#srah my beloved

[telemna-hyelle]

Hello! I hope you're having a great day!

I saw the 100% canon OoT secret marriage ask about the babies, and I wanted to ask a follow up question:

You said that it's the arrival of babies that get them to start plotting how to make their marriage public, right? Do you have any specific ideas for how they might go about doing that, or any shenanigans that might ensue? 😆😆😆

WELL

So the original plan to make the make the marriage public was twofold: first, Link would go about hero-ing and increasing his status amongst the people, and also give Zelda reasons to legally raise his status. Thus, when the marriage is revealed, any in opposition would be faced with both Link's increased status and his popularity amongst the people.

Secondly, stall for time. There are provisions in Hylian law for annulment of Royal marriages, not only because of the usual reasons (infidelity, abuse, etc) but especially in case the royal spouse was a traitor, wanna-be usurper, or spy. Amongst these provisions were allowances for annulments to go through without requiring the approval of the ruling King or Queen. These are in case of situations where the ruling King or Queen is absent or indisposed somehow and the evil spouse is attempting to take advantage of their absence. However, the longer the marriage has gone on, the harder it is to push an annulment through without the King or Queen's approval--this was put in place to protect good marriages from petty advisors with grudges, or power hungry, wanna-be homewreckers. So, the longer Link and Zelda can keep the marriage secret, the harder it will be for the advisors to cause problems.

All this, of course, goes out the window when Zelda winds up pregnant. A pregnancy isn't exactly the sort of thing one can easily hide.

So, Zelda hatches a plot. She pretends to go along with the council the next time they mention marriage--but has a few conditions of her own. She's a very busy woman, after all, and doesn't want to be bothered weeding through subpar suitors. No, if suitors want to apply for her consideration, they have to first go through a series of tests.