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“Link, why are you doing this?” Tatl whispered. “We don’t have the time to play with these— these—”
Even the Terminan fairy didn’t know what to call the odd masked children they had found under a tree on a grass field deep inside the moon. Were they spirits? Monsters? Native denizens of the moon?
Or were they Majora’s puppets like the poor Skull Kid had been?
“And why are you giving them all your masks?” she continued, frantically tugging at the tip of his ear. “Don’t you see that it’s just Majora trying to weaken you?!”
Link only shook his head. He wasn’t quite sure himself why he had agreed to play this game when the final hour had already come and the giants were struggling to keep the moon from crashing down.
Tatl was right, it had to be some kind of a trap. They were in Majora’s domain, after all, and the lunar children were wearing the masks of its minions.
And yet…
It felt like something was calling to him, constantly spurring him on. Like something important was waiting for him at the end of this demented game.
“If it’s something bad, I will pray,” Link promised.
Pray to the Goddess of Time to bring him back to the dawn of the first day.
Tatl finally let go of his ear. “…Alright. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Link gave her a pale smile in response. No, he very much didn’t know, but wasn’t that just the story of his life?
He continued on, swiftly moving through the challenges the lunar children presented him with and listening to their unnerving questions as he gave them the masks he had gathered.
“Your friends… What kind of… people are they? I wonder… Do those people… think of you… as a friend?”
“You… What makes you… happy? I wonder… What makes you happy… Does it make… others happy, too?”
“The right thing… What is it? I wonder… If you do the right thing… does it really make… everybody… happy?”
“Your true face… What kind of… face is it? I wonder… The face under the mask… Is that… your true face?”
His heart clenched with every question and Link desperately wished he knew the answers.
In the end, there was only one lunar child left beneath the giant tree: the one who was wearing Majora’s mask.
The one who Link knew with a soul-deep certainty represented the monster itself.
“…Everyone has gone away, haven’t they?” the child said softly, but its lilting voice held an undercurrent of darkness. “Will you play… with me?”
Link swallowed nervously and nodded.
“You don’t have any masks left to share, do you?” the child asked, climbing to its feet.
No, he didn’t. The only masks he had left were the ones that he adamantly refused to part with.
Odolwa, Goht, Gyorg, Twinmold: the remnants of the four beasts that had held the giants prisoner and that he couldn’t allow Majora to take back.
Deku, Goron, Zora: the three masks that contained the souls of the dead. The three people he hadn’t been able to save, no matter how hard he tried.
“Well, let’s do something else,” the lunar child suggested. “Let’s play good guys against bad guys… Yes. Let’s play that.”
Darkness gathered in its hands, coalescing into a new mask.
Link sucked in a startled breath. This mask… It looked like him. The older him, the one he remembered seeing in the mirror in the ruined future.
The lunar child held the mask towards him, and for a moment, Link didn’t know whether he should take it — or run it through with his sword.
The mask felt dark, terribly so, but worst of all, Link could feel that it wasn’t just an object infused with magic like most of his masks were.
No, there was something imprisoned within it. Something alive and sentient…
And this something was calling to him.
It had been calling from the moment Link took his first step inside the moon.
Tatl made a strangled noise and pulled on his ear, wordlessly trying to stop him as he reached towards the mask. Link had no doubt that she had felt the dark power emanating from it as well.
The fairy had every right to worry. This could be a trap.
No, Link was certain that this was a trap.
And yet, he still took the mask. Somehow, it felt right to hold it in his hands.
The child giggled, and there was madness in its voice. “Are you ready? You’re the bad guy. And when you’re bad, you just run. That’s fine, right?”
Link could feel the power gathering around them, all the malice and insanity that he had felt emanating from Majora’s mask before, only intensified hundredfold.
“Well… Shall we play?”
The world faded into painfully bright light, and when he was finally able to see again, Link found himself inside a large dark cavern. It was completely empty, aside from Majora’s mask stuck to the far wall.
Something moved in his bag — and then the remnants of Majora’s monsters burst out. They floated away and glued themselves to the walls painted with complicated glowing symbols.
Majora’s mask twitched and its bulging yellow eyes started to glow. It ripped itself from the wall, quickly growing in size, and floated forward, the spikes on its edges moving like fins. Long pale tendrils stretched down from its back, making it look like a monstrous jellyfish.
Then the mask flipped itself over and flew towards him with unexpected speed, spinning around like a boomerang.
Link dove beneath it, barely avoiding the whipping tentacles. He quickly hid the new mask in his bag — he couldn’t risk wearing it when he had no idea what power it held or what kind of entity it contained — and grabbed his bow and arrows.
He had beaten powerful enemies before, both in Hyrule and on Termina. He could beat Majora’s mask too.
He had to.
Because it wasn’t only the Clock Town in danger. If the moon fell down… then the entirety of Termina would be destroyed.
Link quickly took aim and let the first arrow fly.
Majora’s mask was a large target, but its erratic flight made it hard to hit. And the few arrows that did hit it didn’t seem to have much effect, despite the magic infused in them.
Fine. Bombs it was then.
The first one missed. The second exploded too late.
But the third one found its target, and the explosion sent the monstrous mask hurtling back. It hit the far wall and clattered to the ground where it lay unmoving.
Link rushed towards it, capitalizing on his enemy’s weakness. He brought his sword down with all his strength, trying to spear the mask through the middle.
All he managed to accomplish was chipping off a tiny piece from between its baleful yellow eyes.
“Look out!” Tatl yelled suddenly and Link dove away without thinking.
Less than a second later, a bright blast of energy hit the place where he had just been standing.
The other masks had joined the fight.
They detached from the walls one by one, but they held their distance, hovering so far above, there was no way Link would be able to reach them with his sword.
He tossed another bomb at them, forcing the masks to scatter before it exploded, and took out his bow again, hoping that his arrows would work against the lesser masks. His supplies weren’t limitless.
Then Majora’s mask slowly rose back into the air. Right before his eyes, the thin scratch in its middle healed without a trace, and the monstrous mask rushed him again.
Oh, this was bad…
Against five opponents at once, Link barely had the time to react, much less plot some new strategy. His focus narrowed down to dodging, shielding himself, and attacking back whenever he had the chance.
He couldn’t tell how long it had been — seconds, minutes, hours — before he finally managed to bring down one of the lesser masks, shattering it into motes of light.
Majora’s mask took great offense to that and the swing of its tentacles sent Link flying into a wall. The blazing pain in his chest stole his breath and Link tasted blood on his tongue as he barely managed to avoid another attack.
He quickly opened a bottle releasing the healing fairy that had agreed to accompany him in this fight. His cracked ribs stitched themselves back together and the fairy vanished, her magic spent.
He focused back on the other masks. He could barely scratch Majora, but he hoped that taking down its minions would weaken it.
It wasn’t like there was much else he could do.
Time was slipping through his fingers, counted down not by the ticks of the clock but by the steadily dwindling number of bombs and arrows and health potions.
Another mask went down.
Then another one.
Then another, until there was only Majora’s mask left.
It let out a warbling noise like a distorted laugh and grew in size again until it was larger than Link’s entire body. Long, awkward limbs sprouted from its sides and a horned head with a single eye grew from the top.
The giant monster danced around, shrieking with laughter and clucking like an overgrown cucco. It felt like Majora was taunting him, treating their battle like a childish game, rather than a fight to the death with the fate of the world at stake.
Link quickly shot it from his bow, aiming for the eye, but the monster was faster than it looked, flailing around and dodging his attacks in ways that would’ve looked comical if not for the severity of the situation.
Then the entire cavern shuddered, dust falling from the ceiling.
“Link, I don’t know how much longer the giants will be able to hold the moon,” Tatl whispered. “You have to kill this thing.”
Easier said than done…
Majora ran around the cavern, nearly trampling Link underfoot. He rolled away and slashed at its leg with his sword.
It barely scratched the skin.
Link tried to keep his distance and attack at range, but the monster still barely reacted to his efforts. It seemed like no matter what he did, Majora was only growing stronger, and Link realized with sudden certainty that he would never be able to defeat this new manifestation of his enemy before his time ran out.
There was only one thing left that he hadn’t tried yet…
He reached for the new mask.
Majora saw him take it out, and yet… The monster didn’t try to stop him. Instead, it danced and laughed and clapped its hands in glee.
Link felt his heart sink. This meant that either the mask’s power — whatever it even was — wouldn’t be enough to tilt the scales in his favor… Or wearing it would only make things worse.
But there was nothing else left for him to do, was there?
“Link, don’t!” Tatl screamed.
Link clasped the Ocarina of Time in one hand and pressed the mask to his face.
Once again, Link found himself standing in a grass field with its lone tree, though the sky was no longer bright. Instead, it was dark and filled with stars, and the full moon was looming above — faceless now and burning red.
Blood moon, the herald of monsters and creatures of darkness.
Link could feel the dark energy surrounding him, pressing down on all sides. And yet, he could tell that this power wasn’t Majora’s. It felt just as dangerous, but somehow cleaner, lacking the monster’s insanity.
A thunderstorm rather than a poisoned well.
Link took a deep breath, pushing his fear away, and headed towards the giant tree. There were no lunar children around it this time, and he could see only one lone figure sitting at its roots.
Even under the dim red light of the moon, Link could tell how much it looked like him. There were differences too: even as an adult, Link hadn’t been this tall, he had never had red and blue tattoos on his face, and his eyes certainly hadn’t glowed.
But the similarities were too much to be mere coincidence.
Link remembered Romani, who might as well had been Malon’s twin sister. He remembered Koume and Kotake, who had been his mortal enemies in Hyrule, but were content to live in peace on Termina. He remembered so many familiar faces, similar yet different to the people he had encountered in his own world…
Was this what was happening here as well? Was this being supposed to be a Terminan version of him?
Was that why Link had heard his call? Or was this all just Majora’s tricks?
Link stood before his distorted reflection, who towered over him even while sitting on the ground, and tried not to cringe under the eerie white gaze.
“Who are you?” Link asked when the silence became too much for him to bear. “And what is this place?”
“I have many names, most of them already lost to time,” the being replied, his voice deep and echoing with power. “The one that is still remembered to this day is the Fierce Deity.”
The name certainly fit him. He had the look of a warrior about him, and Link could feel the carefully concealed dark rage brimming within him, ready to erupt into violence at any moment.
“This place is an illusion within your mind,” the Fierce Deity continued. “A second stretched to the breaking point just so we could talk.”
And suddenly, Link could see it in his mind’s eye: his real body frozen in time with the mask pressed to his face.
No, not frozen. Time was moving the way it was supposed to. It was only his perception that shifted: a lifetime spent within a blink of an eye.
“Why did Majora give your mask to me?” Link asked next.
The Fierce Deity scoffed. “Majora is chaos and madness personified. I cannot claim to know its warped reasoning. But if I had to guess… I suspect it wants to defeat me again and drain all the power that still remains within me.” His lips stretched into a mirthless smile, baring sharp fangs. “How ironic it is that the cage which keeps me prisoner is the same thing that stopped Majora from claiming my power for itself…”
So did that mean that Majora and the Fierce Deity were enemies? Why were they fighting each other? How did they both end up inside these masks? Just what exactly was the Fierce Deity? Or Majora, for that matter?
Before Link could ask any of the questions churning in his mind, the Fierce Deity warned him, “Careful, child. There is only so much I can stretch a single moment into. Majora is waiting outside, so ask what you really want to know.”
The most important question of all…
“Will you help me?”
“I can destroy Majora,” the Fierce Deity said with calm certainty. “Last time, it had only defeated me through trickery. I will not allow it to stab me in the back once more. Even weakened as I am now, I can grant you enough power to win this fight. But it will come at a price.”
Of course, there would be a price… The Master Sword had stolen seven years of his life that only Zelda’s kindness had returned to him. What would the Fierce Deity want?
Link squared his shoulders and met his glowing gaze. “Tell me.”
“A mortal cannot hold the power of a god without consequences. I will have to take over and it will hurt. And if the battle drags on for too long, the strain of channeling my power will kill you.”
“…And if I refuse?”
“Then take my mask off and fight Majora on your own,” the Fierce Deity replied. “This is your decision to make. I cannot— will not choose for you.”
“You’d be the first one,” Link wanted to say.
It felt like his entire life he had been just a puppet, dancing on the strings of destiny as everyone kept pushing their will onto him. Goddesses, prophesies, Triforce…
And he knew what the Fierce Deity wanted him to do. Link could feel the rage burning behind his calm façade, his desire to rip Majora limb from limb with his own hands…
He could take over, easily. Link had already put on his mask, already given him a way in…
And yet, the Fierce Deity still left the choice completely up to him.
Maybe that was why Link chose what he did.
“Do it.”
The Fierce Deity put a hand on his shoulder and his expression softened slightly. “I can only curb my power so much, but I will try not to cause any permanent damage.”
Link shook his head. “No, you— you have to destroy Majora. Everything else… is not as important.”
The hand on his shoulder tightened — and then yanked him forward. Link let out a startled gasp when he hit the cold armor and something wrapped around him.
What—
…Oh. The Fierce Deity was… hugging him.
“You are far too young to be so careless with your life, child,” the Fierce Deity whispered, “but if that is your wish, I will abide by it.”
“My name is Link,” he muttered in response.
And it felt like a lifetime since he had been just a child.
“Link,” the Fierce Deity repeated. A storm of energy gathered around him: dark and threatening and impossibly dangerous. “Our time is running out. This is your last chance to change your mind.”
He had already made his choice.
“I’m ready.”
The world shifted sharply into focus and Link was thrown back into reality.
The mask latched onto his face, hooking into his skin like a thousand needles. Dark power rushed from it, so much power, he was choking on it.
It felt like he was drowning in an endless river of darkness, dragged down by the current he couldn’t possibly escape from no matter how much he struggled. Except this current was alive, and it was crushing his soul, ready to devour him whole until nothing remained—
A voice called out to him, cutting through the blind haze of fear, “Link, stop fighting me.”
A single moment of clarity…
And Link let go.
He had agreed to this, hadn’t he?
The current crashed over him, waves of darkness trapping him in the distant corner of his mind. From there, Link could only watch as his body was twisted and rearranged, skin and muscles and bones shifting and reshaping into a different form.
The pain came next, divine power burning through his blood like lightning. In response, the dark current grew stronger, dragging him deeper beneath the waves. The pain lessened, but drowning in living darkness was hardly better.
Link wanted to scream, but he no longer had a voice.
His body wasn’t his anymore.
Outside, Majora was still giggling and dancing, refusing to take the fight seriously.
Seeing this, Link felt a surge of hatred so strong, it burned worse than the lightning coursing through him. It wasn’t his, not entirely, but he still couldn’t stop it from sweeping him up in a tidal wave of rage and bloodlust.
He wanted this monster to pay for all the pain it had caused.
He wanted it to suffer.
And the Fierce Deity could finally make it happen.
He took out his sword and swung it through the air. A bright arc of energy flew from its edge and hit Majora straight on, tossing the monster across the cavern.
It hit the ground with a pained squeal and flailed its limbs like a child throwing a tantrum.
The Fierce Deity didn’t wait for the monster to regain its equilibrium. He charged towards it and sharply brought down his sword, stabbing Majora straight through its singular eye.
The monster’s piercing shriek warped into a roar of rage and a sudden blast of poisoned darkness tossed the Fierce Deity aside.
He twisted in the air and easily landed on his feet. He attacked from the distance, sending another arc of energy at Majora. It cut through the haze of power coalescing around the monster, carving away pieces of darkness that positively reeked with insanity, but it wasn’t enough to stop another transformation.
Majora’s limbs thickened and bulked up with a disgusting bubbling noise and its torso shifted into a more humanoid form. Its head reshaped forming a maw full of fangs and its ruined eye was replaced by three more.
The monster roared and spread its arms, stretching them into grotesquely long tentacles that it immediately lashed out with.
The Fierce Deity effortlessly dodged one and grabbed the other in his hand. With a startled bark, Majora tried to pull it back, but he didn’t move an inch.
Then, with a single swing of his sword, he cut the limb in half.
Majora stumbled back with an agonized shriek. The remains of its limb writhed blindly, painting the ground with blood.
The Fierce Deity threw the tentacle away and sent another energy blade at Majora. He aimed low and the blast hit its knee, dislocating it with a sickening crack.
Majora shrieked in pain as its leg buckled. It fell down, barely catching itself with its remaining arm.
The Fierce Deity lunged towards it and severed its arm at the shoulder.
The monster’s blood drenched him from head to toe, only feeding his bloodlust further. Majora’s pained squealing as it desperately tried to get away from him was music to his ears.
Let it scream, let it bleed, let it tremble in fear for everything it had done…
With a savage grin, the Fierce Deity stabbed his sword deep into its stomach and dragged the blade up, splitting the monster’s body open.
Its squeals turned into incoherent gurgling as Majora choked on its own blood.
He wanted to draw this out, wanted to torment the monster just like it had tormented the people of Termina, but the feeling of a mortal soul trembling in his grasp under the strain of channeling his power reminded him that time was of essence.
He refused to harm the child any more than he already did.
With a quick swing of his blade, the Fierce Deity removed Majora’s head from its shoulders. The monster’s eviscerated body collapsed on the ground, and its foul power that had drenched the entire moon finally began to dissipate.
Somewhere far outside, the giants gathered their strength, ready to fling the moon back to its proper place in the sky.
There was a surge of light—
Link slowly crawled back to consciousness. Everything hurt, as if someone had ripped his skin off and then put it back on the wrong way. It felt like he had broken everything that could be broken and sprained everything that could be sprained.
He managed to crack an eye open and saw Tatl and Tael hovering over him. Somewhere far above, he could see the giants walking back to the four corners of the world, their heavy footsteps making the earth tremble.
“He’s awake!” the fairies gasped in unison.
Link tried to at least raise his head, but his neck blazed in agony. Then he felt a small bony hand support him and a glass bottle was pressed to his lips. The familiar smell identified its contents as a health potion and Link greedily gulped it down.
Its magic spread through his body immediately dulling the pain and Link dazedly catalogued what exactly the healing effect was focused on.
His skin, his joints, his muscles… Even his bones felt brittle and worn down. But no matter how much it hurt, nothing vital seemed to have been affected.
Link sighed in relief and closed his eyes. He was still alive and the health potion could fix the rest.
Tatl promptly smacked his forehead. “Hey! Don’t fall asleep on us again!”
Link wrinkled his nose. He very much wanted to go back to sleep. He had just fought a mad demon, he had been possessed by a god (or… whatever the Fierce Deity really was), and he had prevented the moon from crashing down and destroying the world after endlessly repeating the same three days over and over again.
Hadn’t he earned some rest?
“Does he need another potion?” Skull Kid asked and Link heard him ruffle through his remaining supplies.
“That was the last one we had,” Tatl said.
“I can go steal some more,” Skull Kid offered.
Link made a weak noise of protest. He was fine. Just… really tired.
And even if he wasn’t, there should’ve been enough money left in his wallet to just buy some potions. No theft necessary.
“So the evil has left the mask after all… Well, now… I finally have it back,” a new voice said and Link immediately stiffened, recognizing the shady mask vendor.
His eyes flew open and he forced his aching body to move. Skull Kid helped him sit up and Link glared tiredly at the perpetually smiling salesman, who was holding Majora’s mask in his hands.
Link knew that the demon was dead now — his own hands had dealt the killing blow, even if he hadn’t been in control at the time — but he thought the mask itself had been destroyed as well.
He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of the Happy Mask Salesman having it back.
“Since I am in the midst of my travels… I must bid you farewell,” the salesman continued. “Shouldn’t you be returning home as well?”
Link let out an irritated huff. And how exactly was he supposed to get back to Hyrule? Termina wasn’t just another kingdom, it was a whole different world.
He wasn’t even sure how he managed to get here in the first place. He just remembered falling.
His thoughts must’ve shown on his face, because Tatl flicked the tip of his ear. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll show you the way back.”
“The secret way that no one’s supposed to know about,” Tael stressed.
“But it’s fine!” Skull Kid interrupted, twisting awkwardly around Link so he could both support him and look him in the eye. “You saved me from that thing, didn’t you? So it’s only fair that I help you too. That’s what friends are supposed to do, right? …Will you be my friend?”
How could Link ever say no to that?
He nodded with a smile, and Skull Kid immediately hugged him, almost causing them both to topple over.
“Friends are a nice thing to have,” Skull Kid giggled. He sniffed at Link’s hair. “And you have the same smell as the fairy kid who taught me that song in the woods…”
He hummed a few notes that Link was surprised to recognize as Saria’s song. Did that mean he was the same Skull Kid that Link had played with in the Lost Woods what seemed like an eternity ago?
Destiny certainly had a sense of humor.
“…My, you sure have managed to make quite a number of people happy,” the salesman commented lightly. “The masks you have are filled with happiness. Even that one.”
Under his scrutiny, Link suddenly became aware that he was holding something in his hand, his fingers too numb to register it properly before. He looked down and met the empty gaze of the mask of the Fierce Deity.
The mask that he could feel still contained the dark entity inside.
So destroying Majora hadn’t freed him? That felt… unfair.
No matter how terrifying he was, the Fierce Deity had still kept his word and helped Link save everyone from Majora. Shouldn’t he get something in return as well?
Then again, Link knew full well how thankless the task of saving the world was.
Link focused on what he could feel from the mask, aside from the ever-present darkness. Happiness was… too strong of a word, perhaps. But the sizzling rage was gone, replaced by… contentment? Satisfaction, maybe.
It felt like the Fierce Deity had taken out all his hatred and bloodthirst on Majora, and now that the monster was dead, he was content to simply exist.
…Or maybe he just wasn’t sure what to do without a mortal enemy to fight against.
Link could sympathize.
The salesman bowed slightly in farewell. “With that, please excuse me…”
He turned around and walked away. Between one moment and the next, he disappeared.
“What a weirdo…” Tatl grumbled. Then she turned back to Link. “Well… it’s almost time for the carnival to begin. I’d invite you to come with us, but since you can barely move your sorry hide, I suppose we can stay here for a bit just to make sure that you won’t keel over again.”
The barely hidden concern in her voice made Link smile.
There were still things he needed to do. He had to check on the residents of Clock Town and the surrounding regions to make sure that everyone was alright and to see if anyone needed his help. He had to talk to the Fierce Deity again, once his body was in a decent enough condition to handle another transformation, to figure out what the entity wanted him to do with the mask. He had to try to communicate with the souls of the dead trapped in the other three masks and perhaps find some way to free them… And he definitely had to get more weapons and potions, because the grueling battle had run his supplies dry.
But all of that could wait. For now, he just wanted to rest.
Link wrapped one arm around Skull Kid’s bony shoulders and rested the possessed mask on his lap. He beckoned the two fairies closer and felt them settle comfortably on top of his hat.
Together, they watched the rising sun and welcomed the dawn of a new day.