Chapter 14: Spirit Guidance
Spirit World?
Link awoke, lying on the ground, into a world tinted teal. Everything from the grass and the trees had a teal tint, except for himself. He found himself in front of a hill, in the middle of a field. The sign on the carved out slope in front of him read "Lon Lon Ranch." When he looked down from the sign, a familiar person entered his sight. He mistook the figure in front of him to be himself, until he noticed the much brighter and blonder hair, as well as the lack of a green cap that usually accompanied the outfit.
"How are you here right now?" the person sternly asked. For a brief moment, their appearance shifted into an armored skeleton that Link knew as the Hero's Shade, before reverting back to his human appearance.
"I met your Mask Salesman friend," said Link. "So this is where the Hero of Time lived after fighting Ganondorf?"
"Yes, though I was never called the Hero of Time, save for myself, Zelda, and the Mask Salesman, whom you seem to have gotten acquainted with," the Hero of Time responded. "I take it he showed you the masks that were never to be used?"
"Exactly," Link answered.
After Link's response, a crack of thunder was heard in the distance, accompanied by dark grey clouds from the east.
"You should come in. Even though you're just a visitor, you'll still get wet from the rain. Actually, you coming here caused that rain storm," the Hero of Time said.
Link followed his distant ancestor into the ranch. They came to two buildings on both sides, with the middle pathway leading to the ranch of horses, who were leaving into their roofed pens. The two of them then went inside the building on the left.
The Hero of Time's House
They were greeted by a red-haired woman, a bit shorter than the Hero of Time, and appearing to be in her twenties (same as the Hero of Time). She had come from upstairs, and met them with a slightly surprised expression.
"Who is this, dear?" she asked. Her soothing voice reminded Link of someone.
The Hero of Time walked a bit forward and answered, "A descendant, from 800 years in the future."
"I'm Malon. Link is my husband," she said.
"I'm also named Link. I guess I'm your very distant grandson," Link responded.
"Y-you're not dead, are you?" Malon asked, slightly stuttering at the beginning.
"Oh no, I-I'm still alive. I just used a mask from the Mask Salesman that lets me temporarily visit a deceased ancestor," Link answered.
"Well it uh, it feels weird to think that I'm someone's grandmother. I died before our children had theirs," Malon said.
"Come to think of it, why do both of you appear the same age as me? I thought both of you died much later in life," Link asked.
"You see us how you perceive us individually, perhaps," the Hero of Time said.
Link, a living being was not supposed to be in the Spirit World of the dead. But since he was, he was seeing his distant grandparents in the only ways he knew: he saw the Hero of Time as the blonde-haired young adult dressed in the hero's garb, and Malon as a woman similarly aged to the Hero of Time.
"Come sit. I'd like to know your reason for coming here," Malon said.
The three of them walked farther into the house and founds seats in a wooden couch with ornate pillows as cushions and a similarly designed chair. Link sat in the chair, and the other two sat on the couch.
"Link, what happened to Termina after your second time there?" Link (of the current time) asked.
The elder Link paused and said "If you truly wish to know about such a tragic place, then so be it.
"I didn't immediately returned there after, but the Mask Salesman did. Some 15 years after, he told me of a mysterious epidemic that was spreading throughout Clock Town. People would suddenly feel very feint, and have to lie down. Some of their veins would turn black, and their skin would look a bit more grey. This continued for a few months until people started to die from it. No one knew what to do, besides get out if you could. Eventually, most of Clock Town died, and it became a ghost town. Those who survived were those who fled to Hyrule."
"Kafei and Anju were among them right?" Malon asked.
"Yes, they were. The disease was truly mysterious, but the Mask Salesman and I both thought the same thing: The BiSoul mask caused the disease," the elder Link answered. "But when we went back to the temple it was hidden in, it was still there. We didn't know what to do, and by then it was too late."
"If that mask was as dangerous as you said it was, I'm glad you came out unscathed from it, dear," Malon said.
"I still wish I could have done more," elder Link said, grasping on to Malon's resting hand. "Now, Link, why are you asking about this? And what does the Mask Salesmen have you wrapped up in now?"
"Well, our new allies from the foreign kingdom, the Ylisseans, recently had both a merchant ship and the search-and-rescue ship go missing. Sheik and I accompanied them to search for those ships, and tracked them to an uncharted island. Said island contains both the new Gerudo civilization, as well as a greatly inhabited Clock Town," Link explained. "The BiSoul mask is causing trouble again, but the Mask Salesman is having trouble remembering what it does. On top of that, the Master Sword and Chrom's Falchion cannot hurt it."
"Gerudo, Clock Town, and the BiSoul mask," the elder Link listed. "Two of those things should be dead. Does that give you any ideas?"
"Well, let me ask one more thing: what can the BiSoul mask do?" Link asked.
"Quite a lot. For one, there's a reason it's called the BiSoul mask: it can possess two different people at once. Second, it can copy the abilities of other masks and the people it possesses. And the Interloper tribe had quite a many masks in that hidden temple. However it greatly amplifies and distorts the power it copies," the elder Link answered. "As for the Master Sword and your ally's sword, I suppose it copied a the effects of a particular mask, one that could make it immune to holy power. I do think I recall a holy resistance mask of sorts in the Mask Salesman's collection. Made for some dark or demonic being."
All of this came as a shock to Link. He wondered how the Mask Salesman could forget such an important detail about the mask, though it now made sense why the mask made sure to burn the page about itself in the Hero of Time's journal. After the shock, he came to the realization of what the BiSoul mask was doing.
"Your face tells me that the Mask Salesman didn't tell you that," the elder Link said. "But don't get the idea that he isn't your ally. I can guess that being alive for over 800 years left his mind weary. I'm sure there's a lot that he can't remember."
"I guess so," Link said.
"I was unable to use the Master Sword to destroy the mask completely, but I did have a random thought of using some other mystical weapon to destroy it. Perhaps something from the world that can only be accessed through that blocky-looking mask with weird carvings."
"The mask that leads to the Twilight Realm?" Link asked.
"You've gone there before?!" the elder Link asked with keen interest.
"Much more than that-" Link said, until he felt a sudden surge of pain in his forehead.
Link leaned forward and grasped the side of his head with his right hand. His vision was fading in and out of focus, and the sounds of the elder Link's voice and Malon's voice were increasing and decreasing in volume. Then suddenly it stopped, and the teal tint he saw started to become much brighter.
"It looks like your time here is almost up," the elder Link said. Both him and Malon had gotten closer to Link. "Come give your distant grandparents a hug before you go back to the real world."
The three of them hugged and held on to Link as he started to phase out of the Spirit World. Oddly enough, to Link it felt like the closest thing to hugging his parents, which was something he never had the opportunity to do.
"I'd say visit, but it's not a good idea for you to do this too much," the elder Link said with a small chuckle. "Actually, leave the visitations to me."
Soon enough, Link's spirit faded away in small green particles.