[Calibrations] It's dangerous to go alone, take this

[newmemorywhodis]

WHO: Link and you!
WHERE: Link's Calibration room
WHAT: Calibrations
WHEN: June 10th to July 10th
WARNINGS: CW for death in the pool memory

On first appearances, Link's room is the inside of cosy little cottage.

There's rustic wooden furniture - that will appear to many as old fashioned - and Link is humming away as he cooks something at the small corner that serves as the kitchen. Propped up on the wall next to Link and the kitchen is the Sword the Seals the Darkness, a blade that many will recognise as the one that has been a constant presence on Link's back.

Draped over the back of one of the dining table chairs is the Champion's tunic, a distinctive blue garment. Sitting on that same chair, hidden partially by the fabric of the tunic, is the Sheikah Slate, a rectangular device that's sitting on one of the chairs. Atop the table itself sits the Thunder Helm.

In one corner, there's a small bookcase. On the shelves are a few assorted objects: a massively large scale, and a whistle.

---

There is, however, something odd that happens in this room. Sometimes, if you tilt your head at just the right angle or look out of the corner of your eye, the appears of it shifts - like a lenticular image. The cottage will be gone, and Link won't be humming away at the kitchen anymore. Instead, it will be a mysterious underground space, lit by soft blue glowing lights and faint orange constellations on the walls.

In the middle of this space is a small pool, or perhaps a kind of tub. It's filled with a bright blue water - and inside, as well, is Link. He's completely under the surface, dressed only in a pair of boxers, eyes closed. He's not moving.

To one side of the chamber, a picture hands on the wall.

On the other side, a pedestal - out of which grows a single silent princess flower.

---

And if, while within the mysterious underground space, if you tilt your head and gaze in just the right way again, there will be another shift. This time, it's strange in a different way. Large sections of the space seem to be just...gone, leaving behind only a blank white nothingness. In between those blank spaces are what is perhaps stone walls, something that might - maybe? - look like a room in a castle. But the details that do exist are so fuzzy and indistinct, it's hard to really tell.

There are a few pictures on the walls. But they feature only people with blank, featureless faces.

No matter what you touch, or interact with, there are no memories to be found here. And Link isn't anywhere to be seen at all. From this place, he is absent.

Comments

[newmemorywhodis]

And yet, there Link is. Still alive, even while under the water.

Although, once she stops and looks properly - he might be alive, but only in the most technical sense of the word. His pulse is so slow it might as well be non-existent. He's not breathing, even while under the water. It's like Link's body is in a kind of stasis.

Those injuries from the memory are still there, however. Mostly healed, now. On their way to becoming faded scars.

[butterfly_kiss]

"I..." Tae shakes her head.

Which is a whole thing because just like that she's back in the cottage and...

"What the hell is going on here!?"

[newmemorywhodis]

Link is back at the kitchen. He looks at her. Looks at his fish, cooking away.

“…Dinner.”

[butterfly_kiss]

No, no. What the hell?

"Do you not even see what is going on!?"

[newmemorywhodis]

Link just stares, his expression blank.

[butterfly_kiss]

"This place was a cave just moments ago!" she says, trying to find that cave again. What in the world?

[newmemorywhodis]

“What cave?”

He’d been in a pool there, after all. Asleep. Why would he remember it?

[butterfly_kiss]

Seriously?

"It was right here!" she said with frustration. "In this room. You were in this... pool of liquid!"

[newmemorywhodis]

Well, Link didn’t see that at all. But the description is familiar.

“…The Shrine of Resurrection?” His eyes drift over to the Sheikah Slate, sitting on the chair and partially hidden by his tunic.

[butterfly_kiss]

What? Tae stares at him with a frown.

"Shrine of what now?"

IT doesn't sound like the sort of place that makes sense at all.

[newmemorywhodis]

“Not being dead anymore.”

Made sense to him.

[butterfly_kiss]

Tae wants to make an exasperated noise.

"How does that even make any sense. You can't make someone un-dead. You clearly weren't going to get up from that!"

[newmemorywhodis]

Link shrugs. "Ancient Sheikah technology?"

Don't ask him how any of it works; he doesn't have a clue. He's just the person it happened to.

[butterfly_kiss]

That sounds like an anime. Ancient technology doing more than modern. She hates this a lot.

"I'm not buying that at all."

[newmemorywhodis]

Link just looks at her.

It doesn't matter that she doesn't buy it. She can believe it or not; doesn't change the fact that it happened.

[butterfly_kiss]

"HOw is this place two places?" she asks next. Because he really didn't seem to notice it. "How are you in both places? Why are you even cooking? This doesn't look real."

But it's too real to be quite a dream.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link shrugs. How should Link know the how of anything? Things just happen, and Link just rolls with them.

Though, he can at least answer the last question.

"I like cooking."

[butterfly_kiss]

But is that even going to help anything here!?

"Aren't you upset that you're in this place?"

[newmemorywhodis]

"It's my place."

His home. His kitchen. His things.

Even the Shrine - and the layer underneath that, still unseen by Tae - are his as well. His history, his past. They're a step removed from Link himself, but they're still a part of him.

It's nice, being home again.

[butterfly_kiss]

That doesn't explain anything. Exasperated she moves to sit down at a chair not occupied by clothing.

"And what do you mean by 'my place.'"

[newmemorywhodis]

The tunic continues lay there, inanimate object that it is. As does the curious rectangular device half-under it, which - she might now realise - looks to be of similar technology to the Shrine of Resurrection.

"...It's my place," Link repeats. As if this is obvious.

This is his place. In all interpretations of meaning.

[butterfly_kiss]

"You're just wonderfully helpful," she grumbles. "Do you always just leave your clothes everywhere?"

She asks it while reaching to touch the shirt.

[newmemorywhodis]

The moment she touches the tunic, another memory begins.

Link stands in the Sanctum of Hyrule Castle. He's wearing that very same blue tunic, along with a diamond circlet that shines with faint magical power.

Attached to the ceiling is a pulsing, red sac. From from within emerges a light - and a young woman's voice. Zelda's voice.

"Link...Link..Link...I'm sorry, but my power isn't strong enough. I can't hold him...!"

Then the sac bursts, a beam of white hot destructive force emerging from it - along with a giant, terrible, spider-like beast. A mix of malice and cobbled together mechanical limbs; this is Calamity Ganon.

The floor beneath them crumbles, and they both plummet down below - Link's paraglider slowing his descent.

The two face each other, but before the battle begins a massive beam of energy - the combined attack of all four Divine Beasts - strikes Calamity Ganon from above. The beast is damaged badly - but not out for the count.

Now Link draws his sword - one that glows a bright, divine blue - and attacks.

Some may have seen Link in action, but they won't have seen him fight like this. Or against an opponent this large, and powerful. The beast attacks are many, and varied. Claws that strike and slam the ground. A massive sword, alight in flame. A giant spear of ice. Tornadoes and fireballs that he hurls towards Link. A gigantic laser beam.

Link, meanwhile, uses everything to take it down. He dodges, slowing down time to get in multiple attacks at once. He uses his shield, deflecting laser beams back onto the beast. He fires his bow - sometimes from the ground, sometimes from the air. He calls upon lightning, the spirit of a massive eight-foot woman coming forth to stun the beast with electricity. He summons a crystal-red shield and the spirit of a large Goron to defend him.

The battle is long, and a slog...but eventually, he brings the creature to its knees. Malice and dark energy pours from it as it screams.

And yet, things aren't yet over - the dark energy swirls, flying upwards and out of the castle. Link too runs towards it, and disappears into light - before reappearing outside, in a wide open plain. His horse, standing next to him.

"Ganon...Ganon..." whispers Zelda's voice. "Ganon was born out of a dark past. He is a pure embodiment of the ancient evil that is reborn time and time again. He has given up on reincarnation and assumed his pure, enraged form. If set free upon our world, the destruction will be unlike anything ever seen before."

Then a bright light in the sky - a bow, descending down from above. "I entrust you with the Bow of Light - a powerful weapon in the face of evil.

"Link...you may not yet be at a point where you have fully recovered your power or all of your memories...but courage need not be remembered. For it is never forgotten."

Link takes the bow, and leaps onto the back of his horse. The horse rears, and Link charges straight towards the beast.

[butterfly_kiss]

Well damn. It's like watching a movie. Everything seems so impossible to Take that she doesn't even process it as real. She just focuses on what she can see before her and lets the experience roll over her because there's nothing else to be done.

[newmemorywhodis]

The cottage returns. The tunic is just a tunic, if one now gripped in Tae's hands.

Link is still at the kitchen, cooking. The domestic scene is a far cry from the memory she just witnessed. And yet the Link in the kitchen, the one who hums a half-formed tune as he cooks, is undeniably the same one that fought the monster in the memory.