Ask away, I'm sure my many fans have questions for me.

https://asktheritochampion.tumblr.com/rules

Thinking of starting your own ask blog - here's Rahlin's Guide!

https://www.tumblr.com/asktheritochampion/785184213115830272/for-the-person-behind-this-account-howd-you-get

Nice try, but I am not afraid of these. In fact, we Rito incorporate a variety of insects and arachnids into our diets.

It's specifically and only the Hebran blue-bellied crowding spider which I have a....ugh, fine, a fear of.

We more commonly refer to them as Hammock Spiders or FuzzyRugs. They're actually an invasive species which were brought over from Zoras Domain and adapted to the cold by growing thicker hair.

They're blood-suckers, and toxic, and known for clumping together into a thick, writhing black mass of hair and legs. They're huge pests to the Rito because they're known for gathering underneath hammocks and piercing the flesh of their sleeping victim to suck out blood with their horrid little needle-fangs.

As a boy I returned late from my training one eve and got into my hammock in the dark without checking, and woke up a number of hours later entirely covered in the wretched things, swarmed across my little body like a second skin and feasting on the nectar of my blood. It petrified me. They were a drastic struggle to tear off in the dark and kept re-swarming, their bites assaulting every inch of my body. It was the only night in all my childhood in which I resorted to pathetically seeking out the Elder and asking to share his hammock, too afraid to spend the rest of the night alone.

To make matters worse, the toxin they leave behind after a bite isn't all too much threat to an adult, however as a young boy it caused me such severe sickness that I was bedbound and hallucinating in a feverish mess for weeks, half the Village didn't expect me to survive.

Even now I still childishly flinch when I see one, and I shant sleep anywhere before thoroughly checking it for pests first. Call me obsessive, but i'd rather inspect my entire roost before a nap than risk waking up to one of those hideous things anywhere near me any day...

Oh- I mean, sure.

'Shield surfing' actually started off as 'Kzzakaka', which roughly translates to 'Boarding Snow'. It's a traditional Rito sporting event from thousands of years ago, we'd race at sliding down the mountain on pieces of wood broken from dead trees. We hold championships in it, and teach children how to do it during school as an active sport. We have a lot of ice-based sports.

Hylians soldiers observed the activity when they started exploring the mountains for the first time, so started to mimic the activity using their shields. It slowly became a wide-spread thing.

Like any other Rito boy, I was taught to Kzzakaka. I havn't really done much of it since I was a fledgling, but I can still perform some simple tricks. The most 'sick' one I can recall is that I 'surfed' down the mountain and over a canyon once before I could confidently fly, managed to take to the sky, do a backflip, then stick the landing on my board. I did eat dirt about three seconds after because I hit a rock, but nobody was watching anyway.

I feel perfectly normal about her now!!!!

I- I just- I was seventeen and she was- she was very clever and beautiful and well read. Maybe I just...liked the idea of being a knight in shining armour who rescues and kisses a beautiful princess, okay?! I read a lot of hideously cliche fiction! I used to write her love letters I'd never send.

I was...incredibly jealous and frustrated with the knight because he was so close to her, so I kept trying to prove that I was a far better breadwinner than him - but oh Hylia, then I saw him in battle and realised I'd finally found my physical match, an opponent who could actually pose a challenge to me - I became obsessed with him, all I cared about for a while was getting him to notice me, it was a mortifying ordeal.

...I fear I was going through a time of heightened hormonal imbalance which was affecting my judgement. For a year or two I'd been experiencing...spontanious infatuations on people. I'm far more mature now, Goddess it's embarrassing to even think back to.

I never would have breathed a word of that particular affliction to her of course; even back then I was quite informed enough to know that it would have been entirely inappropriate to expose such feelings to one of royalty from my peasant standing. I think part of the excitement to me was that fact exactly, that the love was so forbidden and out of reach.

I don't feel such things for her any more in the slightest, I merely see her as a worthy companion and a platonic friend. I still feel a level of protectiveness over her, and admittedly I still think she's very pretty, but I feel utterly no romantic feelings towards her what so ever now- and you know it's true because I cant say anything but!!!!

.....Please don't tell her....or the Knight..........or anyone about this. The Royal family might execute me or something...

Mortified because if COURSE she turned up earlier than expected and caught the ONE time in the past several hours that I completely messed up the technique . What a terrible first impression, thank goodness that managed to redeem myself moments later because I had a terrible crush on her at the ti-auugmmm mmhnmn nmnmmn

If you'd asked me a hundred years ago I probably would have said something extremely prejudice, or perhaps simply confused. I'd never met a flightless Rito, I hadn't even considered it a possibility. I was born in a time of war when folk frequently disposed of their female chicks so that they could raise warriors - so as one can imagine, there were many other traits that one did not see in grown Rito.

However, in this day and age I've met two Rito on separate occasions now whom are flightless. One with strange wings not dissimilar to flippers, and another with one missing wing.

They're both happy. They live full lives, they contribute to the village, they have friends and families whose lives are enriched by their presence. Their disability doesn't define them and I find that rather inspiring.

I can't tell whether that opinion is a reflection of my personal growth or of the growth of the village. Perhaps both.

As for my earliest memory, that's a tricky one to define. How can one tell for certain what was a memory and what a mere dream when thinking back so far? I suspect even with a potion, I can only tell truths I actually know.

If I were to guess; I do have an early memory of my elder brother tying a scarf around my neck to keep my warm outside, my down must have not fully have grown in yet, so I can't have been more than a year old. He couldn't have been more than a year or two older than me, his wingtips still clumsy. It was the first time I had perceived ever receiving affection from somebody, even if it was a small gesture.

It wasn't long after that when I was brought to the Village and never saw them again. I remember him with more clarity than either of my parents - not in appearance, but he made an impact on my subconscious mind.

And swordsplay. Only so that I could impress the knight and show off in front of everyone he knows to make him jealous of me so that he'll think he's not good enough for me and then perhaps I won't feel like I'm not good enough for him.

Ugh, do you MIND? I'd like to enjoy my crepes without a sickening side of uncomfortable truths...

That I'll be abandoned by the Village and cast out. It was always a possibility for me as a fledgling, a constant threat held over my neck like a hanging knife waiting to drop if I screwed up or didn't earn my keep. Now I'm a fully grown man and it's a completely different village, and I've proven myself as an irreplaceable hero. Yet somehow, that fear has only kept growing, it's even worse now than it ever used to be because now that there's no real threat my mind is just creating false situations to keep me on edge to the point that sometimes I fantasise about doing something terrible to force them to hate me and cast me out to justify the way that I constantly feel as if they're whispering or staring my way preparing to stab me in the back.

...

Followed by needles, then Hebran Blue-Bellied Crowding Spiders, in that order.

StOP ASKING ME PERSONAL QUESTIONS.

What dooooo you consider your most embarrassing moment ever?

Over a hundred years ago early into my becoming a Champion, the Princess had invited us four to stay at the castle for a few days. I wasn't used to being away from Hebra and my stomach was having trouble adapting to the rich nature of Hylian foods, especially in such excess, and one evening myself, the Princess, Lady Mipha and the annoying Knight had stayed late into the evening after the feast of dinner in an engaging discussion and I...was perhaps too animated in my input to the topic because I um...for lack of a politer term, ahem...passed wind. I was mortified, I still cannot believe I allowed such a thing to come to pass.

I'm not proud of it, but in my panic I...accused the silent knight of the faux pas to try to shift the blame, knowing he could do nothing to attest it. However, I know the Princess did not believe me because this was a time in which I'd seen her snap at him for simply breathing too loud and she didn't say a word about it. However, she did hold a handkerchief to her face and politely suggest the four of us relocate elsewhere to continue the conversation.

I'd never been to humiliated. Even now hundred years later, I can physically feel my soul scrunch into a ball like crushed paper any time I'm forced to remember that utterly inappropriate moment, and none of them probably even remember it. It haunts me.

...WHY am I telling you this?!! What did you do to my drink?!!

You're welcome. Not everyone was built for parenthood.