He hadn’t slept well since the baby shower. Not really. A month later, the queen went into labor.
When Link was informed on the matter, anxiety filled him. He went to train with the knights to get the energy out of his system. He’d been trying to mentally prepare himself for this since he’d found out Zelda was pregnant, but he… he’d never really… figured out how to do so. How to be ready for this. He knew nothing of fathers, not good ones – his two primary examples were Ganondorf and the former king, Ozen. One had tried to kill him, seeking power, and the other had reviled him, wanting to cling to the power he had. Even imagining that he was a father was terrifying. He wasn’t ready for this, and the circumstances were so absurdly horrible it terrified him all the more.
How could anyone raise a child in this? The castle was a battlefield for the nobles – they’d tried to assassinate the queen and her child. Link could respond to such threats, but the actual fact of the little one growing in its mother’s womb was utterly overwhelming.
But he’d tried to tell himself he’d figure it out. And every time he truly thought about it, he only became more uncertain. But what choice did he have? He had to do his duty, as a Sheikah, as the Hero, as the king, and now as a father.
But then… the baby shower…
He could still feel Hemisi's lips against his, smell the oils from her skin and hair, and it left him in agony. He hadn't seen her in a year, if not a little longer, and their last parting from back then had not been a good one. For just one night to completely unravel him again, after everything...
You did your duty.
He shook his head, charging towards the knight with a yell, taking out his training sword and knocking him to the ground.
He thought he'd gotten over this, but he supposed he'd never actually addressed it. This was not the time to do so, though, but it hadn't stopped haunting him.
Link wiped sweat from his brow. He should probably go to Zelda during her labor, but the mere thought of it was downright terrifying. All kinds of worries and debates swirled in his head, and he fought viciously against his sparring opponents until his head was just filled with fog instead.
Just as he’d decided he should check on his laboring queen, he’d received news that the baby had been born. A healthy girl. And her mother was doing well.
Link… didn’t know how to feel about it. Relief? Happiness?
All he knew was that Hemisi’s words echoed in his mind. You did your duty. Come home with me to the desert.
He… he had done his duty, hadn’t he? The people had a princess. But his duty wasn’t just putting children in his queen’s womb, and he knew that. No, that was just the beginning. And he… he despised that.
It was stupid. He… he’d slowly progressed from agitation, exhaustion, and melancholy to bitterness, and he hated himself for it.
He felt more trapped than ever, akin to a caged animal that was slowly dying, a flower hidden in shadow that wilted as it wept for the sun.
And he couldn’t be angry at anyone about it but himself. And he shouldn’t even be angry – this was to help Hyrule, this should be a good thing. He'd known when he'd accepted Zelda's proposal that they were doing this to save Hyrule.
But the main feeling that kept him from seeing the queen that day wasn’t his bitterness. It was fear.
What if he was angry at the baby too, transferred all his problems to her? What if he blamed her, looked at the physical representation of his sacrifice and resented everything about her? What kind of horrible father, horrible person, would he be then? He couldn’t, he wouldn’t, and so he avoided both Zelda and their—her child entirely.
Besides, he desperately tried to reason, somebody had to make sure the nobles didn’t do anything while she was out of commission. They quickly began to swarm Link, congratulating him (why did that make him feel like he couldn’t breathe?) and making suggestions about things “in the queen’s absence.”
Link slept even less. The night after Zelda had given birth he’d fled to one of the turrets of the castle, shivering in the damp, chilly spring night air, occasionally peeking and sliding down some ivy on the wall to make sure she was safe. He could at least protect her, even if he couldn’t get near her or the child. By morning, his attendants finally found him and brought him inside, shivering and exhausted as he was.
He felt pathetic. He didn’t know what he felt.
He didn’t sleep much beyond that, honestly. The nobles wouldn’t leave him alone during the day, and he couldn’t shut his eyes at night.
About a week later, he was standing at the queen’s door, barely able to keep his eyes open and barely able to keep his spiraling emotions in check. He’d been summoned by the queen, escorted there personally by Lady Impa, as if being fetched like he was in trouble. He hadn’t seen his chief since the baby’s birth, as she’d been tending to the queen. He supposed that was fair. But goddesses he did not want to be here, and he could feel his paper thin patience fragmenting as the seconds ticked by.
When he entered, he saw the queen sitting on a chaise in front of her large bed. She looked commanding, the usual stoic features she wore in court clearly plastered to her face. Her war paint, he’d used to think of it. He supposed it was still true.
Link bowed stiffly. “You summoned me, Your Majesty?”
“You haven’t come once,” Zelda said almost accusingly, eyes shinier than normal. “You didn't check on me or your own daughter.”
Oh, these were accusations. His queen was angry and hurt.
Your own daughter.
He felt like he wanted to explode, to snap at her and also apologize. He did but didn’t know why he was feeling this way, he didn’t know how to stop feeling this way, how to fix this and just do his duty.
Just hearing that thought process echo the tired rhetoric he’d told himself his entire life made him want to throw up.
Queen Zelda shifted a little at his silence, blinking a few times. Her neutral expression crumbled in lieu of a far more vulnerable one. “Do you… want to see her?”
Link stared back at her, stony face twitching a moment, emotion watering his eyes. He swallowed hard, resolute and angry, tried to imagine seeing the child and fearing the result, heart a pile of ash surrounded by ice cold walls. “No.”
With that, he turned on his heel and left the room. Zelda bit her lip, fighting how it wobbled, before eventually breaking down into tears.
Link didn’t hear it. He just kept walking.
It didn’t take long before Impa intercepted him.
“Link!” she called. “Your behavior is bordering on childish. This is completely unacceptable, and you know it.”
Link froze for an instant, his heart skipping a beat, heat scorching his cheeks and ears, mind screaming. He whirled on his chief, on a woman he’d trusted and loved, and lost it. “Childish?! Youaccuse me of—”
He honestly couldn’t even get words out at this point. He was drowning so much he could practically taste his own bitterness and rage, his own despair and helplessness, his throat constricted as if he were choking himself, world spinning.
“As the king and her husband, as a Sheikah, it’s your duty to help her,” Impa said sternly. “Not only that, but your behavior is downright cruel. You didn’t support her once during her pregnancy, during her laboring—”
The words finally fought through the confines of his chest and throat, demanding to be heard, and he hissed, “Don’t speak to me of obligations; I know my duty! I swore my life to it, I gave up the love of my life for it, I gave up my life for it! Don’t you dare ask me to spare one more ounce of blood when I have shed every single drop I have for her!”
His vehemence cut off any argument from his chief, as she watched him in stunned silence, and Link immediately felt guilt pull at him. He was far too worked up to take the words back, though, and he stormed off, dismissing the servants from being anywhere remotely near his quarters, and slid to the ground as soon as he was shut away.
What had he just—
Link scraped both hands down his face, terrified and furious and hurting and he didn’t even know what else.
He’d yelled at his chief—and the queen—Zelda—
Impa was right. Link was being cruel. He was no Hero, no king, no husband, no father, no Sheikah.
Yes, ok. I'm sending you a card that I bought for my wife, but decided that it worked for you too. Apart from the birthday part. Wanna make something of it?
