Hey, I made it in time for Twilight Princess' eleventh birthday!
The Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess, and the characters herein belong to Nintendo.
In the Place Where the Skies Meet - by Pseudo Twili
If you were lucky enough to have a grandmother or great aunt to tell you stories of ages long gone by, you might have heard the tales too. Link and Ilia knew. They had once listened, their eyes wide in horror, to a chilling tale about a group of people who had been banished to another world for wielding a terrible magic. The other adults learned about this and Granny never told that story again, but the children were already touched by it. Both Link and his best friend developed a loathing for those individuals who would have cast their beautiful world into chaos and despair. The interlopers were despicable and deserved nothing.
A couple of years after first hearing the tale, the two children were in the woods, unaware that something was about to turn their feet to a strange path, a path which would make them open their eyes and consider things they never had before.
"Do you hear that sound?" Ilia asked, cocking her head as she strained to catch it again.
"It's coming from over there."
The girl took his hand and they padded on bare feet through the leaves and other debris on the forest floor until they reached the spirit's spring. There a beacon of light beckoned to them from across the sacred waters with irresistible appeal. As soon as they stepped into the outer reaches of that beam, the light enveloped them. The feeling of suddenly being transported out of one's world was akin to a single blink of the eyes and it happened just as quickly as the fall of an eyelash.
The children glanced at each other and then gawked at the place in which they now found themselves. The land, if it could be called that, was like everything they had ever seen and more than they could imagine, and yet somehow it seemed like nothing. It was seemed to be filled with trees, mountains, lakes, rivers, meadows, forests, and plains, but it was also barren and without structure or form. If they looked too hard at anything they thought they saw, it faded from sight, making them doubt they'd seen it in the first place.
The only thing that was consistent was the sky above them, and though at first it seemed blue like the one they knew so well, it also had hints of something darker. Even what felt like ground beneath Link's feet was an illusion; it was like walking on a second world, reflected from the one he thought he knew. He jumped when he thought he glimpsed a strange face as through a reflection on water.
"Wh-where are we?!" Ilia cried, her tone low in all its uncertainty and fear of the unknown.
"I…don't know," he replied.
He wouldn't let go of her hand for the world, but when he focused on the feel of her trembling palm against his, it seemed to fade away the more he thought on it. He stared down at it and was only slightly reassured when he saw that her fingers were still curled around his.
"How did we get here? This doesn't look like our forest," the girl whispered, still turning her head in all directions as if something was going to jump out at them.
"I don't think it's in our world." He shivered as he said it, for there was nothing quite so excitingly terrifying as to be drawn quite suddenly from everything one knows.
Slowly they began to venture forward, toward nothing and everything in that place. Ilia clung to his arm as though she thought he would disappear. She was depending on him, he realized. So as not to make her feel worse he didn't want to tell her how scared he was too.
"It's tho quiet here," he said, trying and not quite succeeding to sound a little cheerful. "Can you imagine if Talo was here? He'd make enough noise to fill this place up…"
"I wish we weren't here," she whimpered.
"It's okay, Ilie. We'll find a way back."
He patted her shoulder while she rubbed at her eyes. He felt like breaking down too.
"What a silly thing to do," came the sound of a new voice.
Both children spun, their eyes wide in alarm. Link forced himself in front of his friend, his heart beating a thunderous sound in his chest, and a second one echoed in hers. Staring at them with eyes like smoldering flames was a girl unlike any they had ever seen. Her skin a sickly shade of bluish white and her strange clothes an invariable black with some turquoise green markings, she returned their looks, her hands on her hips. Her vibrantly orange hair seemed half alive with a mind of its own and it was hardly contained by the ornamentations on her head.
A look of unbridled disgust flashed into her eyes. "You! You're a couple of those light dwellers!" she spat.
The realization struck Link at almost the same instant. His lip curled as he returned, "You're one of them. The interlopers!" He clenched the hand which was not thrust into Ilia's.
The strange girl gnashed her teeth. "I'm no interloper. This is my realm! Get out of here!"
"This isn't your world and it isn't ours!" Ilia cried. She tried to push herself past her friend, half angry, half fearful.
The boy swept his hand outward to the strangely filled emptiness around them. "Does this look like your realm of shadows?!" he challenged.
The shadow girl was not to be daunted. "If I say this is my realm then it is! I couldn't stand that world of light of yours, so this is mine. Now are you going to leave or do I have to make you?"
She held out her hand, palm upward, as if she was summoning something. Ilia gave a little shriek and Link froze in that spot, knowing he had no defense against the terrible magic of sorcerers. However, nothing happened. The other girl looked at her hand; she frowned, her eyebrows scrunching up as if she couldn't figure out what had gone wrong.
"You cannot use your magic here. This is a place that mirrors both your worlds but it has none of your rules. This place has only one law—my law."
The voice was deep and filled with the sort of power that could be felt down to one's very bones. All three children turned abruptly to face the owner of that voice and they trembled in spite of themselves and each other. The being who approached them was more than twice the height of the taller girl, was clothed in some formidable armor and bore strangely fierce markings upon his face. Not one of the children was in any doubt that he could pick them up and snap their necks as easily as letting his boot fall.
"Here are two children of the light, but where is the other child of the shadows who is supposed to be here?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowing over empty eyes and his voice reverberating through the place that was at his command.
The girl with the fiery hair glanced first at the young Ordonians, narrowed her eyes, and then shifted her gaze back to he who had posed the question. "Do y-you mean Zant?" she queried, unable to keep the slight tremor from her voice. She gritted her teeth again and resisted looking toward the other two. "He was with me but he ran away before you dragged me here."
The god-like being frowned slightly and was silent, leaving the children to hold their breaths in anxious trepidation of what was to come. Link and Ilia never let their fingers loose from each other and each could think of several things they wished they'd done better for their families. The shadow girl folded her own arms and scowled as she noticed the comfort the other two were able to provide for each other.
"You will have to do," the being declared, piercing each of the three with an eerie look. "This place is of all worlds and of none. This is the place where your souls are reflected like your skies. If you want to return to your homes you will have to help each other. That is your test; if you fail you will be left to wander this place forevermore, unless you can accept my lesson."
And with those cryptic words, the giant spirit of a man suddenly held in his hands an immense sword as long as he was tall. Raising it above his head, he cleaved the air and was gone in the blink of an eye, all before the children could think to jump back.
The three of them alone once more, the girl from the shadows glared sideways at the other two. "I don't care what he said. I don't need your help to get back!"
"Well, we don't need yours, either!" Ilia retorted, her own eyes burning with green flames that scorched just as much as the orange kind. "Right, Link?"
The boy, however, was still staring at the spot where the deity-like being had vanished. He was filled with the weird sense that the being was watching them still and that the empty eyes had been trying to tell him something. There was an intense burning at the back of his left hand, which was quite strange as he could barely feel Ilia's fingers against his.
"Link?" she repeated, pulling at his arm.
He brought his focus back to his surroundings just in time to see the other girl turn her nose up to the air and stalk away from them. He thought no differently than his friend—both light-dwelling children also turned their backs and started thinking about what they should do next—but he was still plagued with an uneasy feeling that he and Ilia were both choosing the wrong thing. No matter how he tried to suppress the thought, the more it kept bobbing up to the surface of his mind like a bit of driftwood.
A scream tore through the air, assaulting their ears and again rousing the erratic beat of their hearts. Link spun in his steps and Ilia followed his motion. While they thought they had been putting distance between them and the loathsome girl who lived in shadows, they were no further from her than when they first set eyes on her. She was on her knees and her ashen hands were pressed against her eyes as though the latter was burning. Wails and moans escaped her lips, and even her hair hung limply, without the life that had formerly animated it.
"Help me…" she whimpered. "It's too bright…"
The Ordonian children looked at each other and then at their surroundings. The place was just like a sunny day in their world and it made them eager to return to their home again. Why was the girl acting like she was in such pain?
"So much light… Please…"
The realization hit them both at once. If she lived in the realm of shadows that never saw the light, then that same light was what was causing her agony. They turned their faces away, the first selfish thought on their minds that the girl deserved that pain for being so cruel to them and for being one descended from the interlopers. They felt sick to their stomachs giving into such thoughts, knowing they were wrong. They were silent and motionless as they tussled with their consciences, while the other girl cried out again piteously.
"We have to help her," Link said quickly, lest he convince himself otherwise.
"Yes," Ilia quietly agreed. "But how?"
"I don't know. But we have to do something."
Loosing his friend's hand, he took a couple of steps nearer the agonized girl. Reaching down a bit tentatively, he placed his hand on her shoulder and kept it there even when she tried to shake it off. Ilia moved to the girl's other side and touched one of the hands covering her amber eyes. She stopped shaking and wailing, and after a few moments lowered her fingers.
"Don't touch me!" she snarled. She stood up and away from them as if their light-dweller hands were the filthiest thing in the world.
Link's face colored and he clenched his fists as he opened his mouth snap some nasty thing back at her. The only sound that left him in that next moment was a half strangled gasp. Shadows seemed to envelop him, which was like being buried under the earth or smothered under at least a hundred quilts. He breathed that darkness with each shaking breath and it clawed at his insides as if his worst temptations were trying to be set free. From the sounds Ilia made, he knew she had to be affected similarly and through his blind fear he tried to reach out for her.
An eternity passed in which he felt himself growing ever weaker against the darkness that pressed so mercilessly at him. He knew he had screamed some sort of plea, too, but no hand stretched forth to deliver him from his misery. The fear that consumed him was taking him over and starting to leave him numb. With the last effort available to him, he reached one final time to find the familiar touch of his best friend. Somehow, this time he was successful and suddenly found her fingers intertwining with his.
Like a swift gust wind blowing away a cloud of dust, his mind was clear again. He hardly had time to feel the relief, for his formerly fear-glazed eyes focused on different pair of eyes which were not the green of Ilia's. It was the shadow-dwelling girl and each of her hands was upon the children of the light.
She dropped their hands as if she'd been foolish enough to pick up some spiny cactus fruit. "There, that makes us even," she said, her lips twisting in what she probably intended to be a wicked smirk. Firmly folding her arms, she turned her back to them.
Ilia was at her friend's side again in the space of a heartbeat. "She saved us, Link," she whispered.
He replied with a squeeze of her hand. "I know."
All he could see was the other's girl's back and the expanse of her flaming hair. She was still avoiding them even though she could not walk away from them, but he was unable to summon the same harsh feelings he'd before harbored toward her and her kind.
"What's your name?" he ventured.
Their surroundings started to fade away as they began to be drawn back to their own worlds, but still the girl from the shadows kept herself sharply turned away. Her head was tilted upward, but not quite at the same high angle. Finally she turned and, as if from a thousand miles away, fixed him with her eyes which were all the colors of a fire, though she probably never saw the kind of flames that belonged to his world.
"…Midna," she said.
Then the otherworldly place with the strange skies was gone and the two children again found themselves standing in the shallow waters of the spirit's spring. Nothing had changed since their departure and they might have wondered if the experience had been real if not for the voice that seemed to echo through their minds or perhaps through the very air around them.
"Never forget there is a world bound to yours. They are shadows living as if in a reflection but people they are still. Never forget this, children of light…"
~Fin~
So, this is what happens when I started thinking about what I wanted to write for TP's anniversary. This story was a result of me thinking about these characters but as children and of having Midna and Ilia meet, of me coming up with a title I really liked, and because of a conversation I had with someone about the Fierce Deity. Perhaps I was even thinking unconsciously about a story I once read in which a young Zelda went to the Mirror of Twilight with her father and met the future twilight princess. I've tried to find that story again but with no success.
Anyway, hopefully the story which ensued from my muddled brain was fun to read. Whatever your thoughts, please take a few moments to let me know in that blank box just down there. See you later!
11-19-2017 ~ Published