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Together.
He looked down at the sleeping child in his arms. She was hardly a month old, if that. Such a small, helpless little thing. Her entire body could fit in his one hand. Perhaps she was too small? He wondered if she was Hylian, like him.
They knew so little about her, yet Master Kohga was immediately taken to her. How could anyone expect him to be otherwise? The child had grabbed hold of Kohga’s finger so tightly on their first meeting, capturing his attention in a way that Sooga had never seen before. The boisterous man was suddenly so calm and so gentle. It was then that he had made the decision to bring her home.
Merely days later, it was as if she had always been part of the clan. The little one had taken a liking to Kohga’s nap schedule. She also enjoyed being given endless attention from both Kohga and the other members of the Yiga, who of course fawned over her every move. Her newfound home had been so quick to accept her presence.
Sooga continued to rock the child into sleep. He'd found that she was soothed much easier by the slow movements of the blademaster. Her tiny eyes had closed not long ago. Sooga still stood with her to make sure she wouldn’t wake, and for a moment, the warrior dared to hope that taking the role as a caretaker might not be such a ludicrous decision...
Sooga sighed as he paced the floor. His repetitive movement did nothing to quell his nerves about the whole idea. He thought back to that moment, those hours ago, that Master Kohga had asked to parent this child together as two fathers instead of just the one. Kohga had quickly assured that such an arrangement was intended to be platonic, no romantic feelings necessary. Sooga wasn’t sure why Kohga had seemed so nervous about that, but brushed it off.
He had not given Master Kohga an answer just yet. Kohga had not exactly given him the chance, anyway. He'd instructed Sooga to think on it and fled from the conversation moments after. But even after doing so, Sooga did not know what his answer would be.
His gaze returned to the sleeping child. The little girl had settled into his arms quite nicely. She was at peace. Often she struggled to settle in for rest, too much so for a normal child. Whenever she was held by Sooga, however, her little eyes closed soon enough. He supposed it was the comfort of being held and feeling safe.
That was an interesting thought. This tiny person somehow felt safe in his hands even when hurting her would be so easy. Children were fragile and he was stronger than most. She felt safe in the very hands Sooga could not trust. Hands that Sooga had once ended a life with.
His breathing hitched. Flashes of the past entered his vision, two hands clasped around a man’s neck. Sooga could still picture the life draining from his eyes as he hands squeezed-
The warrior quickly blinked, terminating the memory. His arms still held the baby girl, but he was shaking. Trembling in fear as the room spun. This feeling was familiar. He wished it to leave him, but it persisted.
You are weak, an inner voice that was not his own reminded him.
“You are dead,” Sooga whispered harshly. His hands still shook. In worry of waking the sleeping bundle, he walked back to her hand-crafted crib and set the girl back in it. She did not stir, thankfully.
And then his mind began to run at a thousand paces per second. His skin felt hot whilst the cool breeze of the Yiga Clan caverns chilled him to the core. Sweat trickled down his temples--goddess, when did it get so hot? He took a step back from the crib and placed his hands behind his neck. They gripped tightly. Too tightly. It was too familiar. He let go.
He could not do this. He could not endanger her this way, not when the smallest thought of bringing her harm brought it all back. Not when he could still not handle the memories of the past.
Control, Sooga, He thought harshly, You are not a child.
These commands did nothing to bring peace or comfort. All they brought was the shame he felt, the sheer disgust with his own weakness. He was a warrior, not a quivering octorok, and yet he was acting just so. His chest felt tight as if something were compressing his very lungs. He could not breathe. With one hardened grasp around his mask, it was off the next moment. A shaky gasp left his lips as he breathed in cool air around him.
Long, black locs drew to the front of his face, concealing his features in the candlelit room. Sooga had turned to the wall a nd leaned against it with his head buried in the crook of his arm.
Sooga would never forget what his life used to be. Days were spent praying to whatever goddesses may be above that his father would spare him that day, wouldn’t strike him as he often did. Nights were spent dressing new wounds when his prayers were not enough. Sooga would never forget each scar that now donned his skin all these years later.
Tried though he did, he could not drive those memories of his old life from his mind. He could not shake away the nightmares because for him, this was still real. He felt like that same, small boy from Lurelin. The same feeling of being trapped sent him into a trembling mess. Wooden walls at his back, his father’s wrath at his front. “Father” was neither a title that man earned nor deserved.
Another strained gasp escaped him as he tried to swallow the lump forming in his throat. It was a pitiful noise coming from someone so powerful, but in this moment, the man felt so small.
Look at yourself, the other voice told him again. You are nothing.
Sooga did not know when the tears started trailing down his face. He did not know when his wooden mask had dropped to the floor. He did not know when the door to the room had opened.
“Sooga?” Came the worried call of none other than Master Kohga himself.
Kohga stood in the doorway. He was without his mask as well, and his brow had furrowed plainly in concern. Those amber eyes of his gazed upon the scene with utmost worry and care as he began walking over. The blademaster pushed himself off the wall and suddenly felt so deeply exposed.
“Master Kohga,” Sooga’s voice cracked, and he hastily tried to clear his throat. It was then that Sooga realized his mask had fallen to the floor. He let his hair fall into his face as a last resort, and kept his eyes low. “I...did not hear you come in. I was just putting the girl to sleep.”
“Never mind all that, are you okay? You’re shaking like jelly. You dropped your mask, too,” Kohga pointed out as he picked up the mask. His thumb etched over the broken crack over the left eye. “You never take this thing off.”
“It is nothing, sir, do not worry yourself,” Sooga turned away from the dimmed lighting of any candles nearby. He kept his hands tightly to himself even as Kohga held out the mask. Usually he would not have minded his presence, but now he wished Kohga would leave him. He was in no state to stand before his master.
“I’ll worry about whatever I wanna worry about, and right now I’m worried about you,” Kohga replied, failing to notice that the child was asleep finally in the crib just next to them. “Tell me what’s wrong-”
“I said it was nothing!”
Everything went silent. Sooga paused. He had never once raised his voice at Master Kohga before.
“Master Kohga, please forgive me, I-I did not mean-I would not begin to-”
The words would not sound past his lips even as they struggled to say something, anything. The lump in his throat grew. He bowed his head, begging to whatever goddess or demon king that he could disappear. At least then his master would not have to gaze upon such weakness.
“Sooga,” Kohga said finally. His voice was...gentle. Even after knowing him all this time, Sooga was surprised. Surely he should have been mad. Why this instead? Why had he not raised a hand at him yet? The warrior breathed in shakily. He could hardly admit it to himself, but he was afraid. It was shameful.
While Sooga had been lost in his thoughts once more, a smaller hand found his own. It was rough, calloused with scars new and old, but it was warm. It was comforting. Kohga held on tightly as if to tell him he would not let go.
“Look at me, big guy,” It took a moment, but finally Sooga acknowledged Kohga's words. He squeezed the warm hand in his much larger palm, a grip too tight perhaps, but Kohga did not mind. He never would.
Behind a curtain of his long, black dreadlocks, one darkened eye looked down at him beside his scarred over one. It was a deep chocolate, and slightly reddened. It appeared almost black in the subtle shadows of the room. Most of his features were sharp, and his jaw sharper, but the apples of his cheeks were rounded soft. His skin was as beautiful as the bark of a cherry tree. Scars of all kinds dotted and crossed that skin in more areas than one, the freshest ones tangling over where his left eye should have been. It had long since healed, but this was the first time Kohga had seen it since the day it was taken from him. Sooga was simply a work of art. Kohga hadn’t ever seen someone so beautiful before.
“Wow. You’re...” Kohga started that same thought aloud-
“A disgrace,” Sooga finished. The clan master finally realized that his exposed eye was filling itself with tears again. He wanted so badly to reach up and brush them away. “I am sorry for you to have seen me in this state.”
“Hey, nuh uh, none of that,” Master Kohga gently rubbed his thumb over Sooga’s still trembling fingers, “You’ve got nothin’ to apologize for, okay? All I need from you right now is to take a deep breath. Take a seat on the bed, start talkin’ when you’re ready.”
Sooga did as instructed and seated himself on the plush mattress as his master joined next to him. His chest rose in steady beats, eye closed tight. At the very least, this would allow him to speak. It did nothing to quell his anxiety, though.
“Master Kohga,” He began slow, cautious even, “I must decline your offer.”
“My offer?”
“I cannot parent this child with you,” Sooga confessed. The hand holding Kohga’s let go. “It is too dangerous, I cannot be trusted.”
“What?” Kohga faced him now, feet folded in his lap on the bed, “I mean it’s your choice, that’s why I asked, but Sooga, I trust you more than anybody in this clan. You guard me while I sleep for Ganon’s sake. What makes you think I don’t trust you?”
“It is not that, sir,” Sooga wrung his hands together and pointedly ignored the fact that it was always Kohga who insisted he rested at the protection of himself. “What I mean to say, is that I do not trust myself to carry out this task.”
“Well, why not?”
The warrior let out a shaky breath. His thoughts traveled back to his panic moments before. Memories of a mother he never knew, of a father who did not want the sorry excuse of a son he was left with, of years spent in suffering silence and faux explanations. Sooga clenched his fists tightly in an effort to ground himself.
“Because I am afraid,” The words tumbled out of his mouth before he had the notion to stop them. Tears dripped onto his lap. “I am fearful that...I will hurt her.”
“Sooga..” Kohga said quietly, “You would never do that, I know you wouldn’t. You’re the most gentle giant I’ve ever seen, I don’t think you could if you tried.”
“You do not know that.”
Kohga blinked. A sort of chill swept over the room, but the candles and lanterns flickered on. Sooga took in another breath. He was really going to do this.
“Master Kohga, do you remember how you found me? That day in the desert.”
“Yeah, ‘course I do. Couple of the lackeys jumped you, you passed out in the middle of the fight, they brought you back ‘cause they didn’t know what to do with ya,” Kohga said. He shook his head a bit. “Honestly don’t know how you made it that far, you weren’t made for the desert back then.”
Sooga nodded. “Correct. And correct again. I had come from East Faron, along the coast.”
“From Lurelin, yeah. You told me.” A puzzled look graced Kohga’s chubby features, “Not that I don’t love a good trip down memory lane, but where’s all this going?”
That was the million-rupee question, wasn’t it? Sooga had never spoken about this before, never mentioned his real feelings to anyone. And yet, somehow with Master Kohga, it was all unraveling before him. He supposed he could not back out of it now. No longer would he pretend it did not exist, no longer would he let these demons control him into silence. At the very least, his master deserved the explanation. Sooga turned and faced Kohga.
“I lived in that village with my father. My mother had passed on from this world due to my birth, and my father was devastated when she died. But that pain turned into anger. It had become hatred.”
Sooga searched for the words to say it, to finally admit aloud what the man had done. His brow furrowed as his eye closed again. Kohga knew a look like that all too well.
“He hurt you, didn’t he?”
Sooga nodded again.
“Eighteen years. I had...dealt with it for eighteen years,” The blademaster almost whispered at the recollection. He squeezed his features tighter.
“That rat-fucking-bastard,” Kohga simmered in sudden anger. No one deserved that kind of torture, certainly not Sooga. An overwhelming sense of protection coursed through his blood. Master Kohga was not a violent man, but this would just have to be an exception. “Maybe I should pay a visit and-”
“That will not be necessary, Master Kohga,” Sooga’s eye opened into a familiar look of shame coated with past regrets just above his cheek bones. “He is dead. I killed him.”
Kohga’s anger immediately fizzled into shock. Whatever he had been expecting from his best lackey’s past, this wasn’t it. He stayed silent and gestured for Sooga to continue.
“It was the anniversary of my mother’s death. My father had been gone since that morning and did not return until late. I could have left. I should have left.”
The fear returned to Sooga’s expression. He could still picture that night so clearly.
A moonless sky, void of clouds with just the darkness. His house, thatch roofed with three stairs leading up to it. His father’s footsteps, always sluggish and heavy when he had been seduced by the drink. The door opened then closed.
A bottle, glass and foamy green and clutched in his father’s other hand. The sound of shattering, bits of glass scattered around the floor. Sooga was shoved out of bed.
Yelling, loud and muffled all at once. Incoherent at best. A strike into the jaw, bleeding, then another. Hands grabbed Sooga’s shirt and pushing him against the wall as he struggled.
“It’s your fault!” Over and over, slamming his son against the wall, “She wasted her life on you!”
There was red. From blood, from anger, from something he did not know. His mind went blank in only action, shoving his father off this time and fighting back. He fought back, he fought back, he should have left and ran, but he fought back. Two hands around a neck, grabbing, squeezing, draining-
The man was dead at Sooga’s hands.
“I did not realize what had been done, I didn’t-” Sooga’s collected demeanor broke instantly. He clutched the sides of his head, tugging, grasping for something physical to ground himself away from the past. “I lost control of myself. I cannot let it happen again, i-it cannot happen again.”
A sob escaped him. He covered his mouth, but it pressured through despite it. He must have looked even more pitiful than before. He was vulnerable when he should have been strong. He was not worthy to be seated next to someone as great as Kohga, much less crying in front of him. How utterly shameful.
What startled him out of his thoughts was the feeling of weight shifting on the bed. Before the blademaster could protest, Kohga crawled into Sooga’s lap and wrapped his arms around Sooga’s waist in a hug. He pulled himself as close to the larger man as he could have been and squeezed tight. For the first time, Sooga accepted the comfort.
He wept silently into Master Kohga’s arms.
“Let it all out, big guy,” Kohga soothed, rubbing small circles into Sooga’s lower back. It wasn’t the most ideal circumstance, but the Yiga leader couldn’t help how his heart swelled at their proximity. Sooga was just as cozy as he looked, and Kohga didn’t wanna let go. He wouldn’t until Sooga was okay. “What you did to that asshole was out of self-defense, and from what you told me? He had it coming. You’re not some cold-blooded killer.”
The blademaster managed a small nod, his onslaught of tears starting to lessen as Kohga clutched him closer. It pained him to see his friend in such a state. To finally know everything crushing down the guy’s shoulders wasn’t all he thought it would be. When they first met, Kohga figured maybe he just didn’t like talking, maybe it just wasn’t his thing, but this showed him the truth. He had been in all this pain for so long.
“I get why you’re scared,” He began, for once taking time with his words. “It’s not just a once and done ‘oh it’s over, it's gone so I’m okay now’, and it’s never gonna just disappear how you want. That sorta shit stays with you, and trust me, it fucking sucks. But I need you to listen to me right now on somethin’.”
He moved back without letting go to meet Sooga's gaze.
“You are not that person, Sooga. You are not your father, and you never will be.”
Sooga clung to every word. With such conviction from his master, he could tell the smaller man had meant every word. He could finally take a deep breath.
“You’re never gonna be a guy who would hurt anyone like he did, much less a kid. The Sooga I know is a big teddy bear who makes sure no one gets left behind on missions or during training. He’s also the one that munchkin over in the crib can’t sleep without. He’s my fearsome protector, my top blademaster, and he’s also my best friend.”
Kohga cracked a smile at his own words. It was the same look he wore earlier.
“You truly think of me this way...?” Sooga finally dared to ask.
“Think so? I know so. I’m the one that gets to decide who my best friends are and who I want hangin’ around me all day long, and you remember who I picked? You, dummy.”
“That is true, yes.”
“Of course it is,” Kohga nodded proudly, “You’re so many different things, like everyone is. You’ve got some good, some bad, definitely no ugly though, and that just makes you who you are. That’s the best way to be and it’s just how I like you. And if I say so, then it’s gotta be true, because I always know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Now it was Sooga’s turn to smile, even just so slightly.
“Of course, Master Kohga,” He agreed.
“See, now that’s better,” Kohga said. He was pleased at getting a smile out of Sooga again. That’s when he realized this was his first time actually seeing any smile out of Sooga. Kohga knew at that moment that it was something he desperately wanted to see more of. He just wanted to see more of Sooga in general, as much as the warrior would allow him to see. Maybe he’d even get to see-
The shrill crying of a baby cut him off from his thoughts.
“Are you kidding me?” Kohga groaned, “That whole conversation and she’s fine, but suddenly it’s all quiet and she wakes up? How does that make sense?”
“Apparently it makes sense to her,” Sooga quipped, clearing his throat and his face of any dried tears. As the baby’s cries grew louder, both Kohga and Sooga stood to soothe her. Kohga shuffled over and picked the small girl up in his arms.
“Master Kohga, if I may, try to hold her close and make sure her feet are swaddled in the blanket. I have gathered she likes to be cozy, but kicks in her sleep.”
“Aaaalright,” Kohga dragged out. The newly-titled father did as Sooga suggested, rhythmically rocking her for good measure. Somehow, it worked. Her cries became sniffles, and eventually into yawns. The little one was beginning to settle once more.
Kohga shot a cheeky smirk back at Sooga. “And you said you wouldn’t be good at this.”
“Well-!”
“Nah, nah I get it, it’s okay,” Kohga looked down at the bundle in his arms as a mother would. Goddess, he was already so attached. “It’s up to you still, no pressure. Especially after all this, yunno.”
Sooga pondered the thought for a moment. He leaned over Kohga’s shoulder and watched as the little one’s eyes closed. She had snuggled into sleep quickly this time around. She was so small, still so fragile of course. But Sooga somehow knew she was strong already. He would do his best to make sure she knew that once she was older. Perhaps, even, he could give her a better life than he was handed at her age.
Sooga knew his struggle with his past was not over, far from it in fact. The demons that plagued his mind and dreams would not so easily be run off. However, at the very least, Sooga knew that he would not have to be alone anymore.
“I accept,” Came his response. A brave look of determination softened on Sooga’s features. “I will do my best to aid you and this child.”
Standing here, with Master Kohga and this small little girl, Sooga felt a sense of belonging. He wondered if this is what family was supposed to feel like. If it was, Sooga would hold onto it as long as he could.