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But he was a royal treasure, the blue-eyed son of Hyrule, and one that they could not bear the thought of losing to the woods from whence he came, so they gave him quarters in the castle with the promise that they would lock the doors at night. He did not protest, but when they saw the arsenal he carried with him, such lamentations of dangers within the castle walls quickly reached the ears of the Princess, and she gave him leave enough to return the artefacts to where they belonged.
A retinue of twenty of Hyrule’s finest soldiers followed the farm boy on horseback, in a tight formation, as he purged himself of his journey: from the heights of Death Mountain, where he returned the Hero’s Bow to the Goron, to the darkest hole in the Arbiter’s Grounds, where eighteen of them had nightmares of bony hands and disembodied spirits. He was allowed to keep very little – the shield and the Hawkeye they determined were safe enough, and could hang on his wall ceremonially; the white bone horseshoe and the fishing rod were overlooked. Everything else, from the Clawshots to the impressive collection of bombs, had to be returned. What does a Knight of Hyrule need, the powdered aristocrats and serving maids said, with a non-standard-issue lantern, or a ball and chain, too heavy for human hands to wield?
It was a humid afternoon when he returned to Ordon Village to return the Iron Boots and the Slingshot, and the knights stood at attention as he hugged the children one by one, said his goodbyes to the adults, gave them the soft and sad smile that had become his signature. The children cried, and Ilia wept, openly and unashamedly, for her broken heart, but Link was not hers and never would be.
The adults only watched and nodded to themselves, knowing – in a way that only adults know – that this day had been coming for a long, long time.
Then Link turned, and the company departed for the Sacred Grove. He motioned for the company to remain outside, by the entrance to the Forest Temple, while he skulked off to do his duty. When he returned two hours later without the Dominion Rod and the Master Sword, there was a certain ashen colour to his face that disturbed his guards in a way that none of them could name or place.
After a short pause for sandwiches of meat and goat cheese with pumpkin butter, provided graciously by the farmhands of Ordon Village, they hitched their horses and turned north.
There were rumours circulating already that Link and Epona could, at the height of the civil war, make the trip from his home village to the Zora’s Domain in only two days, when for most human beings it would take five days – seven, if one slept and ate properly. He was not in a hurry, as evidenced by the roundabout trip that had already taken the better part of three weeks, and on the afternoon of the eighth day after leaving Ordon they were in the throne room of the Zora as Link presented an earring to their boy-king.
“We’re wasting time here,” one of the soldiers grumbled to the woman beside him, but he only earned an elbow in the side for his protest. Link did strange things with his hands, ate like a farm boy, and never spoke, his wide eyes appearing to take in far more than the rest of them could see. As the Princess had made clear, they were not to question Link’s actions on their pilgrimage; in addition to all of his weapons, he needed to purge himself of the deep fissures in his spirit. Besides, from the way he and the Zora King embraced, surely this was an event with much more meaning than was immediately clear.
It was late in the afternoon of the following day when the twenty-one quit the Zora’s Domain, leading tired horses, finally ready to head back to Castle Town. Link paused for several moments outside the door that led to the fishing hole, and tethered his horse.
“I’ll return tomorrow,” he said, and it was the first time he had spoken since the trip began. “Don’t wait for me.”
They looked at each other, knights each one of them, but Princess Zelda’s orders were clear. They saluted and mounted their horses, returned to the castle, and the rough and quiet sound of a voice long out of use haunted them all the way home.
Hena knew none of this, of course; she only heard the sound of horses outside her little shop, and the sight of a familiar customer entering. Summer had brought the return of the search for the Hylian Loach, and she was out in her boat when Link entered. The sight of him cleaned up brought a smile to her face – the last time he had been by, he’d been a complete wreck, his tunic badly in need of a wash and his body so starved of a good hot meal that his hands had developed a nervous twitch – and she waved to him before docking the canoe. He grabbed a long piece of grass, sticking it in his mouth as he followed her into the hut, with a looseness of his hips and a hunch to his shoulders that reminded her that he would really never be a stuffed-shirt soldier like the lot of them in Castle Town.
“Hungry?”
He nodded. She passed him a mortar and pestle filled with coffee beans before grabbing a pot and pan and a second fishing rod. The two of them left through the back door to the fire pit. Link stoked the coals and coaxed out a flame, while Hena poked about in the vegetable garden for carrot and leek.
Within minutes the fire was roaring, and Link was roasting the beans while Hena wound the rods. The routine action gave her a chance to take stock of the Southerner who’d stumbled into her place so many months ago. He was carrying much less than he used to, most notably missing the sword with the blue pommel, and instead of the green tunic and hat he was in a standard-issue set of armour that identified him as a member of the Princess’ Guard. She was impressed, but not surprised. Given the ease with which he’d carried his last sword, she figured it was only a matter of time until someone paid him to do it.
“Here,” she said, handing him the extra rod she’d grabbed. “Figured we’d eat whatever was biting, though I’ve a hankering for bass. Work for you?”
It must have worked for him, because he took the rod and moved towards the canoe, grabbing another piece of grass before taking his usual spot in the bow seat. Such silence was uncharacteristic, even for him, although she supposed it was a long time coming. He’d visited a few times in the months since she’d opened up shop, and each time he spoke a little less.
She had to wonder, what had happened to him? Why was he so quiet, and why did he always seem so ragged and underfed, so shifty in the eyes, as though he was being chased by something neither of them could see?
They paddled out to the centre of the fishing hole, and Hena got to grinding the freshly roasted beans while Link made his first cast. He leaned back, resting his head on the yoke, staring up at the stars as they began to appear. She waited. After five silent minutes, he spoke.
“Zelda hired me,” he said, softly.
(She used to chatter to fill the silence, but quickly learned that he was not shy, he just considered his words very carefully.)
“Well, congratulations! It must be nice for a swordsman like yourself to find a home, eh?”
He seemed to think about that for a while, slowly jerking his lure.
“I don’t know.”
(Very carefully.)
She waited for him to qualify, but he only sighed, tugging with his right hand at the collar of his white tunic; only the sound of her grinding the coffee beans, and the fainter sound of water hitting the canoe, stood in for conversation.
Finally, she could stand it no more. She put down the bowl with a clank, startling him out of his own head. “Link, look at me.” He turned, and the expression on his face was halfway between placidity and shock. “Link, if you’re hurtin’ and need someone to listen, you need to talk. I don’t know what’s happened to you – but tell me. It’ll help.”
He looked down, at his feet. Then he turned his body around to face her, and pulled the gauntlet off his left hand. There was a mark, there – one she didn’t recognize, at first. But then it dawned on her.
“Goddess,” she cursed, softly. “That there’s the Mark of the Hero, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “There was a war.”
“Someone came for Hyrule Castle?”
“They came for Hyrule.” He replaced the gauntlet, and turned back around. She leaned forward to hear him. “It was beyond the Princess to stop, so I…”
“…You what?”
The sudden sound of rippling water drew both of their attention; the bobber on Link’s rod was moving. He turned away, and the conversation was over.
There was this nightmare she had once, where the sun set but night never came. In the golden world of dusk, time stopped and the air became still, and all she could do was wait for the end to come, frozen by the fear of a nameless evil that surely was coming for her.
She gave him the honour of gutting and cleaning the bass; it was his catch, after all, and he had an army knife that he seemed interested in testing (it was, she noted, serrated – such a knife would be useless against a wolf or an enemy, and useless for the taking of one’s own life. It didn’t seem standard-issue). She contented herself with boiling water for coffee and slicing vegetables, scrub carrot and wild leek that she grew behind her hut.
“I’ve been to strange places,” he said, removing the scales with the back of the blade. “Far to the west, there’s a prison in the desert. It’s – out of use, now.”
“The Arbiter’s Grounds? They say it’s haunted as hell. At least – Papa said as much, when I was little. To scare my brother and sister and me.”
“Yeah. Hell.” Link broke through the fish’s rib cage with a snap. “I was in there for two days – I think. Looking for the execution grounds.”
“Two days? How’d you sleep? What’d you eat?”
“Didn’t sleep. Too many – things.” He paused, busying himself by removing the first fillet, and taking off the skin. “I had potions. And there were…rats.”
The thought of a Hylian surviving on rats was halfway between disgusting and horrifying, and she became hyperaware of the way he carried himself, like an animal. That was the transformation she’d been seeing, over the few times he had visited her little fishing hole -- the slow turning of man into beast.
“If you don’t mind me bein’ presumptuous, then, I’d say you’re wonderin’ what to make of all of it, yeah?”
“Zelda wants me to stay in her palace, and all I want to do is --” He bit his lip, obviously struggling for the right words. “-- Run, all I want to do is run, far away. They said they’ll lock the door at night. I think they mean they’re locking me in.”
Hena cursed softly. “Damn city folk. So is this your last night of freedom?”
He nodded, and she took the opportunity to celebrate his last few hours alive by producing a pat of butter and some old bread, and they breaded and pan-fried the fish and ate it with carrots and leek. Afterwards she found a pumpkin pie she’d been saving for a rainy day, and they shared it and drank the coffee peasant-style, bitter as the taste of trying to get away and not quite making it.
The night was brilliant when they took out the canoe into the middle of the lake, and they shared the constellations in the summer sky together -- Sagittarius, Scutum, Hercules, Lupus, the Great Triangle, guide to travellers, and mark of the Goddess’ power. The waves rocked them to sleep, and in the morning he thanked her for the fish, and left for the city at the centre of Lanayru Province, the verdant land which had once been a desert, and before that, a sea.
Hena shook her head. Watching Link depart always filled her with strange, sad thoughts, as though she was getting glimpses of the many heroes who had come before him. But Link, the bright-eyed goatherd who loved chasing salamanders and could name every star in the sky, who was burdened not with his purpose but with the memory of eating rats, was so much more than a soldier, or a hero, or a body onto which someone else’s stories could be written. Strip this blue-eyed son of Hyrule of all those legends, she thought towards the city and its palace and its Princess, as Link disappeared over the horizon. Take away all his weapons and treasures, and you’ll get a good picture of what’s left.