(...I don't actually have anything witty to say this time, Universe. Just go ahead and do your thing.)
The author does not own the Legend of Zelda. If this were the case, Kaepora Gaebora would be... 'retired' and used to stuff a fluffy pillow.
(Oi! I'm not that violent... I mean, yeah he's annoying and stuff, and I do like fluffy pillows, but you're talking murder here. I take offense to that!)
Regardless of how soft that pillow would be?
(YES. Now quit making me out to be some sort of nature-hater.)
But it's not nature. It's a video game.
(Logic... my most hated enemy. Curse you, Universe!)
"Just keep practicing dear, and I'm sure you'll remember the recipe soon," Grandma said encouragingly as she handed a vast amount of bottled soup to Gen. "And, Link, do come back sometime soon, we don't get to see you nearly enough nowadays."
"I'll try, Grandma," Wind managed, just barely able to get the words out. Aryll had her Big Brother wrapped in a rib-crushing hug and didn't seem inclined to let go anytime soon. Not that Wind minded, of course. It was just that he also liked breathing, and sooner or later it was going to get really uncomfortable what with his current inability to inhale.
"Promise?" Aryll asked with the biggest puppy eyes imaginable. Red took a note.
"Sure thing," Wind wheezed. "You're killing my lungs..."
Aryll pouted adorably and loosened her hold – slightly. Wind gasped feebly, causing the Four to take pity and implement a distractionary maneuver by tapping Aryll on the shoulder and opening their arms for their own goodbye hug.
Thankfully, they also remembered that they were supposed to be mute. Otherwise things would have gotten awkward.
"Ah, don't worry a bit about Wi-er, Link here," Lore said, winking. "We'll have him back in no time. Which we will hopefully be successfully saving."
Grandma tilted her head. "Pardon?"
"Just rambling, don't mind me..."
Meanwhile, about half of the rest of the group was trying to explain to Ciela exactly why she couldn't follow Wind through the hole into the next Hyrule. She wasn't taking it very well.
"So you're telling me," Ciela began incredulously, "that I, the Spirit of Courage and freaking Time, can't be exempt from the laws of a random hole that deposits people in different time periods."
"Well... yes," Dusk said.
"Hmm. Explain that to me, why don't you?"
"As the Spirit of Time," Mask interrupted, "you have an innate sense of how it works, yeah?"
"Yes..." Ciela agreed suspiciously.
"So then you should know exactly why you can't come with us. The laws of the universe don't really work that way."
Ciela sniffed. "I should be able to bend things a little. I'm beginning to think you don't want me along!"
"Well, it's not like we don't already have some fairies in the lineup..."
Ciela twitched. "Link's been cheating with another fairy?!"
"NO!" Mask bellowed. "Navi is-was-has been- gah, she's Ocarina's partner, and Tatl was mine! Your Link was been entirely faithful to you as a fairy partner, okay?"
Ciela gave him what was probably an evil eye, if not for the fact that her natural glow blocked it completely. Her skepticism was palpable.
"Back to the point?" Speck reminded everyone.
Dusk shifted into a more comfortable stance. "Look, Ciela, we've tried this with other companions and the same thing happens to all of them. You may have some influence over how time works, but... I don't think that will make any difference."
"That's what you think," Ciela retorted, and proceeded to turn her wings to all of them.
'Not going very well, is it little wolf,' Midna murmured in Dusk's ear.
"What was your first clue?" Dusk muttered.
'Aww, you're trying to be cocky with me. That's adorable. Now stop before I decide to smite you, 'kay?'
"Are you going to help or not?!"
'Can't I talk to you for the sheer pleasure of your company?'
"And since when have you found my company pleasurable?"
'Ooh, good point. Now, repeat after me. If this doesn't get through that fairy's thick glow I'm going to resign from sarcasm.'
By the end of her speech, Dusk's eyebrow was twitching a mile a minute.
"I'm not saying that!"
'Do you want her to believe you or not? Now start reciting, little wolf, I don't have all day. I finally got my carpet shipped in and I need to start demolition on the floor tiling. Your soul color looks ghastly with my color scheme, and it takes some serious work to make all this look nicely hospitable.'
Dusk swallowed. "Ciela... er..." He took a deep breath, then launched into Midna's speech.
It went something like this.
"It's true that as the Spirit of Time, you will be affected differently. This is not a good thing. This is, in fact, one of the most abjectly horrifying things that could possibly happen to you. Your time sense will be hijacked, painted green, shaved, returned, and then fined for having atrocious hairstyle (which in time-travel is a capital offense). Your wings will suddenly become utterly useless, and will in fact be replaced with newts, who will also be painted green and will be unreasonably crabby as a result. This will cause any resident crabs of the current time era to take offense with extreme prejudice, because being crabby is their job and how dare the newts try and replace them, the inconsiderate slime-balls.
"Naturally your wing-newts will take offense to this and will thus start an interspecies war, which the crabs will obviously win because, let's face it, they have claws and the newts don't. Eventually the entire mess will be blamed on the green paint, because if the newts hadn't been green then they wouldn't have been crabby, and then the war wouldn't have started and so on and so forth. In the ensuing investigation, your green-painted time sense will be arrested and put in jail for crimes against fashion and newts, which will then cause massive universal instability because, obviously, without your time sense how can you feel time? And all because you wanted to go through a hole. For shame. For shame."
Having said all that in one massive outburst, Dusk then took a huge gulp of air and decided to sit down for a minute. Ciela (and everyone else for that matter) stared at him with a 'What the heck just came you of your mouth!?' look and slowly backed away.
"...Not like that made any sense," Ciela began slowly, "but the part about my time sense getting messed up sounded legitimate. Everything else... why were there newts? And why was green paint so important?!"
'I'm going though a 'green' phase,' Midna explained to Dusk. 'Seriously, just say the word 'green', and really stretch it out. Doesn't it sound weird?'
"...Midna likes green," Dusk relayed flatly.
Ciela increased the speed of her back-up. "I'm... gonna go find Link. I need to wish him luck before he leaves. So... nicetomeetyougottagobye!"
The Links watched her go in an amused fashion.
"Okay, where did Midna even get that stuff?" Mask questioned once Ciela was safely out of earshot.
"No idea," Dusk admitted. "And I'm honestly not sure I want to know."
"Why newts?"
Dusk listened for a moment, then relayed, "She thought they were more interesting than salamanders. And it was easier to say."
"...Makes sense."
"We're going to miss her," the Four confessed as they waved goodbye to Aryll for the umpteenth time. "She was fun."
"Yeah, how come you got a sibling?" Lore agreed jokingly, elbowing Wind in the ribs. "All I ended up with was an uncle, and he was stupid enough to run with a pointy thing in the dark."
"I'm going to miss the seagulls," Gen said. "Best teachers I've ever had."
"...Okay then."
Wind just rolled his eyes. "Of course they were. Speaking of flying things, how'd you convince Ciela to stay?"
"We... may have introduced her to Midna," Dusk admitted. Wind made an 'Ohhh' noise.
"That would explain why she seemed so frazzled."
The group walked in a comfortable silence for a few more minutes, until they reached the hole. Like the previous times, both Ganondorf and Bellum's individual rifts had merged together and created one main void, which was happily eating the reality surrounding it's edges.
"Alright," Lore said. "Are we all ready for this? Again?"
Most of the group nodded, or muttered affirmatives. Gen took the opportunity to make a head count- and came up short. This was nothing unusual, since Shadow rarely travelled with the group and normally just popped up for the important stuff. But this time...
"Did anyone keep an eye on Realm?" Gen interrupted.
"I could have sworn they walked this way..." Realm muttered to himself, standing on the top of the cliffs behind the Village. The rope bridge he had just crossed swayed gently in the ocean breeze, and the trees behind him rustled. Realm ignored it and shaded his eyes, peering down on the rest of the island in a futile attempt to figure out where he went wrong.
He sighed. "Well, at least I'm getting some good exercise in." He then turned in precisely the wrong direction, somehow managed to completely miss the very obvious (and in plain sight) rope bridge he had just crossed, and marched into the woods that grew on top of the cliffs.
He really hoped he could figure out where he was supposed to be going... eventually.
"Dangit!" The Four exclaimed. "Sorry, we forgot to watch him- Wind, what's the hardest and most impossible spot on the island to reach?"
Wind pointed up. "Woods on top of the cliffs. Hard to climb to and usually full of monsters. If he's not there, I got nothing."
"Thanks!"
The Four sprinted off in the general direction that Wind indicated, leaving the rest of the Links standing awkwardly.
"Er... now what?" Sketch asked.
"We can't exactly leave without them," Steam agreed.
Lore thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers. "Idea! How many of you know the Ninety-Nine Potions of Health song?"
Thirty-eight minutes later, the Four marched back with Realm pinned in the middle of their square formation and deposited him next to the hole.
"You would not BELIEVE where we found him," they said, simultaneously wiping their foreheads with their sleeves.
"Do we want to know?" Steam asked wearily.
"He somehow managed to fall into a sinkhole underneath a boulder at the top of a hill surrounded by five-foot grass which was infested with Chus and and suicidal Keese."
"All things considered, it really wasn't the worst thing I've ever got myself into," Realm said, shrugging.
"What would that be?"
Realm thought for a moment. "Probably the time I tried to get to the Ocean Palace and forgot to equip my special boots. By the time I remembered that I was already underwater- and you guys know I can't swim- so I tried to get back to the beach but I think I went the wrong way because I accidentally crossed into the Dark World, and for some reason there wasn't actually any ocean at that particular point in there. So I ended up falling from ten feet or so and landed in the middle of a Ku tribe- oh, they're the Dark World equivalent of Zoras, only a lot more violent- and they kinda took offense to that, and it all kinda went downhill from there."
"...Y'know, having known you for this long, that doesn't surprise me at all," Steam decided.
Speck cleared his throat. "Um, weren't we leaving?"
"You are absolutely correct!" Lore declared. "I for one welcome the new environment. It's too bloody humid here, I don't know how you people manage to look dry."
Wind rolled his eyes. "The same way everyone else does. We are dry." He started walking towards the hole, with Lore trailing behind him.
"I would beg to differ-" Lore began, only to get cut off by the fact that he was no longer physically present.
The rest of the group, amused, followed them through.
It was a forest full of mist.
"For some reason," Sketch said, looking around, "I was expecting my Hyrule. Are we in the right timeline?"
"There was only one hole to go through, I'm sure this is right," Dusk replied. "...I think..."
Mask, unusually, didn't say anything. He stared at their surroundings and scowled instead.
"Any ideas on which way to go?" Gen asked.
"We could split up? Meet back here?"
"How would we figure out where 'here' is? And for that matter, do you want Realm to get lost again?"
"Do we have any idea whose Hyrule this is?" Ocarina asked. Mask grunted and scowled some more, receiving a confused glance from his older-but-younger self in the process.
"I could give things a sniff, see what I can find," Dusk offered.
"No..." Mask sighed, finally participating. "I know where we are. It's this way." So saying, he walked off through the trees with much disgruntled muttering and a good deal of angry glaring at the shrubbery. The rest of the group followed at what they deemed was a safe distance.
"What's with him?" Sketch asked. "Ocarina?"
"How should I know?"
"You're him, he's you, I thought it made sense."
Ocarina tugged on his bangs. "I haven't been him yet. Yes, he's me, but I'm not necessarily him. That is, not right now. I know he's annoyed about something, but as to what it is I have no idea."
"So then... is this your Hyrule, or his?"
"Uh... let me get back with you on that, I'm gonna need to consult the time-traveling laws for that one."
Up ahead, Mask clambered up onto a stump and began a somewhat impressive series of acrobatic flips onto successively higher stumps. He landed on the edge of a massive hole in a tree, turned, and waved his arm at the group.
"It's through here," he called. "Hurry up, will you? The faster we get there the faster we can leave."
"...Although, I am starting to get a vague idea," Ocarina decided. He began jumping the stumps, not as fancily as his counterpart but still impressively. Mask could afford to show off, but Ocarina, due to the mess of time laws, kept the both of them alive.
Mask waited until everyone had caught up, then walked into the tree, where it naturally got very dark. Then he abruptly stopped.
"Okay, this-" he began, then was promptly cut off as everyone behind him ran into him due to the tree lighting being too dark to function properly in. This resulted in a very familiar-looking pile up.
"Vio..." Blue growled.
"It's not me this time, I swear."
"Well someone's on my leg!"
"I think that's me," Speck admitted sheepishly. "I would get off, but I think Realm is collapsed on my spine."
"Sorry," came Realm's muffled voice. "I'll fix that as soon as Gen gets off my shoulders."
"Yeah, I can do that," Gen agreed, and got off. Once everyone had untangled themselves, Mask continued what he had been trying to say.
"So this is where we need to go," he said, gesturing behind him. "In about ten more feet or so there's a massive hole where you can't see the bottom. I thought I'd give you a warning first."
"Oh, so we don't fall in?" Green asked. Mask chuckled.
"No, so you don't freak out when I do this."
He turned, broke into a sprint, and threw himself into the ravine.
"And don't mind the hallucinations, that's perfectly normal...!" He called back, although rapidly fading. Standing on the edge of the hole and watching Mask vanish, the rest of the group came to the consensus that he was crazy.
"Before we follow him," Lore started, "I feel it's important to ask. Is anyone here afraid of heights?"
"I'm beginning to think I might be," Sketch said, leaning over to peer down. Gen, standing next to him, snorted.
"Please. I lived in the sky, remember? This is nothing compared to that."
"So you're telling me that complete darkness waiting for you down below doesn't creep you out in the slightest?"
"I was talking about the distance. I never said anything about the dark."
"Are we going to jump or not?" Ocarina interrupted.
Steam blinked. "You mean we were actually considering it?"
"Well," Ocarina began, "in a complicated time-twisty way, I've already jumped. And I clearly knew what was coming because I wasn't afraid of it. Therefore, sometime in the future I'm going to come here and I'm going to jump, and I'm going to live because then I'll get caught up in a time mess with my older-but-younger self who, at one point, stood here debating whether or not to jump along with a bunch of other selves. Make sense?"
"Not in the slightest," Lore declared cheerfully.
"Yeah, tell me about it," Ocarina sighed.
And then he threw himself off the edge.
The rest of the group crowded around again, watching him fall into the black.
"He's just as crazy as Mask," Dusk decided.
"Technically-" Vio began.
"We know already," Blue interrupted, putting his brother in a headlock. "You don't need to remind us."
"That makes two," The Four said. "Are we following?"
"Can't exactly leave them here," Gen said.
"Agreed," Lore... well, agreed. "Jump on three?"
"Can we jump on three-hundred?" Sketch asked.
"No. One... Two... Three-!"
"-Sure those images were perfectly normal?" Ocarina asked his counterpart.
Mask shrugged. "It happens every single time. I'm pretty sure it signifies some sort of entrance to an alternate world, but... how would I know?"
"They looked like your masks."
"I've noticed that, believe me. But I have no idea why. Speaking of the fall, you think the others are coming?"
Mask was answered by the loud and screaming thud of the rest of the Links landing in a heap on the gargantuan mushroom above their heads.
"WHAT WAS THAT!?" Steam gasped.
"The perfectly normal hallucinations, I did warn you about them," Mask said from below.
"Normal?!"
Untangling themselves, the group slid off the mushroom and joined Mask and Ocarina on the ground, looking around themselves.
"It's... another misty forest," Gen said, confused. "Why is there an entire other forest at the bottom of a hole in a tree?"
"And why can we see?" Dusk asked, peering upwards. "That hole was pitch black, there shouldn't be any light down here at all."
"Look, the less you question it, the better your mind functions," Mask said. "Now... it should be this way." He walked off towards another tree-tunnel and disappeared inside.
"You coming or not?" he called back.
"I'm honestly leaning towards 'not'," Steam muttered, walking forwards anyway.
The tunnel in the tree was shockingly long, and for some reason ended in a large set of double doors. Mask crossed his arms and stared at it accusingly.
"...Are we going through it?" Lore asked.
"I would prefer not to," Mask said darkly.
"Can I ask exactly what behind that door is so bad?"
Mask sighed. "You'll find out. Just... try not to freak out too badly, okay?"
"...Okay...?"
Mask pushed on the door, flooding the tunnel with blindingly white light and walked through, leading the group behind him. It took a few moments for their vision to come back, but when it did...
"Welcome to Termina, guys," Mask said, spreading his arms.
Nayru blinked.
"That's odd..." she muttered.
Din sidled up beside her and peered down at reality. "You're right. What are they doing there?"
"I could have sworn they were scheduled for the Hyrule/Lorule section on history," Nayru said, frowning and reaching for her clipboard. "They just skipped two entire eras of Hryule's past."
Farore spoke up then, saying, "It's collective desire."
Her sister glanced at her. "Care to elaborate on that?"
Farore nodded. "Essentially, this adventure has garnered the attention of multiple higher beings, of the species that our creator belongs to."
"Changeling's people?"
"Exactly. Now, as higher beings, they have the subtle ability to influence our universe through their wants and desires. And, for some reason, a lot of them really wanted to see Termina next."
Din rolled her eyes. "Of course they did. Impatient lot, aren't they?"
"Din, that's rude," Nayru admonished. "Yes, it may have thrown a few things out of position, but it's nothing we can't fix. We are the goddesses, after all."
"I'm beginning to feel like we're more of a clean-up crew," Din grumbled.
It was an entire settlement.
It was literally an entire town. Full of people. There was light shining down, just like a sun would, and there were houses, and shops, and even a post office.
"What the HECK is all this doing inside a tree?!" Realm gasped.
"Not exactly," Mask said, pointing behind them. The group turned around to see a clock tower with a set of large double doors in it's base. They looked tightly locked.
"That's where we came from," Mask finished.
"But... it was a tree," Vio said slowly. He was clearly confused. "This tower isn't even attached to anything, how... how did we get here?"
"The less you think about it," Mask told him, "the better you cope. Termina is one of those places that messes with you."
Ocarina gaped at the surrounding passerby. "Was that Malon?"
Mask turned to see a small, red-haired girl dragging a taller, equally red-haired girl by the hand excitedly. "Oh, that's Romani. She runs a farm with her older sister."
"But- they look exactly-"
"The less you think about it," Mask interrrupted, "the better you cope."
"Alright, I get that this place is weird," Dusk said, looking around at the impossible town with the impossible people. "And I get that it messes with you. But it just seems like a slightly confusing village with perfectly normal, if somewhat familiar, people. What is it about this place that you hate so much?"
Mask sighed. "Remember Majora?"
"I think I can safely say we try not to," Speck said softly.
"Smart choice. And you remember when I mentioned a moon?"
The group nodded slowly, realization dawning on them.
"Just... look up," Mask said, pointing.
The Links looked up.
And promptly freaked out.
Since when have you been able to possess people?! Ocean Ganondorf demanded. Bellum squished and made some bubbling noises.
What do you mean, always?! Why didn't you do it sooner, or better yet, TELL ME?!
More bubbling.
THAT'S NOT AN EXCUSE, THAT'S A DANCE TUNE!
There was promptly a crash, followed by some possibly derisive bubbling noises and an enraged bellow. Demise debated the wisdom of asking what was happening, then decided against it for the sake of sanity. Instead, he opted for the louder approach.
"SHUT UP AND TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!"
Bellum immediately started bubbling rapidly. Demise groaned. "Someone translate the squid..."
They worked well together, Ocean Ganondorf translated. They separated themselves based on who was best suited for the terrain, which Bellum finds commendable. He also notes a possible weakness that may be put to good use.
Demise smiled slowly. "Go on."
During the fight, Bellum says he took control of the one the group calls Lore. They seem to regard him as... well, part of their leadership, anyway. This caused them to essentially drop everything else and focus solely on rescuing him. I can verify this, as nearly all the group I was fighting left to deal with it.
You had control over a Link and didn't eliminate him? Twilight Ganondorf asked incredulously. How can you call yourself a villain?
Bellum exploded into angry bubbles.
Ah... he suggests your mother was a... actually, I'm not going to translate that, Malladus decided.
How dare you call my mother something unspeakable!
There was another crash and the sound of metal slicing the air, along with a lot of hurried squishing.
Tag! Zant cried. Great is my god, that he may be It!
Twilight Ganondorf growled furiously, as if he were unable to decide whom to target.
"All of you, shut it!" Demise said suddenly.
We're in your head. The only one who can hear us is you, Original Ganon pointed out.
Demise ground his teeth. "It's ahabit. Now stop talking to me so I can listen, I thought I heard voices...
Other than ours?
Demise snarled silently, but decided not to answer. Because over the sounds in his head, he had distinctly heard three female voices, talking to each other.
Of course, they were silent now, because Demise had spoken aloud, but they had been there, he was certain of it. Just beyond those starstuff clouds...
Demise shot through the wispy material and came to a screeching halt. Someone had been here, no doubt about that. And recently too, very recently. But they had left-
And evidently left a note.
'Demise', it read.
'Sorry to miss you, but we had a prior engagement that was particularly pressing us for time. We hope you'll forgive us for skipping out on our little battle. Universe to save, and all that.
'Hugs,
'Farore, Din, and Nayru.'
Demise stared at the note incedulously. Inside his head, he could feel the equal confusion of the villains.
Hugs? Malladus asked. Why would they wish you Hugs?
They're being annoying, deliberately, Hyrule Ganon explained. It is a taunt.
"This," Demise seethed, crushing the note in his hand and incinerating it, "is why I hate creation."
"That," Lore said, staring up at Majora's Moon and ignoring the panic surrounding him, "is the most messed up chunk of space-rock I have ever had the misfortune to meet. No wonder you didn't want to be here."
"You don't even know the half of it," Mask told him.
SO many people requested this. So. Many. People. So now, here you are. Termina, two whole Hyrules ahead of schedule. I hope you're happy.
Honestly, I didn't mind. I've been looking forward to writing Termina, and now I just have a good excuse to do it early. All I need to do now is make sure the rest of the adventure doesn't have repercussions from this.
And believe it or not, the bit about newts is actually important. Until I wrote that part, I had the WORST Writer's Block you could imagine. Here's hoping you enjoyed it :)
Until next time,
Changeling
Thanks to Lozzietta, kazearashika, Lupanari, Shade the Dark Latios, Jibanyan with Komasan, HylianHeroLoZ, 13, Link Fangirl101, Cerberus0225 and ShadowLyrics1 for favoriting/following!