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A name is something you carry everywhere, at any time. It lingers around, from before your birth, to long after your death. It engraves itself on trees, tombs and the hearts of people alike. It stretches over the pastures and travels the world on the back of the postman. Uttered from the lips of lovers and enemies, shouted in the dark, recognised, remembered, forgotten... An identity bound in letters.
A link, in a way, to the rest of the world.
Fate had a terrible sense of humor.
Link blinked slowly as a white dawn started to light the end of a gray night. The fire was slowly dying, consuming the last bit of its wood. The young boy who was supposed to be on the lookout was asleep on the other side, his short blond hair cascading onto his face, inclined over his crossed arms. Link frowned a bit, and silently dragged his blanket to cover the little pirate. The last shift was always difficult. Dark, cold, and above all, calm. Even monsters tend to sleep past a certain time. Still, they couldn't rest without precautions. Danger strikes harder when you lower your guard. That meant always having someone on watch, even when it was someone so young.
His heart wrung a little at that thought. They were all too young. Out of his eight companions, two or three were adults, and only one was over twenty. The one who was in a coma for 100 years didn't count.
A sigh. He was sometimes really feeling like an old man.
A log full of morning dew fell into the fire in a rain of embers, and the Hero of Time let his eye wander around the circle of his sleeping friends in search of a long, loose ponytail. He found it, half-sunken between a pile of bags and the mane of a curled up wolf.
He crouched at a prudent distance, then tried to wake the young man as cautiously as possible. In a group where everyone had at least some kind of traumatic memories and a sword ready at any time, caution was important.
"Wild..."
No answer. He tried to whisper a little more loudly.
"Wild ! It's time to prepare breakfast..."
An unidentified sound, followed by a movement in the blankets. Turning his back away from the noise, Wild looked like he wouldn't let any whispering disturb his rest. The movement, however, had woken up someone else. A furry ear perked, then the other, and the wolf opened a huge mouth full of white teeth to yawn. He then opened up his eyes slowly, blinking to chase the last bit of sleep in an eerily human way.
"Hello, Twilight"
The beast rose up on his legs and scanned the area. When he was assured that everything was normal, his attention shifted again to the man in front of him. A large grin gaped his mouth, letting a big tongue out while his tail started to wag happily. The one-eyed man smiled in return, as the wolf inclined his head in a silent question.
"I was trying to wake up Wild. Well, it's not a frank success."
Another yawn. Twilight gathered himself a little, and space distorted slightly as he returned to his human form. A relatively tall and relatively drowsy hylian stood now in front of his elder, sliding his hand on his dark blond hair, as if to detangle them.
"He had a rough night, best lettin him rest.
- Nightmares again ?
- Yep."
Too young. Too broken already.
"We will have to make breakfast ourselves then. Lend me a hand, pup."
His distant descendant pulled an old pan, some lard and a wooden spatula from a bag, and placed everything on the fire. No eggs. The last ones were the tragic victims of a bokoblin's ambush. They still had plenty of supplies to complete the menu, though.
A handful of minutes passed, and the meat sizzling embalmed the calm morning air with delicious smells. One of the lying figures moved, then rose to sit upright. The guy reached for a blue cap, and slid the end of his pointy ears inside to protect them from the cold. A lock of pink hair fell back in front of his eyes as he tried to figure out something.
"What are we eating ?"
Twilight rearranged the content of the pan with his spatula, a satisfied look on his face.
"Lard, bread and goat cheese. Maybe some jam, if you find it somewhere...
- Nice."
Legend complained a lot about a lot of things, but not so much when it came to food. Maybe because he wasn't a very good cook. Maybe he just didn't mind. He was difficult to understand sometimes.
Time watched him plunge his elbow into the ribs of his neighbor, then dodging, laughing, a dagger aimed at his throat in retaliation. Warriors was, globally, not very enthusiastic at the idea of "mornings". Even more when someone decided to start them earlier than necessary.
The rest of the camp slowly emerged, as the captain and the veteran continued to squabble and thoroughly exasperate each other.
The second youngest, Four, approached the fire. His tunic, divided in colorful quarters, was still stained from blood, despite a lot of laundry efforts. Yet he didn't want to replace it.
"G'morning..."
He picked a slice of bread and detached little bits of it, quite absent-mindedly.
Behind, a groan rose from the long-haired champion.
"Eh... I'm the one in charge of the breakfast !
- We didn't ask Hyrule to do it, don't worry."
At the right end of the circle, the voice of the traveler answered, with a hint of vexation.
"My cooking is *not that bad*, you know.
- I wouldn't call it cooking... that fish was... urh...
- ... completely edible."
The brown-haired hero crossed his arms fiercely. Four shrugged, and didn't pursue the argument.
Twilight raised the pan across the fire, as Wind, the youngest, tried to snatch a chunk of lard.
"No breakfast for sleeping lookouts."
The kid stopped his movement halfway, did a grimace and retreated to the nearest trunk, the face reddened by shame. That was a joke, but it was harsh. The little pirate was someone that kept promises and upheld duty with pride, so putting his companions in danger -even by fatigue- was something he hated. He was already mortified enough by himself.
Time took a reassuring voice.
"Everyone has his serving prepared. Just don't eat it too fast, you'll burn yourself."
Bowls, tin dishes and wood plates were soon filled with enough food to carry everyone to the next part of their quest (hopefully another good meal and not a horde of mutating monsters). One portion of meat and a piece of bread still remained untouched. Time frowned, and counted to verify if everyone was there. One, two, three...oh. The knight of Skyloft had the ability to sleep through anything, even with a bunch of rowdy, hungry and loud heroes at his side. He emitted a resounding snore, bursting laughter around the camp.
A breath of relief quit the lips of the eldest. As the tension left his shoulders, he crossed the gaze of the ordonian shepherd. Twilight seemed intrigued.
"You've been thinkin about something since earlier, no ?
- I'm always thinking about something. The opposite would be worrying.
- No, you look... preoccupied, but kinda in a sad way... that's not usual."
Perceptive.
"Maybe. I was reflecting on things.
- What things ?
- Names. Fate. Irony.
- Wow. That's deep."
He was only half-sarcastic. Behind the trees, a barefoot Legend chased after a laughing Wind. Time continued.
"I was wondering if we would be the same, with another name. What if there was no Link, no Zelda, no Ganon. Just... different dangers, handled by different, unrelated peoples. Would we still be heroes ?
- Hmmm... maybe ? There would still be evil, and still some people would have to be courageous and wise to defeat it.
- But maybe one single name wouldn't be such a heavy burden. Maybe... we could have found this courage as adults."
Four, who was still around and kept an ear open to the conversation, fiddled thoughtfully with the trinkets attached to his belt.
"I don't think adults can understand courage that much... They can't see a lot of things. So they aren't afraid enough and they die.
- That's a bold thing to say to adults with the triforce of courage, smithy.
- Just saying. There is much more bravery in a tiny thing than in a big one."
The stone embedded on the sword on his back caught a ray of light, a red glow illuminating briefly the side of his face.
Twilight transferred the last bit of meat to a carved bowl, and poured the fat that remained at the bottom of the pan over the campfire. A thick, acrid white fog escaped immediately from the embers, masking partly the face of the cook as everyone at a direct proximity of the fire choked a little.
His voice seemed troubled when he spoke again. Or maybe it was just the smoke.
“You regret it ?
- What ?
- Your name…”
That was a strange question.
“Hmmm… not really.”
The young man's shoulders seemed to relax a little.
“I'm proud.”
He took a second, deep in thoughts.
“... to be “Link” and not somethin else. Also that you are. And all the others.”
The smith smiled.
“I like it too. It feels… I don't know, it's nice.”
Less lonely.
Time pulled himself with a big inspiration. The sun was rising, and the road ahead was long. He reached for the heavy armor with resolution.
"Enough philosophy. We have to travel a lot today, if we want to find an inn for the night."
Legend had recovered his boots, Warriors the flawless styling of his haircut. Sky was awake. Another day started, for nine heroes tangled in a quest that far exceeded them. Ahead was a hard path, as thorny as the one behind.
But they chose it confidently, in unison.
After all, across time and space, they were all Links of the same chain.
