Chapter Text
After the Great Calamity was vanquished, Link was enjoying some well-earned peace. He’d retired to Hateno Village where he lived in his house he’d bought back from the Bolson Construction Company. He’d still travel to help out Princess Zelda when needed, but, as Zelda had scolded him about, he really needed a break. A break from all the ‘hero’ stuff, a break from the pressure and the pain. And now that he more or less fully remembered the Champions and his own family, he needed time to grieve.
So he was living in Hateno now. The house felt a bit too large for one person, but Link didn’t mind too much. The Champions’ weapons as well as the Master Sword were up on the mounts Karson had built for him, and the picture he got from Kass was still hanging near his bed.
Zelda had offered to support him financially, but Link refused. Something about taking money from the royal family while not in service just didn’t sit right with him. Zelda would call that idiotic, as he did, in fact, stop the Calamity. It only took him one-hundred years. But no, he couldn’t take Zelda’s money, no matter how much she wanted to give it to him. The castle’s funds were already nearly nonexistent since the Calamity damaged the castle incredibly.
So rather than that, Link made his income through what he liked most; side quests, or “odd jobs” as the Hateno cow and sheep farmer, Koyin, liked to call them. She was one of his clients, as he had rescued her sheep from a Bokoblin camp at Hateno Beach. That hadn’t bothered him. The problem with his ‘hero’ job wasn’t the fighting or the saving, but rather the memories. Hyrule Castle reminded him far too much of the Champions and of Ganon than he particularly liked. He couldn’t enter the Sanctum without seeing Ganon’s fleshy malice chrysalis hanging from the ceiling. The side quests were much nicer, and they allowed Link to do what he enjoyed about knighthood; being useful to others.
And so, whenever Koyin’s animals went missing or the hearty truffle hunters were attacked by Bokoblins or Manny needed a wingman or Purah needed him to light the ancient furnace again or even if the village children just needed a playmate, Link would be of service, and he’d be paid with whatever the villagers decided to give him for his troubles. If it was an item that was neither food nor rupees nor useful to him in any other way, he’d simply sell it to the travelling merchants that passed by so he could afford his groceries.
The cuisine was a bit disappointing; the only ingredients Link could get from the East Wind were rice, eggs, endura shrooms, hearty truffles, and milk. He could pick his own apples and hunt deer and fish. Occasionally he could trade in monster parts collected from monsters that dared attack the village (and he’d fought off with a soup ladle) at Fang and Bone for monster extract, but that only went so far.
His meals were often the same thing as the previous day, which was a negative of village life. As a traveler, he was constantly exposed to all kinds of different spices from different places that he could combine to create exquisite dishes. But while living the peaceful life in Hateno, he had to make do with the few ingredients he was provided.
On lucky days, travelling merchants would come to Hateno from other villages with butter and crabs and carrots and pumpkins and palm fruit and durians and porgy and rock salt and wheat and cane sugar and Goron spice and—-well, needless to say, Link made daily visits to the Ton Pu Inn. The proprietor, Prima, was likely very sick of him, but Link didn’t care. He wanted his food, and he’d get his food, for Hylia’s sake.
The good thing about Hateno was that no one expected him to be big or bold. For some reason, everyone who heard about the hero that defeated Calamity Ganon expected him to be larger, more muscular, more hero-like. He had a little muscle, but he wasn’t exactly large. He was below-average height, and in his opinion, it wasn’t that big a deal at all. He could still do his job. He could still protect people. But no one took him seriously and, quite frankly, he didn’t want to be taken seriously. In Hateno he could just be That Guy Link, who keeps the children out of trouble and kills the odd Chuchu when needed. Not a hero. Just your average Hylian man.
But of course, good things never happened to Link for very long. Just as he was tossing some prime meat, herbs, and milk into the cooking pot, he heard someone yell his name. He whipped around, and saw the town gate’s guardsman, Thadd, running towards him. “Link! You have to come, quickly! The village kids have been taken by a horde of monsters!”
Great.