Chapter 0—Beautifully Ugly

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Link stood miserably in front of the now-dead Ganondorf, who had unexpectedly died standing. He even stood at an angle, which made you think that at any moment now, he was going to fall over. But the corpse continued to defy the average person's idea of physics. In fact, the posture that the villain stood at would have made you hope that he would somehow turn to stone, creating a magnificent statue to remember the time that twilight intersected with light.

Twilight.

It pained Link when he thought of those words. Someone that he held dearly as a friend was from a realm that was covered by twilight. Where she was now was beyond Link; his best guess was that she was…

Blotting out the final word of his thought, Link decided to gaze into the sunset, hoping to find comfort in it; in his younger years, he often did. The colors that swirled through the clouds were dazzling. Soft shades of orange, pink and white filled the sky. In his opinion, this was probably the most beautiful sunset he had ever laid eyes upon. However, in his current state of mind, he found it to also be the most dreadful.

As Link looked on in sorrow, he noticed that the hillside wasn't perfectly rounded; in a sense, there seemed to be a faint lump sticking out of its tip.

While he tried to focus his vision on whatever the lump was, an illuminating flash flew across the horizon, temporarily blinding him. The light spirits that he had worked hard to restore all floated around the tip of the hill in a fashion that made him realize that they were surrounding the lump. As his vision began to restore itself, the light spirits started fading away.

Rather than try to get a view from where he was now, Link started walking toward the object. Zelda, whom he paid little heed to in the moments that had passed, remained static. He guessed that she was looking at the would-be statue of Ganondorf.

The hill was significantly steeper than Link had hoped. However, his attention was still glued to the item at the peak. As he drew closer to it, his mind came to the strangest of thoughts: What if it was her at the top? Even though Link himself had shrugged off the idea, his mind would not let go of it. As much as he kept telling himself that it was not true, the thought of it exhilarated Link.

"Who else could it be?" Link thought out loud. "I'm pretty sure the light spirits wouldn't pay a visit to a lonely rock."

A feeling of enlightenment rushed through Link's body, and it was so powerful that he could not contain it anymore. As though his body had somehow began creating more adrenaline and was handing out samples to all his muscles was the very brief comparative of his sudden burst of energy. He began running as fast as he could, hoping that his wish would miraculously come true. His legs burned and protested against the sudden movement—his battle with Ganondorf wasn't exactly a routine exercise.

As the summit came in to full view, Link's high hopes plummeted as he found a pile of black robes on the grassy hill. His face fell, and he stared at the ground hard.

"Of course, this is always what happens when you have such expectations..." Link mumbled to himself. His mind wandered, filling with thoughts of his adventure. It had started with him not having a say in the whole thing. It had started with him being beaten and imprisoned. It had started with… the most annoying creature he had ever come across. She was incredibly selfish, and she was also impatient with everything he ever did. She pushed him around, yelled at him, and even picked on him with sarcastic jokes about his personal life. But in the end, she was his companion, and they had to work together if they wanted anything from their quest.

This alone was enough motivation for Link to continue working with her. Everything that he had grown to love was going to be taken away by someone he had never even heard of. Ignoring the rants and complaints of his comrade, he pushed himself to keep going.

Link had told himself in his thoughts that he would actually enjoy seeing her die someday. When was the last time she did something for him? If she wasn't going to risk her life for him, he sure as hell wasn't going to do the same. Yet, when he was faced with this very prospect of letting her die, he couldn't do something remotely near that.

In the weeks that had passed in his travels, he grew somewhat attached to his companion. He learned that her sarcastic jokes were not meant to cause harm. In fact, Link started joking back with her. He caught on with the trend and started throwing his own sardonic cracks of humor at her.

At this point in time, Link realized that he was laughing in his journeys—the last thing he expected to do. If he let her die, he might not laugh as much as he did again. If he let her die, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. He couldn't let her die; he couldn't let his friend—Midna­—die here. The thought continued to fill Link's mind; he realized that back then, he had the choice to let her live. It was something that could be taken for granted. But now, here he stood helpless, unable to do anything in the slightest to save her once more. The feeling of powerlessness brought a single tear to Link's eyes.

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Blackness.

Simplicity in its greatest form, this was all that surrounded her vision. However, vision was not the only thing that was feeling this sensation. There was no noise, no smell, and there was nothing to feel.

Midna sighed. She imagined the after-life to be a bit more dramatic, perhaps even scary, but this was more than… anti-climactic. She guessed that one thing was for sure: this wasn't heaven.

But then again, I've technically already been to heaven, and it wasn't very special either, Midna thought, snickering a bit. Analyzing the situation, Midna spun around multiple times hoping to find anything, but to no avail. She looked at her hands, and they were the same, diminutive pitchforks from before.

Sighing to herself, Midna thought, Well, it sure is depressing to have to be ugly in death. What would the other souls think!

Midna performed an overly dramatized fainting motion, regardless of the fact that no one was around to see. Pondering what she had just said, she realized that there were no other souls or other such dead beings in her presence. Before she could think about this thought any more, a bright flash of light illuminated the portion of the blackness that would have been the sky. During that short period of time, Midna realized that she was in fact standing on solid ground, despite the fact that she couldn't feel or see it otherwise.

Looking up from the ground, Midna saw the light spirits of Hyrule descend from the sky. They floated in front of her, forcing her to cover her eyes that were oh-so sensitive to light. They seemed to stay there for a short while before Midna broke the annoying silence that she had been enduring for too long.

"Hey, could you turn down the lights a bit? I'm not exactly used to staring at multiple suns at the same time." She glowered. Ignoring her remark, the spirits began talking in their tone that made everyone else's voice sound like southern accents.

"We have come to repay a debt. We are most grateful of your services toward us, and we feel it is only fair for us to grant you a second chance at life."

Midna's heart jumped. So she really was dead—but if that was the case, where was she now? Shrugging her curiosity off, Midna looked back up to the light spirits with a smug look. "Are you sure you want to do that? Us Twili can get pretty rough with you light world types. I could go about rampaging through Hyrule if I felt like it!"

Once again ignoring her sarcastic remark, all four light spirits put their heads together and started charging what seemed to be one giant ball of light. Growing to about ten times Midna's size, the light slowly started to engulf her, and warmth flowed through her veins. For a few seconds, the world around her that was once complete darkness was filled with light.

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Link sat down on the ground, continuing his reminiscing. The temporary bliss was just enough to fill the imaginary hole in his chest. Tears were welling up in his eyes, and he considered letting them stroll down his muddy face. Nobody will see… nobody will care.

Right as Link told his eyes to give in, the robes on the ground suddenly flew up, as though an invisible figure suddenly donned them. Link stood up, blood rushing to his head, blurring everything in sight. As his vision returned, he saw the most beautiful (and probably the most unique) looking woman he had ever laid eyes upon. It was twice today that he had seen the most beautiful things! The fading light in the background seemed to embellish her already near-perfect features. The robes that she was garbed in were a silky black, with obsidian being the only color comparable to it. Only her skin was able to surpass the robe's elegance—its smooth surface would have fooled anybody into thinking it was made of satin. The strange colors of it were also abnormal. Switching from dark blue to white randomly across her skin, it was an extremely exotic look. Not quite as exotic as her glowing orange hair, which came down her neck in two parts, tied together near her chest.

Link gaped at the woman. She seemed to find humor in this, and said immediately, "What? Say something! Am I so beautiful that you have no words left?"

With that, Link suddenly realized who this was. The burst of energy he had received before returned, and he reached out and hugged Midna as tightly as he could. At first, she was surprised by the action, but she returned it affectionately when she realized what he had just gone through. Deciding it was time to poke some fun, Midna whispered into Link's ear, "Did I see you crying for the first time ever?"

Pulling away from her, Link jeered, "Well, that whole appearing out of nowhere made a lot of dust fly through the air."

Giggling slightly, Midna poked Link on the forehead. "Aww, did Link miss me so much that he needed to kick up dust just so he could start crying?"

"Ha! I think I would have been better off without meeting you in the first place. This whole adventure was so tiresome with you around."

"You enjoyed my company and you know it."

Link acted as though he were in deep thought. "Fine, I guess it wasn't that bad." Once more, Midna started giggling again, but her face soon turned serious. "Since I'm back in this form, that means that Ganondorft is dead?"

Nodding slowly, Link replied, "Yeah. If you want to see him, he's down the hill. Speaking of which, Zelda is probably wondering what I've been doing up here."

Midna began walking down the hill, beckoning for Link to follow. "I have quite the story to tell you. I'll have you know that I was actually dead for quite a while, and it was the most boring thing I have ever experienced!" She continued her rambling about her whole story, but Link wasn't paying too much attention. The sun was just about to go past the horizon, preparing for a true twilit sky. Gazing at it once more, Link decided that this was in fact the most beautiful sunset he'd ever laid eyes upon.