Your True Face

by Zeldan

Summary:

Time had worn him thin, its echo lingering in the quiet of his bones.
Link awoke in a town that should have been safe, but felt like a dream with teeth.

Alternate title: Why Was Link In Rose Town?

Chapter 1: What Dreams May Come

The nights had grown long again. Longer than he remembered, though perhaps it was only in him, the way shadows lingered in his blood like smoke that refused to clear.

Link sat beside the low fire, polishing steel that had never dulled, though he went through the motions as if wear might one day appear, as if there were meaning in the ritual. The blade caught firelight in a sheen like water. He stared into it, waiting for the flaw that never came.

Epona shifted in the paddock beyond, her hoof striking dense earth. The sound rumbled in his chest more than the crackle of flame. The night pressed down with that peculiar density of late autumn: heavy, unspeaking, cold enough to taste on the back of the tongue.

The world was quiet.

He had thought, once, that the silence of Hyrule would be a blessing after Termina. No endless festival drums, no screaming carnival masks, no weight of a moon splitting the sky. But there were days when the hush pressed on him heavier than all that madness had, when he woke with the weight of a thousand staring faces crowding the edges of his sight. Masks without mouths, eyes that never blinked.

Sleep did not come easily. When it came at all, it came jagged, full of collapse and disjointed sound. And yet he craved it. He felt the pull of it now, like water rising, dragging at his limbs. The blade slipped from his hand and landed in the grass with barely a sound.

He lowered himself onto the straw mat and closed his eyes.

Darkness poured in, thick and deep.

The rush of river water became the laugh of a child, became a trumpet’s blare, became the groan of something vast moving overhead. He reached for his sword but his hand found only air. The world tipped, spun. A moon’s eye opened wide above him, split and weeping light.

He tried to run. The ground beneath him was softened.  Flesh instead of earth. A tremor shook it, a heartbeat too great to be his own. He sank. The masks swam up to meet him: Deku’s hollow stare, Goron’s blind grin, Zora’s stone-cold lids. He clawed at them, but they melted to wax and clung to his skin.

And then—
A bed softer than any he had known.
Walls painted in colors too bright, too clean.
The murmurs of strangers on the other side of a door.

Link laid still. The weight of the dream clung to him.   He tried to breathe, but even his own breath felt borrowed, like he was only imitating the rhythm of some unseen thing.

Somewhere, far from Hyrule, far from Termina, he had awakened in another man’s story.

The ceiling above him was low, wooden, its grain neat as though carved yesterday. Not Hyrulean oak, not the sagging timbers of Clock Town, either. This place was… unmarred. The air smelled faintly sweet, like sugared bread. He heard a child laugh somewhere below, a woman’s voice chiding gently, the muffled jangle of coins.

He shifted on the mattress.  He thought of the terrible little beds in Stock Pot Inn, how the dust rose from the mattress when he turned in his sleep, the way he clutched the hilt of his sword like a child with a toy. Here, there was nothing at his side. His shield was gone, his blade gone. Naked, but not stripped.

He pressed his palm against his chest. His heartbeat was steady, but it didn’t sound like his own.

This was no shrine, no temple. No place the Goddesses had left their mark. He tried to rise, but his limbs were heavy, caught in that trembling balance between slumber and waking. A net held him — threads spun not of malice but of something gentler, stranger, as though the dream itself wanted him to rest.

And still, behind his eyes, shadows flickered. The moon. The masks. A hundred faces twisted in silence. They hovered just beyond reach, as if watching him through the cracks of this painted little inn.

This was not Hyrule.
Not Termina.

Yet it bore the weight of both: the hush before calamity, the carnival brightness painted over a wound.

He wondered if he had finally slept too deeply, and the dream had chosen to make itself real.

Chapter 2: Dawn of the First Day

The inn was too still. Even the chatter from below had quieted, as though some hand pressed against the walls and stifled the sound. Link’s eyes snapped open.

He felt the silence.
Not the hush of peace, but of something smiling just out of sight.

He rose, though his legs trembled as if sleep still clung to them. The boards of the floor shifted beneath his boots, faintly pliant, almost as though they were aware of him.

And then he heard it.
The faintest clacking. Wood against bone. Like the lullaby of a toy long broken, or—
Masks.

His breath hitched.

The Happy Mask Salesman’s laugh was never loud. Soft, coaxing, a lullaby bent wrong. ᴴᵉʰheh ʰᵉʰ heh ʰᵉʰ… It slithered down the corridor now, high and sharp, layered with a cheer that had nothing human beneath it.

The inn itself seemed to ripple around him. The walls bowed slightly, the lamps on the wall flickered green and trembled, and the paint peeled where it should have held firm. Link felt Termina again — the impossible moon, the painted smiles of false ceremony, the irrefutable sense of doom — and a force pressing at the edges of his vision, a mask unseen but upright.

He knew then why he was here.
The Salesman had followed.
Or perhaps—
He had led.

Somewhere beyond this little inn, this kingdom of coins and castles, the man searched for something. Something precious…

Link’s boots pressed against the boards; each step felt weighted.  The hall stretched longer than it should; the door ahead staying just out of reach. The hallway twisted.  The lamps flickered again, green and quivering, and he imagined for a heartbeat that the shadows themselves were breathing.

A shiver traced his spine. He went to reach for his sword — but it was not there.   Only his fists, trembling with the memory of battles he had fought across time and space, and the silent insistence that he was not meant to be here.

A staircase loomed to his left.  He climbed, slow, each step deliberate. The memory of Termina burned like a warning.  He had faced the moon itself; he had wrestled with masks that would not let him go. He did not yet know whether the danger here was absolute, but he did not doubt that it existed.

The door at the end of the hall appeared ordinary enough, painted a soft cream that should have been comforting. He pushed the door, and the room inside was… normal.

“You’ll be staying another night, then?”

Link exhaled slowly. He was not supposed to be here. He understood, without knowing exactly why: the dream had chosen him, and the town was aware of the intrusion.

He did not move from the window, though the distant chimes continued, faint but persistent. The Salesman was patient. And somewhere, beyond the streets, beyond the coins and castles, the purpose of this intrusion waited.

Link pressed his palms against the sill, heart thundering, mind spinning. Sleep had carried him here, but he had woken. And the town, alive in ways he could feel but not yet see, waited with him.

A small figure bounced into the room, bright red cap bobbing, vest a sharp blue against the cream walls. Link froze.

“Oi! Hey there!” the figure said, voice high and urgent. “Don’t just stand there gawking. Name’s Toad. And you, well, you look like trouble if I ever saw it.”

Link’s eyes narrowed. He did not answer immediately.

“Toad,” the little thing repeated, pointing at himself.  He hopped closer. “Just follow my lead, okay? Rules here are weird. Don’t touch anything shiny unless I say so. Don’t wander alone, it’s dangerous. Don’t — well, you’ll see. C’mon.  Follow me.”

Link left the inn with careful steps, boots sinking lightly into cobblestones that gleamed almost too perfectly. Each footfall seemed to disturb the town itself, as if the streets knew he did not belong.

Around a corner, he paused. From the open street behind him, eyes followed: curious, wary, unsettled. Whispers drifted, carried on the unnatural stillness that hung over the square. The townspeople were small, their features soft and rounded in comparison, almost as if he had stepped into a sketch of a world.  He cast a shadow taller than their heads, and their eyes darted away, unspoken questions dancing in the space between them.

His chest thrummed with the pull of the unseen. He had to ask.

“That… man,” he said quietly, voice low. “I hear him.”

Toad skidded to a halt and turned, arms flailing. “What man?"  Toad looked around, once, and then again.  "Don’t go whisperin’ things like that.  You’ll spook the town.”

Link pressed, ignoring the edge of alarm in the Toad’s voice. “The one… with the masks. The laugh."  Hehehehee.  "You heard it, too.”

Toad’s eyes widened, and the little mushroom’s usual brashness faltered for a heartbeat. Then he muttered, “Heh… yeah. That one. That man’s not well. Best not to get too close.”

Link frowned.

Toad hesitated, glancing toward the rooftops. Even in the clean perfection of the town, the shadows stretched unnaturally long and sharp, as though reaching for him. “He talks strange,” Toad said finally.  “Probably jus' passing through.”

Link processed this, stepping lightly, almost imperceptibly testing the ripple of reality beneath him. “Is he here?”

Toad’s gaze narrowed. “Who knows? Maybe. Maybe he’s following someone. Maybe he’s searching.”

“Searching.  For what?” Link asked, softer this time. His fingers curled loosely at his sides. He had not spoken much in Hyrule for weeks, had relied on silence and instincts, but the memory of Termina’s masks — the memory of the unseen — made his voice tremble just enough.

Toad glanced away, ears twitching. “That… that’s tricky to say.” He lowered his voice. “People talk. Say he has masks.  Powerful ones.”

Link’s jaw tightened. His own memories pressed against him: the hollow stares, the blind grins, the melting wax that clung to his skin. Something inside him stirred.  This town, this man — everything felt like a continuation of the nightmares he thought he’d left behind.

He closed his eyes, pressing his palms to his face, and willed himself awake.

Wake up. 
Wake up, Link.
Wake UP.

Nope.

In Hyrule, he had learned to push through visions, to anchor himself against illusions and shadow. He tried again, harder this time, summoning the tug of consciousness that usually ripped him from his dreams.

The town did not dissolve. Toad’s impatient tapping at his side seemed sharper now, louder.

Link’s teeth ground together. The faint rattling — the hint of laughter — brushed against his ears. He is here, the instinct whispered. Not a voice, not sound, just a certainty that pressed through the tightness in his chest.

And then — light, sudden and sharp, like the breath before a storm broke. He blinked. The streets blurred for a heartbeat, then resolved again. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had: the air felt thinner, the sunlight too direct, too bright, and Toad’s small form jittered more than usual beside him.

Link opened his eyes fully. He could not wake himself.  Frustration pressed at him, sharp as the edge of his blade. He had faced worse.  He inhaled, steadying his breath.

So I act, he decided.

If he could not wake, if the town would not dissolve around him, he would navigate it. The pull — whatever had drawn him here — would not wait, and neither could he.

Notes:

I don't usually do back-to-back chapters, but, the first one was so short. :)