Chapter Text
It wasn’t Zelda who Link remembered first. The princess, despite being such a profound influence in his life, was a distant and enigmatic figure who was about as tangible as a stream of water pouring over his fingertips. She was an ever present, powerful current in his mind. But the memory of her was never something he could snatch away, or drink from when he pleased.
No, it wasn’t the most vivid or traumatic events that came to him first.
Mipha, Zelda, the king, and all the other Champions were the same in how they came and went with rain, with the ocean tides, and with tumbling fog. It was both a relief and a frustration. While he may not be ready for the emotional turmoil of his past, time wasn’t exactly on his side.
Not anymore, at least.
The easiest things for him to recall turned out to be fuzzy, distorted memories of his childhood. Walking down a beaten path, spying a crumbling watchtower, or holding a stick in his hand were all shockingly easy triggers to remind him of his father’s wry laugh.
The man wasn’t what he’d expected.
The first memory of his father came to him when he fought Bokoblins and machinery in the ruins of a farm not too far from the capital of Hyrule. It appeared so suddenly that Link’s senses had vanished completely and he stood dumbly in front of a live guardian- lost in the rush of information. It took a laser and a Bokoblin smacking him with a pot lid to snap him out of it.
At the end of all his battling, Link collapsed in the middle of the ranch, arms spread wide as he reflected on the memory of his younger self beating what looked like a boy twice his age with a stick.
That part wasn’t all that surprising. Link had enough brute strength that he figured he must’ve been born with a decent amount of it. What was shocking was seeing his father on the other side of the fence, cackling madly as he collected rupees from a very angry Hylian knight.
He didn’t know how it started, but his father had made a bet against his own captain that Link could easily humiliate the man’s eldest son if given a hunk of wood and a mere ten seconds. His father walked away one hundred rupees richer that day, and Link was rewarded with a cut of prime steak.
Ever since he woke up from his hundred year coma, he’d been told stories of how noble and chivalrous the knights of old Hyrule were. And yet, here he lay, recalling that. It was definitely both a contradiction and the wrong way to feel about it, but memories of his father were the only memories Link enjoyed recalling at all.
He told Impa this as she sipped from a cup of tea, a thoughtful but curious look wrinkling her face even more than usual.
“That is why you insist upon cutting through the capital during your travels, I take it? As dangerous as it is?”
A nod.
It was an hour later, when he delivered tools to help Paya tend to the Sheikah graves, that she had pointed to the South, asking, “You’ve traveled to the capital, right? Do you know what that is? I’ve always wanted to know.”
Link joined her near the cliff’s edge, squinting. Across the valley, far in the distance, the silhouette of Hyrule’s colosseum could be seen in all the clear weather.
Without missing a heartbeat, he blurted, “That's the colosseum. It’s been standing for over three thousand years, and started out as an exclusive ring for prisoners to fight against monsters. Sometimes even knights or the kings of Hyrule would prove their worth by fighting in the ring- but around four hundred years ago, civilians were allowed to enter and bet on fighters.”
It left her staring at him, dumbfounded. It was probably the most he had ever said in one breath.
“...I remember more about that place than anywhere else in Hyrule,” he clarified.
“Y-You spent time there?”
“Some of my childhood, probably.”
“Your... childhood?”
“I think my father caught on that I was a pretty good fighter when I was still young. He liked gambling, too.”
“...Children were allowed to fight to the death? To be gambled on?” she was aghast. “The worst thing we do now is have them fight each other with wooden swords until they learn proper defense!”
Link shrugged. “I don’t remember any other kids being in the ring. For some reason, I was the only one.”
“That’s… odd.”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Odd.”
Paya looked away, reluctant to comment any further on the subject. She dusted away the dirt on her clothes as she returned to her work, remarking, “I’m very sorry you had a terrible father.”
“Did I?” He mused.
It was probably true. While Link recalled always having somewhere warm to sleep, a full plate of food, and his father’s jocular approval, he was definitely allowed far, far too much freedom for a child.
(Link often disappeared for days on end when he was still small and wide-eyed: wandering through forests, climbing steep hills, or digging for treasure beneath riverbeds. His father never searched for him on those days. If they didn’t stumble across each other during one of his father’s patrols, Link would eventually return home to snatch away whatever dinner his old man had cooked before slipping away the next morning- the sound of his father’s snoring growing quiet with the click of a locking door.)
“You’re a feral brat,” he would say. “It’s a blessing. If you were normal, I’d be worried sick.”
When Link showed interest in swordplay, his father obliged and tossed him a claymore to swing around at the age of four. By the time he was six, he was a colosseum fighter, eight a squire, and twelve: the youngest knight in Hyrule.
By thirteen, the Master Sword was in his hand.
By sixteen, he was an imperial guardsman and Champion.
By eighteen, he was asleep.
He didn’t know what became of his father. Most likely, the man died alongside King Rhoam. For all his faults, he passed on his brazen and courageous nature onto his son; and it’s how Link was sure that he died fighting- if not hurling some sort of profanity at a Guardian.
Remembering the heat of slate and pulsing red lights, it occurred to him the apple really didn’t fall far from the tree.