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“Do you regret taking in your grandson?”
It’s a curious thing, the follies of youth. Smith may be old, but he still remembers being young even if the memories were blurry. When he was his dear daughter’s age, he was learning a trade and flirting with the most attractive woman in town. Only flirting, mind you, he understood how society was structured. An unmarried man could run away from his responsibilities, an unmarried woman could not.
It was a lesson he apparently failed to bestow upon his daughter.
The father (a rather lowly knight) had long since left, having taken a station as far away from the castle as possible, running from the mess he had left behind. Smith’s daughter didn’t have that option. She was forced to stay in the castle, working throughout the pregnancy while failing to hide her growing body that was changing to accommodate the child that grew within, a child she held nothing but mirth for.
It was a sad state of affairs that brought her to this point. The knight probably told her that he will love her forever, that they would get married if she would give him this one little thing… It was a story Smith had heard over and over again through the years. One that kept repeating and would likely continue repeating until the end of time.
It was unbecoming for a father to attend to his daughter whilst she is in labour, so Smith was relegated to the outside of the room for the nine hours his daughter laboured for. Everyone in the castle knew about the pregnancy and the mother’s unmarried status. Smith often had people come up to him to express their thoughts on his coming grandchild, often in disappointed or disapproving tones.
“I’m sorry for you.” Always for him, never for her.
“It must be hard for you.” It would be easier if you could be more considerate about the circumstances.
“You know, there’s always another option…” That was the worst one. The child, no matter how they were conceived, was his grandchild, his blood. It was the responsibility of his family to care for them and give them the best life possible. Not that there were many of them. Smith and his dear wife only had one child.
The comments were never in anger as Smith’s status as the best blacksmith in all of Hyrule saved him from their disapproval of him personally. His daughter had no such protection and was given the hardest jobs by the other servants to perform even in the late stages of pregnancy. Smith could do nothing to protect her, his powers did not extend to the inner workings of the castle.
“Whore.”
“Sullied.”
“Bastard.”
Honestly, chances were there was someone in the family of the people who said these things who went through the same thing as Smith’s daughter was. It was more common than people realised. It’s just that the parents tend not to want to admit to their mistakes.
When Smith was finally called in (and Goddess was that the best thing, the fake shows of empathy were getting on his nerves) the first thing he heard from his daughter’s mouth was “I don’t want him.”
The baby is a boy was the first thing that registered in Smith’s head. The second, and more important detail, was that if his daughter refused the child, then he would be sent to an orphanage and would surely have a horrible life. People didn’t really adopt children that were not blood related to them and the carers sometimes mistreated children that had unmarried parents.
He understood where his daughter was coming from. Being a single parent was difficult, Smith knew that. He had raised her by himself after his wife’s death. But that didn’t mean you could give up. If orphanages were better, Smith would allow it. But they weren’t. They were horribly underfunded and the children horribly mistreated.
He couldn’t allow that for his grandson. Which was how, six years after his birth, Smith lived alone in Hyrule Town with Link.
When the parents won’t take responsibility, it falls to the grandparents.
Link was a surprisingly happy child, all things considering. His interest in fairy tales and the new game of Kinstones that were attracting people young and old were regular childish things for a child to indulge in in this time. He was small but strong, something that reminded Smith of the Hero of Men legend that Link loved to listen to. Every year, Link would go to the festival with Princess Zelda (how those two became friends, Smith could never understand, but he suspected that them being the only two children living in the castle until Smith moved outside its walls was the answer) and listen to that old story.
Picori, a child’s fairy tale. Smith couldn’t wait until Link was old enough to finally start a trade and learn something useful. He already started basic sword-fighting, something Smith was never good at but Link was so he supposed the son of a knight would have those ingrain skills. Hopefully he’ll have Smith’s blacksmithing skills as well. They would serve him better in the long run.
So no, Smith did not regret taking in his grandson. The boy whose head was in the clouds, but his feet on the ground. He was an intelligent and hardworking boy who knew where he was coming from and what he had to do. The responsibilities the boy would have to take would be endless, Smith knew from experience. As a future blacksmith, Link would have to work day and night, but the rewards at the end were good. He could raise a family with the money blacksmithing brought in and would never have to foist the responsibilities of childrearing onto somebody else.
He hadn’t seen Link’s mother in years. She’d left to start a new life. She was likely married now, if she never told anyone about her first child. Smith could have more grandchildren now, but he couldn’t find himself to care too much about it. Link was Smith’s responsibility, not hers.
The echoes of the last thing he said to his daughter still rang in his head and he still couldn’t find himself to regret them.
“If you will not take him, I will.”