"In the land of Hyrule, there echoes a legend. A legend held dearly by the Royal Family that tells of a boy...
A boy who,
after battling evil and saving Hyrule, crept away from the land that had made him a legend...
Done with the battles he once waged across time, he embarked on a journey. A secret and personal journey...
A journey in search of a beloved and invaluable friend...
A friend with whom he parted ways when he finally fulfilled his heroic destiny and took his place among legends..."
See the boy. He walks alone in his woods, but his eyes betray nothing but desire for it not to be so. Still, however, he
knows it is probably for the best. On his last search for his fairy friend, he nearly lost his own life and also nearly got his
trusty steed killed multiple times. He had done so much.
Link did not think of himself as a responsible or good person. Yes, he was the one who threw the proverbial wrench
into Ganondorf's gears and saved the world, and yes he saved an alternate universe from a mask, within which slept the
spirit of an ancient and powerful deity. It was only his use of an equally dark, if not worse power that he succeeded in saving the other world.
All this trouble came from but a mask. And all this trouble was stopped by another mask.
Two very masks he carried on his person now.
Link was used to the feeling of foreboding each mask afforded him when he looked into their eyes. He knew that both were powerless so long as they were not worn, and he had taken great measures to ensure that the power each mask was afforded could be siphoned1 and sealed away.
The mask of the Fierce Deity was outfitted with multiple incantations and blessings to trap its power within itself. Link had brought it before the leader of his tribe of Kokiri, the Great Deku Tree, to be cleansed along with the other mask: Majora's Mask.
He did not initially intend on just syphoning their power. The original plan was to outright destroy them. It went the way of the dodo when it became apparent that neither mask could be done away with so easily. Not the strongest bomb, the sharpest blade, the heaviest hammer, or the most practiced mage seemed capable of even leaving a scratch on either mask. Link certainly had no intentions of parting with them unless he knew there was no way for them to be used again.
He heaved a sigh. Link never left his home without the two troublesome masks, no matter if he was going out for the day or for a few nights. He simply didn't want the chance of one of his fellow Kokiri finding one or the other and unleashing their power. It was the same reason he carried all of his other masks with him, and there were many. Children would call him a mask collector, so a mask collector he would be. Farore knew he'd nearly gotten himself killed just trying to contain Majora.
Part of him wondered why he was even bothering searching for Navi. He knew that chaos seemed to follow him around- it's why he no longer took Epona with him when he wandered. Maybe part of him resented Navi's spontaneous retreat and wished to take her with him so she may see what disharmony he suffered? Link was not a wise man.
In fact, he wasn't even a man. Not physically.
He had done so much. He went forward and backward in time, defeated an evil wizard named Ganondorf and saved his home, wandered into another dimension housing a land by the name of Termina, and he had to save that land too from an unspeakable cataclysm. A cataclysm that loomed over everyone's head every moment of every day until he finally managed to stop it.
Everything he did, he did by the time he turned 9 (16 if you count the seven years he skipped forward and backward), and he was successful. Ganondorf had been executed and Majora's dark power was sealed within the mask again. Termina and Hyrule were both safe. But at what expense?
Link wiped the sweat from his tired blue eyes. His childhood. Link ended lives when he was barely into his ninth year, and not just simple minded animals or faux living creatures animated only by foul magic. Ganondorf was, in spite of his evil, a person. Stalfos warriors were, once upon a time, persons.
Link recalled with a shutter his accidental murder of a Gerudo woman when he was infiltrating their fortress attempting to rescue a few carpenters. He meant only to knock her out, but her struggles combined with the high risk of his being caught resulted in his adding more pressure. He'd been trying to choke her out.
She must have jerked to one side, for her neck snapped and she fell lifeless in a heap. Link at first thought she was just trying a strange new way to get out of his grasp.
Link wiped at his eyes, though he had no tears. His fairy, Navi, had listened to him rant about it and was steadfast in telling him that it was not his fault, and that he did not mean to kill her. Link considered himself little more than a glorified murderer for it, but she always told him that it was a freak accident and the Goddesses knew it.
The boy sighed, and felt a dry sob rack itself through his chest. He had no tears left. He'd cried for the innocent people that died while he slept a seven year sleep. He cried for the people of Termina, who had been forced to relive what would always be the final three days of their lives whenever he failed to stop Majora in time.
He felt a ghost of a smile pull at his lips. When he broke down in Termina for the first time, his callous fairy partner in the strange place, Tatl, tried to make him feel better by saying that she doubted anybody who experienced the apocalypse brought on by the moon felt a thing. He laughed a bitter laugh when she said that, too.
At least he stopped the whole cycle. After he saw what evil the mask was capable of, he bought it off the Happy Mask Salesman for every rupee he had collected in his travels. The eccentric salesman accepted the bargain with a smile, though Link was not sure what to make of him. He literally walked away after accepting the money and seemed to vanish.
Now, it was a matter of finding Navi. His adventures in Termina were over. He desired a return to his original purpose, and the best place to look for a wayward fairy was the Lost Woods. There was a rumor that the woods themselves called to guardian fairies of a select few to fulfill an unknown purpose. Link hoped there was some truth to the myth, and so he walked.
Armed with a rucksack full of masks, a bow, a quiver full of arrows, a shield, and a strong blade, Link was determined to go further into the woods than he had ever gone before.
Future Link wouldn't be sure if he should kick himself for it or pat himself on the back.