Five years post a world war, the former sailor turned alcoholic PI Link Coutts and his snarky assistant Midna Dahl are tasked by Daphnes Nohansen with finding his missing daughter Zelda, whose disappearance comes following her auction win of an eerie, talking mirror piece. The mirror's strange powers and abilities to open portals to dark realms pits the three against adversaries looking to seize the mirror for their own twisted desires.
When he’d been drafted, nobody asked him if he knew how to swim or if he was any good with machinery. Link simply had all his limbs and a heartbeat, and he could nod on command. That was good enough. And thus, he was quickly reduced, like so many other young men, to his family name and a serial number, and then told, “Congrats, you’re submarine material!”
He turns to Zelda, feeling chilled from all the sweat now. “Can you help me up?” he asks her. “I can’t get my leg unstuck.”
She squeezes his hand. “Link, you’re not stuck. You don’t have a leg to get stuck."
Part 1 of Link and Midna's Investigative Services
6 January 1923
Complete
He just asks Zelda, “You want to play cards Saturday? You should make a deal though under the table with Ashei, or she’ll clean you out.”
“The sixth?”
“Whatever it is.”
“It’s Mikau’s week, right?”
“… You keep track of that?”
And on the sixth, Link forgets how close to fire he is playing. “Gods, you men are so stupid,” says Midna, unwittingly to the rescue. Partially. “Does no one listen to me?” Link would prefer they don't in this specific instance. Can he just get out of here without being interrogated? Midna’s making it very hard.
Part 2 of Link and Midna's Investigative Services
Legal's Trap
Complete
Zelda’s mother hates Link’s guts, but Link had thought he and the old man got along. With the chess board between them, Link is currently reconsidering this.
Link glowers at Nohansen. “Zelda gets that same stupid smirk when she thinks she’s got the upper hand,” Link tells him, which sets the old man off again in new bubbles of laughter.
When his laughter finally subsides enough, Nohansen asks him, “I take it, then, that you’re calling it?”
Link throws his hands up.
Zelda's mother hates Link's guts, but hey, at least the old man likes Link.
Part 3 of Link and Midna's Investigative Services
Waiting
Complete
Link spends his days waiting in the late summer of 1917. He’s got not much else going on, honestly. He can hobble his way down to the park and wait, or he could wait in a bread line, or he could wait at the flat for his next disability and maintenance checks to come. So yep, Link decides that he might as well go and wait somewhere scenic like the park.
Link looks over at Ravio, accusingly almost. “You know that I walk here, sit around for a long time, and yet you judge me for not having anything else to do?” He counters, “I could ask the same of you then.”
Ravio tilts his head to one side. “Ehh…” Ravio hesitates. He sucks on the cigarette. “It’s just a job,” he says vaguely. He looks over at Link and asks, “But hey, you do a lot of waiting yourself, don't you?”
Part 4 of Link and Midna's Investigative Services
Closed Sicilian
Complete
Midna Dahl gets the sense that she is on the precipice of something, feet hanging over the drop precariously. She just doesn't know what, but she can smell it.
"How do you even put up with him?” Midna admits, “It’s definitely not like I haven’t thought about dumping his body off in the river.”
Zelda smiles brightly and says, “Ah, I suppose it’s easy when you’ve known them since forever.”
And Midna just thinks Link and Zelda are frickin' weird. She’s not sure if it’s related to the big something though. “You’re being weird,” she accuses Zelda. Zelda doesn’t even blink when Midna storms by and whips the front door open. “I’m out,” she tells Zelda. As Zelda gives her a quiet “Okay, see you,” Midna snaps, dragging the door behind her, “I’ll figure it out!”
Midna does, but that doesn’t happen for about another year after Link starts coming back stupid late from his Monday talk therapy sessions. That annoys Midna to no end, because she’s over here starving.
Part 5 of Link and Midna's Investigative Services
Link and Zelda's Paranormal Investigations
Complete
It's two in the morning at the Stock Pot Inn, and for some reason Mr. Barten has the bar open. “I think I need to be somewhere else,” Link says at last, and he gets the feeling like he’s echoing that. Hasn’t he said that before? Gotten that feeling?
Stupid déjà vu. Didn’t he get rid of that?
Mr. Barten’s sympathetic expression is a hard slap though. “You always find your way back to her one way or another,” Mr. Barten assures him. He smiles a bit devilishly at Link, and Link can’t help but think there’s something sleekit about it. He doesn’t like it. “She can wait. Don’t you like whisky?” Mr. Barten asks. “You look like a whisky man.”
“As long as it’s without the ‘e’,” says Link.
“Oh, I would never serve you whiskey,” Mr. Barten promises. “I know what regions you like.” Whatever bizarre stupor Link’s in shatters at that, and Link numbly rises from his seat and steps back from the bar. He TOLD Zelda that this better not be some super spooky supernatural crap. Link's had enough of that to last a lifetime.
Part 6 of Link and Midna's Investigative Services
Coin-Operated
Complete
We elected a president and got an authoritarian. The president's voice crackles through the radio speakers as he makes his announcement: magic has been outlawed.
I’m a walking target so long as I have this wild magic. I am ruled by my fear. I keep my head bowed and hope that nobody notices me as each day passes, and so far my prayers have gone answered. This is the only thing left I have to be thankful for. The president’s motives are not mine to know, but what he wanted was clear, and he’s got it. I live in pure, unadulterated fear with my townsfolk, my co-workers, my neighbors. It’s all the same.
My only respite comes in the form of a mechanical man that's existed for centuries thanks to his magic, but releasing his soul is a daunting task. Especially when the mage that took his original body holds a prominent place in the government and swears Link Coutts killed Hylian Impressionism.
WILD GO
In Progress
They say the heat makes people crazy. Deep in an economic depression, the simmering civil unrest reaches a fever pitch on Summertide in Castleton when the Yiga cause a citywide blackout. When Link offers to accompany Zelda to check on her ailing father, he quickly finds he has more to worry about than the dark when rioters flood the streets and a killer takes advantage of the chaos to make a final sacrifice to the Old Gods.
Zelda gapes at the blackness beyond the window of Romani's. Suddenly it feels like she’s floating in some dark cloud, not high above a city that should be filled with the glow of lights and neon. Five minutes pass, then ten, then fifteen, but no sign of the lights coming back on. The quiet murmur begins to pick up to a light chatter and then to animated talking in the restaurant.
The first was Revali on Summertide. The next was Urbosa on Autumntide. Then on Wintertide was Daruk. Mipha was last on Springtide. Rusl wonders who might be so unlucky to face Calamity tonight. The fierce look in Mipha's little brother's eyes and the way they demanded that somebody DO SOMETHING haunt Rusl even in the waking hours.
It’s feminine. Link turns the dial just a bit more, and while still hard to hear and understand, her voice is clearer than before. “Good evening, friends! We are happy to see you…” There’s a long pause before the voice repeats the greeting again. “It’s a bit late, but if you’re still out there, and you see a crooked crown rolling down the road, don’t forget to give it a gentle push.”
I almost can’t breathe as the static takes over.
“Good evening, friends! We are happy to see you out and about… If you’re out late and come across a stack that’s getting too high, it’s time to flip it. Don’t let them just burn. You should share it with your neighbors.”
