Blizzaga Saga: Did this as a challenge to myself. I never write tragedy, and I never write in the present tense. Let's see where the dark corners of my mind take me.
He has lived three days a hundred times and knows how to save each person. But before stopping Majora, he only has time to save the four giants and those in mortal danger, so that's what he does. Thus the creepy hand in the Stock Pot Inn goes without toilet paper, and the Rosa sisters don't learn a new dance. That is acceptable, Link thinks, because he still saves the Goron Elder from freezing to death, prevents Pamela's father from permanently becoming a Gibdos, and keeps Kafei alive while he's retrieving his marital mask.
None of that matters when he visits the ranch, however. Romani sits on a crate, a vacant look on her face as she doesn't turn her head quite enough to regard him.
"What? Who..."
She looks dizzy, though he knows she hasn't moved all day. They left her like this. Or, he thought ruefully, perhaps he did.
Cremia's concern about the stolen cows vanishes and she leaves the barn to check on her sister, finally realizing something is wrong. Then she sees him. He looks as horrified about Romani's condition as she does, though she's sure she and Romani have never met him. She demands to know if he did this to her precious sister, and Link shakes his head even though he is, in a way, responsible.
After a quick apology for jumping to conclusions, Cremia talks to her sister but receives no answer. She tries to interact in other ways but soon discovers that Romani can no longer wield a bow. Walking requires almost too much muscle control for her, so she does not run through the fields with Mamamu's dogs anymore. She needs help using the restroom.
He stays with them, and despite her apology Cremia feels the need to protect her family from this unknown boy.
"Who are you?"
Again he says nothing. At first she thinks he is mocking Romani's inability to communicate, but then she realizes the truth. This time, however, she does not apologize. He has not left Romani's side in days, has even helped care for her, but Cremia does not trust him. The stranger is too kind, almost affectionate, with this girl who cannot defend herself.
"Why are you here?" Cremia asks one day. "Kafei responded to my letter. Not a single person in Clock Town knows who you are, and you expect me to just let you care for her. What do you want?"
What he wants isn't important, because he expects nothing, least of all Cremia's trust. He can't talk, so he cries in response to her question. In another time, Cremia gave him a hug and Romani's eyes shone with gratitude and affection, but he is a stranger to them in this time. It's not fair. He did his best. He saved as many as he could.
"Sister, Grasshopper is..." Romani begins, almost as if to defend him, and his heart thumps; she never gave him that nickname in this timeline. Could she...?
They gape at her, but she has already stopped talking, her brief attentive stare turning blank again.
Link already knows the potions and doctors Cremia brings won't help, but the young woman has to learn this the hard way.
"Please talk to me, Romani," she begs. The silence is killing her. Romani used to talk about anything and everything, but now she is as mute as Link. "Please, I...I'm doing everything I can. I love you. You won't be like this forever, okay? You have so much life ahead of you." Her voice wavers, but Romani doesn't even seem to know Link and Cremia are with her.
Something inside Cremia breaks.
"If I find them, I'll make them pay. I don't care what it takes." She is usually a gentle woman, but she means every word.
They have no animals since the thieves from the sky came. Too busy wiping the dribble from her sister's chin and making sure she doesn't choke, Cremia cannot work, and Link is just a little boy who doesn't know how to make money. They scrape by for a time on the rupees he found while "saving" Termina, which Cremia accepts happily but suspiciously, and then Link hunts whenever it's her turn to care for their child.
And Romani is their child, born of the choices they both made. Cremia will always regret not listening to Romani about the cow thieves, and though Link knows he made the best of the three days he had, when he sees what his priorities have done to the playful little girl and her lonely sister, he wonders what the point in saving anyone else was.
Every day is the same, and a year slowly passes. Strengthened by hunting, Link looks less like a child. Weakened by stress, Cremia looks less like a young woman.
She is more alone than ever, living with a taciturn stranger and a girl who she isn't sure exists anymore. She has always lived far from town, but before they came she at least visited Anju sometimes. Now she only has enough hours in the day to take care of her sister, whose capacity for managing herself is nonexistent. She brushes her hair, bathes her, spoon-feeds her, wipes the mucus from her face. She refuses to neglect her duties, because her childhood was taken from her when their father died and she'll be damned if she can't provide Romani with a good life.
Thus she continues talking to her. Sometimes it seems to make Romani happy. Other times it makes her furious, and she gives a wordless gargling cry as her eyes roll aimlessly. Whether she does this because Cremia's voice is too much stimulation for her or because she knows somewhere in her degenerated mind what she has lost, Cremia will never know.
What Cremia does know is that her sister relaxes just a little when Link is around. Link is always gentle with her, like he knows her somehow. And while she truly is grateful for everything he's done, Cremia seethes because she knows something is off about him and she wishes Romani would be comfortable around her as well.
Sometimes she wonders what the point in talking is since Link can only speak through writing and Romani is not (and perhaps never will be) the loud person she was. In these moments she snaps at Link like a bitter wife, and he wishes he could talk so he could remind her like a bitter husband of everything he's done for them. He didn't save them then, but he's doing his best to save them now. He'll spend the rest of his life saving them.
There is tension between them always. It doesn't matter whether it's anger, mistrust, or frustration. One day it simply becomes too much: Cremia and Link need to know that they're appreciated, that someone cares, that everything they're doing means something. They have only each other to fill the emptiness inside them, and they come together as though shoved.
Lips make contact, and for a moment they are fulfilled. But Cremia retreats quickly, ashamed and shy and embarrassed like she might have been before everything went wrong. She realizes she has taken advantage of someone much younger, and Link hates himself because there is (was) someone else he likes.
They ignore each other after that, focusing all their attention on Romani. Cremia's bones ache like those of an old woman, and she decides that she might as well be one; unless a miracle happens, she has no future other than regret and heartache. And though Link can cry on the outside, he cries on the inside too because he doesn't know how to take care of others when no one's ever taken care of him.
Romani throws things like a petulant child. That is the only intense motion she can do well, and she apparently wants to live energetically as she once did. On days when she can speak, she sometimes asks "Who...you?" to whomever happens to be watching her. Cremia cries on those days when no one is watching but otherwise acts no differently. Link stays strong as well: he lost his childhood before he even found Termina, and he'll be damned if Romani loses hers.
Cremia writes to Anju (since she can't leave the ranch), "I wish I could take it all back. If you do something and then turn back time, do the actions you erase matter?"
Anju responds with the obligatory "It's not your fault", and after that she writes, "Of course it matters. Otherwise the good things you did wouldn't mean anything."
Link spies the letter and wishes that were true. By this time Cremia is too exhausted to ignore Link or be suspicious of him. She asks him the same question, and like Anju's, his reply is written.
"It doesn't matter if you could. You can't. We make choices and we live with them."
Cremia leaves them alone for the night because she has done so much and is so tired, tired of hating herself and loving a girl who most of the time isn't aware of her. Link and Romani sit outside, and as night falls the screams of insects die down until he's no longer sure if they're making noise. Does he hear silence? Screams? Silent screams? Trying to find humor in the world, Link decides it's amusing that Romani named him after a noisy insect, but maybe it's appropriate. Like the insects, he cannot talk, only scream.
They do and say nothing. But he knows that silence is unforgivable, so he speaks the only way he knows how and wraps an arm around her. She leans into him, either because she knows him or because she's tired of supporting herself with muscles which don't always work. Her slim frame has gained girth due to her sedentary lifestyle and her hair has been cut to keep it out of her mouth, but she is still so beautiful.
"Cre...Grass..." she begins, but lacks the ability to continue. And Link doesn't know if those two half-words give him hope, but they're all he'll get today and he kisses her forehead.