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Chapter 3
Prologue: Bigger on the Inside
"Can't you bring it back‽" Ed shouted. "My brother was on that planet! Bring it back!"
"I can't. If I could I would have without even telling you it was gone!" The Doctor was running around the column flipping switches. "I'm trying to find it right now but…"
"But what?"
"There's no trail," the Doctor said. "It's completely cold. Not even the TARDIS can pick it up on any frequency. It seems to have fallen through a gap in reality. No! That can't be it. I fixed those and there's no rift recorded near here that's large enough to swallow a whole solar system, let alone a planet."
"It took the whole solar system!" Ed gasped. "The moon, the sun, the other planets‽"
"That's what my sensors are telling me. There should be a solar system here but there isn't." The Doctor was still running around. Link decided he would just sit down in the only chair in the room and wait for the Doctor to sort Ed out patiently.
"Maybe you're just in the wrong place," Ed suggested. He started to calm down, but Link wasn't sure if a quite Ed was a good Ed.
"I'm not in the wrong place, I've checked that reading at least ten times already," the Doctor snapped. He looked at another scanner thing and frown. "I just checked again. Nothing. Amestris and the entire Alchimia-7 system has just stopped existing." Both Ed and the Doctor grew silent. Their argument over the integrity of Ed's missing home had reached a bitter end.
"What about Hyrule?" Link asked over the tangible silence.
"Ah, yes, well," the Doctor smiled kindly, but it didn't make Link feel better. "Hyrule is a pocket dimension. Little bit tricky. The only way to Hyrule would be through a rift, like the one you probably stumbled on in the Lost Woods that took you to Amestris. Those are extremely hard to find. We'll probably find the right one eventually."
"Is Epona okay?" Link asked timidly, afraid of the answer.
"I don't know what happened to your horse," the Doctor said. "Why do you care so much? She's just a horse, plenty of those."
"She's all I have since Navi disappeared," Link looked down. Saying out loud that Navi had left him purposefully was too painful, so he just pretended that her absence was accidental. Navi abandoning him after everything she helped him with was like a blow to the stomach. He had grown to see her as an older sister or even a mother and then she left and it felt like she took his heart with her.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said. He sounded like he was walking on glass, afraid that one wrong move and he would send Link into a deep fit of despair. "I will look for Epona, but I can't promise anything."
"And you can't get me home?" Link whispered.
"Not at the moment, no," the Doctor was relieved that Link had a quiet demeanor. Probably because Ed was so loud and adamant. The two felt like polar opposites to the ancient time traveler, though Link's deep sadness seemed to rub his in the wrong way.
"That's fine. I didn't really fit in anyway," Link was still looking down quietly.
"No, it's not fine," the Doctor sighed. "I should be able to get both of you home immediately. I promise I will do my best to get Alchemia-7 back and get you home. Or my name isn't the Doctor! Well, my name isn't actually the Doctor, that would be ridiculous! But that's not the point. I'm going to get you home. Cross my hearts. I don't want another one of those airport incidents." The Doctor crossed two places on his chest. One on the right and one on the the left.
"So," Ed said, crossing his arms. "Now what?"
"Now what, indeed," the Doctor said.
Link lay on a bed in the room the Doctor had given to him, hoping beyond hope that Epona was alright and that, despite the distance he had travelled from home, he might still find Navi and she wouldn't leave him again. Link decided to distract himself from the sad thoughts by memorizing his room, though it wasn't much to look at.
The room was plain, white, and boxy and he didn't like it very much. Link stared at the ceiling, wondering about how his life had been full of excitement but now suddenly everything was stranger that he could have ever imagined. His life might have been full of confusing things, but this took the cake.
As he found his thoughts returning to his lost friends and family despite his best efforts, the walls of his room started to turn forest green and curve in on themselves, converging in the center of the ceiling. The ceiling started to disappear and was replaced by a sky littered with pouffy cotton clouds. Tree branches creeped up, filtering the sunlight that peaked through the gaps in the ceiling between the top of the room. The air, previously undetectable, filled with the smell of trees and mulch and wild flowers.
The door to the hallway was the only thing that stayed the same. Link sat up in his bed as he felt the bed change under him as well. It had been hard and gray, but now he watched in awe as the blanket molted from its previous off-white to a rich green that not only matched the walls, but also his cloths. He felt himself sink in a little as the mattress became soft. A wooden door appeared where the closet door had been and it looked suspiciously like a front door.
Link hopped off the bed, and reached for the door knob. On the other side was the a huge, strange forest. Link could see the walls of his room expanding, making the forest larger. To the left, the walls expanded into a deep, refreshing, inviting deciduous forest. To the right the forest thinned and gave way to a lake nestled in the trees. Near the building that was his room were two oak trees, tall and old. They hadn't been there a few moments ago. Hanging between them was a hammock made of off-white and TARDIS blue ropes. On the side of the little green hut, where the door to the rest of the TARDIS should have been, was a plain wall, as if the door didn't exists.
Link quickly returned to the hut and looked at the gray door. He pushed it open to the hallway. On the other side was Ed's room and down the hall to the right was the control room with the console and screens and the captain's chair and everything that the Doctor had named for the confused boy who had never even heard of science-fiction.
Link scampered across the hall to Ed's room and knocked gingerly on the door. He didn't want Ed to get mad at him, in case he was sleeping. But he had to show someone what his drab room had suddenly turned into and Ed was the closet person.
"Ed?" Link said. "You've got to see this!" Link eagerly called for the older boy.
Ed opened the door. He had taken off his traveling coat, his black and white jacket, and his shoes and socks. All he had on was his black leather pants and his black sleeveless shirt. Link was met with the stark realization that Ed was indeed missing his right arm and left leg. Where a flesh arm should have been was an armor-like replica and where his left foot was there was another metal replica. They moved just like their meaty counterparts, so Link tried not to stare at them.
"What?" Ed said. He sounded like he had been taking a nap.
"My room!" Link pointed to his room. "It turned into a forest and a lake and the door is really weird and you gotta see!" Link said really fast. He hoped he didn't mess up any of the words because Ed looked at him like he was crazy.
"Come on!" Link exclaimed.
Link grabbed Ed's left arm, avoiding the metal one in case he pulled too hard and it fell off. Link dragged Ed into his room. As Link opened the door he was worried for a moment that it would look gray and drab now that he had someone to show it too, but it was still exactly the way he had left it. A round green hut in the middle of a forest.
"Damn, wasn't this room square and gray?" Ed asked.
"Yes, but it turned into this in seconds. I was just thinking about how boring it was but now it's huge!" Link dragged Ed outside to show him the forest and the lake and the oak trees and the hammock. "It's just like home!"
"Why didn't my room change?" Ed asked. He sounded jealous that Link was getting all the attention.
"Maybe it did," Link suggested. "But it changed when you came in here and you missed it."
Ed nodded thoughtfully and both boys went to see if Ed's room had changed. When they got back to the older boy's room, they were stunned to see that it too had transformed in the time it had taken Link to show Ed how cool his room was.
The room, which was just as drab as Link's had been, was now a huge, spiraling stone tower full of books with titles Link couldn't read. Where Ed's bed had been was now a gothic metal bed with red sheets and the symbol that was on Ed's coat. A metal gothic coat stand was placed next to the door with Ed's red coat hanging from one of the pegs. Stairs with books shoved under the steps spiraled up the tower to the top where there was a trap door. It only took one glance between the two to send them run up the stairs to see what was at the top of the tower.
Ed went first because it was his room and Link scampered after him. Both boy's gasped. The top of the tower was a glass dome. On the other side of the dome was a magnificent view of the night sky. In one corner, near the trap door, was a fireplace and a comfy chair with a lamp behind it. A place to read the many books in the tower below.
"Damn," Ed whispered.
The night sky was brilliant and the room was exactly what he wanted the most. He didn't even realize that until he was standing right there in a library full of books about alchemy and chemistry and every kind science in the universe in languages that he didn't even know but was dead set on learning. And the observatory was brilliant.
"We should ask the Doctor about this," Link said. "I mean, normal rooms don't just go from gray to amazing, even if this place is magic."
Ed just nodded, still in a daze, not even bothering to correct Link that magic didn't exist. The pull of the books was like gravity. He had to start reading them. Link was getting a similar vibe from his room. He wanted to explore the forest and fish in the lake. But they needed to confront the Doctor first.
They found the Doctor sitting in a hammock-like chair under the console in the control room. He had mechanic's goggles on and was tinkering with wires. He hadn't shown them where his room was, promising to give them a good proper tour once they had settled into their rooms. They didn't realize what he had meant by 'settle in' until they had seen what their rooms had turned into. One look at the hammock, though, and both boys doubted that he had a bedroom of his own, or at least not one that he used anymore. He looked like his dream bedroom was this console room. He was at home amongst all the bits and pieces that made his wonderful, fantastical life a reality.
"What the hell?" Ed cut right to the chase.
"Ah, I see you've settled in then, hmm?" The Doctor smiled, removing the goggles and focusing at them. "What'd she give you?"
"She?" Both boys asked.
"The TARDIS. She's a life form of sorts. A bio-ship. She's also telepathic."
"Your ship was in our heads?" Ed sounded angry and impressed at the same time. Link decided that Ed got angry a lot.
"In a good way," the Doctor reassured them. "She'll also translate most alien languages. Some of them translate horribly, though, so you'll have to muck your way through those."
"Okay," Ed said. "So what happened with our rooms?"
"Well, normally it takes us a few hours to decide what room to give people, but I think I've got you down pretty good. I was just scrolling through the options she pulled up for you two. Like them?"
"It's amazing!" Link smiled. He felt at home in his room. He had never truly felt at home anywhere.
"Where'd all the books come from?"
"Ah, you've noticed all of them?" The Doctor leapt out his hammock and pulled off the goggles. "Well, the books, like the rooms, are preset and programmed into the TARDIS. I've got a larger library with every topic you'll ever need that I'll show you later. Cookbooks, children's stories, fairy tales, prophesy almanacs, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, books that are one of a kind and not programmed into the database, the liquid History of Gallifrey. I just selected all the science books that wouldn't be to advanced for you. I've got a lot of science books."
"No science book it to advanced for me," Ed boasted. He practically puffed up like a red bellied frog when he talked about his scientific aptitude.
"You won't be so sure when you try to comprehend advanced temporal theory. I had trouble with those and that was just pre-academy school!" The Doctor put a hand on each boys' shoulder. "Now, you'll want the tour, you know, just in case you're here for a while. Do no good if you get lost. I even get lost in here sometimes."
The Doctor lead them down the hallway, past the bedroom doors, and past another door with the symbol for men's bathroom. The door was at the end of the hall and hallway branched off two ways, to the left and to the right.
"The door at the end of the hall to your bedrooms are the bathrooms. But that's obvious, isn't it?" The Doctor patted the stick figure man and smiled, rocking on his feet. "The door shows a man for boys and a woman for girls or just whatever you prefer and it will give each person a separate bathroom, matching your room, if you go in at different times."
Once he was done explaining how the bathroom worked, he took off down the hall and went to the right. There were two more doors in this hallway. One right across from the other.
"This side is the living room, movie nights!" He sounded excited as he pointed to the door on the left. "And video games. I've got all the Nintendo consoles and games but you shouldn't play any of them, Link. Might get a little awkward!"
Neither Link nor Ed knew what a video game was and poor Link was left in the dark about movies as well, not to mention what Nintendo was.
"This is the kitchen and dining room," the Doctor said. "But we'll probably eat out since I'm rubbish at anything that isn't fish custard, omelets, or pasta. On the other end of this hall is the pool and the library. I used to have them in the same room. Not a good idea. The books all fell into the pool and I had to extract the Liquid Wikipedia from the pool water. Not fun." The Doctor frowned. "Don't wander off past those doors."
Ed developed a mischievous glint in his eyes at the mention of restricted areas.
"I mean it, Edward. You could get lost for days and die of starvation. Just ask Clara, she got lost once, miracle we found her in a few hours, I thought it'd take three days. Wandering off in here is not fun. If the room is not the five I've shown you, do not go in them. There are things that will kill you of you aren't carful."
"Good guys don't have those kind of things on their space ships," Ed crossed his arms accusingly.
"You should see Batman's collection of his enemies gadgets. It's full of all kinds of things you shouldn't take out of the cases and he's the best good guy who ever lived. I've just collected things that are too dangerous for the outside world and kept them in here so no one uses them to blow up the universe. Do not touch them."
"Do you have a room?" Link asked.
"Yes," the Doctor answer. "No. I don't use it anymore. To many… memories." An ancient and fresh pain filled the depth behind his eyes. He smiled but he looked sad. Old and sad and like he was carrying a burden that was heavy and ancient.
"Are you married?" Link asked. He wasn't sure why he asked that particular question, but he did. And he regretted his word the moment they left his mouth.
The Doctor turned form melancholy to furious in a mater of seconds. He rounded on Link, a fire of burning passion in his eyes. His eyes were cold and vengeful and full of sorrow and love and a burning longing that could not be quenched. Link took a step back but Ed stood in front of him, trying to protect the smaller boy from the oncoming storm that was the Doctor made angry. The words had triggered an hurt in both of the Doctor's hearts. It reopened a wound that had long been shut off to the world.
"S-Sorry," Link almost started crying.
He was so terrified of this sudden change in the childish, fun loving puppy of a man. One moment, Link was confused as to how such a boisterous man could make people tremble at the mere mention of him, and the next he fully understood what drove fear like a stake into his enemies hearts. To have such anger directed at him froze him to the spot.
"I'm sorry, I didn't… Didn't… I… I…" Link fumbled and tripped over his words and wrung his hands nervously.
Ed looked more terrified than angry, which was a strange look for him, but he still made a defiant barrier between this wall of anguish and fury and the small, nervous child it had created.
As soon as the Doctor realized that he was scaring his two newest companions, he turned away and rubbed his hands through his wild hair. He looked deflated, defeated, and sadder than before.
"No, Link," he choked. He was on the verge of tears himself. "I'm sorry I frightened you. It's just…" he ran his hands through his hair once more and started to go towards the console room. He did not want to be followed.
The moment he was out of sight both boys relaxed and let out a breath they didn't know they had been holding in. Link was hit by the sudden realization that he was in a box that was bigger on the inside that could look into his head and rearrange things and under the power of a man he knew nothing about. He didn't even know this man's name or where he was from. He only had hints as to why he was so sad and full of rage.
"What's his problem?" Ed asked. His voice was quiet, which threw Link off as to who had spoken, his new friend or someone else entirely.
"I think he's lost," Link said. "Like us, I guess. Except he understands how lost he is and it isolates him. He's as scared as we are, but for him comes off angry sometimes."
Ed gave the smaller boy a quizzical look, as of he hadn't really looked at Link until now.
"You know," Ed smirked. "I think I underestimated your maturity."
"Told you I'm not a kid," Link mumbled.
Both of their stomachs growled at the same time and both their heads snapped towards the door to the kitchen. They shared a knowing glance before pushing into the room, intent on finding food.
Link was completely lost in the kitchen. None of the appliances looked even remotely like the ones he was familiar with. Ed, who had been confident that he would know his way around the kitchen enough to be able to find the food, looked just as lost as Link felt. The kitchen was clean and white and just as square as their rooms before they had changed into reflections of their deepest contentments. Link couldn't even begin to describe the things he didn't understand.
"What, no fridge?" Ed muttered.
There was just a tall thing that looked like something that dispensed something, hopefully food, but neither of them knew how to use it. There was something that looked like it could be a stove. It was a flat surface with four red circles on it and runes that looked like nobs but didn't protrude from the surface. The pots and pans that hung mysteriously in the air above the middle of the kitchen were easy enough for Link to understand but they were hovering in the air far out of their reach. The Doctor might be able to reach them, but not Link or Ed.
The dinning area was simple enough except there were only two chairs for the three people who now currently lived on the TARDIS. As the thought crossed Link's mind, two chairs lifted from the ground and the plain white table extended to accommodate the two new arrivals. It was like the TARDIS had read his mind. The TARDIS probably had read his mind, Link corrected. It was a bio-ship, according to the Doctor, and Link might not have understood what that meant but apparently it meant that it could read minds.
Ed rolled his shoulder and approached the food dispenser. He gave it a look over to find out how it worked. The controls were just a bunch of lines, circles, and dots and it wasn't an alien language that the TARDIS would translate for them because neither of them knew what to do.
"So how does this work?" Ed grumbled.
"Voice Interface 9-27, Kitchen Manual, activated," A voice that sounded eerily familiar echoed from behind them.
Both boys spun around to face the speaker and were met with a frighteningly emotionless, almost see through version of Ed.
"Please state the nature of your inquiry." Its voice was freakishly monotone for having Ed's voice and face.
"Who are you?" Ed said.
"I am the TARDIS voice and image interface. Running program 9-27, Kitchen Manual," Voice Interface Ed stated.
"Do you have to look like me?" Ed snapped. In response the interface changed into the form of a woman in a big blue dress and long black hair that frizzed alarmingly.
"Changing default Interface projection to Idris," the voice interface said, now with a inquisitive and frivolous voice. This interface had more personality than the previous projection of emotionless Ed. "Please state your inquiry."
"How do we get food?" Ed asked, slightly more satisfied but still a little put off by the voice interface's creepiness. After a long question and answer session with Idris the Voice Interface, both boys were sufficiently knowledgeable with the workings of the kitchen and dinning area to attempt to make some sandwiches that was edible, if not bland.
Ed took his food to his room, no longer able to resist the need to go through the books that filled his room, lined the walls, and overflowed into stacks around the ground. This left Link sitting at the table alone with a ham and cheese sandwich. He ate thoughtfully before retiring to his own room, planing on checking out the water in his lake. It felt cool to have a lake all to himself that wasn't full of monsters that wanted to kill him.
Link had discovered that there was absolutely no life other than plants in the forest and no fish in the lake, which was lonely. Despite the lack of fauna in his room, the hammock, though oddly colored, was still extremely suitable for relaxing.
Link was only going to rest for a few minutes but he found himself drifting off much sooner than he expected. When he opened his eyes again he felt like he had slept for a long time but the sun was still in the same place as it had been when his room first changed. Link rolled out of the hammock feeling disorientated. He remembered seeing a clock in Ed's room and decided to see if Ed knew how much time had passed since they had left the kitchen and gone to their separate rooms.
Link once again knocked on Ed's door. Before he even had a chance to respond, Idris appeared behind him and informed him that 'the occupant of this room is in the library'. So Link went back to his own room but found that he had nothing to do there but relax and he'd done enough of that already.
Link decided that he would do something productive, detached his bag from his belt, and took it into the room part of his room. He laid out all the remaining contents on the bed and looked them over thoughtfully. Most of the items he had with him when he went into the forest in the first place were gone, but he didn't think he'd need most of those things anyway.
He still had the Fierce Deity Mask, but he didn't want to use it ever again. The last time he used it, it's power almost consumed him, and it terrified him. The other five masks were much more harmless, though he didn't know how he had them since he had given all of his masks to away before stopping the moon. The he had the Bremen Mask, which would be fun to use, if there where any animals to use it to lead a march, the Bunny Hood, which would be very useful in a pinch or if he needed to get somewhere fast or jump really high, the Keaton Mask, which probably wouldn't summon the Keaton, like it usually did, but it still looked nice and was fun to wear, the Mask of Truth, which Link didn't think he'd need to communicate with Sheikah Stones, but would definitely be useful if he needed to listen to animal's thoughts, and finally, the Stone Mask, which could make him invisible to most people. That would be the most useful and had been his second favorite, next to the Bunny Hood.
In terms of regular items, Link still had his bow as well as the biggest quiver he could find in Termina, holding fifty arrows, and he could use three magic arrow spells, Light, Fire, and Ice. He still had Zelda's Ocarina of Time, which was a huge relief since it was probably the most powerful magical item he owned since it could manipulate time and space if you knew how to play the right songs correctly. Plus, Zelda was his best friend in the whole world. He'd feel horrible if he lost her most prized possession, even if she had given it to him to keep.
He still had his pictograph, but there was no picture in it. Link was sure the Doctor had a devise that would take much better pictographs and keep many more. He also still had his Hookshot, which would be helpful if he ever got something stuck in a tree since it only latched onto wood or wood like surfaces. And he had his Mirror Shield, with the relief of a screaming face etched on it's reflective surface, but not his Gilded Sword, Great Fairy Sword, or Hylian Shield. His Lens of Truth, which when looked through let him see things that were hidden from view or see through mirages, was still there. He was surprised to find that he also had the Bomber's Notebook, which he had used to record the times that people would need his help on the three day cycle, but it was now empty. Link decided he could use it to doodle instead.
The last two items he was not expecting at all. The Moon's Tear, a light blue crystal in the shape of a tear that had fallen from the moon on the first day of the first cycle. He had given it to the Deku Scrubb in exchange for his golden flower perch. He also had the key Anju had given him to the room that had been reserved by a Goron with his name. He had given the key to Anju before entering the Moon during the last five minutes of the final cycle. The key reminded him of Anju and Kafei, her husband. They had both cared for him, and had offered to let him stay at the Inn with them, but he had refused, wanting desperately to return to his search for Navi.
Link was glad he had the two strange items, even if he didn't know how he ended up with them. Link decided he wouldn't need to take them with him everywhere, so he placed it on his bedside table along with the Bomber's Notebook.
Once he had placed everything back into his adventure pouch, which he realized was much like the TARDIS since it was able to carry much more than it should have for its size, he went outside to setup an archery practice range. If he was going to stay with the Doctor for a while, he'd need to at least have something to do to pass the time other than twiddle his thumbs, hoping they'd stumble on Hyrule eventually. Link practiced with only ten out his fifty arrows, and he didn't use any of his magic ones. He fired at his makeshift targets for what felt like hours before the Doctor's voice echoed through his room.
"Can you two meet me in the control room, please?" The Doctor asked. The disembodied voiced ended with a high pitched buzz.
Link sighed and put the stick down and went to the console room. When he got there he found Ed had gotten there before him and the Doctor was still sitting under the console in his hammock that he probably slept in, if he slept at all. When Link entered the room, the Doctor jumped out of the hammock, miraculously not tripping over his own spindly legs, and bounded up the stairs to the console level and did the thing where he wrung his hands, smiled, and rocked back and forth on his wobbly feet.
"Good, you're both here," he said. "I've decided to take us to the Shadow Proclamation since they usually know when something big is happening, like an anomaly. They look a little strange, they're people with rhinoceros heads and their language doesn't translate so I'll do most of the talking. Be extremely polite, they're intergalactic police and they might want to arrest me but they might not if you're with me and if I'm there trying to help you. Intergalactic police politics. Don't touch anything and Ed, don't use any of your alchemy, it might scare them."
"You're on the intergalactic police's wanted list?" Ed asked. "Doesn't that make you a intergalactic criminal?"
"Well, that's one way to look at it," the Doctor said. He looked annoyed at Ed, but not dangerous anymore. "Most other intergalactic police organizations call me a 'good man'. Their words, not mine. I'd say more of an 'amazing man', but that's just me. Anyway, it's politics, it doesn't have to make sense or be ethical. If it was, it wouldn't be politics, it would be common sense."
"True," Ed agreed.
"Anyway, we're going to go to their HQ and ask a few questions and then hopefully have a better idea of what's happening. Also, they might know where Hyrule is at the moment."
"They might know where Epona is?" Link asked hopefully.
"I wouldn't know," the Doctor said. "She might still be in Amestris."
"But maybe she got away?" Link hoped. "I mean, she's got to be okay. She just has to."
"Well, only one way to find out and that would be to find her," the Doctor said.
He clapped, smiled, and rocked again, ordered Link to pull different levers on the side of the console he could reach while Ed held on the railings to stop himself from falling over when the whole room lurched underneath them. Link was getting better at keeping his balance, but still stumbled a little as the room rocked and swayed erratically. The Doctor, being a not very stable person on his feet, also had to grab on to something in all the turbulence. But he looked like he was enjoying it, unlike Ed, who looked like he might be sick.
When the TARDIS came to a halt, the Doctor clapped again, something he liked to do, and went to the doors, with Ed and Link behind him. When he opened the doors inward they were met by a group of humans, completely devoid of rhino parts of any kind, wearing golden armor with red decorations, and pointing spears at them.
"You will surrender to the Great Roman Empire," the leader of the soldiers demanded. "Exit the blue temple and be subject to Roman law."
"Ah, well, sorry, boys," The Doctor winced. "This isn't the Shadow Proclamation."
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