Prologue: Once There Was a Boy

In the land of Hyrule, there echoes a legend. A legend held dearly by the royal family that tells of a boy...

A boy who, after battling evil and saving Hyrule, crept away from the land that had made him a legend...

Done with the battles he once waged across time, he embarked on a journey. A secret and personal journey...

A journey in search of a beloved and invaluable friend...

A friend with whom he parted ways when he finally fulfilled his heroic destiny and took his place among legends...

-Opening to Majora's Mask

Once, there was a boy. He was born and raised in a secret, forbidden forest by the fairy spirits that dwelt there. For many long years, he truly believed he was one of them... Until one day, when the guardian spirit of the forest, known to the fairy children—the Kokiri—as the Great Deku Tree, was cursed. He summoned the boy to him then, knowing the truth of the boy's heritage and having foreseen his great destiny. The boy didn't understand why he had been chosen... He had always been the underling, the one fairy-less Kokiri, the boy who was scared of everything and turned to his only friend—and a girl at that—to protect him.

But chosen he was. Presented with a fairy called Navi, the boy reluctantly set out to remove the curse from the Great Deku Tree, never knowing he was taking the first steps of a journey. Never realizing that nothing would ever be the same again.

Though the boy destroyed the curse-bearing monsters in the Deku Tree, the curse had done its job. The Great Deku Tree died... But not before giving the boy the spiritual stone of the forest, and telling him of the dark man who had laid the death curse on him. This frightened the boy, to hear of an evil man from the desert who so closely matched the dark man in the nightmare he'd been having for months.

Before he died, the Great Deku Tree also gave the boy a final piece of advice. "Go now to Hyrule Castle... There, thou will surely meet the Princess of Destiny... The future depends upon thee... Thou art courageous."

At the time, the boy did not understand. He did not see himself as courageous, he did not want the future to depend upon him. But he had to follow the orders. It was, after all, the Great Deku Tree's dying wish. And at the time, the boy still believed that he was one of the Great Deku Tree's children.

So the boy set out for Hyrule Castle, where he did indeed meet the Princess Zelda. And in turn, she sent him out to collect the other two spiritual stones and stop Ganondorf, the evil man from the desert. Then, with all three in hand, he returned to her. She gave him the Ocarina of Time and told him to go to Temple of Time... There the boy opened the Doors of Time itself and drew the Master Sword of which the legends speak, the blade of evil's bane. It was the only chance they had to stop Ganondorf.

Thus did the boy become a man, a hero even. The Hero of Time that legends had promised, chosen by the Master Sword. Seven years in the future, Hyrule had been shrouded by dark power while the boy had slept in the Sacred Realm. And though a great many things were different in this dark and shadowed future, some things had remained the same... The fairy children were immortally young, and none of them recognized the man as the runaway child who had vanished... They saw him as a hero. Yet he still saw himself as a coward.

And the girl, the girl who had been his friend for as long as he could remember... She, too, was the same—a child still, as she forever would be. But the boy—the half-boy, half-hero—realized that he loved the girl, had always loved her. But it was not their fate to be together... While she was to become the Sage of Forest, the boy's destiny was to be a Hero.

The boy met Sheik not long after coming to the future, Sheik the enigma, whose words often seemed to bear hidden meanings. Sheik who seemed to know the boy well, though the boy had never met him. Only later did he discover the truth... He had met Sheik before. Sheik was not really Sheik at all, but rather, the Princess Zelda in disguise. Together, the Hero of Time and the Princess of Destiny sealed Ganondorf, the King of Thieves, within the Sacred Realm. His destiny fulfilled, the boy was sent back to the past, to the way things should have been. But for the boy, there was no going back.

Shortly after his return, he ventured away again, with no friend save the horse Epona. Indeed, when the boy had returned to the past even Navi had left him. A hero did not need a guardian fairy. A hero did not need friends.

The boy stumbled upon Termina by accident, when Epona was stolen from him by Skull Kid, one of his old friends who had become possessed by the power of Majora's Mask. For three days, three days and an eternity, the boy stayed in Termina, trying to stop the moon from falling, trying to save his friend Skull Kid from the Mask's dark power. Turning time backwards whenever time ran out.

The boy did everything he could to bring happiness to the people of Termina. He saved none for himself. Seeing people who loved each other—like Anju and Kafei—find ways to be together against all odds only made him feel worse. Made him wonder if he, too, could have found a way if only he had stayed.

When the boy at last saved Termina and Skull Kid, he again set out once again; alone into the forest. The way back to Hyrule was long, and when he finally returned to the land of his birth a hundred years had passed there. Perhaps he really had been gone that long, perhaps he had remained in Termina for a century if he counted every day he'd lived outside of time.

In this time, the boy saw for himself a second chance. In this time, no one saw him as a hero. It was easy enough to take up the life of a ranch hand, living in peace in the village of Ordon and taking lessons from Rusl, the swordmaster, in his spare time. But sometimes, when he looked at the children of Ordon, he still saw faces he'd once known—the ghosts of the Kokiri. And sometimes, in the right light, Ilia—the mayor's daughter—reminded him of someone, too. The girl he had known, whose name he couldn't even bear to think.

And while he was done with the hero's path, the hero's path was not done with him. The Twilight covered Hyrule, and Zant—King of the Twili—stole Ilia away. Ilia and all the children. But when he entered the Twilight to save them, its power changed him into a wolf. With help from Midna, the Twilight Princess, the Hero again saved Hyrule and Princess Zelda, a decedent of the Zelda he'd known. His journey brought him to places he'd known, places he'd been before...

The heart of an ancient forest—now in ruins, but still bearing echoes of the never-ending song that had served as his lullaby, his heartbeat, his guide. It hurt to walk there, to know the girl who'd once played that song was long gone and he was long forgotten.

And when the time came to part ways with Midna, Midna who had reminded him of both Navi and the girl, the memories of past farewells almost broke him. Did break him, somewhere deep inside—broke him even as the Mirror of Twilight had broken. Too often, he knew, farewells lasted forever.

Twilight for him had already beheld sorrow, sorrow and regret. For at the hour of twilight the borders between worlds were thinner, and not only the worlds of light and twilight but all worlds... Including the Sacred Realm where the Sages dwelt. And now the Hero, the Hero who was no longer truly a boy, beast, nor man... He could no longer find comfort in the quiet village. His past had caught up with him, and it refused to leave again. Feelings he had stilled within himself had only grown stronger in their exile.

How do I know this story? I can tell you want to ask. How do I know so much about this boy, and all his darkest secrets? The answer is quite simple, really...

Once, I was the boy.