On the fourth day of scouting, we spy a legion of Garo travelling down a canyon after murdering a small Ikana outpost. The Ikana bodies lay mutilated: men and boys; and then the women and girls hiding under beds or in shallow ditches which are now their graves. I believe Garo vocabulary lacks the word "mercy." The bloodshed sickens me (Anu vomits twice), but a darker facet of my psyche can't loosen from the carnage. It mesmerizes me.
We wait for the Garo to camp, pitching their tents along the river that rushes towards Ikana Kingdom proper. Father believes that this army will attack the capital city first, and other militias will flank afterward. He has secretly warned the Ikana King of Garo movements while claiming neutrality in their war (it's best that Ikana doesn't know that we're terminating the Garo. The Mask Tribe allies to no nation, says father).
And that's my current mission: destroy the Garo. It's easy and satisfying. I've learned my magic's source is wish-granting. Whatever I desire will happen somehow. I can manipulate quicksand and firestorms; create strange beasts to kills for me; and, warp my body to fight lethal hand-to-hand warfare. But my magic miscarries often, I now understand why Lord Demise sought the Golden Power—to attain anything he wanted without fear of backfire. Such power is truly worthy to covet.
At night, I watch the Garo campfires flicker like stars in the canyon below. Father signals me. I stand onto the canyon precipice and focus my energy. Images of Garo butchery flash in my head and my hatred bursts. I suddenly no longer see the Garo as human, but shells of robes. They slink in the darkness, spying and murdering on a whim. Justice demands payment. The Garo send Ikana spirits to wander the wasteland filled with regrets. I will treat them as they treat others. A grinding noise permeates the air, like the sound of a stone wheel grinding grains. One by one, nightfall smothers out the campfires until the darkness is complete. An ominous thundering sound echoes loudly followed by silence. I faint from exhaustion.
On the marrow, I awaken on a mountain top. Anu sits at my side and father debates with his mages.
"You did it, Majora. You can move mountains," Anu says. "The canyon is no more; it closed, and the Garo were buried." She leans to my ear and whispers, "The priests have talked for hours. They fear you. Be careful. I don't want anything to happen to you." I thank her for her concern and we continue on our mission.
() () ()
Three years pass and, ever since the canyon-hex, each mage carries a black scroll in my presence. Also, Anu grows taller and more beautiful each year, yet I remain the same size and age. She tells me that Eoni asked for her to marry, but she flatly denied him. I want her happiness—I mean, her to be happy—but I also have to remain vigil over my emotions. I mustn't envy her or else my jealousy may ferment into malice, and I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to Anu. My condition is not her fault.
During one expedition, we track a small band of Garo stragglers. We attempt to intercept them before they regroup with their larger company, but they split into two groups—they somehow realize we shadow their tracks. One of the Garo supposedly holds plans for a secret entrance into the Ikana Palace. The plans are vital for our takeover of Ikana. I head east with a detachment of mages while Anu goes west. Within an hour, I extract the unknown route from the lifeless Garo's mind, but then an explosion rips open the sky from a western gorge. I rush to the location as my mages struggle to keep pace. I worry. I sense Anu's spirit growing faint.
I arrive, blowing wind and rocks as I attempt to stop. A halo of blood surrounds Anu; and, she coughs, crawling towards a hole in the rock side. I fall to her side and she says, "Majora, no, they're still here. One of them is different; it wears a Master's mask!"
"Don't talk. I can heal you," I stutter.
"I don't want to die." Anu gurgles. "—too many regrets … weigh my spirit. I've never even seen the ocean or the Z— Majora!"
I cast a crystal shield behind my nape. I slowly turn around and glimpse a flaming sword, halting two inches from my skull. Its jagged metal sends sparks sailing off my barrier right before the fires jump away.
This Garo wears purple robes and says, "I knew the Mask Tribe was meddling in our war." Its mask reflects gold like sunlight, and her voice is a shrill soprano. "What is your name, dark maiden?" She asks.
"You will atone for my friend's wounds; blood for blood." I shout.
"You're friend will die, and she'll wander the wastes for eternity. And you shall join her!" The Master Garo leaps over my head and onto the gorge-wall. From there, she thrusts her sword at me but my shield is quicker. As she repels from my barrier, she flies backward into a sphere of silvery flame. She burns to soot slowly and shrieking. I find Anu again inside the rocky hole, telling her the Master is dead, that we'll return to Stone Tower. She lies still.
I frantically heave her body and hold her face. Her eyes—once as green and lively as my own—stare vacantly. She draws no breath. The mages arrive, gasping air, as the very sky begins to quake; and, as they look skyward, they gasp again at the sight of raging comets, hurtling from the sky like a hailstorm and crashing into the vast canyonlands. And just as a conflagration begins, a fissure tears the earth with a large krakoom a furlong down the narrow ravine, and all manner of beasts and monsters erupt from it, scurrying and flying over the area. And their horror escalates when they see me.
A purple aura enshrouds Anu's body and me. Through the mists, the priests behold my body transforming. My skin and bones shift as if made of dough; and, spiky horns protrude from my head. Steadily, each priest secures their black scroll. One priest opens his parchment and a fiery blue tongue erupts from the paper. The magic grows larger than a swamp tree and it rolls wildly over the canyon floor, and everything it touches vanishes from sight.
As the fire passes through me, I suddenly realize we stand on the Hexing Pedestal within the Sacred Realm of Stone Tower Temple. The mages encircle the Pedestal—releasing each scroll in unison—and from their scrolls eject red chains which fuse and bind into a chain-nest. I throw a yellow miasma at the mages, but the poison fails to cross over the chains. I release dozens of spells and hexes as the mages begin to hum and mutter an incantation, but my magic collapses upon the chains like rain upon rocks.
Their mystic chant continues and I develop vertigo. I feel my power and body shirking, as if an occult force is halving my soul, folding me over and over again into myself. The more I struggle, the more languid I become, and soon my conscious is reduced to a multilayered prism. I find myself floating in emptiness again, alone in the darkness.
From within the darkness, I hear someone speaking. The voice echoes all around: "—evil remains. There must be a way to heal the spirit before sealing its power inside a mask."
() () ()
As time passes, I learn to see the world from my new cage. I have become a mask, an literal item; and, that's fitting because, since my birth, I've merely been someone's possession. I never got to make a choice about my life. Not one because everything was taken from me. I was used, and I will continue to be used throughout all time like Lord Demise promised. And while my people's magic suppresses my spirit, my clansmen access my power by wearing me during their dull rituals. They use my magic and I use them in secret. While worn, I can sense the tribe. Father died a century ago and many Mask families have left Stone Tower, spreading to other realms such as the Golden Land. Is this truly my fate: to be passed about as a possession from priest to priest for the rest of eternity?
No. I promised Anu that I would bring peace to Termina and no more. My tribe took that promise away from me, too. It's time I return their kindness.
As I plan in my prison, the tribe constructs a city within the Sacred Realm: a black city surrounding the ziggurat where more tribesmen dwell than in the Tower itself. There is a temple at the top ziggurat now, and many pillars and structures stand within the desert, bearing the symbol honoring "Majora's Mask." I wait patiently. Over the decades, my tribe develops and enhances new magical skills and tools. Their magic grows as inexorably as their numbers diminish. And then, at last, they make their final mistake.
In order to cast a undying curse on Ikana, the head priest wears me outside the Sacred Realm at the very top of Stone Tower. And this action seals their fate. They'll pay for imprisoning me in this mask, and my Wrath is their reward.
Upon returning to my shrine atop the ziggurat, the priest attempts to remove me, but I instantly seize his body for myself. I conjure two enormous sand-worms, falling from the sky to squash the evil capital. My worms writhe through the sky and sand, causing buildings to collapse and sink. Dozens of towers crumble, and the ziggurat explodes as my worms constrict the black pyramid, grinding it to small boulders which the dessert swallows greedily. My tribe attempts to escape into Stone Tower, but that's where the real festivities begins.
The oblivious fools failed to notice the eerie silence after the curse, for I finally jinxed the Tower's boulder-defenses to cease for three days. Suddenly, I sense bloodshed from beyond the void. Yes, I can taste the bloodlust from even inside the Scared Realm. The Garo must have climbed Stone Tower earlier than I expected. And so my Wrath is complete: my sand-worms cleanse the Sacred Realm within and the Garo purge Stone Tower without!
And the next person who wears me—even in a hundred millennia from now—will sorely regret it. For then I will cleanse Termina, the Twilight Realm, and the Golden Lands; and, perhaps even the Goddesses Three if I'm in the proper mood.