She held her head high- high and proud and sure. They needn't look on her with pity, as though reluctant to return. No! She could feel the sweet silken shadow envelop her legs, bare skin giving way to the tide that urged her backward.

A rush of chill air bit at her eyes, unused to home. Soothing, shrieking voices lingered in her ears, saying nothing in the chaos yet sounding… so familiar. Her lips bent into a small smile, and she spun slowly about to face her subjects. Whatever the Twili cheered of, their voices surpassed all music. Intent on basking in the natural splendor of her world and her people, she stood before them in the false stoicism of her ancestry. The kind her father showed after her mother died, the kind she learned in the throne room that day- she'd call on that for the moment and push back sleep to revel in the familiarity of the sound.

Her music died steadily as every pair of eyes, brilliantly golden to dusk-red, past her and shone on the horizon behind. Shadows formed before her, growing, engulfing her crowd. Two brilliant orbs of soft light swirled about the mirror's former place. The body of the crowd took her attention further, as her kin dropped to their knees in reverence and awe.

Something- something had gone awry… Midna narrowed her eyes. The dual suns shone and twisted in place of her entrance, calling shadows to dance about her feet. Why? The lights made no effort to break from their course- benign and beautiful. Her eyelids felt like lead. This phenomenon would allow her time to comprehend, on her own terms.

Her people, humble by the light, parted for their matriarch.

Her eyes barely touched the walls of the throne-room. She called for silence, and silence had come. Not a soul dared to bother her in her mourning. Was this mourning? Did she mourn the death of the Lighted world? She lost them, not killed them- a good lot better than she'd expected.

She bared her teeth amusedly, fathoming that path she might have taken. Imp thing meets beast, he growls, imp thing curses wolf into permanent harness… She chuckled slightly at the prospect. What tricks might she have played on the ever-shining Princess, had she another chance? Perhaps played some sort of communicable ghost? Crafted a small braided anklet with which to dangle her from that tall tower window? If only she'd managed a better grip on things more quickly in the Light, she might have had much more fun with the P-princess Zelda.

She closed her eyelids and left her mind to meander through those old, angry memories. Zant, usurping her with a single wave of his hand- and that pain! Pelted in the heart as though his magic, through those long fingernails, tore into it and thrust it to the ground- and her body followed only to stop her death! She felt him too, watched him, a dim light about his body, gaining strength by the second and filtering that sick stuff through his skin. It turned him so close to death he could taste it, the light. And he turned it on her, beat and pulsed it through body, after taken to half death by it himself, by that stupid 'god' of his.

He might have led her people into war with the lighted world! She leaned backward in her throne, a shiver drifting through her body. The pool had seen into his soul and focused on that potential corruption, but had it understood the consequences of choosing her? Of choosing Midna, the orphaned trickster?

Midna let her eyes roll backward into her head, relaxing on the throne in unease. The ancient Twili, the banished, cursed the pool with sight- sight in the pitch darkness, and the blinding light, and the lovely, perfect half-light. The pool, for whatever reason, hadn't seen the mixture of the Light world and this realm… despite Zelda's too-sweet words and assurances that their world regretted nothing.

Of course not! Why should the Light world regret sending one of their own too-powerful monstrosities through the Mirror to disrupt her calm? Ha! That world had left her with no choice besides the destruction of their only link.

Link. Midna's lips slipped back into a small smile. That Light boy had some brilliant ferocity, she had to admit. Always, always good for a laugh- though she'd had to pry it out of him. Or his situation. She'd delved into the bright pits of hell, and he'd put a smile on her face. Growling at her like some sort of monster himself, silly beast, he shone like a Sol even covered in fur.

Then again, her eyes might be more sensitive to brightness than that silly Sun-looker's. Folk tales and Twili literatures on life before banishment always lamented the loss of a beautiful ball of fire. Personally, Midna couldn't care less for it. She couldn't bear to keep her own skin in the shine for very long; the stuff was like a diluted form of Zant's horrible magic. No… not like… She'd felt light ripping through her chest, suffocating her, crushing her with that transformation. So long, and yet all she could remember came from that flood of impossible pain…

Suddenly the room became so confining, and swelteringly hot. The air thickened in her throat and clung to her very skin as though a million tiny bugs had, invisible, burrowed into her pores. Her mind raced, through everything- Had Zant returned? Link- did he fail with Ganondorf? She didn't actually see… surely he and his Princess wouldn't be so careless.

In panic- she needed to be certain- she willed her body to be wrapped in silk and flown, sifted through solid stone as sand… but something, a nothingness, wouldn't let her! Rematerialized on her own throne, she glanced to the door. Behind that stone, so many of her subjects gathered to welcome her home. Home, thank the Sols, to complain and moan and kneel at her feet- one more question about that stupid Light world and she'd throttle the man to death then and there. Her lungs contracted as the walls caved in her mind, as these strangers never shared her colors and Sols and her unusually thick, brackish air…

Her bare feel nearly touched the throne's stone- and the stone felt like mud. Both legs seemed to sink, though her eyes argued separately. Tangible, but invisible, just as she had been as his shadow, she would not be some creature's shadow keeper! Not ever, not like she'd done to Link, imprisoned in her own body and cursed… Midna tipped her head to that damn ceiling that stayed solid when the rest of the world crashed and melted about her.

Some sound assaulted her ears, and she had a sneaking suspicion that she made it with her own stifled throat. Inside, she reached, into a different place, her own personal world, for that which the mischievous puddle had granted her. Her anger, her fear, everything channeled directly overhead, at the arched roof. The stone cracked, rubble cascaded around her throne, and the soft glow of the orange-lit clouds spread over her face. Immediately, that soft and smooth sensation slipped up her legs and took her body over and into the sky.

The soles of her feet carefully met the dark stone beneath. The Mirror used to be here, before she shattered that dangerous glass, and the Sols still circled endlessly. She dropped to her knees in submission to the very heaviness that had come over her land. Her fingertips felt cool, finally, at home pressing against the dead portal.

The sensations subsided. Her skin freed itself in the perfect Twilight air. Never again would she take for granted not having that wonderfully cool, sweet substance to breathe. The Sols still circled… The place finally felt at peace again, free from the hoards of Twili, bowing and cheering and screaming. Free from Zant and the Light wizard, or whatever the sun-kissed Princess "I-Glow" had called Zant's pseudo-god.

Why? Those Sols had returned home from his sword, but why not return to their pedestals? Why move about as though…

As though the water hadn't cleared yet?