The Memories Between Them | ✔

8) 118

⚔In which Link celebrates his birthday⚔

Zelda

The house gets easier to live in. The items of the past become less eerie and more just objects. Walking in and seeing the Champion's weapons isn't as jarring. It's all just things. It feels less like a pre-Calamity museum and more like Link's house. A house people come to visit for good food and cool stories. A house people come to visit to see the Hero, not to solve their problems, but to look for a friend. They seek him out for a drinking buddy or a game of cards.

Link knows everyone. He walks through town and calls the people by name. He stops to talk to the children. He signs and speaks, depending on the day. Nobody questions it, and people are happy to see him all the same. In Kakariko, it made sense that he knew everyone. The Sheikah helped him, and they were the only ones that knew about his past. But here, he had the choice to remain a recluse, to keep his interactions to a minimum. And he didn't. He chose to make friends with every person he saw. He chose to learn their names, interests, and doubts. And he let them get to know him, too. I walked behind him in wonder as he waved and smiled freely. I suppose Impa was right, about him taking this second chance to choose the way he wanted to live, instead of being told. I wonder, if he got the chance to do it over a century ago, if he still would have chosen to stay at the palace.

The words ring familiar.

We spend these days of domesticity by doing what Link calls normal people things. Cooking and cleaning, shopping and hunting for food, and mending clothes. I teach him how to patch up a hole in one of his tunics, and he helps me shoot an arrow. I could before, but after a century, the skill is lost to me. Link decides that since I can shoot a bow, I should learn to defend myself in other ways, too. Ways I was never allowed to learn in the before. We begin with some simple exercises, just to get a bit of strength back, now that I am back to a healthy weight. Then a bit of hand-to-hand combat. Link says I'll get to use a sword eventually, but for now strength training would be the most important. I agreed, not knowing much about the subject myself. I'm tempted to research it a bit, but Link seems content to doing things his way, and I trust him.

Link lets me use the Sheikah slate. After a while of bugging him, he finally let me try the teleportation feature. And... he was right. It was disorienting, and I almost vomited when I landed on a travel pad on the shrine across the bridge. Link ran to help me up, telling me he was right. Despite the mini lecture, I laughed. It was so cool . And even though he was in the middle of a very sweet and concerned speech, he chuckled, too. A sound I have come to treasure like I used to, even though now it happens much more often. He teaches me how to use the runes, and tells me stories about how he used them – most of them dangerous, but he laughs when he tells them, so I don't scold. He shows me the compendium, a catalogue of almost everything in Hyrule. Monsters and creatures and foods and weapons. It's not completely filled out, but most of it is. A lot of the pictures are selfies, with Link posing in front of one of every color Lynel. I gawk at the pictures and stories that go with them.

Prima and her little brother come to see us a few days in a row, and Link lets Prima look at the relics he's collected as further proof of our heritage. Link lets Pig touch the Master sword, wear the funny cap of the wild Link found in the Forgotten Temple, and look around at all the items. Priam asks the more important questions about the history of items. She gathers proof of her own, whatever will work to square it away in her own mind. Link answers the questions he can, and I let him unless he needs help.

Once Prima does seem satisfied with the information, she comes over just to visit. Link and I spend days doing normal things like cooking, exploring, and washing. Afternoons are spent with food and stories of the past, praying to jog some sort of memory. There isn't any, but Link still appreciates the stories. We spend nights in the tavern. We drink and talk and laugh as if the world hasn't ended and begun again. We pretend we're normal people with usual expectations as the days bleed together with simplicity.