Disclaimer and other notes can be found in the first chapter.

VIII.

Part of you wishes to rush to Clock Town for what comes next, but there isn't a reason to do so, really. So, you wait until about a week before the Carnival of Time and leave one night for Clock Town.

The Stock Pot Inn has grown over the years, become larger, the carpenters having exceeded themselves in the addition of a third floor and several new rooms. It's rarely fully booked – mostly during the Carnival of Time, really – but there are now enough rooms in the building that Anju and Kafei have long kept one of the bedrooms aside specifically for their friends at the ranch, should you ever want to have it for a night or few.

Of course, they prefer that you arrive and check in before the inn closes up for the night, the same as anybody, so you arrive alone shortly after seven and have a few rounds of cards with the couple, as it will need to be ten o'clock before you can do either of the things you're here to do tonight anyway.

After a few hands, you almost wish you still had the Song of Double Time available to you, so you could just skip ahead to ten o'clock. Unfortunately, the power imbued in the song took its leave of you with the Goddess of Time.

It doesn't stop you from pulling out your ocarina and gazing at it longingly, though.

"Isn't that the instrument you used back then?"

You look up at Anju and nod, offering her a brief explanation of its value. It's clear neither of them can appreciate it – neither is aware of your backstory – but Kafei offers you a grunt of appreciation, nonetheless.

It's Anju who remains interested in it. "Do you still remember the song you played that day?" she asks you.

There isn't a need to clarify which day she refers to, of course. The Mask of Ethereality is half of the reason you're here in Clock Town tonight. Instead, you dust off the ocarina, raise it to your lips, and begin playing the Song of Healing.

This was a song you played many times throughout those endless cycles that were your first three days in Termina, but you have truthfully not had much need to play it since then. Yet the notes flow from you through the ocarina as though no time at all has passed in the years since you used it to save Romani. Your fingers are heavier on the notes than ever, but that has never mattered.

It doesn't surprise you that Anju is rather transfixed by the song, seeing as she requested it of you. No, what's surprising is that Kafei is as well, so accustomed you are to his usual looks of apathy.

The song comes to an end, with no curse nor disease emitting from either of them, and you put away your ocarina and pick up your cards again. And then you notice that you are alone in doing so: Anju and Kafei, far from ready to continue playing, are staring at you as though they have never seen you before.

"Y-You –"

"That's not –"

You blink at them, confused, and Anju snaps out of it first.

"You – I remember – you were there with the two of us, the morning the moon was supposed to fall," she manages to exclaim, and your eyes widen. "But – but I was at Romani Ranch with my mother and grandmother! I didn't stay in Clock Town! I wanted to, but Mother was worried, and she persuaded me to go with her!"

A feeling of difficulty in breathing, one that is no longer familiar after so long without, is now creeping back to you.

"I never made it back to Clock Town," Kafei says quietly. "I was trapped in the hideout. Yet … yet you witnessed our … union … you … we gave you the mask created by our masks …"

He's holding his head in his hands, as though trying to process.

"… I never met you, then," he says, and he's staring at you again, his eyes narrowed. "I … I saw you around South Clock Town, I think, when everyone was still worried about the moon falling, but … but I didn't meet you until you were living at the ranch with Cremia and Romani. So … how …"

He trails off, and then he jerks in his seat.

"You helped me," he says suddenly, his eyes widening. "We worked together at the hideout to get my mask back, you and me and that fairy, but … but I never got it back at all, I had to make a new one …"

As he rambles, your own mind is racing, trying to come to grips with the fact that they have both somehow gained the memories of the cycle in which you helped them reunite, when you brought them together barely an hour or two before the moon was set to fall, with enough time to set your remaining affairs in order for that cycle before playing the Song of –

And your eyes fall to your pocket, and your mind screeches to a halt.

The Ocarina of Time. Of course. It can be nothing else.

Romani was barely aware of herself, and then unconscious, before you met her in the cycle that carried on. It could have been the curse, or some odd quirk of reality, that restored her memories, as far as you were concerned. But the ocarina was involved with the turtle, too; you had to play the New Wave Bossa Nova to wake it up.

That's why it was only them, then. You've never played the ocarina for anyone else after you stopped the moon from falling. It must be something to do with the instrument, or just you through it, if the song is irrelevant.

"Link," says Anju, cutting across your thoughts, "what's going on? Why are we remembering things that didn't happen?"

A number of explanations run through your mind, none of them all that plausible, and it hits you that you don't want to lie. This has happened, it's done, and now you need to deal with it. And so, never breaking eye contact with them, you reach into your mask inventory and pull out a mask you've handled twice since you received it so long ago, placing it on the table before them.

They stare at it as though you've conjured it with magic. "That's … our mask …" Kafei says weakly.

Anju picks it up and scrutinises it the same way Cremia once did with your Romani's Mask.

"It is," she agrees, looking baffled. "The design, the stitching, it's all the same … so … you really did bring us together … but …"

That's when the explanation begins to tumble out of you.

There's nothing for it. You didn't mean to give them conflicting memories from that three-day period, but you can't take any of it back now. So, you explain the cycles, and everything crucial that's happened since then. When you finish, with far less time left to wait until ten o'clock, Anju and Kafei glance at each other, and then at you.

Kafei speaks first. "So, this has happened to Romani, too," he clarifies, "and … some deity, or whatever that thing in Great Bay is …" He shakes his head, disregarding this. "And Cremia is aware of all this, though it didn't happen to her …"

You nod.

"To be honest," says Anju quietly, "I'm still trying to figure out why you were so … little … in the new memories, Kafei …"

This brings about a new round of explanations, this time mostly from Kafei, and by the time the clock finally strikes ten, you're more than happy to leave for a few hours.

Your first stop is the Curiosity Shop.

Takao is still going strong with his wares, stolen or otherwise obtained, and he surprises you by being both more and less intrigued by the Mask of Ethereality than you expect when you show it to him.

"I've never seen anythin' of the like, I kid you not," he says, holding it up under the dim light. "You made this, you said?"

At your nod, Takao puts it on the counter and stares at it, stroking his goatee thoughtfully.

"The stitchin' is perfect. I don't know what the heck this creature is supposed to be, but it's clear from lookin' that it probably looks almost exactly like this, which tells me you probably didn't use a needle and thread to make it." He looks up. "Does it have any powers?"

You shrug, and that's when Takao looks less interested.

"Well, one way to find out," he says with a shrug, and he picks it up and puts it over his face before you can stop him, adjusting it with practiced ease.

Nothing happens, even after a pause.

A sigh of relief escapes you before you can stop yourself. While the issue of the mask hasn't truly weighed on you all that much over the years, you suppose you've always wondered on some level, however easy it was to otherwise ignore.

"Hmm," he mutters, taking it off again. "I didn't feel anything when I wore it. Maybe it's one of those sorts of magic that lets you talk to … well, whatever these creatures are." He shrugs. "Still worth sellin', either way. Someone comes in interested, wants to pay, I don't have to care what they do with it after that.

"How about this, I'll give you three hundred rupees for it."

While you are no longer able to manipulate time to rack up vast sums of rupees, they aren't exactly tough to come by for you, especially when you make trips to Great Bay for fish, so it doesn't really matter what he offers you. He'll probably sell it off on some other night for at least double. He's Kafei's old friend, so it doesn't bother you much if he thinks he's ripping you off, as long as he's profiting.

"Anythin' else you got for me?" You shake your head. "Thanks. Take care, buddy!"

The three hundred rupees goes a long way when you get to Latte, since you didn't really need the money anyway. It's not often that you indulge in a Chateau Romani.

Truthfully, you don't really want to be here. You don't exactly know Jim and his gang all that well; the most you've probably interacted with them is during the very first cycle, when you played their game as the Deku and became an honorary member of their group.

But they're a good bunch, and maybe you'll need the Bombers for something at some point down the line, so you stay for a couple of hours and have a few drinks with them. They don't get out of Clock Town much, even as adults, so the stories they tell and have a laugh at are not all that interesting to you, particularly when you aren't part of any of them.

Alcohol rarely hits you hard, and you're up the next morning at the inn with little trouble.

Kafei has already left for the office when you leave your room, but Anju is around, and much calmer than she had been the night before. She seems more rattled by the revelation that Kafei had been turned into a child all that time ago than anything else, but, you suppose, it's been a long time since the moon has worried her.

Once assured of her continued calm, you settle up the room, using some of what's left of the rupees you earned the previous evening, and head back to the ranch.

Cremia is bemused, later, when you ask if you can speak privately with her and, when you go out into the field together, you pull out the Ocarina of Time. She remembers it, of course, but you haven't used it much in the company of others over the years.

Then you play the Song of Healing for her, and her eyes widen with realisation.

It isn't as impactful as it could have been, primarily because years have passed and it's mostly the second and third day of the cycle that are being added to her mind, since, other than the glimpse of you she got, her first day didn't change much. It does mean she has to reconcile her sister being both abducted and not abducted at the same time, though.

"I – I remember now," she says, holding a hand to her temple. "It's just like you said before – you fought … them … with Romani, and then you protected the milk for me … and I gave you Romani's Mask as thanks …"

She looks up. "Did … is that song some sort of magic …?"

There's no point in hiding what's happened with Anju and Kafei, not when they'll probably talk to Cremia about it themselves, so you tell her all about it, and about the cycle in which their conflicting memories took place.

You're never really sure what reactions will be like, because occurrences such as this simply defy all reason and reality.

You don't think you're terribly surprised when she shakes her head, chuckling a little.

"You're strange, Link," she says fondly. "You've been with us for so long that I think I forgot just how strange you are." She pats your cheek, and it's still just a little bizarre to have to look down a little to meet her gaze. "But I couldn't be happier that you, you strange man, are the one my sister chose."

It isn't that you've ever doubted she thinks such, but it is the first time she's ever said it to you, and you can't help the smile on your face for the rest of the day.