A/N: This was one of the ideas that was knocking around inside my head to compliment Twilight Beast. I've read so much fanfiction that has Midna moping around like a lovestruck schoolgirl when it's just not something that suits her personality, that I decided to write my own version of post-TP Midna. It's a total one-shot, probably the first I ever produced, but something I wouldn't mind expanding if I had a competent co-author to work with.
All that said, enjoy the story:
Summary: "What's in a name?", pondering such a question leads the Twilight realm's Queen to a realisation of just how important her time in the Realm of Light really was. Same Universe as Twilight Beast
Midna
Midna.
Once, long ago now it seemed, her father had told her that her name came from the ancient dialect of Hylian that had evolved into that now used by the Twili.
In the new tongue it simply meant 'Shadow Woman', an apt enough distinction if somewhat redundant amongst a race of shadow dwellers, though in recent times it had become almost mockingly accurate. Back when she had been a twisted thing lurking in the shade of another…
In the old tongue however, the meaning was far more complex.
The nearest she'd ever been able to narrow it down was 'She who walks by the grace of the moon'. As a young girl both that meaning and the accomplishment of tracking it down amongst the haphazard mountains of knowledge in the royal library- ancient and sometimes dangerous tomes plundered from the Citadel of the Twili before their fall and banishment- had pleased her greatly.
It was a name well befitting a beautiful princess she had thought with no small amount of pride. Indeed her subtly with the dark magics of their race and her features, so close to those possessed by their ancestors; high cheekbones, full rosebud lips and almond eyes as to make her seem a ghost of the former beauty of the Shadow Masters cast in palest blue, had made all that looked upon their future sovereign sure her Father had chosen her given name well.
Still, such things had not helped her foresee Zant's betrayal, just the thought of his name sending lashings of Shadow Magic curling forth from her being, the Palace servant knelt before her in the throne room gazing with unconcealed awe as the very shadows of the room seemed to simper, crawling closer at the corners of his vision.
No, she had not possessed the mental grace to prophesise his schemes, nor to stop them when they turned against her, stripping away all that she had once held in esteem about herself in a display of magical might that left her cursed and alone.
Cascades of auburn drifted by her eyes as she shifted into a more comfortable position in the high-backed ebony throne of the Twilight Palace. Ruby eyes glanced out over the unbroken view offered by the throne room's balcony, the omnipresent sunset colouring the sky a murky orange with golden highlights.
In the distance dark islands of lonely stone drifted along the horizon, the spaces between them spanned by nothingness, many no Twili, living or otherwise had ever set foot on.
As her attention returned to her subject, Midna idly wondered just what might be out there.
She had felt it now and again since returning, the urge to roam, to explore. A taste for adventure she supposed one would call it, and of course she knew just who to 'blame' for that, her mouth curving into a faint smile.
She'd entered the world of light to search for the pieces of the Fused Shadow she'd read about in the same library she discovered the meaning of her namesake. An item of such magnificent and terrible power it was said to have driven even the Darkest masters mad.
Of course she hadn't cared, driven on by a deep, unreasoning hatred, the Twilight Princess had sort amongst the places conquered by Zant and chained away from the harsh light of this new world for her goal, rapidly finding that a stunted imp, even one with royal blood, had limitations that made her task impossible.
Her fury and boiled and seethed inside her like a poison corroding her sense of self to the extent that by the time she found the person who would ultimately aid her in freeing both her people and his own, as well as herself, she was a vicious and embittered creature, easily willing to manipulate a young farmboy's fear for his friends to her own advantage.
She could still remember her sense of black elation when she discovered him in the Faron Woods, the Noble Blue Eyed Beast her people's legends spoke of. Here was a weapon full of untapped savagery she could hammer her enemies with.
With her Hero's help, she had destroyed all that stood before her and the Fused Shadow, the thing that seemed to whisper in her ear each time she looked upon herself swelling with anticipation, a dark passenger that was slowly taking the reigns.
Then disaster had struck.
Zant had appeared before her and all of her hate, all of her rage, her resolve had shattered, left her trembling as her enemy almost callously cast her aside, all the power she wanted to smash him with lying just out of her reach, her control gone in a haze of pain and anger.
As she lay there, hope gone, something she could never have expected happened. Her companion, the one she had thought of to this point a mere tool had risen despite the magic racking his body and leapt for her tormentor.
As he sailed through the air, now once more furred form a blur of muscle and sinew intent on one thing, a dark purpose tempered by a noble spirit and a just need born of a powerful heart, she had thought, how very graceful it looked…
Then had come searing light, pain, a white that ate her and all her power was gone, there was nothing left.
Midna remembered very little of being carried across the plains of Hyrule, only jolted out of her near comma when they came across a particularly tricky piece of terrain, but each time she came too, she remembered that she had been clinging tightly to warm fur, lying atop a creature that carried her effortlessly, a grey/black whisper in the night.
After Princess Zelda had restored her to health, Midna had felt at peace for the first time since coming to the new world. She was still angry at everything Zant, or as she would later learn, Ganondorf, had done to her people, but she had come to understand that she was not the only one aggrieved anymore.
Her companion, no, her friend, had saved her in more ways than one. Her mission changed from one of blind vengeance, to one of ruthless justice and when the time came, the Twilight Princess bent the power of her ancestors to her will in defence of those she cared for, all the powers of darkness artfully arrayed against a foe she knew not if she could hope to defeat, but faced unafraid.
In form she might still have been the twisted imp, but in spirit, she was once more she who walked with the grace of the moon.
Those impossibly blue eyes had seen something in her she hadn't truly known till that moment was still there, and for that she was grateful.
"And in summation…", the servant trailed off as she stood, his wide slash of a mouth working noiselessly in an oval head set with thinning black hair.
He starred blankly at her throne for a moment as she passed him, black skirts rippling in the faint breeze drifting in from the balcony, jade embroidery seemingly alive as it whispered by him, his Queen's bare feet making no noise on the cold stone. The only sound to prove she had ever been there was the faint and musical jingle of the elaborate headdress woven cunningly into her hair, gold offsetting the fiery hue of her tresses.
"M…My Queen!", he declared turning sharpely, "Did I offend you? If so I apolo…gise…"
The thoughtful smile directed over her shoulder silenced him and the aging Twili was left kneeling in confusion as Midna swept from the room, the chemise tails of her royal robes billowing behind her as the doors swung shut.
Outside, the Twilight Princess' smile widened a musical chuckle escaping her lips as she thought on the poor man's expression, but fading though her smile remained.
She'd remembered something else she had come across during her study of names as a girl.
"'He of bold and virtuous savagery'", she recited, a number of retainers giving her puzzled looks as she descended the stairwell, not sparing them a glance, a scandalised door guard's mouth dropping as she flung wide the main doors herself and stepped outside.
"'loyal comrade of discovery'", in the distance, the dark islands glistened like freshly cut onyx, rainbowed refractions of the realm's weak light seeming to beckon her onward as she finished her recital.
Link, the name she'd found that under all those years ago, it had been Link.
Perhaps it was time to give in to the Horizon.