CHAPTER 37: THE CURSE
Wind tore at Link's face. Tension gripped his muscles. Courage reigned in his soul.
Many thoughts blasted through Link's mind in his greatest hour of peril, but he would not surrender himself to hysteria. True it was that he plummeted through the sky, passing through the thick layers of clouds that separated his world from the one above, but his first thoughts were of how he might possibly survive this lethal dive, if he would be able to wrench the Mirror Shard free in time, and if Midna was all right.
Just then, the gusts wrestled Link's cap free from his head, and it went sailing away. He cast his gaze back to follow its trajectory, but it would be impossible to regain it…. That was when a little imp's face plowed straight into it, and she flailed her arms, screaming for her sight to return. When she removed the hat she nearly tossed it away, but once she realized that it was Link's she looked down and their eyes met.
Link descended through the currents with the dragon as his buffer against the true force of the winds, his hair now flapping wildly about his face and curling around his ears. "Midna!" he called back, and the little imp flicked his hat into the dimension of her magic and flattened her arms to her sides, speeding her way through the few meters between them. Once she was able to grasp a section of the armor that Link had not torn away, he screamed so that she could hear, but she could only make out a few words. "Get … my sha…!"
Understanding that he wanted her to retreat into shadow, she shook her head. "I'll try to slow its fall!" she shot back. She was not sure how much Link had been able to make out, but he did not protest even though he most certainly looked noncompliant. Instead of forcing her into his shade, he scooped her up with one arm and tucked her between his body and that of the dragon. She knew that this was because knew that her tiny fingers would not be able to hold on for too long.
As Link then worked to free the mirror, their speed finally breaking them through the barrier of clouds, Midna dug deep within herself, concentrating hard. The strain alone made her body quake, and she could feel the thundering beat of Link's heart against his chest.
Once she had conjured a fluttering blanket of twilight magic beneath the beast, its descent slowed, but they were still dropping way too fast. The sudden decrease in speed made the tail behind them flail like a loose tentacle of hair, and it whipped around to smack Link in the cheek. The blow caught him unawares and he nearly toppled off the beast. Though, he had not careened over the side, his dagger jostled free of his palm and it was sent flying off. Slightly disoriented from the strike to his face, Link held fast to the armor and scales of his dragon lifeboat.
Sweat poured from Midna's brow as she groaned to stay in control of her magicks, and Link tossed a glance over the dragon to realize their destination would be Lake Hylia. If they were lucky, they would land in the water, but even at this velocity they would certainly die at the touch of the crystal blue surface.
Their descent continued. Rapidly. Midna's strength was failing. The dragon and they were just too heavy and too fast.
"Midna!" shouted Link, as he noticed that they were very close now to the lake. He could make out dips and curves of the landscape now.
As they fell closer and closer still, Midna released her magical hold on the dragon and huffed a deep breath. She looked up at Link. It was not fear that Link saw within her red eye. It was hope, and rightly so, for it was then--just a few miles above impact--that she wrenched Link from his seat and held him close. In that moment she created a magical shield around them, closing her eyes and using every ounce of what strength was left within her. Link wrapped his arms tight around her, pulling his legs in, hoping beyond all hope that Midna had the strength--the courage--to conquer the forces of nature.
They heard a booming splash and felt the water pelt against them from the crash of the dragon.
Barely a second afterward, they felt a jarring jolt and then water pressed in on them from all sides, crushing them. The force of the water had pushed them apart, and when they again opened their eyes, they realized that they had indeed survived the fall, and luckily the tension had forced them to hold their breath. But neither could find the other.
Midna swam through the water, but the dark of night above made it impossible to see which way was up, let alone allow her to search for Link. She was forced to abandon her helpless search when her lungs begged for breath. She looked for some sign, any sign, to gather her bearings, and what looked like the moon guided her way up through the water.
Thankfully, she had not been led astray and within many long moments she broke through the surface and gulped a heavy and loud breath of fresh air. Once her lungs had been restored and her mind refocused after its lack of oxygen, she looked about frantically. "Link!"
No voice echoed hers, for deep, deep below the surface of the water, Link had landed softly against the deepest, darkest reach where the entrance to the lakebed temple rested. He had only momentarily lost consciousness, and in the seconds it took him to shake his head loose from its daze, he realized the danger in which he still found himself.
It was cold. It was dark. He could barely see, he could not breathe, and his foot was caught in something.
Link could not wiggle his foot free, so he grasped his ankle and discovered that the slimy vegetation that grew within the depths of lakes and oceans had coiled around his foot. Unable to wrestle free even with the aid of his slipping fingers, he called forth his only dagger remaining and sliced through his bindings.
He knew which way was up because he had been caught by the seafloor's web; that, and he strained his eyes in the frigid dark and called for the vision of his lupine entity. However, even with these devices and his hungering and absolute need for air, he did not yet ascend.
Something near him glimmered and caught his attention.
He realized that the dragon had come to a halt close to him, and he quickly swam over to it. He slithered between its wings and found--beyond all possibility--that the Mirror Shard still lingered in one piece. Amazed at the power of this seemingly frail glass, Link pried it away with his dagger and held it close as he pushed off from the dragon and made his way up to the surface. Already, though, his lungs suffered and buckled, forcing bubbles of toxic carbon dioxide from his lips.
Midna, who had now retreated to a shore nearby, searched the surface of the water unblinkingly. Just as the deepest trepidation crossed her face, a moment she would never reveal to Link--he popped up and gasped deeply near the middle of the lake. She called over to him, and he turned to see her waving arms. Relieved that she, too, had survived the fall, Link made his way slowly over to her, his muscles and his lungs trying desperately to keep up.
He swam only with the strokes of one arm, which confused his imp companion … until he reached the shore and plopped the Mirror Shard down on the grass beside her. Her breath caught as Link pulled himself up and curled onto his side next to it.
"Link, you did it!" Midna picked up the shard and examined it. "It looks like we now have all of the pieces." When he did not answer, she looked down at him, "Hey … Link."
Link clutched his chest and head as his breath came unevenly.
Midna understood his pain, for she still felt daze and slightly sick from their descent and ascent as well. "We really shouldn't make a habit of flying and diving in the same day, huh?" she joked as she stored the shard with her magic. "I'm sure the spirit can help. Plus, you have quite a nasty cut on your face."
Link managed to look up, realizing that he had come to shore just outside the spirit spring entrance. He only had to make it inside and the spirit would be able to banish this horrible, tingling feeling running the length of his bones.
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Inside the spring Link and Midna now laid enwrapped by the warm light of Lanayru as it watched over the pair. Midna sat at the edge and Link had collapsed on the grassy floor. The light no longer bothered Midna, for the life-force of the princess lived within her.
"The words of the sages…. Do you remember them, Link?"
He cast his glance toward her and realized that all three of the fragments that they had recovered now hovered before her as she looked at her broken reflection. It seemed that a different face peered back out at her.
"Only the true ruler of the Twili can destroy the Mirror of Twilight," she recalled, her voice thick with the memory of some dark past. "Zant could only break the mirror into shards. He couldn't utterly shatter it. That's proof of his false kingship." Link could not see Midna's face clearly, for she sat with her back to him mostly, but he could see in her reflection how her lip curled in anger and disgust. "A fake is a fake. No matter how much you dress it up."
Now more than ever Link could feel her fury and sadness, and now he was so very sure that her hatred from Zant went far beyond his banishing her to the light realm and beyond his treasonous claim to the twilit throne. Her rage seemed to come from somewhere deep within, and Link thought perhaps that the royals who had reigned over the Twilight Realm had held a deep place within Midna's heart. Perhaps Midna had been in the midst of saving them when Zant had cast her aside. Possibly, it was this that had driven Midna all this time … the need to fulfill some oath of protecting her sovereign and the people.
But she said nothing more in the silence that ensued, and the companions bathed wordlessly under the warm and caring embrace of light.
Soon … they would embark into the Twilight.
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They had slept the night in Lanayru's spring, and the next morning Link had gone for a quick bath in the lake, during which he took the opportunity to tend to the bandages still tight around his shoulder. The light of the spirit had washed away all injury, and he discarded the wraps, thankful that he could move his right arm without any further discomfort. With his stomach lurching for food, he fished in the waters by hand, keeping to the shallows along the shore. After his meal he quickly refilled the waterskin that had been tied at his waist. He knew from experience that the desert crossing would take at least two days. When Midna returned his hat, she had suggested the use of a horse this time, but Link refused to leave his horse in the desert wastes alone while he and his imp friend trekked off into the other realm.
The journey back through the northwestern pass was a silent one, and even as they began their journey through the sand sea, neither of them spoke. There was nothing left to be said. They were finally going through the Mirror of Twilight; they could not foresee any more delays.
Link rationed his water carefully, for he would also need water for the journey back to Hyrule once they dealt with the usurper and the King of Evil. His thoughts rested on the battles to come as he trekked across the harsh dunes, realizing that his quest would soon be at its end … whether ending in victory or death, Link did not know. No matter the cost, he would fight to whatever end would greet his path.
===============
By the time night fell on their second day in the desert, Link and Midna had once again returned to the Arbiter's Grounds and were pleased to discover that there were no sentries to greet them this time around.
They made their way once more through the prison, taking the easier, less treacherous path that they had found when they had exited the last time. Within hours, they had again come to the circular room whose walls rotated to open the final path upward. Climbing up the stairs, the companions braced themselves for what was about to unfold.
Standing before the dais once more, Link looked to his partner. Her eye seemed hollow, the anger from before having simmered to a calm rage that pulsed through her veins, almost as if she were numb to the feeling now. Slowly, Link stepped up the stairs behind Midna's hovering body. From out of her magic's incomprehensible dimension, she called forth the three Mirror Shards, and for a moment she let them hang there. Then, in an instant, her magic bubbled around them and they carefully floated into their proper places; a bright, pure white light shone out from the cracks and fused them together.
At last, the Mirror of Twilight was again whole.
Midna coasted to the Mirror's side, and with one outstretched arm, Link realized that it was she who made the chains around the large black stone in the sand before them shine with the same bright light. Their full length--their ends connected to the reigning spires--hummed and glimmered with the strange light, and before Link's very eyes they turned to white sand.
Then the imp turned her power to the Mirror itself, and with one touch its surface glistened with new life, the symbols etched into its face shining brightly and casting a dull reflection on the rock before it. Midna tilted the Mirror slightly, and as she did so the carvings seemed to jump off its surface; Link realized, however, that these were just mirror images of the symbols, a Trifroce symbol delicately carved at the center and brilliantly lighting up the night air as it passed through the center of the other markings and lines encircling it to reflect a much larger version of the Mirror's face on the stone a distance away.
Then strange shapes appeared and decorated the full length of the black slab, much like the luminescent green stripes colored the imp. Stranger still was the sudden shifting of the mirror images, as the lines and circles deepened and turned counterclockwise then clockwise, switching off in their rotating pattern with each successive circle until … they seemed to create a three-dimensional tunnel through the rock.
Link was still at a loss for words when Midna spoke. "Some call our realm a world of shadows, but that makes it sound unpleasant…. The twilight there holds a serene beauty," she said, as Link turned to her. He saw only what looked like sadness, misery, in her countenance. "You have seen it yourself as the sun sets on this world."
Midna's words stirred something within him, a memory from long ago when he and Rusl had sat at the spring admiring the setting sun.
"Bathed in that light, all people were pure and gentle…." continued Midna, and Link turned his gaze back to the light of that now emanated from the rock. She was staring blankly into its depths, as if trying to remember a time when evil had been contained only within storybooks and old legends. He could hear and feel the numb anger in her throat when she next spoke. "But things changed once that foul power pervaded the world."
Link looked back to her, saw how her gaze had still not shifted, and he noticed how her eye very slightly narrowed … the only visible trace of her outrage.
"It was all our doing…." the hollow yet humming voices of the sages called.
Midna's eye popped in surprise, and she and Link turned to give them audience.
There the collective stood, behind the stone steps of the dais, in a line of orange, violet, red, green, and gold. "We overestimated our abilities as sages and attempted to put an end to Ganondorf's evil magic." A strange vibration then entered into the godlike speech. "We hope you can find it in yourself to forgive our carelessness…." They bowed.
"O Twilight Princess…."
Link's breath caught, and he looked toward Midna, taking an involuntary step backward. His imp companion now slouched, hands held sheepishly behind her back and her face downcast. How could it be that his partner had been the very ruler of the Twilight Realm?
Twilight Princess? It was the same title that Midna had bestowed upon Princess Zelda. Only now did Link realize that the imp had been mocking her, mocking her because the Hyrulean princess had allowed her fine kingdom to be engulfed by it when Midna had had no choice in her circumstance.
Twilight Princess…. It can't be. She couldn't possibly….
"So…. You knew," was all Midna said at first, and it confirmed any lingering doubt within the Hylian hero. Her face took on its most pitiful expression that Link had ever known. "As a ruler who fled her people," she said, "I am hardly qualified to forgive you."
Link stumbled over her words. "Fled?" He regained the step he had lost, trying to meet her gaze, but she would not look at him. "You told me you had been banished."
"…I lied," came her quiet reply.
"But-- Why?"
Still without the courage to meet his gaze, she held out a hand and pressed her fingers to his forehead. Suddenly, he was in a world of complete darkness. His vision was blurred, but he could make out the figure slowly approaching him.
Zant.
Link was suddenly the most terrified he had been in his existence. He stretched out a feeble hand as if to beg the usurper to stop, but something was wrong. His fingers were blue and feminine, and a decorative black sleeve with luminescent green designs covered his skin. Link took steps backward, his bare feet slapping against the ground as Zant's boots clanked in their wake.
Zant waved his hand and a powerful force struck him. A high-pitched gasp escaped him as he toppled to the ground, and as he tried to push himself back up, his eyes popped in shock. Blackness had infected his hands, his entire body.
Next, all he could feel was how tired his small feet were, and he collapsed to his knees. There at the precipice of nothing, he wanted to scream, to cry … to get revenge. From somewhere deep inside, he felt a power rise within him, and within moments the Fused Shadow that had made up Midna's headdress appeared hovering above his splayed fingers. Its broken stone eye glared into his soul.
A spiteful, vengeful smile overtook his lips, contorting his face grotesquely. All he knew in that moment was the most hate-filled rage that made his nerves twitch with excitement. Nothing else mattered than enacting his revenge on the usurper king and regaining the trust of his people.
Just then he saw another splash of images. He could see himself. It was the day he had first been pulled into the twilight. He saw his struggle with the shadow beast, and then came the shape-shifting of his body. How … wonderful … it looked. As he spied his lupine body being carried off all he could do was smile his sinister smile as his fingers balled into a triumphant fist.
In a flash Link was again with the Mirror Chamber, but no longer did he feel those strange emotions. The sudden change stole the breath from him, and as he regained his senses, he realized that what he had just seen….
They were Midna's memories.
"What Zant did to me…" she said, her voice barely audible, "…it was worse than death. He took … everything that I was, and he … reduced me to this." She looked at her alien hands. "A small imp with no power to stop him. He took the land of my father, took my birthright. But worst of all … he stole my pride." Midna tried to blink away the memory of her former, selfish person. "Back then, the shame of being outcast, that I didn't have the strength to defeat Zant and that he could just walk in and take everything…. It was worse than any pain. But now…." She could not find the words to express herself and shook the thoughts loose.
"In our world, we've long believed that the Hero would appear as a divine beast," explained Midna, and Link looked to her, soaking in everything that she said. The exact truth of all that she had ever kept from him. "That's why when I found you, I thought I could use you, Link." He realized then just how much his companion had indeed changed over the course of their partnership. "And I only cared about myself and returning our world to normal…. I didn't care what happened to the world of light. Not at all."
Link cast his gaze downward then, digesting everything that Midna had revealed to him. It was no wonder, as the proud creature she was, that she had never intended to tell him any of this.
"But after witnessing the selfless lengths that Princess Zelda and you have gone to … your sacrifices…." Link gazed up at Midna then, and he could hear how her voice choked. She still could not bear to look at her partner. Her figure was silhouetted beautifully against the light of the Mirror, and the green of her skin shined more brightly than ever before. She was beautiful and she showed true courage in confessing her sins. "I now know, in the bottom of my heart," she said, "that I must save this world, too. There is no other way."
Life seemed to return to her with this proclamation, and she turned to Link, not with sadness, but with absolute resolve. "If we can just defeat Zant, the curse on me will dissolve, and we may be able to revive Zelda."
In those moments Link began to realize how she had been so one-sided in the beginning. Not only had she wanted revenge against Zant and to reclaim her throne and the love of her people, but she also wanted the one thing that Link had always craved when he had been forced to take on the form of the divine wolf. Freedom from destiny. Freedom from a terrible curse.
"We have to do this! For Zelda. For all of this world!"
Link did something then that Midna had not expected, something that she could not have even begged of him at this point after revealing her deepest truths … her deepest sins and guilt.
He smiled.
"I made you a promise," he said. "Wherever it is you go…."
A genuine, caring smile lit Midna's lips then, one that Link had never before seen.
The sages bowed and faded into nothingness.
Link then nodded his partner toward the rock, and she led him to the glimmering stone tiles that had also brightened at the Mirror's awakening. Once his toes met the surface, a bridge of white stairs grew out from the stones, providing a path much like the magical stairs of the Temple of Time. Slowly, Link made his way up each stair, Midna remaining at his side.
They reached the top of the staircase, which ended in a circular platform with many of the designs like that of the Mirror and now the stone slab before them. His feet stood over a Triforce symbol, and just as he was about to question Midna as to how they were to enter the doorway before them, the mystical force of the gateway pulled at his body. He and Midna melted away bit by bit into black speckles and were cast into the realm of shadows.
Many thoughts blasted through Link's mind in his greatest hour of peril, but he would not surrender himself to hysteria. True it was that he plummeted through the sky, passing through the thick layers of clouds that separated his world from the one above, but his first thoughts were of how he might possibly survive this lethal dive, if he would be able to wrench the Mirror Shard free in time, and if Midna was all right.
Just then, the gusts wrestled Link's cap free from his head, and it went sailing away. He cast his gaze back to follow its trajectory, but it would be impossible to regain it…. That was when a little imp's face plowed straight into it, and she flailed her arms, screaming for her sight to return. When she removed the hat she nearly tossed it away, but once she realized that it was Link's she looked down and their eyes met.
Link descended through the currents with the dragon as his buffer against the true force of the winds, his hair now flapping wildly about his face and curling around his ears. "Midna!" he called back, and the little imp flicked his hat into the dimension of her magic and flattened her arms to her sides, speeding her way through the few meters between them. Once she was able to grasp a section of the armor that Link had not torn away, he screamed so that she could hear, but she could only make out a few words. "Get … my sha…!"
Understanding that he wanted her to retreat into shadow, she shook her head. "I'll try to slow its fall!" she shot back. She was not sure how much Link had been able to make out, but he did not protest even though he most certainly looked noncompliant. Instead of forcing her into his shade, he scooped her up with one arm and tucked her between his body and that of the dragon. She knew that this was because knew that her tiny fingers would not be able to hold on for too long.
As Link then worked to free the mirror, their speed finally breaking them through the barrier of clouds, Midna dug deep within herself, concentrating hard. The strain alone made her body quake, and she could feel the thundering beat of Link's heart against his chest.
Once she had conjured a fluttering blanket of twilight magic beneath the beast, its descent slowed, but they were still dropping way too fast. The sudden decrease in speed made the tail behind them flail like a loose tentacle of hair, and it whipped around to smack Link in the cheek. The blow caught him unawares and he nearly toppled off the beast. Though, he had not careened over the side, his dagger jostled free of his palm and it was sent flying off. Slightly disoriented from the strike to his face, Link held fast to the armor and scales of his dragon lifeboat.
Sweat poured from Midna's brow as she groaned to stay in control of her magicks, and Link tossed a glance over the dragon to realize their destination would be Lake Hylia. If they were lucky, they would land in the water, but even at this velocity they would certainly die at the touch of the crystal blue surface.
Their descent continued. Rapidly. Midna's strength was failing. The dragon and they were just too heavy and too fast.
"Midna!" shouted Link, as he noticed that they were very close now to the lake. He could make out dips and curves of the landscape now.
As they fell closer and closer still, Midna released her magical hold on the dragon and huffed a deep breath. She looked up at Link. It was not fear that Link saw within her red eye. It was hope, and rightly so, for it was then--just a few miles above impact--that she wrenched Link from his seat and held him close. In that moment she created a magical shield around them, closing her eyes and using every ounce of what strength was left within her. Link wrapped his arms tight around her, pulling his legs in, hoping beyond all hope that Midna had the strength--the courage--to conquer the forces of nature.
They heard a booming splash and felt the water pelt against them from the crash of the dragon.
Barely a second afterward, they felt a jarring jolt and then water pressed in on them from all sides, crushing them. The force of the water had pushed them apart, and when they again opened their eyes, they realized that they had indeed survived the fall, and luckily the tension had forced them to hold their breath. But neither could find the other.
Midna swam through the water, but the dark of night above made it impossible to see which way was up, let alone allow her to search for Link. She was forced to abandon her helpless search when her lungs begged for breath. She looked for some sign, any sign, to gather her bearings, and what looked like the moon guided her way up through the water.
Thankfully, she had not been led astray and within many long moments she broke through the surface and gulped a heavy and loud breath of fresh air. Once her lungs had been restored and her mind refocused after its lack of oxygen, she looked about frantically. "Link!"
No voice echoed hers, for deep, deep below the surface of the water, Link had landed softly against the deepest, darkest reach where the entrance to the lakebed temple rested. He had only momentarily lost consciousness, and in the seconds it took him to shake his head loose from its daze, he realized the danger in which he still found himself.
It was cold. It was dark. He could barely see, he could not breathe, and his foot was caught in something.
Link could not wiggle his foot free, so he grasped his ankle and discovered that the slimy vegetation that grew within the depths of lakes and oceans had coiled around his foot. Unable to wrestle free even with the aid of his slipping fingers, he called forth his only dagger remaining and sliced through his bindings.
He knew which way was up because he had been caught by the seafloor's web; that, and he strained his eyes in the frigid dark and called for the vision of his lupine entity. However, even with these devices and his hungering and absolute need for air, he did not yet ascend.
Something near him glimmered and caught his attention.
He realized that the dragon had come to a halt close to him, and he quickly swam over to it. He slithered between its wings and found--beyond all possibility--that the Mirror Shard still lingered in one piece. Amazed at the power of this seemingly frail glass, Link pried it away with his dagger and held it close as he pushed off from the dragon and made his way up to the surface. Already, though, his lungs suffered and buckled, forcing bubbles of toxic carbon dioxide from his lips.
Midna, who had now retreated to a shore nearby, searched the surface of the water unblinkingly. Just as the deepest trepidation crossed her face, a moment she would never reveal to Link--he popped up and gasped deeply near the middle of the lake. She called over to him, and he turned to see her waving arms. Relieved that she, too, had survived the fall, Link made his way slowly over to her, his muscles and his lungs trying desperately to keep up.
He swam only with the strokes of one arm, which confused his imp companion … until he reached the shore and plopped the Mirror Shard down on the grass beside her. Her breath caught as Link pulled himself up and curled onto his side next to it.
"Link, you did it!" Midna picked up the shard and examined it. "It looks like we now have all of the pieces." When he did not answer, she looked down at him, "Hey … Link."
Link clutched his chest and head as his breath came unevenly.
Midna understood his pain, for she still felt daze and slightly sick from their descent and ascent as well. "We really shouldn't make a habit of flying and diving in the same day, huh?" she joked as she stored the shard with her magic. "I'm sure the spirit can help. Plus, you have quite a nasty cut on your face."
Link managed to look up, realizing that he had come to shore just outside the spirit spring entrance. He only had to make it inside and the spirit would be able to banish this horrible, tingling feeling running the length of his bones.
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Inside the spring Link and Midna now laid enwrapped by the warm light of Lanayru as it watched over the pair. Midna sat at the edge and Link had collapsed on the grassy floor. The light no longer bothered Midna, for the life-force of the princess lived within her.
"The words of the sages…. Do you remember them, Link?"
He cast his glance toward her and realized that all three of the fragments that they had recovered now hovered before her as she looked at her broken reflection. It seemed that a different face peered back out at her.
"Only the true ruler of the Twili can destroy the Mirror of Twilight," she recalled, her voice thick with the memory of some dark past. "Zant could only break the mirror into shards. He couldn't utterly shatter it. That's proof of his false kingship." Link could not see Midna's face clearly, for she sat with her back to him mostly, but he could see in her reflection how her lip curled in anger and disgust. "A fake is a fake. No matter how much you dress it up."
Now more than ever Link could feel her fury and sadness, and now he was so very sure that her hatred from Zant went far beyond his banishing her to the light realm and beyond his treasonous claim to the twilit throne. Her rage seemed to come from somewhere deep within, and Link thought perhaps that the royals who had reigned over the Twilight Realm had held a deep place within Midna's heart. Perhaps Midna had been in the midst of saving them when Zant had cast her aside. Possibly, it was this that had driven Midna all this time … the need to fulfill some oath of protecting her sovereign and the people.
But she said nothing more in the silence that ensued, and the companions bathed wordlessly under the warm and caring embrace of light.
Soon … they would embark into the Twilight.
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They had slept the night in Lanayru's spring, and the next morning Link had gone for a quick bath in the lake, during which he took the opportunity to tend to the bandages still tight around his shoulder. The light of the spirit had washed away all injury, and he discarded the wraps, thankful that he could move his right arm without any further discomfort. With his stomach lurching for food, he fished in the waters by hand, keeping to the shallows along the shore. After his meal he quickly refilled the waterskin that had been tied at his waist. He knew from experience that the desert crossing would take at least two days. When Midna returned his hat, she had suggested the use of a horse this time, but Link refused to leave his horse in the desert wastes alone while he and his imp friend trekked off into the other realm.
The journey back through the northwestern pass was a silent one, and even as they began their journey through the sand sea, neither of them spoke. There was nothing left to be said. They were finally going through the Mirror of Twilight; they could not foresee any more delays.
Link rationed his water carefully, for he would also need water for the journey back to Hyrule once they dealt with the usurper and the King of Evil. His thoughts rested on the battles to come as he trekked across the harsh dunes, realizing that his quest would soon be at its end … whether ending in victory or death, Link did not know. No matter the cost, he would fight to whatever end would greet his path.
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By the time night fell on their second day in the desert, Link and Midna had once again returned to the Arbiter's Grounds and were pleased to discover that there were no sentries to greet them this time around.
They made their way once more through the prison, taking the easier, less treacherous path that they had found when they had exited the last time. Within hours, they had again come to the circular room whose walls rotated to open the final path upward. Climbing up the stairs, the companions braced themselves for what was about to unfold.
Standing before the dais once more, Link looked to his partner. Her eye seemed hollow, the anger from before having simmered to a calm rage that pulsed through her veins, almost as if she were numb to the feeling now. Slowly, Link stepped up the stairs behind Midna's hovering body. From out of her magic's incomprehensible dimension, she called forth the three Mirror Shards, and for a moment she let them hang there. Then, in an instant, her magic bubbled around them and they carefully floated into their proper places; a bright, pure white light shone out from the cracks and fused them together.
At last, the Mirror of Twilight was again whole.
Midna coasted to the Mirror's side, and with one outstretched arm, Link realized that it was she who made the chains around the large black stone in the sand before them shine with the same bright light. Their full length--their ends connected to the reigning spires--hummed and glimmered with the strange light, and before Link's very eyes they turned to white sand.
Then the imp turned her power to the Mirror itself, and with one touch its surface glistened with new life, the symbols etched into its face shining brightly and casting a dull reflection on the rock before it. Midna tilted the Mirror slightly, and as she did so the carvings seemed to jump off its surface; Link realized, however, that these were just mirror images of the symbols, a Trifroce symbol delicately carved at the center and brilliantly lighting up the night air as it passed through the center of the other markings and lines encircling it to reflect a much larger version of the Mirror's face on the stone a distance away.
Then strange shapes appeared and decorated the full length of the black slab, much like the luminescent green stripes colored the imp. Stranger still was the sudden shifting of the mirror images, as the lines and circles deepened and turned counterclockwise then clockwise, switching off in their rotating pattern with each successive circle until … they seemed to create a three-dimensional tunnel through the rock.
Link was still at a loss for words when Midna spoke. "Some call our realm a world of shadows, but that makes it sound unpleasant…. The twilight there holds a serene beauty," she said, as Link turned to her. He saw only what looked like sadness, misery, in her countenance. "You have seen it yourself as the sun sets on this world."
Midna's words stirred something within him, a memory from long ago when he and Rusl had sat at the spring admiring the setting sun.
"Bathed in that light, all people were pure and gentle…." continued Midna, and Link turned his gaze back to the light of that now emanated from the rock. She was staring blankly into its depths, as if trying to remember a time when evil had been contained only within storybooks and old legends. He could hear and feel the numb anger in her throat when she next spoke. "But things changed once that foul power pervaded the world."
Link looked back to her, saw how her gaze had still not shifted, and he noticed how her eye very slightly narrowed … the only visible trace of her outrage.
"It was all our doing…." the hollow yet humming voices of the sages called.
Midna's eye popped in surprise, and she and Link turned to give them audience.
There the collective stood, behind the stone steps of the dais, in a line of orange, violet, red, green, and gold. "We overestimated our abilities as sages and attempted to put an end to Ganondorf's evil magic." A strange vibration then entered into the godlike speech. "We hope you can find it in yourself to forgive our carelessness…." They bowed.
"O Twilight Princess…."
Link's breath caught, and he looked toward Midna, taking an involuntary step backward. His imp companion now slouched, hands held sheepishly behind her back and her face downcast. How could it be that his partner had been the very ruler of the Twilight Realm?
Twilight Princess? It was the same title that Midna had bestowed upon Princess Zelda. Only now did Link realize that the imp had been mocking her, mocking her because the Hyrulean princess had allowed her fine kingdom to be engulfed by it when Midna had had no choice in her circumstance.
Twilight Princess…. It can't be. She couldn't possibly….
"So…. You knew," was all Midna said at first, and it confirmed any lingering doubt within the Hylian hero. Her face took on its most pitiful expression that Link had ever known. "As a ruler who fled her people," she said, "I am hardly qualified to forgive you."
Link stumbled over her words. "Fled?" He regained the step he had lost, trying to meet her gaze, but she would not look at him. "You told me you had been banished."
"…I lied," came her quiet reply.
"But-- Why?"
Still without the courage to meet his gaze, she held out a hand and pressed her fingers to his forehead. Suddenly, he was in a world of complete darkness. His vision was blurred, but he could make out the figure slowly approaching him.
Zant.
Link was suddenly the most terrified he had been in his existence. He stretched out a feeble hand as if to beg the usurper to stop, but something was wrong. His fingers were blue and feminine, and a decorative black sleeve with luminescent green designs covered his skin. Link took steps backward, his bare feet slapping against the ground as Zant's boots clanked in their wake.
Zant waved his hand and a powerful force struck him. A high-pitched gasp escaped him as he toppled to the ground, and as he tried to push himself back up, his eyes popped in shock. Blackness had infected his hands, his entire body.
Next, all he could feel was how tired his small feet were, and he collapsed to his knees. There at the precipice of nothing, he wanted to scream, to cry … to get revenge. From somewhere deep inside, he felt a power rise within him, and within moments the Fused Shadow that had made up Midna's headdress appeared hovering above his splayed fingers. Its broken stone eye glared into his soul.
A spiteful, vengeful smile overtook his lips, contorting his face grotesquely. All he knew in that moment was the most hate-filled rage that made his nerves twitch with excitement. Nothing else mattered than enacting his revenge on the usurper king and regaining the trust of his people.
Just then he saw another splash of images. He could see himself. It was the day he had first been pulled into the twilight. He saw his struggle with the shadow beast, and then came the shape-shifting of his body. How … wonderful … it looked. As he spied his lupine body being carried off all he could do was smile his sinister smile as his fingers balled into a triumphant fist.
In a flash Link was again with the Mirror Chamber, but no longer did he feel those strange emotions. The sudden change stole the breath from him, and as he regained his senses, he realized that what he had just seen….
They were Midna's memories.
"What Zant did to me…" she said, her voice barely audible, "…it was worse than death. He took … everything that I was, and he … reduced me to this." She looked at her alien hands. "A small imp with no power to stop him. He took the land of my father, took my birthright. But worst of all … he stole my pride." Midna tried to blink away the memory of her former, selfish person. "Back then, the shame of being outcast, that I didn't have the strength to defeat Zant and that he could just walk in and take everything…. It was worse than any pain. But now…." She could not find the words to express herself and shook the thoughts loose.
"In our world, we've long believed that the Hero would appear as a divine beast," explained Midna, and Link looked to her, soaking in everything that she said. The exact truth of all that she had ever kept from him. "That's why when I found you, I thought I could use you, Link." He realized then just how much his companion had indeed changed over the course of their partnership. "And I only cared about myself and returning our world to normal…. I didn't care what happened to the world of light. Not at all."
Link cast his gaze downward then, digesting everything that Midna had revealed to him. It was no wonder, as the proud creature she was, that she had never intended to tell him any of this.
"But after witnessing the selfless lengths that Princess Zelda and you have gone to … your sacrifices…." Link gazed up at Midna then, and he could hear how her voice choked. She still could not bear to look at her partner. Her figure was silhouetted beautifully against the light of the Mirror, and the green of her skin shined more brightly than ever before. She was beautiful and she showed true courage in confessing her sins. "I now know, in the bottom of my heart," she said, "that I must save this world, too. There is no other way."
Life seemed to return to her with this proclamation, and she turned to Link, not with sadness, but with absolute resolve. "If we can just defeat Zant, the curse on me will dissolve, and we may be able to revive Zelda."
In those moments Link began to realize how she had been so one-sided in the beginning. Not only had she wanted revenge against Zant and to reclaim her throne and the love of her people, but she also wanted the one thing that Link had always craved when he had been forced to take on the form of the divine wolf. Freedom from destiny. Freedom from a terrible curse.
"We have to do this! For Zelda. For all of this world!"
Link did something then that Midna had not expected, something that she could not have even begged of him at this point after revealing her deepest truths … her deepest sins and guilt.
He smiled.
"I made you a promise," he said. "Wherever it is you go…."
A genuine, caring smile lit Midna's lips then, one that Link had never before seen.
The sages bowed and faded into nothingness.
Link then nodded his partner toward the rock, and she led him to the glimmering stone tiles that had also brightened at the Mirror's awakening. Once his toes met the surface, a bridge of white stairs grew out from the stones, providing a path much like the magical stairs of the Temple of Time. Slowly, Link made his way up each stair, Midna remaining at his side.
They reached the top of the staircase, which ended in a circular platform with many of the designs like that of the Mirror and now the stone slab before them. His feet stood over a Triforce symbol, and just as he was about to question Midna as to how they were to enter the doorway before them, the mystical force of the gateway pulled at his body. He and Midna melted away bit by bit into black speckles and were cast into the realm of shadows.
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REVIEWS FOR THIS CHAPTER:
~nasanerd09 Feb 21, 2012 the revelation of her identity was the BEST! you nailed what he must have been thinking based on his expression in the game so perfectly! wow, just wow! also, I didn't comment on the last one, but I swear my heartrate increased all throughout that chapter the many times Link almost fell to his death and I was frantically almost scanning through the words to see if the conclusion to the battle would end well. As in without Link nearly dying. Because obviously he can't die, otherwise we wouldn't finish the game, but him almost dying is pretty bad too!
~sithwolf Feb 21, 2012 .... this is epic sophi it's getting so good i can't wait for the rest
*Mushkikizou-chan Feb 23, 2012 ahh - your style of writing always keeps me on the edge of my seat You're doing a great job!
~MegBeth Sep 5, 2012 OMG!! This is amazing!!!
~sithwolf Feb 21, 2012 .... this is epic sophi it's getting so good i can't wait for the rest
*Mushkikizou-chan Feb 23, 2012 ahh - your style of writing always keeps me on the edge of my seat You're doing a great job!
~MegBeth Sep 5, 2012 OMG!! This is amazing!!!