Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to anything that belongs to Nintendo, including The Legend of Zelda.
Warning: This story contains spoilers to the end of Twilight Princess. I strongly suggest you not read it unless you have beaten the game. I sincerely hate it when something gets spoiled in advance, and you should too.
Heh, in my opinion, you should go beat Twilight Princess so you don't have to worry about all these spoiler warnings.
The Great Battle of Hyrule
Chapter One: Scene One: Snowpeak
"Link…"
"See you later."
A year to date since the Twilight Princess returned to her home plane, leaving behind her newfound friend and Hero Link, Link was revisiting some friends in Snowpeak.
Flakes of snow gently whispered from the sky unto the white earth, blanketing the sheet already masking the ground. In the snow, the crisp footprints of a lone traveler carved throughout the mountains, steering toward the peak. It was cold in that dusty old tunic, for sure. It had been a year since Link had last visited Yeto and Yeta; Now Link sought to meet with his old friends in the frosted mountain ridge of Snowpeak in Lanayru Province.
And on a less happier and brutal note, an onslaught of white wolves, dubbed White Wolfos, ceaselessly tested the strength of the lone ranch-hand. Sword in hand, each one met a grim demise by the blade crafted by the Ordonian Rusl, a master at swordcraft. The blade of evil's bane had long since been left to sleep undisturbed, for all of time, in the Sacred Grove. In the other hand of the Hero was grasped a solid metal Hylian shield, purchased at the original location of Malo Mart in Kakariko Village.
The minutes progressed into hours, and the rage of white did not let up in the least. It was at midday that Link had ascended to the topmost peak of the mountain, where a familiar dead tree with frosted branches stood. With a heave of his body, Link loosed a sheet of ice from a branch seated high in the tree. Resembling a crude sled, Link stood on it and slid downhill against a smooth and crisp path of snow and ice.
Snow blinded his sharp, blue eyes as he raced down the slope. Moments after clearing the ice-coated bridge infested by Ice Keese, pine needles tore at Link's face as he soared off an inclined ramp of packed snow. The flurry of blinding and stinging fir needles tossed Link off balance. As he tilted back, he promptly leaned forward to regain footing on his ice sheet. However, the lean was excessive, and he found himself tossed onto the snow without an ice sheet, now rolling towards the drop at the edge, where there was nothing to stop him from whirring off the side.
Tumbling down the cliff face into the misty chasms below, Link could do nothing to stop the ceaseless plunge, and the battering stones striking against his body. It was up to this point in time, and that point alone, that Link could remember. The rest was a black nothing-ness.
All he knew now was that he was at the bottom of the chasm, drained of the will to live, and all of his energy. He could not stand, for it pained him so. For hours, he rested, well into the night hours. Abruptly, he awoke to the ear-splitting thunderclap issued by a Freezard. The almost reptillian ice beast with a deadly brew of wintry breath traveled on a magnificent sledge of solid ice, drawn by a rogue hunting pack of Chilfos.
Within feet of the brutes, Link prayed that he would not be spotted by the rebel pack of ice beasts. In the somber black abyss of night, no light crawled down to the gorge Link had toppled into. The light emitted from the scarlet eyes born by the monumental Freezard, however, dimly lit the chasms with a shallow blood-red light. Link clamped his eyes shut when he heard the radiant crack issued from the ice pike clutched by a Chilfos. A whispering of sorts echoed malevolently throughout the dead-silent cleft. Then, with agile and skilled flicks of ten icy wrists, ten shrill pikes of stout solid ice whistled in the dense mist of the Snowpeak bottoms.
With an impulsive torrent of energy, Link rolled out of the pikes' path, watching in fright as they nested into the rocks where he sat just moments ago. Expecting the ensuing retaliation would be fatal, he drew Rusl's sword and lurched into motion toward the hunting pack. Ten more pikes, shaped in seconds from the ice underfoot, seated themselves in front of Link's feet as he jumped and leapt to evade each one.
Following a great cleave, the lifeless bottom-half of a Chilfos fell to the ground. The nine remaining persistently hurled spears at the Hero. The Hylian shield received multiple indentations and abrasions defending the ongoing adventurer as he clashed with the brigade of ice monstrosities. The breath of the Freezard issued onto the battle. With effort, Link moved out of range from the Freezard only after decapitating a second Chilfos.
The eight remaining Chilfos trekked closer to the Hero, encircling him with spears pointed all at the center target. Link bent his knees and held his Ordonian sword out parallel with the ground. A swift revolution followed; the sword slayed each of the eight oppressors with deadly precision in a spinning slice.
The thunderclap roar of the Freezard echoed amongst the canyon once again, as it's breath filled the misty trench with a fog thick as molasses in January. The biting frost halted the Hero in his place, ice crystals slowly sheeting his body. The sting of the freeze pained him beyond description. Agonizing screams vibrated in his vocal cords, but the ice shell over Link's body impeded the sound as it exited his mouth.
Once the beast ceased the constant din, the ice casing around Link began to falter. Working every muscle in his body, he wriggled about in the cumbersome shell, breaking it away slowly and steadily.
Minutes afterward, the ice began to fall from his fatigued body. Limping, he hobbled silently away from the Freezard. Exhausted, he collapsed onto the rocky bottoms; his heart beating slower than thirty beats alone per minute. He was dying.
Moments later, a final breath escaped from his mouth. His heart stopped, and he ceased to live. Although he'd beaten back ten Chilfos with relative ease, he was unarmed against a Freezard, and the icy land he'd been cast into was too harsh. In fact, he'd left his souvenir ball and chain back in Ordon.
Link had forgotten something substantial; a provision he had brought along. A corked bottle sealed away a fairy from the spirit's spring in Ordon. The sprite struggled against the cork until it had loosed from the mouth of the bottle. Without stopping, the fairy renewed Link's life; mending his wounds and frostbite.
By morning, he was living anew, bursting with energy for the day's trek back up the chasm.
Chapter One: Scene Two: Midna
Brimming with confidence, Link silently crept from the sleeping Freezard, taking precise care not to stumble on the stones, or create even the slightest sound, so as to not awake the beast. After all, it was already cold enough in the trench without the Freezard.
Although daylight gleamed minutely into the chasm, it was almost as dim as the preceding night. With his newfound revitalization, Link boldly turned to the cliff face. He lit his oil lantern from Coro, and attached it to the belt on his tunic. Clawshot in hand, he began to scale the rocky crag.
With a honed and agile aim, Link quickly found holds on the frosted rocks, until he could clearly see the light emanating from the sun, directly overhead; it was midday, and Link had ascended half of the cliff face. Persevering, he forged on, clawing his way up the stone wall with an ample ply of loose snow and ice covering it.
By early sunset, hundreds of holes had burrowed into the snow-coated mountainside, attributed to Link's handy pair of Clawshots as he scaled the cliff. Just as the previous evening, he was exhausted and felt utterly fatigued to the extent that he could not walk. But now that he was unprotected from the tempest of snow, he had to seek or construct shelter. Taught by Rusl, and from personal experience, Link was formidable in harnessing nature to his advantage.
Then again, he was drowsy, albeit he unwillingly pressed on, stumbling like a drunk as he hobbled through the waist-deep quilt of white.
In an hour, Link had made little progress even in movement, and the last rays of warming light that crawled through the thick, gray clouds vanished beneath the horizon. He had not gotten far, and had seen no sign of any plants or even game. With legendary archery equipment, and a hawk-like aim, any animal within range and sight would be downed within moments of a sighting. This was, unfortunately, not the case, as the Hero stumbled about in the dark and harsh mountain.
Two factors completely deterred visibility: the onslaught of snow lingering in the air, and the darkness of night. Lacking proper provisions, Link was now on his last bottle of lantern oil. He hoped he could come across Yeto and Yeta's house before the following nightfall.
After replenishing the supply of oil in his lantern with the last bottle he had carried with him, Link had a renewed sense of vision. Concluding that the area he was in was uncharted on the map, but without significant landmarks to help, Link could only hope he would find his way back to the path soon. After all, there were frosty, wintry conditions on Snowpeak. They were unsuitable for a human. Link only wished Midna had not discarded the dark crystal that enabled him to transform to his canine figure at will when she had returned to her plane. At that thought, Link remembered the Twilight Princess vividly…
The cute and upbeat, albeit discourteous imp he'd known to foster,
The persistent rider of the canine Hero, whom always demanded of him and scolded him like an untrained whelp at almost any mistake,
The Princess of the Twilight Realm,
The true, faultless image of her unmasked being, after the removal of Ganondorf from power.
Her sorrow over departing from a well known friend, and over the destruction of the only known passage between the two, alternate planes.
All of the memories came flooding back at the thought of the Twili. Link couldn't help but grieve her having left Hyrule, exactly a year and a day ago.
What was that?!
There was movement in the corner of Link's eye. Wearily and alertly, Link drew his sword from its sheath against his back. He turned swiftly to where the movement was at, to see that he had bypassed a lone, unfamiliar dead tree. Sword still gripped tightly; he held his lantern out in front of him. Behind the darkened and frosted tree, he could faintly see an orange 'thing' flailing about in the wind. Then he heard a giggle, "Eee hee!"
Hastily, Link fastened the lantern to his belt and listened for the sound. His eyes drifted from the wavering orange, until he heard the sound again. Its origin was from behind the tree, exactly inline with whatever the orange belonged to.
Putting two and two together, Link resolved that it was, in fact, Midna residing behind the tree. However, Link also considered that his mind was playing tricks on him.
Then, out of the blue, the imp figure of Midna drifted from behind the dead timber. With a burst of energy and adrenaline, Link dashed through the cumbersome snow, with his lantern jingling from his belt. Sword still in hand, and shield grasped now in the other, he ran like mad after the imp.
The figure drifted posthaste across the snow, Link in hot pursuit. As he dashed, flickering his eyelids to clear his vision of the falling snow, he glanced up toward the peak of the mountain, lit dimly by his lantern. A thick fog was rolling down the mountainside.
Moments later, Link realized that it was not a smog tumbling across the snow. Snow was tumbling in a great mass down the peak, and right to the Twili imp's path. Worried that Midna would not clear the avalanche, Link pressed his legs to move faster. Desperate to move at breakneck speed, he abandoned the heavy metal shield and sheathed his sword. In the orange glow from his lantern, he dashed drunkenly through the frost and snow at Midna, beginning to break a sweat from the scurry. He hastened as the avalanche neared the path.
With a final burst of might, Link's legs empowered with inhuman speed. Midna would not clear the tumbling snow. All at once, his legs gave way, and he toppled into the stinging white freeze. He stared up at the peak, cringing at the oncoming snow-slide. It had an unnatural girth as it tumbled down the mountain, and it would undoubtedly hit Midna as well as the Hero. The ensuing surge of unbearable pain was ample as the snow crashed over Link, with a breakneck force, and a bone jarring impact.
In seconds it had passed over. Link was hugging the edge of the cliff at the side of the path. The avalanche had run over the boundary of the path and was now spinning down into the crevice where Link had spent his last night, in the desolate chasm of Snowpeak, fending off a raiding Chilfos pack, alongside a deadly Freezard.
Then, regaining his senses, and slowly standing up to the agony of his aching body, Link glanced to where the imp once was. He now convinced that the imp was a trap, that something or someone had set to draw him to the avalanche. Enraged at his feeble and daft actions, he turned around to head back to the dead tree, forgetting that the peak to his left was a major landmark that he could get his bearings with. Just as he began to walk, the lantern light, now faint with lack of fuel, lit the pale and motionless body of the true Twilight Princess.
Link wore a distraught expression of confusion and fret over the dying Twili lying in the snow at his feet. Her body of intermixed colors of black and pale gray had rings of neon, sea green markings banding it, most notably on her limbs. A dark cloak lined with the same color of sea green covered her tall and lean body. The hood of the cloak had come astray from her orange hair, tied together in front of her neck.
"L-Link…" she beckoned, trying to lift herself up. She was exhausted and dying; the avalanche had taken its toll on her.
"Th-the snow… carried… down the peak… this path…" she murmured.
Link understood that she had been atop the peak, and that the avalanche had struck her and brought her all the way down to the path she was currently on. But, that left: What was Midna's imp shape doing on the path? Perhaps it was a sign from the goddesses, a sign to come to the Twilight Princess's aid.
"Help…" she whispered, her eyes slowly shutting.
Impulsively, Link picked the unconscious princess up, supporting her legs with one arm and her back with the other. Although carrying Midna slowed Link's travels further, it was worth the trouble to save his old companion. As he strode through the snow, deeper now from the avalanche, he noticed a small metallic gleam jutting from the snow. With his torn leather boot, he kicked at the snow to reveal his shield, surprised that it had remained on the path through the avalanche. Gently setting Midna onto the snow, he snatched the Hylian shield and secured it to his back, with the sheath of the Ordonian sword.
After carrying Midna back to the dead tree, Link lost the last energy in him. Exhausted, he set Midna onto the snow near the shelter of the barren timber, extinguished the flame in his lantern, and drifted into a sleep.
A.N.: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'd love reviews. :-) Thanks for reading, and if the reviews are satisfactory, I'll update.