New Home - BotW Link x Reader (Undergoing Revisions)

Chapter 00 - Storied Words and Missing Pages

When the three golden goddesses were tasked with creating Hyrule, they had their work cut out for them. They had a blank slate, yet immense power; a mold with no direction, a realm with which they chose to craft into their own. There was a lot to do - yet they delegated their tasks, and got to work.

Their names, as the mortals know them, are as follows: powerful Din, she who created the material realm; clever Nayru, she who gave the realm law and order; and courageous Farore, she who created all life forms that would follow the order her sister wrote out and inhabit the world the eldest created.

Only when their work was complete, the world they created beautiful and vast, their peoples bountiful and lively, their boons plentiful and varied, did they depart for the heavens. Their gifts were, quite literally, divine; and yet, even the world they created for as beautiful that it was, paled in comparison to their final gift, the one they left in parting, a final afterthought at the end and beginning of it all: the Triforce.

It was a wonderful gift, a powerful gift, a perfect gift. And that was where the trouble came.

The power of the Triforce, those three sacred, equilateral triangles crafted of gold, was so great that it could be entrusted only to the goddess Hylia. For as sacred as it was, it could not have been granted anything less than that, for simply put, it was but a small portion of the golden goddesses' essence - explaining its holy strength.

As such...

The races Farore created were beautiful. There are songbirds spreading their tunes to the farthest corners of the land, antlered beasts that patrolled the forests, horses that galloped the plains, hogs and chickens and bovines, and beings so strong they normally lie dormant, and beings so small they cannot stop moving, beings that cannot be eaten and those that live only to kill, and more, so much more.

Of bipedal forms specifically, there were races plentiful and varied even amongst themselves: forms with skin smooth, colors varied, and ears pointed; larger forms with skins hardened like rock, unable to feel even the sharpest of pricks; forms smooth and dynamic, crafted for life on land and in the water; feathered forms capable of flight.

But for as beautiful as many of the forms Farore created were, she could not account for the darkness that dwelled in the hearts of a certain few among them. No one could.

The Triforce is powerful, incredibly so. As such, there were beings that would misuse its almighty power, but within Hylia's steady hands, the Triforce remained safe... for a time.

Throughout Hyrule's history, many have tried to steal the Triforce from her. The Goddesses enlisted the help of spirits, fairies, and lesser deities under Hylia's jurisdiction to hide - and protect - the divine gift.

But Hylia seemed always to employ another line of defense: a hero.

As time passed terrible beings of great evil and terrible darkness rose up to take the Triforce for themselves, but a chosen few heroes were granted the Triforce of Courage, emboldening them. When coupled with the courage of their own heart, these heroes would defeat their adversaries and restore peace to Hyrule, but never for long, and never for good.

—

"As for us," I continued to read aloud, "and our blessed land Hyrule, we are but one more war, one more hero, and one more greedy fool who wished to take the Triforce for himself. But very much unlike the others... our hero has failed."

Though my eyes were trained to the page before me, I did not miss the way that many of the kids before me gasped, and several sets of eyes widened rather dramatically at my words. I also did not miss the way Leah, seated beside me turned her gaze from my profile to the kids, a smile growing on her face. This was a story she and I had heard a hundred times before, and particularly a story I had read to her several dozen more times, through perhaps it was a sum far more than that, but for these kids, this would be their first time hearing the tale of our fallen hero.