Village of Given, dawn of Hero's Day, about 11 years later
Link woke up to the sound of banging, clanging, and several voices outside. For one blissful second of sleepy confusion, he wondered why there was so much activity so early in the morning... and then he fully woke up and remembered the obvious reason: it was Hero's Day and the village was finishing up the preparations for the festivities.
He rolled his eyes and groaned.
An amused snort came from the kitchen downstairs: his mother had heard him. "All good, sweetie?" she called cheerfully. "Got it out of your system? Ready to face the oh so dreadful prospect of people appreciating you?"
"You KNOW I'm not," he replied testily, rolling out of bed.
"Yeah..." she replied. He could exactly picture her shaking her head in a mix of exasperation and amusement.
He sighed, grabbed the sheathed Master Sword from the bed, and started towards the stairs. He could smell fresh bread and wildberry jam, and maybe some breakfast would make the day feel less nerve wracking for at least a few minutes. His mother was putting a plate down for him just as he turned the corner the stairs made before the last few steps to arrive in the eat-in kitchen.
"Mixed nuts, fresh bread, wildberry jam and milk!" Link's mother announced with exaggerated gusto, complete with a wide arm gesture towards the plate. "Come on, sweetie. I have it on good authority, my own, that this particular assortment is your favorite breakfast. That's GOT to brighten your day."
Link chuckled and smiled as he sat down, leaning the sword next to him against the table. He eyed the nuts: he did like them enough to put up with how time consuming they were to chew, even today. "Thanks," he said. "You didn't have to go through..."
"Tut tut tut," she interrupted, crossing her arms in something of a fighting stance. "Don't you start on that about FEEDING my CHILD."
Link put up his hands, palm forwards, in a peace gesture. "Ok, ok, sorry. I just meant..."
A raised eyebrow stopped him in his track from pointing out she could feed him with something less labour intensive than home made yeast bread and fresh jam.
"I just meant I really appreciate it," he said quickly instead, tucking in.
She nodded and sat down to her own plate, smiling again.
"Did they wake you up?" she asked in an overly sweet voice.
Link winced. He could guess where this was going because he had figured out the strategy this year when he'd seen how little was already done by the previous evening. Most of the set up work for Hero's Day was being done this morning instead of a day ahead because the previous year, Link had dismantled some of the most ridiculously overdone decorations and sets overnight.
If he complained now about the noise waking him up, his mother would, somewhat rightfully, point out he only had himself to blame. He swallowed his bite before he was quite done chewing it and shrugged.
"It was time I got up anyway," he said. "I want to get a few hours of training in before everyone starts hunting me down."
Limsy rolled her eyes. "Sweetie... it's supposed to be a day off. You can afford one every now and then! And it would be nice not to HAVE to hunt you down for once. For crying out loud, you're the guest of honour!"
Link didn't answer right away, chewing a mouthful of nuts very thoroughly before swallowing to buy himself time to figure out a nice answer he could live with and more importantly, one that would not cause a lengthy debate and delay him.
"I'll finish at noon, in the battle training hall," he offered. "No hunting needed." There was no point in hoping he'd be able to train any longer anyway, he'd get forcibly dragged back if he tried it. His best bet to maximize his training time was to do whatever was necessary to get started as soon as he could.
Limsy beamed at him and got up to open the door to the street. Link's father nearly fell in from having had his ear to the door, having obviously been listening in to the conversation.
"You owe me 10 rupees," Limsy said triumphantly, extending her hand towards her husband.
Link slumped in his chair. "You guys bet on who would get me to come back in time to join in the nonsense?"
Garm ceremoniously took a yellow rupee from the money jar on the counter and gave it to his wife, making a show of looking desolate. She smiled triumphantly and put it back in the very same jar with a flourish.
"If your Mom didn't make you promise to join in at noon or earlier, you would have gotten a lecture," Garm said. "Again. Seriously, Link. This is literally your day."
"It's my past lives' day," Link corrected through a mouthful of bread, silently thanking his luck he'd managed to avoid a lecture – he didn't have time for that this morning.
Garm clucked his tongue. "Yours too. Just because the Enemy hasn't shown up yet doesn't mean you're any less the Hero. I mean, listen to yourself! 'I want to get a few hours of intense training in, that I've been doing daily for 11 years in addition to traipsing all over Hyrule to find powerful artefacts and defeat monsters when I find them, because I don't know what a day off is!'"
"I'm in here with Mom doing absolutely nothing but reading for over half a day every few weeks while she re-makes those!" Link couldn't resist protesting, pointing at his braids. "She doesn't even let me help!"
"Your doing nothing for half a day is the POINT, sweetie," Limsy interjected. "Forced time off because you don't have the sense to take any otherwise. And seeing the only reason you haven't shaved your head is because I won't let you, I do mean FORCED. And you still spend most of it studying!" she added in an exasperated voice, her eyes rolling. "Your father's point stands."
Link sighed and decided to give up on that line of argument. He was being dragged into a long conversation and he needed to get going. He ate the last of his bread while he thought of the best response. "I know I'm busy, but nothing I do is useful for US. For the village. Instead, I CAUSE extra work and I cost extra resources, and once a year, you guys do THIS!" he finished by gesturing towards the outside.
His mother sighed and sat back down heavily, leaning on her elbow. "You know why we do all this, Link. You're destined to..."
"Cursed," Link corrected automatically.
"Whatever. You're going to end up saving Hyrule from some kind of great evil and you've been working very hard preparing for it. Nobody feels you should do more normal work around here, you've been working harder than anyone since you were eight years old!"
"And besides, you know very well that if someone can't do something, their community pitches in," Garm said. "Can we skip a few steps in this talk? This is getting old."
Link was all for finishing the talk so he could get started on what little training he'd be able to do today. He shouldn't have gotten into any of this. Just the same, his mother WAS on the Council. He couldn't miss an opportunity to try and explain again why Given's Hero's Day celebrations were a terrible idea.
"Ok, fine," he said. "Forget about me. The real issue is that we're WAY too obvious about the Hero stuff. We need to HIDE! I fast travel to random spots from here whenever I need to go anywhere – the horses hate it by the way, it takes forever to soothe them every time – because we don't want anybody to know where I live! Because if Ganon or whatever else finds out, everyone here is dead!"
"Every community in the whole Kingdom celebrates Hero's Day," Garm countered. "We'd stand out more if we didn't."
"Most small places just have a day off, especially the other settlements because the refugees were only your parents! Hyrule's whole history of heroes saving the land? None of our ancestors lived that because the last Cursed Age was long before we got here! If not for me, we would have no reason to be this wild about today. Respect it, sure, but that's it!"
"Our ancestors didn't live through a Cursed Age, but we DO," Limsy said. "And you especially. We have every reason to..."
"Yes, me especially!" Link repeated. "That's the problem! Other small villages take a day off, but we're throwing this huge party, and the word is starting to spread! We had three visitors last year! There's going to be more this year, I'd bet anything! And the only reason is me! We. Are. Being. OBVIOUS!"
"Visitors have no reason to suspect you," Garm said. "You don't even wear your greens or your weapons, except the sword and you hide THAT. Plus everyone is always careful not to give you special treatment, you never get the honorary cap for the Hero's Dance, there is NO WAY anyone would think the day is about you."
"It doesn't matter if I can't be singled out, the VILLAGE can get singled out!" Link cried out. "I'm not worried about me in particular getting attacked in my sleep, you KNOW I always have fairies! I'm worried about a herd of monsters flattening the whole village!"
"The visitors we get are just people going around to different places out of curiosity," Limsy tried to reason. "Every village gets them if they do anything at all. I know most small places don't so as much we do, but enjoying a party doesn't make us suspect. If anything, it helps with our general image with Hylians. We used to do more than just take a day off even before you got the medal."
Link scoffed. "I remember before. We used to have a community picnic for dinner and that was it. Now we have carnival games, a ball tournament, a big music show and the Hero's dance, and storytellers, acrobats, street artists, and I don't care how many people give me the puppy dog eyes if I have to do it during the day, I WILL get rid of the fireworks again if anyone is stupid enough to try and set up a display like they did last year. We're at Castle Town level of festivities with a fraction of their population! We are putting a HUGE target on ourselves!"
"No fireworks," Garm said, "you won that battle. It's not like we're all trying to rile you up, you know? We have some, but we're going to launch them in 9 days for some made up reason."
Link nodded curtly. "Look, I do hate this personally. I feel like a fraud because everyone's making this big deal and I haven't done anything to deserve any of it." He put up his hand to ask them to let him finish when they looked like they were going to protest that point again. "The thing is, it's not because I don't like it for me that I'm so against it. I'd just put up with it if it was just for me because everyone else enjoys it. But we're putting the village in danger!"
"The Council didn't just ignore you year after year, sweetie," Limsy said. "They've been listening and even though we think you're being paranoid, we all ultimately agreed it would be mean spirited to cause you THAT much stress. Plus nobody wants to waste the effort again. So, nothing you took down last year is getting put up this year. We've toned it down."
Link sighed. He didn't want to act as though the small concessions didn't matter, things would be worse if the Council was actively fighting him or ignoring him, but as long as the village still had one of the biggest and flashiest festivals around, the small concessions weren't enough. He briefly wondered whether he should go ahead and destroy everything, but he knew he wouldn't be able to bring himself to do it, everyone would be way too upset. Truth be told, he still felt bad about what he'd done the previous year. He wouldn't hesitate if he knew for sure the festivities would lead to an attack, but he really didn't. There were no records of the homes of the past heroes being attacked because of it, there was no pattern to avoid, no good reason to expect danger. He was just trying to be cautious, and it was completely possible that he really was just being paranoid.
He jammed the last of his nuts in his mouth, barely chewed them, swallowed and immediately regretted it: they'd gone down the right way, but were stuck as a painful lump in his throat. He gulped the last of his milk to wash them down and got up. "I got to get dressed and get going. Thank you for breakfast."
Link hurriedly brushed his teeth and got dressed quickly in the clothes he intended to wear to the festival later, a completely non hero-like outfit consisting of plain grey pants and an orange shirt. His plan was to 'accidentally' lose track of time and just go gracefully when someone came to get him in the training hall.
He put on his weapons – Master Sword, bow, and quiver – and put the handle cover for the Master Sword in his pocket so he could disguise the legendary blade later. Despite the wish to look ordinary, he wasn't about to leave the Master Sword home alone. He then jumped straight out of his window and ran to his shooting range, located in a large open area near sea level about a three minutes run north and downhill from his house.
Before it had been repurposed for his sole benefit, the field had been a pasture for cows. Most of that herd had been sold off to make room and the rest had been relocated in a much smaller field higher up the main island.
He missed the cows, and he hated the fact the village had been forced to give them up for him. That and every other cost the village bore, from the land being sacrificed to the additional labour to the riding horses that had to be brought to shore every day because there really wasn't enough room to run for them on the islands… his curse, and the early knowledge of it, had cost everyone. The Royal Family was constantly sending supplies and gifts, so they weren't short on anything as such, but their lives were upended and the whole thing was just a pain.
And yet the village still made a huge deal out of Hero's Day: celebrated it, celebrated HIM. His existence had poisoned theirs, and they threw him a party. A dangerous party, no less.
Link took a deep breath to clear his mind, readied four of his practice arrows and aimed for the closest target. He shot, and the arrow flew straight to the target, hitting dead center and burying itself partway through the painted circle of wood. Link didn't see that; he had already shot two other arrows, this time aiming for further targets, and he was aiming for a fourth target by the time the thunk of his first arrow hitting his first target sounded through the archery field.
He sighed and lowered his bow without shooting. The second and third arrows hit their target and he glanced to make sure he had bullseyed with all of them. The fact that he had wasn't much consolation; he always hit his target. He'd been trying to get a fourth shot in before the first one hit for weeks, however, and it was not a little frustrating that he still couldn't quite manage it.
He tried again, and again, and again. He failed his next twelve attempts, but on his fourteenth try for that day, he heard the first arrow hitting its target a fraction of a second after he had shot his fourth. He grinned as he watched his fourth arrow fly to the far target. He heard the second arrow hit, then the third, and then the fourth arrow struck the center of its target. Link put his bow away and walked to the targets to recover his arrows, still smiling. That was enough for today, it was time to give his arms a break and to go for a run.
He cut his run short when he noticed the sun was approaching its zenith. He wanted to get in some sword training, and time was running short today. He scowled as he changed his course to head for the training hall: stopping so early had felt like a mild irritant this morning, but now that the time to stop doing something useful and start wasting the rest of the day indulging the village's reckless mania was drawing near, outright frustration was setting in.
The hall was, in a stunning absence of subtlety, decorated to honour the heroes. The trims and decorations were mostly green, there were Farore symbols everywhere, the tiles on the floor were arranged to form a picture of the Triforce, and each wall featured a representation of the Master Sword in its pedestal, some inside stony rooms, some in a forest setting.
He closed the door behind him and started on his normal warm up routine. He moved on to basic forms after his warm up, sheathing the Master Sword and trading it for a dull practice sword made especially for him, the weight, shape and length of it as close to the Blade of Evil's Bane as could be. He hit the practice dummy about twenty times before he got thoroughly bored with the easy basics and started on more interesting moves, combining jumps, rolls and sidesteps with deathly accurate blows.
He stopped when he suddenly heard clapping. He turned to find Mindo there, leaning against the wall in a would-be casual pose and smiling at him with both of his thumbs up.
Link smiled back and put the practice sword away. "Noon, I take it?" he asked.
"Noon," Mindo confirmed. "I was glad they got me to fetch you, didn't even know you were back."
Link winced. He'd been back for two weeks from his latest trip. Mindo was the one who'd been chosen as the fake Hero two years earlier and he'd pick Link as his First Dance partner, confirming a crush that most of the village had suspected already. As cute as some people thought the 'declaration' had been, it hadn't led anywhere: Link was just not interested. It had nothing to do with Mindo in particular, Link had never once been interested in anybody in that way. Thankfully, Mindo had taken the rejection well and moved on – to the point of not having even noticed Link was in town, apparently.
"I mean," Mindo stammered, "I've been busy myself and of course I'm helping Geeve with the TeeBees. I'm probably the only one who didn't know you were back. My bad entirely."
Link tilted his head. "TeeBees?"
Mindo chuckled. "It's just what we call them, Trouble Blobble. We're getting the hang of it though. I think."
Link carefully schooled his face into a neutral expression to show no hint of how angry it would make him if the "TeeBees" turned out to be what he thought they were. "Trouble Blobble?" he repeated in a would-be casual voice. "Sounds like a name for Chuchus," he chuckled for good measure to show he was not paranoid enough to just assume someone was raising literal monsters. "What are they actually?"
Mindo's face fell. Link's eyes narrowed.
"You didn't know," Mindo said, palming his forehead.
"Why is Geeve trying to breed Chuchus?" Link asked angrily.
Mindo evaded his eyes. "Like I said, I'm helping and we're getting the hang of it..."
"YOU're helping?" Link exclaimed. "You're a carpenter! And you don't even like normal animals! Why would YOU be the one helping? And WHY does she have them?"
Mindo rolled his eyes at him. "Because even though I don't know what I'm doing, it's not like anyone else does either. And I'm not going to let my girlfriend do it alone, obviously."
Link's eyes widened and he felt his cheeks burn. He'd been insulted that Mindo didn't know he was back in town, and here he hadn't known Mindo and Geeve were together. And probably for a while too if they were solid enough to be attempting to raise Chuchus together.
"I... didn't know you guys were together," he said lamely. "But why the Chuchus?" he asked again, getting back on subject. "They're dangerous!"
Mindo looked away. Link groaned and sagged, the realization he'd been trying to avoid settling in. His hands briefly tensed but he forced them to relax again.
"Please. PLEASE tell me it's not to make potions so I have a stock available. Please tell me you're not both running the risk of a bunch of 'chus ganging up and turning huge in Geeve's backyard, or just going electric or something equally unpleasant, or both, because you somehow got it into your head I might run out of potions and not have enough money to buy more."
Mindo chuckled nervously and shuffled his feet. "Okay. Yeah! What you said."
Link closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he dragged his palm down his face.
"I always carry at least two blue, two red and two green potions," he said as patiently as he could. "I use about one a month. When I use any at all. And I got plenty of rupees and I more REALLY easily. I can't go anywhere without finding money in tall grass or long abandoned crates and pots. I'm going to Geeve tonight and killing every last one of the 'chus. I don't want you two in danger, there's no POINT."
Mindo made a face. "Please don't. We'd have to go catch wild ones again if you killed our semi domesticated ones and catching them is way harder than keeping them, believe me. Mostly they're fine now if we feed them. Wild ones don't know you're going to give them food as long as they don't eat YOU."
Link had gradually sagged through the short speech. "The idea would be for you to give up on the whole stupid thing," he clarified.
"Not gonna happen. And stop arguing, it's time for you to play I'm-Just-a-Regular-Guy-but-I-Sure-Do-Think-This-is-a-Fun-Party!"
Saying that, Mindo grabbed Link's arm and started pulling him towards the door. Link knew a fight he couldn't win when he saw one and swallowed back any further argument on the topic of Chuchu raising, following meekly once he had secured the Master Sword's cover on the blade's hilt. He'd just have to talk to the Council about the Chuchus later. They wouldn't listen either, but he had to at least try.
Agreeing to join the festivities right at lunch time hadn't been a coincidence: the food stands were Link's favorite part of the festival because not only were they providing tasty food, they weren't as extraordinary as the rest of the stuff set up for the Day of the Hero: food stands popped up for any excuse, typically at least once or twice per lunar cycle.
He focused his attention on procuring the best variety of snacks for as long as he could reasonably pretend to still be hungry. He eventually did have to start acknowledging the activities more unique to Hero Day's, but at least he got to do it on a stomach full of savory tarts, nut cakes and fruit salads.
The most irritating part of the day was, as usual, the fact that it was actually a really great time. Folks who were good at such things were doing all kinds of little shows, there were skill games where you could try to win treats or little toys, there was a day-long dancing and singing party in the village's central gathering place, and a few stage plays were retelling some of the past heroes' exploits, some of them with puppets and others with actors in costumes. The subject of how it had all ended for the Hero of Time was carefully avoided – it wasn't like anyone didn't know, but nobody was too keen on focusing on that today. Children and adults alike were having a grand time, and as repeatedly instructed, everyone was acting as if Link was just another village boy.
Link kept catching himself enjoying it as a fun party, only to suddenly imagine the village being attacked by Ganon or some other villain, following their deducing the obvious fact that immigrants really wouldn't be that much into this if the Hero was not one of their own.
The buffet set up for dinner was the worst: unlike the usual food stands, the evening meal was a much grander affair than Given, or anywhere else for that matter, ever saw on any other day. Everyone brought the best dishes they could make, often with luxury or difficult to obtain ingredients, motivated both by the desire to make the meal special and the lure of bragging rights over having a dish everyone talked about for days afterward. The effect was admittedly delicious, but the food and the decorations around it – because of course the table and surrounding area were absolutely bedecked with flowers and crafted decorations – looked like they would have been the main draw in Castle Town. It was ridiculously over the top for a small village like theirs.
A glance at some of the out-of-towners' reactions confirmed this: they were staring wide eyed at the display. Link saw one, a middle aged Hylian man, lick his lips.
Link clenched his jaw briefly before managing to relax it. Showcasing that one young man in the village, who happened to be carrying a sword, was reacting differently than everybody else would not be a good idea at all.
The only acceptable course of action was to whoop and cheer at the sight of the feast, and to hurry to the table to start piling food on a plate, like everyone else was doing. Link therefore did precisely that and allowed his taste buds to distract him from how insanely suspicious this would all be to anyone wondering where the Hero hailed from. He couldn't stop the party, Goddess knew he'd been trying for years, but he could act like a normal person and not make things worse... all the while ignoring the visions dancing in his head of hordes of monsters descending on the festivities to attack the hero's home.
No monster hordes actually attacked during the meal. The buffet was followed by the Hero's Dance, with one of the younger kids getting the honorary green cap this year and picking his mother to dance with him. It was absolutely adorable, and still no monster attack.
Link asked a few people to dance, was asked himself, and all in all was quite satisfied with how normally he was behaving despite his undying certainty they were all dooming themselves. The dance was at least a pleasant distraction from his overactive imagination.
The night ended as well as anyone could wish: with zero monster or any other sign that anyone from outside the village had clued in on the fact Given was were the Hero lived. All in all, the day had gone splendidly.
The nightmare only started long after the visitors had left and the villagers had gone to bed, about an hour before dawn.