t leave the island until it was awake, and he wanted her to meet his uncle before the wedding. Actually, he’d like Uncle to be at the wedding.
He only had one last dungeon to complete, one last instrument to collect, and then it would be over.
---
TO THE FINDER... THE ISLE OF KOHOLINT, IS BUT AN ILLUSION... HUMAN, MONSTER, SEA, SKY... A SCENE ON THE LID OF A SLEEPER'S EYE... AWAKE THE DREAMER, AND KOHOLINT WILL VANISH MUCH LIKE A BUBBLE ON A NEEDLE... CAST-AWAY, YOU SHOULD KNOW THE TRUTH!
---
Link woke up, 14 again and horribly alone. He was on a small bit of what had once been the deck of his ship. He was surprised that he’d recognised it, considering he’d lived three years since the shipwreck.
He watched the now-awake Wind Fish swim off into the sky and smiled, because otherwise he would cry.
When it was long-gone, and he felt a bit less like he would burst into tears if he so much as breathed wrong, he rolled into the water and let his mermaid transformation take hold. The ocean was colder than it’d been on Koholint, deeper and not sun-warmed. Still, it greeted him like an old friend.
He was tempted to sink to the ocean floor and stay there. He could hunt for fish, swim with dolphins, and never have to interact with people again.
He’d never have to grow close to someone again. Never come to love someone.
What would Uncle think, though? He had to go back, to at least visit his uncle.
---
It was a long swim, but he somehow managed to find the coast of Hyrule. It took him a few days to travel back towards the capital, but he was used to travelling like that now. It was easy to forage for food, and there were enough lakes and rivers that he could always hunt for fish even if he couldn’t find anything else to eat.
It took him a week to get to Kakariko. His house was only an hour away. He thought he should be excited, but he felt little more than slight relief. He was keeping himself going through sheer force of will at this point, but he wanted nothing more than to collapse into Uncle’s arms so he could finally grieve properly.
His plans were stopped by Sahasralah, who called him into his house, like he had so many times during Link’s first quest.
“It’s good to see you back and alive. Unfortunately, I have some bad news for you. There was a terrible illness that swept through town while you were away. I’m afraid your uncle caught it…”
---
Link barely made it back to the cottage he’d grown up in before he collapsed under the weight of his grief.
His only bright point was that Uncle had been able to make sure that Link could keep staying in the cottage, rather than being shipped back to his father. He still had the orchard, though it had fallen into slight disrepair while no one had been taking care of it. He still had the lake where he’d first used his tail.
He still had his home, much as it wasn’t a replacement for everything he’d lost.
---
He didn’t leave the house for a week.
He’d eventually managed to run out of food, despite eating so little that it was probably dangerous — note to self, worry about that later — and so he’d wandered back into town. The nice thing was that no one except Sahasralah recognised him. He didn’t have to worry about people asking him invasive questions about not being a girl anymore.
Mostly, people thought he was new in town. When he mentioned “moving into” his uncle’s house, they just nodded and moved on, allowing him to buy whatever supplies he needed.
As relieving as it was to not have to spill his entire life story, he’d never felt so alone.
---
Six months later, Link had finally settled back into life. He’d fixed up the orchard as best he could, encouraging the apples to grow. He wasn’t sure how good his efforts were — he didn’t imagine the harvest would be all that good this year, or probably the next.
He also finally worked up the courage to visit Princess Zelda, who was happy to see him and told him she had mourned his uncle too. She’d apparently been the one to make sure that Uncle’s final wishes regarding him had gone through, and Link couldn’t have been more grateful.
While at the castle, he asked for access to the library. He’d had enough quests at this point — three, or four if he wanted to count Koholint — that it seemed likely that he’d have to do another at some point. It’d be nice to do research on the past heroes so he could learn from them.
---
Link had already known some things about the previous heroes — the Fallen Hero, who’d been the last hero to try and defeat Ganon; the Hero of the Four Sword, or maybe Heroes, who were the last successful hero(es); and the Chosen Hero, who’d been favoured by the goddesses and was Princess Zelda’s ancestor. These were well-known facts.
What he hadn’t known was that all of them were named Link. No wonder everyone had thought that was his name.
It made him think a bit about his destiny. Had he chosen this path, or was he always fated to be a hero? He’d picked his name based on the fact that everyone had been calling him that anyways, but was it really his name? Would he have picked something else if he wasn’t a hero? Would things have been different if the name of every hero was further from his first, if every hero had been named something like Ralph?
He didn’t know.
---
Link needed to get a job at some point. He wasn’t sure what to do; no one paid him for killing monsters, but that was all he had real experience in.
Despite the existential crisis he went into every time he thought about the past heroes, he couldn’t help but look to them for answers with his dilemma — after all, surely they, too, had dealt with this issue.
Unfortunately, only one of them had ever had a real job, the Fallen Hero not having survived long enough to have a job, and the Chosen Hero having started founding Hyrule not long after his quest, ruling the budding country being his full-time job.
Link started an apprenticeship at the blacksmith’s.
---
The blacksmith was a nice man for putting up with him, but Link, frankly, hated his job. Still, he had to do something, and this at least got him out of the house. Also, Gulley was a nice addition to his life.
The blacksmith’s son, Gulley, had no problem barging into Link's house to wake him up when he was late for work. Given the number of times he couldn't sleep until early morning or woke up from nightmares, it was a good way to make sure he showed up at all.
He just wished he felt any passion for the craft.
---
The apples were smaller and more bitter than they used to be, but he nearly sold out of them anyway. Everyone who bought one told him that they were grateful he was keeping the orchard going.
It was nice. He liked the orchard. He resolved to do a better job next year, so that the apples would be even better.
---
Link was knocked out at the church, and woke up in his own home, with a strange person in a purple hood standing over him.
Ravio ended up taking over his house, but Link was gone so often he didn't really mind. Besides, he found himself enjoying Ravio’s antics and forgiving his ludicrous prices.
Also, it was just nice having someone else in the house.
---
Link had his sword raised against Hilda, protecting Zelda, when Ravio ran in. He wasn’t sure how to react when the person who had been his housemate stepped in front of Hilda protectively. His sword lowered automatically.
He was even more surprised when Ravio put down his rabbit hood for the first time ever, and Link realised that they had nearly identical faces, apart from eye and hair colour.
He didn’t contribute much to the conversation, still stuck on the realisation that Ravio was his Lorulian opposite. He’d wondered where they were, when he’d visited, but he’d figured that they must be in his home town. He hadn’t ever suspected that they might have come through the portals and been living in his own house! He wondered if Ravio was like him, if there’d ever been a Ravi or maybe Ravia.
He was still thinking about it when, standing in front of the portal to take them home, Ravio grabbed his hands and thanked him. He was so caught off-guard that he didn’t even respond. He thought about it as he landed back in Hyrule with Princess Zelda, as he left the sacred realm after wishing on the Triforce, as he walked back home.
It didn’t matter, he decided when he reached his cottage. It wasn’t like he’d ever see Ravio again. He was just one more in a long line of people who had left Link alone, one way or another.
---
Link didn’t rejoin his apprenticeship. He’d earned enough money from his orchard so far that he wasn’t too worried about making a living, especially if it kept improving as he took care of it. The only reason he hadn’t quit at the time was that he didn’t want to say that to the blacksmith’s face after everything he and his family had done for him.
However, he’d had to put the apprenticeship on hold to save the world, and it was a lot easier after to just… not show up.
It took a week for anyone to check up on him, in his lonely house. It was Gulley. Link did his best to put on a cheerful face for the kid, but he knew it didn’t fool him. Gulley was a sweet kid, though, and he didn’t mention the unmade bed, the dishes in the sink, or the fact that Link hadn’t bathed more than a quick scrub-down after the final battle.
Gulley started visiting often, at least two to three times a week, and just pulling Link out of the house to do something. They spent a whole afternoon looking for frogs at the lake. They tried to one-up each other at finding the coolest rock at the river. They played tag through the trees in Link’s orchard.
However, they never went into town. The curse Agahnim had put on the guards when he was nine had been reinvigorated by Yuga, and it hadn’t gone away. He’d started making his shopping trips at odd hours. Most of the residents of Kakariko were understanding, and would make sure he had his usual order ready to go so he could grab it and run. A few even delivered directly to his door. He was incredibly grateful, and made sure to show it by discounting his apples just a bit when he sold to them. He still made more than enough money for the next year.
---
Link was seventeen. Again. He was approaching the age where he’d awoken the Wind Fish. He looked different than he had in the dream — he was shorter, for one, and his chest was bigger. It was difficult to handle not looking how he expected when he looked in a mirror.
It was also getting harder and harder to force himself out of his house. He had a problem even getting out of bed most days. There were many days when he wished he’d never awoken the Wind Fish. He could have stayed, happily ignorant, on Koholint with Marin.
Except, no, he couldn’t have. Marin had spoken many times of wanting to travel the world, and Link would have given anything to give her that opportunity. There was no version of his trip to Koholint that didn’t end with him waking the Wind Fish, except one where Marin didn’t want to travel, and she wouldn’t be Marin if she didn’t share his love of seeing the world.
---
There was a knock at his door. Link could barely pull himself from his bed to answer it, but he figured it must have been important. Even Gulley didn’t visit often these days, busy with his own apprenticeship.
He hadn’t been expecting Princess Zelda to be standing on the other side, free of the knights that usually surrounded her. He was a bit relieved that they weren’t there, as they were still trying to kill him every chance they got, but he was also incredibly worried about her being on her own without protection. What was so bad that she had to leave the castle and come to him? Was there another quest he needed to go on? Was Ganon back?
“You need to take a vacation,” Princess Zelda said, nose crinkled slightly. “Somewhere far. Perhaps Hytopia? I hear it’s very pretty there. It would be good for you to get out of the house.”
Link bristled, but even he couldn't deny a direct order from the princess.
He packed up his things and went to Hytopia.
---
Link actually really liked Hytopia. Princess Zelda had been right, as usual — he had needed to get out of the house.
Also, despite having been drawn in to yet-another quest (this one wasn’t so bad; Ganon wasn’t back, and the only “life” at stake was Princess Styla’s social life), he found himself really enjoying the outfits he was given to wear. It was nice being able to wear whatever — even fancy dresses that could rival Princess Zelda’s usual attire, full of ruffles and bows — and still not get called a girl.
Eventually, though, he’d broken the curse and had to return to Hyrule. The house was just as empty as he’d left it, though all the outfits he put in his wardrobe helped. The potions Madame Couture gave him when he left, which made him look more like he had before he’d left Koholint, helped even more.
---
A couple of weeks after his eighteenth birthday, a knock came at his door.
He stared at it uncomprehendingly. He’d seen Gulley yesterday and Princess Zelda only a couple days before, so neither of them should be knocking on his door unplanned. He didn’t have any deliveries from the townsfolk in Kakariko, who were still helping him avoid the soldiers in exchange for the promise of apples. The soldiers themselves couldn’t get past the porch due to the wards on the property.
The knock came again, and curiosity got the better of Link. He opened the door.
“Hi, Mr. Hero!”
---
After the restoration of its Triforce, Lorule was resettling into a prosperous land once again. Ravio had helped Princess Hilda get the government set up, especially social planning and infrastructure works.
It had been difficult, he said, to convince the people that things would get better, but the last two harvests had been greatly improved on anything since before Ravio had been born. Hope was finally taking root in the hearts of the people.
Ravio himself, however, had apparently fallen in love with Hyrule while he’d stayed in Link’s house, and so had started working on a way to get back. With Princess Zelda’s blessing, he was now an ambassador for Lorule. He would facilitate trade between the two countries (on paper, at least; in practice, he occasionally visited Zelda for tea and to gossip, with the Princess managing the trade deals just fine without his help).
Link congratulated him on his new position, and quietly wondered if the country was the only thing Ravio had fallen in love with. He bit his tongue before he said anything, though.
The house was a lot less quiet with Ravio around — less lonely, too — and he didn’t want to change that.
---
Heart hammering in his chest, Link led Ravio down to the lake on the property. The only person he’d ever told about his transformation was Marin. She’d taken it well, sure, but that wasn’t a guarantee that everyone else would. He wasn’t sure what the general opinion of mermaids were in Lorule, but he remembered, vividly, the way Mama stared out at an ocean she couldn’t rejoin. His necklace would be harder to steal than a tail would have been, but it wasn’t impossible.
Like the first time he’d done this, the words to speak had been stolen from his chest. He couldn’t open his mouth to explain. His lips had been welded shut.
Instead, he reached the edge of the water and dove in, letting the magic wash over him.
He surfaced a second later, heart in his throat. Ravio had his hands over his mouth. He removed them, revealing a giant, beaming smile. His hands flapped excitedly.
“Your tail is so pretty, Mr. Hero!”
Actually, he wasn’t so sure why he’d ever been worried. Of course Ravio liked it. It took very little coaxing for him to join Link in the water.
---
Life re-settled after that. Ravio helped him collect apples to sell to the townspeople. The merchant was very pleased to be making money again, given that his own business's “most valued client” (Link) wasn’t giving him any rupees any more.
As usual, the people of Kakariko were overjoyed to buy his apples. Link had to stop Ravio from selling promises of apples the following year three separate times.
The baker gifted him and Ravio with a whole apple pie in thanks, which Link was too embarrassed to take. Ravio, greedy bastard that he was, grabbed the pie with no issues. Link let him.
---
The portal that opened in his yard when he was 19 wasn’t surprising, but that didn’t mean he liked it.
He quickly packed everything he might need for yet-another quest. Before he left, he spent a solid twenty minutes coaching Ravio on how to take care of the orchard. Having seen how much money they could earn by selling the apples, Ravio was a lot more amenable to getting dirty than he had been previously.
Link stepped through the portal, and found himself surrounded by 8 other boys and men. He didn’t know it at the time, but he’d come to trust these people as much as he trusted Ravio.