A House Full Of Ghosts

Next Steps

The first thing Link did upon waking was setting out to clean the house. Books and papers lay scattered across the floor, a mess created over a hundred years of neglect. There was most certainly a hole in the roof as well, the weight of snow weakening and bowing it in several places. Several windows had been shattered, by what Link didn't know. The house was an absolute mess.

Link took a deep sigh as he looked around. He supposed he should be thankful the house still stood, especially given that very few still did. However, the fortune he had in that did not cancel out that the house was in a state of disaster. Something had to be done about all of it.

So, he cleaned. He picked up papers and bowls and reshelved books, he swept and dusted, and after he did so he looked around, gazing over his work. It was minimal, what he had done, but it made a difference. The air no longer felt stale and dusty, the atmosphere of the room relieved of the overbearing darkness of loss.

He thinks about Revali- forever the neat freak, he would have been thrilled to see Link cleaning the house of his own volition. Link wasn't necessarily a dirty person, no, but he also saw nothing against leaving his weapons strewn across the table or piled on a chair after a long day. Revali, on the other hand, had a place for everything and expected to find whatever it was in that place. Link glanced at the broken bow mount on the wall, where every night Revali would place the Great Eagle Bow for 'safekeeping.'

Link smiles fondly at the memory, walking over to the wall to assess the level of damage to the mount. One of the prongs was loose, the nail practically falling out of the wall. He huffed, though it was an easy fix. As he searched the house for any extra nails that might be laying around, he found himself lost in thought.

He still found it strange, that he was once romantically involved with the Rito Champion. It made sense with the memories he now had, but there was still a considerable gap between the memories he had before he came to their house, and the ones he had just recently gained. He wondered how they came to be; how they went from resentment and anger to love. None of it made sense, but it had worked. They had worked, even for a short while- before it had all been snatched away and burnt to the ground.

Link grabbed an old box of half rusted nails and a rather rough looking hammer from the bottom of a drawer and moved back to the wall in a distracted haze, his body moving without much input from his distracted brain. He found himself wondering, how together were they? Were they just courting? Engaged? He found himself entertaining the thought of marriage- they had lived together, after all, a rarity for those out of wedlock. Marriage sounded nice, it was a feat he had never dreamed he would have been able to manage, what with his dedication to his royal duties. However, he had no proof of such a thing, so he tossed the thought aside, determined to not entertain unobtainable fantasies.

He took a step back, looking over his work. The hook now hung sturdily in place, unmoving. He walked over to his bag, pulling out the Great Eagle Bow. He was mostly undamaged, seeing how he had been incredibly reluctant to use it unless it was a situation of life or death. He ran his fingers over the singed crest at the top of the bow, chilled as he found his hand lingering over the large blackened notch that had been burned into the wood. He knew what had happened here; he knew the sharp burning pain of concentrated light and fire.

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, one hand on his chest, the other falling to his side, bow still in hand. He refused to allow himself to think about what had happened next, he refused to allow his mind to wander down such a dark path. Instead, he raised his hand and placed the Great Eagle Bow back into its mount, returning it to its place after a hundred years. He smiled weakly at the bow, and in the back of his mind he could practically feel how pleased Revali would have been.