Work Text:
The small outlier sat in the corner of Kohga’s throne room, ignoring the commotion in the middle.
“Look newbie, I don’t know what you want to do with the brat but he’s not my problem.” Kohga declared to the foot soldier who stood in front of his throne.
“But Master, he’s just a chi-“
“Not. My. Problem.” Kohga shooed the man away, and the soldier had no choice but to comply, “Boy, come over here.”
The boy did not. In fact, he made no movement at all, acting as if Kohga was not in the room.
“Boy.” Nothing still, “At least tell me your name then.”
The boy spoke for the first time, “Why? If you’re just gonna chuck me out.”
The man on the throne sighed, “Well I am the great Master Kohga. Now you know my name, tell me yours.”
Again, the boy did not.
“Kid, I have better things to do in life than sit around and wait for you to talk.”
The child spoke again, “Then do them, ‘cause your gonna be waiting a long time.”
“Why you aggravating little- Kohga stopped himself, this was a child after all- Keep calm Kohga, keep calm”
He stood himself up from his throne, “Fine, have it your way.”
Kohga was just leaving the room as a spark of panic flooded through the child. He didn’t want to be alone, not again. “I don’t know.”
Kohga turned his head back, “You don’t know what?”
“My name. I don’t know it.”
“Well that’s sad.”
“Yeah – the kid looked towards the man, puzzled– I know.”
The boy had stayed there that night, and the next, and the next and then for a week. It had become clear to the Clan that this boy was staying, if only for a while.
“SOOGA! COME OVER HERE!” Master Kohga’s voice shrilled through the halls surrounding his bedroom late one night and his right-hand man appeared beside the man’s desk in a such small time it made Kohga jump.
“Master Kohga, How may I be of assistance,” Sooga asked looking down at Kohga.
“Firstly by easing up a little, sheesh.” Kogha gestured to another chair in the room and took off his mask, getting Sooga to do the same, “Sit down, your gonna be here a while.”
Sooga sat but by no means looked more comfortable.
“Right then, the boy.” Annoyance dripped in Kohga’s voice. He clearly did not want to be having this conversation, which was a surprise to Sooga. Normally if the Master didn’t want to have a conversation, he just wouldn’t. Why was this different?
“What about him?” Sooga pushed for Master Kohga to finish his thoughts.
“If he’s staying here, he’s going to have to be called something other than ‘the boy’.” Kohga leaned on the back on his seat, his legs too short to touch the ground.
“He does not have a name though, Master.” Sooga watched apprehensively as Kohga swung back and forth.
“Exactly, so what am I getting at?”
“I’m… not sure.”
“C’mon Muscles, dig down in that cavern of a brain.”
Sooga was bothered by this comment. Everyone knew that he was the brains of the operation. The entire clan would be dead if it weren’t for him, especially when Master Kohga got put in charge. Now, Sooga didn’t want to take credit away from Kohga, in fact, that was the last thing he wanted, but Kohga knew that Sooga was far from an unintelligent man and he would appreciate the recognition.
Sooga caught on.
“Please tell me you aren’t suggesting we name the child, Master?”
“Bingo, Big guy!”
Sooga looked bewildered by the proposal.
“Sir, with all due respect are-“
“No respect needed lackey; this is what we’re going to do.”
“Sir. Listen to me.” Kohga glanced towards his right-hand man, “by naming this child we claim a sense of responsibility for him, whether we like that or not. Are we prepared to care for a child? Is the Clan prepared to care for a child?”
“Come off it Sooga, you’re making us sound like a married couple.” Kohga laughed completely ignoring the question.
“Master Kohga.”
Kohga sighed. “I don’t know, but the kid’s staying now so it’s a bit too late to be asking that question. And anyway, ‘we’ aren’t caring for anything, I’ll still be preparing for the Great Calamity’s revival and you’ll still be assisting me or whatever, we’ll leave the boy under the Clan’s care. I’m sure with the hundreds of them there are, they’ll cope with one measly kid.”
Not the answer Sooga wanted but he must settle for what he got.
“Now, names!”
The conversation carried on for a while, discussing the different names for the child. They first threw out a few random suggestions, none of which sat properly. Sooga suggested Hayle, Kohga suggested Sooga start thinking of good names before he’s kicked out.
The ideas were just a melting snowball before Sooga stated “He’s Sheikah, isn’t he?”
Kohga tapped his chair, “I mean, yes with that hair but it’s not like he knows. Why?”
“We could name him after the Sheikah naming conventions,” Sooga suggested.
“As a Yiga Master this goes against every one of my core values.” Sooga laughed lightly at the Master’s response to his suggestion. “And who would name their kid after fruit anyway, it’s ridiculous.”
“To us maybe, but this boy isn’t Yiga. We should respect his culture Master Kohga.”
Kohga rolled his eyes all too dramatically before giving in.
“Fine. We’ll call him Apple.”
“Master, Sheikah name’s derive from fruit, they aren’t directly named after it.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Kohga jumped off his seat in his excitement, “We should name him after the mighty banana. He could be called like, Na…Bana… yeah, Bana?”
Sooga just stared towards his boss.
“Fine maybe not, but my fruit Knowledge is not too great y’know!”
Sooga looked around Master Kohga’s room, for any and all inspiration that may come his way. His eyes settled on a tiny, framed painting, one that the Master insisted he hated but had never put away. He felt like Master Kohga’s notion towards this painting may be similar to the one of the child.
“How about after strawberries?” Sooga suggested.
“Oh don’t tell me you're looking at that horrible painting- Sooga smiled endearingly- What would we even call him, Strawman?”
Sooga thought about it.
“Robbie.”
“How’s that connected to Strawberries? Strawberry… straw-robbie… Oh! that’s actually nice.”
And it was decided.
The boy was no longer just ‘The boy’, but was Robbie.
He woke up early in the morning, as he normally did. It took him a minute to remind himself he was safe… ish. He wasn’t in the forest preparing to go rummage in the trash for food, so it was a step up in his book. He had been told to sleep in the dungeon, in one of the cells. This didn’t make him feel all too comfortable, but the cell door stayed open so that’s nice. He walked around, with aim of going to the mess hall for food. But the Yiga Hideout was windy and treacherous for someone who didn’t know it, especially to the mind of a small boy. He got lost far too quickly for his liking, so looked for landmarks as he did in the wild. He recognised the frog statue that had a crack in its head, it was different than the rest. He was on the right track. He passed the hallway with the holes in the ground (he didn’t know what those were for, but they looked menacing) and then took a left and he was completely and utterly lost. Crap. It wasn’t his fault, all the rooms here looked the same, how was he supposed to know the difference. He was surprised that the people who lived here could tell the rooms apart. He sat down in the dark dingy hallway and waited. There were loads of people in this place, someone would pass him eventually.
While the boy waited for another person to see the light of day went to the closest room and examined. It’s what he did best. He decided to go over the room top to bottom. From the ceiling to the walls, he would know this room better than anyone who lived here by breakfast.
It was big. That felt like a good start. It was huge in fact. The boy knew it may just be his brain playing tricks on him as he was so small, but the hole in the middle of the room must have been the size of at least 20 moblins. A fact for you, the boy did not have the best idea of size.
The boy felt himself getting wrapped up in this room, wanting to know every secret it could ever hold. Why was there a hole in the middle? Why put a lantern over the hole, what if it fell in? How did they make the actual room round? Bricks are square! He had so many questions for this room, all of them he wanted to answer himself, through his own intuitiveness. But that opportunity was cut short by the huge man with kinda dumb hair.
“There you are boy. Come now, you’re needed.”
“Why?” The boy asked.
“Master Kohga needs you in his office.” The big man, who the boy remembered was called ‘Sooga’, put out his hand for the boy to take. He just looked at it.
“I can’t leave. I’m not done yet.”
“Done with what?” Sooga knelt to be on The boy’s level. Patronising.
The boy rolled his eyes at the fact Sooga didn’t know, it was pretty obvious to him what he was doing, “Examining the room. I still have questions to ask it.”
Sooga didn’t quite understand what the child meant but played along anyway. “Could you ask them after the Master talks to you?”
“No, I need to do this first. I’ll forget the questions otherwise.”
Sooga reflected. Normally people here would drop everything if Master Kohga needed to talk to them, but this boy wasn’t a Yiga. He didn’t know the importance of the Master.
“Well the Master needs to talk to you now,” The boy was about to protest before Sooga cut him off, “So how about we write down the questions you want to ask. Then you’ll remember them for after. I can help answer them too, if the Master allows it.”
The boy thought about it. He had never even considered writing his questions down, mainly due to the fact he didn’t know how to read or write, but if this Sooga guy could help him, maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.
“We need to write them down now though.”
“Of course.”
One wrong turn! He was one turn away from the mess hall! And sure, he was glad he made the wrong turn, otherwise he wouldn’t have found that cool room, but he was still annoyed at himself. Sooga had stopped in front of a big red door.
“Behave, okay.” He looked to the boy, who rolled his eyes in response.
“It depends if he says something dumb or not.”
“Boy.” Sooga’s voice got stricter, “Behave.”
The boy shuffled where he stood, tears forming at the sides of his eyes. He didn’t like getting told off.
“Master, I’ve got him.” Sooga entered the room, ushering the boy to do the same.
“Boy! You’ve been a right pain in my side!” Kohga was sat at a heightened table, eating a banana. He pointed to the chair opposite. The boy made no sign to sit down so was guided to the chair.
Kohga raised an eyebrow, but the boy couldn’t see it behind the mask, “Where have you been?”
“In that cool circle room.” He answered, the thought of his questions came back to him, “Actually can this be quick, I still have questions to ask it.”
Sooga sighed and placed a hand on the child’s shoulder, prompting him to stop. The boy moved away from the touch.
“You hungry?” Kohga pointed to the bowl of bananas on the next table over. The boy shook his head, why were there so many tables if it was one guy’s room?
“Your loss, anyway. I got some news for you. After a week of you being here, I don’t think I’d be forgiven if I sent you back into Hyrule. So, welcome to your new home.”
The boy looked confused.
“What?” He said.
“What?” Was the only answer that Kohga gave back.
“What do you mean, ‘welcome to your new home’?”
“I mean, you can live here. With us and the clan,” He looked to Sooga who just shrugged in response.
“Why?” The boy asked another question.
“Well done kid, you know the 5 W’s.” Kohga paused, “What do you mean why?”
“You were talking about kicking me out only a week ago. What’s different now?”
“Kid, you only arrived a week ago. Of course I wasn’t keen on keeping you around then, but let’s say I’ve warmed to you. You aren’t half bad, and as long as your not a little… pest, you can stay.”
The boy paused. The thought of a home. In his brain he was jumping for joy, so this was home now. Home.
“Thanks.”
“Well that’s news one out of the way-“
The boy jumped in his seat, “There’s more?”
Kohga laughed a little, maybe childhood excitement was more contagious than he thought.
“Yeah, there’s more.”
The child waited in anticipation.
Kohga was really playing it up now, “So, I’m guessing you're getting pretty sick of people calling you ‘the boy’”.
The child shrugged in response, “I guess I’m used to it now. It doesn’t really bother me.”
Ouch. Well if that didn’t tug on Kohga’s heartstrings. “Well you definitely don’t like not having a name. I could see that from the day I met you. So, if it’s not too imposing or anything. Me and good ol’ Sooga here thought of one for you. Robbie.”
The boy and Sooga had the same look of surprise, but one was hidden by their mask. Sooga wasn’t expecting credit for the child’s name. If he didn’t feel a sense of duty before, he did now. Sooga was a loyal soul and vowed to himself right then and there to protect this child, Robbie, with his life.
robbe. robby. Robbiy. Robbie. A name all of his own. Given to him by the people with who he now shares a home. Holy Hylia. Robbie was now crying. Normally he was good at holding back emotions, tears would form but never stream down his face. He’d be over it before it mattered. This however was so entirely different. He was crying. Sobbing at the idea of having a home, of being Robbie. 7 years he’d just been ‘boy’ or ‘child’, maybe that affected him more than he once thought. Because having Sooga kneeling in front of him saying “It’s okay Robbie, you’re alright” put a band-aid on his scared, damaged soul. And it would be one of many as he became a part of a family.