-Hi again. :) If you've returned for chapter 2, congratulations! Because this is DEFINITELY chapter 2 and NOT a cryptic alien inscription meant to brainwash you and sell your brother/sister/hamster for a star cruiser. :D
*NOTE: This chapter is mainly the recap of the events involving Link and Midna in Twilight Princess. It's kind of long and drawn out so you don't have to read it if you don't want to. I'm already working on chapter 3, so if you want you can skip right to that when it goes up.
-I don't own anything from Zelda... (darn...)-
Epona's low neigh of greeting from outside brought Link out of his shallow half-conscious state, the familiar sound letting him know exactly who was in the clearing below. Pushing the covers aside listlessly, he climbed out of bed to throw on a clean pair of trousers.
Not surprising him at all, a moment later a knock came at his door. Link opened it to find none other than Ilia, proving his assumption right as to who Epona had been greeting.
"Good morning, Link," Ilia said, her eyes trying not to stray from his face as a light blush colored her cheeks at his morning shirtlessness.
Link absently brushed his messy golden hair back from his face to give her a sleepy halfhearted smile. "Morning, Ilia. Did Bo send you to find me?" he asked, assuming that Fado had forgotten to lock the ranch's gate again like the last week.
Ilia shook her head, a strand of her ruffled hair falling in front of her eyes briefly before she pushed it back into its place again. "I can't come and see my best friend without it being on a request from my father?" she prodded, giving Link a small smile.
The swordsman scratched the side of his neck. "Right, sorry. Come on in." He moved his arm from blocking the doorway so Ilia could make her way through and into his warm living area. "I can't offer you breakfast, though. I haven't exactly been up for long and I didn't think of making anything. Sorry."
Ilia gave him a sad look as she sank down into one of the chairs by the fireplace, now lacking a fire. "Don't be sorry, Link. I'm the one who feels sorry for you; I mean, look at you-" she gestured to his sallow form. "You've lost your edge."
Link glanced down at his torso dully. He still had the golden tinge to his skin that came with working on the ranch all the time, and his muscles were still clearly defined after all of the combat he'd gone through in the past months. But he did look... somewhat forlorn. His lack of appetite was beginning to show and his skin no longer held the healthy glow of a happy Hylian.
"I haven't been sleeping well, I guess," he shrugged, however knowing full well what the cause of his 'losing edge' was.
Ilia's gaze strayed to the window behind Link, where the now-empty bowl sat on the wooden sill. "Was that your dinner?" she asked, giving him an accusing but soft gaze.
He looked over his shoulder at the empty bowl that had indeed contained his uneaten dinner. The animals had definitely had more of a hunger for his meal than he had-only a small puddle of the soup remained at the bottom.
"Yes... I mean, it was supposed to be, but I wasn't hungry." He knew Ilia would see right through his excuse, but he threw it out there anyway. If anyone had noticed his newfound hopelessness with the world, it was Ilia.
Her gaze didn't waver. "I know, Link. You 'haven't been hungry' for weeks now," she said, her expression clearly letting him know that she figured something else was behind his lack of desire for his meals. "I've seen you eat, but... only in small portions. Sometimes it's like you don't even realize you're doing it- just eating out of habit."
He shrugged. He knew exactly what the cause of that habit was-he'd developed it over the course of his journeys since Midna was always reminding him that he needed to eat to keep up his strength.
"Link..." Ilia began, her voice softening to that of a best friend, a caring ally that was worried about his well-being. "Something happened after you defeated Ganondorf, didn't it? Something that's made you so sad." Her delicate brow furrowed as she thought on the subject. Link said nothing, willing his mind to stop bringing up pictures of the night of Midna's departure that Ilia's words summoned.
Her hands fisted in her lap as she contemplated hard. Link watched her emotionlessly, knowing that she could not have known about Midna, since every time he had been near Ilia the Twili imp had been hiding in his shadow.
Her green eyes found his blue ones again as she came up with an idea. "Was it Zelda?" she suggested, her gaze prodding him to tell her more information. "Link, did something happen with you and Zelda?"
Link shook his head firmly, turning to drift over to the window and lean out of it with his elbows on the sill. Butterflies flitted around the feathery grasses near the path to the village, reminding him briefly of "Princess" Agitha and her fixation with the golden bugs she'd asked Link to run all over Hyrule to gather for her Ball.
Princess Zelda hadn't captured his interest in the short time he'd spent with her. Maybe if things had been different, maybe if Midna had never come into his Realm and he'd had to save Hyrule from a different sort of evil. Maybe then something would have blossomed between himself and the Princess, something good and whole and wouldn't leave him with this aching throb in his heart. Then again, if things had been completely different, perhaps he would have remained a simple farm boy, stayed in Ordon and married Ilia, settled down and started a family.
But things hadn't gone that way, and now he was left here, painfully restricted to a single Realm, far from the girl who he had fallen desperately in love with.
Ilia rose from the chair to join him at the window, her eyes searching his face for any hint of what he was thinking of. "Someone else, then?" she asked softly, wishing intensely that he'd talk to her like he used to do before he left for Hyrule.
Link was silent, and Ilia took that as an agreement to her guess. "Who was she?" she asked, her tone cautious. "What happened?"
The young swordsman let out a sigh, figuring that he had might as well tell her or she'd never be satisfied. "You never met her when we were traveling," he began, his eyes faraway as if he was staring through the clouds themselves, or at least wishing he could. "Her name was Midna. She was the Twilight Princess, cursed by Zant-who I told you was the usurper King of Twilight-and he changed her into an imp, so she came here searching for someone to help save her world.
"I was in a... different form, too, when she saw me. That's when she knew I was the hero who would save her Twilight Realm. When the Shadow Beasts attacked me, just after you were captured, they imprisoned me in Hyrule Castle, where Midna found me and helped me escape." A light smile touched his lips. "At first I thought she was the most annoying little thing. So demanding-like I was her slave or something. My goal was just to be rid of her-an animal's thoughts, I suppose, because that's what I was at that point in time.
"But then as I learned that I was the Hero of Time, supposed to save all of Hyrule from the invasion of Zant and Ganondorf, and my quest went on, Midna grew on me. She thought that she was just a little imp who would be shamed in front of her people, but I saw through that." Link's gaze dropped to the ground below, where Epona stood in her niche, dozing in the shade. "You never saw her because while we were in the Light world, she was hiding in my shadow," he explained, as Ilia seemed like she was still wondering why she hadn't seen Link's object of affection. "Then again, much of the time I saw you, you had no memory of me at all. But Midna was with me wherever I went... I don't think I could have made it through without her.
"I think I realized I loved her when she was nearly killed by Zant," he remembered, the memories flooding back to him. "I carried her on my back in my other form all the way back to Hyrule Castle, through the sewers and passages under the castle until we reached Zelda's chamber. I remember my panic to get there, knowing that every second wasted was a moment of Midna's life slipping away." Link shook his head, demanding that the moisture in his eyes retreat to where it came from.
"When I first defeated Ganon-Ganondorf's beast form-he turned back into his true form and Midna warped Zelda and I out of the castle to take Ganondorf on by herself," he continued, that lost look back in his eyes again. "I couldn't believe what she'd done; her willingness to give her life up if she had to to save my world, even after her own world had already been restored. I waited for what seemed like eternity outside that castle. Zelda couldn't console me; I felt like I would go mad with each minute that passed. When Ganondorf appeared on his stallion holding the fused shadow that Midna wore on her head, I nearly sprang for him then and there. I would have, but Zelda stopped me and reminded me that Midna's death should not have to be in vain. That's the only thing that kept me alive, I think.
"That was my energy source that I fed off of. Through the battle with Ganondorf, all I thought of was Midna. How she should not have died the way she did; how it should have been me. The anger fueled me, and I believe even now that it was the rage that allowed me to best the king and destroy him." He stopped for a moment, as if he was watching the events repeat themselves right in front of his eyes.
Ilia's gentle hand on his shoulder brought him back to the present. "I'm sorry," she murmured, thinking that was the end of his story. "She didn't die in vain. You made sure of that."
Link shook his head again. "When I defeated Ganondorf, the Spirits of Light appeared, right over the horizon. When they disappeared again, I saw a figure on the hill. So I ran, faster than I had even during the fight." He smiled lightly, remembrance clouding his mind. "I didn't recognize her at first; her cloak hid her face. But when she rose from where she was kneeling and turned to me, I knew exactly who she was. Somehow, the Light Spirits brought her back to life and the curse on her had been lifted-she'd regained her true form as the Twilight Princess.
"I was speechless," he recalled, a short laugh escaping him as he remembered his reaction to seeing the beautiful Twili girl. "And of course, with her never-ending sarcasm, she remarked on it." Another laugh. "I thought everything was over, that somehow we could exist as two beings of different realms. I knew she would have to return to her people, to her Twilight, and I'm not sure what I would have done. Follow her there? Promise to visit? Even now I'm not sure... But I know what I would have said to her if I had the chance," he said, his voice barely above a whisper now. "I would have told her that I loved her and she was the most wonderful and brave person I had ever met.
"But I didn't get the chance to say that. We returned to the mirror chamber, and Zelda reminded both of us that the beings of Light and Shadow could not mix. I think she could see how I felt about Midna, and that I wasn't thinking too clearly." His brow crinkled as he, for the hundredth time, tried to figure out Midna's parting words. "I barely understood what was happening at that time. Zelda said that as long as the Mirror was intact, we could see each other. The events that followed still escape my comprehension. A tear fell on Midna's cheek, which she levitated and it turned as bright as a star. She cupped it in her palm and pushed it towards the Mirror. As she did, she said 'Link... I... ...See you later.' That's when she stepped into the portal just as the Mirror shattered into pieces as her teardrop collided with it."
A tear fell from his eye as he recalled that fateful moment in the Chamber. "And that's why I've been acting so strangely," he finished, not wanting to meet Ilia's eyes so she wouldn't see the sadness reflected in his.
"There's got to be some way to find her again," she said, trying to console him like she used to when they were children. "Some portal you didn't know about before, maybe another mirror..."
Link shook his head. "She would have known about it. She was the Princess of her Realm; I don't think something like that would evade her knowledge."
As much as he wanted to hope for something like another way to Midna, he knew that hoping for something like that would only lead to another painful letdown.
Ilia was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again she took hold of Link's hand and pulled him with her to the door. "Well, sitting in here and starving yourself isn't going to remedy what happened," she reasoned gently. "I don't think she would want you to die of starvation, would she?" She pushed the door open and gave him a soft nudge outside. "Go and ride Epona around the ranch for a while, maybe take her jumping. She needs the excersize and you need the fresh air."
As if to punctuate her statement, Epona neighed from her corner and stomped her hooves impatiently.
Link ran a hand through his hair and gave the horse a half-smile. Then he turned to Ilia, who was blocking the door. "Thanks, Ilia," he said, offering her as warm a smile as he could muster. "But can I put a shirt on first?"
-Whelp, there you have it. Link's long brooding story about losing Midna. On a side note, even I was in tears at the end of this game. I can sit through Titanic and not bat an eyelash, but when it comes to Twilight Princess the tears just started flowing...
-Rate, review, etc...you know the deal. :) Brain monsters love reviews.