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I am Dark Link. I am the hero's shadow, his darkest reflection. I am everything he isn't, his opposite in every way.
Where Link won, Dark lost. Whereas Link was brave, Dark was cowardly. Link's home was in the light, with the love of all who met him, Dark skulked about in the shadows, his only company Ganon's minions. Link was a hero. Dark wasn't.
But there was one matter that Dark was glad he wasn't similar to Link in. Family. More often than not, Link didn't have a family. Sure, he had friends who cared about him, but no one who raised him, took care of him, did everything they could to make him safe. If by chance the hero did have a family, then some terrible tragedy would befall them. Or, in one case, he would leave them as he had an adventure on the high seas that involved a strange dream, a parasitic bug eyed monster that sucked life force, and a whale with bushy grey eyebrows.
Dark had a family. In a way, he reincarnated along with the hero and the princess; every time the hero died, he faded away for a while, and every time a new hero was born, he came back as a baby. Lord Ganon had no time to look after a precocious child, but he recognised the usefulness of the hero's dark mirror image, so relied on his creatures to raise the boy. They didn't raise him very well, but Ganon had no care for the quality of childhood, and it certainly didn't stop Dark caring about them. Sure, the Moblins seemed to share half a brain cell between them, and the ReDeads had an annoying habit of screaming at inopportune moments (and temporarily paralysing everyone in the immediate area as a side effect), but they were family, and nothing would change that.
Until the day where something did. The day where Ganondorf, from his position stuck in the Twilight Realm, sent him to kill Princess Zelda when she was young. He was young as well. Maybe too young. Too young to have had loyalty drummed into his head. Too young for the memories of past lives and other timelines to return to him as they always did. Too young to understand what he could and couldn't do.
There were so many people there that day. Ganon had ordered a Wizzrobe to make sure that Dark blended in. He now had the appearance of a young Hylian boy. A young Hylian boy who had to weave his way through the crush of overexcited people getting ready for the fair, towards Hyrule Castle. Towards Princess Zelda. Dark had just started on this dangerous journey, an eight year old lost in the crowd, when he heard her voice. "Hello?" He started, turned, ready to fight. But what he saw was a girl about his own age. Shoulder length brown hair. Eyes the colour of a cold sea. Plain dress that she probably had taken from someone else's wardrobe, because she seemed unused to wearing something so simple and it was about four sizes too big for her. Blinking nervously. All this Dark took in, before he realised that her face was the same as the one that Wizzrobe had implanted in his mind. This was Princess Zelda. But he couldn't just kill her in the street, with people around, so the dagger stayed hidden in the cloth belt around his waist, and he decided to humour her. "What?" He asked sulkily. She blushed. He didn't understand. Why was she blushing? He had just asked her a question. "Well...I, um, w-well, I was wondering..." She took a deep breath. "I...don't really know my way around town and I was wondering if you could...show me, maybe? If you're not busy."
Dark stared at her in shock. "But you're Princess Zelda! How do you not know your way around town?" He slapped his hand over his mouth. She wasn't supposed to know he knew. Zelda, for her part, lost the blush and gained some fear in her eyes. "You know? Please don't tell the guards!" Well this was his mission going up in flames. He had just been handed his target on a silver platter, the type he imagined Zelda would usually eat off of, as well! Some reassurance was in order. Dark hoped Wizzrobe had made his eyes look friendly enough. "Hey, it's alright. I promise I won't tell on you. To be honest, I don't really know my way here either, but I'll be happy to come with you!" He reached out his hand to touch hers in a way that he hoped came off as comforting rather than creepy. Clearly it worked, because she smiled, and the flames covering his mission were doused. "Sure! What's your name?"
He hadn't thought about that! "Um...Link?" Dark despised having to use the name of the one he had been taught was his enemy, but it was the best he could come up with.
"You don't sound very sure."
"Well, that's definitely my name. Mine and no-one else's. Shall we go?"
Zelda nodded and grabbed his hand so as to easily drag him through the crowd. Dark attempted to ignore the tingling sensation that shot through his body, instead focusing on how he was going to stab Zelda as soon as they found somewhere deserted.
But he never found anywhere deserted to take her. At least, that was his excuse. In all honesty, he had wilfully ignored several prime opportunities. Something was holding him back, and he often found himself watching the shapes her mouth made as she asked him why he was looking at her, rather than leading her down dark alleyways.
Dark had never had fun before. It was a concept both he and Zelda were unfamiliar with; she because of many long hours being tutored in princessdom, he because of the rigorous training Ganondorf made sure he was put through. He supposed that that was the day where both of them enjoyed themselves more than they were usually able to. Yet they would both pay the price eventually. Zelda would be punished for running away from the castle, and Dark would be punished for failing to complete his mission. It was an inevitability that both of them could only delay for so long.
Dark was walking happily along the street, Zelda still clutching his hand tightly to avoid separation, when he became aware of a slowly growing, throbbing pain in his head. Soon, it was so bad that he was screaming and clawing at his head, much to Zelda's confusion. He fell to his knees, Zelda's hand slowly slipping out of his as his disguise melted away to reveal a boy with pitch black skin, clothing and scruffy hair, the only colour his eyes as they glowed like red hot coal. A voice hissed in his head. You fool. What are you doing? You should have killed the girl when the chance arose! Dark spoke through gritted teeth. "I know we've never liked each other, Wizzrobe, but this is taking it a bit too far." Don't you dare speak to me like that! Besides, here the voice took on a smug tone, even if you think you're her friend, Princess Zelda sees you as a freak. Dark glanced at Princess Zelda through pain blurred eyes. She was staring at him as if he was some strange and dangerous creature. Oh no. The only thing left was to beg. "Don't look at me." He turned pleading eyes towards her. Eyes that were already starting to stain with his red tinted tears. "Please, don't look at me. I'm a freak. I'm a monster. Just...turn away and go, now. Please..."
For an eternity wrapped in seconds, Zelda looked like she was going to turn and run. But then a kind smile found itself onto her face, and she reached out a hand for him. "It's alright. I don't mind. You look nice. I think red eyes suit you."
For a long time after that moment, Dark couldn't figure out whether she had done it deliberately. Whether an eight year old had the power to activate the glowing triangular symbol on the back of her hand, had the power to take the ache in his head away when he touched her fingers. But it didn't really matter, in the end. Because in the next second, he noticed the bokoblin archer on the rooftop. A backup assassin, in case Dark failed. By the time the arrow had been let loose, he was pushing Zelda out of the way, the cowardice instilled in him since a young age dissolving in the face of the arrow. The arrow that he had no hope of dodging. It hit him in the shoulder and passed straight through into his chest. He was a shadow; he wouldn't die, but it felt like it in that moment. Dark smiled weakly up at Zelda as she approached. "My..name..is...Dark Link...It...it..was..a pleasure...to meet...you, Zelda. Go...back...to the..castle, now. You'll...be...sa...fe..there.." And with that he faded back to the place underground where the monsters gathered, ready to face his punishment. It was the first time that he had directly worked against his family. A family who would doubtless no longer love him - he had ruined their plan, after all. Yet he regretted nothing, and he never would.
When he met Zelda again, ten years later, after he went on an adventure with her and promptly left at the end because she was a princess and he was her enemy in technicality even if not reality, he made a decision.
I am Dark Link. I am nothing like the hero I am named after. I will be my own hero, even if I have to die to achieve my goal.