Chapter Text
Link brushed a hand over the chest, smearing dirt and rotten bits of wood together and away from the engraved metal. Malon of LonLon Ranch had once been deeply embossed, but now it was faint, the metal worn nearly smooth once again. There wasn’t a lock, there wouldn’t have been much of a point when the chest had been buried deep in the basement of Link’s home, only found as he dug to add support posts for the new room. Ilia had quietly asked for the baby to have their own nursery, and anyone in Ordon could spend hours reciting examples of Link doing anything and everything she asked of him.
He’d cried, ugly cried, with mucus running down his chin and blubbering sobs heaving from his chest, when Ilia asked if they could name a daughter Midna. His then fiance had simply held him against her own chest, pressing her hands over his atop her already swelling stomach.
Now, staring down at his (three times great) grandmother’s chest, he wondered if her husband had the same ancestry he’d been named after. The old portrait of her his mother had kept above the fireplace had been ancient for as long as he could remember, the white haired woman holding her great, great granddaughter on her lap and looking at the painter with something between content and sadness in her eyes. Notes on the back of the portrait, which Link had found after knocking it off the wall one day, claimed that Malon had had red hair in her youth and was well over a hundred years old when the portrait was painted.
Gently, he picked up the lid of the chest and set it to the side, delicately peeling back layers of parchment to reveal a leather wrapped parcel and jewelry box. Inside the jewelry box was a metal brooch, glimmering somewhere between weathered brass and bronze, in the shape of what vaguely reminded Link of King Bublin’s face. Underneath it was the remains of orange or yellow cloth, and nothing else.
So Link turned to the parcel, tucking it under his arm and dropping the brooch into a pocket for now as his free hand absently brushed the bottom of the chest to check for anything he hadn’t seen. He had missed something, a bump of cold metal revealed to be a pair of dirty wedding rings in the lantern light, reforged to be interlocked and engraved with more words he couldn’t make out. Shrugging, he dropped them into the same pocket as the brooch and climbed back up the ladder to deposit everything on the kitchen table.
“Babies?” He called, listening for Ilia in the next room. She’d complained about her feet swelling at breakfast, and had been sitting in the sunroom with the afflicted joints in a basin of cool water when he’d left to begin preparing for construction.
Ilia let out a grunt, meaning it wasn’t a good day.
Softening his steps, Link crept in, setting the parcel on the low table before filling the empty space next to his wife. “I found these in a chest down there, had my grandmother’s name on it..”
“Dinah?”
“No, great grandmother Malon, the one in the portrait over the fireplace.” Humming, Ilia nodded, taking the rings and wiping away the grime onto a handkerchief, whispering to herself in old Hylian. Link had always been a poor reader, more interested in the goats and being outside and moving, but being the Mayor’s daughter meant that Ilia needed to be prepared for leadership in every way.
“Well, one ring has ‘Malon’, the other has ‘Fairy Boy’, was your grandfather from the forest?” She teased, putting the rings onto the table and picking up the brooch from his extended hand. “Oh, I haven’t seen this design before…we should send a drawing to Shad, I’m sure he could find records about this imagery with all those books of his.”
They exchanged an amused glance, despite all three of them(four if Ashei was around) being twenty two, Shad hadn’t changed a day. Well, he’d become a bit more rant prone around Agitha, the self proclaimed insect princess’ dedication to learning about her subjects and Shad’s interest in all subjects making them an adorable pair of scholars.
Ilia returned the brooch as well, Link dropping it back into his pocket where it clinked against the rings. Both then turned their attention back to the wrapped parcel on the table, gently unwrapping the leather and pulling out a thick journal.
Flipping it open, and balancing it over her round stomach, Ilia began to read aloud. “This is where I will write down all the stories my husband tells our children, so that all the little ones who come after can know what truly happened instead of relying on fading memories. Link’s handwriting is abysmal, so he will have very little to do with this.” She glanced at her husband through her lashes, snickering. “Guess you come by it honestly, then?”
“I hate you,” Link responded, his tone blase and eyes completely contradicting his words.
Giggling, she turned the page and continued.
Link groaned through a stretch, a tired grin on his face as he looked down the line of frences. It had taken him the entire day to do, but now all of the fences were fixed and Epona would hopefully stop teaching the foals to jump them.
He’d promised to have everything ready before the baby was born, and the fences had been the last thing on Malon’s long list. Tilting his head back, Link judged it to be close enough to dinner time to stop for the day, picking up his tools and leftover materials and beginning his walk back to the house. Humming a song one of the Castletown bards had made up, Link meandered towards the barn.
Epona whickered at him from her stall, halfway through her oats with her newest colt eating off her teat simotaneously. He crooned back, reaching out a hand to trace along her jaw, leaning their foreheads together and closing his eyes. Sometimes, he could believe that she remembered everything like he did.
He hoped she did.
The colt bumped his small head into Link’s head, loudly asking for attention. Link laughed, crouching down to mimic the actions he’d done with Epona.
“Don’t spoil him already,” Malon’s voice startled both of them, sending their foreheads knocking together in a decidedly unpleasant way.
Epona and Malon laughed above them.
Looking at his wife, Link had a dopey look on his face, even as she walked nearer and he could faintly smell the horse on her boots. “Come on, fairy boy, let’s go eat our own supper before you give yourself a concussion!”
Raising a single hand, Link signed a single word. ‘Love’, and Malon smiled down at him gently. She extended her own hands, ‘forever and always’.
“Up you come,” her rough hand clasped his, the petite woman pulling him up as if he wasn’t taller than her. Every summer when new farmhands arrived, Link gleefully collected his rupees when full grown men thought they could beat Malon in an arm wrestling competition.
Castletown’s new healer had tried to insist that Malon not do any physical labor from the moment they found out she was pregnant, and Link had tried to enforce his advice a few times, before giving up. Talon had just laughed from his armchair when Link had complained.
“There’s hot food inside, dad’s all excited because some of my cousins sent a letter about someone getting married. One of my mom’s nieces, I think.” Link nodded, interlacing their fingers as they walked along the hard beaten dirt path to the house. “Mom’s family all still live outside of Hyrule, a small country north of the desert. A clump of islands surrounded by fresh water, it’s a beautiful place.”
“Islands?” Link signed, still a little clumsy finger spelling with his right hand.
Malon nodded excitedly, mane of red hair bobbing wildly. “We used to visit every year when Mom was alive, to spend the entire winter over there. They get so much snow! You can jump off the roof and land safely, we built huge houses and barns out of snow and slept in them even!” Her eyes were so bright that Link couldn’t help but believe her cousins lived somewhere as carefree and beautiful as the Kokiri Forest.
Pulling on his hand, Malon brought them inside, the smell of fresh bread and roasted broccoli making Link grin.
“Ah, my children!” Talon called from his chair, standing shakily. He’d aged so quickly, almost seeming older now than he had after seven years of war in a timeline that no longer existed as far as Link knew. His hair was solidly gray, and his hands almost constantly shook.
Even so, there was always something warm in Link’s chest to be called ‘child’ by Talon, the only things that trumped it was being called ‘son’ by the same man, or when Malon used one of her many fond nicknames.
Fairy boy had left with Navi.
“Kiana is getting married at the end of the autumn festival, remember her? Your aunt Tya’s oldest daughter, I think she was only a few years younger than you.” Talon explained, smoothing out the letter on the table.
Malon nodded, flipping the paper and scanning it herself. “I remember how cruel some of the village kids were to her, she was always so tall and they always took that as a reason to tease her. Who is her husband to be?”
“A boy from Lorule, Tya says he’s shorter, younger, but more stubborn than Kiana. According to her, so take it with a bit of salt,” he pointedly glanced at Link, “the boy announced that he was going to marry her the first day they met and took the last five years convincing her!”
Malon laughed, pointing to a line on the letter and tracing her finger under it at she read aloud, knowing Link’s blue eyes would follow it. “Ki regarded him as Othe’s little friend until he gave her flowers on Lover’s day for the third year in a row.” She looked over at Link, “Othe is Ki’s little sister by six years. They’ve always been super close, even with the age gap.”
“Cute,” Link signed back, tapping their foreheads together with a soft smile. Malon wasn’t much shorter than him, which made kissing easy they’d discovered
“OI, marital duties happen out of my eyesight!” Talon screeched, throwing a spoon at Malon.
“DAD!” Malon screeched back, throwing the spoon right back. “YOU AND MOM KISSED IN FRONT OF ME ALL THE TIME!”
“MY INNOCENT EYES ARE RUINED!”
Link was still giggling after the bread was cold and the soup’s fat had separated and coagulated.