Shards

Chapter 5 – Joy and Madness.
In which Link learns to stop worrying and love the mask.

	I'm not sure how long I stayed in that odd inner space.  I was partially aware of what Shadow was doing, but it was like a dream, something distant and unreal.  I spoke a little more with Scrub, and with Darmani as well.  But mostly I just rested, thinking nothing, doing nothing, and worrying about nothing.  The others had been right that I'd needed a break.  Normally I hated to be idle, but at that moment I was glad to set my sword aside.

	But eventually I started to feel less tired, to have enough energy to think about what came next.    I wasn't ready to take back over from Shadow quite yet, and he seemed to be enjoying himself in any case.  I did, however, feel like doing something constructive.  And Scrub had been talking about how he wished he were better at fighting, so he could help more.  So I decided to see if we could spar a little bit.  He barely came past my knee in the adult form I wore inside my own mind, but I found that with a little concentration I could return to my child self, and then I was only about twice his size.  He was nervous at first, but soon began to see it as a game, which apparently Deku Scrubs enjoyed with great enthusiasm.  I wasn't going all out against him, but he was doing quite well, and we were both having fun.  When we were done with one particular bout I heard Shadow calling me.

	[i]:Link!  Hey, wake up!:

	:I'm awake, just not paying attention. Do you need me?:[/i]

	A bubbly sort of laughter filtered down to me from him, and I realized I could sense a wild exhilaration filling him. While I'd been sparring he'd been doing something that left him even more giddy than riding Epona at full gallop.  [i]:No, I don't need you, but you should come anyway.:[/i]

	I clasped his mental hand, and suddenly I was aware of my body again.  But it wasn't my body at the moment, it was once again transformed.  Not into a Deku Scrub, or into a Goron, but into a Zora.  Some part of me tensed at the realization that Shadow must have put on Mikau's mask, but the rest of me was wide-eyed with a different kind of surprise, for we were flying.

	We soared through water and air both in a racing series of dolphin-like leaps that took us alternately above and below the waves.  Shadow was still in control, or at least I wasn't in control, for I never could have done this.  It was a feat of physical skill unlike anything I'd mastered so far, and it was glorious!

	I laughed, and Shadow laughed with me, our silent joy echoing in my head.  We made an even higher leap, the wind rushing around us, and then sliced through the water as gracefully as any fish.   This was wonderful!

	[i]:This is what life is, little dude,:[/i] said an amused voice.  It wasn't exactly the voice I'd heard on the beach, it was more like my own voice than that, but it wasn't me, and it wasn't Shadow, so I knew who it must be. [i]:It's pain sometimes, but that's not what it really is, that's just what happens.  Real life is this, when the wind and the waves are just right, when you hit the high note in that perfect jam with the world, and you just fly free.:

	:Mikau?:

	:For real, little dude.  Or as real as a ghost can be.  But don't sweat that.  Shadow here's been telling me you got mighty blue over my catching the big one, but you don't need to mourn.  Because of you and your little dark buddy here my girl's eggs are saved.  You guys helped me do what I failed at by myself.  So now I'll help you out in return.:

	:We're headed to the ocean temple,:[/i] said Shadow.

	[i]:The Great Bay Temple is some mondo serious business,:[/i] said Mikau.  [i]:Though we can't go straight there.  We've got a song to play.  You want to come along, or do you still need some rest, little dude?:

	:I'll come.:[/i]  I smiled, and I felt the Zora's lips curve too.  Maybe everything here wasn't as horrible as I'd thought.  Mikau's death still troubled me, but the sheer joy of his leaping, swimming flight through the water made it clear that he himself wasn't letting grief or regret slow him down any.

------
	
	The Great Bay Temple was fun.  It was complicated, and occasionally baffling, but it was also just plain fun.  Mikau was with me most of the way, for swimming was an absolute necessity for most of the temple.  I might have done it without him had I still had all the equipment I'd brought to Hyrule's Water Temple, but that was lost to time, and even then I'm not sure I could have done it without the speed, grace, and skill of the Zora musician.

	Especially the final battle.  He showed me how to use a magical attack developed by Zora warriors that stunned the monster in the water, and then it was easy to hit with any number of other weapons.  The fight was a joy, the way combat had been for me early on, before battle had begun to wear on me.  

	And when I stood before the freed giant, I finally felt like I could actually trust these guardians, and trust myself. Darmani was right, I knew their song, I had the masks that had imprisoned them.  It would be enough.  When I faced the Skull Kid again I would call the giants, and their power would help me defeat him and obtain the mask he wore.

	Though I had gained a new puzzle to worry at.  This god, or guardian, or whatever it might be had asked me to help their friend.  Or so Tatl had said, she seemed to understand them.  But who was the friend of a god?  Perhaps he'd merely meant that I should go to the fourth temple and help the one still trapped there.  Though it seemed strange to ask me to do something that it must surely know I would do in any case.

	[i]:What do you guys think?:[/i] I tossed the question into the inner space as we stood outside the temple, contemplating our next move.

	[i]:I haven't got a clue,:[/i] said Shadow.

	[i]:Me neither,:[/i] was Mikau's response.

	[i]:No, I know not,:[/i] said Scrub.

	[i]:I do not know who a god's friend might be,:[/i] said Darmani thoughtfully, [i]:but there are often legends about such things.  Perhaps when we return to Clock Town we can ask, and see if there are any there who know.  Or we can ask among the other peoples, the Gorons, the Zoras, the Deku, they may have tales of these gods.:

	:Thanks,:[/i] I said.  [i]:That's a good idea.:

	:We should go ask the Gerudo pirates too!:[/i]  That was Shadow, laughing as he said it.

	[i]:...what?  Didn't they try to kill us?:

	:Trying isn't succeeding!:[/i]  I could nearly see Shadow grinning as he said it.

	Mikau chuckled.  [i]:Your dark little buddy there likes Gerudo girls.  They're not my type, but they are kind of cute.:

	:Shadow!:[/i]

	Shadow laughed again.  [i]:We're not children, Link.  And there's nothing wrong with appreciating a fine female form.  You can't say you've never thought about the woman that Zelda grows up to be...:[/i]  

	I blushed furiously, I could feel my cheeks heating.  

	[i]:She's even cuter than the Gerudo, I think. Though they're rather excitingly dangerous.:

	:Let's get going,:[/i] I snapped, feeling like I was red to my toes.  Shadow just laughed some more.  Then Mikau took over again and we were flying through the water, swimming back to the shore through a crystal clear sea.

	There was time to return to Clock Town and follow up on Darmani's suggestion.  There was time for anything we wanted, really.  I rode Epona there, with Mikau sharing the experience, he liked riding almost as much as Shadow did.  The town still made me anxious.  Just asking around for stories about the four gods, giants, or guardians brought several different people to mention their problems to me, and I know I could have helped a few of them.  I had, in fact, helped one or two of them already, but they didn't remember.  My face, no matter what form I wore, was never familiar to them.  Their problems were renewed, they forgot me, and I had to begin over again every three days.  

	But I was able to shake off my distress to a certain extent.  Having the others there helped.  Mikau in particular was very relaxed and cheerful about everything, which was a good antidote to my own tendency to fret and worry.

	And it didn't take us long to find our way to an old woman who knew some of the gods' stories.  She told us a tale about four giants, who befriended an imp.  That caught my attention immediately.  The mask seller had called the Skull Kid an imp.  Could he be the giant's friend?  I asked the old woman who the imp was, but she knew no more than the words of her tale.  Still, it was something worth knowing.

	I rested again at the inn, and traveled back in time once more to give myself another three days.  I had no idea at this point how many cycles I'd run through.  Time had ceased to have any real meaning.  But nevertheless I felt a sense of urgency, so I set off on Epona's back for the canyon without any further delay.

------
	
	Ikana Canyon... 

	I don't know how to describe what it was like there.  It was dry and barren, but not hot.  Indeed it was often bitingly cold, though I sometimes thought the cold was in my soul, and not on my skin.  I met only two living beings in all its vast expanse.  Only two, and I think they were both more than a little mad.  The canyon was full of ghosts and poes, redead and gibdos, stalfos and stalchildren, and other things I'd never seen before anywhere.  It was a haunted, nightmare land, even by daylight.  At night it was indescribable.  

	Thankfully, mercifully, I obtained no magical masks there.  There were a few of the ordinary kind, the people of Termina seemed obsessed with masks, even the dead.  But I wore no new faces when I reached the temple within the canyon.

	I'd done my best to bring what peace I could to the restless dead of Ikana.  Even though I knew it was futile I couldn't help myself.  And in helping the soldiers of Ikana Castle find peace I had gained something, for they'd known a song.  And with the Ocarina of Time in my hands songs held power.

	[i]:No good deed is futile,:[/i] said Darmani.

	[i]:Even the ones that are wiped away with no trace?:[/i] I asked him.  I kept coming back to that idea, beating against it like a moth beating against a window.  And it seemed to be doing me about as much good, but I couldn't let it go.  Having my good deeds undone, and by my own hand, for I was the one that traveled back and started the cycle over, went against everything that I was.

	[i]:Even those,:[/i] said Darmani firmly.  [i]:Somewhere the goddesses watch and listen, and count even those to your ledger, Link.:

	:I want to believe that, but sometimes it seems like the only benefit is when I myself gain something.  And that's purely selfish, so how much does it count?:

	:Is it selfish, when you seek to gain only so that you can complete your quest and thus aid others?  Remember, much of the ill you have undone here comes from Majora's evil.  When the mask is no longer twisting the Skull Kid's pranks, much harm will be repaired.:

	:I know.  Though Ikana's soldiers... this evil is older than that.  Much older.:

	:Perhaps.  For now you have done what you can. It's time to go on and seek out the canyon temple.:

	:Yes.:[/i]

	The long climb up the tower, the bizarre, changeable reality of the temple, I don't know what I could say about either.  At times I thought they might drive me to madness, but Shadow and others steadied me, helping me to continue on through the worst of it.

	At last I found what I sought, though that too seemed madness, a vast barren desert plain contained inside the temple's walls.  The battle was a challenge, but no worse than many I'd faced in the past.  When I had freed this final god I felt strangely sad.  Something about the creature was sorrowful.  And Tatl once again brought me a cryptic message from it.  The god said to forgive our friend.  What friend might I have that needed my forgiveness I didn't know.  I thought of the story, the four giants and the imp.  Was the Skull Kid their friend?  Was he mine?  He had been Tatl's once.  But forgive him?  After the evil he'd worked?

	[i]:Evil he worked, or evil worked on him by the mask he wears?:[/i] asked Darmani.

	[i]:I don't know.:

	:Neither do I.  But if these gods sorrow at the thought of harming him... perhaps he is not evil.:[/i]

-----
	
	I rode back to Clock Town one final time.  The moon loomed close overhead.  It was late on the third day, and this time I would not be playing the Song of Time and going back. This time I would be waiting when the clock struck.  I would confront the Skull Kid, call the giants, and defeat the evil of Majora's Mask.

	I gathered all my courage as the fireworks began to explode around the clock tower.  :We're with you,: said Shadow quietly.  I just nodded.  

	It was eerily familiar.  I'd been repeating many events in the town all this time, but it still made my skin crawl to see the Skull Kid dancing above the clock's upturned face once again.  I ran up the stairs, they were easier to climb with my longer legs than they'd been as a Deku Scrub.  At the top I saw him once more.  He didn't have my ocarina this time, but everything else was the same as it had been.

	"If it's something that can be stopped, then just try to stop it!" he cried, as he had before, and once more darkness gathered around him and the moon began to fall.

	But I was no longer helpless.  All I'd done over this endless loop of days prepared me for this moment.  I took out my ocarina and played the song that the giants had taught me.

	The world shook.

	The Skull Kid screamed with rage.

	And from the four corners of the world came striding four huge forms.  They stood outside the town, but they were so vast that they could reach up over the town and touch the moon.  Dark power coruscated around the descending orb, but the giants put their hands beneath it, and its descent halted.

	"We did it!  It stopped!"  Tatl bounced with glee.

	[i]:We did!:[/i]  Shadow laughed.  I grinned. 

	Tael swirled around his sister, the fairies rejoicing together.  Then they swooped over to where the Skull Kid now lay prone on the clock face.  They were speaking excitedly together, discussing their friend, no doubt.  I stepped to join them, to take the mask, when the limp form of the Skull Kid suddenly rose into the air.

	[i]:Not good, dude,:[/i] said Mikau, expressing pretty much exactly what I felt at the sight.  Majora's Mask wove back and forth before me, tugging the lifeless body of the Skull Kid behind it like a puppet with its strings cut.

	The mask dropped the Skull Kid's body.  "This puppet's role has just ended," said a voice.  It was the malevolent voice I had thought of as the Skull Kid's voice, but he lay still, lifeless, where the mask had dropped him.

	The moon's bizarre face twisted, its mouth gaping open, and the mask ascended, swallowed by the moon itself.

	I felt like reality had fallen out from beneath me. What was going on?

	And then it got even stranger, for the moon's eyes snapped open, glowing with the same colors as the eyes of the mask had.  The giants shuddered, straining to hold back the orb that now leered down with malevolent life.  Somehow the mask had become the moon, and I knew that if I didn't do something it might well break free of the giants' grasp and destroy the world anyway.

	The mouth over my head still gaped open and, hoping that I wasn't doing the wrong thing, I followed the mask inside the moon's mouth.

	As I leapt into the gaping chasm everything went white.  I closed my eyes against the unbearable brightness, and when I opened them again I was standing on a grassy plain.  In the distance a single tree rose before me.  Above me was a blue sky, dotted with a few fluffy clouds.

	Bizarrely it reminded me of my inner world, though the island with its dead tree and this field with its living one weren't really that much alike.  But there was something similar about them all the same.  Was I inside the moon's mind?  Was I inside Majora's? 

	I ran towards the tree, and there I found five masked children.  All five masks were familiar.  Majora's I knew, of course, but the other four were the four monsters I had fought.  The four giants, imprisoned again somehow.  Why were they here?  What was going on?  They scattered across the grass and I ran after one of them.  When I caught up with him, he asked,  "Will you play with me?"

	Play?  I stared at the child, that might be a god.  He wanted me to play a game?

	"Can I ask a question?" asked the child.

	"Uh... yes?"

	"The right thing... What is it? If you do the right thing, does it really make everybody happy?"  

	I blinked.  What was the right thing?  I had tried to do the right thing all my life.  That's why I was here now, stopping the evil of Majora's Mask was the right thing.  Wasn't it?  I would make the townsfolk, and the Goron, Deku, and Zoras happy.  That was why I had gone through all I'd suffered here in Termina.

	"Hide and seek, let's play!"  The child ran off, laughing.  I ran after, but he had somehow vanished.  I approached another of the children.

	"Masks," said the child.  "You have a lot.  Will you be a mask salesman?  I'll play with you."

	"Is this all just a game?" I asked.  I was feeling confused and frustrated.  [i]:Chill, little dude,:[/i] said Mikau.  I didn't reply.  I didn't feel like chilling.  And I really didn't like the idea that I was just being played with, like some kind of toy.

	"Can I ask you a question?  Your true face... What kind of face is it?  I wonder...  The face under the mask, is that your true face?"

	"I'm not wearing a mask," I snapped in reply, but something about the question shook me.  What was my real face?  Shadow, Scrub, Darmani, Mikau... they were all part of me, so was I really Link at all any more, or had I become someone else?  What was my true face, and was Link just another mask?

	When I looked up to ask the child what that was supposed to mean, he was gone.  I muttered a curse under my breath and ran after another masked child playing beneath the tree's spreading branches.

	"Hide and seek!  Let's play!" he said.

	"I don't want to play."

	"Can I ask you a question?  Your friends... What kind of people are they?  I wonder, do those people think of you as a friend?"

	"Do which people?"  I tried to not shout.  I would either be being rude to a little boy, or shouting at a god, a bad idea either way, but I felt more and more confused.  These questions were upsetting beyond all reason.  Was he talking about the Skull Kid?  About Tatl?  About the people of Termina that I'd tried to help?  Or about Shadow and the others?  And were any of those my friends anyway?  I shook off the thought but while I'd been thinking the masked child had vanished.  A little ways away I saw the fourth child.  I chased after him, frustration bubbling inside me as I did.

	"Hey!  Wait up!"  He didn't stop, but I ran faster and caught up with him.  

	He turned his masked face to me as I reached his side. "Will you play with me?"

	I tried to hold on to my anger.  Instead of screaming in frustration, I managed to ask, "What kind of game are you playing?"

	"Can I ask you a question?"

	I bit back an angry retort and just said nothing.  [i]:Be calm child,:[/i] said Darmani softly.  It was all I could do not to snap at him too.  I felt like I was on the edge of sanity.

	"You... What makes you happy?" asked the child.  "I wonder... What makes you happy, does it make others happy too?"

	The world shook under me.  Was it the moon drawing closer to the earth?  Or was the shaking just in my mind?  What makes me happy... I felt like I was on the edge of either revelation or insanity.  What was the child saying?

	"Hide and seek!  Let's play!" shouted the child, and ran off.  I looked around.  I was near the tree again, but I couldn't see the children anywhere, they all seemed to have vanished.  Then I noticed one more, sitting against the tree's trunk.  And above him, in the branches, was a treehouse.  I ran to him.  The child was wearing Majora's Mask.  The sight of it made me shiver.  But the mask wasn't leering up at me.  The child wearing it sat huddled, clearly miserable, masked face turned downward.  I cautiously stepped close.

	"Everyone has gone away, haven't they?"

	I said nothing.

	"Will you play with me?"

	Games again.  I wanted to curse at him.  But... 

	[i]:Playing games makes him happy,:[/i] said Darmani's voice in my head, wonderingly.

	[i]:Everybody seeks their bliss, little dude,:[/i] said Mikau.

	[i]:Yes.  Games are fun!:[/i]  That was Scrub, bobbing cheerfully.

	[i]:But are they fun if they hurt other people?:[/i] I asked.

	[i]:Maybe a god doesn't understand about pain,:[/i] said Shadow.  [i]:Do gods feel pain?  A shadow looks at the world a little differently, I know that much.  Can we even imagine how a god sees the world?:

	:Then what should I do?:

	:Try playing the game, perhaps,:[/i] said Shadow.

	I looked at the child, his masked face still turned away, the image of rejection and sorrow.  I remembered the story of the imp and the giants.  In the tale they had been friends, but then the giants had rejected the imp and banished him.  And I'd called on their power to do the same again, to make them act against their friend.  I had been trying to do the right thing.  But that didn't mean that I hadn't caused this child's sorrow.

	"Yes, I'll play,"  I said.

	"Let's play good guys against bad guys," said the child.  "Yes, let's play that."  And he held out something to me.  I took it and looked down at it wonderingly.

	It was a mask.

	It was my own face.  

	Not, however, the face I wore now.  This was a face I knew from the past, or rather from the future, for it was my face as an adult.  It was set in an expression of fierce determination, and wore strange war paint, but it was still unquestionably my face.

	I looked up at the child.  He got to his feet.  "Are you ready?  You're the bad guy. That's fine, right?"

	I held the mask.  I was to play a bad guy?  But then... perhaps this child saw me that way.  Perhaps in his own story he was the hero, and all the things I'd done to stop him had been the actions of a villain.  

	"Well, shall we play?" 

	I was still angry, but I also felt a rightness to this.  He wanted me to be the bad guy, I'd be a bad guy!  I nodded.

	The child climbed up to the tree house above, and I followed.  Though when I stepped into the chamber I saw nothing but an empty room.  The mask appeared before me, bodiless once again.  It seemed larger now, and a tangle of tentacles, like some sort of strange hair, trailed behind it.

	I went to draw my sword, and was reminded of the mask still in my hand.  Very well then, it was time to play!  I put the mask on.

	Something heaved inside me.

	All the frustrated anger I'd felt welled up in me, and it fused with the fierceness I'd seen on the mask's face.  Fire burned inside me, and I let out a war cry and drew my sword.

	The sword was changed, it was now a massive double blade, glowing with power.  I was changed too, the room was suddenly smaller, the demonic mask before me no longer hovering above me, but at eye level.  I was tall, taller even than I'd been as an adult.  I was tall and powerful enough to contain the anger I felt.

	The sword sang in my hand with power that echoed the rage singing in my head.  It didn't matter now what sort of game Majora wanted to play.  It didn't matter if he was the bad guy or I was.  I was going to destroy the mask utterly.

	I shouted and leaped, sword swinging.  It was time to fight at last!  No more riddles, no more endless time loop, no more masks, no more games, just the red-hot purity of battle! 

	I don't remember very much of the fight.  I'm not actually sure if I was the one fighting or if I just watched while somebody else fought with my body.  I remember a few scattered moments.  I remember batting away the mask with my blade like an insect.  I remember laughing hard, brutal laughter in the face of its weakness.  I remember Majora changing several times, gathering power, becoming more, but it was never enough.  It was no match for the power of my anger.  I remember shrieks, an alien cry of defeat, and the monster that the mask had become crumbling away before me, and then everything went white once more.  The world went away, and I went with it.