Chapter Text
He has always been at war, for his whole life, as long as he can remember. It feels like he has wielded a weapon from almost the moment he learned to walk, and by the time the Sacred Sword became his, he was a master of his art. The art of death, of keeping safe through slaughter, of protection through destruction. There is much call for it these days, as there has been for generations before and there will be for generations afterwards. He is fortunate to have such a great goddess watching over him and his people in these troubled times.
Once he was a farmer-soldier, hard-working and dust-drenched, working close to the great walls that encircled Her domains and provided a first line of defence against the monsters, and then one day, She had descended from the skies in a great bolt of light. He knelt, just like the rest of the people in the square, and there was a great murmuring, muttered paens in Her name and reverence offered to their goddess. And such anticipation. He remembers the burning anticipation that swept the square. They had not heard anything from Her since Her last Chosen had died, though rumour was unclear whether that had been days or weeks earlier. She had slowly turned to him, bathing the area in golden light that seemed to drip from every substance like rain or blood, and then the light had focused and he had felt the full weight of Her radiance settle on him, a crushing pressure that pressed downwards, and She had made it known that She Chose him. He did not remember the words. When he thought about that day, he did not remember much about it, except for the golden glow drip-drip-dripping from the statue in the centre of the square and the sense that something was squeezing him, coiling around his ribs, pressing into his heart and lodging itself under his skin, a great hand taking firm hold of him like a child with their precious toy.
He had moved after that, no more farming and no more fighting in the lines. He began to live in the Temple, with the strange priests and servants to serve both Her and him. He had the Sacred Sword bestowed upon him in a public ceremony, to cheers and shouts, and when it was just the two of them, She had shown him the Triforce in its sacred resting place. He had half-thought about putting forth a hand to touch it, drunk on the honour that was bestowed upon him, but at the last moment he had drawn back. He couldn’t tell whether this had disappointed Her, but when he had finished his speech to the youngest soldiers of the Temple, something he had thought up about honour and duty and the endless hordes that threatened their lands, She came to him, having removed Her great flowing robes and Her golden ornaments, and She did not seem disappointed in him then. He had been hesitant to touch Her at first, feeling that it was some kind of sacrilege, but She had moved with surprisingly more speed than grace, hands running across his chest, brushing his own robe aside and sending bolts of rapture through his body, then continuing Her touch down his sides and onto his thighs. She had knelt in front of him, sinking downwards onto Her knees and mirroring the flow of the droplets of the great golden glow that accompanied Her as they dripped off everything, running down the wall-hanging and pooling for a moment in the carpets before vanishing. It was hard to think of sacrilege when such a goddess was before him, possessing him and consuming everything he could give Her, a burning beacon of protection and warmth.
It was much later, perhaps years later, that he discovered sometimes She cried late at night, great tears of gold that glisten in the firelight. He never talks about it, and She never mentions it, and he wonders if She is remembering his predecessors, Her Chosen before him, stretching back into the mists of time. When he is gone, perhaps by violence, but mostly likely by old age, perhaps She will cry for him, too. He does not know how to feel about that. He tries not to consider it too often.
Much of most days, She is gone, roaming Her domain, intervening in whatever things take Her fancy. She cares about people, about their little problems and their worries, and She descends upon them to order their lives and make sure they make the right decisions. He is glad that there is such a goddess to order life within the walls, because without Her surely the monsters outside would crush their existence. Without Her protection and the power She wielded through him, surely there would be no hope. He does not know the details of much of Her judgements, and thought he has heard whispers of similar claims with wildly different outcomes, it is mostly rumour. She is their goddess, and to defy Her will would only take them closer to death from the monsters outside the walls. It is only from the fools, and those driven to madness from whatever evil saturates the world outside the walls, that such whispers come, and these are usually silenced quickly. There is no place in the world within the walls for such self-destructive doubts, and there is no place outside them either.
He himself has one fear, truly, one great secret that he keeps from Her, mostly because he does not know what it means, and he does not wish to worry Her, and perhaps a little because he thinks, somewhere in the back of his mind, that She already knows and does not care, and he does not want to consider what that means. The Goddess Sword, the Sacred Sword, whose bright all-cutting blade he wields in defence of his people and his goddess, does not like Her. He gets sensations, sometimes even something like feelings when he wields the weapon, as if something else were communicating through him. They sharpen him in fights, they give him indications of danger or openings. They turn him from a good sword fighter to perhaps the best sword fighter of their land, not that anyone within the walls would seriously match him blade to blade.
But the Sacred Sword does not like his goddess. Once, early on, he thought he felt something stronger than the usual sensations, just for a moment. He had been in the great hall of the Temple, as She had been receiving the problems and complaints of locals against each other, and judging all before Her. He had been stood to one side, with nothing better to do than watch and perhaps to deal justice in the most extreme cases, the Sacred Sword sheathed and slung over one shoulder. As She had gestured to one unfortunate, and the woman had been seized by the Temple guards to be taken away, there had been a pressure on his shoulder, and just for a moment he had the eerie sensation that he should take up the weapon and turn it on Her, that She was another evil like the scattered bokoblins or the twisted keese to strike down in defence of his home. He had almost dropped the weapon, sheath and belt and all, in reply, and for a moment he thought he felt something within the sword itself, a desperate stirring, like a moth beating towards the light, but then She had turned at his sudden twitchy movement, focusing Her attention and Her light upon him, and he had felt a kind of shudder run through the sword and the sensation had abruptly ceased. She had held Her gaze for a moment, Her golden light dripping silently off the crossguard and coating the weapon, and then turned back to Her judgements, and he had felt nothing more like that from the Sacred Sword.
That night, when She was away dealing with the concerns of Her people, and he lay in his bed, robe askew, Sacred Sword leaning against the bed, pommel touching the pillow, he dreamt of a dog he once took in for a few years, long before She ever turned Her gaze onto him. It was a loyal thing, trained to be possessive in its own defensive way, to stick close to its owner and to guard his flocks, but some previous owner must have beaten it, and when he found it, it whimpered whenever anyone drew close. On some days it seemed to regain a measure of its old strength, and against the smaller monsters that sometimes threatened the farm, it was still swift and deadly, but it would never again turn its teeth against Hylians. It was a good dog, and he had loved it, but when he woke, having not thought about it for years, he found he was panicked, heart beating, drenched in sweat, and did not know why.
He had found himself walking down to the recesses of the Temple, to find the sacred books, about how in times past She had Chosen a great hero and gifted him the Sacred Sword, and together they had overthrown a tremendous evil, and then She had raised walls around Her domains to keep the enemies out, so that for their own safety no-one could ever leave Her domain, and how She had guarded Her people forever after, alongside a long series of Chosen heroes who fought in Her name and sometimes by Her side. It was a good tale, a tale he was now a part of, and it calmed the nameless panic within him. For after all She had done, who would want to leave Her glorious blessing, who would want to step outside the walls of Her protection, who could ever think of leaving Her now?