How Daphnes Nohausen Hyrule Got His Name

(Since let's face it, Zelda's not exactly a normal name, either)

"Look, Ruto, I don't want to marry you," Link said calmly, feeling the last threads of his patience fraying.

Oh, it had been Zelda's idea to send an invitation to the Zora princess. It had been Zelda's idea for Link to deliver it in person, along with "Sheik" as a royal escort. It had been Zelda's idea for him to get back into that blasted green tunic and those god-awful tights, just to make sure that Ruto recognized him, when he was damn sure he could travel to Zora's Domain in disguise and the disgusting fish princess would still recognize him. "And you promised," Ruto practically bawled. "I gave you the Zora's most priceless treasure, and you turn around and stick it in a temple. Of all places, it should have gone inside the place where we would be wed, not a dusty temple!"

"Well, I needed it to defeat Ganondorf!" Link tried to defend himself. "If I didn't do that, no one would be getting married. Hyrule would be thrown into darkness, and me and Zelda would be dead, and King Zora would still be a fishcicle."

"Oh, pull out the "I saved the world so let me out of my oaths" card, why don't you?" Ruto shot back. "Just because you ran around as a kid and disappeared for seven years doesn't give you the right to renege on your promise to marry me!"

Sheik was dying over behind Link. S/he slipped up behind Link and whispered, "Leave this bitch to me." S/he then slipped his/her arms around Link's waist and nuzzled his/her head into the crook of his neck.

Horror took over all other features on Ruto's fishy face. "YOU'RE GAY?!"

Link smirked. He wasn't going to confirm it, but he definitely wasn't going to deny it, either. "Is your impending marriage a cover-up? WAS OUR ENGAGEMENT A COVER-UP?!"

Sheik was dying. This little stunt was going to cause a major scandal when they got back to Castle Town, but right now, Ruto's reaction was priceless.

"Ruto, I ran around Hyrule wearing a skirt and tights, and it's only now that you're wondering if I'm gay?" Link countered, now openly laughing.

She started to cry. "All this time, I've wanted to name my son after my grandfather, and now you have to go and ruin it with your gayness!"

"Hey, he still has a cover-up marriage," Sheik said. "I bet, if you threatened to tell on his little secret, that he'd name his and Princess Zelda's firstborn after your grandfather."

Immediately, she stopped crying. "R-Really?" Ruto said, tears still in her eyes.

"Really."

"Oh, thank you thank you THANK YOU!" the Zora princess practically screeched. Okay, she did screech, but that's besides the point. "I'll see you and Princess Zelda at your wedding! And do try and keep your gay lover over there off you until after the wedding. Don't want to start a controversy, after all."

Link waved good-bye to Ruto, and just before she turned around, Sheik landed a well-timed slap to a certain hero's posterior. The happy couple didn't try to hide their snickers as Ruto yelled, "I don't care if you like men! We can make it work!"

Six months later, Princess Ruto showed up at Link and Zelda's wedding, smiling, because she had a nasty surprise in store for the newlyweds.

The wedding went off without a hitch. Link was out of his Kokiri tunic and into something far more manly, Zelda was breathtaking, there were too many bureaucrats and slobbering nobles, Impa was being an overbearing bodyguard, and there were so many snooping relatives that it would make Link's latest promise impossible to wiggle out of. He really did have it coming to him.

At the reception, Ruto found the happy couple sitting and chatting with some of Zelda's relatives. It was just then that the enormity of Zelda's family struck her. The Queen of Hyrule may have been an only child, but she had more cousins than most backwoods commoners! Easily half of the 300 people there were related to Zelda in some form or fashion. If they weren't one of her twelve maternal or paternal aunts or uncles, then they were their spouses, or their children, or their children's spouses, or a great-uncle on her mother's side, or the cousins' cousins… And people wondered about succession? There was no end to these Hylian nobles!

"Oh, Link," she said, catching the young couple's attention. "You do remember our bargain, right?"

Zelda had to fight to keep a straight face. She had done a little research as to Ruto's grandfather's name, and while she wasn't crazy about naming their son that, she couldn't wait to see Link's reaction. "Oh, he told me about that mess," she said fondly.

"You told her about that?" she hissed, keeping her voice down but still portraying her general look of overall shocked-ness.

"Why, I tell my wife everything," Link quipped. "After all, if the Hero of Time is too afraid to tell his wife something as small as that, then he's not fit to be the Hero of Time."

"And besides, what I've learned from Sheik about my husband's…preferences… has been most valuable," Zelda added fondly. Ruto didn't need to know that Zelda was referring to steak, of course.

"Well, your choices are either Daphnes Nohausen, or… Ooga Booga," Ruto explained, pink in the face.

Link choked on his drink. "What the fuck!" he shouted.

All ten billion of Zelda's relatives turned and looked their way. "What a fucked up name!" he continued. "With a name like that, he won't need to protect his kingdom 'cuz no sleazy noble would let their daughter marry him!"

"You promised," Ruto pouted.

"You know, dear, Daphnes Nohausen has a certain…preppy ring to it," Zelda pointed out. "There's quite a few elitist countries where that name would be a hit with royalty. It just might start a trend."

Link got up from his seat, slamming his glass down on the table with a bit too much force. The glass broke and drenched the linen with red wine, and when he tried to mop it up, he slipped, and fell face first into the table. It broke under his weight, and what food that was left on the table (which, unfortunately, consisted of half a ham and the rest of the bottle of wine) came crashing down. His nice wedding clothes now ruined, he leapt up, and stormed off into the depths of the castle. Zelda went after him, apologizing to everyone who wondered if the party was over because the newlyweds were in the midst of their first argument as man and wife, and if the Hero of Time was always this volatile.

Zelda found him hiding behind a shrub in the palace gardens. "Look Link, it got her off our backs, didn't it?" she said sharply. "We really couldn't afford a scandal right now about how you have the Zora Sapphire, which just so happens to be the official engagement gem of the Zoras, yet you didn't marry Ruto. We'll just have to name him Daphnes Nohausen … as a sign of good faith to the Zoras, of course."

"I'm not callin' any son of mine Daphnes. I'll call him Epona before that."

"Be careful what you say," Zelda said tartly. "Or else you just might be calling our son Epona, and then you can kiss our little "cover-up" marriage goodbye."

"Zelda, honey… you're not serious," Link said, sweat dropping. "Besides, don't you think that Daphnes is more than a little… I don't know, girly? Shouldn't the future Crown Prince have a masculine name, like Butch, or something?"

"Daphnes is masculine. It's Daphne that's feminine. Just suck it up and deal with it, will you? By the goddesses, be a man and not a fairy-boy!"

"NO!" Link protested. He started to pace around the section that they were in, but a subtly placed foot on Zelda's part sent him flying into the river. Sputtering as he tried to swim up on the bank, Zelda heard some unusual oaths, like, "Damn overgrown Hylian loaches," and "Shit, if only every fuckin' thing here didn't happen in damn multiples of 3, then I wouldn't have needed the damned sapphire."

Suddenly, Zelda came up with a brilliant idea. "Oh Link," she cooed, in what Link always called her conniving voice, "You have about eight months to think this over."

Link fell flat on his face. "You're not… there's no way that it'll be a…"

"I am, and there is. And unlike you, O Hero of Time, I keep my word when it's pried out of me. Our son's name is going to be Daphnes Nohausen, and that's final."

Link was whipped. He just didn't know it yet.