Work Text:
Green was his least favorite color, Link reminisced, as he stabbed yet another green Bokoblin through the eyeball. It was the traditional garb of the hero, at least according to legends, but he was no hero - due caution prohibited it. It conjured too many bad memories of fools who thought they could become legends if only they put on the right outfit.
Bokoblins, Moblins, and worse swarmed the wall, corpses piling nearly to the parapets. The Royal Guard had done a wonderful job, by Link’s estimation. As good a job as could be expected, given the disparity in numbers. He had pessimistically assumed that Castle Town would be overrun in days and was pleasantly surprised to see them endure the siege for closer to a month. He supposed the legends downplayed what ordinary folk could do, even if it made little difference in the end. He got to say goodbye to his grandmother and sister, and cleaned house with the rookies. But that all stopped today.
From his place on the front lines, he could see comrades falling to the horde, the defensive formation collapsing into a chaotic melee. Bokoblins were stupid as dirt, but if there was one thing they excelled at, it was chaos. At the center of it, though, maintaining his calm control was Link - not this Link, but another. Link the Elder, as he called himself. One of many, at one point, though the others had fallen, until only two were left.
Link ducked under the weighty blow of a black Bokoblin before catching it in a flurry of strikes that broke through its leather hide and spilled its guts. At the same time, his fellow guards were being cut down at the gates, turning the trickle of incoming enemies into a tide. Link the Elder pushed them away with a textbook spin attack, but the ones that died were quickly replaced, leaving him surrounded. Link didn’t know whether to be sad or relieved that the mob obscured the finishing blow from his sight.
What he did know, a realization that had begun creeping up as the guard had thinned and finally sank in at that moment, was that he was the only one left. He was not just the only remaining guard, but likely the final Link. That thought left a mark on him, the beginnings of a terrible, fantastic idea.
He had once entertained the thought that he might be the hero - head filled with Grandma’s stories, he had joined the Royal Guard under the impression that it might lead him to those same adventures - a fantasy which had ended after his first or second push-up. He had once entertained that someone else may be the hero, only to be disillusioned when a Link a year younger than him went out to the Faron Woods and came back in pieces. There were roughly one thousand Links in Castle Town - now dead. Precisely forty-three in the Royal Guard - most of their bodies burning in the moat. It had seemed like the best candidate was Link-the-Elder, but the terrible thing about chosen heroes is that you never know whether you can overcome impossible odds unless you face them and fail to die. The eldest Link had, unfortunately, succeeded.
Link would not be tempted into believing he was the Chosen One. That way lies madness.
And so, as the space between him and the advancing horde began to shrink, Link, the only person standing between them and Hyrule Castle, raised his sword… only to drop it. The ringing as it clattered on the ground resounded like a gong, cutting through the tense standoff.
Ganon’s minions, dimwitted as they were, regarded him curiously.
He would not fight a horde head first, charging into certain death. He would not fearlessly sacrifice the one remaining thing he possessed: his life. And he would not disrespect the memory of his fallen brethren by assuming fate had, for once in his life, chosen him. Instead, he chose to live.
He gave the Bokoblins a shallow bow, gesturing them ahead. Fixated on their goal of seizing the tower, they rushed past him as if he didn’t exist. He did not doubt that they would correct that error if he stayed long enough.
In the meantime, he took off his hat and saluted the Princess. His grandmother instilled in him a virtue: if he had nothing nice to say, never say it. So he refrained from saying something petty, that the Princess was on her own and that the castle's defence was her prerogative. Link had bigger things to do. Dreams and ambitions to fulfill on borrowed time.
As the castle lights winked out one by one behind his back, Link walked through the bloodied and battle-scarred Castle Town and considered the waste of it all. How many times had the forces of darkness sieged Hyrule Castle? How many lives were lost before a hero rose to avenge them? The immortal words of Demise loomed overhead every Hylian: those who share the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero are eternally bound to his curse. If things continued as they were, the cycle would never end, and happy times would always beget sadness and death. In the fullness of time, the Hylian people would be destroyed by Ganon endlessly. If there was any difference between that and an eternal hell of Ganon’s creation, to Link, it seemed only a difference of scale.
The solution was obvious. It was the execution that would be a problem.
At the edge of town, he called out for Epona. As a staple stable-name, it was a good bet there would be at least one Epona hanging around. It didn’t matter which one came; if anything, he wanted the brashest horse possible. Any horse that stuck through this siege would have to be tougher than steel. Sure enough, one moseyed out of the back as if nothing was wrong.
She regarded him cooly, for a while, with a look that was probably calculating by the standards of horse, but eventually conceded that the castle was a lost cause. None too soon because Link could hear the Bokoblins screaming in the distance, about to start purging the streets of survivors. He hopped on and rode in the direction of Kakariko Village - if he wanted to achieve his goal, he would need leverage, and there were no masters of guerrilla tactics better than the Sheikah.
Only after he put some distance between himself and the castle did he allow himself to consider the particulars of his plan. While he may not be the first Link, he would use everything to his advantage to ensure he was the last.
It shouldn’t have surprised Link that he arrived at a razed husk of a village, but it did. In retrospect, there were signs - Kakariko was nestled in the mountains well out of the way of Hyrule field, but it was still less defensible than a castle that could field hundreds of trained soldiers. Likewise, in the month since the siege of Hyrule properly began, Impa had not arrived to reinforce the Royal Guard. The reason was now quite apparent.
Still, the ruins of the town might hold some nugget of wisdom that he could use to get stronger, and it wasn’t as if Ganon had any reason to defend a pile of ash. Carefully culling the remaining Bokoblins with a bow he had nabbed from his dead comrades, he began to pick through the remaining structures to see what he could find.
It wasn’t long, though, before he was interrupted.
“Grave robbing now, are we?” Said a gentle voice. It sounded almost like someone was whispering in his ear, but when he jumped back and turned, he didn’t see anything. That was until he looked up. Perched on the charred remains of a torii gate, way too far away to have been the person speaking, was a lithe figure with long braided blonde hair. Form-fitting clothes, mask, giant eye symbol, almost certainly Sheikah. Not a threat.
Link turned his back again and resumed picking through the wreckage. It’s not grave robbing, he consoled, if the people you were stealing from were never buried. A knife to his throat, however, seemed intent on correcting him.
He raised his hands in the air and slowly turned to face the ninja.
“What in the name of Hylia do you think you’re doing?” The ninja asked, more insistent.
Well, he began to explain, he was searching for magic in the ruins of this village of people he was pretty sure had magic powers.
“Why-” the ninja started, before pausing. It seemed there was a lot on their mind. “What is a Royal Guard doing, alive, searching for magic, when the Guard lost the fight to hold the castle?”
The others lost, Link clarified. Link merely ran away. If he changed his mind and decided to die for no reason, he could always go back.
“So you’re a deserter, then.” The ninja accused with venom.
That was pretty hypocritical for Link to hear, coming from a ninja standing over the corpses of their dead comrades.
At that, the ninja seemed to deflate. “I was too late. Although that’s a weak excuse.” The ninja sulked. “Alright then, deserter, do you have a name?”
Link explained that he was named Link, although he made sure to mention that the odds were slim that he was the legendary hero reincarnated, on account of his desertion.
“My name is Sheik. So you’re not the hero, huh?”
Legendary heroes, Link explained, were held to a standard of conduct that he was not inclined to display. If there were a Triforce of Cowardice, he had earned it over a thousand times, and would wear it proudly. And besides, if destiny decides that Hyrule must burn before the hero can emerge, he wouldn’t trust them to save much of anything in the first place.
(Link decided not to comment on the fake name.)
“In that case, why are you looking for magic?”
He didn’t believe Sheik would take the truth well. Rather than lie, Link just shrugged.
“Well, it’s not likely that you’ll be able to use much of anything - the average Hylian doesn’t have any magical ability. Of course, if you were the hero, that would be a different story.” Sheik continued. “How about this? I can teach you a small spell as a token, to see if you can. The only condition is, no matter what happens, you stop digging through the ashes of my people. Forget being polite; it’s undignified for someone in a Royal Guard uniform to be doing such a thing.”
Link took a mental note to wear something else the next time he stole from the dead. And then he nodded.
Sheik swept their arms out theatrically and vanished in a whirlwind, blowing ash around the destroyed house. Sheik reappeared outside, beckoning Link out into the village square. Under the watchful eyes of the Goddes Hylia, Sheik began to teach.
“This spell is one of the fundamentals; learning it is necessary to perform the most basic magic. If you want to learn more than this, though, you’ll have to visit one of the four Great Fairies. This magic will allow you to find them. I’ve heard it called magesight, but for my part, I like to call it the Lens of Truth…”
The Faron Region was at the fringe of Hyrule, although perhaps not as far as the Gerudo Desert in terms of climate or scale. Like any old forest, there were places where it was verdant and peaceful and others that hid monsters that would murder you in your sleep. Sometimes both, Link considered, as he still didn’t trust those Kokiri children.
That had given him a run for his money. He didn’t expect anyone that young to still survive in Hyrule, but apparently, the children of the Great Deku Tree were hardy and well-defended. What had surprised him most, however, was a young Hylian boy named Link living among them. The boy had stumbled his way into the Kokiri Forest from the Lost Woods, having fled the destruction of Ordon Village not too long ago.
Link supposed there was hope for a real Hero after all - not that he would feed the kid any poisonous legends. After having impressed on Young Link the importance of caution, Link proceeded to do something very dangerous and stupid for the sake of attaining power.
It was rumored that the Lost Woods could take you anywhere in Faron if you knew how to navigate them. Link was familiar with all of the old stories - following certain sounds, accepting the assistance of a friendly woodland creature, etc. But the Lost Woods were also rumored to trap wicked adults in there long enough for them to die and decompose. Link was not willing to bet on his own innocence. At the same time, navigating them was necessary - the Master Sword was stored away in the Tomb of the Hero, in some remote, forgotten part of the region.
Link was not the hero, but the Master Sword was useful regardless. There was no chance of him getting his wish if he didn’t defeat Ganon, and the sword was the most reliable means of doing so. Besides, he meant to replace his old Royal Guard Sword, which he had left miles away in Hyrule Castle. The thought of stealing the sword of legend to replace one of those brittle pieces of junk was delightful.
The Lost Woods weren’t all that different from the surrounding forest, with a single exception. An oppressive, thick fog obscured everything from sight past a dozen feet. If he wandered too far in the wrong direction, it would encroach on him and sweep him up, depositing him somewhere else with the gentle embrace of what felt like a million different skeletal hands. Magic or no, he could see why someone would die in there. Fortunately, he came prepared.
Link was hauling nearly fifty pounds of the most efficient survival supplies he could find. He packed dried food, bombs, gallons of water, plenty of fire-starting kits, bombs, and a small tent, among others. He almost felt guilty when he made it through the forest without needing it. The Lens of Truth wouldn’t show him which direction was valid, but it would reveal the invisible footprints of the Stalfos and other forest-dwellers, which guided him along the correct path. It took a few attempts, but eventually, he found himself stumbling out into an ordinary forest clearing with no fog in sight.
In front of him was a massive stone obelisk, every inch covered in drying, ancient vines. He lit a fire arrow and burned them off. Worn away from thousands of years of neglect, the words on the obelisk read:
“Here lies the temple of the great Hero of Hyrule, preserved so that His work may never be lost to history.”
“You who seek the Hero’s Sword, beware. There are three trials you must pass to prove yourself worthy.”
Link rolled his eyes. This one didn’t even have a cool title, like the Hero of Time. Lost to history, indeed.
True to his unspoken promise to Sheik, Link had chosen to forgo his ratty old Royal Guard uniform for his second episode of grave robbing. Instead, he was wearing what the Kokiri children had termed “proper hero’s garb” gifted to him in their village. The child inside of him was ecstatic, the pragmatist was appeased by having a layer of forest camouflage above his chainmail, and the pessimist was whispering about how wearing something distinct from the other Hylians made him a priority target. Ah, if only he had any other clothes.
The tomb itself was not hard to access. It took a bit of puzzling, but it seemed like the obelisk was on four stone wheels. Link nearly threw out his back in the attempt to push it over, but slowly, it yielded to a dark stone passageway. Link was glad he brought a torchmaking kit.
The first chamber contained four Stalfos, presumably intended to be challenged in combat. Unfortunately, Link did not have a sword. He did, however, have explosives, and quite a bit of patience. Calling to mind nights spent bowling with the rest of the Guard, Link rolled a lit bomb right between the four enemies, scattering their bones with an enormous explosion. Making sure to hold his breath while the fumes rushed out of the chamber, he fired four quick shots and destroyed their skulls, breaking their tether to this world.
Only then did he approach the obelisk in the center of the room, which contained the instructions for the trial he had just completed. Test of finesse, was it? Well, in any case, the temple itself couldn’t tell that he had cheated. As soon as he had approached the obelisk, the grooves on the walls lit up bright orange, followed by blue, as it registered that the enemies were dead. Ancient gears groaning with tremendous force, the wall ahead opened up to reveal a second chamber.
The second chamber contained a scale, with one end weighed down by stone statues. Examining the obelisk for this room made the challenge clear.
“The hero’s role is to maintain the balance of Hyrule. You who would wield the hero’s sword, bring balance to the scales and prove your worth.”
He noticed several free statues lying around. Presumably, he could use them to balance the scales, but something else dominated his thoughts. Was this a math puzzle? Guarding the most priceless relic of Hyrule’s history? He wouldn’t besmirch the idea of the next hero knowing math, but this was just a meaningless roadblock. In what way is finding out how to balance a scale in any way relevant to the very urgent task of purging Hyrule of evil?
Was this what the hero needed to overcome? No wonder one hadn’t emerged from the woodwork. It was almost insulting. Moreover, Link seemed to be missing an artefact the shrine assumed he would have - the statues wouldn’t yield to his touch and stubbornly refused to move. If he had made his way here unprepared, he might have had to track down whatever piece of ancient garbage would animate them. All the while, the people of Hyrule would be dying.
From that perspective, this whole shrine was pure narcissism. Who builds a memorial tomb to themselves with the sole purpose of making Hyrule harder to save?
Fortunately, among the items Link had brought with him was a crowbar. Working his way into a gap in the wall, he gained enough leverage to pry the door open a few inches. Without any other means of ingress, it would be hard to pry it open more. He did, however, have explosives, and was rapidly running out of patience. Placing two shaped charges between the wall and the door, he ignited them and hurried for cover behind the obelisk, clamping his hands over his ears.
When he dared peek around his cover, the entrance to the third chamber was open, revealing several exposed mechanisms within the walls. He regarded the lost technology with some interest but mostly disdain. Hylians were able to build machines once, yet the arsenal they faced Ganon with consisted of swords and bows. It was stunning how much the cycle of endless Calamity had taken from them.
The Master Sword rested in a stone pedestal on the opposite side of a cenote, a beam of sunlight shining on it from a hole in the ceiling. A pathway to it rose out of the water, although Link could hear the ancient machines within the walls lurch and snap under the unexpected force of the explosion. Giving it a tentative step, he found it sturdy enough to walk on, at least.
The inscription above the Master Sword became apparent after a bit of inspection:
“The sword that seals the darkness awaits a worthy user. You who would claim to be a hero, the weapon will only be yielded by one embodying True Courage.”
Link perhaps lacked courage, or perhaps had blown up the part of the shrine that would let him take the sword, so it didn’t give to a casual tug. Fortunately, he did not lack explosives. Well, if it could survive several millennia, surely it could survive a few bombs. Priming the remaining seven shaped charges he had brought into the shrine, he was not surprised when the explosion practically vaporized the stone pedestal, leaving the only moderately encased Master Sword lying on the floor.
With a flourish, he smashed the Master Sword into the ground, breaking the remaining stone on it, and then sheathed it on his back. There was no surge of power, no restoration of generations of combat skill. He didn’t feel much like a legendary hero. Obtaining the Master Sword had left him feeling more like a professional demolitionist.
Well, if the sword considered him unworthy, he would find out sooner than later. He resolved to make sure he died in a more convenient place for the following Link to find.
Link’s final preparations passed by in a blur. Hyrule may have been thoroughly scoured at this point, but that was not an excuse to be indolent. The last piece of his plan was the Triforce of Courage, which some Links gained naturally but stubbornly escaped his own grasp. He tracked down its location to a Temple built underneath Lake Hylia.
It was then that he finally, inevitably, made a mistake. With as much fighting as he was doing, it was only a matter of time. He had dodged left past a Lizalfos boomerang but forgot to consider its return arc. When he finally heard the thing approaching again, it was too late for him to move out of the way, and it tore his left hand clean off.
Stifling a scream, he frantically swung the Master Sword in the direction of the Lizalfos until it melted under the judgment of the legendary blade. And then Link threw the Master Sword on the floor because he had just lost a hand and was beginning to go into shock.
Tearing a bottle from his hip, he threw it to the ground, shattering the glass. A glittering little fairy circled him curiously, free at last from its confines. Link gestured at it desperately with his bleeding arm, only for the thing to look at him, confused. It had the temerity to stare at his stump with its beady little eyes, with its hands on its hips, expectantly. Link screamed.
With his remaining hands, he took a fistful of rupees out of his pouch and threw them at the fairy, which seemed to satisfy it. Munching happily on a purple rupee, the fairy circled his missing hand, healing the wound. It did not, however, regrow his hand. Perhaps if he had been less busy screaming, he could have asked?
He wanted to say that he was getting careless, that he was caught unawares. The reality was that these kinds of injuries happened to people who got into fights, who were forced into such a desperate situation that they weren’t permitted to choose their battles. He had prepared as much as he could have, and it still wasn’t enough to escape without being maimed. That was the risk Link had accepted when he set out to kill a primordial magic force.
He retrieved the Master Sword once more, counting himself lucky that he hadn’t left it here for some other poor bastard to find.
As it turned out, the chest the Lizalfos had been guarding contained a clawshot that fit nicely over the stump his hand left behind. He would call it a suspicious coincidence, but coincidences were the province of heroes, not people like him. He had known the clawshot was somewhere in the temple, and if he had to take a hit, he’d rather it be something he could replace than something that gave him no chance to heal.
Link spent the rest of the temple wary of Ganon’s minions, but none of the others managed to surprise him in such a lethal way, especially with the mobility the clawshot afforded. But no matter how hard he searched, no shard of the Triforce of Courage could be found.
Hand burning with phantom pain, he made his way out.
Facing Hyrule Castle alone was much easier than he expected. He had gotten a lot of practice killing Ganon’s minions. In many ways, the lack of support had forced him to understand the enemy in ways he hadn’t before. Bokoblins weren’t just dumb; they were predictable. Approach them from the same angle every time, and they would die the same way. The only variations in strategy were to account for grade and number.
It wasn’t as if he was ill-equipped, either. His travels had given him a potent arsenal of weapons to use against the forces of darkness: a boomerang, several variations of explosives, a sacred bow, and a big hammer among them. He was also hardier, from the blessings the fairies had given him (in exchange for money, of course) and the materials left behind by the bigger and more dangerous monsters he had faced.
So he climbed the castle steps, as prepared for an epic confrontation with Ganon as any Link before had been. Unfortunately, Link was not a hero.
What followed was something of an anticlimax. Ganon himself was just another giant, slow, lumbering monster. A tough one, to be sure, and one with weapons that shook the whole castle with their weight, but Link’s agility and maneuverability handily outclassed the Demon King.
Using his clawshot to swing from a chandelier, Link flipped above Ganon and brought the Master Sword down in a vicious stab, augmenting the force of gravity with the power that lay dormant within the sword. The weapon pierced straight through Ganon’s giant, piggish forehead, emitting the light of the Goddess. Link backflipped away, watching the light burn away at the desperately clawing beast. Almost as rapidly as he had manifested all those years ago, Ganon burned away, Master Sword clattering to the ground.
In his place was one-third of the wish-granting golden triangle, the Triforce of Power, which Link silently absorbed with a touch. Two more to go.
Link sat down on the castle steps.
It didn’t take very long before survivors approached him. People emerged from their months of hiding, grateful that his intervention had saved them in their time of need. He wondered what his actions looked like from their perspective, what it felt like when there was indeed a hero with the power to vanquish evil. It was a blessing he would never be able to receive himself.
They received his protest that he wasn’t a hero with skepticism. No, Link wasn’t unaware of how he looked. Just as much as he was raised on stories of the Hero, Link was raised with stories of people trying to avert prophecies, only to ultimately fulfill them. The possibility that he would succeed in his suicidal quest to defeat Ganon and obtain the Triforce was always there. That didn’t trivialize his work, the real risk of annihilation he had faced, or the lives lost along the way.
He wasn’t a hero, not because he lacked the power or the resolve, but because he had the wisdom to know that those weren’t worth the price. Or rather, would have the wisdom.
He turned to his left when the crowd dispersed with little warning or fanfare. Standing there, just behind his shoulder, was Sheik.
Excuse me, princess, he said to the royal-in-exile. He apologized for ending the fight without her.
“How did you know who I am?” Sheik asked - although she didn’t sound surprised. She pulled off the mask and let loose her braid, and Link got his first look at the princess underneath.
He didn’t know why he expected familiarity, but there was no spark of recognition when he saw her. The same as when he had joined the Royal Guard, he possessed no recollection of the feelings the previous heroes held - not that she wasn’t pretty. Although he supposed for some heroes, the relationship was platonic.
Link explained to her that if she wanted to hide her identity, she could do better than a known alias of Princess Zelda.
Zelda sat beside him on the castle steps, and they both looked into the sunset.
“So you were the hero after all.” She accused. “I had my suspicions, but this proves it beyond a doubt.”
Link shook his head. If he was the hero, then he had the privilege to choose not to be, he equivocated. If he wasn’t the hero, then it was no choice at all.
“Why choose not to be a hero?”
The hero is one person, Link said. Hyrule was many, emphasizing the ‘was.’ The other Links, the ones who had died, had no way of knowing their place in the world other than repeatedly trying until only one was left. In the meantime, people were dying, the forces of Ganon were growing, and Hyrule was in peril. By the time he knew enough to save anyone, there were only a few who remained.
Zelda looked at him with pity. “You can’t blame yourself for the people Ganon murdered.”
Link recited the words of Demise’s curse. He, in fact, could blame himself for the people Ganon murdered - if and only if he was the hero. If the nonsense about fate and destiny was true, there were precisely two people capable of ending the cycle. The princess with the blood of the goddess, he gestured to Zelda, and the man embodying the spirit of the hero, he gestured to himself.
The unbroken chain of heroes was only as strong as its weakest Link. Until the two of them were gone, Ganon and his derivatives would haunt the kingdom forever. The fields of Hyrule would be soaked with the blood of their children once again, and the next time, they might not even win. Which is why, Link leaned in, he needed to assemble the complete Triforce.
“I see,” Zelda said. “So that’s your decision?”
Link nodded. If she would assent, he only needed to locate the Triforce of Courage. With their power combined, he might be able to destroy the Triforce once and for all.
Zelda laughed at him with an endearing guffaw that reminded him of the former King. It went on for a while, and he wondered if he had been wrong to approach her honestly with his request. She wiped a tear from her eyes.
“You mean you don’t know?” She chuckled. Then she examined him again with shock. “Oh goddess, your hand! Of course, you don’t know!”
Link raised his clawshot to her face and opened and closed its pincers, proud of the look of despair it inspired. Zelda grabbed his wrist and held her hand close to him.
“See this?” She said, channeling some of the power of the Triforce. The back of her land lit up, and the silhouette of the Triforce of Wisdom appeared. “I suppose it showed up on your left hand; without it, you’d have no way to check. I have no idea how you could have missed its power, though.”
Well, if he didn’t know when he got it, how was he supposed to find out what the Triforce of Courage did?
Zelda shook her head. “You got it the moment you resolved to end the cycle regardless of the cost to yourself, as long as it helped the people of Hyrule. So likely the moment you lost your hand.”
Well, he supposed that settled the question of whether he was the hero.
Zelda stood up, dragging Link along with her. “We might as well do this properly,” she said as they entered Hyrule Castle’s main hall.
Standing opposite him, Zelda put her hands together in prayer. The glow of the goddess surrounded her until, from her heart, the final piece of the Triforce emerged. Cupping her hands, she guided it to Link.
“Take this.” She said. “You have my blessing. The cycle was never Hylia’s design. If Demise can be eliminated with my sacrifice, there won’t be any need for the cycle at all.”
Link reached out and touched the Triforce of Wisdom. The power flowing through him increased dramatically, and he could feel the phantom of his left hand containing the full Triforce. He chuckled, imagining an orphaned, glowing hand somewhere at the bottom of Lake Hylia.
He paused before making his wish. Was the Triforce one of those things that would grant only the literal wish he made? How specific did he have to-?
“It grants whatever wish was in your heart, as close to the meaning as it is able,” Zelda informed him.
Well then.
As the Goddesses Din, Nayru, and Farore once left this world for its own good, leaving the Triforce in its wake, so too did Link wish for the Triforce to vanish, leaving nothing but its memory behind. To break the cycle of reincarnation, Link wished to remove the symbol upon which it revolved. He wished for a world where the ordinary person did not have to face a threat countered only by forces beyond their ken, where the people of Hyrule didn’t have to wait for someone clad in Green to save them because they were able to save themselves. What he, no, what they wished for, was a world with no heroes.
Link began to glow faintly at first, then bright enough that he had to close his eyes. As the power wrapped around him and escaped his grasp, his last thought was that he hoped it would be enough.