I have a feeling Ravio'll take a while to get used the way his body functions again when he reduces/stops taking his potions, but Legend's there for him
until they're swept away on two different adventures and Ravio has to handle it on his own
Ravio Marchand — local merchant, family man, and husband of the Hero of Legend! Also featuring an obligatory Sheerow
I love LiWiAU Ravio so much, y'all have no idea I’ll yell some more about it in the tags dw
Thoughts and bonus doodle under the cut, and a shout-out to @astrolabe-blade for lending an ear in the character development process ❤
Ravio is one of those characters that I first encountered in fan content, and I've never really been able to stray all that far from that. As a result, I really don't know how much remains of the original character, beyond the name, the occupation, and the general appearance. Still, I care a lot about him, and I hope you'll all also enjoy him
originally from Lorule — his mother was a herbalist, his father made wicker-baskets, and their garden was frequently visited by birds;
this was the garden Sheerow, a blue-and-white sparrow-like bird hatched in one autumn, and Ravio’s mother took great care in nurturing Sheerow through the winter — Ravio loved playing with Sheerow, and always claimed to be able to speak telepathically with him;
for reasons currently unknown, Ravio and Sheerow do, in fact, speak telepathically with each other;
when Ravio was six, his parents died, and he ended up on the streets — he made a friend who introduced him to Mamie, and older lady who Ravio views as a grandmotherly figure (Mamie’s also Mitchi’s biological great-grandma);
when Ravio started working for Hilda, he used his income to buy Mamie and red-and-purple woollen shawl that, later, was passed back to him (see the illustration above);
trans (ftm) — found appropriate resources to transition once he moved to Hyrule (has only had top surgery), but is on bad days still insecure about his waist, hips, and thighs;
enjoys being the care-taker in the household, but worries that it’ll make him appear less masculine in other people’s eyes;
knows more or less everything about Legend’s adventures, and helped Legend through the rocky period post-Koholint (I’ve fiddled around with the order of Legend’s adventures, but I’ll talk more about that in the post about Legend) — heard about Marin before he knew anything about Koholint, and was secretly furious with her for the state Legend was in (these days he’s accepted that some part of Legend always will love Marin, and come to enjoy hearing Legend’s anecdotes about Koholint);
works as a merchant at ‘Link’s Orchard and Ravio’s Magic Items’ (a small shop-expansion to Legend’s cottage), and crafts enchanted items for sale and renting — so far, he’s created a magic boiler for bath water, and he’s considering inventing a magic washer and a magic broom (essentially the equivalent of a washing machine and a vacuum cleaner);
travels for a few weeks every summer, together with Legend, to trade all over Hyrule and Lorule;
when I write Ravio, I tend to imagine a softer less-dramatic version of Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle, with some added flavour;
to distinguish between Hyrulean and Lorulean, I’ve decided to use French as a place-holder for Lorulean (French!Ravio was an idea that occurred when I saw @guardedchild ’s wonderful colouring of this RavioLink illustration);
Ravio calls Legend ‘mon lapin’ (trans.: ‘sweetheart’, ‘[my] bunny’) — beyond three months of French in high school, I’m not as familiar with the language as I’d like to, so this is purely what I’ve learned from Reverso and some deep-dives in dictionaries (if any French-speaking person thinks I got it wrong, please let me know);
Ravio and Legend’s interactions, under normal circumstances, are definitely that flavour of flirting that’s thinly veiled as almost-scathing banter;
Ravio firmly believes there’s a tea for any situation;
his favourite dish is Mamie’s cassoulet (a savoury bean stew);
bought matching mugs for himself and Legend once (one’s pink, the other’s purple, and they both have bunnies painted on them);
half his clothes have apple blossom embroideries thanks to Legend (whenever Legend takes his shirts/tunics, it’s always a tossup between “Legend just sort of forgets to return them and wears them casually around the cottage” and “Legend returns them covered in embroideries” — either way, Ravio doesn’t mind);
Ravio knew very early on that he liked Legend, but kept it to himself because of Marin — at first just because he didn’t know who she was to Legend, and then because he assumed Legend was still grieving her;
Ravio and Legend got married the day they started dating (it’s a rollercoaster, and the entire 16,000-and-some words of Ch. 2 of Out of Time is about this);
Ravio marks all the items he sells with a watermark/trademark/y’know what I mean (I can’t remember the actual word for this in any of the languages I know rn, but see the doodle below);
knows Warriors from the War of Eras, and is essentially best friends with Linkle (she knows everything about Ravio, Legend, Mitchi, and Fable, and Ravio knows everything about Linkle, Warriors, and their Zelda) — Malon’s later included in this little group, and the three of them are inseparable;
Ravio’s very proficient with his hammer (which he may or may not have placed some enchantments on) — Legend doesn’t know this yet, but he’ll find it very attractive when he does, and might have a minor existential crisis over it;
Ravio has copied the bracelet he gave Legend, so both of them can travel between Hyrule and Lorule
I probably have more thoughts about him (and his interactions with the others! especially Hyrule!), but this post is already long and detailed, so I’ll leave it here for now
Bonus doodle of Ravio's branding/trademark/thing (the line below the bunny hood is supposed to be some kind of writing, probably saying something along the lines of, “Made by Ravio Marchand, Hyrulean merchant and enchanter”):
