Link's Terminal Sidequest
Summary:
Link's been stuck in Termina for a span of years beyond the lifetime of even the most long lived man. He has slain Jungle Warriors, Mechanical Giants, Gargantuan Fish, and Giant Insects. He has fused with the spirits of a Deku Scrub Prince, a Fierce Goron Warrior-Patriach, a Noble Zoran Musician and a Fierce Deity of supreme power and ambiguous moral standing. He has helped each individual denizen of Termina and solved each individual problem and cleansed each place of evil at least a dozen times in his scientific experiment to ascertain the most optimum way to save everyone within 3 days. He is now ready to do just that - he's found the speedrun to this game of masks, but before he saves EVERYONE in a mindblowing frenzy of grace, memory and superhuman heroics within 72 hours, he has to deal with one last problem. Most others would say it's a trivial problem - but for this overaccomplishing hero, nothing is too trivial.
Link's five calloused, sun-browned fingers gingerly wrap around the Clock Tower door and pull it firmly open.
Blinding rays of sunlight – unobscured by the dense canopy of the Kokiri forest or the solid cellulose ceiling of the Lost Woods – and gusts of gentle summer air lap at Link's senses like an affectionate pup.
His vision is engulfed by white, his ears by the beating of hammers, his skin by a pleasant breeze, and his pink tongue by the taste of … wet dog?
He finds that thrice blasted monstrously large beast – the same one that incessantly tackled his deku scrub self – reduced to the size of a small pup and affectionately whining at him with damp, mangy fur freshly dripping from the nearby effluent pipe.
Holding his nose and covering his eyes from the sensual assault, his feet trace the too-often plotted footsteps towards where he knows the nearest shade is – it would be somewhere near the four thousandth time he's taken this exact route.
Reclining against the comfortably cool wooden wall of the treasure chest shop, he re opens his senses and attempts to take the surroundings in once again.
The sun is low in the east, clock town's inhabitants are casually milling around getting to where they need to go in the 3 days they have remaining, construction on that eyesore of a festival tower is just-now kicking into action, that dog is pestering yet another passer-by.
It's all the same – every last blasted damn detail in this entire stinkhole of a world called 'Termina'. He's memorised every dialogue path, every little errand and every grand quest, the contours and puzzles of every dungeon, the solutions to everyone's problems and the notes to every song. Now it's just a matter of condensing all of those heroics into 3 days so that he can save everyone and go back home.
But still, even after countless 3 day cycles in this place, he can't identify its single most defining feature – Its smell.
It's sweet, it's … crisp and fresh and it smells like a mixture of grass and pine and Lake Hylia and Hyrule Field and Epona and Malon and Zelda all at once. It permeates all of Termina, in every 3 day cycle he's been through and in every nook and cranny of the continent that he's visited (and every one he hasn't visited, if past is prologue).
It's familiar and just beyond his reach at the same time.
And it infuriates him.
Ten years worth of 3-day cycles he's been in this place and to this day he still does not recognise the smell; the one anomaly, the one thing he doesn't know about, the one blasted unaccountable variable that he has tried time and time again to account for.
The past few (Link can't remember anymore how many a 'few' is … a hundred? a thousand?) cycles of Termina's last three days have been spent obsessively trying to find out exactly what that smell is.
Each time it's been the same sort of answer from Termina's inhabitants:
'What smell?'
'Sorry kid, but they didn't make my helmet open at the lower half just to let me smell the general environment each day – I've got a town to guard'
'You're silly, Mister'
'Us Zorans have no sense of smell – a benefit, really, considering what squalor you humans choose to live in'
' … I don't speak Termanian'
Not even the Happy Mask Salesman, a foreigner like himself, is able to discern any particular smell in the air:
'My young hero, there is no particular smell of anything in the air – well perhaps other than the WOULD YOU PLEASE GET THAT INFERNAL MASK BACK ALREADY'
Tatl, his unreliable, excessively rude and completely irresponsible fairy companion, provides even less help:
'I thought you told me to shut up'
Link furrows his brow and makes a note to amend his psychic message to Tatl the next time he plays the song of time - Tatl's memory wasn't preserved by the song of time, so Link had taken to reintroducing her to his relative timeline with a psychic imprint on his ocarina.
Previously, the general 'Shut Up and Watch' order he'd given to Tatl on the psychic imprint had worked wonderfully, but curiosity and a burning desire to identify this smell has eroded his resolve.
That desire ... and a small dash of loneliness .
Unfortunately, as expected, this results in an absolute flood of inane suggestions and helpful hints that he's heard a thousand times before, and a thousand times before that – the next cycle is filled with silence from the fairy just as the thousands of cycles previous.
Link decides now to take refuge in the closest thing to the fields of Hyrule – Romani Ranch.
Quickly purchasing a Powder Keg from the bomb shop and rolling his way through Termina Field (and making particular note to avoid the red chu-chus that give off that same unidentifiable smell in droves), the gargantuan rocks that block the way are quickly blasted asunder.
Link always did wonder how the Gorman brothers managed to have that particular object set up – it could provide him with some more resources to work with within the next cycle.
He breezes through his conversation with Romani and Cremia and turns his attention to Epona as soon as he's reassured the two Romani's of the fact that she's his horse.
If there's one think Link enjoys about the completely unchanging nature of the Termanian landscape from cycle to cycle, it's that it seems to be the first time he's got a home and some sort of stable life – and that applies particularly to this slice of Hyrule.
Link brushes Epona down and takes a deep breath of her familiar musk, taking comfort in how much it smells of home.
But there is still a strong hint of that unidentifiable smell that permeates everything in Termina – just as there has been every other time he's taken a reassuring breath of Epona's distinctive Hylian scent.
But Link is nothing if not a sensitive person – and he detects that the smell here is just that tiny bit stronger, a bit more identifiable, a bit closer within reach.
He no longer breezes through his actions – he no longer goes through motions that he has established a thousand cycles before – perhaps that 'hug' from the re-dead (or was it a gibdo) directly to his face had done his sense of smell some good that previous cycle.
He moves with renewed vigour, with passion, purpose and mission – he is going to find the source of this smell.
Is it because Epona's in heat? No, she's far too young.
It's not her excrement or legs or saddle or mane either.
It's her mouth – the sweet smell exists and almost drips from the very air here.
Something she ate?
Link quickly dashes to her feeding trough and finds a … shrivelled old brown … and red on the sides … thing?
Link darts his head around quickly, looking for an explanation – a quick glance at a disgusted (but, thankfully, silent) Tatl and a head-cocked-in-curiosity Epona telling him he's not going to be finding any here.
He heads over to the Romani residence – blushing at the thought of seeing the appealing matron again: he's been at her house at this particular point in the timeline of the cycle before, and she's not modestly dressed.
Should he wait for a better time? Or…
Curiosity killed the cat and Link proceeds to have his question about this … thing, answered.
Five minutes later down the cycle finds Link at the doorstep of Cremia's residence, being scolded for bringing - 'Half eaten food inside the house? Really, we know the ranch itself is clean and everything but we can't have you simply bring everything you find inside the house and end up reducing the it the state of Clock Town. I mean honestly, if you wanted some fruit you could have just asked! We have plenty more of those here for human consumption – Epona specifically only eats the under ripened ones' Cremia admonishes, while dragging Link inside towards a chair and a well-laden dining table.
Link is busy trying to catch up – this is the first time he's come across this particular dialogue path before and he's having difficulty absorbing new content, processing what seemed to be a royal decree that was uttered in what seemed a single breath and dealing with his own feelings of excitement and renewed vigour.
Wait.
…More? Of these things? That Link can eat?
'Yes! Yes please, may I have some more?' Link exclaims.
'Well sure there Grasshopper, I haven't seen you so excited about anything – not even your horse!' Cremia cheerily replies – calmly plucking a shiny red bauble from a nearby basket and casually throwing it at him.
'Would you like anything else? I still can't thank you enough for getting through that rock on the road – it would've delayed my shipment for far too long.' Cremia elucidates, while searching through the cupboards. 'We have some bread, cheese, milk, Chateau Romani, even some cake if you want!'
Link is busily observing the red bauble and sniffing it intently, with no results to show for it. The bauble is well protected by its hard and shiny exterior – it's not perfectly round, and it even has an odd stick protruding from a depression in the wider side of its surface.
With an idea in mind for getting passed the exoskeleton, Link glances around for a suitable place to mount the bauble while unsheathing his sword. Failing to locate any suitable spot in the very crowded residence, he lazily tosses the bauble in the air and brings his sword swishing down, just as quickly sheathing his sword and plucking the two new halves out of the air.
He sniffs – jackpot. It smells sweet, it smells like Epona, Malon, Hyrule Field, Grass, Pine, Honey, Nuts, His Home, that Cucco that he accidently stood on one time that almost killed him – it smells like everything he knows and holds dear.
'Are you sure you wouldn't like a bite to eat?' Asks Cremia, having taken his silence as disinterest in a meal.
A bite to eat?
'No, I'm fine!' he responds and hastily takes a bite out of the bauble.
Immediately sweet juices rush around his mouth as his jaws work to reduce the crispiness to a more ingestible mush. It has an odd texture but a welcoming taste – he can understand why Epona enjoys them so much. He slowly swirls the mush around his mouth, experimenting all the way and ruminating on what his bauble is exactly – his previous impotent irritation and incessant curiosity with its smell replaced by satisfied adventurism.
Cremia grins 'Figures, traveller like yourself must like food on the go. Oh and it's no wonder you like apples so much, you've got a very fit body for such a young man - you must eat them every day!'
Link blushes as he continues chewing – he's long since learned in his cycles in Termina that it's best to just smile and nod politely when women have that tone in their voice. Looking for a way to change the subject, he politely asks:
'What's an apple?'
Cremia grins toothily – her already present courteous smile being replaced quickly by hearty laughter.
Link just frowns, confused, continuing to enjoy his 'apple'.
'It's that thing you're eating right there, grasshopper' replies Romani, standing gently in the doorway.
'Oh' frowns Link, realising how foolish he must look but nonplussed at what a novel change this is from his regular (but heroic!) routine in Termina.
'What do you think of it?'
Link dwells on this question with his decades worth of experience in dialogue, questing, heroics, deciphering ancient texts and puzzles and general gallantry. He's always exhaustively explored every possible option and every possible solution to each problem here in Termina in his quest to find the optimum method to save everyone on this world within the 3 days he's been allotted. He knows everything there is humanly possible to know, he's done everything it is humanly possible to do – and beyond, because he has been in Termina for a span of days far greater than any human has been given in his quest to save everything in 3 days. He's even turned into a Deku Scrub, a Goron, a Zora and a Fierce Deity (he made sure to play the song of time and return to Termina before he confronted Majora, however - he had things left to finish).
Superhuman in his omnipotence, here he is, the closest thing to God on this Terminal Earth and he's nonplussed by a duo of simple ranchers and a piece of fruit.
'It's … Nice'
End.
A/N: This is going to be (I hope) the first part of a trilogy. Well, I call it a trilogy because it's going to be three oneshots - in reality this first story is more like a drabble. The second will be a more substantive breakdown of how Link is going to save everyone - which I shall do as soon as I finish Majora's Mask (not happening). The last will be an epilogue reflecting on Link's greater purpose in Termina - I really want to add some backstory to the whole thing and make it seem like destiny has appointed him to be here - as if everything in his character was geared for this epic 3-day quest.
I've got a solid idea about said destiny (in fact it's what motivated me to write this introductory drabble) and I'll slip a hint in here to make sure I keep it in mind as I continue along and so that you guys can go back in hindsight and realise just how easy it is to make past seem like prologue.
It's to do with apples.