Linktober 2023

Day 20, Fire/lava/heat

Sleep until...
> Morning
> Noon
> Night
> Nevermind

Tags: Link/Zelda, botw

Fires were important to Hyrule. Travelers cooked meals over open flames, families gathered around fireplaces to tell stories, and people gave sacrifices to the goddess. Fires were warm, comforting, and beautiful when contained.

The first thing Link smiled at after waking up was a fire. It was warm and beautiful on a cold first night. The last King and the last Knight of Hyrule shared a meal over an open flame. But Link didn't know that until later.

One of Link's least favorite things were fires being misused for destruction. How could something so beautiful and comforting sustain life, while taking it away just as easily? The Yiga Clan's favorite tactic was fire, especially when they learned Link tended to gravitate towards it. They use bomb and fire arrows, marked their base with fires, and cause chaos with them. But Link never hated the fire. He hated the Clan.

Some special nights, when Link's wallet and area aligned, he rented a bed, or slept at an inn, or even in his own bed at Hateno. Those nights, he spent hours at the fire with everyone else, listening for anything suspicious, or hearing a good story. More often than not, what he heard turned out to be the start of some grand adventure. A rumor turned out to be true after Link investigated it. People began to talk about him like he was a tale himself, although not because he was the long-lost Hero of Hyrule. Simply because he appeared everywhere, and everywhere he appeared people were helped. Link kept quiet when people talked over community fires about him, smiling to himself.

Link also slept countless, restless nights alone under the canopy of trees or stars, listening to the crackle of embers that seemed to whisper hints of memories of doing the same thing a century before, only he wasn't alone then. Now he woke up with a pain in his chest like a phantom limb, a hole where something used to be, and is now missing. He wasn't sure what that thing was until he gathered more memories, and he learned the thing he was missing was actually a person.

He missed Zelda.

And when he rescued her, the first time he felt that hole start to heal was when he was seated across from her, a fire between them, and the flames cast a golden glow across her mud-splattered face, and she laughed at something he'd said. The sound echoed with the smoak to the sky, and Link felt like he could breathe for the first time since waking up.

Link and Zelda spent a lot of time traveling around Hyrule. Most of the time, they had places to stay. They sat next to each other at the communal cooking pots and stable fireplaces, and Link listened while Zelda talked. Fires brought them back together after so long. Fires felt complete when she was sitting next to him. Everything was better while she was there.

Fires kept people alive and brought them together. No one knows this like Link does.