[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

[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.

[butterfly_kiss]

Tae frowns and carefully folds the tunic. This was... A lot.

"You have been through so much."

[newmemorywhodis]

Link tilts his head one one side, as he thinks about it a moment.

Yeah, that's about right. Even with much of memory still gone, the sum of Link's life experiences still amounts to 'a lot'.

He makes a soft noise of agreement.

[butterfly_kiss]

Well, at least he isn't arguing.

"So, any clue how I leave this place?"

[newmemorywhodis]

Link shrugs, apparently having no answer to give.

Ant yes, Tae will find her attention is inexplicably drawn - in two different directions. One pulls her towards the Sword, propped up in the corner. The other pulls her in deeper - back towards the Shrine.

One of these paths, it seems, may give her what she needs.

[butterfly_kiss]

Not the shrine. She won’t go back there. So she follows the pull toward the sword and sighs. Time to see. She rises and touches the sword.

[newmemorywhodis]

The interaction is one the Sword would not normally permit. But this is a dream; here, Tae may touch the Sword.

As the does so. She finds herself within another memory.

A mysterious, mist-filled forest. Link follows a path of small lit beacons, guided by their embers on the wind. He's mostly dressed for climbing, though there's little need for it here.

When the beacons stop, he uses a torch to guide the rest of the way. The trees are twisted, their leaves sparse.

Then the embers lead him through a gigantic hollowed out log - and the forest opens up, the mist giving way to sunlight and lush green leaves. Curious little creatures wearing leaf masks duck out of view as Link runs by, until he stands before a large stone pedestal, with a sword at the centre, at the foot of a massive tree.

He steps forward to take the sword - and then the scene shifts, briefly, to a series of different memories all-together. Link kneeling before a woman in a blue dress, blue flowers in an open grassy field, a castle enveloped by a swirling purple mass. "Link...you are our final hope. The fate of Hyrule rests with you." A woman's voice calls.

Then the forest returns, and Link steps back.

And then the massive, gigantic tree speaks.

"Who is that...Did I doze off again? Hrm?

"Well, well...it's you. You've finally decided to return. Better late than never. After 100 years, I'd nearly given up hope on seeing you again. Even my patience has it's limits, you know...

"That loop upon your face tells me that you have no recollection of me, however. I have watched over Hyrule since time immemorial. Many have referred to me over the ages as the Deku tree.

"That is the weapon created by the ancient Goddess. The sword that seals the darkness - that only the chosen knight can wield against the Calamity Ganon. Believe it or not...it was actually you who weilded that sword 100 years ago.

"But I must warn you to take extreme caution. The sword stands as a test to anyone who would dare attempt to possess it. As you are now, I cannot say whether you are worthy or not...If you sought to free the sword in any sort of weakened state, you would surely lose your life where you stand.

"Best of luck, young one..."

[butterfly_kiss]

Best of luck indeed. ANd hardly a fate that should be put before anyone. A hundred years. How was the man possibly that old? Or was there reincarnation in play? Something told Tae she wasn't likely to find out.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link looks at her. As usual, his expression is blank-faced, revealing little. And yet something about it still says: you're missing something.

And then - even if she tries to avoid it, even if she's careful not to tilt her ehad in just the right way - Tae will find that the shift will happen regardless.

She's back in the Shrine. Link once more is back in the pool, eyes closed and dead to the world.

And yet, this also isn't where she needs to be. There's something she's missing, but it's not here. Maybe if she shifts her gaze again, but not in the way that would take her back to the cottage...

[butterfly_kiss]

No. No not this place. It's... unnerving and unwelcome. She's standing and she hates this place. It makes her shiver.

"What are you trying to tell me? Why does everyone's mind have to be such a puzzle?"

[newmemorywhodis]

Of course it’s a puzzle. This is Link - what would his room be without one?

But the dream has perhaps decided that Tae needs a little nudging in the right direction, because soon she’ll find her have shifting in just the right way again.

Except this time, she doesn’t go back to the cottage. This time, she finds herself somewhere else.

Somewhere that looks like, maybe, it could have been a room in a castle. Maybe, because it’s hard to tell. Most of the room is just…gone. Massive chunks of it are nothing more than a blank, featureless void.

[butterfly_kiss]

Yep. Empty places? She yelps at the transition, and shudders.

"There's something wrong in here," she says because it's obvious and because it's so quiet that she's actively being upset by all of this.

[newmemorywhodis]

There's not much to interact with in here. The pictures with blank, featureless faces on the walls. Some indistinct piece of furniture that might be a bed. A rug with a blurred pattern. But even if she touches them, there will be no memories triggered.

Tae isn't wrong. There is something wrong here. And there's something that this place, with it's massive gaps and voids, is trying to tell her.

[butterfly_kiss]

"Dammit this place is empty!" she shouts angrily. "How am I supposed to figure things out if you don't have anything here!"

[newmemorywhodis]

Link doesn’t answer. In the Shrine, he was in the pool. But here, Link isn’t anywhere at all.

Though if she chooses, now that she’s seen this place she can shift her gaze. Go back to the Shrine, to the cottage.

[butterfly_kiss]

She does close her eyes, and when they open it's in the cottage. And she feels queasy.

"I'm so tired of this!" she says loudly. "Why can't your mind be more helpful than others? It's like there are giant gaping holes here!"

[newmemorywhodis]

Back in the cottage, Link is there with oven mittens on his hands. He's holding a tray with the fish pie. It's even been baked into the shape of a fish.

Apparently, the pie is done.

Link hums softly in response to her question. He doesn't seem surprised or alarmed by it. "There are," he says. He holds out the tray towards her. "Want pie?"

[butterfly_kiss]

Pie? PIE!?

"Why would I want Pie? Do you not understand what is going on? It's... It's like you have no memories in chunks. Like amnesia!"

[newmemorywhodis]

"Yes," Link says. Because that's exactly what it was.

Hadn't the Room made that obvious enough yet?

Then he looks down at the pie. How can she not want it? Link made it. It's delicious. Who wouldn't want the to have some?

[butterfly_kiss]

Seriously? How is he saying that so non-chalantly? What the actual fuck?

"You have amnesia. That's... I'm sorry."

[newmemorywhodis]

Having amnesia is, in a strange way, all he's ever known. Even if he's regained some of his memories from before the Calamity, he can't really picture a life where he just...remembers everything that happened to him.

This is his normal. Even if he hopes...had hoped that Zelda could help him get more of his memories back.

"It's okay," he says.

[butterfly_kiss]

No it wasn't.

"The... dying probably caused it," she says with a sigh. "It's traumatic."

[newmemorywhodis]

“Not dying,” Link says. Because he knows enough, from what he heard from Impa, that death was not the cause of his amnesia.

At least, not directly. No, it was the revival that was to blame.

“The Shrine of Resurrection.”

[butterfly_kiss]

"That weird pool of water?" she asks.