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On the afternoon of the final day, the Milk Bar is empty.
Madame Aroma won’t arrive for another few hours. In twenty minutes, one of the members of the town guard will show up, but he won’t stay long. He’ll order one of the special drinks that Mister Barten won’t let Link try, chug it all in one big gulp, and then lay his head down on the counter to weep quietly for four and a half minutes. When he’s finished crying, he’ll ask for a shot of something off the top shelf—surprise him, just this once. Then, after his last drink, he’ll shake Mister Barten’s hand, put his helmet back on, and leave.
Unlike some of the other guards, he won’t abandon his post. When the moon falls and swallows the world, he’ll bear witness to the end from his station at the town entrance.
Right now, Link and Tatl are the only customers. Link reaches out to steady his glass of milk as another quake rumbles through the bar, rattling the shelves and bottles and sending the phonograph skipping. Mister Barten, in the middle of sweeping the stage for the third time today, freezes while the building trembles. When it finally passes, he goes back to cleaning like nothing’s happened.
The phonograph resumes its song a moment later, some soft piano music instead of the usual Indigo-Go’s album, which Link is grateful for. Other than the rhythmic swishing of the broom, it’s the only sound in the bar. Mister Barten isn’t as talkative as usual, and Link hasn’t been able to figure out if it’s because it’s the final day or if it’s because Link won’t talk himself. Either way, it’s quiet. The nice kind of quiet too, unlike the Stock Pot Inn, which gets creepy after Anju and her family evacuate. Even with everyone gone, the floorboards don’t stop creaking.
As far as Link’s options go, the bar is a good place for thinking and planning. That’s the most important thing left for him to do.
Or at least, that’s what Link thinks. Tatl has other ideas.
“Are you going to squeeze in an afternoon nap or what?” She buzzes around him like an insect. Link’s adrenaline from the battle against Twinmold had worn off by the time they got back to Clock Town, but Tatl always takes longer to settle after a fight. She lands on the counter to take a small sip of her Chateau Romani, kindly poured into the smallest shot glass in the bar by Mister Barten, and then flies a few more laps around his head. “If you don’t go to bed soon, you won’t be rested before we have to reset everything, and I know you’ll stay up with Romani instead of sleeping the next night. I do not want to rescue my brother while you’re in one of your moods.”
Link waves a hand out in front of him to stop her circling. He gives her a pointed look, then taps the end of his pencil against his bomber’s notebook twice. It’s open to some of his records of the first day, the pages near illegible now with how much information he’s crammed on them. That’s why he’s got a few clean sheets of paper ripped out and put to the side. If this really is the final reset, he can’t afford to waste time with indecision.
“Huh?” Tatl says. She floats above the notebook to examine it, washing out the pages in her golden light. She makes an annoyed chiming noise. “What are you getting at now? There can’t be anything else to add here. You’ve stalked everyone in Termina long enough already.”
Link shakes his head and holds out his hand. Tatl huffs but doesn’t hesitate to flutter over to his palm, her magic tickling at his skin like sparks from a light arrow. He lifts her up, and she hops from his hand to sit on his shoulder. His posture relaxes as soon as she settles on him, the warm buzz of her magic loosening up muscles he didn’t know were tense as it trickles down his chest and spine. An ache he hadn’t noticed at the back of his shoulder disappears. It still feels a little weird sometimes, having her nestled in the crook of his neck. The first time her wing had brushed against the side of his neck, he’d almost hit her on reflex, and she didn’t talk to him for the whole day after. Navi had always preferred to perch on top of his head.
On one of the clean pages, Link lists out all the hours, from six o’clock to five o’clock the next morning. He repeats this on the next page. For the last one, he adds an extra hour at the end and draws the moon and its hungry maw. Next, he circles Romani’s name in his notebook. On his new timetable, he writes Help Romani in the slots from two to five in the morning.
He knows Tatl understands because he feels her go stock-still, and then she huddles closer to him. Even so, he flips through all his records, over two dozen pages, for emphasis. Some of the notes are about the temples—he hadn’t finished the Snowhead or Great Bay temple on the first attempt—but even excluding those, it’s too much. There’s just too much to do in one cycle.
Tatl doesn’t speak. Link sees Pamela’s name on the new page and circles it like he’d done for Romani. But when he goes to write her name in his timetable, he pauses. He and Tatl have restored the flow of the Ikana creek and healed Pamela’s father three times: once very late into the night of the second day, once in the morning of the first day, and once more in the evening of the first day. From what Link can tell, Pamela doesn’t sleep well when her father is cursed, and that means Link can help her at any time.
Pamela needs her father. He knows that, even if he doesn’t fully understand it. She’s young and scared and alone, and Link shouldn’t make her wait. When he looks at the blank time slots of the first day though, all he can see is dozens of other problems he has to fix. If he’s going to reunite Anju and Kafei, he needs to spend the afternoon in Clock Town so he can talk to Anju. And while he’s in town, it only makes sense for him to help the Great Fairy and solve the argument in the mayor’s office. He should free at least one of the Giants on that first day too—he can make his way through the temples pretty quickly now, but he can’t rush the battles against the great beasts holding the Giants captive. Potions and fairies don’t work as well when he gets too sleep-deprived. He’s learned the hard way that one little mistake in those fights can cost him hours in recuperation time.
His hand holding the pencil is frozen above the paper. Link stares at the blank pages.
He feels Tatl release a tiny, quivering breath. Her wings flutter against him a few times as she leans forward. “Okay. We’re not going back to the Stone Tower on the first day. I need a break from that horrible place, and you need to get at least some sleep before going there again. You can take a nap in Romani’s bed, or in Epona’s stall since you’re a little freak, after defending the ranch. We’ll go to Ikana and free the Giant and Pamela’s dad afterwards. Got it?”
Link nods and picks up the pencil. He gives himself two hours to sleep, then blocks off the rest of the morning for healing Ikana.
Tatl lets out a little ringing noise in approval. “So, we’re going through the whole ordeal of getting Anju and Kafei back together, right?” He nods again. “Okay, then write Anju’s name in the two and eleven thirty times slots.” He does. “We need to go to the ranch and talk to Romani at some point during the day. Let’s do that at five so we can stay for dinner. We can go to the cucoo shack while we’re there too. Helping Grog always makes you smile.”
Link puts down the pencil. Before Tatl can scold him, he cups his hands around her small form, ducks his head, and pulls her in as close as he can. Tatl squirms a bit, but then she loops her arms around his thumb and squeezes. He trembles, and he’s thankful that she doesn’t mention it, doesn’t say anything at all.
She lets him hold her like that for a minute before she starts pushing him away. “Move your hand, would ya? I can’t read anything like this.”
Link lets her go and picks up the pencil again. The ground shakes. The bottles clink, the song skips, the sweeping stops.
The tremors end, and everyone breathes out.
Tatl pats his shoulder. It feels like raindrops. “Okay, let’s finish filling in the first day. You ready?”
When Link nods, it’s the truth.
“Good. We’ve got this.”
Link believes her.