The wind howled around her as The Shadow sailed through the air, the ship leaning dangerously to the side as a sudden gust of wind hit it from the side. Gripping the guardrail, Midna shifted her weight around to stay upright before sending a stare in the direction of where Link was fighting with the rudder, doing his best to make sure that the ship would turn around to better be able to cut through the wind.
"Do you have everything under control?" she yelled, sure to speak loudly enough to make herself heard.
Link responded with a quick wave, barely letting go of the rudder for a moment before both of his hands were once more back to wrestle with the winds around them. "Yes, it just took me by surprise. Don't worry, I promise you that everything is going according to plan."
Midna nodded. Was it really that obvious? Could everyone on the ship see the exact reasons why their captain had spent the last hour pacing back and forth over the deck, throwing worried glances over the side of the ship each time she thought she had spotted the familiar bright colours of the crest of the Hyrulean royal family? She hoped that it wasn't. The captain looking like she was about to reach for her sword at the smallest noise was not exactly a sight that was known for instil courage in those around her.
But as she stood there, looking at the expanse of white clouds below her, Midna did not feel particularly brave. With how her stomach was turning each time she went over the plan, carefully considering every move she would have to make in just a few minutes, she would have described the emotions running through her brain, making her heartrate speed up, as a combination of fear, nervousness, and anxious excitement long before she would ever have thought to use a word such as brave in the same sentence as herself..
It was the yell coming from below that finally caused her to snap out of her thoughts.
Already running towards the stairs that would take her to the deck below, Midna finally allowed herself to draw her sword. The familiar feeling of the coldness of the hilt against her sweaty palms was more calming than anything she could have done right then, and as Midna felt the familiar signs of pushing her body to the limit in an attempt to make it to where most of the other pirates were already waiting, readying themselves for the fight that was to come, her mind cleared, the anxious waiting time coming to an end.
The sight of the balloon that held up the royal ship was beautiful.
Still unaware of the ship that was waiting only a couple of hundred metres above them, the ship was sailing through the air at a steady pace, slowly but surely transporting the princess and the soldiers sent to protect her from Hyrule to the kingdom of Labrynna. Although the distance kept her from being able to make out the details, memories of her past encounters with the ships from the royal fleet allowed Midna to picture it in vivid detail. If she had closed her eyes, Midna was certain that she would have seen the intricate carvings that ran along the hull of the ship, picturing it so clearly that it would have felt like she could reach out and touch it.
But Midna did not close her eyes. No, this was the moment they had spent the last month preparing for. She could not allow herself to become distracted.
Making use of the skies that halfway enveloped the ship below them to stay hidden, the second Midna gave the signal, Link slowly lowered the ship, careful not to make any rash movements that would have made the metal of the ship cry out, alerting the soldiers below them to the incoming attack.
The moment before Midna turned around to face the rest of the team, she could feel the familiar sense of trepidation, and how her stomach turned at the thought of what would happen if anything went wrong. If anything were to happen to any of them, if anyone would be captured by the soldiers because of the plan Midna had spent the last month going over every night to ensure that she had not missed anything... it could not happen. She would not allow any harm to come to any of the people currently standing around her.
She gave the signal, and in an instant, the air was filled with the excited yelps of joy as the pirates began their attack. Within moments, Midna knew that her plan of taking the soldiers by surprising had worked even better than she could have hoped for, at least if the shocked yells and cries for the princess to get to safety that the wind brought up to her were any indication. Midna could not keep a smile of her face. They had no idea how this would end. Already before The Shadow had appeared—Link's ability to steer the ship no doubt making it look like the ship had appeared out of thin air to the soldiers—and the pirates had jumped from one deck to another, ready and prepared to fight, the results of the battle had already been decided. Now it was only a question of going through the motions, giving them a reason to believe that they had ever stood a chance against Midna.
From her spot up on her ship, Midna could see every last movement taking place on the ship below her. She saw how the soldiers stumbled, for once not the perfect group, capable of acting in an instant, before they formed a plan and began to fall into position, forming a circle around the princess, while the pirates slowly but surely advanced towards them, deflecting every attack from the soldiers. Already, Midna could easily imagine how the soldiers pleaded with the princess to head inside, to seek shelter while they tried their best to fend off the attackers.
She did not need to take a glance at the way the princess shook her head before telling the soldier who had neared to take her hand and lead her inside not to worry about her and to instead focus on the task at hand.
Even as Zelda stood there, surrounded by soldiers who ran past her while trying their best to fend off the pirates, she looked regal, every bit the image of how a princess was supposed to behave. And yet, as Midna looked at her and saw how the wind sent her hair flowing back behind her shoulders, the brown tresses looking more like strands of magic than anything else, she knew that despite the façade of poise and grace she wore on her face, both she and Zelda knew how it would end. Everything that stood between now and the moment where the pretence between them would be able to end, every turn the ships, every sound of something cutting through the air to hit a soldier who would then fall to the deck, the anaesthetic agent that coated the short arrowheads acting within seconds, and, perhaps most of all, every order that Zelda shouted, making herself heard even through the cacophony of the battle around her, was little more than the steps to a dance they had both come to know like the back of their hands over the years.
The air made her eyes dry, but event hen, Midna still saw the moment Zelda gave the signal, the tiny gesture with her hand that Midna had dreamt about seeing for the last month. This was it. There was no room for failure, but as Midna backed away from the guardrail to look down at herself one last time, making sure that she had fastened the equipment properly, she knew that there was no risk of her making a mistake. She had waited for this for longer than what felt like she should have been able to stand.
Midna threw herself over the edge of the ship and felt how the wind caught her, bringing her closer to the figure that stood on the deck several metres below her. In that moment, even the sensation of her stomach struggling to keep up with her body was not enough to let her ignore the way the butterflies fluttered around. Already, she could almost feel how they neared the moment they had spent so many nights talking about.
The cable that connected her with her own ship was pulled at the harness, slowing her fall, but even then, Midna could still feel how her legs cried out in pain as she landed on the deck of the ship, putting the force behind the impact into a roll. The next instant, Midna was standing upright once more, only a couple of metres separating her from Zelda. A quick look around her told her exactly what Zelda had whispered to her during one of their stolen moments; that, as well-trained as they were, the Hyrulean soldiers were rarely able to fend off more than one attacker at a time, and that, if they just made sure to cause enough noise, they would not be able to spot another sound in the middle of the sea of yells that washed over them as the pirates ran forward, readying another attack.
Zelda's eyes shone as Midna closed the distance between them, and suddenly, despite the many nights she had spent cursing the king for his decision along with the prince of Labrynna for having accepted the offer, Midna could understand why he would have said yes to the king's offer of using a marriage between the crown princess of Hyrule and the Labrynnan prince to bring the two kingdoms closer together. Had she been in his situation, had Midna been born into royalty rather than high up in the air to a mother who had been forced to flee when usurpers had risen up from below to seize the power in the kingdom, had the king looked at her rather than the prince in his search for a chance to strengthen Hyrule's ties with the surrounding kingdoms, and if their meeting had still had the same spark of something between them, Midna knew that she would gladly have given up her ship and everything that came with it to live the rest of her life with her. But that was the thing. Although she had been raised with the knowledge that her mother had once been a queen, Midna was not a princess. Instead, she was the captain of a team of pirates known for attacking ships with the flags of the royal families, and with a reward of over ten thousand Rupees promised to any person who would be able to give the king's fleet any information that would lead to her capture.
That was what had led her to this moment, Midna curtseying slightly in front of Zelda.
"Your Highness," she said, the sound barely audible, "are you ready to leave this ship behind?"
Accepting her outstretched hand, Zelda nodded. "I have been waiting for you to ask me that."
It only took a moment for Midna to put her arm around Zelda's waist, leading the cable that would keep Zelda safe around her before fastening the other end to her belt. As Zelda leant in, placing her head in the nook of her neck, Midna whistled, the sound shrill and sharp. It was sure to draw the attention of everyone on deck towards them, but it did not matter. As the soldiers finally realised that the fight that had kept them looking in the other direction had been little more than a way to distract them, turning around to send a panicked look towards the princess, their mouths opening in a silent yell when they saw Midna there and realised that she had managed to move past their protective circle, Midna could already feel the pull at the other end of the cable, and the next second, long before the soldiers would have been able to close the gap between them and point their swords towards her to make one last attempt at keeping the princess trapped within the confines of the ship and the marriage ceremony that awaited her once the ship would each its destination, Midna and Zelda were pulled up into the air.
Wrapping her arms tightly around Zelda, Midna kicked in the air, doing her best to turn around to shield Zelda. Although she doubted that the soldiers who had been sent along with the princess to protect her during the trip would ever risk shooting at them while Zelda was still up there with her, she was not ready to risk that someone would be desperate enough to risk it and shoot at her.
The arrow sailed past them, but although Midna knew that, had they been just a couple of metres to the left, it would have hit her, she was not nervous when she looked up and saw Link lower the bow, standing on the deck. The sound of air leaving the balloon that held up the royal ship was far more melodic than any sound an orchestra could ever have hoped to create, as it brushed past her, giving her the message that the battle was over.
As the ship they had just left began to lose altitude, the captain steering it to the side to make sure that they would be able to land in time, Midna heard how the pirates who had joined her on the ship fastened the cables that were thrown off the sides of The Shadow to their belts, being pulled from the deck of the sinking ship and back to safety.
"Don't look down, princess," Midna murmured as Link ran over to her to help secure the cable before extending a hand towards her, helping to pull both her and Zelda over the side of the ship, "but I think that you might just have won your freedom."
Zelda, always the first to ignore any order she was given, looked down, and Midna could see the moment the realisation that the ship would not be able to return to the skies again made her eyes twinkle before she turned back towards her, pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek.
"Thank you." the sound of it was soft, and Midna doubted that any of the people being pulled through the air all around them, some of them being in the process of climbing over the railing, would have been able to hear it. But with the way Zelda was looking at her, Midna knew that they had not been meant to. Later, Midna would have to make sure to thank everyone properly—after all, they had been ready to risk their lives to give Zelda a chance to escape the life that had been planned for her—but for now, it felt as if the world around them could have stopped existing and yet they would not have realised it as they were too busy standing there, almost unable to believe that they had really made it, that they had been lucky enough for their plan to work.
Midna cleared her throat, suddenly grateful that the general noise of the ship below them as well as the celebratory exclamations around her was sure to drown out the way her voice trembled as she held Zelda close. "There is no need to thank me."
With a nod, Zelda thankfully accepted that, and rather than attempting to insist on thanking her—what did she have to thank Midna for? If anything, Midna should be the one to kiss her and explain to her just how hard her heart had beat against her ribs when she had suggested what had then only been the bare skeleton of a plan to Zelda, and how her heart had fluttered when Zelda had beamed at her before accepting the idea—Zelda rested her head against her shoulder.
"He is going to continue to search for me, you know that right?" Zelda might have been able to somewhat mask the way her voice trembled, but even then, Midna could feel how her hand reached out, searching for Midna, and as Midna responded by taking her hand, she it was clear how Zelda was shaking. "My father. He is not going to accept that I have disappeared just yet."
"He also has not accepted that I have been able to overwhelm each and every ship he has sent out to capture me." Midna made sure to keep her voice firm, radiating confidence even if she had been thrown into a cell only to be rescued a few moments before the ship would have landed near the castle to bring her to the king more times than she could count. "Trust me, as long as you don't wake up one day to realise that you have made a mistake today, I am not going to let them take you."
"I will never change my mind about this." Zelda lifted her head from Midna's shoulder, and although Midna might physically be taller than her, as Zelda stared at her, maintaining eye contact through it all, Midna felt like she could practically see Zelda growing taller in front of her eyes, until there was no doubt about how she had been raised to one day carry the tittle of queen. "Never."
Zelda punctuated the last word with a kiss, and Midna was sure that if anyone where to look at her now, they would see how their captain was blushing furiously, having been rendered speechless by the small gesture. Really, it was a miracle that she had decided against attempting to keep the relationship between herself and the crown princess of Hyrule a secret, because right then, Midna doubted that there was a single soul on the ship who had not been present when she had explained just why she wanted to ambush the airship that was supposed to bring the princess to Labrynna where she would marry the prince to establish Hyrule's role in the world who would be able to look at how they were standing, Midna still having an arm slung around Zelda's waist and Zelda reaching up to push a strand of hair out of her face before letting her hand rest on the side of her face, and not realise the truth of just why they had had to intervene before the marriage ceremony could take place.
Looking out at the sea of skies in front of them, the misty white view soon giving way to a blue sky as Link once more steered the airship upwards, far away from any hostile soldiers, out of view so that they could set out for their hideout without giving their position away, Midna doubted that she would ever have been able to find happiness like this with anyone but Zelda. Her mother might have spent the last days of her life apologising to Midna for everything she had lost when Zant had seized power in their realm, but right then, Midna would not have given up a single thing about the life she had made for herself. The life she would now make sure Zelda would also be able to find her own identity in.
"In that case, I hope that you do not mind flying over the sea, because I think you will find that our home is quite far away from Hyrule Castle."
"Not at all. If anything, I am happy that we will be far away from my old life," Zelda answered.
Later, they would head inside Midna's cabin—their cabin, it was their cabin now, the words had a magical sound to them—to whisperingly tell the other everything that had happened in the months since their last encounter, only able to truly let themselves believe that this was no dream, that they would not suddenly wake up to find the that they were once more worlds apart, as they fell asleep, Zelda curled up next to Midna, her arm thrown over her with a carelessness to it that made Midna's heart soar as she looked at Zelda.
But for now, they were standing there on the deck, letting the airship take them into their new life, the life they would share with each other.