I made an interesting connection recently while I was thinking about Zelda (for another story that's in progress), and I decided to try a oneshot. Just wanted to share it.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own The Legend of Zelda, not do I own any of the characters.
I remember...
That life, when I brought light to the land to save the one I loved...
You sat there, listless, every day, in your lonely little corner of the Bazaar with a wide smile for customers who never came. When I came over, you'd perk up as if the sun shone over your face, and when I passed by, you'd wilt. You would praise me for perusing your wares, ever with that same, odd smile, and sometimes I wondered if you had another side to you...
And at night, you did.
Greed, and a quiet but insistent demand that you got what you asked for. You seemed as if you sought rare and powerful things, artifacts, trinkets you might not be able to control. More than I could offer. Raw, uncompromising greed, no longer wearing that facsimile of a smile.
And after sky and land were united, you set off. Not I, nor anyone else, ever saw you again. I had assumed you'd gone off seeking to satiate your greed, to travel kingdoms far and wide... I wondered if you had met a terrible fate...
But our twisted paths crossed, and crossed again. At first I didn't recognize you. Buried memories bound in the form of a child, I didn't remember, but something about your face, that eerie, innocent smile... I thought perhaps I had seen you before.
A vague darkness seemed to settle in your form, in your mind, yet you sounded like you had found peace. You taught me to spread that same peace, give out small parcels of happiness, soothe souls...
But you still had that quiet, almost power-hungry greed, as I saw when searching for a friend. An odd one you are indeed to wander alongside my path through lives and years.
Where are you now, I wonder? Do you remember the boy in green, the sword and the fairy, your times as a lowly merchant and a purveyor of happiness (so you claim)? Have you overcome the insidious evils in the artifacts you so desperately seek?
Tell me, sir, do you still wear that smile? And if so, do you yourself feel it in your heart, or is it just another item to try on for size, another mask to discard when the day is gone?
I headcanon that Rupin is connected to the Happy Mask Salesman in some way - either a descendant or the same person - but I don't know how to piece together all of the lore that's involved, so I just wrote this.
