Autumn in Akkala

Ch.38 The Eldin Dilemma

Enlisting the Final Divine Beast

!Zelda The Lost Woods

There isn't time for me to second-guess my actions.

Playing the Ocarina of Time is a fallacious tactic that would leave us with no guarantee that we would have arrived backward to apprehend Kilton. The welfare of my kingdom and its future cannot ride on dithering strategies.

This isn't a game of Russian roulette.

But as I make my way onto the observation deck and I see the man with the inscrutable eyes peering back at me, I can't help but think that this approach may be an even bigger gamble.

Link has proven himself time and time again.

But this man behind this mask he is not Link.

And so, the bigger risk comes from trusting the fate of my kingdom in the hands of a deity.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

"Y/N!" The queen's scolding tone could never intimidate you the way this, this, being - that cornered you did.

You heard her frantic footsteps approaching the observation deck. He didn't bother to look Zelda's way. He continued to study you; his gaze locked onto your face as if he were trying to imprint it into his brain. You squirmed; the concrete he had cornered you against was serrated and sawed into your back.

He tilted his head again, almost as though the way you breathed, through your lungs and in and out of your nostrils, was not the same way he breathed. He looked perplexed.

When your features brought no more interest to him, he turned away, snickering. Zelda stumbled toward you, yanking you away.

"I told you, as long as that mask is on Link's face, that is not Link." Her chin pointed upward in disappointment; her voice was kept even tempered but still dripped with an air of patronization.

"You expect that creature to help us?"

"I expect it to slay the evil within Majora's mask so it may be sealed again. What happens after that is up to him."

"To whom?"

"The deity."

You snorted. "I will never call that thing a deity. And Link is in there; I know he is."

Zelda sighed. "Y/N, you're incorrigible. Listen-" She rubbed your shoulders in a loving and consoling way, as if she were your big sister. "I love Link; just like you, I love him, but you have to accept the fact that his destiny, the destiny of the hero tied to that mask, may not be relinquished from its grip."

You protested. "Why didn't you just let him play the Ocarina of Time?"

"It is not that simple. You have read the passages in the Hero of Time's account. A lot of the manipulation through time didn't just rely on the ocarina but also on the master sword, which has been laid to rest back in the lost woods under the great Deku's guidance." She glanced upward, her eyelashes flickering in curiosity at the deity who held nothing in his eyes. "There would have been no guarantees."

"And there is with him parading around with that thing on his face?"

Something shifted in the queen then. Her eyes, which held light within them and reflected it back to those of the onlooker like a mirror, seemed to dim. You understood then. She didn't have the answers. Your interrogations only left her with more self-doubt.