The Legend of Zelda: A Hero's Legacy

Chapter 2: This World Is Yours

As Link approached the main doors of the abandoned castle he had been kept in these past four years, he could hear a faint roar of noise coming from outside. The demon king could not have found his way here, thought Link with gritted teeth, a bead of sweat pressing at his brow. As he heaved open the great doors, he gasped. Though partially from the exposure to sunlight after his solitary confinement in darkness, but mostly because of the breathtaking sight before him. Thousands of people littered the empty plains that surrounded Castle Eldin. As soon as they saw Link, the crowd went wild. The cheers were deafening. Look at these people, he thought. They need me.

"My dear land of Hylia!" he muttered, wiping his brow with the back of his sleeve. No one could hear him but this message didn't need to be heard. This was purely for him. "Though people's hearts may change with time, this land's beauty, pride, and purity never change." He closed his eyes and felt the hearts and souls of everyone around him. "If you have need of me... then I will forever fight to defend you." What was happening? Link thought, puzzled. These people just cast me aside. Why do I feel such a need to protect them now? Was this what I used to believe?

Yes. Link snapped his head left and right frantically. 

"Who said that?" he exclaimed aloud. No response. Before more thought could be put to the matter, the deafening roars of his army of admirers brought him sharply back into focus. This was still unreal for him. As an orphan boy on the streets, scrounging for food, causing mayhem and trying to find his place in this dark and confusing world, this was all too much to comprehend. Impossible, even.

Even as he had carved his name into the world's great story, he had, quite humbly, thought himself a mere servant, a person steeped in goodness, but nothing more. Nothing special. He just did what was right, because so much was wrong.

All that bitterness that had built up in him over the past three years of imprisonment was starting to vanish. In its place, he found assurance, determination. Courage.

He decided to address the people with this new change of heart, recalling how he once felt so vehemently. Raising his hand to address the crowd, his crowd, thousands of eyes fell upon him and soon all fell silent.

"People of Hylia!" he boomed. "Though I have been pushed aside and forgotten, this doesn't stray me from my path to protect you all." The crowd went wild with applause, and he waited patiently for them to fall silent again. "We thought we had defeated this demon before. We had destroyed most of his army and he fled beyond the Lanyaru province. 

"What I now realise is that we can never have peace unless we defeat him! Truly defeat him! Wipe his scourge from existence!" Again the crowd went frantic but soon fell back into silence at their hero's command. "This war will be long and hard but we must stand together in the oncoming trials that surely lay ahead. Let us fight together, children of Hylia!" 

With those last words, the crowd went crazier than ever. Such untamed enthusiasm, he thought with a sense of strangeness. They cheered now, but when corpses littered the streets, pile upon pile, slain by the monsters spawned by the demon king, their smiles would vanish, and there would be no cause for celebration until they were truly free of this devil's evil.

After a while when they had finally calmed down to a reasonable outpour, they looked back up to hear more from the hero, but he was gone.

######

"It has been too long" Veran laughed, gulping down his pumpkin ale.

"Aye" agreed Orin.

"Well" Link smiled, inhaling his third cup. "It is only right that I give you rookies' time to catch up to me. With four years I am sure you are now half the swordsman I am."