Epilogue: A Continent Saved
Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda, this is just a Fanfiction.
Featured Music: "Ballad of the Goddess" - The Legend of Zelda: 25th Anniversary CD. Chapter Briefing.
"Ending Credits" - The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask Orchestrations CD. Scene 2.
In a dreamlike confrontation, fit only for the gods of this world, the Hero of Time at last accomplished what he set out to do.
Upon his initial meeting with the godlike figure in the very first cycle, the Sorcerer of the Divine Divide himself, even he doubted the storybook strength of Link. However, in the divine clash between the Hero of Time and Majora's Mask, he triumphs though not without digging deep... deeper than he ever has in his two-generation lifespan. Just as the Happy Mask Salesman and Kage Narumono warned him of, Majora's Mask's very source of strength itself was heresy indeed; even when it made contact with the blonde boy it infected and near killed him on touch.
When Kage himself re-awakens in order to protect his host, as expected, his powerful command over the Shinzui-et-Sanmiitai, although primal and animalistic, is more than adequate to force Majora's Mask to progress to its final form; 'Majora's Wrath'.
It is here that Kage's chaotic powers of the Shinzui begin to peter out; the source of the Dark Interlopers' very might prove simply too much for the demonic will. It is thanks to Link's loyal and trustworthy partner Tatl, however, that Kage and Link still breathes; when she urgently calls him to don the 'Fierce Deity's Mask', an incredible and mystifying treasure the moon children bestowed upon him, he does so.
And the results are indescribable.
Numerous times Link and Kage's philosophies clashed, and sometimes brutally so, but never on this one principle; to evolve their powers beyond human means and to cross over into something else, something supernatural.
Kage Narumono's 'Path to Heaven'.
It is only when wearing the Fierce Deity's Mask that the unsettling predictions of Yoshiyuki Miyazaki and Aki Kitamura come true; Link adopts an adult form, much like his counterpart from the ruined future in which he came from, and the absurd force in which he comes with. Just as the murals in Rockvale and Kage predict, the power of the Fierce Deity is absolute; indeed, even the horrifying eldritch might that Majora's Mask once boasted is mere child's play to the Shinzui's evolution and, as it is eventually whittled down to nothing, Termina can at last breathe a well-earned sigh of relief.
The Hero of Time's work, however... is far from over.
Scene 1
DAWN OF A NEW DAY
NEIGGGHH
"Aah! He's awake!"
The sound of early-morning birds chattered overhead alongside the echo of the light breeze that graced the pounding migraine that remained constant in his head. Vaguely aware of the floating forms of Tatl and Tael hanging above him and the echo of his ever constant-companion Epona behind him, Link groaned as he shook his head, a small hand resting on it in light nursing. The sound of his Gilded Sword and Mirror Shield clinked and clunked noisily on his back; an echo that worsened his pounding headache.
The grassy green field beneath him and noticeable landmarks littered throughout told him he was in Termina Field.
I must have been ejected down from that damn moon, he thought.
"Urgh... my aching head...," he moaned out, eyes scrunched shut from the piercing strength of the bright sunlight that threatened to put him back under. The newly reawakened Link chanced a tired-blue eye open to face his partner as he re-opened his mouth to speak to her. "How is...?"
The smiling Tatl and Tael swung their bulbous little bodies to their left and, sure enough, as the frowning Link traced their gaze there was the subject of conversation he was about to bring up.
Skull Kid himself, alive and well.
He stood not far from their current position, staring directly up at what seemed to be some interesting sight in the sky. The frowning-faced Hero of Time traced his own gaze and, just as he had half-expected, one of the Four Giants themselves towered over them in a gentle-looking smile.
"Y-You guys... hadn't... forgotten about me...?"
MOAN...
In reply, the giant's low and affable response gave the correct indication to their feelings. Even as he watched from his spot in the field, Link got the right feel from the quiet interaction.
"Y-You still... thought of me as a friend?"
Skull Kid's words, spoken in a light break, could only make the watching Link lightly frown in pity.
It was easy to forget how much suffering he had caused over countless time-cycles.
As the nameless Skull Kid lowered his mask-less face, his body shaking from the shame he suffered, Tatl and Tael floated over to join him seemingly friends once more.
DROOM-DROOM
MOOOOAN-MOAN-MOAN-MOAN-MOAN-MOOOOAN...!
In the six recognisable calls, the Four Giants slowly returned to their respective corners of the continent, their work at last completed. Only the sound of their gargantuan footfalls echoed around the remaining fated four.
In spite of all the trouble he had been put through by the nameless Skull Kid, Link couldn't help but grow a small smile on his face as he watched him from afar.
"Did... did you save me?"
At last the Skull Kid turned to face him, his body clacking like wood as he did. He turned again however, this time in the direction of one of the Four Giants.
"I thought they didn't want to be friends with me...," he admitted, a saddened frown on his face. "But... they hadn't forgotten about me," he chuckled this time, his frown soon upturning into a satisfied smile. "Friends... are a nice thing to have... heh-heh..."
The little chortle he gave at the end of his sentence was an achievement; something the listening Link couldn't help but near laugh at himself. He nodded in approving, smiling widely as he did. It was only when the Skull Kid turned to face him, however, that his frown re-appeared in a curious exchange.
"Could you be my friend too?" He asked in a similarly quizzical wooden click of his head. As he stepped slowly forward, the watching Epona behind him couldn't help but whinny loudly, perhaps not quite fully trusting of the Skull Kid yet.
Oddly enough, perhaps fitting to his strange and child-like nature, the Skull Kid leaned forward and sniffed at the standing Link. The young Hylian's frown twitched and he near took a step back in surprise but held himself back to avoid offending the eternally-young boy.
"Ah-ha!" He laughed. "You have the same smell as that fairy kid that taught me that song in the woods!"
"The... Lost Woods?"
Surprised by his conversation's partner's memory, Skull Kid widened his beady little eyes and dropped his smile, nodding.
"Saria's Song...," Link chuckled, briefly shutting his oceanic eyes in melancholic recollection. "And... Navi..."
"Was that your fairy friend?"
"Yeah...," he answered, re-opening his eyes as he watched the grassy ground beneath them before soon re-raising them to confront the curious-faced Skull Kid. "Yeah; that was her name."
The Skull Kid at last returned the smile and re-opened his mouth. "Callio."
Link couldn't help but blink in puzzlement. "Huh?"
"My name, silly," Skull Kid laughed in response, throwing his wooden head back as he did, almost as if the youth had told the funniest joke of the century. Link's frown soon switched into a listening smile. "I know, I know! Let's do something together now that we're friends!"
"Ah... so the evil has left the mask after all..."
Link's nerves shot up on end, along with the hairs on the back of his neck, and he darted his blonde-haired head 'round to his sharp-right spy on the source of the baritone speaking. Sure enough, just as he remembered him, it was the Happy Mask Salesman himself standing not too far from them.
Majora's Mask remained in his grip, now seemingly completely docile.
"Well, now...," he began again, re-raising his auburn-haired head to face the pair with. "I finally have it back."
Link chose not to speak to the man, oceanic eyes narrowed in deep suspicion. The words of the Sorcerer of the Divine Divide's words rung clearly within his ears.
"And beware the mask man... although he will help you... he is not to be trusted."
"Since I am in the midst of my travels..."
In the sickeningly-sweet and shut-eyed smile he usually brandished, the Happy Mask Salesman bent forward as always in his dutiful signature of respect, a light chuckle upon his baritone.
"I must bid you farewell."
Only the sound of the early-morning birds chirping and tweeting nearby could be heard; the glaring-faced Link watched him carefully as he strode on casually toward them and the Skull Kid, seemingly feeling completely responsible and guilty for his earlier mugging, chose to lower his head as he passed.
It was only when he began to approach the two children that he cast his shut-eyed smiling gaze down on the shaking form of the Skull Kid below him.
"Ah... but there is one thing...," the man began ominously, his form towering over the wincing Skull Kid. Callio rose up his wooden head in a slow and deliberate cringe, unsure how to react. "Perhaps you should... pay... for your transgression..." The man spoke, his toothy grin widening and his eyes narrowing even further at the inflection in his eerie sentence.
GRIP
The Happy Mask Salesman blinked and swung his auburn-haired head 'round only to find the glaring-faced Link gripping him by the arm, with some amount of force laden into it.
It was a short, simple and sweet-enough warning.
There was an extremely uncomfortable silence between the watching five; as the narrow-eyed Link mixed his gaze with the Happy Mask Man's eventually one would cave.
Thankfully for the children, it was the Happy Mask Man.
He regained his smile and cheery tone before turning back to eye the Skull Kid below him.
"I suppose you've paid enough for one time cycle... isn't that right?" He spoke this time with a tone laced in rhetoric and ambiguity. Even the listening Callio could only blink back at him in curiosity, unable to make sense of his cryptic words.
The listening Link and Tatl knew, however, and their suspicion of the man only grew tenfold.
"Please at least remember to respect your elders next time you have a foolish thought of assaulting someone, hm?" The man smiled in a veiled tone of goodwill, raising his hands to rest at his side; gestures in his speech. As the listening Callio nodded furiously, hoping very well to be done with the conversation, the Happy Mask Man chuckled and turned to walk off.
It was only when he stopped, suddenly, to about-turn again to face the two children that Link's nerves shot up on edge again.
"Shouldn't you be returning home as well?"
His question, though just as before in its veiled sense of altruism and generosity, was definitely spoken with an otherwise intention.
"Whenever there is a meeting, a parting is sure to follow," he claimed in his wide-toothed grin. "However... that parting need not last forever. Whether a parting be forever, or merely a short time, that is up to you."
Link opted not to take his cerulean-shaded eyes off the man, wholly suspicious and all.
"But, my, you certainly have managed to make quite a number of people happy..." The Happy Mask Salesman claimed, pulling back into his large pack hanging on his back. The watching young Hylian held back a wide-eyed gasp when he caught the object within his assaulter's hands.
The Bomber's Notebook.
How the hell did he get that from me, he thought.
Did he take it when I reached for him?
But how?
"All these masks you gained are filled with happiness...," he smiled on. "This is truly a good happiness..."
When is he giving me that back, the scowling-faced Link wondered silently.
SWISH
As the man simply tossed the notebook up into the air toward him, the young Hero of Time's eyes widened as he scrambled to reach up and catch it. Managing to paw at it before it hit the grassy deck beneath him, he breathed out a light sigh of relief.
Thank Farore I didn't have to fight him for it, he thought.
The man doesn't look like much... but appearances and eyes can always be deceived.
"I am sure your happiness has not ended yet either... Hero of Time."
Link's hardened oceanic-eyed gaze was called back up to meet his own, narrowed as they did.
"Or your misery either..."
In his last sentence, he rose up his head and re-opened his eyes lightly to glare down and frown at the youth ominously; an unsettling look indeed. Link's breathing began to hasten to match the quick beating of his heart but, thankfully, the Happy Mask Salesman at last chose to regrow the eternal smirk on his face before about-turning one last time to walk off.
Even when he somehow disappeared completely from common view, and even the watching Link's, the aura of disturbing discontent remained powerful in the air around them.
"Well... at least we finally got what we were after, huh."
Tatl's high-pitched soprano, so familiar to his ears, was one he managed to savour; at least until now. He cast his regained light smile up to face her, his cheer gradually returning to him.
"So I guess... this is where you and I part ways... isn't it?"
The realisation of what she said, though it was a long time coming, couldn't help but make the listening Link's smile falter somewhat.
"You know... it was... kind of fun," she claimed, a forced smile within the tone of her voice. "I guess you really were your country's Hero of Time... huh."
He could always appreciate his ego being stroked; the youth couldn't help but smirk lowly, eyes shut briefly as he shrugged wordlessly in response.
A fairly restrained gesture for the showy and flamboyant nature of the former Kokiri.
"Well... it's almost time for the carnival to begin," Tatl continued on, a kind of saddened smile in the tone of her soprano. "So, why don't you just... go?"
He couldn't help but frown in response, half-surprised by her request.
"I mean you're still looking for... her right?"
Realising he was indeed looking for his missing guardian fairy, his eyebrows rose up in surprise.
Yeah, she's right, he thought.
I still can't control the Shinzui; not completely anyway.
"But I don't wanna go just yet..."
He fought his urges, swallowed a load of saliva and nodded before stepping over to the trilling Epona. He smiled as he briefly petted his constant-companion before reaching up to step atop her. It was only when he was riding atop her, however, that he turned to cast a smile on the floating Tatl next to him. The sun cast its rays on his face as he did; a kind of angelic look about him.
"Thanks, Tatl...," he nodded in her direction; a sign of respect in spite of all the child-like teasing and arguing they had experienced together. "For everything."
In response, the little guardian fairy couldn't help but to swing her small and bulbous form to the side, almost as if to avoid his cerulean-eyed gaze.
Link laughed very softly through his nose and, gifting the smiling Tael and Callio one last nod, he very lightly urged Epona forward and she took off hurriedly, perhaps as impatient as her owner was.
"Link!"
The sound of Tatl's sudden and hasty exclamation was lost to the wind; not even the grinning-faced Hero of Time heard her, his stance wide as he rode toward the sun.
"... Thank you..."
Tael, sensing his big sister's sudden melancholy, hovered closer toward her to share his body heat with her.
It was something she appreciated, as the sound of the Carnival of Time's fireworks echoed out around them all.
–
2
"Right there... yeah! No! That's not how he looked!"
"It is, actually... no, good job Callio."
Tatl's soft tone made the listening Skull Kid cast his appreciative smile in her direction before swiftly pulling a childish face and blowing a raspberry in the frowning Tael's face to his top right. The watching Tatl let another smile grace her complexion as she took in the visage of the drawing that her companion had drawn, not just for her, but for their new trusted companion.
Drawn with what seemed to be some kind of Deku Stick, eight forms stood illustrated before them all, all waving. Two gigantic figures stood in the distance behind the four main forms on one side and two on other.
Obviously the Four Giants.
Standing on the right was a wooden form; one that was instantly recognisable as the Skull Kid himself, standing side-on with a wide-looking grin on his face and a hand in the air to wave toward the watcher. Hovering overhead appeared to be the two guardian fairies that ever accompanied him; Tatl and Tael themselves, drawn roughly across the hardwood stump.
A similarly-smiling form stood beside him, however; the main attraction the forest denizens had been working on so tirelessly.
A taller boy stood next to Skull Kid, an even wider grin across his face; something that came across as overconfident even. With a similar wave to his companion his Kokiri Tunic, belt and other such equipment hung on him as recognisably as ever, right down even to his characteristics; the curtained blonde hair on his head and the long green hat he wore so well.
"It's just like he said...," Tatl smiled, a red tint to her normal milky-shaded light. "'A parting need not last forever...," she reiterated. "Whether that parting be for a short time, or forever, that is up to you'," she claimed, her smile slowly widening. "We'll see you again sometime... Link."